#reverb ficlet

[akela-nakamura]

DPxDC Prompt

Summoning is an imperfect art, mispronouncing a name or having an incorrect symbol can lead to unexpected, and sometimes explosive results. Summoning can open unexpected doors. No one's prepared for what--or who--steps through when a rising gang tries to summon backup.

My little ficlet for this is below the cut:

Smoke. The acrid slam of it in the nose, brought on by the screaming wind. Chanting. A chorus of voices, steady and thrumming. Pain. Everything is hazy, and it’s equal odds on it being from the smoke or the potential head injury. 

Bruce stumbles to his feet, body throbbing. 

This was not how he’d planned this night. 

Of course, he hadn’t planned for Gotham to suddenly be overrun with a new…gang? They claimed to be a government organization, but Bruce has his doubts. He hadn’t had a chance to go through the GIW’s information, but according to Barbara, their claims were sketchy at best.

The shouting about ghosts and waving around sci-fi weapons with no trigger discipline certainly didn’t help their claims. 

Government organization or not, they had no right to raid homes, to drag people out onto the street, or overall threaten his city.

His ears ring, and the chanting rises in volume, impossibly. His chest reverbes with the sound. It’s steady enough to feel like a second heart. His blurry vision locks onto the center of the summoning circle. Because this night couldn’t get any worse, of course. 

First the GIW had rocketed up his list of threats with one simple move. 

They’d gone after Jason.

Jason, who even now was laid out in the middle of the summoning circle, eyes bright, bright, bright green through the haze. 

First they’d taken his son. 

Then they’d used him as a sacrifice. 

Bruce bared his teeth, locking eyes with the closest GIW agent. The man held up his weapon, a glowing baton. His form is weak. 

The baton gord flying, Bruce’s armored elbow slamming the man to the ground. The agent curls up, groaning. Nightwing’s escrima sing electric in the background, followed by the whip of Tim’s bow staff. Damian’s sword glints through the haze, and purple flashes through the crowd of white, white, white. 

He can’t see Cass, but he doesn’t expect too. 

The ground rocks under his feet, and it takes several precious seconds to regain his balance. There seems to be an almost endless flood of agents, with more and more meeting his fists as he tries to make it through the gauntlet. 

Suddenly, the air shifts, the scream of it heading for the circle instead of out. 

The circle glows toxic green, and Jason’s at the center, frozen in the light. 

“No!” Bruce shouts, the sound ripping from his soul. 

It’s echoed by Dick, who stands just outside the circle’s boundaries. His hands are pressed against the light, his blue eyes a shock against the green. 

It’s a confusion of people - GIW white and the summoner’s black. The GIW is here to end whatever it is they need Jason to summon to them. The summoners themselves seem to have broken away from the “agency” and want power from the being they’re calling. It’s a fight on multiple fronts, with the GIW fighting the summoners and Bruce and his family fighting them all. 

The temperature drops. 

“HOOD!” Dick screams, as Jason is swallowed by the green. 

The chant is all he can hear, even as he shoves towards the circle, even as he slams against the same wall Dick’s against. 

The world goes bright and he can’t keep his eyes on Jason. On his son. 

When the light fades, Jason’s not alone. 

A being sits six feet in the air, Jason collapsed over his lap, somehow hovering with the - what is he? He looks human, but there’s something wrong. Off. Bruce can’t quite pinpoint his age. A crown glows on his head, an ever shifting cape spills down his back, dragging close to the floor. His eyes are green as Lazarus, and just as deep. Jason is breathing, Bruce notes. The being’s hands curl in Jason’s hair, playing with it idly. 

The air is *rigid, and everyone’s stopped fighting. No one can draw their eyes away from the being. 

“You dare to summon me with one of my own?” The being speaks, and it’s like crackling glaciers. Someone whimpers. 

“We - wanted to give you a gift,” One of the men in black says, his voice chattering. 

It’s like breathing in ice. 

“A gift?” The being says and the sound is fury, banked in a waiting avalanche. “What kind of gift is this? A denizen of my Realms, trapped and tortured? Used to summon his king, against his will? This is no gift.” 

“B-but we didn’t know,” another speaks, and then obviously realizes he shouldn’t have. 

“Ignorance will not save you,” the being says, and it - he’s? - still holding Jason like he’s something precious. “And I am not the only one you have infuriated. 

“I am not the only one you have awoken.” 

To a man, the GIW agents cry out in panic. Bruce turns, looking for the threat but - the agents are buried to various depths in the cracked concrete floor. The ground is decidedly solid beneath Bruce’s feet but the agents would obviously not agree. They flounder, like the concrete is quicksand. The summoners are next, but it’s ice that gets them, crawling up their bodies until they’re locked into place. 

“My lord!” One cries and promptly finds himself gagged. 

Bruce can’t stay silent any longer. “Hood was used against his will to summon you,” he starts. The being’s eyes meet Bruce’s. “He didn’t want this. Is he alright?” 

“Your son is fine,” the voice is rough, but feminine, and obviously not from the being. It’s around him, dancing through the steel beams and pushing through concrete. “You are mine, my knight. You and yours are mine. The little king will not harm him, nor you.” A figure forms off to his right. 

“Holy shit,” Dick whispers. Bruce has to agree. 

She’s made of concrete, of broken brick and dust, of bone and police tape, of twisted metal and more. 

“Gotham,” Bruce breathes, and he doesn’t know how he knows but he does.

“Hello, my knight,” she says, her form shifting. She turns slightly, and there’s something sharp in her movement. “Hello, little king.” 

“Lady Gotham,” The being - the king? - returns. “You look well,” 

Lady Gotham laughs, a ringing sound - it’s bells and gravel, fresh air on a summer day and rising wind. “How you flatter me, little king. Do you fear me?” 

The being grins, mischief dancing around him, white hair floating high. “I respect you. It’s good to see you awake, Milady.”

“What is happening?” Tim asks no one in particular. Dick shrugs and Steph just leans harder on Tim. Cass holds Damian’s shoulder firmly, watching carefully. 

Bruce wishes he had an answer. 

“It is good to be awake,” Lady Gotham says, and she shifts closer to the circle, fingers skimming against the barrier of light. “How long do you intend to keep my reaper from me?” 

Reaper. Bruce thinks, and it’s a gut punch. 

It makes sense, to describe Jason. Jason can go where Bruce cannot, do what Bruce cannot. 

The king laughs lightly. “The summoning harmed him, Milady. I’m just keeping him safe. I’m not here to undermine you,” the king’s eyes glow. “But remember who is king.”

Lady Gotham smiles. “I’m aware of hierarchy little king.” 

“My son,” Bruce says, because there’s no point in pretending Jason is anything less. He’s talking to - the embodiment of gotham and a king of - something. “He’ll be okay?” 

Lady Gotham sighs. “He will be fine, my knight. The little king cares for his own.” 

“What - what are you the king of?” Tim asks, bold. 

The being smiles. 

“I am Phantom,” he says. “I am the Ghost King.” 

Jason stirs in his lap, and the implications crash over Bruce. Maybe Reaper has more meaning than he’d thought.

[bennysblabbering]

Alleyway Rendezvous

Kinktober: "Sex Pollen" || Tomura Shigaraki x reader

contents: villain!reader, desperation, semi-public sex, clothed sex, hair pulling, dirty talk

words: 0.9k

g/n afab reader

↓ Ficlet below the cut ↓

A pink haze fills the air as the enemy runs off, middle finger up as he shoots you one last look with his tongue out. A simple petty gang had blocked your way, all of which you and your boss had taken care of swiftly- save for one who managed to slip through your grasp. The two of you cough and wheeze, the sickeningly sweet cotton candy-like scent filling your lungs. You start to walk quickly, any possible direction to get away from the fog- clearly the effect of the surviving enemy’s quirk as a means to get away. You had no clue what this would do to your body; it could cause asphyxiation, hallucinations, or worse. You both had to get away and get away fast.

“Y/N…”

Shigaraki’s voice comes out forced and weak, completely unlike the assertive man you were used to. You turn to see him leaning against the wall for support, his normally intense red eyes glazed over, looking up at you as he takes in labored breaths. Looking at him in this state makes it dawn on you what that quirk had done, because it was starting to take hold of you too.

It’s an aphrodisiac.

It almost felt like you were put under a spell and were magnetized to each other. You couldn’t resist the intense temptation running rampant through your body, especially now that you looked down and noticed the tent in the other man’s pants.

In an instant, your faces are plastered to each other, your mouths messily connecting and the generous saliva spreading across your lips and cheeks. Your hands wander around and across each other’s bodies as he firmly presses you against the wall, hooking your knee under his arm and hiking it around his hip. Eagerly he grinds himself onto you, his face lowering to place needy and wet kisses along your neck. You sigh in satisfaction, wrapping your arms around his back and grinding back with just as much fervor.

“Fuck, boss…this shit’s really potent…”

“I know, I know, I know. God, I’m so fucking horny, holy shit. I need to fuck you, right now.”

You nod, pulling your bottoms down just to your knees before turning around and bending over, spreading your already soaked folds to be penetrated by the villain. Immediately he unbuttons his pants, freeing his painfully hard cock, throbbing endlessly from the desperation to be inside you. He places one hand on your hip sans pointer finger, the other hand lining himself up and sliding in with a hiss. Both of you screw your eyes shut with a long moan, the satisfaction of the penetration clouding your minds. 

He wastes no time to see if you’ve accommodated to his length before he starts up at a brutal pace, the loud slaps of your combining thighs amplified from the reverb of the alley walls. Your eyes glass over and drool falls from your lips as he aggressively shoves his hips back and forth, fucking into you like it was the last thing he’d ever do. Helplessly you whimper repeatedly, the pure pleasure of being railed by your horny leader completely taking over your mind. 

“Shit, Y/N…this pretty pussy feels so fucking good…”

“Y-yeah? You feel f-fucking amazing, the way y-your cock stretches me…”

“Fuckin’ love how tight you are. Feels like you were made to take my dick.”

“Haaah…uh-huh…”

You nod as he continues to relentlessly bully his cock into your cunt, slipping effortlessly in and out of your slick walls, the red and swollen head kissing your cervix on every thrust. A slender hand reaches up to your hair, pulling on it while he keeps up his relentless rhythm. 

“You fuckin’ like being railed like a slut, don’t you? You like when I fuckin’ pound your hole like this?”

You can only mewl in response, the pure force of his frenzied hips driving you to insanity. “Uh-huh….”

He chuckles, growling as he reaches down to place a finger on your clit; a digit capable of so much violence and power, placed on the sensitive bundle of nerves, rubbing it back and forth with just as much passion as the rest of his body.

“If you wanna be a good little whore, you’re gonna listen to me. This is an order, got it?”

You nod weakly, wanting nothing more than to be obedient for your commanding and intimidating boss. You can already feel yourself building to a climax, when his final word sends your body over the edge.

“Cum.”

Your knees buckle and you cry out as your cunt clenches, a pure numbness washing over you as you roll your eyes back and release all over Shigaraki’s cock, still drilling into you and fucking you through your orgasm. You can tell he’s close too by the way he’s groaning and his hips eventually still, spilling ropes of hot cum into you. The two of you ride out your intense highs for a few moments, his arms caging you and both of your connected bodies rocking back and forth.

After the hazy climax subsides, the effects of the quirk fade away, the both of you breathing deeper as he pulls out of you, his seed starting to drip from your abused hole. You stand up with shaking legs, pulling up your pants and grimacing at the uncomfortable sensation of putting on underwear with a wet and messy undercarriage. 

“Didn’t know you could fuck like that, boss. We’ll have to do that again.”

He huffs, tucking his softening cock away with a smirk. “Absolutely.”

for some reason i just did not have a ton of muse today, im so sorry!!! i hope its still enjoyable anyway. humbly apologizing to my shigaraki fucker readers.

[bananasomg]

Hi! Lestappen and #7 for the ficlet thingy you reblogged if you feel so inclined :)

hii!! tysm for sending me an ask for this fun ficlet post!! 🫶🏼

i love writing short scenes that pack a punch, and for all of these, i'm going with whatever initial spark comes to mind based on prompt and pairing. (:

THAT SAID—

#7. Lestappen: things you said while we were driving is below the cut. it's angsty and emotional and i hope you like it. ❤️

things you said while we were driving

Charles mutes the radio before tipping the seaside valet, Max’s mother and sister waving from the promenade as they pull away. He gives them a tight-lipped smile, not the crinkly-dimpled one Max is used to. 

He fucking hates it. The biting indifference.

Max watches Charles' grip tighten on the wheel, knuckles pale as he steers his Ferrari onto the street. The noon sun tangles in his hair, making it look even lighter from the passenger seat.

There’s a tremble in Charles’ arms that can’t be mistaken for track reverb. He’s not decked in red, helmet on, fighting understeer. He's wearing Max's favorite sweater and his signature baggy jeans. His rings glint in the light and he smells like bergamot, not sweat and just hours ago Max had kissed him over the console.

Now it’s quiet, and Charles can’t even look at him. A far cry from earlier when balmy air rushed through the cabin and the speakers came alive—Charles, body dancing to the beat, his giggly breath mixing with a guitar solo. Warmth that settled between their intertwined fingers. 

“Max, I—” Charles starts and stops abruptly. The vowels sound all wrong, a new air of finality that rings alarm bells in his head.

“Wait, please—” Max tries. He reaches for Charles’ thigh, an anchor to tell him that this tension isn’t immutable, but Charles blocks him by downshifting into second gear. Max can’t help the empty rattle in his lungs. 

Sorry I didn’t tell them I was scared Sorry I didn’t correct them I wasn’t ready I know we talked about it but when the time came I felt like I was going to die Sorry but I love you I love you I love you I love you.

Max begs his thoughts to break the silence, but his tongue won’t budge, lips refusing to form the shapes he needs to reassure Charles that he’s still in this. Still who he wants. Still the person he would choose day in and day out, no matter the consequences. No matter who knows.

Charles takes a deep breath. “No more. I can’t keep doing this.”

Max’s chest shudders, heart processing the words before his mind can catch up. His hand slips from Charles, fingers dangling in the cupholder. The rubber is still wet from the iced coffee Max had bought him for the drive this morning.

“This?” he asks, voice cracking. 

Max watches Charles’ throat bob, the downturned corners of his mouth, but he keeps his eyes on the road, hands at ten and two, face blank. He looks older. Tired. Like he isn’t sure if this is right anymore, and there’s a certain sinking pit in Max’s stomach that feels an awful lot like an ending. 

“Pretending like we’re nothing more than friends.” Charles sighs, bites his bottom lip. “It’s worse than not having you.”

Max barely notices the sound torn from his throat, but Charles must because his shoulder stiffen, and his breath falters. He blows hot air through his teeth, snapping his head to look out the driver’s side window, eyes peeled on the boring Monaco harbor they’ve passed many times over. He can’t bring himself to look at Max, as if what he is about to say will hurt him more. As if after this, they won’t be able to salvage it. 

“It feels like you’re ashamed to be with me.”

“I am not ashamed.” 

“Then why am I still your racing mate?”

“You’re not—” 

“But I am, Max!” 

Charles slams his palm on the wheel, and Max gasps at the sudden movement, the sharp anger in his jaw. He remains still for another minute before finally turning to face him. Max expects to see fury burning in his gaze, but what he sees is even worse— visceral anguish that cools into hard indifference. There’s no softness in his expression, no room for forgiveness.  

“We celebrated six months last week, and you still couldn’t tell them the truth.” 

“I will! I’ll call them right now.” Max grasps for anything to turn the tide. 

The way Charles scoffs, throws his head back like he just said the most unbelievable thing, slashes at his core. It hurts more than a physical blow. At least he knows how to recover from that. 

“No need. There’s nothing to tell them.” 

Charles slows to a crawl in front of Max’s flat. His eyes don’t linger on his mouth or scan the alley for a place to park. He shoots him the same media smile he gave his family—no sign of the tender moments or intimate touches they’ve exchanged. 

“See you on track, Max,” Charles says. 

It’s so final, his goodbye deliberate, leaving no room for contest. 

It’s one thing Max has always admired about him—when he puts his mind to something, he makes it happen, never backing down or swaying from his decision. But Max never planned for Charles to push him into the opponent’s court. To leave his body, weak and aching at the severance.

Max wishes he was driving. He’d yank the car into reverse, speed back to the restaurant and do it all over. This time he’d say, You remember Charles, of course. He’s my boyfriend. But it doesn’t work like that. 

He stands on the sidewalk, empty and bleeding, his only company the bitter realization that every chance to prove his love has slipped through his fingertips, leaving him with nothing but a hollow void. Max wants to call for him, beg him to come back, but he knows he can’t win a battle he’s already lost. Instead, he turns and walks inside as Charles drives away.

[vexic929]

thank you so so so so much for your love for that small Savitar x Reverb ficlet, it makes me so happy ❤️

you're so welcome! it's so, so good!!!! <3333

[papabigtoes]

because of your art I am now a salacia fan but in a "i want to pour milk on him and throw him against the wall" sort of way

HAHA this caveman jester is Quite Happy reading that Anon

He definitely needs a lot more hype (i don’t mean Planet Piss Sal Falconbeck from the au i smack together- the theory of the Depth of Humanity fan being secretly Salacia i think has been going on since the doomstar airing? I remember when I got into the fandom seeing pretty old forum posts about it.) Just the idea of an evil half-man demon hiding as a Murderface stan is FASCINATING to me it adds a lot of angst that I love, not to mention body horror i love drawing demons and shifting through fleshy disguises type stuff

I’ll be working on the Planet Pissed segment of the fan au next with him, but if you want to see anything in particular be it from vibes or aesthetics, etc, lmk! I usually throw him against the wall but very dry. Milk would help him stick a little easier i bet. I usually listen to Britney Spears slowed down with reverb whenever I draw him idk why but it gets me in the ZONE

I have a VERY late nickles ficlet gift im still workin on (been so slow due to life being busy atm and I’ve caught Skyrim brainworms again due to the DND group im in nearly done with our 2-year long campaign), but after that definitely expect some more Salacia fan schtuff, thank you anon!

[wolftraps]

selizabethbro on ao3 gave me a bunch of Reverb-verse prompts. but one of them included “A Q&A session/orientation once everyone is settled, possibly featuring a bad, made-at-the-last-minute powerpoint about the entities.” 

Clearly I haven’t done the Q&A session, but have a powerpoint by Martin. 

[darkfinch]

sigh. ok well. i actually am quitting nano it looks like :'3

[babyybitchhh]

Garp x Reader 18+

Rating: Explicit/R-18+

Words: 1,000

Warnings: power imbalance, superior/subordinate, nonconsensual oral sex (male receiving), (big) age difference, (actual) grandpa fucking

A/N: This is the product of me thinking, hey ... I wonder if I can write a proper ficlet of 1,000 words - no more, no less. Imagine my surprise when I did just that. Please enjoy!

♥♥♥♥

“Get over here. Now.”

Your eyes widen, cheeks burning hot as you watch vice admiral Garp beckon you closer with a terse wag of his finger. But when you don’t immediately rush to answer the summons, when you don’t trip over yourself in haste to follow orders, his ire only grows. You weren’t often prone to bouts of insubordination. He knew that. Everyone on board knew that. You were, however, one of the most stubborn recruits on the ship and he was not above putting his hands on you just so could drag you where he wanted you to be.

Jaw clenching tight, he takes a deliberately slow breath. “You’re not going to like how this ends if I have to make you comply.”

Affront flashes through your eyes for but a split second before morphing into sullen, almost petulant resignation. He thinks it suits you, this childish pout to match the cherubic quality of your face (still so young) and it is with a great deal of satisfaction that he watches you trudge across the room of your own volition. Garp isn’t usually one for power trips or tyrannical rule over his men - or women, in your case - but he did like to run a tight operation. Particularly when it came to rookies like you.

The ringing silence inside his office hangs heavy for an uncomfortably long beat while he critically stares you down. It’s only when you start to quake and nervously fold in on yourself, shoulders bunching up towards your ears - only then does he let loose the puff of air filling his lungs.

“Well? What have you got to say about that little stunt in the mess hall? I’m waiting.”

A mute shake of your head is, disappointingly, the only forthcoming response you offer him.

You really should know better by now. He’s certain you know better, in fact, and he allows his displeasure at your failure in protocol to color his voice red hot and booming when he pulls it straight up from the depths of his broad, barrel chest. “I asked you a question, recruit! Answer me when I’m speaking to you!”

The bellowing roar seems to reverb off the walls, making you flinch and understandably so. You were tiny compared to him, not quite eye level with his waist, and you couldn’t boast even a quarter of the overt physical strength he possessed. Garp could all too easily snap you in half without so much as breaking a sweat while he did it so it was no wonder that you were intimidated. But this disquiet was something he’d have to break you of, sooner or later, and he feels a brief spark of pride when you straighten your posture for him.

“Apologies, sir. It wasn’t my intention to disrespect you.”

He huffs, sounding much like an incensed bull. “That’s better. Now. The incident in the mess hall, if you would.”

To his enervated chagrin, though, you still hesitate. “I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t say.”

The humorless bark that erupts from him has you shifting your weight almost imperceptibly from one foot to the other. It wasn’t that he didn’t understand what was going on here. Hazing and strong-arming the smaller, weaker recruits was an unfortunate truth of each new class he took on but your failure to obey orders was a much bigger problem. It was admirable that you wanted to deal with this yourself rather than seek help from a superior officer but he simply couldn’t let it slide.

Thoughtfully, Garp considers his short list of disciplinary options. Quickly decides none of the sanctioned, navy regulated methods were appropriate for someone like you, someone of your stature, and he sedately reaches for the front of his slacks instead.

Your comically flabbergasted reaction at the sound of his zipper descending probably would have made him chuckle under better circumstances. But this was no laughing matter and he levels you with a stern scowl as he fists his soft cock through the slit in his pants, holding it out for you with one massive hand.

“It’s not that you can’t,” he tells you thinly. “It’s that you won’t. But since you want to play this game then why don’t I help you put that mouth to good use, hm?”

You look up at him, eyes round and glassy - doe like in the most charming sense. Lips that look petal soft dutifully open for him and he purposely chooses to overlook the fact that you were already halfway through the motion of shaking your head in protest. His unoccupied hand quickly snakes around the back of your neck and clamps down, none too gently guiding you forward until you were just bent at the waist with a plushy cheek pressed tight against his groin.

The startled, wounded animal sound that puffs out of you has his cock stirring to life with a subdued twitch.

“S - sir?” You warble in shocked disbelief.

“Quiet. You’ve already forfeited your right to speak.”

He can feel you swallowing hard under his calloused palm, a valiant attempt to choke down your trepidation, but you don’t try to fight it when he roughly directs your mouth where it rightfully belongs. Delicate hands hesitantly brace against the fronts of his thighs as Garp forces soft, spongy flesh past lips and teeth to settle on a hot, squirming tongue. You noise around the intrusion, jolting at the taste of him. Volleying back with his own grunt of satisfaction, he tips his head back and lets his fingers fall from the base of his shaft.

You were a good girl. Or, rather, you would be.

He vowed to make sure of that even as he meanly pushes down on the back of your neck and grinds your nose into the majority gray-white thatch of hair framing his cock. You whimper and whine when it starts to grow in your mouth but he doesn’t let up, demanding obedience.

You would learn in due time.

[attilarrific]

Is there any chance on you writing more of the wangxian fake dating au? No pressure at all if you can't/don't want to, i just reallyreally love your writing ❤❤

Ahhhhhh, you sent this to me a week ago, and I kept going (in my head), yes! I will reply to them by writing some more!

And then not doing that, because I’ve been really busy and tired this week. Partly for fun reasons, partly for unpleasant reasons—I just haven’t really had much time! Anyway, we left off, uh, with Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian “”“practice”““ “““kissing”““, yes? No idea what I’m doing with this, let’s go for it.

Again, this is part of an ongoing askbox ficlet series about being in a band and pretending to date your soulmate, please see parts one, two, three, and four. (At some point, if I keep doing this, I’m really going to have to come up with a tag, aren’t I?)

.

They kiss for a very, very long time. Wei Wuxian’s nerves are humming like reverb on an electric bass. He also might be half hard in his thin sweatpants, but surely that’s normal, because he’s young and horny and it turns out that Lan Wangji is an insanely good kisser once they got their shit together. Wei Wuxian squirms a little, trying to shift so that it doesn’t become super obvious that he’s enjoying this a little too much—because erections are probably a bad way to express to one of your best friends that it turns out you have noticed that they’re smoking hot and really strong and apparently the kind of domineering way they keep trying to control the kiss really works for you, not that it has to mean anything or change anything, lots of people are good-looking, it’s not a thing, it’s normal—anyway. He tries to move to hide his totally normal reaction, and Lan Wangji hisses and pulls away.

“Sorry,” Wei Wuxian says, and then he has to clear his throat. His mouth feels used, wonderfully so, and he shivers. “Did I, um—too much biting? I thought maybe you liked the biting, since you kept biting me.” He pouts, running his tongue over his stinging lower lip. “So mean, Lan Zhan.”

Lan Wangji’s hands flex where they’re gripping Wei Wuxian’s hips tightly, and then he looks away. “No. I—also apologize. For the biting. If it was too much.”

“No, I liked it,” Wei Wuxian says honestly, and then he has to stare firmly past the side of Lan Wangji’s head and rapidly wrap every scrap of shamelessness he’s ever been accused of around himself like a suit of armor. “You’re really too good at this, Lan Zhan,” he says, because if he’s been kissing his friend all morning, it’s weirder if they don’t talk about it, right? “You must be kissing people in secret to have gotten this good. Who is it, hmm?” He taps his chin fake-thoughtfully. “Wen Ning would tell me. Jiang Cheng’s probably too much of a prude to even think the word polyamory without having to kneel and confess his sins to his ancestors, so it can’t be him or Wen Qing.”

“Wei Ying.”

Wei Wuxian grins, leaning closer. “If you don’t want me to keep guessing, you’ll have to tell me!”

Lan Wangji purses his lips in an annoyed frown. “Stop being ridiculous.”

“Why? You don’t like it when I’m ridiculous?” Wei Wuxian makes his saddest, most pitiful face, the one that gets Jiang Yanli to agree with everything he says and Jiang Cheng to yell and threaten violence. “But Lan Zhan, I’m ridiculous so often. How often do you not like me, huh?”

“Ridiculous,” Lan Wangji repeats, and Wei Wuxian laughs.

“Yes, yes,” he says, swinging his leg around and climbing off Lan Wangji’s lap, turning his back almost immediately, because the thin sweatpants he wears to sleep really hide nothing. “That’s me. I’m so ridiculous that I’ve managed to get myself into a situation where I’m fake dating someone. I have to admit that’s pretty bad, even for me! My life doesn’t usually look like the premise for a Hallmark movie. Do you think we’ll learn the true meaning of Christmas?”

This time, the hotel room is so silent that Wei Wuxian has to check over his shoulder to make sure it’s not because Lan Wangji noticed his dick being stupid. Instead, he’s greeted with an adorably bewildered expression.

“It’s August,” Lan Wangji says at last, carefully, clearly aware that he missed the conversational bus somewhere, but doing his best. He’s always doing his best, no matter what Wei Wuxian throws at him, catching each riff and improvisation and key change. Wei Wuxian finds himself smiling helplessly.

“We could learn about the true meaning of Christmas in August,” he says cheerfully, just to watch the confusion grow. “Maybe the true meaning of Christmas is that it’s in our hearts, not in a month. Christmas is what we make of it, Lan Zhan. The true meaning of Christmas is the friends we fake dated along the way.”

Lan Wangji blinks. “Mn,” he says, agreeing, like anything that just came out of Wei Wuxian’s mouth made even a little bit of sense. “Yes. The true meaning of Christmas is you. We found it.”

Wei Wuxian laughs so hard he has to sit down right there on the floor where he’s standing. He laughs so hard he cries, gasping to try and fill his lungs with air, because every time he looks up, he sees Lan Wangji’s face, the serious cast to his expression spoiled by the way his lips keep twitching into a tiny smile.

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian says once he can talk again, “you’re really the best. I can’t believe you play along with my nonsense.”

Lan Wangji looks down. “I…” He stops.

Wei Wuxian smiles at him fondly. At least he’s not hard anymore, probably because he stopped being able to breathe for a while there. “If only everyone were as nice to me as you. Just think—if our fans didn’t mind my nonsense, you might not have to pretend to date me at all. What a relief for you that would be!”

Lan Wangji looks up, frowning, but then he tilts his head to the side, listening, and looks at the nightstand. Wei Wuxian stands up and sees Lan Wangji’s phone buzzing there, vibrating with an incoming call.

Luo Qingyang, it says.

Wei Wuxian winces. “Honestly, I just can’t believe she didn’t call earlier. Or call me. Or teleport in here just to punch me in the face for doing this and then forgetting to tell her about it.” Mianmian has tried to impress upon him more than once that when you’re in a disturbingly popular band and you do something stupid, you first call is always your manager, but somehow, he never remembers.

“I didn’t tell her either.”

“Yeah, but who’d look at this situation and think it was your fault?”

“Wei Ying. It was my fault.”

“No one’s ever going to believe that.” Wei Wuxian barely believes that, and he was there for all of it. “Think we can blame Wen Qing? She’s the one who said it was a good idea.”

Lan Wangji sighs at him, and then he grabs the phone and answers the call. “This is Lan Wangji.” Silence, and then, “I see. I don’t believe Wei Ying turned his phone off last night, but I could be wrong.”

“I didn’t!” Wei Wuxian hisses, honestly offended, and then he remembers that he also didn’t plug it in or anything, distracted as he had been. He looks around and then digs it out from the pocket of the jeans he’d left crumpled on top of his suitcase. “Um. It might have died?” He grabs his charger, too, searching for an outlet.

“You want to talk to Wei Ying?” Lan Wangji says, and Wei Wuxian whirls around, already shaking his head.

“No!” he whisper-shouts. “I don’t want to get yelled at!”

Lan Wangji looks at him, and then he grabs Wei Wuxian and drags him across the room. Wei Wuxian stumbles after him, limbs clumsy with surprise, but it doesn’t even occur to him to protest. Lan Wangji pushes him into the bathroom firmly, and then back again, until Wei Wuxian is tripping over the bathmat.

Not missing a beat and without an ounce of shame, Lan Wangji says, “Wei Ying is in the shower. He isn’t available right now.”

Wei Wuxian stares at him, and then he chokes, slapping a hand over his mouth to try and stifle a shout of laughter. Lan Wangji is the most ridiculous person in the entire world. Oh, yes, he says he doesn’t lie, but does that really count when he does things like this and tells screaming hordes that Wei Wuxian’s taken. Taken by what, exactly? Probably if he asked, Lan Wangji would actually have an answer, would look down his nose and explain exactly why he definitely didn’t lie to anyone at all.

Lan Wangji walks back into the bedroom, humming in agreement to something that Mianmian must be saying on the other end of the line.

Wei Wuxian grins at him, and then he closes the door to the bathroom so that Lan Wangji won’t know that he isn’t in the shower, which presumably counts as not technically lying. Silly, wonderful man. Wei Wuxian is still smiling when he plugs his phone in and watches the missed calls and messages roll in. He ignores them all, because he really has no idea what he’d say, and opens up social media almost idly, hopping up to sit on the sink counter.

Most of the internet seems to be screaming about the “reveal” that he and Lan Wangji are dating, and he laughs quietly. A lot of overdramatic gifs, posts analyzing their past interactions, and—because he always checks the #LanWangji tag first—fans bemoaning the fact that Lan Wangji is no longer single. So many people declaring their heartbreak, and he has to keep himself from feeling too smug by reminding himself that they’re not actually dating. Lan Wangji is single. All these people saying they wanted to marry their favorite idol—one of them could. Wei Wuxian scowls at his phone, almost offended that they think they might be good enough.

When he opens Instagram and checks his own post from the night before—fuck, that’s a lot of notes—it takes him a minute to realize that Lan Wangji, infamously unwilling to use social media past the bare minimum, has left a comment.

There’s his own text, okayed by Wen Qing, right under the picture of him kissing Lan Wangji’s cheek: So we were totally going to wait to tell you guys this, but since SOMEONE got excited and spilled the beans early, I get to FINALLY say how happy I am about my gorgeous, talented, brilliant, insanely hot, kind, wonderful, best boyfriend ever (and seriously he’s SO HOT JFC if you’re wondering how tf I landed him: same). I’m the luckiest person in the ENTIRE WORLD.

And underneath that, clear and stark in black and white, is Lan Wangji’s reply, timestamped 5:30 this morning.

Backwards.

About fifty responses to that just say variations on, Backwards???

And just seconds later, like it was nothing, Lan Wangji had written, The caption is backwards. Wei Ying is gorgeous, talented, brilliant, insanely hot, kind, wonderful, and the best boyfriend. I’m the luckiest person in the world.

Most of the replies after that are just people screaming. Wei Wuxian can relate. Lan Wangji is a much better actor than anyone has ever given him credit for and also going to give Wei Wuxian a heart attack. None of this is real, and it’s very important that Wei Wuxian remember that, because his insides are squirming just thinking about Lan Wangji saying all those things in his serious, low voice. It’s too much, and he has to draws his legs up so he can hide his suddenly burning face in his knees. This, on top of everything else, is brain-melting. Lan Wangji is so nice to him, and here Wei Wuxian is, making him practice kissing and get yelled at by their manager and probably take the blame for all this nonsense.

Wei Wuxian considers drowning himself in the shower, and then he pulls out his phone again and opens up Twitter. It’s very important to me this morning that everyone know how much I love Lan Zhan, he types out, because it’s so much.

At least he can blame that on the fake dating and not on the simple fact that he doesn’t know what he’d do without Lan Wangji. If back at school, when he’d said, I’m starting a band, Lan Wangji had turned away instead of looking up. If he had to go through life without this quiet, firm, unyielding support.

The bathroom door opens, and he looks up at Lan Wangji, standing in the doorway, looking beautiful and stern. Wei Wuxian looks for the kindness that he knows is hidden like a secret behind that stiff-backed posture and blank expression. He’s glad when Lan Wangji only frowns at him. It makes it easier to control himself.

“Lan Zhan,” he says, “you’re my favorite person in the entire world.”

And Lan Wangji smiles. And if Wei Wuxian’s stomach does a dangerous somersault and his skin prickles like he’s gotten sunburned and his hands tremble, it’s all completely worth it to see Lan Wangji look at him like that. Like Wei Wuxian is something special. Like maybe Lan Wangji had meant it after all, what he’d said on Instagram.

It’s not true, but oh, it’s nice to dream.

.

(And a part six!)

Above is left for posterity, but there is now considerably more than that.

hidden track masterpost

[fourteenfifteen]

3, 6, 18, and 25!

hi colaaaa ty : )

3. What is that one scene that you’ve always wanted to write but can’t be arsed to write all of the set-up and context it would need? (consider this permission to write it and/or share it anyway)

oh gosh uh hm. so for fic i got a lot of my random scene ideas out in my ficlets project (for example baby getting reverb and having to interact w don mitchell), one thing i never got around to tho is: i want to write a caleb/isaac proposal/engagement thing i just need to find a reason

and i actually have an original fiction answer: i want to write smth with an alien abduction scene in it. one day

6. What character do you have the most fun writing?

oh it is 100% baby triumphant. like not even close. i feel like this is obvious in the things i’ve written w hir in it tbh like i have a great time

18. Do any of your stories have alternative versions? (plotlines that you abandoned, AUs of your own work, different characterisations?) Tell us about them.

god not really? i stick p close to my outlines lol the closest thing i can think of is. when i wrote my kranch fic i waffled really hard on if ey was actually gonna have cheated on eir husband or not and what the timeline was gonna be. originally i set it up as “kranch and jeb separate and then kranch has a new man two weeks later” which would have been fun but no i wanted to write adultery (for some reason) so i did

25. What part of writing is the most fun?

DIALOGUE !!!!!!!!

[monimccoythings]

Sherlolly Good Omens crack ficlet part 2

Dedicated to Ben’s AU (Absolute Unit) in Good Omens. No spoilers, I’m just having fun with the characters and the crossover.

He was huge.

Utterly massive.

He could easily tower over Big Ben. Heck, his wingspawn could block the sunlight from a small English village.

And he was looking at her, patiently but expectantly. Waiting for her reaction.

“Oh. My-”

“I dare you to finish that sentence.”

She promptly shut her mouth. She wasn’t going to try and rile him up. No while he was in this hellish form. This was barely the angel she had once (and still) loved. 

Pools of inky darkness were locked on her while his mouth formed a smirk that looked more like a grimace, showing off the sharpness of his teeth, each one the size of a basketball player.

“What’s the matter, love? You’re not the only one who has changed.”

Molly blinked at him, dumbfounded. “Yeah, but I cut my hair, Sherlock.” She said with a barely audible voice. “You... you...” She couldn’t form a coherent phrase once her eyes settled on his well defined arms and his toned chest and abdomen. She ducked her head in shame when she caught herself nearly falling victim to the sin of lust, all those years being a guardian angel on Earth had taken a toll on her. Sherlock took notice of that and gave her a feral smile.

“I can see you struggling. Why don’t you give in to temptation? I already did.” His velvety voice, now bass boosted, purred. Oh, dear, what his voice did to her...

“No!” She barely managed to stop herself. “You are the ultimate enemy! Father of Lies! Enemy of Humanity! I will never give in to your machinations!”

His face formed an enraged grimace. His brow made a frown, his eyes shone with unearthly malice, and he clenched his teeth. His chest and shoulders rose and fell down with each breath he took. A low growl that reverbated through her entire body and every structure in a 20 miles ratio, started to form in his throat.

“You. Will.” He snarled. “You will or I will detroy this entire shithole of a planet you seem to love so much!”

Finally. He had revealed his true colours. This was him. The true Sherlock, the angel that had betrayed her and everything they had built together. No more pretending to get what he wanted. Either he got her willingly or he would take her by force. But she wasn’t going to back down.

“You may take me by force if you desire, but that won’t make me love you back.”

She saw his teeth clench even harder and his fists smashed against the ground, leaving huge craters. She had struck a nerve. Good. Or bad, if he got really angry.

His nostrils were flaring and the intensity of his stare could destroy a thousand suns. Now she knew why of all demons he was the king.

The Sherlock she knew would have never behaved like that. “You have not only changed physically.” He may had been arrogant, prideful, lacking social skills, and a smartass, but he was also sweet, selfless, and caring. He would have never threatened her to get what he wanted. But given all that came afterwards, she could as well fallen in love with a lie.

His frown deepened, but he didn’t get angrier.

“So, they brainwashed you into believing I had lied to you?”

She looked away, her lips forming a thin line. They didn’t brainwash her, they just exposed the facts, and those facts were that he had started a revolution against God behind her their backs and had taken as many angels to his side as he could.

When it was all revealed she was left broken and hollow, he had played with her like a toy and had tossed her aside when she had outlived her usefulness.

The blood in her mortal body freezed when she heard him speak with determination.

“I will have you back. No matter the cost, no matter the time. I have all eternity to win you.”

And with that he was gone. It was as if he had never been there, like the pavement hadn’t been utterly destroyed by his sudden appearence and mood swings. She was left, standing alone in the middle of the road, wondering where in heaven had she gotten into.

[juicinmyjams]

for the fic writer ask: 6, 13 & 43! :)

AH!! omg thanks (also you're the first person to ever send me an ask, so double thank you!!

6: The last line I wrote is from this little ficlet, and it's "It’s a ghost of a thing, like the trumpet, and Steve knows now it didn’t come from Munson."

13: Do you listen to music while you write?  If yes, what have you been listening to recently?

This is a tough one, more because music is super distracting for me but I still put it on every time because I get a lot of inspiration from songs. So I either just have one song playing on repeat that fits the vibe/inspired the fic or go on youtube and find hour long loops of songs like this or a focus one like this, OR go through a lot of slowed + reverbed songs.

Recently though, I've been listening to an instrumental of moon song by phoebe bridgers on repeat.

With a special mention of this, for my spidey steve fight scenes.

43: Is there a trope or idea that you’d really like to write but haven’t yet?

so many. way too many. But currently, I have my first steddie idea still marinating, which is a road trip au, and I have a couple of ideas for scenes of bard!Eddie.

thanks for asking!! I appreciate it!!

[nahekalei]

ficlet: undercover

didn’t manage to write anything long enough for ao3, but here’s a teeny lil thing about frost and cisco. killervibe week really out here watering my crops tbh!

“The last time this happened it went very poorly,” Caitlin feels obliged to point out.

“Yeah,” Cisco agrees, “but that’s because we didn’t actually have powers yet. It’ll be way smoother this time.”

Caitlin shrugs one shoulder. “Well I say yes, but it’s not really up to me.”

Cisco blinks, looking confused for the first time. “It’s… oh. I thought you’d like, pretend. And then switch later.”

Caitlin raises one eyebrow.

Cisco winces. “Yea I know. Okay. You think she’d be on board?”

“She likes you,” Caitlin says, “and she likes fighting.”

“I like you,” Cisco says, almost anxiously, eager to validate her, and she pats his shoulder.

‘Maybe she’ll betray you,” she says brightly, and it makes him smile a little bit. Not a lot, but they’re--she can joke, and he can smile, and it doesn’t make them think about a forest and trying to kill each other anymore. Or at least not for more than a second.

++

Caitlin picks out an outfit she thinks Frost would like, but that also wouldn’t make her want to crawl into a paper  bag and die when she inevitably wakes up sprawled across the cement surrounded by her friends, civilians, cops, other villains. It’s about minimizing embarrassment.

I wish I was as confident as you she writes neatly on a post-it note, and sticks it to the mirror. Honest compliments, she reminds herself.

Caitlin closes her eyes, then opens them. The last thing she remembers is seeing her eyes flare white.

Frost yanks the note off the mirror, reads it, groans. “I have got to kill that therapist,” she says, and stuffs it into her bra.

++

“Drinks,” Cisco pants, slumped against what used to be the back wall of a mall. “We deserve drinks after this.” It takes him three weak finger twitches to open a breach back to the labs. “Strong drinks.’

“There’s a nice bar on the east side,” Frost says, made idle and almost sweet by a good fight. “Classy enough for Caity, dive enough to be fun.”

They pop through the breach and it closes behind them, the lights low in the cortex and the world quiet outside, the sun long set.

“How about with you?” he asks, and she pauses.

“Me?”

He shrugs. “Caitlin’s my best friend, and you’re not going anywhere. We should be friends too.”

She hesitates, uncertainty an odd expression on her face, unfamiliar. “She won’t like it.”

“She’ll come around.” Cisco removes his goggles, his jacket, his gauntlets. “You gonna change?”

Frost looks down at herself. The suit he’s made her has flair, which she appreciates, but less cleavage than she used to sport, after she went flying through the air and lost a little coverage and Barry almost fell into the ocean trying to avert his gaze. “Yes,” she says, “definitely.” Then she smiles. “You did surprisingly good as Reverb, Ramon. Almost believed you myself.”

He follows her as she ducks behind a curtain in the medlab, changing briskly into civilian wear. “And you were very convincingly evil,” he reciprocates. “Which is less surprising.”

Frost emerges, stretching sore muscles. “I’m on team Flash. For now.”

Cisco squeaks, shirtless as he clutches a fresh t-shirt to his chest like a maiden aunt. “I’m not done!”

“Don’t be prudish.” She looks him up and down, then smiles with sharp teeth. “No shame in your game.”

Cisco blushes. “Oh god. This is gonna be so awkward when Caitlin wakes up.”

“Oh?” She stalks towards him and he stumbles back, knocking into one of the gurneys. “Should we double down?” She’s taller than him in her heels, and she gets right in his face, hips bumping. His hair is wild from the fight and she can see his pulse flutter in his throat, smell the sweat on his skin. “You’d look good with blue lips.”

Cisco makes a strangled noise. “Even your come ons are vaguely murderous.” He produces a beanie and tugs it over her platinum hair, distracting her enough to sidle out from in front of her. “Drinks?”

Frost settles. She can feel Caitlin poking at the edges of her consciousness and she hides her hand behind her back to vent some ice into the air. “I suppose. Just until Caitlin wakes up.”

[oswald-privileges]

Heeeeyyy fictional characters: Deus, Scáthán?

Deus

fight them or fight for them

listen if this is like... pre-modifications/phage I could totally push this fuckin nerd in a locker. Otherwise, not a fuckin chance of either. I like not dying. 

on a scale of 1-10 how excited do I get when I see them

eleventy

would i smooch

I think it’s kinda hard to smooch a beak

have I drawn/written about them/should i draw/write about them

no but g o d am I sometimes tempted. But also is your character I don’t know inside and out so it’s like “heck what if I mess up”

voice HC if they don’t have a voice already

something kinda nasal and with a bit of a mechanical reverb to it. There’s definitely someone/thing I’m thinking of but I can’t remember exactly what it is atm

Scáthán

fight them or fight for them

Is there like. A “Run away from very fast” option

on a scale of 1-10 how excited do I get when I see them

many

would i smooch

eeeeewwwwwww gross yes

have I drawn/written about them/should i draw/write about them

I think I have done at least one ficlet thing ages ago? And I definitely have a couple of half-finished ones in my google docs somewhere. I should finish it

voice HC if they don’t have a voice already

A really super malicious No.6 from The Prisoner

[wolftraps]

For the reverb inspiration thing honestly I'd kinda like more Ethan stuff? Mostly because it'd be fun to see someone adjusting to the future institute and that sort of flavor of outsider POV intrigues me. Plus I also just... Love Naomi a lot...

As happens with literally everything I write, this ended up longer than intended. So here’s Ethan’s first week at the Blackwood Institute. Poor guy. His boss is a creepy moron. Warning for a brief mention of self-harm and eye trauma right at the start here, but pretty much everything is canon-typical. This is also on AO3.

--

Being an Assistant Archivist at the Blackwood Institute is… well, it’s nerve-wracking honestly. There’s no formal training, and this seems to be largely because there’s been only one other person to have held the position in… ever, as far as Ethan can tell. And that had been over fifteen years ago and lasted a grand total of nine months before Chloe Halloway, age 29, had a “crisis of faith” and tendered her resignation by pouring bleach directly into her eyes.

“If you’re going to reconsider your position here,” Jon said matter-of-factly, after telling Ethan this, “I highly suggest you do so prior to signing a permanent contract.”

Which was really unnecessarily creepy, sure, but creepy is sort of why Ethan is here in the first place, so not that surprising. The least Miss Halloway could have done, in his opinion, was leave some kind of manual or something behind. A guide. Notes. Ethan would probably be willing to kill a man for a “To-Do list” at this point.

Technically Ethan has his own office, but the room is dusty and cluttered and doesn’t actually have a desk or chair yet, so he set up in the main Archive area, where there are three ancient desks, three slightly less ancient desk chairs, a small table, and inexplicably, a wardrobe and a worn armchair. Finding the least uncomfortable configuration of furniture made him feel a bit like Goldilocks, despite the desks and corresponding chairs being virtually identical. He figured that was what had been meant by “make yourself comfortable.” Jon didn’t say any different.

Between orientation (signing papers, sitting through general training, another tour, getting his picture taken with an actual polaroid camera, etc) and “settling in,” it hadn’t mattered the first day that Jon didn’t give him any direction. And when Ethan got in on the second day, Jon had already been in the middle of taking a statement, so Ethan had busied himself going through the desk he’d taken. And then another desk. And then the other desk.

At the end of that task, he had various office supplies, a good dozen unfiled statements, five tape recorders, sixteen unlabeled tapes, five labeled tapes that didn’t match any of the unfiled statements, a small notebook with a few unfinished poems, a bag of what might have once been gummy worms, a nearly empty bottle of vodka, two very faded polaroids of a younger Jon and Martin with a woman identified on the back as Sasha, and a large, large stack of poorly drawn and seemingly conflicting maps. Also a lingering feeling that he would never be able to fully get the cobwebs off his arms.

He wasn’t sure what to do with any of it.

Well, except for the gummy worms and vodka, which he promptly disposed of.

Most of the rest ended up on top of one of the unused desks. And by the time that was done, it was nearly time to leave. As far as Ethan could tell, Jon hadn’t come out of his office once. Though, apparently the statement-giver had left at some point without Ethan noticing, so he couldn’t actually be sure. He does have a tendency to block everything else out when he’s focused on a task.

When he came in on the third day, the desk he’d placed everything on was clear and Jon wasn’t in his office. In absence of anything else to do, Ethan started looking through the database. From reading (and supposing any of what he heard on The Observer Chronicles was accurate), he thought he understood a couple of the categories. Others seemed a bit too… arbitrary. Most entries appeared to have corresponding files regarding any follow-up done, but very few had actual digital copies of the statements themselves. And only the discredited statements had audio files.

Jon didn’t return until well after lunch time, and when he did he seemed almost surprised to see Ethan there.

“You should take an early day,” Jon told him, before Ethan managed to formulate any of his questions. “Daisy’s brought me a statement. Probably best it doesn���t see you in case we decide to let it go.”

And then he went into his office. Ethan had no idea who Daisy was or how a statement was supposed to see him— or what it would do to him if it did— but it didn’t look like he was going to get any answers now, and it probably wasn’t a good idea to risk it. So he was left with nothing but to do as Jon suggested.

—

“You’re home early,” Naomi says when he walks in to find his mum sitting on the couch.

“So are you,” Ethan replies, and he didn’t even do all that much today, but he feels exhausted none-the-less.

“I had an appointment,” she reminds him. Right. He knew that. He’d just… forgotten. But he knows she hadn’t really expected him to remember. “Nothing to report. So? What has you home already?”

“Jon told me to go home. Someone named Daisy brought him a statement, and he thought it was better I wasn’t there. Why? I have no idea.”

“Well, it’s early yet, and they deal with some pretty dangerous things there,” she reasons. “The Jon I knew tried to look out for people. Can’t say I’m not glad if it’s still the same.”

“Sure, but…” Ethan stands there, fiddling with the strap of his bag, staring at the coffee table as he tries to find the words. Naomi waits, but he’s not sure what to say.

“Why don’t you go put your bag down,” she says eventually. “Think it over a bit, then come sit with me. I’ll get you some tea and wake up Beaker.”

True to her word, when Ethan gets back in more comfortable clothes, there’s a cup of tea waiting on the table, just barely steaming, and a squirming, growling ball of orange fluff in his mum’s lap. The moment he sits and Naomi lets go, the cat is in his lap, squeaking her indignation. Her brush is already set on the couch beside him.

“Thanks,” he says, and his mum just nods.

“So?” she prompts.

Ethan sighs. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“Ethan, you’ve only been there three days. Not even three days. Everyone feels lost when they start a new job. It happened literally every time you started a new year in school, if you’ll recall.” He keeps brushing Beaker, but he can see his mum smiling in his peripheral vision and he rolls his eyes.

“No, yeah, I know that. I mean I literally have no idea what I’m supposed to be doing. There’s been no training. No instructions. I don’t- I cleaned out desks and I looked through the database and I read some old statements, and I keep waiting for Jon to say something. Tell me what I’m supposed to do. Explain anything.” Beaker squeaks again, nipping at his arm as he absently tugs a bit too hard at a knot of fur. “Sorry. Sorry.”

“I’m going to be honest,” Naomi says, huffing slightly the same way she does every time the tube runs late, even though she expects it. “That’s far, far more common than you’d think.”

“That makes no sense, though! How are people supposed to do their jobs if no one explains how to do the job?”

“Well… I think a lot of people try to pretend and copy the people around them. It’s usually better to just ask, though. People can get so used to doing something that they honestly forget that other people don’t know how, and Jon’s been doing this for a very long time. What did he say when you asked?”

On the table, Ethan’s tea is going cold. If he leans over to get it, though, Beaker will probably yell at him and run away, and brushing her really is helping him relax. But his mouth feels so dry, and it might be worth it.

“Ethan,” his mum says in that tone. That one she always got right before Caleb tried to lie to her. “You did ask Jon, right?”

There’s another knot in Beaker’s fur, but he takes more care with this one and she just keeps purring. He rocks. His mouth is still so dry.

Naomi sighs, setting her own cup down and passing Ethan his, handle out. It’d be alright today, he thinks, if their hands touched when he took it from her, but she’s always careful anyway. He takes a sip. The tea is good, as always, though he can’t help thinking of his interview with Martin. There’d been a cup waiting for him in Martin’s office. His favorite kind, perfectly made. He’d meant to ask Martin how he knew, but then he just… hadn’t.

“You didn’t. Ethan, you… Okay. Okay. Why not?” his mum asks.

“I don’t know! He’s always… in his office and- and busy or— I don’t know. He makes me a little… nervous or something.”

“Intimidated.”

“Maybe?”

“I can understand that,” she says. “The first time I technically met Jon, I was terrified of him. The first… many times. Even after I actually met him and got to talk to him, I kept having to remind myself that he didn’t want to hurt me. If he’s still like I remember him, and I’m willing to bet he is, then I don’t think leaving you to figure things out yourself or not talking to you is intentional. He’s really a very… very awkward man.” She’s staring at the wall, but doesn’t seem to be looking at anything, and after a moment she laughs a little. “Promise me you’ll at least try to talk to him Monday?”

Ethan promises, of course.

—

Jon doesn’t even seem to understand the words at first, when Ethan asks him what an assistant here does. For a few seconds, there’s no expression, and then Jon’s brow furrows and he looks down at the papers on his desk like he might read the answer there.

“I— Hmm,” he says. “F-file? Organize? I— What did they— I never actually was one, so… It occurs to me that I am very lucky I chose to include Sasha after all. You might ask her? Or- or Martin. They actually did the assisting once upon a time, so…” Jon shrugs, or Ethan thinks he does. There’s a cat draped across his shoulders, so they don’t actually move much. And then Ethan stands there, and Jon sits, and neither of them say anything, and if Ethan’s mum is right, it’s because neither of them is quite sure what to say.

Ethan leaves.

Martin was nice during his interview. Encouraging and friendly and patient when it took some time for Ethan to decide what to say. It was a far, far easier interview than he’d feared. And Martin had said Ethan could come to him if he had any questions. Despite that, Martin makes Ethan even more nervous than Jon. It’s always worse disappointing friendly people.

So instead, Ethan makes his way to the Library, because that’s where Sasha works, if he’s remembering right. Once he’s there, though, he has no idea where to look, and it occurs to him that there may be more than one Sasha. The one he’d seen when he interviewed was young; maybe a couple years older than him. But the one in the pictures he found in the Archives would surely be Jon’s age at least. There’s no one who looks like either of them that he can see.

“Excuse me,” he says to someone who is probably a librarian, since he’s sitting at a desk with a plaque that says the date and ‘You’d have been out of here days ago if you’d just asked for help.’ The man doesn’t look up from his book. “I’m looking for Sasha?”

“Upstairs,” the guy says. The library is only one floor, though. It’s the first time he’s been in it, but Ethan made note of all Mara’s warnings.

“I’d like to speak to Sasha,” he says, firmer. The guy doesn’t look up and doesn’t look up and doesn’t… and then something changes and he stiffens and slowly looks up at Ethan, and he seems almost… nervous.

The man coughs. “O-oh. You’re- you’re from the Archives.”

“Yes,” Ethan agrees. “I need to talk to Sasha?”

“Right. Sure. Um, I’ll get— uh, Kelly- Kelly will help you.” The man nods toward something over Ethan’s shoulder. When he turns there’s someone already there, a bit too close, and Ethan didn’t know teeth could be that white.

“Hi!” They smile and smile. “I’m Michael. You can call me Kelly. I’m here to help. This way please!” Literally turning on their heel, they walk away with a gait more like a bounce than a walk, and Ethan follows. Right up until they hop onto the first step.

“I—” he says. Even before they turn their head, he can somehow see their smile. Human necks almost definitely aren’t supposed to turn that far. He almost forgets what he meant to say.

“Yes?”

“I— I was told the library is only one storey.”

They smile and smile. “That’s right.”

“But… the stairs?” he asks.

“What stairs?” Their head tilts, like a curious dog, still looking over their shoulder. And human necks definitely aren’t supposed to turn like that.

Ethan looks down at the stair Kelly is perched on, and they look down as well. There is no acknowledgement of the stairs.

“Come on!” They smile. “Best to take the first step at a bit of a jump!”

And they keep going up the stairs, so Ethan takes a breath and hops onto the first step.

Except it isn’t a step. It’s… a rug maybe? It doesn’t stop looking like stairs, but the whole thing is level, and he nearly trips more than a couple times expecting his foot to hit the floor before it does. When they reach the end, he looks back. Back and down. Down at the library, one storey below.

At the end of a short hallway, there is a yellow door; one that Ethan is sure he’s seen before, except somewhere else. Kelly bounces up to it and knocks, and looks back at him and smiles and smiles, and then the door creaks open.

The person who emerges is definitely the young woman he saw when he came for his interview, but she’s also almost definitely the woman in the photograph from decades ago.

“Hi, Sasha!” Kelly smiles. “This one wants to talk to you!”

“Oh? Oh!” Sasha also smiles, and there’s a ringing in Ethan’s ear when she talks, but it seems like a fairly normal smile. At least, comparatively. “You’re the new Archival Assistant!”

“Uh, A- Assistant Archivist, actually.” It probably doesn’t matter. People are always telling him things like this don’t matter, and he shouldn’t bother correcting them. For some reason, though, it really feels like this does.

Sasha, at least, looks a bit surprised. “Really? Huh. That’s fascinating.”

Ethan is at least 75% sure she isn’t being sarcastic. “Is it?”

The hallway couldn’t have been more than five meters, but her laugh echoes down it. “It is! Thank you, Kelly. I’ll be sure Ethan makes his way back alright.”

It’s a clear dismissal, but Kelly doesn’t move. They keep looking at Sasha and they smile and smile and smile until eventually Sasha rolls her eyes and scoffs.

“Please,” she says. “I couldn’t lose one of Jon’s if I wanted to. He’ll be back in the Archives as soon as we’re done talking.”

Kelly smiles. “Okay!” they say cheerily, as if there’d never been any tension at all. “Nice to meet you, Ethan!” and then they’re gone.

“They’re a good kid,” Sasha says. “Well, then. Please, step into my office.” She closes the yellow door behind her and opens a different one beside it, that Ethan is also sure hadn’t been there a moment before. It’s a normal enough door, though. Looks a lot like Jon’s, actually. Sasha waves him through, and if he didn’t know better, Ethan would be sure he was back in the Archives.

In fact, he’s pretty sure that’s the same couch that’s currently sitting in Jon’s office and the same armchair he’d moved into his own “office” the other day; though both look in significantly better shape here.

“Have a seat,” Sasha says, dropping onto the couch— or draping herself across it rather— and eliciting a grumbling meow from an almost opalescent white cat that flicks its tail when she goes to pet it and jumps into Ethan’s lap the moment he settles into the chair. At first touch its fur feels like marble, but then he pets it and it feels like plush. He can’t hear the purr, but the rumble makes his fingers tingle.

“So, Ethan. What can I help you with?” Sasha asks.

“Well. My job… I hope.”

She sits up and sounds delighted when she says, “Oh, did you find a statement about me already? You’ve only been here a couple weeks, haven’t you?”

“Four… days?” It’s not a question. Ethan knows this is his fourth day. Knows. Yet for some reason he starts second guessing himself. It has only been four days… right? Yes. Yes, four days.

After the “stairs,” he doesn’t bother asking why there would be statements about her.

Sasha thinks for a moment and then waves his comment away. “Close enough. Time is fake. So… which one is it?”

“I didn’t— find a statement. I’m just trying to figure out what I’m supposed to be doing. Jon told me to ask you because you’ve actually done the job before.”

If she keeps laughing like that, he’s going to end up with a headache. The ringing is terrible.

“I’m sorry,” she laughs. “I wish I could think you were joking, but I know you’re not. I love Jon. He’s such a disaster. You know he knows basically everything?” Ethan does not know that. A lot, definitely. More than anyone logically should or could, sure. But everything?

“That… sounds improbable.” Buried in the cat’s equally improbable fur, Ethan’s fingers start going numb.

“He does. He knows almost everything and then always forgets that he knows anything. It’s hilarious,” Sasha says with a grin. “Alright. We used to do a lot of research, but that was back when we were cleaning up Gertrude’s mess and all the work the actual Research department did somehow got lost on its way down the stairs. The real ones. And Jon only knew most things rather than basically everything…”

She tells him she did research and reorganized possibly the worst archiving system in the world. She tells him she took statement-givers’ information and caught flies to feed the spiders in the corners. She tells him she killed worms and mapped underground tunnels and scanned in old letters and typed up written statements and managed “monster relations” and blew up mannequins and recorded false statements and hacked government networks and provided alibis and stole old books from museums and sang to the recorders so they wouldn’t start eating people’s fingers and updated the database and appeased disgruntled “youtubers” and collected obituaries and plotted her boss’s death.

Ethan is sure some of these things aren’t true, but he just walked up a flight of not-stairs, so he honestly couldn’t begin to guess which. He’s also not sure how many of them are relevant.

“Mostly, though,” Sasha concludes, “you take care of Jon.”

He does try to ask about the categories, and a couple of the titles she gives them make some kind of sense, but she also says category 06 is “me”, 09 is poker, 10 is geese, and 15 is millennials, so he decides to take those with a grain of salt as well.

When they finally leave her office, the door opens into the front lobby.

“There we are! Back safe and sane, just like I promised. I know I said I’d get you back to the Archives, but I’m not actually allowed to open doors down there anymore. And it’s only… Oops.” The lobby is quiet and the windows are dark. It’s definitely well into evening, though Ethan suspects midnight has come and gone. His watch starts buzzing with missed messages. “Well, I’m sure it’s at least the same day or Jon would’ve yelled at me by now. I could give you a shortcut home?”

The yellow door is back, and beyond it is a long hallway.

“I think I’d better take the long way,” he says.

Sasha nods. “That’s fair.”

—

If Ethan could actually figure out how to message HR, he would just message them. Even if it took them a day to get back to him, he’d still be better off than he has been so far. Unfortunately, he can’t find any sort of contact information for them at all. So the morning of his fifth day, he goes to the front desk and meets Priya No-Last-Name-As-Is-Tradition, who handles “reception, admin, and whatever Martin needs.”

He doesn’t ask, but she informs him Martin will be in a meeting all morning anyway. That’s fine. She’s more than happy to walk him up to HR and introduce him to a woman named Hope.

Hope startles when she sees them, and her fingers freeze on her keyboard, but there is definitely some kind of movement in her lap, barely visible over the edge of the desk. Then she smiles and turns to face them and Ethan does not comment on the fact that he can see two long, black limbs trying to shove some sort of yarn project into the drawer of a filing cabinet behind her. Priya nods at a job well done and leaves him there.

“How can I help you?” Hope asks. There’s something not quite right about her smile, but Ethan doesn’t comment on that either.

Instead, he says, “Do you have any sort of job description or scope of duties for the Assistant Archivist position?”

Hope blinks.

“The what?” she asks.

“The Assistant Archivist position.”

She blinks again. Her smile is gone, and he’s honestly glad for it. “Assistant… Archivist.”

“Yes.”

“That’s a thing?”

“I would hope so? I was just hired as one, so…”

She blinks again, then shakes her head. “Right. Sorry. Of course. I just… Honestly, I was sort of under the impression no one could work down there but the Archivist.”

Given that apparently only one other person has in longer than Ethan’s been alive, he doesn’t exactly blame her. Still, he’s pretty sure it’s her job to know these things, and he’d really like an answer.

“I understand,” he says, “but I do work down there. So…”

“Right. Yes. Assistant Archivist, you said? Just a moment.” She turns back to her display, taps a few keys, and then starts scrolling. And scrolling. And scrolling. All the while singing “Assistant Archivist Archivist Assistant Assist Assist the Archivist” under her breath.

Three minutes later, Ethan is still waiting.

“Are you… sure that’s your position title?” she asks finally, and Ethan turns around and heads back to the Archives.

—

While he hopes he never has to do most of the things Sasha listed as her duties, there are a couple Ethan thinks he can probably manage. He has no idea what, if anything, might need to be done with the statements that already have case numbers, but there’s a shelf of boxes near the Archive entrance labeled “Me Next!” that Jon had said were unprocessed. Maybe he won’t be able to fit them all into the proper categories, but there have to be some that are obviously false, and it seems as good a way as any to get more familiar with the database.

Halfway through the day, he switches to listening to some of the old audio files to figure out the format. It doesn’t seem too complicated. Probably he can record a couple test statements, get a feel for it.

Twenty minutes later, he gives up searching and asks Jon where to find their recording software. Jon frowns and tells him he’s better off finding a free one online, so Ethan reaches out to IT instead.

Ten minutes after that, he gets a message from Cass Walters telling him to check his apps again and that he’ll “know it when [he] see[s] it.” So he does.

Halfway through the list there’s an icon with a stylized cassette tape. It’s labeled “IM TELLING YOU IT FUCKING WORKS JON”, and Ethan figures that’s probably it. Thankfully it’s fairly intuitive, and it might end up being a total waste of his time, but by the end of the day he has three halfway decent recordings and feels like he accomplished something, at least.

-

On his sixth day, one week after starting, Ethan comes in just in time to hear someone say, “Are you kidding me?!” really quite loudly in Jon’s office.

It doesn’t sound like the sort of conversation he wants to disturb, so he goes to his desk and gets set up as quietly as he can and meets the cat’s judging stare head-on while eavesdropping. She blinks and rubs up against his leg, and he can’t help but think it was some kind of test. Apparently he passed.

“You know everything, Jon,” the same person says, and Ethan is at least 80% sure it’s Martin.

“Not ev—”

“Everything,” Martin repeats. “How can you possibly not know what your own assistant is supposed to be doing?”

“I can’t know things that don’t exist, Martin. Chloe always wanted to figure everything out herself and made things up as she went along. It may as well be a new position. So, I don’t know.” There’s a moment of silence.

“Jon,” Martin says.

“… Yes, Martin.”

“Love,” Martin says.

Jon sighs. “Yes, Martin. I realize—”

“That might be the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard you say.”

“Yes, Martin. I get it.”

“He’s an Assistant Archivist! Tell him what you need assistance archiving!”

“I’ll take care of it,” Jon says. If either of them say anything in the few minutes after that, though, it’s too quiet for Ethan to hear.

“Alright,” Martin says, like they’ve come to some kind of agreement despite the silence. “I love you.”

“Yes, Martin,” Jon says, the same tired way he’d said it before, though there’s a slight laugh at the end now. “I know.”

Martin is smiling when he comes out of Jon’s office. Instead of leaving the Archives, he walks up to Ethan’s desk and sets a mug of barely steaming tea down upon it.

“It should be just right now,” Martin says, like he’d known exactly when Ethan was going to arrive— despite him being half an hour early— and purposely made the tea so it would have cooled to the perfect temperature the moment he walked in. It is, of course, made perfectly as well. “I should have warned you a bit more about Jon. He’s a bit of a moron sometimes, but he means well. The next time you ask a question and he says he doesn’t know or tries to send you to someone else, just ask again, a bit slower. Usually the critical thinking capabilities will catch on then. Come see me whenever you’re free on Friday. I’d like to hear how you’re doing, once you actually get into the work.” And then he’s gone before Ethan can say a word.

In the doorway of his office, Jon clears his throat.

“I’ve been— reliably informed that I owe you an apology,” he says, and Ethan really would rather he didn’t. Apologies are almost always terrible, no matter which side you’re on. They’re awkward and often pointless. It’s not like he’s hurt or anything. Jon feeling bad isn’t going to do anything but make Ethan uncomfortable. “I sho—”

“Okay,” Ethan says. “Can we just skip to you training me?”

“… Yes. Yes, we can,” Jon says, possibly as relieved as Ethan to move on. He looks less tense, at least. “We usually wait until the end of probation to explain the fears, but that won’t exactly work here, so we’ll get to that in a moment. You’ve already started recording, so I suppose the first thing to know is that true statements won’t record digitally. The audio always ends up corrupted. I don’t think I’ll have you start recording any real statements quite yet, but once you do, you’ll have to use the— the tape…” He trails off, staring down at the small stack of statements Ethan recorded yesterday.

When Jon shows no sign of continuing, Ethan tentatively prompts, “The— tape recorders?”

“You’ve already started recording,” Jon says again.

“Yes?”

He pulls out the statement at the bottom of the stack and holds it out to Ethan, shaking it slightly. “You recorded this statement.”

“Yes? It was the last one I did before I went home last night.”

“Play it for me.” So Ethan does. Three minutes in, staring at the paper in his hand, Jon tells him to stop. “That’s not… Set up a new recording. I’m going to start reading this, and after two minutes, I want you to take this from me and stop the recording.” So Ethan does that too.

It had felt a bit… odd, when Ethan read the statement yesterday. Like the air got thicker, almost. But he’d also been very tired, and while a lot of things are weird at the Institute, that doesn’t mean everything is. It’s different when Jon starts reading. Not so much the air getting thicker as pressing down on them, and Ethan feels very uncomfortably like someone is making direct eye contact with him. It’s creepy. He almost misses the two minute mark.

The second he pulls the paper from Jon’s hands, the feeling lifts. Somehow, he isn’t surprised that playback of Jon’s reading comes out with a terrible screech and a whole lot of broken, garbled nonsense.

Jon looks between Ethan, the paper, and the display again and again.

“Jon?” Ethan asks.

“That’s not fair,” Jon replies. Then, with a sigh, “I guess I have more work for you than I thought.”

[wolftraps]

As always

Another extra from The Reverb in These Holy Halls. Just because Sasha’s a fear monster now doesn’t mean she’s going to let Tim stop being her friend. But also, Sasha “in this house we love and support Jon Sims” James isn’t here for Tim’s grudges.

—

Three months or so after the Unknowing. After they’d all gotten pizza and got mostly drunk and pretended for the night that they were all friends and everything was fine. After Tim had handed in his resignation and closed a chapter in his life he was beginning to think would never end with a strong determination never to reopen it. Three months after all that, Tim comes home to find her in his flat.

She smiles at him, in such a familiar way, and it should make him angry, he thinks, like he was with the thing that took Danny. Angry and afraid. He’s not though. Mostly he’s just tired. Tired and sad. He drops his wallet and keys on the side table and locks the door behind him. It’s not like this thing uses normal entrances.

He purposely doesn’t look at her and she sighs. “Tim—”

“Don’t,” he snaps. “Don’t tell me you’re her, because you’re not.”

“I’m not… not her,” she hedges.

Incredulity forces him to face her. “That… that doesn’t even make any sense!”

“Yes, that’s… kind of the point.”

“Of what?” He really shouldn’t ask. He really should know better.

“Me? I guess? Whatever I am. Sense is meant to be… twisted, and coiled, and looped back on itself. For me.” Her fingers twist around themselves, and Tim can’t watch too long without getting dizzy. He shuts his eyes.

“I can’t tell if I’m pissed off or just confused.”

“Both, probably. I just… We were never going to be what you wanted us to be. But I couldn’t just let you… mourn me, and pretend I’m not here. I didn’t kill Sasha, Tim. Sasha became me.”

Tim scoffs. “Yeah, like Jon became that thing he is now. ‘The Archivist’.”

“Y— Well, yes? And also no. Jon’s change was more gradual—”

“The hell it was! Maybe for him, but he’s not the Jon I worked with. That I was friends with. That Jon was just— overwritten.”

“Is it really overwriting,” she asks, “if they were the same person to that point? Does it matter, if the Jon you’re talking about would’ve have gone through the next four years in the exact same manner as this Jon did? Jon became what he is because that’s where he was pushed. You’re blaming him for being changed by his experiences.”

“I’m no—”

“You are. You feel personally betrayed because the end result of his trauma isn’t who you remember from before it. If this Jon hadn’t come back, we’d both be dead by now. And you’d have hated him all the same.” Her voice is sharp but annoyingly level. That’s always…

“... aren’t you not supposed to make sense?” he grumbles.

“Well, if I don’t knock some into you, who’s going to? Jon?” She sighs, picking at her fingers. “I am… less Sasha, than the Archivist is Jon. But Jon’s change happened without his understanding. As Sasha, I chose this, knowing what I was doing.”

“You could be lying,” Tim says, swallowing down the bitter taste in his mouth.

“I could,” she agrees with a grin. “If I was, you might never know. I’m very good at it.”

“Not exactly the answer I was looking for.”

“Yes, but if I told you that, it would be a lie.” There’s a slight ringing in his ears, like the chuckle she’s trying to contain behind that smile can’t help but seep through. Part of him wants to laugh as well, the other part is trying to remember that trick to get rid of tinnitus.

Eventually he drops himself into a chair and lets the force expel the air from his lungs. Not quite a sigh. Not quite resignation. Not quite a roll of his eyes. “Alright, fine. Then why?”

“That’s hard to explain rationally. I made a statement about it,” she says brightly. “Two actually! You could listen to them if you want, I don’t mind.”

“I’m not going back to that place. Just… try.” She positions herself on the sofa, not so much sitting in it as draping herself over it, her legs just happening to end up curled on the cushions. And Tim knows that furrowed brow, that slight, contemplative frown. He doesn’t push. Sasha always… she’d always needed time to order her thoughts before she spoke. Never one to stutter through.

“Fear, I suppose.” Her whole head seems to roll with her eyes when he snorts, though it never actually moves. “Yes, I know, but… there’s no good way to describe it. No other word that fits so well. There were so very many feelings that led me to the decision. So many thoughts and rationalizations and doubts. But underneath it all, it was fear. Fear of never seeing Jon again; fear of him being hurt; fear of finding him too late, yes. But also fear of my own helplessness; fear of how easy it would be to be a victim— just another unfortunate statement-giver, and fear of not having the power to help when the time came. Fear that, in a job like that, the End would find me too soon. Fear of losing myself. Fear of being too afraid to risk it. Fear of my own stubbornness keeping me from adapting like I needed to. Fear of what it would mean, once I figured it all out. Fear that I never would, and it would eat away at me. Fear that, underneath it all, I didn’t want to figure it all out. Fear of how that desperation to just be lost pulled at me, and fear of what I’d be if I didn’t answer it.” The words come faster and faster until it’s hard to distinguish what she’s saying, though the sentiment still gets through. She takes a breath and sits back from where she’d starting leaning toward him. It’s painfully familiar.

“I was so full of contradictory fears, and it kept chipping away at me, at my reason. And then Michael told me he was going to kill Jon, and for just a moment it all stopped and it all hit me at once. And I thought ‘Can I really do this?’ and I knew I could. I wanted to. Maybe there were better ways— ways that kept me more me— but this was the one before me. This was the quickest, the most decisive, the most useful, and if I hesitated, there was no guarantee I’d get another chance. So I took it.”

“Not to be a self-centered ass, but what about me?” His voice is thick, trying to catch in his throat. “Did you even consider what it would do to me, to see this happen to you?”

“Yes. Of course. You’re my best friend.” He scoffs through the tears, and she smacks his arm, chiding, like she always did, though she should be too far to be able. “You are. Jon, Martin… they’re my family now. There’s a bond there that I don’t think even Jon could describe. But I think… you’re why I’m still Sasha.”

“Sorry, what? No—”

“Yes. Do you know how easy it would’ve been? To just let myself go? To become just a- a dye on the yarn, rather than a strand in the braid?” It should be rhetorical, but she just waits, and Tim thinks she’s been around Martin too long. Though maybe Martin got it from her, rather than the other way around. It’s been years now, Tim can barely remember what mannerisms she had before the Archives.

“Easy, I assume?”

“So easy, Tim! So. Easy. But I didn’t! I stayed mostly me!” Sasha pauses and tilts her head slightly. “Well… partly. At least half!”

“And you think that’s good enough?” Tim still can’t shake that bitter taste… or is it sour?

“I hope it is.” The words sound flat. Not without emotion but… without that unnatural reverberation that makes the world tilt. They sound… human. They sound like Sasha. “I really, really hope it is.”

It fucking hurts. It hurts that she’s gone. It hurts that she left him behind. It hurts that there is something sitting in his flat, with her face, asking— if he’s reading it right— to be friends. It hurts that it’s not really her. And it hurts that it is. There are differences. Countless differences. But the way she talks, moves, smiles… it’s all Sasha, turned up to eleven. It hurts how much he wants this. And he’s so, so sick of that bitter taste.

“I can’t just go back to how things were,” he chokes out. “I can’t just pretend you’re the same person I knew before.”

“No,” she agrees. “No, of course not. We could start small, though, maybe? Get lunch sometime? Make awkward conversation over and over until it eventually becomes natural?”

“Do you even eat anymore?” Tim has to ask.

“I… ate the pizza?” This seems like the sort of thing she should’ve thought about earlier, but he supposes she has had other things on her mind. “And I still like coffee. So… probably? I don’t need it, but I think I can still enjoy it. Maybe. I’m really curious to find out now.”

Of course she is. And that thought is what decides him.

“Okay,” he says. “Lunch then. On Thursday.”

Sasha perks up and grins. “Really?! Oh! That’s great! Lunch on Thursday! Right. I’ll- I’ll let you be, then, and see you Thursday. I’d give you a hug, but—”

“Please don’t.” Her laugh still makes him flinch, but she doesn’t try to contain it this time.

What she does can’t be called standing so much as unfolding, but whatever she does, she gets up from his couch and goes to a yellow door on his outer wall that definitely shouldn’t be there. Tim drops his head to his hands and rubs his temples.

“… Thank you, Tim,” she says, but doesn’t seem to mind that he doesn’t respond as the door swings open with an eerie creak. Just before she steps fully inside, she stops. “Oh… Tim?”

“Yes,” he asks, trying to remember if he still has any paracetamol anywhere.

“When is Thursday?”