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ghostbustermelanieking · 6 years ago

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praescitum chapter nineteen

chapter one, chapter two, chapter three, chapter four, chapter five, chapter six, chapter seven, chapter eight, chapter nine, chapter ten, chapter eleven pt 1, chapter eleven pt 2, chapter twelve, chapter thirteen, chapter fourteen, chapter fifteen, chapter sixteen, chapter seventeen, chapter eighteen

casefile, season 10, season 11. part of my series that i write as i rewatch the x files

Summary: As Mulder and Scully adjust to their reassignment to the X-Files and working together in the wake of their separation, they find themselves investigating a small town and a ghost that apparently warns people of bad things to come.

note: this chapter is almost obscenely long, and i apologize in advance. i owe a lot of thanks to @i-gaze-at-scully for reading over this chapter for me, as well as letting me bounce ideas off of her.

warning for some mild violence in this chapter.

---

nineteen.

may, 2002

Marion is still chopping tomatoes when Jared steps outside, retrieving the pack of cigarettes from his jacket. Somewhere further in the house, he hears the baby crying and Ian shushing. This apartment is too small; he doesn't know how they stand it. It's still weird to see Ian with a baby, after years of bickering and wrestling and name-calling and mutual picking on Annie. He's a good father, Jared thinks wryly. It's always such a surprise to remember.

He shuts the door behind him softly and leans tiredly against the wall. He's been on edge for days. For a month. Ever since Holly died. The fact that the seancé didn't work isn't helping. He really thought tonight might be the end of it all, some kind of bizarre revenge for Holly, some assurance that his brother's family would be okay. He sticks the cigarette between his teeth and lifts his lighter, staring at the opposite wall with a sort of blankness.

What the hell are they going to do now? Mar is seriously freaked out, and fairly fixated on the idea of getting rid of the ghost (and he honestly can't blame her), but Ian seemed a little put out with the whole process to begin with, and he certainly seems done now. Jared and Marion could keep doing this without him, but the fact that the seancé failed doesn't seem like a very good sign. They may never be able to exorcise the ghost if it can't be summoned. Maybe it failed because there was never a ghost in the first place, he thinks cynically. Maybe this is all an illusion, and Marion imagined the ghost, and Holly's death had nothing to do with the ghost, and Jared's just insane. He sighs, letting a thin line of smoke drift out of his mouth. This entire ordeal is exhausting. He just wants it all to be over. He wants Holly back.

The baby is still crying somewhere inside. Jared sighs, putting his cigarette out on the wall. He loves his nephew, but boy, does that kid have a pair of lungs on him.

Down the hall, Jared hears the sharp sound of floorboards squeaking. Figuring it's Mar and Ian's neighbor come home, he looks towards the door, lifting his hand to wave politely.

But it's not the neighbor. Whoever it is, he's too tall to be the neighbor. It's some sort of dark, hulking figure with a hat pulled down over his face, but Jared doesn't recognize him. He figures it's somebody looking for the neighbor. He finishes his wave, stiffly, and lowers his hand, eyes shifting to the wall. He debates whether or not to have another cigarette.

The floorboards creak again, insistently. When Jared looks back at the figure, he sees that he's drawn closer. He's halfway down the hall, a lot closer than Jared would've expect. The fluorescent light above them flickers. The figure casts no shadow.

Jared swallows roughly. He suddenly, inexplicably feels uneasy, nausea curdling in his stomach, and he has no idea why. He drops the box of cigarettes back into his pockets and turns towards the door.

The floorboards begin to creak again, as if the figure is drawing closer. Jared grabs the doorknob and attempts to turn it, but it won't move. It is stiff under his hand, his sweaty palm slipping on the metal as he fails to turn it. The footsteps keep coming. Jared yanks on the doorknob hard, again and again like a scared child. He briefly considers banging on the door and yelling, before shaking his head to clear his mind. This is ridiculous, he thinks. He is getting spooked for no reason. His mind must still be stuck in the moment in the seancé, in the moment of nightmares about Holly, about losing someone else. Turn around, he chides silently, he's probably passed you by now. He shakes his head again, ruefully, and turns a bit, expecting to see an empty hall.

But he doesn't. He sees the figure, looming large over his shoulder, his face shadowed and twisted in a cruel smile. The figure is towering over him, cornering him against the wall, smirking at him in a way that makes him shudder with fear. He's frozen, stiff and unable to move, and this is when he understands what is happening. When he realizes that the seancé had worked, and that they should've kept going, gone through with the exorcism. He wonders if this is what Holly felt, right there at the end.

The last thing he sees, before it all goes black, is the image of the Specter reaching for him.

---

march, 2018

Mrs. Seers stands over Ryan and the O'Connells. She almost looks normal; if you didn't look too hard, you might think nothing was wrong. She's wearing one of her dorky teacher t-shirts—All the best science jokes Argon—and she looks like she could be standing up at the front of the classroom, talking about genetics. (Ryan wonders how much of his old teacher is still left in there.) But the eyes are where it becomes clear; when you look her in the eyes, you see that she isn't there. It's all something else.

Ryan bites back a shudder, looking back down at the kid. He's not as babyfaced anymore, but he still looks very small, lying prone in the floor and tucked into his father's side.

“Let Robbie go,” Ryan says, angry, as he looks down at Robbie's surprisingly peaceful face. “Let him and his father go.”

“And why would I do that?”

The voice barely even sounds like Mrs. Seers anymore. It's deeper, ominous. Ryan scrubs a hand over his face. “Because you don't want them,” he says tiredly, climbing to his feet. He feels too vulnerable, crouched on the ground. “You want me, cause of what my parents and Uncle Jared did.”

“And you think that means I am finished with them?” It sounds almost amused. “I have an increased interest in these two, you know. I have been watching them for a long time.”

Ryan's face grows red with some kind of righteous anger. “How the hell did you even get them here anyway?” he blurts, though it's a totally irrational question to ask. (What does that matter?)

He can practically feel it smirking. “Joy Seers is not the only one that I control.”

Ryan ducks his head to look down at Robbie and the sheriff again. Robbie needs a haircut, needs to trim those overlong bangs and the hair in the back; Sheriff O'Connell has circles under his eyes and stubble along his jaw; he looks exhausted, a fact which is probably partially colored by the fact that he's unconscious. He sighs, screwing his eyes shut. “Let me take a wild guess at your plans, okay? You're gonna make me kill them. Robbie and Sheriff O'Connell, and maybe even Mrs. Seers. That way, everyone thinks I'm a psycho, just like Uncle Jared.” He swallows hard, his mouth dry at the thought, cold sweat breaking out on the back of his neck. “Everyone’ll think they were right about me all along.”

There is silence to that, in lieu of an answer. When Ryan looks back, he sees no clear indication as to whether or not that's the plan. Mrs. Seers's face is still, stony and neutral.

“Or maybe not,” he says. “But either way, you shouldn't do it. You shouldn't make me hurt Robbie. You don't want me to hurt Robbie. He's still a little kid, and you've been haunting him for such a short time. You've been haunting me for years now, way longer than him. If he dies, you can't haunt him anymore.”

Still no response from the ghost. Ryan rocks forward on his heels, climbing into a standing position. “Put Robbie outside,” he prods. “Him and his father. I don't think you want to see them dead, not really. I think you want a chance to keep torturing them.”

“I do not think you know anything of what I want, Ryan Caruthers.”

“Maybe not.” He crosses his arms, ignoring his trembling hands; he's scared shitless and trying like hell not to show it, but he's also being urged on by some crazed shot of adrenaline, maybe even courage. He has to get Robbie and his father out of here, no matter what the cost. He's not going to let another kid's life be ruined by this. “But I know you want to see me hurt. And I don't think the way you want to do that is by making me kill Robbie. I think you used him to lure me here.”

The ghost says nothing. Ryan has no idea if this is going to work—these crazy assumptions about why the ghost won't hurt Robbie—but he knows he has to try to convince it. Who is he if he doesn't try? The next step is scooping up Robbie and somehow trying to carry him out of the house—which probably won't work, but he has to try.

He shifts in place, arms crossed tightly over his chest, glaring just a little. “Let them go,” he says evenly. “You wanted me, but this wasn't part of the deal. Let them go.”

---

Willoughby is a surprisingly short drive from Winchester; they're in the town, and halfway to Church Street, within ten minutes. Scully drives, as quiet and tense as she was on the ride up. Mulder is talking with Jared, turned around in the passenger seat to face the backseat. Jared is explaining his theory about Church Street being a center of power, of sorts, holding a messy file he'd taken from the apartment before they left on his lap. “I know it sounds crazy,” he says, “but I've done some research. There seems to be a divide between sighting the Specter before a bad occurrence, and the Specter actually causing the bad occurrence by way of possession. For example, in the entry about the Specter in Folklore of Rural Virginia discusses the soldier who lost his arm in World War I seeing the ghost in France. That accident wasn't caused by the soldier himself, and the sighting was miles away from Willoughby. In comparison, the sightings in Willoughby vary from simple visual sighting to actual causing, but it seems to be related to distance from the church.”

“How do you figure that?” Mulder asks, leaning over the back of the seat.

“The most obvious example is Marion and Ian's deaths.” Jared grimaces a little, shaking his head. “They lived right down the street. And by my calculations, most of the fatal or near-fatal sightings that aren't related to natural causes took place within a two-mile radius.” He flips the file on his lap open to a map of Willoughby. “The fire that Sheriff O'Connell was in, the one that Ryan set—Ryan told me about it, and he suspected that the Specter possessed the sheriff to lure him back into the building, and then led him out at just the right time. I know it sounds crazy, but…”

“No,” Mulder says, remembering the day of the fire. The strange way that the sheriff acted just before they left for the cemetery, the way that he tried to convince Mulder to go back in. The period of time he couldn't remember that coincided with the time he went back into the building. “No, that actually makes sense.”

Jared looks a little relieved. He nods, and taps the map again. “Here is a car accident that Deputy Kenneth Jacobs was in, November of 2015. Two blocks over from the church. In comparison, the car accident on Halloween of 2016—I think the person who crashed was Ryan's teacher—was only one block over. And Holly's death…” He takes a deep, slow breath and taps a woody-looking area. “Holly died less than a mile away from the church, back in the woods behind the church. In addition, the battle that made General Willoughby famous took place about a mile from the church, right here… and I'm not sure whether or not the ghost possessed the general or not, but there were certainly a lot of deaths in that battle.”

Mulder cranes his neck to look at the map. Jared's circled a lot of spots with brief notes as to what happened on that spot. Ruined crop, ruined tests/haunting in classroom, dead parakeet, eviction, break-in… The more mundane stuff does seem to be more distanced from Church Street. “Your theory does make sense,” he says, studying it closer. “You said you've been seeing it, right? In Pennsylvania? Did it ever cause anything?”

“No, it just… haunted,” Jared says with a shrug. “What about you?”

“Pretty much the same. I've only ever seen it conscious in Willoughby. Everything else has been dreams.” Mulder runs a thumb across the map, from red circle to red circle, and lands directly over the church. And that's when he remembers something: the washable cross tattoos Ryan used to wear on the back of his hands. The cross necklace Joy Seers was wearing the night of her accident, that stretched out in mid-air with nothing holding it and snapped. The story that Joy Seers told, about the Specter being the spirit of a man who worshipped the devil, of the ghost itself being demonic. “Why do you think that the ghost's power is centered at the church?” he asks. He's thinking of hallowed ground. Of the crumpled silver chain in Joy Seers's palm.

“I figure that it has to do with the cemetery,” Jared says. “Holly and Ben told me years ago that they buried the man convicted of murder and devil worship there, albeit in an unmarked grave just off the grounds, on the edge of the woods.”

That does seem to make some sense. “I was wondering about that,” says Mulder, “because I figured that it wouldn't be able to enter hallowed ground…”

“Mulder.” Scully nudges him in the arm, and he turns to look at her. “We're turning onto Church Street,” she says softly.

Mulder nods and turns around to watch the road, the houses passing by. “You still think Robbie and Ryan are at the site of the old apartment building?” he asks over his shoulder. “The original building burned down, they might have built something else…”

“I recognize the property,” Jared says in a hushed, tight voice. “It should be coming up here on the right…”

“Mulder,” Scully says, and she's suddenly seizing his arm tightly. “Mulder, there's people right over there, and they're lying on the ground.”

His breath catches in his throat as he sees what Scully is looking at: two figures, lying on the dirt outside of a brand new house, one large and one small. “Jesus Christ,” Jared breathes.

Scully abruptly pulls the car into Park at the edge of the driveway and the three of them pile out. Mulder reaches the figures first as it becomes clear who they are: Robbie and Joe O'Connell, clustered together at the foot of the steps to the house. He kneels beside them and takes their pulse as Scully and Jared catch up to them. “They're still alive, they're still alive,” he gasps out.

Scully pushes past him and leans over to examine them. Mulder gets to his feet and reaches for his cell phone. “I'll call Deputy Jacobs.”

“Wait a second,” Jared says, his voice suddenly imbued with panic. “Where's Ryan?”

Mulder looks up and scans the area looking for signs of Ryan somewhere nearby. Nothing. Only the quietened surrounding houses, the newly finished house before them, and the trees behind it. There is a loud crash inside the house, and his stomach lurches instinctively. Jared runs for the door and yanks on the handle; when it doesn't open, he begins pounding on it with his hand.

Mulder starts towards the door, but stops at the feeling of Scully's hand on his arm. “I think they're both fine,” she says, her voice full of relief. “I think they've just been drugged, although I'd like to do a more comprehensive exam, if possible.” She gets to her feet beside him, her eyes shifting to the house. Another cacophonous crash comes from inside, and Scully winces, tensing beside him. “Is Ryan in there?” she asks, nervous.

Another crash occurs, closer to the door this time, and Jared smacks the door hard with the flat of his palm. A few seconds later, the door swings open hard, catching Jared in the ribs. He stumbles down to the bottom of the stairs, just as someone begins to come out of the house, practically falling out the door. “Whoa!” Mulder yelps, surging forward to catch the person as they start to tumble down the doorsteps.

The door slams shut hard behind them; Jared stumbles back up the stairs to yank on the door, but it is solidly closed, not coming open at his tugs. He shouts his nephew's name, going back to pounding on the door.

Mulder lowers the person to the ground as it becomes clear who it is: Joy Seers. Scully kneels beside her to examine her, reaching down to take her pulse, but Joy yanks away at the contact, wincing as she opens her eyes. “Ouch,” she murmurs, lifting a hand to her head.

“Joy? Are you okay?” Scully helps her to sit up.

“W-what happened?” Joy asks foggily, blinking blearily as she scans her surroundings. “Where am I?”

“You're outside a house on Church Street,” Mulder offers. “Do you remember anything?”

“Are you feeling dizzy? Nauseous? Is your vision fuzzy?” Scully asks, bending her head to look at Joy's pupils.

Joy waves her off absently, shaking her head. “I'm fine, I'm fine. I just have a headache… What am I doing here? What hap—” She breaks off, grimacing fiercely. “Shit. It happened again, didn't it?”

“What happened again?” Mulder asks.

“I-I've been experiencing… missing time, I guess, since I woke up. Things I can't remember doing…” She rubs at her forehead, her eyes shut with frustration. “T-the last thing I remember is a call from the sheriff… A really weird call. I don't really know the sheriff that well, but, uh… he wanted me to come to the…” Her eyes widen, as if realizing something. “The new house on Church Street.” She rubs her forehead again. “That's the last thing I remember. After that, it all went black.” She scans the area again until she sees the sheriff and Robbie, slumped together on the ground. “Oh, shit,” she says, her voice numb and full of panic. “Is that… is that the sheriff and his kid?”

“Yes,” Scully says gently, getting to her feet. She offers a hand to help Joy up, and Joy takes it. “They seem to be okay. I think they've just been drugged.”

Horror spreads across Joy's face; she immediately pales, stumbling as she stands. “Drugged?” she repeats. “D-did I…?”

Scully immediately looks like she regrets saying anything. Mulder says, as delicately as he knows how, “We don't know for sure. But whatever happened… I don't think any of it was your fault.”

Scully shoots him a look, either to say, We don't know that, Mulder, or, Don't tell her your possession theory, Mulder, or you'll scare her. Joy buries her face in her hands. “Fuck,” she mutters. “Fuck. This is some fucked-up thing left over from what happened that night of my accident. Whatever I felt overtake me in that car never left.”

Another enormous crash comes from the house, and all of them jump. Jared takes a break from pounding desperately on the door to turn to them. “You were in there?” he asks Joy, and she nods uncertainly. “Is my nephew in there?” he says, his voice cracking. “Please, you have to tell me, please…”

“I-I don't remember,” Joy says apologetically, her voice soft and unsteady.

Jared shakes his head hard, his jaw clenched. “W-we have to get in there,” he blurts. “We have to find him, Agent Mulder, I-I can't let this happen again…”

“We're going to find him,” Scully says, holding a hand up as if to calm him. She exchanged a quick look with Mulder, as if silently saying, We need to get these people out of here, Mulder. She slips past Jared and tries the door herself, tugging hard.

“That hasn't been working,” Jared says impatiently.

“It’s okay. We're going to find a way in.” Scully's voice is strained, as if she's trying to hold onto her patience. “Mulder, you should probably call Deputy Jacobs and get him down here to deal with all of this.”

He clears his throat, and jerks his head at Joy Seers and, just past her, the O'Connells. “I dunno that it's a good idea, Scully,” he says softly, trying to convey what he's thinking. Depending on what happened here—or what someone may think has happened here—they could possibly convict Joy Seers or Sheriff O'Connell on kidnapping charges. He's not sure exactly what Sheriff O'Connell's involvement is, but he's assuming that the man would never willingly drug his son and himself and put them in danger.

She sighs, shaking her head. “Okay, but one of us needs to stay out here and make sure—”

There's another loud crash inside the house, followed by a loud yelp. Jared's face goes whiter than it was before, his eyes widening, and he reaches on the ground and grabs a rock, throwing it hard at a window. The glass shatters.

Scully whirls on her heel. “Jared, stop,” she says, almost pleading, but Jared isn't listening. He peels off his jacket and wraps it around his hand, knocking the excess glass out of the window. He shakes the little flakes of glass off of his jacket, puts it back on, and starts to boost himself up.

Scully's at his side immediately, tugging him back. “Jared, stop!” she says again, sterner this time, as Mulder appears behind them. “You're not law enforcement. You can't go in there.”

“And this is not a criminal!” Jared snaps, nearly shouting. “I have to go in there, Agent Scully, he's my nephew. He's my nephew, and I can't… I can't lose anyone else…” His voice breaks, and he slumps away from the house, wipes his eyes, his head hanging down in defeat.

“You're not going to lose anyone else,” Mulder says softly, reaching out to grip Jared's shoulder. “But, Jared, if you go in there, there's no telling what could happen. It could go the way it did before, remember? The ghost could use you again.”

He winces. He nods, biting his lower lip. Mulder nods, too, and looks instinctively over at Scully. Her jaw is clenched, and she looks almost shaken—which may be spurned, a bit, by the crashing sounds coming from the house—but when she sees him looking, she seems to purposefully loosen up. “I'll go in,” she says.

“Scully, you don't have to do that—” he tries.

“Mulder, I'm the only one who can fit through there,” she chides, gently, shooting him a look. “It'll be fine. I'll go in and get Ryan, and we'll get them out of here.”

Mulder nods, a bit reluctantly—he would really rather go in, just because of the danger the ghost poses, and because he's not sure that Scully even believes in the ghost (she never gave him an answer in the car), but he can tell that there's no use arguing with her. “Sure you don't want me to go with you?” he asks.

“No, you stay out here with them,” she says. “If Robbie or the sheriff wake up, make sure that they aren't feeling dizzy or sick. I'll be out in a second, okay?”

Mulder nods, and gives her a boost up. She climbs through the window, landing gingerly on the other side. “Ryan?” she calls, cautiously, drawing her gun and moving further into the house—out of sight of the window.

“I don't think it'll help,” Jared says from behind Mulder. He turns to look at him questioningly, and the other man shrugs. “Getting out of here. The most we can hope to do is get far enough away that it can't hurt us too badly, but that might be further than we can go. My sister's house is two and a half miles away from here, and the ghost still managed to send Ryan down the stairs and threaten Annie with scissors. And the hospital and the police station both are only a mile away. I don't know that we can get away from the Specter… I don't know that we ever could.”

“Agent Mulder?” He turns around again to see Joy shooting him a confused look. She's holding something in her hand, and when Mulder draws closer, he recognizes it: prayer beads, just like the kind Scully used to keep at the house. Albeit, they look a little cheaper, but he recognizes them. Joy smudges a bead between two fingers. “These aren't mine,” she says. “But I found them in my back pocket. Do you have any idea where these came from?”

---

Almost as soon as Scully enters the house, her call for Ryan still echoing off the empty walls, the crashing sounds stop. So abruptly that she freezes a little in the entryway, still clutching her gun. She starts to wonder if it's a bad idea to have her gun out—she can almost hear Mulder's amused voice saying, You can't shoot a ghost, Scully. Normally, that sort of statement would be received with, It's a good thing ghosts aren't real, Mulder. But she's past that now, at least on this case. She's far past that. She doesn't completely understand what's been happening here in Willoughby, but she knows it can't be boiled down to, Ghosts aren't real.

She keeps her gun out. She walks further into the house.

Whatever's happening in this house—be it a human perpetrator (she hopes), or an apparition of sorts—she’s glad she volunteered to come in. She doesn't know what any of this means, but she does know this: unless Mulder has been leaving out his own encounters with whatever this is (and that doesn't seem likely), she has seen this more often and more recently. And if that means what it seems to mean, then Mulder getting too close to the ghost could mean danger. It seems to make sense: she saw this before her mother died, she dreamed about it the night before she thought Mulder was in a fire, and she saw it directly after the ordeal in Norfolk. Aside from the strange period in her apartment just before the case in Henrico County, all of her experiences have been linked to losing or almost losing someone she loves. And she doesn't want to risk that, as silly as it sounds; she doesn't want to risk Mulder. She'd just like to find Ryan and get him to safety, to leave Willoughby and forget all of this. She really just wants to go back home.

Scully goes into the next room—what she guesses is the living room, based off of the furniture—and is stunned by what she sees. It looks like a hurricane has ripped through here: the furniture is turned onto its side, the cheap decorations that the realtor probably put out are scattered or shattered around the room. Her breath catches in her throat and she calls out, more nervous than before, “Ryan? Ryan, it's Agent Scully.”

There's nothing, at first. And then she hears a muffled, angry voice: “Go away!”

Pain explodes suddenly in Scully's skull, as if a knife has sliced through it. Accompanying this pain is a sharp, painful ringing sound that rattles against her eardrums. Scully cries out softly, clapping a hand to the side of her head, wincing. She shakes her head hard, as if to shake the feeling, and it only increases, the ringing sharpening in intensity. Her stomach rolls; she stumbles a little. “Ryan, where are you?” she calls, biting back a whimper of pain.

“You have to get out of here!” Ryan shouts. “You can't fucking be in here!”

“Ryan, we're here to help you,” Scully calls out again, putting a hand to the wall for balance. Her vision is fuzzy, her head spinning; she wonders if she hit her head somehow. She resists the urge to call for Mulder. “I-I came to get you out of here!”

Something yanks hard on her hand, and her gun tumbles out of her hand. She blinks hard, crouches on the floor and reaches for it, but it goes flying out of her reach. Another sharp pain shoots through her head, and she bites back a groan. She starts to reach for the gun, but a force slams hard into her, pushing her backwards. She smacks into the wall with her shoulder, her head bumping against it, and slides bonelessly to the floor.

The ringing fades, but the pain remains. She presses her fingers to her forehead and takes a deep breath, another. She's thinking that this was unwise. She's thinking that it was silly to come in here alone. She presses her hand hard to her face and rests her pounding head against the wall. She doesn't know how to get out of here. She has to get Ryan out of here, but she doesn't know if she can move. She considers calling Ryan again. She reconsiders calling Mulder.

She hears footsteps creaking on the floor, the crunch of what sounds like broken plastic underfoot. “Agent Scully?” she hears Ryan asks, and his voice doesn't sound as angry now. She pulls her hands down from her face, lifting her head with a groan, and immediately gasps at the sight.

Ryan's face is bruised, and so are his arms, yellow-brown spots blooming on his skin; his eye is black, his lip is split. It looks like he has been in a fight, or like someone attacked him. “Jesus,” she breathes, trying her best to sit up. “Ryan, are you okay?”

“You've got to get out of here,” he says quietly. “It wants you, and it's not going to let you go.”

She swallows, a bitter taste in her mouth. “I'm getting you out of here, Ryan.”

“No, you're not,” he murmurs sadly. In his right hand, he's clutching an unopened pocket knife.

Behind Ryan, Scully hears a sudden creaking sound, like more footsteps. She sees a dark shape over his shoulder, like the shape she saw in her mirror once. Something seems to sputter in her chest, seize up with fear; she freezes, unable to move.

There's a sudden, sharp yank, and her cross necklace is pulled sharply to the side. She coughs, chokes as the necklace bites into her neck. Her fingers scrabble at the chain, trying to pull it away; her mind lands on Joy Seers, her own broken cross necklace and the red line across her neck. She gasps for air, her eyes jerking around the room and landing on the gun. She tries to move towards it, lunging forward; the chain yanks tighter, pulling so hard her vision turns red for a second, before it snaps. She can hear the sound from here.

Gulping in air desperately, Scully tries to move towards the gun, towards the door, but it's too late. The dark shape is already looming over her. She feels something cold overtake her.

The last thing she hears is Ryan saying, “I told you,” just before it all goes black.

---

“It sounds like you've been possessed,” Jared is explaining to Joy Seers. They are clustered with Mulder at the side of the house, attention shifting from the house itself to the O'Connells. Mulder is as distracted as Jared, who seems to be channeling his energy into explaining things to Joy Seers. He's explained his theory about the church, and now they're discussing the weird activity that Joy's been experiencing. Jared keeps rocking back and forth on his heels, eyes darting to the house, gesturing with his hands. Mulder is mostly listening, filled with nervous energy as he keeps looking back at the house for Scully. He's silently trying to figure out what the hell they're going to do about this. If the Specter is hurting Ryan this way, this can't go on any further—it shouldn't have gone this far in the first place. (It probably wouldn't have gone this far if Mulder had just stayed and tried to figure out a way to banish the ghost in the first place. If he'd listened to Ryan instead of dismissing it as something that could be put off. This is probably as much his fault as anyone else's.)

“That makes a lot of sense,” says Joy in response to Jared, a decent degree of guilt in her voice. She squeezes her eyes shut in a brief grimace. “I just… can't believe that I'd… I don't know what I did to the sheriff and Robbie, and Ryan… Or what else I did during the times I can't remember…”

“It's a lot to deal with,” says Jared, his own voice thick with guilt. He runs a hand over his face, grimacing hard. “But… whatever it made you do, it wasn't really you. That's one thing I've had trouble remembering, but it's something you have to remember, or you'll drive yourself crazy. It wasn't you. It wasn't in your control.”

Mulder nods in absent agreement; he rises up on his tiptoes to look in the window of the house and sees nothing. It's almost frighteningly silent in there. Jared sees him looking, and nervousness dances over his face; he cranes his neck to look in himself. “What do you think is happening in there?” he asks, and Mulder has no answer. He'd go inside himself if he wasn't worried about leaving the rest of them alone.

At that moment, there is the sound of someone stirring on the dirt. Mulder turns in time to see Sheriff O'Connell sit up, blearily and confused, rubbing at his forehead. “Wha-what happened?” He looks down at his son, asleep on the ground, and lays a hand over his head. “Rob?” he whispers, horrified.

It reminds Mulder too much of the parents in Eastwood, even though Robbie is more or less fine. He moves to the sheriff's side, crouching beside him. “He's okay. He's just fine,” he says warily. “My partner examined him—she’s a doctor—and she thinks that you've both been sedated, but she says you should both be fine.”

“Who… How… Who the hell sedated us, Agent Mulder?” O'Connell snaps, wrapping his arms protectively around his son. His eyes scan the scene and fall on Jared, full of malice. “D-did that fucking criminal hurt my son?” he hisses. “What the hell is he doing here?”

“He's out on parole,” Mulder says, hoping his voice sounds soothing—he wishes Scully was here, she's better at this type of thing. “He had nothing to do with this. Agent Scully and I went to pick him up so we could look for Ryan. Your deputy asked us to check for an alibi, which he had. Jared thought that Ryan might've gone looking for Robbie, and he thought he could help us find them. But he didn't touch your son.”

Jared looks away from them, down at the ground with his hands in his pockets. Sheriff O'Connell is still furious. “Well, then, what happened? Where the hell are we, and who brought us here?”

“You're outside that new house on Church Street,” says Mulder. “As for how you got here…” He trails off, genuinely unsure of what to say.

Joy Seers steps up, standing beside Mulder and peering apologetically down. “Sheriff, my name is Joy Seers,” she says. “Do you remember calling me earlier today?”

“No,” the sheriff snaps, his brow furrowed.

“You called me and asked me to meet you here,” Joy prods, gently. “You don't remember that?”

“I—” O'Connell breaks off mid-sentence, his face crumpling in horror. “I-I actually think I do remember that,” he whispers. “I… why the hell would I do that?”

Mulder doesn't know what to say. The obvious conclusion in all of this is that Sheriff O'Connell brought Robbie here, but it's a hard thing to reconcile. “It might not have really been you,” Joy offers grimly.

O'Connell looks confused, but Jared, on the front steps of the house, speaks before O'Connell can question that claim further. “Agent Mulder, look at this.”

Mulder stands and turns to face him. The door of the house is open, just slightly, the knob under Jared's hand. “I just touched it—just slightly—and it swung open,” he says, giving Mulder an urgent, pleading look. “I-I still can't hear anything.”

The silence coming from the house is eerie. No footsteps, no voices, no crashing sounds. The silence is more or less what seals the deal for Mulder.

“I'm going in there,” he says. He considers, briefly, drawing his gun, but he's not sure what the point would be. You can hardly subdue a ghost with a gun. “You all stay out here,” he says firmly, taking his gun out only to unload it, dropping the bullets to the dirt. (The last thing he wants to do is be forced to shoot someone. Another repeat of the Modell incident.) “Keep an eye on Robbie.” Joy and Jared nod. Sheriff O'Connell says nothing; he looks down at his son in his lap and strokes his hair.

Mulder nods back, tucking the empty gun back in his holster, before taking a deep breath and entering the house. He halfway expects the door to slam shut behind him—a complete horror movie cliché, but he's seen a cliché or two in his lifetime—but the door stays half-open, the cold air from outside leaking in.

The front hall is dimly lit. Mulder walks further into the house, pulling a penlight out of his pocket and pointing it ahead of him. “Scully?” he calls out. “Ryan?” There's no answer. He shines the penlight down the hallway, along the shadowy staircase. There's no signs of anyone in here.

“Scully?” he calls out again. He passes an open doorway, with a room a bit more lit from the dim light outside, and pauses at the sight of the room. It's in shambles; it looks as if a tornado has ripped through. Stepping in the doorway, Mulder's breath catches in his throat as he recognizes something in the mess of furniture and tacky knick-knacks: Scully's gun, sprawled out on the floor.

He rushes to scoop it off the floor, gasping a little, and scans the room for any other signs that she's been here. He spots a scuff mark on the floorboards that he recognizes as the heels on her shoes scuffing across the floor—she fell, or something pushed her—and then, upon looking further, he sees a crumpled chain of gold on the ground. A tiny, familiar cross, and beside it, an equally familiar circlet of gold. One he recognizes from sliding onto her finger, bumping it over her knuckle, kissing her outside a DC courthouse.

His throat tightens instinctively, and he bellows her name. Drops to his knees and scoops up the cross and the ring, tucking them into his pocket. “Scully?” he calls out again, his voice cracking. He stumbles back to his feet, her gun in his hand, his heart pounding in his chest. He's thinking, involuntarily, of every person who's ever been hurt by the Willoughby Specter, the things that have happened to them and the things they've been driven to do; he's thinking of Joy Seers and the broken cross, the night that she had her car accident. He pushes into the next room and the next with no sign of Scully, until he reaches the kitchen and finds the back door hanging open. “Scully!” he shouts, pushing out on the back step.

There's no answer. He peers desperately out at the trees behind the house, one hand on Scully's gun and the other clutching her cross and ring so hard in his pocket that he knows it will leave a mark on his palm. And then he sees it, out among the dark foliage: a flash of bright hair.

---

The three adults sit where Agent Mulder left them, in front of the house. No cars drive by, and no neighbors come out to find out what the hell is going on; Joy is grateful that Willoughby is such a sleepy town: that the houses usually aren't too close together, and that people don't really come out after eight or nine o'clock. The last thing they need is for someone to see them and call the cops.

The men seem even tenser than she is. The sheriff is absorbed in his son, holding him on his lap; Jared Caruthers is watching the house, his jaw clenched, waiting for signs of his nephew. They all jump when they hear Agent Mulder bellow for his partner, somewhere behind the house. Jared clenches his jaw and shakes his head. “I don't like this,” he says tightly. “I have to do something. I-I can't just sit here and let this happen again.”

“Agent Mulder told us to stay out here,” the sheriff says in a tense, emotionless voice. “Who knows what will happen if you go back there.”

Jared chews at his lower lip, clutching his knees. And then an idea seems to overtake him. He shifts and turns to Joy. “I think I have an idea,” he says. “If you don't mind me asking, uh… you're married to Ben Seers, right?”

“Yes, he's my husband,” Joy says, wishing that the words didn't fill her with a strong, selfish desire to go home. She's already lost so much time with him; she's missed him so much. “You knew him because of Holly, right?”

“Yeah, we were, uh… acquaintances.” Jared licks his lower lip. “Anyway, I don't know if you know where I was arrested, but…”

“It was here,” Sheriff O'Connell says suddenly, and he waves a hand at the steeple visible down the street. “We found you back in that cemetery, right there.”

Jared nods, tensely. “Right.” He turns back to Joy. “W-well, I was there because of something your husband told me. He told me that the man he believed to be the Specter was buried in that cemetery, right back there. And I had something of a theory at the time; I thought that if I destroyed the body of the man who became the Specter, the Specter would be destroyed, too. Which fits with my theory that the cemetery is sort of a center of power for the Specter.” (He'd explained that one to Joy in the period before Agent Mulder went into the house.) “It's silly,” he adds awkwardly, his eyes darting towards Sheriff O'Connell as if expecting ridicule from him, “and it probably wouldn't work, but…”

“No,” Joy says, her mind working. Ben has always been more tentative about talking about the ghost since Holly—in the time she's known him, he really only talks about the Specter when he's drunk or in the midst of a research project, or when Joy herself has gotten fired up about the ghost—but he's mentioned the cemetery almost as often as he's mentioned his demonic theory. “No, I think it makes sense, at least a little bit of sense. I think if we could find the grave, it's worth a try as much as anything else is.”

They both look at the sheriff almost instinctively, as if expecting him to disapprove. Digging up a grave, even the three-hundred year old grave of a criminal, seems unethical, not to mention illegal. But the sheriff looks more annoyed than disapproving. Looking down at his son in his lap, he shrugs dismissively.

“Let's do it,” Jared says, his voice nervous and excited all at once. “I'm not going to just sit here while that fucking demon hurts my nephew. I've got to do something to try and stop it.”

Joy nods determinedly and gets to her feet. If you'd asked her yesterday if she expected to spend her evening running around with a convicted murderer out on parole and grave-robbing, she would've thought you were full of shit. But at the moment, that doesn't seem to be so important. She's spent half her time since waking up from a coma being possessed by the demonic spirit that destroyed her classroom and caused the coma in the first place, a spirit that has apparently caused the death of several others. She's more than willing to break a couple laws if it means getting rid of that spirit.

The two of them begin walking down the sidewalk towards the old church, towards the steeple rising over the houses.

---

Mulder stumbles towards the woods without a second thought, towards the flash of Scully's hair. He doesn't call her name again—some unexplainable instinct seems to warn against it—and he realizes what a good idea this is after a few seconds. He catches glimpses of Scully in the trees ahead, flashing in and out of sight, and it looks very much like she has Ryan Caruthers by the arm and is marching him through the woods. In her free hand, he sees the flash of moonlight on metal. He knows then, immediately, what is happening.

Simply for the reasoning of wanting to avoid being possessed himself, he takes Scully's cross out of his pocket and twists it awkwardly around his wrist like a bracelet. He needs to help Scully, and he needs to get Ryan out of here before he gets hurt, and he doesn't want to risk losing control and hurting someone himself.

It feels right. Before, when Scully had lost her cross, he would always wear it in some small attempt to hold onto her. This feels a little pathetic in comparison, but it's still something. He tucks Scully's gun into the waistband of his pants—his holster is full, and he doesn't want to end up pointing the gun at Scully or the kid—and follows them at a faster pace, his feet pounding the dead leaves.

The closer Mulder gets, the better he can hear what is happening; Ryan is protesting, loudly, but not in the way that you might expect. It's more of a contemptuous type of protest. “So what's your plan now?” he snaps, trying to yank his arm away. Mulder can't see Scully's face, but he sees that she is stiff and unyielding, clutching Ryan's arm hard without loosening her grip. Ryan stumbles a bit, digging his feet into the dirt. “Let me guess. The FBI agent is gonna kill me and feel guilty, and then everyone else feels guilty because I died? Maybe you frame Uncle Jared for the murder? I get stabbed, just like my parents did? You're pretty unoriginal, even for a ghost.”

There's no response. But as Mulder pursues them, far enough back that he's still halfway hoping no one will see him until he can figure out what to do about this, he sees Scully yank hard on Ryan's arm, making him whimper a tiny bit in pain as he stumbles again. He sees the flash of metal, the blade of a knife, as she lifts her hand. And that's when he pushes forward through the trees finally. “Scully, stop!” he says firmly, reaching out and grabbing her wrist, pulling her hand away from Ryan's arm, prying her fingers off. He forgets, momentarily, that this is not Scully.

She turns towards him, and at the sight of her, it is not hard to remember. Her face is blank, hard and full of malice; she has never looked at him like this, not even in their worst moments. Her eyes are blank and fierce. It's her face, but she's not in there.

He halfway expects the knife to come swinging at him, but there's no movement. Scully—or the ghost inside of Scully—just stands there, staring at him as if contemplating. Ryan isn't being held in place anymore but he still doesn't move, standing dumbly in place, watching like he's waiting for something to happen. “Ryan, get out of here,” Mulder commands. His hand is still on Scully's wrist, but it's not Scully, it's not Scully.

Ryan's mouth is hanging open. He says tentatively, “I'm not sure I should…”

“Go,” Mulder snaps, so firmly it almost stuns him.

Ryan hesitates only a moment longer, looking between them nervously, before he takes off in a run, back towards the house. Mulder half expects the ghost to pursue, but it doesn't move. It just keeps watching him, beneath the shell of his wife.

He wonders if she is aware of what's happening, if this is somewhat like the situation with Modell. “Scully, can you hear me?” he asks gently.

She tips her head to the side, and chuckles. When she—it—speaks, it is like further confirmation. The voice doesn't sound like Scully. It sounds like a thin, bitter parody of Scully. It barely even sounds like a person.

“Fox Mulder,” it says. “I have been watching the two of you for some time.”

“I want to talk to Scully,” he says roughly.

It tips Scully's chin, just a bit, and Mulder involuntarily remembers all the times one of them has been imitated or taken over or the like. “I do not think that would be wise.” It smiles, and it is so easy to remember that it's not Scully, because that's not Scully's smile, nothing about this is like Scully. Mulder bites back a shudder. “I like to fuck with the two of you. I have enjoyed it for a couple of years now. I like to see your pain and worry—yours and Dana's. But you never stay in town for long. And now you are here… it would be a lost opportunity if I did not take advantage of this.”

“Let her go,” Mulder growls, furious. He can feel her pulse under his fingers, frantic and rapid; she's in there, she's somewhere in there. “Just let her go. Take me instead.” It's a futile attempt, and one that probably wouldn't solve very much, but he thinks that Scully would be better at handling this.

“I do not think so. I think that it is fitting that Dana be the one to do this. I have spent much more time with her, and I know what she fears.” It smiles cruelly again. “And I know what you fear. I can feel your fear right now.”

“That's all well and good, Pennywise,” Mulder snaps, fed up, “but I still don't understand what the hell you want with us.”

“It is not obvious yet? You are not nearly as intelligent as I believed.” Scully's hand lifts seamlessly, the point of the knife slicing through the air. But the blade doesn't move towards Mulder, as he may have expected. It moves towards Scully, towards her neck. “I wonder which would be better,” it says contemplatively. “To have her hurt you… or to have you watch her die.”

Something in Mulder snaps, a wonderful fury rising in him. He grabs Scully's other wrist, harder than he should, and tries to yank the knife away from her. With the other hand, he releases her arm and reaches out to press his own wrist—the wrist with her necklace around it, the cross charm biting into the soft skin underneath his arm—against hers, against the V in her suit collar where the necklace would normally rest. He presses the charm against her skin in some small attempt to get the ghost out.

But it doesn't work the way he expects. Scully yelps, as if in pain—and that time it sounds like her, it sounds just like her, her pain—and tries to yank away. With one hand, she seizes his wrist, her hand on the chain part of the necklace (fingers avoiding the cross), and pulls it away harder than he'd expected. With the other hand, she slashes at the air. The point of the knife descends and catches Mulder directly in the arm. He lets out his own yowl and releases her involuntarily.

As soon as he lets go, she's gone, the spirit in her body driving her further into the woods. Mulder swears, pressing a hand hard to the torn section of his jacket, to the cut seeping blood underneath. He'd thought that he might be able to get the ghost out with the cross, but it had clearly hurt her, caused her pain. He doesn't know how he can help her if his attempts only hurt her; the ghost is like a parasite, the ghost practically is Scully now, and he'll have to separate them to be able to protect Scully. But he doesn't know how to do that if his only attempts hurt her.

He swears again, tucking his hurt arm close to his body and scanning the horizon, and that's when he remembers: the ghost still has the knife. Scully is possessed, and she still has the knife, and there's nothing standing in the way of the ghost forcing her to hurt herself now.

Mulder takes off at a furious run after them.

---

Joe has been sitting on the ground so long his ass hurts, his son lying limply across his lap. He's still breathing, breathing steadily and healthily, but it's not a lot of reassurance. His son is sedated. His eight-year-old son is sedated, and he doesn't know for sure, but he has the sinking suspicion that it's because of him. That it's his fault somehow. He feels absolutely sick to his stomach at the thought; he would never, ever hurt Robbie on purpose, but the missing stretch of time coupled with the teacher's claim that he called her here is making him nervous.

He strokes his son's fine hair, shuts his eyes with frustration. He just wants this night to end. He just wants to take Rob home. He doesn't know how he is ever going to explain this to Bonnie. He wouldn't blame her for one moment if she kicked him to the curb.

At the pounding of footsteps, Joe opens his eyes. A moment later, Ryan Caruthers appears around the side of the house, panting hard, his ribs heaving as he gasps for air. His face is bruised; it looks like he's been in a fight. He casts his eyes around desperately and lands on Joe and Robbie. “S-s-sheriff,” he stammers, nervous. He seems to zero in on Robbie, his eyes widening. “Is Robbie okay?” he whispers.

Joe swallows uncomfortably. The few times he's actually seen the kid since he got out of juvie have been awkward as hell. What happened with the fire was enough to turn Bonnie away from Ryan permanently, but strangely enough, the incident almost warmed Joe to the kid. He cried in the police station, for fuck's sake; he swore up and down that he didn't know that Joe was in there. He looks exactly the same now as he did that night: wide, teary eyes, pale and frightened. He looks like a scared child, and the sight of the bruises on his face makes it even worse. A year or two ago—hell, maybe even an hour ago—Joe might've blamed Ryan for everything, but tonight, he finds he cannot.

“I think he's okay,” Joe says quietly. He scoops Robbie into his arms, gangly limbs flopping every which way and head lolling on his shoulders, and gets to his feet. “Why don't we get out of here, Ryan? Get you to safety.” He still isn't sure what, exactly, is happening here, but he knows that it probably has something to do with the Specter, and that it is dangerous.

Panic dances over Ryan's face, and he shakes his head tightly. “I don't think that's a good idea,” he says. “It's too dangerous. Just… just take Robbie home and leave me here.”

“I'm not going to do that,” Joe says stubbornly, Robbie's weight heavy across his chest. He's just a kid, he thinks stubbornly, and is suddenly ashamed about everything he's ever said about Ryan in the past. He's just a kid; he's just a scared, hurt kid, and he became a cop to protect scared, hurt kids.

“You have to. It's the only way you can get out of it and get to safety,” Ryan snaps, his hands clenched into fists.

Joe is barely even thinking at this point, past the instinctual urge of, Protect your son, protect this kid. It doesn't matter what he's done or what Ryan's done, not right now; all he needs to do is get them out of here. “I'm not going to,” he says sternly. He's almost ashamed that Ryan would ever assume he would leave him. “I'm not leaving you in danger, Ryan. Either you're coming with us, or Robbie and I are staying here.”

Ryan's jaw clenches. He looks heavily irritated. He shakes his head reluctantly and sighs, “Fine.”

Something in Joe is filled with relief. Whatever happens next, at least he can get Robbie and Ryan to safety. “Okay,” he says in a gentle voice, cupping the back of Robbie's head. He jerks his chin to the left, towards the place he dimly remembers parking. “Let's go to my car.��

---

There's a shed at the east end of the cemetery, nestled up against the side of the church. The padlock is open, to Jared's relief; behind the door, he finds a shovel leaned up against the wall. He picks his way through the cemetery to the copse of trees where Joy headed, maneuvering around the graves. He stops dead in his tracks (pardon the shitty metaphor) when he comes across two graves side by side. Ian Caruthers. Marion Wilson Caruthers. His breath catches in his throat. He's never been here before, not since they were buried; he's never had the chance.

He bends forward, his hand hanging loosely, and presses his palm to the marble stone of his brother's grave. “I'm so sorry,” he whispers. “I'm so, so sorry. To both of you.” Tears drip down his cheeks, off the end of his nose. “I never wanted this to happen,” he adds. “Any of it.”

The stones remain silent, of course. Cold under his palm. He rubs callused fingers over the carved letters. “I'm going to protect your son,” he says, his deep voice cracking. It doesn't feel like he's doing anything right now—it feels like he's doing absolutely nothing, like he should be in those woods searching for Ryan, physically helping him. But this is something, he tells himself. This might be the only thing that will save Ryan; if he gets too close, he may end up being possessed again, and that's the last thing he wants. He doesn't want to hurt Ryan, under any circumstances, and he doesn't want to hurt anyone else. So he'll do this instead. “I promise,” he whispers.

Joy Seers's voice rises from the trees, on the other side of the low stone wall. “Jared? You find a shovel?”

“Be right there,” he calls. He rubs his palm over the front of the stone, whispers another apology. He scoops up the shovel and moves through the cemetery towards the edge of the wall.

Joy stands just out of sight of the cemetery, knelt over a old piece of wood. “I think I found it,” she says, poking it with the toe of her shoe. There is a series of initials and the years—1687-1738—carved sloppily on the wood, the letters and numbers faded.

“Are you sure?” Jared asks.

“Yeah. These initials match the historical records Ben showed me.”

A scream comes from deeper in the woods, followed by another one. Neither scream particularly sounds like Ryan, but the sounds still send a shiver up Jared's spine. He grits his teeth and sticks the shovel blade-first into the ground. “Here, I'll dig,” he says. If prison offered him anything worth holding onto, it's the manual labor. “Do you know how to make a fire?”

---

Up ahead, Mulder can hear feet pounding the dirt, the dead leaves. His arm stings, blood warm on his skin, his heart pounding too hard against his ribs. “Scully!” he shouts stupidly, though he knows she likely can't hear him. There is no answer.

He's scared. Terrified. He's worried he's going to be too late, he's worried he won't be able to stop it from hurting them. He used to think that ghosts couldn't hurt you, not really, but a long string of ghost-related cases was enough to convince him of the opposite. He fully believes that he and Scully would've bled out in that house in Maryland if they hadn't realized it was all in their heads—the ghosts did suggest that they'd shot each other, that they might do it again. And now, here is another ghost threatening them with a knife. He can barely fathom it.

Mulder pushes through the trees and nearly runs into Scully. She's standing still in front of him, her face still blank, her eyes still empty. She's still not there. He gulps instinctively, his ribs seeming to tighten, when he sees it: the cross-shaped mark across her collarbone, as if she'd been burned. The knife in her hand, raised and turned so that the point is directed right at her neck.

“You are valiant, Fox Mulder,” it says. “But you are as foolish if the others if you think you can stop me.”

“Please don't do this,” he says softly, his voice faltering. “Please. Please don't hurt her.”

“Are you saying that you wish to die by her hand? That may be selfish of you. You see how it is for those who do the killing afterwords.”

“No one has to die,” he says, pleading. “Why does anyone have to die? Why are you doing this? Why have you been doing this?”

There's that cruel smile again; it's almost taunting him. It lifts Scully's hand, moving the blade rapidly closer to Scully's neck.

“No!” Mulder shouts on instinct, grabbing her wrist in one hand and lurching forward and into her, almost tackling her. He grunts with pain at the landing, but she doesn't make a sound. A wave of guilt washes over him, and he has to remind himself, This is not Scully. She's still in there somewhere, and you need to get this thing out of her. He manages somehow to wrench the knife away from her hand, cutting his palm and fingers a few times in the process, and throws it hard into the woods. She digs her fingernails hard into his wrist, and the sudden stab of pain is enough to get him moving; he stumbles off of her, but keeps ahold of her wrist. She fumbles for the guns at his waist, and he grabs her other wrist, hauling her as gently as possible to her feet and holding tight. It's not her, it's not her, he reminds himself, but it's not enough to reassure him. “I'm so sorry,” he whispers, although he instantly regrets it.

The Specter is coolly looking at him with his wife's eyes. “She cannot hear you,” it says blankly. “You cannot save her.”

Mulder's eyes cast about desperately and land on the steeple rising above the trees. He thinks in a flash of the cross.

“Wanna bet?” he growls. And he starts to pull her towards the grounds of the church.

---

Jared digs. Joy can hear the thud of the shovel as she gathers wood, can smell the dirt. It makes her spine crawl a little, at the thought of what they're doing; they're essentially grave-robbing and burning a body. It sounds like something from a Gothic novel, and it's not even the worse thing that she's done tonight. It makes her head hurt to think about it.

The dirt cakes under her nails as she piles the sticks, as she rummages for the lighter she usually keeps in her purse. She can hear the shovel cutting through the dirt. She can hear the sounds, far off, of a car starting, of the FBI agents out in the woods. The wind howls, freezing and cutting to the bone. She wraps her arms around herself, shuts her eyes. She thinks involuntarily of that little kid asleep on the ground, of the taste of medicine on the back of her tongue, of the black void left in place of days she should have for herself, to spend with her husband, enjoying the fact that she is alive. She thinks of the dark shape in the backseat of her car, of the screech of metal and the explosion of glass. A shiver travels sharply up her spine, and she bites back a shudder. She suddenly gets the unmistakable feeling that someone is watching her, is lurking right behind her; she opens her eyes and whirls around, expecting to see the dark shape of the Willoughby Specter. Instead, she finds nothing.

Joy does shudder this time, shaking her head hard. She rubs her fingers over her goosebumps-covered arms and turns back around. She finds receipts crumpled in her post and throws them onto the pile of wood.

A few feet away, Jared keeps digging.

---

The distance to the church doesn't seem too far from where they are, but it feels like an eternity. She is fighting him every step of the way, and it gets harder and harder for Mulder to remember that this isn't Scully. He briefly considers just making a run for it, under the assumption that it will follow him, but he doesn't know for sure that it will, and he doesn't want to risk it hurting Scully by leaving her alone. His eyes are burning as if he's about to cry but he keeps moving, struggling with Scully all the way. She's fighting hard—scratching, kicking, elbow to the gut. Her head butts hard against his chin; he grunts with pain, gripping her tighter. They stumble a few more steps; he can see the headstones through the trees.

“This will not work,” it intones. Her elbow hits him hard in the chest. He hauls her closer in an attempt to scoop her up, and her knee plunges into his stomach. His back hits a tree trunk as he stumbles backwards. Her knuckles smack hard across his jaw.

She yanks away, moving a few steps, before Mulder catches up to her, wrapping her in his arms as if embracing her. “I'm sorry,” he whispers again, tugging her back towards the church. They're close to the headstones, he can see the back door of the old stone building.

“You're sorry,” it repeats, and he wants to cry all over again. All he wants right now is to hear his wife's voice, and this is not it. He stumbles a few more steps. “Oh, you are very foolish, Fox Mulder.”

As they move further, Mulder hears the pound of a shovel in the dirt. Can see a brief glimpse of Jared Caruthers and Joy Seers through the trees. Wind howls through the trees, nudging at their hair. Scully's shoulder slams into his chest, knocking the wind out of him. “I'm ending this,” he mutters through gritted teeth.

And then he feels her hand brushing over his hip. Feels her lift something heavy and press it to his stomach. Hears what is either the safety clicking on or off on one of their guns.

Panic washes over him like cold water and he shivers. He lifts her a little so her feet aren't touching the ground, the muzzle of the gun slipping up his front. He stumbles backwards in a half-attempt to run before losing his balance, falling backwards and getting the ground hard, Scully's weight falling limply on top of him. The top of her head hits his chin again; he groans. The gun falls to the ground; he can't tell if it goes off or not, but by the hollow clunk, he can tell that it's the one that he unloaded before. Thank God.

The wind howls again, harsher and shriller this time. Something sharp seems to cut through Mulder's skull, a sharp and hard ringing sound. He groans again, squeezing his eyes shut, pressing a hand hard and protectively over Scully's head. Her eyes are shut, her face still, almost as if she is asleep. He shifts them to their sides, laying Scully's head on one arm and cupping the back of it. The side of his head softly hits the ground.

---

Scully wakes slowly, muzzy and hot, as if she has a fever. She blinks slowly, spots across her eyes, sore areas along her arms and at her collarbone. There's a hard surface under her, and a softer one under her head, something feels a little bit like Mulder's bicep. She lifts her head a little, and grimaces as the world seems to spin. She's lying on a grassy lawn, trees looming at her feet, and Mulder is lying in front of her, his fingers spread across the back of her head, his eyes shut. There's a purple bruise forming at his jaw.

Panic blooms in her at the sight, and she reaches out to touch his cheek with tentative fingers, whispering lowly, “Mulder.”

He opens his eyes. First fear, and then relief, washes over his face. He whispers, “Scully,” and then he's hugging her tightly, his arms around her shoulders, his face in her hair. His fingers digging into the back of her jacket. He mutters something that might be an apology into her neck, but she can't quite understand him.

Overwhelmed, all she can do is hug him back, press her lips to his tousled hair. He's holding her so tightly that it's starting to concern her—especially considering that she has no idea why she's here—and then the last thing she remembers starts to become clearer. She was in the house with Ryan Caruthers. She lost her gun. Something broke her cross necklace, the same way that Joy's necklace had been broken. But she can't remember how they got here, and she has no idea why she's aching so much, why it kind of feels like she's been burned along her collarbone. “Mulder, how did—” she starts, pulling back a bit from his embrace, and then she sees the blood leaking from the cut along one arm. A cut that doesn't exactly look like an accident.

She gasps a little, pressing her palm hard over the wound. “Mulder, what happened?” she breathes, lifting her chin to meet his eyes. “What—”

He doesn't answer right away. His eyes are wide and he has an almost guilty look on his face. He pushes hair behind her ear and doesn't answer. When he lifts his other hand, she sees a gold chain, what looks like her cross wrapped around his wrist.

She remembers more, suddenly: how she was afraid that the ghost was going to hurt Mulder to hurt her. How she felt something cold overtake her in the house, just before it all went black.

Horror overtakes her, instantly, and she presses her hand harder over the wound. “I… I didn't…?” she whispers, looking at Mulder questioningly, as if hoping he will confirm what she already knows.

He still doesn't speak. Guilt is still painted all over his face, and she recoils, horrified. But he stops her with a hand pressed to her shoulder. “It wasn't you, Scully,” he says gently.

She avoids his eyes, shakes her head like a stubborn child. She can tell what's happened; she doesn't need him trying to spare her feelings. She has a sneaking suspicion that the ghost might've used her to get to Ryan, too, and horror and shame rise up, reddening the back of her neck. She can't speak.

“It wasn't you.” He covers her cheek with his hand and crawls closer, his other hand on her arm. “It wasn't you. It was the ghost, Scully. I-it used you, the way it used Jared Caruthers.”

“What did I do,” she whispers, staring at the ground. Tears blurring her eyes. “Is Ryan alright?”

“I—Honey, yes. Ryan's just fine.” He thumbs the line of her cheek, leaning closer to try and meet her eyes. “You didn't do anything, okay? It was the ghost. It was in you, and it was controlling you, and I—” His voice breaks, just a bit. “I had to try to get it out of you, and I had to get you over here, and I… I think I hurt you a little bit…” A tear falls off the end of his nose, dotting the dark fabric of her pants. “I thought it was going to take you,” he whispers.

Her resolve breaks, and she can't hold it in any longer. She scoots forward, wrapping her arms back around him and burying her face in his shoulder. He's rocking her back and forth, his hands trembling, and she clings to him hard. She can feel the guilt coming off of him in waves, mixing with her guilt, and oh god, she didn't lose him. She could have lost him, but she didn't lose him. “It's okay,” she whispers, because she's figured out what he meant by, I think I hurt you—she can see the church over his shoulder, and she caught a glimpse of her burn, which was shaped a little bit like a cross (and Jesus Christ, how did her cross burn her, what has she been a part of?)—but it doesn't matter, because she knows he was only doing what he had to do to save her. “It's okay,” she repeats, her lip trembling. “I'm so sorry, Mulder.”

“I'm sorry, too.” He kisses the top of her head, squeezes her tight before letting go, pulling back to look at her. He reaches down and unwinds her cross from around his wrist. “I found this…” he says, pulling it away and pressing it into her palm. She tenses at the contact, halfway fearing that it will still burn, but it doesn't. It's warm from being on Mulder's arm; she closes her fingers tight around it in relief. He always finds her cross for her.

He's rummaging in his pocket; he comes up with a small circlet of gold, cradled gently in his palm, and she breathes a sigh of relief when she sees it. Her ring, the one she kept on her necklace for such a long time. “I-I found this, too,” he stammers, and lifts a hand to pass it to her.

She lifts her left hand, intending to simply take it from him, but she can't bring herself to pick it up. Her hand stays extended, awkwardly, until he takes it in his. He slides the ring onto her finger, over her knuckles, his fingers warm and welcoming on hers the way they were in a courthouse almost nine years ago. She wraps her hand around his and lets her head fall forward, resting her forehead against his. They stay like that for a long time.

Behind them, the bells of the church begin to chime, marking the hour with an eerie, melancholy sound.

---

Ryan sits in the backseat of the squad car, Robbie curled up under a blanket beside him. Sheriff O'Connell had offered him a blanket, too, and he'd shaken his head. He's so tired that he thinks he might fall right to sleep if he wrapped himself in a blanket, and he doesn't want to risk that. He needs to be on alert. He realizes, suddenly, that this is the first time he's been in the back of a squad car without having committed a crime.

Sheriff O'Connell sits in the front, driving. He'd revealed to Ryan on the way to the car that Jared was at the church—apparently, he'd come with those FBI agents—and Ryan had immediately expressed his worry, insisting, We've gotta go back and get him. The sheriff had looked at Ryan with more sympathy than he'd expected, and promised that he'd come back later to get him. As soon as he got him and Ryan to safety. Ryan's still tense with worry for his uncle, for his aunt, for himself. He senses that this isn't over. It can't be over. The Specter intended to kill him out in those woods, and if it hadn't been for those prayer beads he ordered on Amazon and Agent Mulder's interference, he'd probably be dead right now.

Ryan rests his head against the cold window pane, watching the town flit by. He's so tired; he just wants to go to sleep. He lets his eyelids droop, just a bit, against his better judgement.

Far off, he can hear the chime of the church bells. A cold feeling falls over the car. Ryan knows that feeling.

His head shoots up, his eyes opening widely. He scans the car frantically before landing on the formerly empty passenger seat. Formerly empty. His throat grows dry when he sees what is there now. The dark, hulking shape of the Specter. The flame in its lantern flickers to life as it turns, looking over its shoulder to smile coldly at Ryan. The sheriff stares straight ahead. He doesn't seem to see it.

“Sheriff,” he whispers frantically, his voice rasping. “Sheriff.”

“What's up, Ryan?” the sheriff asks, his voice a bit tense. He doesn't look away from the road.

The Specter grins wider, reaches out a hand towards Sheriff O'Connell's shoulder. He's still not looking. He doesn't see the ghost. And that's when Ryan knows; it is too late. He can't stop the Specter. He's very probably going to die, as soon as the Specter takes over Sheriff O'Connell, and he can't save himself or Robbie and his father. He can't do a damn thing.

He shuts his eyes hopelessly as the Specter reaches for the sheriff.

---

Jared digs so far that the muscles in his arms start to burn. He's starting to wonder if they're even digging in the right place when his shovel hits something hard. The lid of a moldy, rotten wooden coffin that looks cheaply made.

He manages to get the lid off, although it almost snaps in half in the process, and reveals the decomposing body underneath. The cluster of molding bones. It looks smaller than he expected, Jared realizes; the Specter has always loomed so large in his mind that it comes as a surprise that his physical form could be so small.

Looking down at the skull, the empty eye sockets, and hearing the crackle of the fire Joy made off in the distance, this suddenly feels immensely wrong. He's going to destroy a body because there's a slight chance that it might be the body of the Willoughby Specter? What if he's gotten it wrong? He's been in prison for almost sixteen years now, and he's pretty sure that this is not what they had in mind when they granted him parole. Standing in a grave, over a body he fully intends to destroy, makes him feel like a criminal.

Not far off, he hears the church bells chime. It seems to snap him out of it, jar him out of his hesitation. Looking down at the body, he sees his brother and sister-in-law: sees the blood on their faces, their open, staring eyes. The Specter took them away from him, and now it is trying to take his nephew. This may not stop it, but it might. It might, and the least he can do is try.

He gathers the bones up in his arms bridal-style, wincing as they jostle and threaten to come apart. He clumsily climbs up out of the hole gets to his feet and walks into the woods where Joy has made a fire. She looks up when she hears him coming, and immediately winces. “Now that we're doing this, it feels like a bad idea,” she murmurs.

“I know,” Jared says. His skin is crawling, he's shivering with fear or revulsion, but he can't completely bring himself to care. He's going to protect his family this time; he's going to do the right thing. “I know it does. But we don't have a choice.”

And with that, he drops the bones into the fire.

---

Ryan's eyes are still shut when he hears it: a piercing, agony-filled scream. It slices through his skull, quivers with its sheer volume. The car seems to shake, rocking back and forth. Something that feels like Robbie's head bumps up against his thigh.

“What the hell?” the sheriff mutters from the front seat. He pulls off onto the edge of the road and puts the car in Park.

Ryan opens his eyes, expecting to see the Specter before him, expecting to see the blank, unfamiliar look of possession in Sheriff O'Connell's eyes. But all he sees when he opens his eyes is an empty passenger seat. When the sheriff turns to look at him, there is no sign that he's been possessed. “Ryan, what's going on?” he asks, his voice thin with confusion. “What was that?”

Ryan swallows tensely. “Y-you heard that?” He's genuinely never heard a sound like that before, in all the years of the Specter haunting him; he has no idea what it means.

A little voice pipes up from beside him: “Daddy?” Robbie sits up on the seat, hair rumpled, rubbing his eyes. “Ryan?” he says sleepily.

“Rob!” Relief and worry dance over the sheriff's face in a pair. “Oh thank God,” he breathes, and launches himself out of the car, running around to Robbie's door.

Robbie reaches out and tugs Ryan's sleeve. “Hey, kid,” Ryan says weakly, forcing a smile, “how are you feeling?” He still has no idea what's happening. He doesn't know why he's not dead, how the hell is he not dead?

Robbie shrugs, yawns. As his father yanks the door open, he says seriously, “It's over now, Ryan. It's all over. The Specter is gone.”

Ryan swallows tensely, his throat sore, his heart pounding. He wants so badly to believe that. “How do you know?”

Robbie wraps an arm around his father's neck and goes willingly into his embrace, but he keeps looking at Ryan, his face stony-solemn. More solemn than Ryan's ever seen it, more solemn than a boy so young should look. “I just do,” he says.

#xf rewatch #xf fanfic #i wrote this

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wiredandrewired · 5 years ago

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Was trying to actually work on something but my brain is stuck on loop. So instead I’m gonna make a post of the Voltron stuff sitting unposted in my writing WIP folder to help me organize my thoughts.

I guess since I’m posting this, if you have anything you wanna say/ask about any of these feel free. I respond well to outside interest.

1. Project ReVolt is without a doubt the project I’ve posted about the most here. And talked about in random tags. And tangents. Originally it was just the name the project had in my internal brain filing cabinet but it’s kind of spread and stuck to where my wife and I just refer to it as that when we talk about it.

ReVolt is basically going to be a VLD series rewrite more along the lines of how my wife and I would have done it or at least liked to see it done. In some places it will probably stick pretty damn close to the events of the series canon, but in others go completely off the deep end. We’re each going to be doing one, so a lot of the headcanon and worldbuilding and such that we’ve worked out together in various other stories and RPs will be consistent between the two stories, but it will also give us a place to veer out and do things without the others’ input (as we’re not gonna let each other see our fics until they post, tee hee). I’ve done a SHITPOT of rules and infrastructure work using actual alchemy tracts to try and make sense of the series’ largely Powers As The Plot Demands system, and am pretty convinced I’m going to A)fall hard into my very common Esoterica Ranting Mode pitfall and B)enrage literally everyone who reads it with my character and plot choices. Most conservative estimate says this will be six ‘books’ long as again, we’re doing literally the entire series. Current status: at the ‘ridiculously large amount of notes and setting up actual arcs and outlines’ stage, and waiting for the wife to finish ‘Happier HOPEless’.

2. There Are No Monsters Here is a fic I really want to do but cannot seem to get off the ground, set to take place entirely in the ‘last universe’ from season 8--the one native-Honerva died in and crazed-death-god-Honerva picked out as her ideal and tried to wedge herself into. I guess the basic idea was that, like the ‘main’ universe, it got rebuilt pretty much as it was prior to Nightmare Mom Ruining Everything, and I have it with no one fully remembering the events of season 8 that took place there, but characters really closely tied to those events having some itching feeling that something happened, and all the Altean alchemists agreeing that some kind of massive quantum Event certainly occurred even if they don’t know what.

Mostly the story exists as a place for me to have a canon-compliant AU that still lets me explore stuff like Altean history, the racial and cultural tensions of the Coalition, dink around with Oldadins that DON’T die in one fell swoop, a living Daibazaal and Altea, Lotor growing up with a decent-but-not-without-strains relationship with his dad, teen Allura and tiny Lotor being absolute shits to each other while also coming to terms as they grow up with who and what they MUST be both on a political and quantum scale, and generally prove that even a perfect universe isn’t, all in one place. The title is entirely facetious, and anyone who’s read any of my alien culture headcanons for this series knows that. Lol. Current status: lots of bits and pieces, but no good beginning or connective tissue. I have a lot of notes, some arc outlines, and a few scattered scenes and bits of dialogue from later in the story, but my god, I CANNOT get it off the ground.

3. Someone Must Get Hurt (But It Won’t Be Me) is supposed to be a pretty wholly Honerva-centric fic that starts...sometime in her youth?...and carries forward to an as-yet-undetermined point. Probably her death. I mean the first one. I’m not sure. Another chance to dig my fingers into Altean culture and Alchemy, this time leading up to All The Bad Shit That Happened, with the added bonus of being done from a focal point of a character I have a lot of really strong feelings about both positive and negative that’s resulted in me somehow being EVEN MORE wrapped up in her than I was before I added abject knee-jerk trauma hatred to the mix. In no way meant to make Honerva more sympathetic, I think I just want to write her even more like my mother so I’ll feel EVEN BETTER about killing her? Idk man my feelings about her are so complicated. Also an excuse to write a shitpot of her and Zarkon because listen, I’m really glad they’re married because I ship them so fuckin hard. Current Status: SO many notes. SO much infrastructure. Like three pages of an opening I’m almost definitely throwing away because I can’t decide where, when, or how to open but feel like this isn’t it. One short but very telling scene of Honey and Zarkon from late in the story. I’m obsessed with it but I can’t get anywhere.

4. Currently Untitled Demon Hunter AU started because my wife talks to me about Happier HOPEless a LOT and I just got an itch in my bones to work on one myself. In spite of the entire Demon Hunter AU thing getting started by a prompt on a Shance blog, neither Shiro nor Lance are set to appear for at least a chapter? And I am not confident in my ability to not veer off into utter non-shipping anyway because man, am I bad at it. Or like...just an entirely different ship for either or both of them. Current Status: A lot of vague notes, a POWERFUL urge to structure the chapters and overall arc after Ripley’s Gates even though that limits my chapter count and means I will DEFINITELY have 20k+ word chapters, and about seven pages of the first chapter so I guess I’m committed now?

5. Currently Untitled Post Series Fic basically exists for me to vent my frustrations about two main things: The Universe is Fucking Huge And There Are Dangers Other Than Galra, and The Galra Empire Was Huge and Is Not Going To All Fall In Line Behind Voltron Coalition and Especially Behind Keith Who Just Arbitrarily Fucking Decided To Tell Them They Couldn't Pick A New Leader According To Their Own Traditions And Need To Do What They’re Told Now What The Fuck. Also there was a lot of stuff in the series that got left hanging, and while ReVolt is an IN-series fix-it fic, I wanted something that patched up loose ends in a way that was satisfactory to me but also kind of canon-compliant. Current Status: A lot of notes and screaming. No one has seen my progress on this and they might never.

6. Dog Runs And Death Dreams is a warmup file turned deeply self-indulgent series of scenes in which I choose to assume that Shiro’s rare neuromuscular disorder was left so ambiguous so I could plug the symptoms of mine into it. It’s genuinely not any deeper than that. The whole thing is set pre-Kerberos, and includes copious Shiro x Adam content because of it, but also not the kind that makes me feel good about writing because that means it includes the ‘slow fizzle’ that leads up to their breakup before the mission. Ugh. Working on it does make me feel better when I've been having symptoms, though, and I’ve been letting myself write it, unchastised, in a really loose rambly way that I usually deride myself for. It’s just cathartic. Current Status: no notes, no plan, just strain-writing between seizures, but somehow it feels like it has some kind of structure and just keeps growing? Possibly too close to the bone for me to ever post.

7. Birth and Rebirth was born out of two things: the fact that Zarkon is shown to have two ENTIRELY DIFFERENT reactions to first being presented with his baby son in different flashbacks and different seasons, and the fact that in spite of the flashbacks we get at the end of the series, earlier on, the impression I got of Lotor and Zarkon’s relationship wasn’t of a young man who had never had affection from his father, but who had instead lost it. Well, three things: I have a lot of underlying issues at work, at play, and at large when it comes to the Galra Imperial Family. Also, anyone notice the monitor blips in the first baby Lotor flashbacks indicate a heart murmur? Anyway, it was supposed to be a thoroughly self-indulgent and thoroughly self-hurtful examination of Lotor’s early life and the death by degrees of what was left of his father in the husk Rift Adventures left behind, but I got stuck on it a little way in. Current Progress: ten pages, a lot of notes, and some wistfulness. I keep hoping I’ll get inspired to pick it back up again. Contemplating rewriting some of the beginning, maybe it’ll help?

Bonus entry that is not actually in any form of progress soever:

50/50 Voltron Trashfire Edition is spawned from the ‘50/50′ challenge on an old TF board I used to haunt. It’s a fifty-prompt smut challenge using the list of ‘50 reasons to have sex’ from some tv show, and the idea is to write a different ship for every prompt (hence the name). My wife is blazing through it and has several (like twelve?) up on her AO3, but I’ll be utterly blunt: I haven’t written fifty porn fics in my LIFE. Over ALL my fandoms. Current Status: Literally all I have done is assign a ship to each prompt, and I might actually have some prompts with just question marks beside them still. I have one aborted start to one entry. That’s it. It’s not happening. But the empty file is technically in the folder, SO.

#things Rewire Writes #disregard I'm decompiling #writing woes #fanfiction: the struggle #the state of the rest of these makes me a little worried about Revolt tbh #I need to unclog the writing pen in my brain

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littlecrookedheart · 6 years ago

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Amen, Amen • Like You're Made of Glass

Catch Up : Reckoning | Rum on the Fire

Character(s) : Noah Marshall, Jane Marshall, Matt Pivouz (OC)

Rating : MATURE. THIS STORY WILL NOT BE NSFW, but it will be dealing with mature themes, such as death, possession, mental illness, suicidal thoughts, murder, and other graphic elements. Language warning. Please read at your own risk. I’m issuing a general trigger warning for the entirety of this story.

Time : This takes place 14 years after Jane’s death and roughly 5 years after the events in ILITW. Noah is 22 years old.

Word Count : 5,138

Author’s Note : The perspective switches happen more often in this chapter and will from here on out. Teeny warning for emetophobia. Happy Halloween! 🎃

Key : Perspective switches will be marked with ** | Time jumps will be marked with –

Disclaimer : I do not own any characters other than Ula Santiago and Matt Pivouz (and Remy.) I’ve added a bit of a flare to others for the sake of this piece, but they do not belong to me.

Tag List : @teamtomsato @nuttatulipa @lovethemarshalltwins @europeanguy @spectrelier @breaumonts @fullbeaumonty @choicesatnight

"...Love, soft as an easy chair..."

Noah stirred in his bed, half awake, the scent of cinnamon pancakes wafting through from the kitchen. A gentle, dreamy voice came from the other room, the familiar tune a lullaby for his already wary head. The curtains had been drawn allowing sunlight to fill the room. Noah began to flutter his eyes open, but instead winced and turned over, tucking his hand underneath the pillow.

"....Love, fresh as the morning air...One love that is shared by two.."

Noah's brows furrowed, rubbing his face more into the pillow, drawing the blanket over his head.

"I have found with you..."

He opened his eyes, listening.

"....Like a rose under the April snow.."

Noah darted up, scanning the space around him, heart pounding in his chest.

"Mom?"

"...I was always certain love would grow.."

What the hell? It's eight in the morning. How did she even get a key? How did she - Jane?

"Come on, sleepy head! Pancakes!"

She just...what?

I'm swinging my legs off the bed, it's like a magnet is embedded into my core, pulling me to follow her. God, please don't let this be a trap. Why am I praying? I don't even...

"Mom? Jane?"

"In here, honey!"

Everything shifts, and all of a sudden, in in my parents house again. I hear bassy steps behind me, and it's Jane, running down the hallway, almost tackling me when she crashes into me for a hug.

"Morning, Janie."

"Mornin'!" she says, her hair looks like a rats nest, all tangled up on the back of her head. She's rubbing her nose up and down, a weird quirk she always had. Mom's humming now, that same song. She always sang this to us, especially on Saturday mornings. She'd make pancakes with the season, fruit in spring and summer, cinnamon and nutmeg in the cold months. Only one thing is missing from this picture -

"Hon, come sit down. Breakfast is ready," mom's saying, setting plates in front of Jane and me, Dad still glued to the TV in the living room. I guess nothing's missing after all.

"In a minute!"

"Mama, do we got syrup?" Jane says, swinging her legs off of the chair. These moments are always so weird, seeing her so small and me being....me. Watching it unfold like a film but being inside of the screen. Banging on the surface from within, but nobody can hear me. They're all too focused on the story.

"Noah, you know your shirt got a hole in it?" Jane's outstretching her arm, pointing at my chest. I'm bending down to look, but she flicks my nose before I can see the absence of this 'hole.' She starts to giggle. "I got you!"

I'll laugh, too. "Yeah you did!"

Jane's telling a story, but I don't hear her words. Instead, I'm focused on her movements, how her hands talk with her. She's reaching them up to mimic a dog's ears, scrunching her nose... laughing. And now she's looking at me, chewing her pancakes, asking me something. Okay, okay, let the sound in. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

"Did ya?"

"Sorry Janie...I spaced out."

"You went to space?"

No. I wasn't listening. "Uh....yeah."

"Yeah right Noah! Where are your moon boots then? I said did ya know that Dan's mom is gonna get a bounce house?"

"She is?"

"Yep, for the party."

Dan's mom did get a bounce house for his birthday party one year, I think when we were five. I don't remember this conversation, I don't remember these moments. But how many have I forgotten? How many memories are now just phantoms in my head? I think of Jane in her best moments. She haunts me in my worst. I wonder how many more there are of each of them... One of us will run out of moments before the other. I fear that will always, in every possibility of my outcome, I will run out first.

Noah's body jolted as he awoke, coughing over the side of his bed. No cold sweats or headaches came from this dream, which for him, was borderline miracle material these days. It was still dark out, time lingering around four in the morning. He sat up, blindly feeling around the floor by his feet for his pack of cigarettes, finding them in a pile of clothes. He lit one, taking a long drag while simultaneously shivering. Shaking his head, he shuffled into the hallway to turn the heat on.

He reached over, feeling for the thermostat switch, when his fingers hit ice in the shape of fingers. Noah froze, closing his eyes and counting to seven in his head. With no light in the room apart from the cherry of his cigarette, he reached for the light switch that he'd flipped so many times in the darkness, but couldn't find it.

What the hell?

To his left, there was a shuffling, a raspy groan coming from the living room. Noah caught his breath, reviewing seconds in his head, and thought of the pillow fort. He quickly turned the corner, flicking the lights on.

Nothing. No one.

Noah pressed his back against the wall, rubbing his eyes. He looked around again, enough light in the hallway to illuminate the space where the thermostat was. He turned to flip it on, petrified in place when his finger hit the switch and lined up next to someone else's. This time, though, Noah was face to face with it, staring into sinister, incessant darkness, nothing and everything all at once.

He took a deep breath, his eyes glazing over. He didn't speak, he didn't fight - he just fell to the ground, his knees crashing to the floor, a cracking sound splitting in the air. The darkness encased him, spiraling into his nostrils and throat, holding him down as it filled his lungs.

He gasped, and the room filled with light. Noah choked on his own breath, nearly falling to the floor over the side of his bed.

What in the fuck was that nightmare?

A loud knocking came from the front door, Noah's face scowling in annoyance. He sat up, reaching for his cigarettes. His fingers didn't find them at first, moving to the clothes pile he'd dreamt of. He grabbed the pack and walked out of the room, mumbling under his breath. "Fuck this."

"Um?"

Matt is at my door, holding a coffee out to me. It's still pouring rain.

"Hi. Can I come in? I didn't bring an umbrella and this wind is wicked."

Take the cup, idiot. Move aside.

"Yeah." Double lock this fucking door. Say thank you. Sit down. Act like a normal human being. Breathe.

"You good?" Matt's asking, sitting on the couch. This room is a mess, I wasn't expecting-"Noah?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." No, I'm not.

"What's eating you?"

What isn't? Isn't that where we are now? I want to tell Matt that the darkness is, that Jane is, that this entire world is. I want to tell him that I actually might be scared, but that? That is weak. And me? I'll never be weak again, not if I can help it.

"Fine. Don't tell me. Drink your coffee while it's still hot." He's drinking his, cozy in my house, not a care in the world. What a hand of luck.

Why can't I tell him? This is maybe the one person alive who will hear me, who will believe everything I say. Why can't I trust him? Even enough to say something about the dream. Drink your god damn coffee, Noah.

"I..um, I'm sorry."

"What?" Matt looks at me like I just spoke a language that doesn't exist. "What are you sorry for?"

Sit down. Breathe.

"I haven't talked to anyone about Jane before."

"Better late than never, right?"

Nod. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. I tell him about the dream, feeling eyes on me from the hallway again. I don't have to see them to know exactly what's there.

"It's like I can still feel it curling into my body, like a toxic snake filling me with poison."

Matt's standing up, pacing.

"Talk about some inception type shit. I'm sorry, man. Look, I don't know how, but we will end this. I've got a feeling in my soul about it."

"Get those often?"

"Enough," He's rolling his eyes, smiling at me. "Don't be a smart ass."

Shrug. Drag. Coffee. Is this my life now?

"Do you have any food in this dump?"

"You're a fucking angel with these compliments. I look like shit, I live in a dump."

"Are either of those things lies?" Matt's opening cabinets, letting them bang closed on their own. He won't find anything. I can't remember the last time I was concerned with groceries.

"Do you not eat?"

Shrug. "I do."

"Black coffee isn't a food group."

"I eat."

"Noah, seriously. You aren't doing yourself any favors by starving."

Truth is, I'd rather starve than spend the night heaving in the alley, the watchers feeding on making me barf my guts out. I'd rather have hunger pains than the singing Jane leaves in my veins.

"Come on," Matt's standing by the door, looking out the window. "There's a corner store a block away. We're getting you some food before the rain starts again.

That corner store is where I walk every day, sometimes twice a day, to satiate my nicotine addiction. But I'm shaking my head, I can't do it. I can't risk it.

"I wasn't asking you." Matt tosses my hat at me, plopping back onto the couch. "Indulge me."

I don't know why I'm saying it, but fuck, I guess I am.

"Fine."

Noah stood up, stretching over his head. Matt waited patiently by the front door, relaxed against the wall. His foot caught in a plastic bag handle, knocking his knee into the corner by the hall. He jerked down, grabbing it, inhaling sharply.

Matt's brows creased, his eyes locked on the deep scarlet and violet pattern down Noah's knee.

Had that been there before?

"Noah, what happened?" Matt pointed at Noah's fresh bruise, wincing. "That looks gnarly, are you alright?"

Noah turned away, quickly continuing to his room. Matt rushed over, putting his hand up so Noah couldn't close the door.

"Dude, back off!" Noah yelled, backing away.

"How am I supposed to help you if you won't tell me what's going on?"

Noah squared his shoulders, seeing red. "Why are you even trying? Why do you even want to? You don't know a single thing about me! You see some guy on the news a couple years ago and just so happen to remember his face exactly? You remember my name? You show up at a bar down the street from my apartment? How did you even know my address? Why did you come here?!"

"Because I don't want you to die, Noah! You're worth something. You need to know that."

Noah paused, grasping the door handle. He looked at Matt, thinking for a second, and closed it.

Matt went back to the front door, lingering for a moment, waiting for Noah to come out of his room. When he didn't, Matt ran a hand through his hair and buttoned his long, black coat, walking out into the rain.

How many cigarettes was that? Four? Chain smoking. I'm a chain smoker, I guess. Mom always said I'd become one, one of her many ideas of who I'd be. Mediocre, sad, unsuccessful. At first I wanted to prove her wrong, but these ghosts had other plans. Now who am I, other than a ghost, myself. A phantom. A whisper. Dressed up as myself, a living shadow of everything I could never become. A poet. A chef. A restauranteur.

I wanted to be a voice, a shout, a resovior of proof for one too many of those wrinkled old flesh sacks who stood around Jane's tulip pink casket, snickering my way, and at eight fucking years old, hearing whispers that the wrong kid died. Pretending not to hear whispers that the wrong kid died.

Instead I became a footnote, a drowned out exhale in a forest fire. I'd fix my tie and fake a smile, thanking the phonies who stood in front of my face and said, "I'm sorry for your loss, Noah. I know how hard this must be."

They never knew. They never could have.

Tell me more about wanting to throw yourself in front of her, take her place. Tell me more about her voice calling out to you, that god damn whistle screeching in your ears. Tell me more about being shrouded around your twin sister's corpse as the light in her eyes faded to black. Tell me how her voice sounded as it broke away. Tell me how she never left. Tell me she loved you. Tell me everything will be okay. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

I need a cigarette.

Noah stepped into the living room, checking out the window for rain. There were dark clouds ahead, but no precipitation, so he stepped out into the afternoon. His foot hit something, almost tripping him. A paper bag sat on the doorstep, a sticky note attached to the side. Noah bent down to grab it, and scoffed as he read it.

Noah

Seriously, please eat something. Take this to the church so nothing bothers you. I'm sorry I over stepped.

- Matt

Noah balled the excess from the top of the bag in his hand, tossing it onto the couch behind him, putting his shoes on as he closed the door.

The corner store was only down the street, visible from the edge of the road where the apartments were, but Noah hated the walk. He used to love them, the feeling of brisk air filling his body, the sound of cars going by, faint bass playing from within them. These days it was just another route full of obstacles, voices to ignore, people to pretend he didn't see. But when you're a chain smoker, you'll do anything for a nicotine fix, that subtle groan of anticipation as the match strikes. That's what he did, anticipate.

Stare at the ground, imagine gray streets, devoid of life and a surplus of blood stained porches. Withered. The flicker of a ghost in an old haunt. The end. The beginning. The road to the fucking corner store.

I hate the way the bell rings when I walk in here. this store is always empty, reside from old stickers line the door like nobody around here knows how to wipe down a surface. Maybe I should take my own advice, since I live in a fucking dump. Fuck Matt.

"Same as usual, Noah?"

Remy owns the store, and weirdly enough is the only person I've ever seen behind the counter. His beard is long, full, matches his mane of hair. I wonder how he moves so freely, that much hair would weigh me down, probably. More than I already am.

I'm fucking starving.

"How much are these?" I'm pointing to candy bars, as if sugar could help me in any way.

"Two thirty nine," he says, playing on his phone. Does he even know what I'm pointing to? Does he care? Or is he like me, zoning out, auto pilot switched to 'on.' Think he sees his dead sister? Think he wants to suffocate, too? $2.39 is a rip off. Plus, I don't really have extra.

"Uh..yeah, the usual." I hand him a fiver, he slides me my pristine new pack of Camels. Perfect transaction.

"Noah?" coming from the isle behind me. Do I dare? Should I give it the time of day?

"Noah? I'm scared."

But I can't ignore her. Not when she says that.

Jane stands in the isle closest to the door, her hands behind her back. I'm kneeling down, my knees feel like gravel. Push it away. One, two, three-

"Noah? What are you doing here, niño?"

An instant. One second before my shoulder becomes a cesspool of nails, digging through my muscle and embedding into my bone. Ula's hands are blades in my skin. Clench my jaw. Stand up.

Say something, fucker.

"I dropped a quarter, it's no big deal."

"Oh! You had me worried, Noah. Here, let me give you..." Ula pulls out a ten dollar bill. "I thought I had one but I don't!" She's laughing. Her laugh is wholesome, like a mother's should be. Like my mother's used to be, before the death of her precious daughter and the divorce from her hell bent husband. Before she lost her sunshine. She always reminded me that I was rain, dark, cold, desperate. Somber. Exhausting.

I'm shaking my head. "Thanks Ula, but I'm fine. I just came for these," I'm holding up the pack. She nods, smiling sweetly.

"You like the empanadas?"

"Empandas!"

"Yeah, they were delicious. Thank you."

"Would have been better with that spicy sauce of yours. You'll make this again for me soon, yes?"

I haven't made it in two years. I hardly remember what even goes in it. But I nod, because Ula has become a beacon of hope for me. Maybe in another life, she'd work with me at Baby Jane's. In another life, there'd be a Baby Jane's.

Back at his apartment, Noah plopped onto the couch, nearly smashing the paper bag of food that Matt had left on his porch. He yanked it out from beneath him, peeking inside. He checked the clock on the wall, laced his shoes back on, and headed out to the church.

I could stare into this bundle of trees for hours. When I look just right, I can see Katai. I can see Jane. I can see the memory of my group of friends, young and fearless, stamped into the air in cinders and smoke. The images always dissipate, but they also always burn, a brand in my arm. Ignite in my veins. Boil my blood. Just walk through. Just get it over with.

How do people run marathons? For me, even taking steps across a clearing is heavy, as if cinder blocks are tied to my ankles. Therapy will teach you cool new tricks about taking steps. Just work it out, they say. One foot in front of the other is prosperity, you're moving, as long as you're moving forward, you're not living in your past. Don't live in your past. They don't teach you how to walk on glass.

My dad used to say that our eyes are the window to our soul. That seems pretty fragile. If we all crack, become pieces of stained mosaic, if we all cut our hands on the shards, will we crumble? It only takes a gust of air to make a paper man fold. What's your kryptonite when you're made of glass? A pebble? A marble, crafted of your own material, spun with color and beauty. Souls are all just glass fragments, pieced together by bandaged hands and one too many scars. God, I don't want to shatter.

What is it about these woods that makes them normal? Just bark, leaves, whistle of the wind. What makes them less dreary? Here I feel almost weightless, here I feel whole. This church is like an anchor, one with broken windows and crumbling bricks but one that feels like a home. It feels inhabited, by more than just my bones, perhaps the thoughts and fears Matt has left here.

That's another thing you'll never be told in therapy or in school, souls leave traces. I can sense my own traces leaving me, my soul becoming less and less full. They stay on sidewalks slick with rain and the hallway in my apartment, they get left behind when Jane appears. They're consumed, taken, just like me. Just like me.

Push the door open, close it behind me. The air in here is fresher than outside, and drier, somehow, despite the raindrops trickling in from the storm earlier. There are four pews remaining, broken and splintered, all spaced apart. I wonder what happened to the rest, why only these remain, why someone came in and selected the others. Were they cleaner? Newer? Were they whole?

I sit in this seat, on this particular pew, and I wonder. Run my hand along the back, with the grain, lean back. Open this bag and eat the sandwich Matt gave me. There is nothing but silence. Nothing but what is. There are no eyes on me. There is no Jane. There is no retching. Screaming. Blood. There is nothing, here on this pew, except me, and the chips in my hand. I can't remember the last time I could eat without counting. Maybe Matt was right. Maybe I can beat this thing.

Noah gathered the trash from his meal and crumpled it in the paper bag, pushing it aside. He propped his feet up along the pew, pulling his beanie off and leaning back, closing his eyes. He jumped at the sound of what could be a rock hitting the window, walking over to check for vandals. He questioned why, knowing that the church wasn't his property of his responsibility, but he felt a need to protect it, if he could. Nobody in sight, Noah began to head back to his seat on the pew, when a loud clank came from the window again. He turned, a look of confusion on his face, and peeked out the window again. He jumped back in surprise and winced as a larger rock smacked into the glass, leaving a wide chip exactly where his face had been.

"What the fuck?" he whispered to himself, carefully stepping over fallen beams and puddles, grabbing his beanie and pulling it back onto his head. Two more rocks smacked into the window, one of them cracking the pane, making way for the next to shatter a corner. Noah looked back, his face twisted into a puzzle, rolling his eyes as the final rock broke through the glass.

"God damn it, Jane."

What? What could she possibly want? To terrorize me some more? Rhetorical. Of course that's what she wants. And I am gullible, like a fool, a mouse crawling back to the same trap repeatedly to get his taste of cheddar. I know the wire is going to snap. I know it will kill me. But fuck, if I don't always go back.

There's nothing out here. No people, no Jane, no idea where those fucking rocks came from.

"Noah?"

What? That voice is unmistakable. It's like being transported back in time, a voice I never expected I'd hear again.

"Katai?"

"Over here, Noah."

Katai is standing in an overgrown garden, I think? Just beyond the church. My feet can't move fast enough. I can't reach them before they're gone, nothing remains when I'm there, when I finally break through this gate, thorns pricking my skin as I shove it open.

"Katai? I'm here! Come back!"

Nothing. Just cement covered in ivy, so much dirt and a weathered bench. Fuck it, I'm sitting. Maybe they'll come back. Maybe this isn't a trap.

Noah's feet rested on cement slabs, copper and death colored leaves blanketing the ground. Mud caked to the bottom of his shoes, a cold breeze whipping his hair in the wind. Noah looked around, his thick eyelashes fluttering in the wind, the red around them seeming to heal. He glanced down for a moment, a trace of movement having swept by, his eyes catching on carved words near his feet. He stood up, crouching down to move leaves and mud away from the ground. His body went cold, a moment of shock encasing him. Below his feet, under mud and caked cicada casings, under years of wear and leaves that had settled, was a flat cement headstone.

Noah Marshall

Dear brother, beloved son

2000 - 2008

....No. I'm..I'm not dead. Am I? I didn't...what?

There are more. Dirt, mud, my broken fingernails. Blood, breathe one, two, three, four, five, six, seven - Mom. Dig, dig, breathe. Dad. What? Katai. Andy? No, no, no, no, Stacy? No. Ava, Lucas, Lily. Dan. Me.

Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

Did...that say I died fourteen years ago? I need to read them again. Go back, check again.

They're gone. How could they be gone? Grind my jaw. Scrub my face. Clear my fucking head. I'm not crazy, I didn't imagine that. I couldn't have, I wouldn't have. Fuck, did I? Fuck, fuck, fuck. One, two, three, four, five, six-

"Hey."

Katai. A trick of the light? My mind? Jane's idea of a joke? Don't look up, bury my hands into my eye sockets, seeing splotches is better than seeing red. Better than seeing blood. Better than seeing Katai crumble into ash.

"Do you remember that day you needed help on your language arts project in middle school?"

....What? Katai is sitting next to me. The world is gone. Just pale ivory, warm light surrounding the two of us. It feels like we are on the inside of a lightbulb, radiating a gentle glow.

They put their arm around me, smile. I smile, too. Nod.

"I was in that obscure literature phase." Katai laughs, a small smile on the edge of their lips, "I told you my favorite quote. 'If you get to hell, go down all the way : there's heaven-"

"Everything returns."

"I miss you, Katai."

They don't say anything, they're just smiling at me. Soft, warm hands, rays of light shining through their body.

"Everything you can imagine is real."

Katai goes transparent, and so do I. My hands feel metal, but I can't see anything. White. Blinding.

I'm back on the ground, back against the wrought iron fence. There is no bench. There are no gravestones. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. What is this place?

And was it fashioned by good or evil? God or his best friend, Satan? The one who needed the most prayer, who never received any, who would do anything for you so long as you'll burn with him, I'm already burning, I'm already boiling, I'm already red hot fucking branded with Jane's claws at my throat. Maybe he can cut me a deal. Maybe he feels sympathetic for me. Maybe he returns, too.

There's someone here.

Noah stood up, nearly falling over as his feet lost their balance. His hand gripped the iron, leaving prints of black reside on his palm. He wiped it on his pant leg, spitting on his hand to clean it off. He jumped over the fence, grimacing as he landed on his left knee. He quickly maneuvered to the other side of the church, where he stopped short, staring in dismay.

A towering derelict building stood in the center of a courtyard, surrounded by statues and small monuments. A cemetery, one that stood for ages, and to Noah's delight, not an illusion. The wind carried leaves across the ground, tangling them in the dense, formerly overgrown, dead grass. The air suddenly chilled, the scent of decay and sulfur in the air. In front of a backward facing stone statue of a praying angel stood a man, his unearthly wailing breaking the silence.

As he grew closer, he noticed the man's black bracelet, his posture, his height. He observed the outfit, the uncanny chestnut hair, the beanie. Extending his arm out, he gripped the shoulder of the man, forcing them to face one another. Noah gasped before stumbling backwards, crashing down to the ground, his back colliding with a tall, ancient headstone.

He rushed his gaze back upward, and for the first time in twenty two years, Noah Marshall locked eyes with himself.

The sound of his wailing was deafening, blood pumping harder in Noah's ears as he drew closer. He forced his eyes open, walking with uncertainty, his mouth agape, lower lip trembling. Ice filled his lungs, his eyes, his heart. His body felt warped, as if it weren't his own. He tried to hold back a sob, choking on emptiness, nothing coming or going.

He watched himself turn toward the backwards angel, hitting his knees in prayer. Noah stared in utter disbelief as the otherworldly, crestfallen, completely oblivious version of himself ran his hands along the angels wings and gown, unintelligibly mumbling to her.

That's when he heard it, the humming. The song his mother sang, low and hypnotic, the sound of a deep growl underneath the poetic tune. Noah slowly circled around to the front of the angel, attempting to drown out his alternate and the volume of his cries.

His vision blurred, when he saw her, his body uncontrollably trembling, chest aching, eyes darting for an out.

The angel's gown, her hands, her hair, all recognizable to Noah, the features he'd know anywhere. Jane. Her face had been crushed off, as if he'd taken a sledgehammer and obliterated it.

GET ME THE FUCK OUT OF HERE! One, two, three, fuck counting, left isn't clear, four, five, six, right is jammed, seven-

The angel statue doubled in height, and like a glitch, it's arm darted out, clasping a stone hand around Noah's throat. She dangled him in the air, her laugh like the crack of a whip and the outcry after, her faceless head turning to the side.

Noah kicked his legs, his shoes scraping mud onto her cement dress, her screaming and growling a high pitched drill in his head.

Is this how it ends? I die at the hands of a statue? I die outside of the only place I've felt safe since I saw her in the facility? I never thought I'd last this long. I never thought I'd be everything I dreamed, anyway. No friends. No life. No Baby Jane's. Now it's here, in front of me, fading away. Maybe when this is over, Katai will be there. Maybe Jane will be, too. The real Jane. Not this monster.

I'm coming for you, Jane. Amen.

-- **

"Noah? Noah! Noah, wake your ass up!" Matt's hands slam down on Noah's chest, compressions and breaths clouding the air. "Breathe, Noah. Please!"

Noah's chest raised, a loud cough erupting from within. He rolled to the side, clutching his ribs, coughing still. Dark, vein like imprints on his neck and bloodshot eyes, his left eye clouded with broken vessels. Noah sat up, catching his breath. Matt handed him a bottle of water, which he snatched, trying to down it.

"Slower." Matt reached his hand out, pulling Noah to his feet. "Can you walk?"

Noah did a quick assessment of his stature, finally nodding at Matt.

"Let's get inside."

#amen amen #noah marshall #it lives in ths woods

35 notes · View notes

spnsimpleman · 6 years ago

Text

The Unknowns: Thirty Six

This is a continuation for The Unknowns. A one-shot turned into a long ass Prologue. One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight Nine Ten Eleven Twelve Thirteen Fourteen Fifteen Sixteen Seventeen Eighteen Nineteen Twenty Twenty one Twenty Two Twenty Three Twenty Four Twenty Five Twenty Six Twenty Seven Twenty Eight Twenty Nine Thirty Thirty One Thirty Two Thirty Three Thirty Four Thirty Five

Dean x Psychic!reader

Teaser/Summary: An AU sparked from a songfic challenge, The Unknowns is based on Season One Episode Nine, Dean met reader in Lawrence as a child and they created an unbreakable bond. At the end of The Unknowns, reader decided to stick with her boys because she felt something coming but she holds secrets; one she holds close to her heart and a few that she doesn’t even really know yet.

Word count: 3530

Dean Winchester stared down at his worst nightmare in horrifying technicolor. Her warmth had burst inside his chest blanketing him in a peace he only ever found with her. There was a familiarity to it, an echo of deja vu that he couldn’t place. It had settled his panic, but she was still bleeding, her eyes were closed, and she hadn’t responded since that weak reply to his own plea he wasn’t even sure she heard.

No matter how hard he pressed down on the wound, the blood leaked out and the pain, holy shit, the pain was fucking everywhere yanking his concentration from where it needed to be and draining his energy. Sonofabitch, I can’t do this.

“I heard her. She was… in my head. Fuck! She shouldn’t have… I heard her. I heard her.”

Dean glanced up at Sam as he lightly smacked her cheeks trying to coax her into opening her eyes with one hand pressed against her pulse point on her neck. He couldn’t tell if Sam even realized he was muttering out loud. “Sam. Sam.”

“She said my nickname… her nickname for me, it was her. In my head.”

“Sam. SAMMY!” Sam’s gaze snapped up and focused on him. “I need you right here, Sammy. It’s tugging me… the bond, I’m trying to stay above… pressure. Keep it here… in case.”

Sam’s eyes widened as he fully grasped what his brother was saying. He covered Dean’s hands and pressed, “I’ve got you both. I’m right here.”

They both jerked their heads in the direction of boots pounding the gravel but Dean’s gaze dropped back to y/n once he felt Jess. But it was Bobby who appeared down by Y/n’s side, immediately checking her pulse with one hand at her throat and the other under her nose.

“She’s not breathing, can’t find a pulse at all.”

Dean nodded and moved his hands to her chest finding the correct spot before starting to pump keeping the right rhythm in his head, “I still feel her, she’s not dead yet.” He caught the look of fear and concern plain on Bobby’s face before he masked it.

Dean turned his focus where it needed to be but his body was flagging worse now and he wasn’t sure he was doing it right anymore. His arms were too heavy, his hands not working as they should. He glanced at Sam who switched places with Bobby and stepped in right when Dean pulled his hands away.

Dean stumbled even though he was just moving to the side on his knees. Hands pressed down on his shoulders, steadying him. “Jess…” he breathed.

Pamela knelt down by Y/n’s head, her hands working before her knees hit the ground. Dean begged, “help.”

Pamela tore her gaze from Y/n’s face to look at Bobby who only shook his head. Pamela glanced at Dean but then did a double take. Her gaze was penetrating but haunted, her body suddenly rigid as she gasped. “No… damn it.” Pamela looked up at Jess, “get the blanket and the stones.”

“Keep going grumpy, we haven’t got all night,” Pamela snapped at Sam when he watched Jess move over to a bag behind Dean. Then she turned to Bobby, “how long?”

“A minute, maybe two.”

Her lips were moving again, chanting under her breath as Sam continued CPR. The earth pulled at Dean, drawing him closer with a comfort that swelled in his chest. He started moving toward it until he saw Pamela’s eyes snap to his chest, focused and narrowed, and then slid back to Y/n’s face.

“What?” He focused on drawing air into his lungs while he watched Pamela, “I know she’s still here, I feel her. Tell me what you...”

Pamela’s fingers rested on y/n’s pulse points on her wrist and throat, “of course, she’s still here. She’s with you.”

“Of course…” his brow furrowed then he dropped his head and focused more intently on breathing and watched Sam try to force the air into Y/n’s lungs.

Sam went back to his compressions with a glance at Dean, “what does that mean, Pamela? She’s still alive? I heard her in my head… she’s strong.” His voice hitched and cracked on the last word.

Jess glanced up at Sam, “we’re not going to lose her.” The heat and conviction in her voice stirred in Dean’s chest but he saw her wince and reach for the back of her head before she stopped herself. Almost like she could feel that throbbing at the back of his… y/n’s skull. But then her hands were working again, moving with a practiced ease over the wound in y/n’s abdomen.

He tried pulling at that thread but something else was pressing, words were in his head, his heart, “the witness, the martyr, the soldier’s sacrifice...” He could almost feel them hovering in the air, “will prove fruitful. She didn’t want to die but at the same time… she thought it was the only way to avoid something, something important, something key to the big picture.” Her warmth flared inside him then it cooled and settled like a comforting weight curling up in his chest.

“How does she feel?” Pamela glanced at him and he realized he was looking up at her. His hands were pressed into the dirt, his head tilted up to see Pamela hovering over Y/n, her hands still active, moving to whatever song was in her head.

He wanted to close his eyes but he was afraid, so afraid. “Heavy. And warm. And her.”

Pamela leaned down as Sam started pumping again, she whispered words in her ear that he couldn’t make out but then he thought he heard, “not you too. I forbid it.”

“I’ve got a pulse!” Jess whooped.

“She’s breathing!” Sam was right on her heels.

“Jess, the blankets! We need to get her to the jeep and you,” Pamela turned to Dean, “you stay right next to her, you hear me? You are not allowed any distance from her where you can’t touch.”

“I’m not going anywhere without her, it’s okay.” Dean looked down and realized he was holding y/n’s hand.

“You have no idea,” Pamela grumbled. Dean rubbed his chest with his free hand and she scowled, mumbling under her breath, “just like her damn father.”

Dean waited as she barked out instructions and everyone was moving. Dean looked down at the wound that was now packed with gauze and tightly wrapped with stones and other things in between certain levels of gauze. He scooped her up cradling her against his chest with the eerie feeling that she was too light and he was too heavy, his skin too tight.

Sam tried to intervene but Pamela stopped him. “Help him up then help Jess.” She glanced at Bobby and he took the other side, pulling Dean to his feet. “Dean, can you stand for a few minutes on your own?” Pamela was staring into his eyes searching for something he couldn’t even guess.

He nodded, “yeah, not long though.”

She nodded and waved Bobby off. Dean watched Pamela, her hand wrapped around y/n’s wrist, her lips silently moving. Once the others were out of earshot, he whispered, “what did you mean she’s with me?”

She met his gaze, “the bond, your tether to her, she… she took it to you.” Her gaze dropped to his chest, “Maybe it was the shock and she jumped ship, I don’t know but she’s done it to a certain extent before… but never like this.”

“What are you saying?”

She met his gaze with a grave seriousness he rarely saw, “her soul is not in her body, Dean. She’s with you. I never thought soul transference could be done without the right… materials but… you two are different and the bond only accentuates it. Did you not feel it?”

“I felt her... this burst of light and warmth as she told me she loved me and… I thought it was probably just me… but I heard her thinking she would never leave if she had the choice... like she’d choose to stay with me. That sounds crazy…”

“It definitely is crazy but not impossible. She wouldn’t be the first to do it.”

“You said…”

Her arm wrapped around him as his left leg shook, “you need to concentrate on you and I need to think without wanting to throttle her.”

“Do you think it’s a survival instinct? To escape the pain, without the shock… the body should have a better chance, right? Especially with your stones…”

“Why do you think I’m not chanting over your bodies and making her go back? This is our best option right now. We need to get her to the hospital, I can sustain the body but I can’t reverse this kind of damage. Did you get the asshole who did this?”

“No, she was my top priority. Bobby went after him though.”

She didn’t respond, only stared out toward the engine roaring to life.

Hang on, sweetheart. We’re going to fix this. We just need a little more time.

My dad had told me once that everything I learn and retain has a reason. Maybe it's something I enjoyed or had someone important be a part of but there were some things that don't seem like they're important and yet we retain them anyway. They pop up in our consciousness every now and then and we think how funny what an odd thing to remember and we move on with our day. At some important point, that odd thing will show itself to have purpose and meaning that we didn't understand before.

He liked to call it the soul effect because the soul recognized its power, it's importance, and filed it away then kicked it out every so often to keep it as solid as possible for the moment when we’d need it most.

I could've remembered that poem moment when he died fighting against the dark for just a few moments to tell me he loved me and my mother, to tell me I was his greatest achievement, essentially he fought the dying of the light so I wouldn't feel as though I never got to say goodbye. But it didn't come to me then.

I remembered it at the exact moment I needed to get off my ass to save Sam. He had no idea Jake was coming and Jake would have hit him exactly where he wanted to, killing him within minutes. But I had the chance to throw him off, I had a better chance at surviving but to be honest, in the back of my mind, I thought I was already dead.

Hello, my sweet Honeybee.

Dad? I turned in the endless dark but light place. The one I could never forget.

That was very selfless of you. His voice was everywhere but I desperately wanted to see him.

Just like you, daddy. I learned... Please let me see you. I’m here now. With you. I turned hopelessly not knowing if I was actually moving.

No, I’m here with you. He appeared, his face exactly as I had last seen him, that smile lit his eyes with such amazing strength and beauty. He opened his arms and I crashed into him.

It doesn’t matter. But my chest ached and I wondered if Dean, Sam, and Jess were okay.

But it does, very much. They need you.

I can’t change… I couldn’t let him die.

And you didn’t, but you are still not done.

What do you mean?

Honey bee, I’m here with you. You are not… you’re not gone yet.

But… how? I pulled back to look at his face and he smiled, but the sadness that tinged his features answered my question. You stayed. You never… why would you… It hit me so hard if I was in my body I might’ve been knocked to the ground. You bonded to her, I shook my head, you made the connection but she…

He shook his head, she didn’t complete it. Your mother was always so cautious, always trying to protect everyone.

You didn’t tell her. And… but how did she not feel you?

His hand brushed through my hair like he always used to do. She’s not like us, without the bond…

She couldn’t feel you but you… oh god. You’ve been with her this whole time! How did I…

I severed our connection to keep you from suffering. I knew you wouldn’t like me hovering about.

But you… you were alone! I could’ve...

I wasn’t alone, I had your mother and…

Pamela! That’s why she couldn’t bear to be around mom too long and… that night at Bobby’s! I felt you… you… you took Pamela’s body, didn’t you?

He dropped his gaze and looked like a scolded child. She was pissed about that but she understood. Your mother never would’ve let you go and you needed to.

You stayed for her even though she despised what...

Don’t! He looked away, his jaw clenching reminded me so much of Dean. Don’t talk about her like that. She didn’t despise us and you know why, I heard her tell you. She was always so afraid for us because she loved us that much. She just wanted you to be safe. She may not have gone about it the right way, but we don’t exactly get a guidebook for... parenting.

Did you ever try to show yourself? Do something?

He grinned and I saw Dean, that wistful look he’d get in his eyes when he was thinking of some memory of ours. I have. Your mother… well, ignorance is bliss. Ever since that night at Bobby’s, I’ve noticed a little change but she’s still… She wants me to let go but I can’t, not yet.

Not… did you know this would happen? The words from something flickered through my head, what if Azazel tells her? Would you rather he corrupted it for his own purpose? I tried to focus on them but they faded before I could get a grasp on them.

I know you. I knew you would put yourself between one of them and if there was any possibility that I could keep you… alive just long enough.

How?

This place… well, think of it like an induced coma. It lowered your heart rate to keep you from bleeding out and it will keep you from going into shock. Because you were meant for more than some family legacy, you were meant to live a life of your choosing, not as a piece in a demonic apocalypse. I’m giving them time to save your life. When your mother got there, you were clinging to Dean, I told Pamela but she had already seen it. She said you did it before but not like that. We didn’t know how long your body would hold out without your soul fighting to keep it alive, so we had to make you go back.

Dad… what..?

He pulled me back to his chest and smoothed a hand down my hair, it’s time for you to rest.

But I can stay here, right? I clung to him knowing every moment was stolen and would be gone too soon.

Just for a little longer.

I love you.

With every stitch in the universe, honey bee. Always.

I woke to a mostly dark hospital room. The moon shining bright through the window where the shades had been drawn up, a single chair sat next to my bed and Pamela was sleeping bathed in the moonlight.

“Pamela?” She didn’t budge. I sat up without a single ache or pain. The room reminded me too much of Dean’s time in the hospital, complete with the constant soft beeps from the machines on either side of the bed. I wanted out. I closed my eyes and tried to calm down before I lost it completely.

Something changed and when I opened my eyes, I was standing in the middle of the room. Pamela asleep in the chair and my body was still in the hospital bed looking too close to death for my comfort.

“Dad?” I glanced around but no reply came. Where was Dean? Sam? My mom and… I had heard Bobby at some point, didn’t I?

“Congratulations!”

I jumped and turned around drawing my fists in front of me. The Yellow-eyed demon stood with that annoying smirk on his face.

“You’re the last two standing. I’m a man of my word, I’ll allow you both to live.”

Something tickled in my head but I couldn’t grasp it. “I’m waiting for the but…”

“No conditions. I just can’t guarantee it will stay that way if you don’t carry through with the task Jake was doing when his insides burned up from within and could no longer complete it.”

“What?”

“Ah, Princess, if only you allowed me to teach you.”

“Stop calling me that!” I snapped. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t want him to know how much it bothered me but now I couldn’t take it back. He simply smiled and held up his palms.

“So much potential. I’ve been trying to get you to see that you are the brightest of them all. Strong, ancient bloodlines will do that.”

“Lovely. Except you forgot the part where I don’t kill or torture people for the fun of it.”

“Really? You did a pretty good job with Jake.” He stepped toward me, his face changing, softening, and I froze. “I’m following a plan for someone I care deeply about. Is that not what you live by? Everyone has a code. I keep mine, like most things, close. Not everyone needs to know why, they just need to follow.”

“Blindly. I don’t work that way, I know what I’m fighting for, who I’m fighting for. That’s my code.”

He turned away, his hands clasped behind his back, “Jake was carrying the colt with him, taking it to an old cemetery where I can’t go. He needed to open something for me and the colt is the only key. If you can finish that task, I can guarantee the two of you will be off limits to my demons for a century. Give or take a decade. That’s my price.”

“Why would I ever… a century? This is all a joke to you.”

“Your line will live on, I’m only able to guarantee your line’s safety for so long. Times awasting. Seventy two hours, the coordinates are in that beautiful mind of yours, if you choose to accept.” He snapped his fingers and it went through me like a drop from a second story window.

I snapped my eyes open and the room looked the same, but everything hurt. My chest was too heavy and breathing was almost impossible. I touched my chin, reaching for that hard edge pressing into my skin around my nose.

“Shh, honey bee, it’s okay. It’s just oxygen.” Pamela was standing next to the bed and helped me pull the mask down.

“What?” My throat was raw and my voice barely there.

“You have some severe injuries but we’re getting you there, don’t worry.”

“Dad..?”

Her eyes softened and she nodded, “I’m not sorry I didn’t tell you. That wasn’t something you needed on top of everything else.”

I shook my head or tried but the pain was too much.

“Just breathe, your body needs rest. You need to let it recuperate so it can rebuild. We’re doing everything we can to speed the process. Dean’s in the next room, they had to move him because he kept climbing in the bed with you and you’re just too weak right now. They had to sedate him.”

How was I supposed to rest? An old cemetery where the demon couldn’t go, the colt the only key. It had to be the graveyard from my dream. It was too close to be a coincidence. “Sedate?”

“Calm your mind. You’re never going to get any rest like that. I’ll sedate you too if I have to.” She picked up a cup from the bedside table and brought it to my lips, holding the straw steady. I took a few sips staring at her. She put the cup down, pulled the chair up to the side of the bed, and sat down with her elbows on the mattress.

“If you…” Pamela’s eyebrow crept up and I cleared my throat, “knew something bad brought... just one good thing, would you let it happen?”

She touched my hand, her soothing energy flowing through me, “Y/n?” She was feeling me out, sympathy pouring out of her.

“I saw him. I know what he did. But that’s not… there’s something I think I have to do. I just… I need time.” Why were my eyelids so damn heavy?

“You need to rest and then you can think about whatever insane plan you’ve got in that head of yours.” She squeezed my hand and I couldn’t help but wonder if there was something in that water as her face faded.

Thirty Seven

@duchessofwinchester , @jodyri , @jencharlan , @deanssweetheart23 @torn-and-frayed , @chrisatplay , @mogaruke, @captainemwinchester, @ashrod98 , @mrswhozeewhatsis , @caitsymichelle13 , @escabell , @thealyana , @michellethetvaddict , @ashch , @rashinyx2002 , @tamtamlov

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ivanoconnorhorrorbooks-blog · 6 years ago

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Despite many able to argue that attempting to rank the talents of Stephen King in a 'Best Stephen King Books' type-article is a foolish battle, I am going to give it a go as it's a great excuse to get my King collection out. First time King-readers will also hopefully benefit from this, as let us remember that the great Stephen King has published over 60 books by the age of 64, and with the inconsistency that inevitably brings - reading the wrong novel first might put you off King forever. And oh what a crime that would be! Here goes - My personal 13 best Stephen King books.

The following best Stephen King books list is based on a broad number of criteria, including the number of sleepless nights caused from the nightmares that swiftly followed reading the books...

13- Misery

Misery was one of the first King stories that I got my hands on, and I remember reading it from start to finish over the span of no more than three nights. It makes for a fantastic introduction to Stephen King's writing and I thoroughly recommend it as a potential first King novel to read. Misery is the chilling story of an author named 'Paul Sheldon' who has spawned a series of popular stories about a woman known as only 'Misery'. Paul Sheldon decides he wants to write about something new, so he kills off the character known as Misery. On his way back home he has a car accident which overturns his car, leaving him knocked out. He then awakes to find he has was saved and being looked after by a strange woman named 'Annie Wilkes', who also happens to be his number one fan. Annie is not impressed with Paul's decision to kill off Misery, and so Paul, who once wrote to make a living, is now writing for his life. A truly fantastic story, which admittedly should be avoided if you are weak at heart, as there are some tremendously vivid and terrifying gory scenes.

12- The Green Mile

The Green Mile is a highly acclaimed novel that was originally published over six short separate instalments, each being released a month after the other and ending in a nail-biting cliffhanger. Those were the days...

Many have you have probably seen the movie-adaptation in which Tom Hanks stars, need I really say more? Unlike many other movies based on books, the movie is a loyal and strong interpretation of the book accompanied by remarkable acting. However, despite being a great movie, the book is still king (pun unintended) thanks to the many twists and sub-plots that did not make it into the movie. The story is set in the 30′s and tells the emotional tale of the experiences of prisoners on death row and the guards. The green mile is wonderfully well-written - you feel part of the fictitious world that is full of oppression and segregation that leads to multiple memorable thought-provoking and moving moments. Who said Stephen King can only write horror gems?

11- Bag Of Bones

Bag of Bones is possibly King's most ambitious attempt at having a love story. Similar to The Green Mile this is another of Stephen King's novels that doesn't strictly follow his early horror style of writing, and as such is not as popular as some of his other work. Which is a shame, because if given the chance, this is another truly wonderful ghost story full of twists and vivid characters. The main character is, as you've come to expect with King, a writer called Mike Noonan. Mike's wife suddenly dies and causes him to have a severe case of 'writer's block'. In order to get over his writer's block he returns to his summer house, where he discovers that his wife was on the trail of something highly sinister. With countless twists and turns concluding to a haunting ending, you will undoubtedly be left as breathless and mentally exhausted as I was. Great read...

10- Firestarter

Firestarter is perhaps one of Stephen King's lesser known novels and doesn't often feature in lists of the Best Stephen King Books. It might have something to do with the underwhelming reaction people had after seeing the movie-adaptation - many people see films and then read the book if the movie was any good. Whatever the reason is, a lot of King fans are missing out on a very good story which they would surely love. Firestarter is the tale of a father and his young daughter with pyrokinetic powers, who have to constantly be on the run from a government agency trying to capture the young girl to use her powers for their own gain. The plots are cleverly connected and the likeable characters make you genuinely care for their well-being. Recommended.

9- The Dark Tower Series

The Gunslinger is the first entry of King's The Dark Tower series and follows the protagonist, Roland, on his quest to the Dark Tower, but before he can get there he must locate his enigmatic antagonist that he kindly calls 'The Man in Black'. King took twelve years to write this book, but came up with the epic first line while still at University: 'The Man in Black fled across the desert, and the Gunslinger followed', gripping start for sure and there's a great deal more of it as you discover how Roland is capable of extreme violence, yet somehow still manages to come across as kind. A great start to a great series and a must-read for any Fantasy/Western book-lover.

8- Pet Semetary

Pet Sematary (purposely misspelt) is one of King's most enthralling and chilling novels. I read it for the first time when I was 14 and the disturbing nature of the story hindered the quality of my sleep for weeks (months?), I wasn't able to pick it up for several years, and for that reason I would wholeheartedly recommend this novel to every horror-lover. The story starts out when the Creed family, a happy family of four and a cat, decide to move house. In their new home, unspeakable evil things start to happen and are certain to keep you on the edge of your seat. Thoroughly frightening and definitely not one for the faint-hearted.

7- It

It is the story of a sleepy town in Maine, called Derry. Every three decades, mysterious and unspeakable evils occur, first come the rare sightings that are quickly followed by a series of murders of young children. The local residents refer to the being that causer of these acts as It, and not much is known about It, apart from the fact that it can shape-shift and appears to each person as a combination of their worst fears. A group of outcast teenagers decide to take a stand against the ultimate evil, and as adults return to Derry three decades later to fight It. The beauty of this book is in how King sets the mood of the story, by making It live in places within our very own homes that we take for granted, such as drains and sewers and the strong chemistry between the main characters as they are naturally gravitated towards each other due to their outcast status.

6- Different Seasons

Different Seasons is a collection of four different stories that saw one of Stephen King's first attempts at writing something not strictly-horror, however do not despair, there are still plenty of gory moments to keep the hardcore fans satisfied - Starting with Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption (Hope Springs Eternal) which tells the story of an innocent man in prison convicted of murder, plotting his escape. With fantastic characters and a gripping story, it is a great start to the book. Many people will be aware of Frank Darabont's adaptation of the book into a movie which revels in the brilliance of the story - Shawshank Redemption, however this should not be the only reason to pick up this book, the rest is just as good. The second story in Different Seasons is called The Apt Pupil (Summer of corruption) and is about a seemingly normal teenager who discovers that a local resident is a war criminal, and causes him to develop a morbid curiosity about Nazi death camps. The third story is called The Body (Fall from Innocence), which is the touching story of four teenagers who are dared to go into the woods to confirm the existence of a dead body, and ends up becoming a coming-of-age story. Finally we have the macabre The Breathing Method (A Winter's Tale) which tells of an unmarried and pregnant woman determined to give birth, no matter what... All four stories are severe page-turners and will have you go through a range of strong emotions. Highly recommended for a rainy day.

5- Carrie

Carrie, as you are probably aware already, was Stephen King's first novel and kick-started his incredible career. It is hard to believe that this masterpiece was a writer's first published work, and the popularity and cult-status that it created still remains intact to this very day. Carrie takes you into the world of a lonely and tormented teenage girl who has problems both at home and at high school. Unable to connect with anyone, Carrie finally snaps and unleashes her rage using violence mixed with her telekinetic powers, causing havoc in the usually quiet small town.

4- Salem's Lot

Salem's Lot was Stephen King's second novel, following the hit that was Carrie. It was released in 1975 and immediately became another massive hit by terrifying even the most hardcore of horror readers. The protagonist is author Ben Mears, plagued by personal demons, decides to move to an old mansion in Jerusalem's Lot in a bid to rid himself of them and write a new book. However, Ben quickly discovers that things are not as they seem, and that his home town are under siege by the dark forces of evil. This is a vampire novel, but unlike the recent wave of romantic vampire stories around, these vampires are not friendly or charming at all, they are pure evil. The characters are, as expected, well-developed with believable back-stories that will keep you engaged and highly interested.

3- The Dead Zone

The Dead Zone comes in at number seven on this Best Stephen King Books list and is a book that I personally was mysteriously put-off reading for a very long time, I still do not know why that was, but I was very mistaken to not pick it up sooner. It was King's fifth published novel and is one that Stephen King himself later admitted to being one of the few novels that he plotted and actually liked. The Dead Zone is a fast-paced story about a man called Johnny Smith who after a terrible accident is left in a coma for several years. When Johnny finally awakens, he quickly discovers he has obtained the unique ability to limitedly see into the future of people he touches. With this new power and strong desire to use them for good, he unwittingly foresees terrible events. What makes The Dead Zone so special is that the writing is controlled and well-paced, but above all the character development is fantastic.

2- The Shining

The Shining is a chilling story that follows the dysfunctional Torrance family with a sickening past plagued by alcoholism and abuse. The father of the family, Jack, was a teacher until the day he spotted some of his students damaging his car and ended up punching them. After losing his job, the family are forced to move to a far away and isolated hotel, as that was the only place that would offer Jack a job. During a terrible winter the Torrance family are snowed in and forced to look after the hotel on their own, initially things seem under-control, but as the iconic 'All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy' statement, all is not well... There are not many characters outside of the family of three, allowing the novel to provide vast amounts of information and back-stories to all them, leading to stand-out character-development, which must rate among Stephen King's very best.. One of my favourite novels ever written and an absolute must-read for any book-lover - even if you have seen the critically-acclaimed movie starring Jack Nicholson.

To conclude our Best Stephen King Books list, I leave you with the book that marked me the most and despite giving me countless cold-sweated and sleepless nights, I read at least four times. A true premier horror classic that will remain in every horror and King aficionado's library forever:

1- The Stand

The Stand is a book that most readers are familiar with. Initially I thought that having to state a number one for a best Stephen King books list would be a tough task, but after remembering The Stand, it was the easiest one of the list. The story starts in the early 90′s in the California Desert, where a deadly mutated flu virus created by the U.S government manages to escape from a biology testing laboratory through a contaminated guard by the name of Campion. Unwittingly, this panicky character sets off a domino effect where 99% of the world's population is rapidly killed off by the deadly virus. The only survivors are those lucky (or unlucky) ones that happen to be naturally immune to the virus, but they are terrified and forced to survive in the depressing and desolate landscape. What follows is an incredible story of desperate struggles filled with humanity and real depth. This is possibly the best horror book I have ever read and if you have not read it yet, what are you waiting for?

That concludes this Best Stephen King Books list, and I wish I could have included many more, a few notable absentees that I'd like to mention are: Skeleton Crew - A collection of stories, The Long Walk - 100 boys meet for a race, if you break the rules you get a warning, exceed three warnings and what happens is truly terrifying and lastly Christine - The story of a teenage boy who falls in love with Christine, a rather 'special' woman.

Stephen King's vast imagination is one to be jealous of. King's delicious talent for story-telling makes his novels tremendously engrossing, and his ability to weave and connect his worlds with the vague perceptions we have of our own is remarkable and causes us to have strong feelings and even desires that these tantalizing worlds could actually exist in an alternate universe somewhere. If you have never picked up a Stephen King book, I couldn't recommend strongly enough to research the one that might initially suit you best and let yourself become absorbed by the incredible worlds of the King.

#BestStephenKingBooks #FactsStephenKing

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searchingwardrobes · 7 years ago

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Happiness

Deleted Scenes Week Seven: Season Six

In honor of Once coming to its conclusion, I will be posting my deleted scene fics here on tumblr leading up to the finale. There are 14 total, and they will be posted in chronological order. Each week leading up to the finale, I will post the scenes in a particular arc.

Summary: What if Killian kept Ariel’s shell phone and kept talking to Emma even though he wasn’t sure she could hear him? Because when you’re true love, there’s no such thing as a one sided conversation.

Words: 1,000+

Rating: G

Episode: Between A Wondrous Place and Mother’s Little Helper

I got a homesick heart but a long ways left to go

I've been doing my part but I ain't got much to show

So I'm asking you to show me some forgiveness

It's all for you in my pursuit of happiness

Emma eased into bed that night still clutching the sea shell in her fist, pressed against her heart. She knew it was unlikely that he would try to contact her again, especially since she hadn’t been able to answer him. She lifted it up and examined it by the light of her bedside lamp. How could she have been so quick to think that Killian would leave her? Why had she packed up his belongings in a mere matter of hours? She was ashamed. After all they had been through, she should have trusted him more than that.

She released a deep sigh, pressed the sea shell to her lips, and then set it on her nightstand. But she had no sooner plumped her pillow and rolled over on her side than Killian’s voice came crackling through it once again.

“Emma, Emma,” he called, then she heard him sigh. Emma sat up quickly and snatched the shell.

“Killian, I’m here,” she spoke into it, though she knew it was useless.

“I don’t even know if this bloody thing is working, but Ariel told me I needed it more than she did. I just . . . wanted to tell you . . . that I miss you. Terribly. I don’t know what time it is in Storybrooke, but here in Agribah it’s in the middle of the night.”

Emma eased back into bed, lying sideways on her pillow as she clutched the shell phone. She stared at it, as if she could conjure Killian there.

“I feel so powerless,” Killian continued. “Ariel and I found a caravan traveling to the coast, and I have a plan, it’s just – we’ve stopped for the night, and I don’t want to stop. Because I want to get back home, to you. I’m lying here in this tent, and I hate it because you’re not here. I can’t believe after hundreds of years of living alone, I’ve gotten so used to reaching out and feeling you right there next to me. I can’t sleep without your snores.”

“Hey,” Emma snapped at the shell, “I don’t snore!”

“I know, I know,” Killian chuckled, “you claim you don’t snore. Would it make you feel better if I said it was a soft, melodious snore?”

Emma rolled her eyes, “Only you would call a snore melodious.”

“Anyway,” Killian continued, “if you can even hear me, know I’m thinking of you.”

“And I’m thinking of you,” Emma spoke into the shell. She stared at it for several more minutes, but when no other sounds came through, she set it back on her nightstand and flipped off the light.

Chasing that life, moving on 'cause I had to prove

There ain't no life worth doing what I did to you

So I'm asking you to show me some forgiveness

It's all for you in my pursuit of happiness

Emma groaned at the sound of Killian’s voice. “Five more minutes,” she muttered crankily. Why did he have to be a morning person?

“Love, I hope I’m not waking you. Like I said, I’ve completely lost track of time.”

Emma sat up quickly as she realized the truth once again: Killian was gone. They’d been tricked by Gideon. She couldn’t even let Killian know that she heard him. She snatched up the shell from her nightstand as Killian’s voice continued to come through it.

“I couldn’t sleep.”

Pain gripped Emma’s heart as she heard the agony in his voice.

“You weren’t here beside me, so that was part of it, but I also still feel so horrible for what I did, Emma. Can you ever forgive me? For trying to erase those memories without telling you, for one, and then I went to Nemo . . . “ His voice trailed off in frustration, and Emma could imagine him running his hand through his hair. “I don’t deserve you, Emma. I’m reminded of that every day. But I love you. So much, it’s like this ache within me.”

Emma smiled, and clutched a hand to her own chest. She knew what he meant.

“I know,” she whispered into the shell, “oh, Killian, I wish you could hear me. I wish you knew that I forgive you.”

“We don’t share a heart,” he continued, “but it sure as hell feels like we do. To me anyway.”

“And to me.”

The shell fell silent again as the soft words fell from Emma’s lips.

I got dreams that keep me up in the dead of night

Telling me I wasn't made for the simple life

There's a light I see, but it's far in the distance

I'm asking you to show me some forgiveness

It's all for you in my pursuit of happiness

Emma kept the shell with her the rest of the day. She told Killian things she would have told him if he were with her: a funny story about one of the dwarves, complaints about her paperwork at the station, her worries about her parents. Killian talked to her, as well, letting her know where he was and what he was thinking. In her head, Emma knew he couldn’t hear her, but her heart still felt like it was an actual conversation.

“I had a nightmare last night,” Killian was saying now.

Emma paused in her work, tears welling in her eyes at his words. Nightmares were fairly common for him. For both of them, actually. Emma snatched up the shell.

“I wish I’d been there to hold you,” she told him.

“You’ve told me many times that you think I’m a hero,” Killian continued, that sliver of self-loathing still lacing his words, “but there are times my dark sins come back to haunt me. I wake up, and you’re there, this perfect angel, loving me . . . and it’s hard sometimes to believe that I can really have this. You know?”

Emma nodded, a tear slipping down her cheek. “I do know, babe, believe me. But you do deserve it. You own your mistakes, and I so love that about you.”

“I’m never giving up on us, you know that. But there are times I wonder if fate just won’t let me start fresh. Like your father and I. He’s become the best friend I’ve ever had, besides you, and look what my past sins did to that? I doubt he’ll ever forgive me.”

Emma clutched the shell tightly in both fists. “He already has.”

“Well,” Killian said then, signaling a change in subjects with his self-deprecating laugh, “deserved or not, I’m fighting like hell to get home anyway. I’ve found Blackbeard, and I think I can con him out of a bean.”

“Killian Jones, you better be careful with that asshole!”

Killian laughed as if he’d actually heard her. “Don’t worry, I’ll be careful.”

Sometimes you leave the ones you love

But if it's love, they won't give up

'Cause they know a war's raging and you gotta choose

These days are tough, these days are long

Sometimes it's hard, you carry on

But I hear a voice singing and I know it's true

“I saw Hook talking into this bloody thing.”

Emma frowned at the unfamiliar voice coming through the shell phone. She snatched it up and snapped into it, “Where’s Killian? Who the hell is this?”

“And I could tell from his sappy words that you’re his true love. Never saw a pirate fall so far, I can tell you. To say he’s gone soft is the understatement of the realms.”

“Blackbeard,” Emma spat, her eyes narrowing.

“Anyway, just thought before I tossed this thing out to sea that you might want to know that your boyfriend was being chased down the beach by lost boys.”

“Lost boys!” Emma cried out. “What do you mean? How’s he in Neverland? I –“

But then there was the sound of a splash, the shell flickered briefly, and then its light went out. Emma frowned down at it for a moment, her heart heavy. But then a tiny smile slowly grew on her face.

“It doesn’t matter, Blackbeard. Killian won’t give up. He’ll find me. We always find each other.”

#cs ff #deleted scene #a wondrous place #true love #countdown to the finale #sorry there's no picture #tumblr is pissing me off

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olderjustneverwiser · 7 years ago

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Too Good to Touch (Spencer Reid)

Masterlist

Well, I did it. Finished my first Spencer Reid piece. This is based off Reasons Not to Kiss Her, a poem which you can read here. I recommend reading the poem before reading this because it may make more sense that way.

This is different than anything I’ve written before. It came from a personal place, and it’s also pretty self-indulgent at times.

Spoilers of basically every bad thing that has happened to Spencer during all 13 seasons, so watch out! And a thank you to @of-salt-and-moon @moresvuheadcanons @ventixx and @am-i-right-counselor for their help! Enjoy!

one

She is soft. Spencer knew this the moment he met her, that day all those years ago when she quite literally ran into him outside of a coffee shop one morning. She was rushing to get to work and she was trying to balance her full cup of coffee in one hand, her phone in the other while trying to adjust her purse strap on her shoulder and had not noticed the man in front of her. In her defense, he also wasn’t paying attention. He was too caught up in his latest case that he didn’t see her coming.

She immediately begins apologizing after they collide. Luckily the coffee didn’t spill on either of them, as most of it hit the sidewalk apart from a few specks that landed on Spencer’s shoes. He insisted that it was fine, and allowed himself to look up for the first time since their meeting to see her face. He was so caught off guard he almost didn’t register her question.

“Can I buy your morning coffee?” Her face is expectant and her voice soft and silvery, and he soon realizes that he should answer before he looks foolish. He shakes his head no, tells her that it’s fine.

She continues, “Please? I’m going back in anyway, I’ll just be right behind you in line. I can’t function without coffee.”

She ends her statement with a loud laugh and Spencer swears he has never heard anything so lovely come out of someone’s mouth. So he agrees, and she smiles, and when she extends her hand Spencer can’t help but take it.

Spencer remembers that day perfectly, but he can’t let himself act on his feelings. She is soft, and so is he, but the world is too harsh, too mean. He has seen what the world can do to a person. It can cut them up until they are no longer themselves, and he cannot stand to see that happen to her.

two

She is not the first person Spencer has loved. He knows that she is not the first person to love him, either. His mother, of course, and his team. Morgan, and JJ, and Blake. They all love him, and he loves them, but he does not know how to love. Lila wanted to teach him, but thousands of miles stood between them and before long he was sure she no longer thought about him in that way, and it wasn’t like he really cared about her anymore anyway. Maeve loved him, but their love affair was cut short by a bullet.

He loves her. He is truly, deeply in love with her but he does not know how to love her. He has never had the practice or the lessons on how to treat the person you love. He knows the basics; be kind, make them laugh, and he already does those things for her. But he does not know how to make her feel wanted and loved. And at this point he is too scared to try.

Spencer dreams of loving her. He thinks about finally undoing the not-doing with a kiss that leaves them both breathless, but would his lack of practice show through? He dreams about everything, about slow dancing in the kitchen and holding hands, about loving her in the most intimate of ways, showering her with pent up kisses and praise but he is so scared to hold her in that way. He is too much, he has too much baggage. She knows all of it, and she accepts it, but he knows deep down that he is scarred too deeply to give her the love she deserves.

three

She loves him, so much. Spencer knows that the people he has in his life love him, JJ, Morgan, Garcia, his godsons. They love him, they have told him as much but they do not love him like she loves him. Spencer sees it in the way she looks at him, her pupils dilate when her gaze falls to his lips. He sees it in her texts, telling him to get home safely, to come back in one piece. He sees it in the way she holds him, always asking before she does because she knows how he is but her touch is always warm and loving.

Does she really think that he doesn’t notice? She tries to hide how she feels, but Spencer is good at his job, and he notices everything. Spencer knows that she loves him outside the realm of friendship, but she is waiting for him to make that move. She knows his past, knows he is scared to love anyone. She does not want to push him and that makes him love her more. It makes him want to tell her how he feels for her, that he aches when he has to leave her. He wants to tell her that he knows that she loves him, but he is scared. He is so scared to drown and take her down with him because he does not know how to be loved.

four

She is beautiful. She has always been beautiful to him, though through the years his definition of her beauty had changed. When they met, of course the first thing Spencer had noticed about her was the way she looked. Her eyes shining bright and full of kindness, her smile that nearly knocked him off of his feet. Sure, Spencer had seen countless beautiful people in his life but she was something different, something that, for once in his life, left Spencer’s mind blank in search for a word or phrase to describe it.

Being a man of science, Spencer has never believed in love at first sight, but meeting her challenged his beliefs. She was beautiful, sure, but Spencer knew in his gut that she was so much more than that. The more they saw one another, as their friendship grew and he learned more about her mind and her heart, he learned that she was not only lovely on the outside. No, she was a good person. She genuinely cared about the people around her, about her world.

She is beautiful, so beautiful that Spencer has always been scared to touch her in that way. Scared that he may make her dirty; leave her damaged in some way, like he is. Every hug they exchange, every time Spencer curls up against her body after a long, harrowing case, him clinging to her tightly as she holds him close, he reminds himself to hold back.

five

She always knows; whenever he calls after a case that leaves him gutted and feeling hollow, she hears the difference in his voice and begs him to visit her. Every time, he goes to her place; when he’s too tired and empty she offers to make the drive to his apartment. She is there for him, always, like good friends are. She knows the horrors of his job, she’s heard his screams when he has nightmares and he has told her stories of what he’s seen. Children murdered, women defiled and mutilated. He has truly seen the worst of what humanity has to offer, so she always tries to show him the good.

This one, this case was hard on Spencer. She could tell by the way he hung his head as he walked into her living room, the look in his eyes. He says nothing, he just walks into her open arms and wraps his arms around her, finally letting his dam break, and his tears fall onto her shoulder.

“Come on,” she whispers, “Let’s sit on the sofa and you can tell me about it. Or don’t, I’ll just hold you,” so they do, and she holds him until his cries subside and all he is left with are a few sniffles. He stays quiet for a long while, except for a ‘thank you’ and they sit there, she holds him like his body is glass and he could break at any moment. At times, that is how he feels - like he is so close to finally breaking. And he is terrified to break and leave her to pick up the pieces of him.

six

She is so full of life. She knows how to live, and Spencer loves the moments when she makes him forget about his life and reminds him to live, too. He treasures days like this, when he’s off and doesn’t have to think about murders and rapists and terrorists and he can be with her. They never do anything extravagant or extraordinary, but these are the days he enjoys the most.

Sometimes they sit in a quiet coffee shop, or rest under a tree in a park. Other days, the two of them lay on her couch, watching bad movies and eating greasy takeout. It is these days that he is reminded how much he truly loves her; she is so comfortable and she is home. They lay together in a way that they probably shouldn’t; limbs tangled together under a blanket on her small couch, so close that he can smell her hair and the chapstick she uses, and he fights with himself every time. Wanting to kiss her, to finally do the thing he has been thinking about doing for so long.

Then he remembers Maeve, the first woman he fell in love with. He remembers Diane, the gun that she held to Maeve, and the inevitable gunshot that he can still hear plain as day in his mind. He can still see the light leave Maeve’s eyes as she died, murdered right in front of him. Reminded that he never got the chance to even kiss Maeve, he tells himself that this is for the best. He could not bear to see the same emptiness in her eyes.

seven

She would catch him, and he knows that. She’s told him as much; that she would be there for him no matter what came at them, but did she know the extent of that? Did she truly understand what that may entail? It was no secret that his mind was full of horrors, but it was so much deeper than that. Ever since he was young enough to understand his mother’s disease, Spencer has been afraid of his own mind. Not just of what he could do with it, but what it could to do him.

Spencer’s twenties were filled with worry; knowing that oftentimes schizophrenia showed itself in that time frame. He was able to breathe a sigh of relief once he hit his 30s, only to have another disease haunt his mother. It killed Spencer to know that one day his mom may not recognize his face or remember who he is. Dementia would most likely be in the back of his mind until the day he dies, always wondering if he will wake up one day and not remember his time at the BAU, or his mom, or her. More than that, though, he worried about her witnessing his seemingly inevitable fall down into the darkness that is dementia.

His father had left him and his mom because of her disease. It got to be too much for him to handle, understandably. After taking care of his mom himself for a short time, a small part of him understood. Would he one day become too much for one person to handle? Too much, that even love could not make them stay? Throughout his life Spencer has witnessed countless marriages end for different reasons. Hotch lost Haley to a bullet, a disease tore his own parents apart. Spencer could not make himself build a life with her just to have it taken away.

eight

She is sweet, but she has her sour days. Days when the world and the people in it get to be too much for her, so she retreats. She hides out, calling in to work, barely having the energy to drink a glass of water or wash her face. He hates when she is like this, and he is relieved when she agrees to let him check in on her.

The sight he walks into always manages to make his heart ache; a dark living room, a tired and distant look in her eyes as she answers her door. No smile to greet him, no joke about his unruly hair or crooked tie. She mutters a greeting before falling back onto her couch, and he follows suit. Asking permission before he hugs her or rubs her back, even though her answer is always the same. She leans into him, and depending on how bad it is, she opens up to him.

It’s not like she’s naive or gullible, but she wants to believe that there is still good in the world. She wants to believe that people are inherently good. If she doesn’t, she’ll drive herself crazy. Part of Spencer is thankful for that, After all the bad he sees on a daily basis, he likes that she reminds him of the good. It’s times like these, though, that he wants to grab her and beg her to grow a tougher skin. He wants to tell her that the world is not good, but he doesn’t. He knows that she doesn’t need that right now, not while she’s feeling the way she feels.

Spencer knows all too well what it is like to hate yourself; to feel empty. To hate everything around you. All too often he feels the same. Not suicidal, but wanting the world to stop for a while. Wanting to feel something other than despair for once. He hates that she feels that way and he does everything he can think of to help her.

Spencer looks down at her while she’s in his arms and he wonders if he is partially to blame for her pain, if he could make her happier if he would just be open for once and allow himself to love again. He is scared to hurt her, but he wonders if this, his silence, is hurting her. It is a vicious circle that he does not know how to break.

nine

She is good. Not just in the way she acts, but in the way that she is. She still believes there is good in the world and always tries to find happiness in the little things; she always finds the silver linings.

Spencer vaguely remembers a time when he felt the same. When he first joined the FBI he was full of optimism. He knew he could have done anything with his life, having three PhDs at the tender age of twenty-three was more than impressive and they would have taken him anywhere he would have wanted to go, but he chose the FBI at Quantico. That decision continues to keep him up at night, wondering if he made the right choice. If the heartache and the pain he had endured were worth it.

He knows he cannot logically blame all of his problems on his job. Not even his addiction. Even though he would have never taken dilaudid if it wasn’t forced into him while he was held in Georgia, it was his choice to take it again once he was back home. It was Spencer who sought out dealers in D.C., not Hankel, his captor. He came very close to ruining his career, as well as any chance of a nice future, for a high.

Spencer is sure he came close to making his mother’s mental state worse when he tried to care for her himself. Years of guilt over hardly visiting her finally got to him and he made the decision to move her in with him. How was he so ignorant to believe that he could help her? He had hired help, but it was idiotic and selfish for him to think that she was better off with him.

His journey to help his mom had done more harm than good, eventually landing him in federal prison. The charges were dropped after proving that he was framed for the murder of Rosa Medina, but the damage had been done. He still woke up in cold sweats, those prison bars still haunting his dreams at night.

Spencer was damaged goods, his career and life were in jeopardy until he cleared his name and got reinstated into the bureau, but still, he feels flawed. Cracked. Ruined.

He manages to ruin everything he touches, and he cannot ruin her.

ten

She knows about every bad thing that has happened in his life. She knows about his mother, his father leaving. She knows about Tobias Hankel and the dilaudid, and about Gideon. He has told her about Maeve’s death, and Emily and Blake leaving. Cat Adams, being framed for murder, ultimately being sent to prison. He has had enough sadness and heartbreak to last a lifetime and she knows about all of it. She saw him in prison, of course she bugged Emily enough until she agreed to let her visit him. She knows about his past, his fears, and insecurities.

Spencer has told her about the time in high school when some older kids found out about a crush he had and stripped him naked in front of the whole school, which is where his hatred of his body came from. He has told her about being so young in high school that he never got the chance to go to dances or have any real fun, he feels like he couldn’t have a childhood because his mind was so big, there was so much to learn. Besides, no one wanted to hang out with a 12 year old child prodigy in the twelfth grade anyway. She knows that after Hankel was dead, Spencer stole his drugs and continued to take them just so he could feel something, and how he hated himself for it.

She knows about all of the bad in his life, and the bad things he has done. She knows, and she loves and accepts him all the same. Still he cannot bring himself to take that leap and let himself fully love her. She is too good, too light to be buried in all that he has experienced.

He loves her. God, he loves her and he is so tired of being alone. He’s tired of being scared, being selfish; he’s tired of fighting. He has had so much sadness in his life, he deserves happiness. He deserves someone to love him, and so does she.

Back at her place, they’re watching reruns of a TV show they both like. They’ve seen this episode so many times they can recite it from memory, but still there is no place either of them would rather be. Spencer looks over to her, and she feels his gaze on her so she turns her head and her cheeks turn red. “What?” she asks.

Reaching for the TV remote, he pauses their show and scoots closer to her. The look of embarrassment on her face turns to one of confusion as he does so, and she is about to ask him another question before he grabs her hand, briefly rendering her speechless.

“I love you,” he breathes, “I’m in love with you. I’m sorry I haven’t said so sooner, I was just scared.”

When she finally speaks, it is a low whisper, “Scared of what?”

“I don’t know. Hurting you, being hurt myself. Scared of everything, really. But I’m being honest, I love you. So much. Do you love me?” He knows the answer, but he needs to hear her say it.

She doesn’t say those three words, though. Instead, she squeezes his hand and gives him an answer in the form of a different three words, “Spencer, kiss me.”

And so he does. He presses his lips to hers slowly, finally doing the one thing he’s dreamt of for so long, and he can’t help but realize how perfect and right this feels.

#spencer reid #dr spencer reid #spencer reid fic #spencer reid imagine #criminal minds #criminal minds fic #criminal minds imagine #cm #mgg #matthew gray gubler #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x you #criminal minds x reader

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thenightling · 7 years ago

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My Fictional Character obsessions as depicted in gifs

My obsessions from age ten onward as depicted in gifs. Some of these characters have alternated in cycles over the years. The ones with the * next to them are ones that have stood the test of time or are particularly strong obsessions. I am not posting them in a particular order, that would take too long to sort out and may change depending on my mood, however the current strongest obsession is at the bottom.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you my fictional character obsessions through the years... Or as Tumblr calls them... My “Garbage children.”

Note: I know only some of them count as “garbage children.” So please don’t be offended that I may have called your favorite character a garbage child.

Rumplestiltskin as depicted in the show Once Upon a Time, particularly seasons 1 through 3.

*Loki from Norse mythology and Marvel comics. Tom Hiddleston is a great actor but I felt I should note that the MCU version is slightly disappointing, I wish they wouldn’t downplay the magick and try to pass them off as “alien.”

*Dracula. There are many depictions of Dracula that I am fond of / obsessed with. Fred Saberhagen’s Dracula books for example, The Frank Wildhorn Dracula musical, and a few movie and TV versions.

I love the 90s Dracula TV series even though he’s blond in that (not to be confused with the awful NBC show version from the twenty teens) but I have no Gifs of the 90s one. Nor do I have any gifs of Rudolf Martin as Dracula in Buffy or Dark Prince: The True Story of Dracula though I love that one. But here’s the most recent version to feed my obsession. Dracula of Castlevania (The Netflix series). Look at that Adorkable vampire!

*Jack Skellington of Nightmare before Christmas was one of my first truly all-consuming obsessions. I played the cassette of the soundtrack to death. I had a shelf of the toys (which were actually rare in the early 90s). I became fixated on Danny Elfman’s singing voice as well as the gorgeous and haunting visuals.

Sally, who helped kindle my first Frankenstein obsession because until then I had never seen an intelligent Frankenstein monster. I hadn’t yet learned that in the original novel he was articulate (once he learned how to speak) and intelligent, and did not have a flat head or neck bolts. Sally and later The Bride (1985 movie) eventually got me to read the novel and pointed me in the right direction.

The ORIGINAL Peter Vincent from Fright Night, as played by Roddy McDowell. I loved his character growth. I loved watching him go from cowardly pretender to being the hero he always pretended to be and still having that B movie cheese to him. Peter Vincent is my favorite vampire hunter. Named after two of my favorite horror movie actors. Peter Cushing and Vincent Price.

Lestat. Yes, I went through an Anne Rice obsession in my teens. What 90s teenager didn’t?

The Dresden Files TV series, particularly Bob The Ghost AKA Hrothbert of Bainbridge as played by Broadway great, Terrence Mann. Though short lived I loved that snarky ghost and this introduced me to the book series. It was also the first TV series I enjoyed after my mother passed away so it has a special bittersweet place in my heart.

Another ghost character I love but I have no picture for him is Captain Gregg from the novel, movie, and TV show The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. And Patrick Stewart as The Canterville Ghost from 1995 (as well as the original Oscar Wilde Story).

Jareth from Labyrinth (and David Bowie). Does he need an explanation?

Morbius from Marvel comics. Because I just loved that emo SOB.

Nick on Forever Knight. I went through an emo vampire phase in the 90s, okay...

The Doctor on Doctor Who

Methos from Highlander the series. Highlander the series was a LOT better than people give it credit for. And Methos was the first fictional character with a truly dark past I had ever seen, who mostly became a decent person after years of penance and self analysis. It was through Highlander that I finally saw fiction and characters with shades of grey and realized things aren’t always black and white. When they revealed Methos’ dark past I was so worried it was an excuse to kill him off and show that he was secretly evil all along but no. They didn’t do that. Highlander taught me just how much people CAN change. And it also taught me a lot about history and inspired me to be curious about our world and its past. (It also often helped me with Social Studies tests.)

Frank Langella as Dracula.

Faust from Goethe’s Faust. (The 1926 silent film is the most faithful adaptation and actually covers Faust and Faust Part 2. Most adaptations leave out Part 2).

Thomas Jerome Newton from The Man who fell to Earth. Movie and novel by Walter Tevis. Yes, depicted in the movie by David Bowie... You’re lucky Bowie doesn’t turn up more in this list than he already does.

Maleficent. This one is kind of a guilty pleasure...

As a long time book lover (One the first books I remember reading and loving was In a Dark Dark Room by Alvin Shwartz at age four...) Belle from Disney’s Beauty and the Beast was the first Disney Princess I truly related to.

Elisa and “Charlie” from The Shape of Water.

The Beast / Prince and Belle in Le Belle et la Bete original 1740 novel and the 2014 French film (even though that film isn’t all that faithful and Belle is a little cold, I love the visuals).

*Luke Goss as the Frankenstein Monster from the 2004 Hallmark mini-series of Frankenstein. The most faithful adaptation of the novel to date. Woefully under-rated. Note, this spot is for the literary character too.

*Puck from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream AND Disney’s Gargoyles. I love that little bastard.

Mina and Dracula in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992 film)

Emily The Corpse Bride. Also pretty much anything scored by Danny Elfman gets a slight nod here. I love that man’s music. It just catches me. And I always can tell when it’s one of his scores (And no, I don’t think they all sound the same). They’re just so beautiful and haunting.

The Frankenstein Monster in Penny Dreadful. The second most accurate to the novel. They even go the eyes right.

The Real Ghostbusters animated series. Egon is what inspired me to want to study parapsychology. I loved the nerd characters in shows like this.

Barnabas Collins in the original Dark Shadows. And 1990s version. And Doctor Julia Hoffman, a surprisingly empowered character for a 1960s TV show, which is why it annoys me that more “modern” versions always make her sexually obsessed with Barnabas or a villain or both whereas in the original show she was Barnabas’ closest confidant and even the one Barnabas cried out for whenever he was in trouble. (Admittedly it took hundreds of episodes for them to develop that dynamic but they got there).

Lucifer. TV show incarnation and Sandman comics incarnation.

Cain and The House of Mystery (The House of Mystery counts as a character)

*Morpheus from Neil Gaiman’s Sandman. My current biggest obsession. I’m making up for lost time. This is something I SHOULD have been obsessed with in my teens. I’m thirty-six-years-old and was thirty-five-years-old when I read it for the first time. Why the Hell did no one describe this thing well to me back in the 90s!? Yes, Sandman started when I was only seven-years-old but it was most popular in the mid-90s and I would have probably loved it if I only really knew what it was all about. Instead it was always “He’s like a Goth Jareth” (which almost worked) and “You’ll love Death! She’s so cute!” (which totally didn’t work at all...) Don’t protect me from spoilers, damn it! Tell me about his character growth, the gorgeous artwork, the horror hosts residing in The Dreaming, tell me about the mythology and Shakespeare references, the lore, tell me about the ambiance, the atmosphere, the humor and pathos. For God’s sake, I SHOULD have loved this thing a LONG time ago!

You’d be amazed how hard it is to find a gif of Morpheus- he’s never had a film or TV adaptation but there are fan films! (The gif is from The Sandman fan film, 24 Hour Diner).

________________________________

Honorable mentions:

Lydia from the Beetlejuice animated series (My mother’s best friend often compared me to her but I think I had a crush on the character...)

Xena: Warrior Princess (when I figured out I’m not entirely straight). Though I think I liked Gabrielle a little more than Xena, herself.

The mermaid in She-Creature (2001 film, not the black and white film of the same name)

The Crypt Keeper from Tales from the Crypt.

Carmilla (vampire novella and Hammer horror film The Vampire Lovers)

Duncan Macleod from Highlander the series.

Various characters from Buffy The Vampire Slayer (TV series) including Buffy herself, Giles and Spike.

Doctor Strange (And in relation to that, Doctor Craven from the Vincent Price movie The Raven from 1963.)

Bruce “David” Banner in The Incredible Hulk, particularly as depicted by Bill Bixby. Though that was more of a role model personality type that I saw as a truly good man in a bad situation.

Dorian Gray from the Picture of Dorian Gray

Elisa in Disney’s Gargoyles but I idolized her more than obsessed about her. There is a difference.

The reason those aren’t properly on the list is because those aren’t precisely obsessions but just characters I happened to really like a lot.

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overdrivels · 7 years ago

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The Way to a Heart (2)

You all underestimate how much I love this character. I also want to thank @dickbutt-writes-again for listening to me freak out so patiently, and giving such concise advice. It’s really helpful.

<<Chapter 1

Your day starts whenever your customers demand it, whether it be seven in the evening for Reinhardt's warm milk or three in the afternoon for Ana's 'tea parties'. The three main meals of the day are also ad-hoc as the agents are always coming in and out of the base at unpredictable times, work through their mealtimes, and (perhaps the worst offense of all) just plain refuse to eat.

Your day ended whenever all agents have retired for the day (or night); those days are few and far between. It wouldn't do to be unavailable when an agent is going hungry, so the time in between orders are filled with other tasks: cleaning, prep work, checking inventory, attending and scheduling remote meetings, planning menus, updating ledgers, maintaining the kitchen tools, etc. The days of twenty chefs in the kitchen at its peak hours (six at its lowest), everyone with a specific responsibility, are long gone.

Sleep came in the form of naps that pass in a blink. A proper night’s rest was impossible with agents like McCree, who is constantly haunted by nightmares and seek the companionship of alcohol to keep them at bay, and Agent D.Va, who refuses to sleep at an appropriate time and wanders often into the cafeteria in search of a late night snack (and some interesting, albeit one-sided, conversations).

Mornings, however quick they come, bring about the need to double check inventory to ensure that no one has come into the kitchen and filched anything. While Athena keeps the place under close watch while you sleep and will alert you of any intruders, she's not omnipotent.

You bite your lip as you go through the numbers, slipping in and out of the walk-in freezer, counting up near-empty containers, meticulously labeled in blue tape and sorted by category.

It shouldn't surprise you so much since the growth of the organization would naturally come with the growth of appetites, but whenever Agent Hanzo orders, the food supplies deplete rapidly. At first, you had chalked it up to malnutrition from being on the run for so long and not having a proper meal, but it is beginning to wear on your limited resources. It’s lucky he’s not at the base often, having to get shipped off with other agents for various missions. (Though, the demands for seconds never fails to make you smile and your heart swell—nothing is better than to know your customers have a healthy appetite and enjoy your cooking.) Between him, Agent Zarya, Agent Reinhardt, and Agent Roadhog, it’s impossible to predict just how much food you’d need without over-ordering.

"Athena. Stats, please."

From one of the screens high above the kitchen, once (and still is) used to show the incoming orders, the statistics of how many calories each agent has burned and a rough estimate of how much they consumed (and lost) within the past twenty-four hours are posted for your scrutiny.

You thin your lips and pace the kitchen, tapping the notepad in your hand. Agent Soldier: 76 has been at the top of the charts lately, and returning his food only half-finished and cold hours later. (It’s painful in more ways than one when you have to scrape off the crusted remains; it makes sleep even more difficult to come by). There's also the matter of Agent Symmetra's dietary restrictions; Agent Mei’s lactose intolerance; Agent D.Va’s preference for spicy food; Agent Reinhardt’s health; the list goes on and on.

As disappointing as it is, it's also a blessing that some agents do not require food (like Agent Zenyatta, who politely passes by your window with a gentle greeting and a friendly wave that you would return shyly. Agent Winston, on the other hand, refuses to eat much beyond peanut butter related delectables and takes the combined effort of Athena and yourself to convince him to eat something different.

You flip through your list again, already mentally trying to piece together a menu for today's meals and snacks from the limited ingredients. There’s always an abundance of rice, so you may have to stick with that again. Maybe some congee for breakfast with some shredded ginger on top (extra ginger for Agent Solider: 76 to open up his appetite). That could help with the rationing, but it’s not necessarily something that all agents would enjoy. Maybe oatmeal should also be given as an option today. But then it’d require toppings that you don’t have.

You turn a page, pursing your lips.

Perhaps the flour reserved specifically for Captain Amari's cookies may have to find its way into everyone else's food. (It's a secret stash of ingredients specially ordered for the woman's afternoon tea gatherings. You took great joy in watching these sessions from the screens in your kitchen, oven still hot and kettle at the ready in case more provisions were needed. You had watched friendships forged over the buttery, crumbly treats, and several relationships mended from a single cup of tea.)

You shake your head of the thought. No, you could never do that to her. The old Head Chef would have your head (but not before Captain Amari did).

Perhaps from another source...

Your sigh echoes in the cavernous kitchen.

The notepad is placed onto an empty counter, and you roll up your sleeves.

It's four days until the next shipment, almost all agents are present. Running out to buy more ingredients is plausible, but risky, and funds were being allocated elsewhere at the moment. If you’re careful and creative enough, you can stretch the current inventory over these remaining days.

And the health and well-being of the agents always came first.

You'll make this work somehow.

Two days have passed.

You chew some mint leaves, the soothing taste counteracts the slow burning in your stomach that is slowly crawling up into your chest that you steadfastly ignore.

‘Captain Amari prefers this without sauce and a lemon wedge,’ you remind yourself as you finish plating the fish. You reach into the garnish counter with shaky fingers and place the citrus slice beside the well-seasoned, pan-roasted sea bass fillet with blistered asparagus and grape tomatoes. Two slices of thick bread (no butter), her tea (dark like the night with mint), and her appetizers are at the ready on the tray.

You deliver it to the window where the woman waits—you didn’t even have to ring the bell.

The woman slides the tray over to the side, leaning in and down onto the counter. "Have you eaten yet?"

The insides of your stomach prickles and aches at the question, and you have to resist the urge to press down on it. Captain Amari is far too sharp for a woman of her years.

You thread your fingers together to disguise the trembling.

A thick french accent rises from your memories, sharp and loud, "Chefs do not eat until their customers have eaten." It echoes in your mind, stabbing itself into your stomach repeatedly.

"I will," you lie. "After, after I have served everyone." The paltry numbers of today's inventory flashes through your head.

She huffs, disbelieving. "In that case, I will not be having my cookies today."

"You...won't?"

Your mind betrays you and immediately begins concocting recipes that could make use of the eggs, flour, butter, and sugar that the sniper's cookies normally call for. Tortillas, pancakes, velouté sauce, pretzels, soufflés--the possibilities stream in like a torrent at the behest of your aching stomach. It's enough to make you salvate just a bit.

"No, I believe I've had my fill for now."

Integrity shocks your mind out of its gluttonous stupor of handmade pasta, puff pastry, vol-au-vent, and pierogi, and you slap your hands against the counter in alarm.

"Are the, the cookies no longer to your satisfaction? Do they require adjustment? Too much sugar? Too little sugar? Should I change the flour?"

She chuckles, one bony hand resting firmly atop yours. You jerk back, but her grip is too strong. She leans down and pokes her head through the window to peer at you with her single eye. You lean back and look away--her gaze is too sharp, she can likely see the weariness beneath your eyes and the crackling of your lips. You run your tongue over them self-consciously.

“Feed yourself,” she chides firmly, wagging a finger. “Do not make me come in there.”

It is against the rules for non-kitchen staff to enter this sanctuary, but even so, you took her threat to heart. “Yes, madame.” Your voice is barely above a whisper.

"Close the kitchen for an hour, and eat." Without giving you any room for argument, she picks up her tray and walks away, the tail of her jacket flowing behind her.

The quiet holds you for a moment before you look up at the screen. It's blank, but the clock is nearing noon. Closing the kitchen now would mean that the agents would have to wait until you're finished, and that wouldn't do. Maybe you could get by with chewing on some more mint until after lunch is served.

You suddenly grab your midsection when the fire in your stomach flares up angrily as if to protest your decisions, dry coughs disappearing into the sleeve of your elbow. It takes a few moments for you to compose yourself, but by then, your vision is swimming with dots of blues, greens, and whites.

Maybe you should heed Captain Amari's wisdom, after all.

When Ana comes for her afternoon tea, before you hand off her order, you ask again, “Arre you absolutely certain you would not like to have your cookies, Cap--Agent Ana?”

Granted, it would take half an hour to make them at this point, but the nagging in your mind remains.

"I'm very sure," she assures you. “Have you eaten yet?”

Embers still burn in your stomach, but it's bearable--not worth a mention.

“I have, thank you."

It’s the spare heads, fins, and tails of the seabass you have served everyone made into a broth over some leftover rice, but was still a meal that placated your stomach. (You had decided to save the ingredients Captain Amari so generously offered for another occasion—maybe make her some aish baladi—Egyptian bread. It’s not your strong point, but it was something you were willing to attempt for her.)

"Good. You must keep yourself in good health, we are counting on you.”

“Yes, madame.”

She scoffs, muttering something fond under her breath as she hefts the tray. "Now, I don’t suppose you could join us today?"

It’s not the first time she’s asked you to join her for tea. But what if someone orders and you're not there to receive it? What if they see you sitting around, joking, laughing, and making merry with the other agents while they stand at the terminal, waiting?

Your hands fly to your face and you inhale sharply. No, that won't do. Eating with your customers is something you can’t do. A chef does not eat before or during their customer’s meal times without someone there to cover.

“Thank you for the offer, but—I couldn’t.”

The older Amari hums contemplatively. "We'll get you to join us one day."

“Please enjoy your tea,” you say, pretending that her comment was just kind teasing and not a threat.

“Where are the cookies?” is the immediate reaction from Hanzo, who has started to become a regular member of these little get-togethers.

"Why, is that all this old woman is good for? Are the cookies the only reason you keep me company?”

“I--no, you are mistaken.” Hanzo looks away, crossing his arms tightly against himself.

“I’m just teasing,” she says warmly, placing the tray of cups and kettle on the table. Hanzo grunts, acknowledging the sentiment, but still indignant.

"Oh, let me." Mei is quick to lay out the cups and pour the tea while Ana takes her rightful seat. Hanzo looks irked that he would not be having Ana’s specialty cookies today, but a quick pat from the senior sniper on his arm changes that.

"Don't pout. We'll have some next time."

"I do not pout. Do not be ridiculous."

She gives him a smug look over the rim of her cup that he tries to pointedly ignore with a loud slurp of his tea and winces at the taste--just a little too dark, doused far too heavily in sugar and mint.

From the kitchen, you stifle a laugh behind your hand as you watch Hanzo's reaction from the screens where the orders normally appear, jotting down in your notepad to make up for this lack of cookies, and that Agent Hanzo dislikes Koshary tea.

Chapter 3>>

#my writing #please let me have enough discipline to keep going #now that chef has been introduced #onto the actual story #which is still being developed because I don't know where I'm going with this #hanzo shimada #reader #twtah #the way to a heart

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taiblogcomics · 7 years ago

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How Legends Are Made

Hey there, monotone laughter. Well, new shipment means new pony comics. And as delightful as the next issue of the ongoing series looks, I think we have to do the concluding issue of Legends of Magic first, yeah? It turned out to be a neat series with surprising ties to the seventh season. And speaking of, if you haven't finished the seventh season yet, spoilers ahead! Like, even more than usual~

Here's the cover:

Ah, Starswirl and Stygian. They're actually pretty similar in appearance, aren't they? Grey unicorn with blue head-covering. Like, if you didn't know better, you'd think this was the same pony at different stages of his life, and also the Venom symbiote in the background. But what I really like about this cover most of all is the fact that it tells you it's the finale right on the cover. That's nice for readers~

So, this issue is unusual compared to the others, in that it is full of narration by Stygian. The gist of the whole thing is that Stygian does not think he is a hero. The only notable thing he has done is draw all these actual heroes together, which is where the story picks up. Starswirl is impressed to meet all these heroes, some of who he didn't even expect to be real. He's fascinated, but Rockhoof puts him back on topic of Stygian's problem. Starswirl has already forgotten who Stygian is, which kind of sets the tone for the whole thing. The other heroes all support Stygian, though, which is really heartwarming~

So, what's Starswirl doing with his time? Why, he's babysitting the teenage princesses. Luna's in her season 1 design, and Celestia doesn't even have her rainbow mist hair yet. They're adorable, and their concern with Starswirl is delightful. He can handle it, though, and promises he'll return. And so the final group sets out, with Stygian reflecting on their journey, and musing that it feels different now. Mage Meadowbrook notices, but he brushes her off so they can discuss their plan for what they're going to do. Stygian first proposes a plan where they separate the townsfolk from the Sirens so they can't use them as power batteries. Starswirl has a different idea, though. See, he's noticed a collective sort of power among the group. A series of... elements, if you will.

Yep, it's a prototype to the Elements of Harmony. It's covered in the show, but the original elements were Sorcery, Strength, Bravery, Healing, Beauty, and Hope. Somnambula asks the question hanging in the air: what about Stygian? Starswirl admits he didn't forsee a seventh member in his designs. He asks Stygian what he brings to the group, and sadly, Stygian has no answer. The other heroes, however, point out that Stygian is the one who brought them all together. All of them think he's pretty great for all his efforts to get them together and determination to see them through. Stygian might not have a legendary element, but he brought them all friendship. And friendship is... well, you know~

Starswirl puts the question of friendship aside for now, naming the elements as things so important that they hold up Equestria--its pillars, if you will. By combining these attributes, they may be able to magically overpower the Sirens. Showing exactly why she represents Hope, Somnambula thinks that then will be the time to talk to the Dazzlings, work out a way to help them change and not be so evil. Starswirl, however, doesn't think that's likely. While outright destroying the Dazzlings should be only a last resort, he also thinks they're beyond redeeming. They should be cut off from the magic they need to power themselves. The other legends are iffy about this, but Stygian agrees with Starswirl. And thus they plan to dump the Sirens in another dimension, one without magic, where they'll never bother anypony again~

Stygian narrates that he wonders if this is the point that he lost his way. He's legitimately concerned how he chose security over hope, but also muses on Starswirl's declaration that ponies don't change. Maybe he just always was somepony who would choose that and didn't realise it. Mage Meadowbrook makes a potion that enables them to resist the Sirens' magic for a time, but there's only enough for six. Stygian will have to stay behind. If they fail, he's to go and report what happens to the princesses. And thus the Pillars of Equestria charge in to attack! The Sirens send in the zombified townsfolk, and the various heroes team up to remove them from the fight without hurting them, such as using a sleeping potion or knocking them into a big hole. Starswirl unleashes his spell, and the Sirens are banished to another dimension. The day is saved!

This winds down with more narration from Stygian, revealing this is all stuff he's been writing in a journal. Of course, his first thought upon seeing the Dazzlings get swept away was "I did it! I helped save my town!" But his follow-up is "I should be down there." It's pretty clear Stygian has developed a sort of inferiority complex ever since he met his hero Starswirl. That even ties back to what I said about the cover, how Stygian looks like a less-impressive version of Starswirl. The last lines of the journal are about how Stygian has been searching for a way to make him become a hero in his own right, like his friends. And he thinks he's finally found a way, using their symbolic objects as a source of power. Finally, he can stop running from the words he's been haunted by since that day: "I'm not a hero."

That's the end of the journal. But of course, it's not the end of Stygian's tale. To sum up the season seven finale, Stygian's little ritual awakened something dark. He transformed into a beast called the Pony of Shadows, and it was only the combined efforts of the Pillars that allowed them to defeat the monster. Twilight and her friends discovered Starswirl's own journal, and saved the Pillars from the limbo dimension they trapped themselves in, which also released the Pony of Shadows. However, through the efforts of Twilight and Starlight Glimmer, they managed to reach out to Stygian and reverse the transformation, explaining his feelings to the Pillars, who forgave him. And that's where we pick up, with Sunburst having just finished this volume of Stygian's journal and talking with Stygian about it.

Sunburst and Stygian bond a bit over both of them being scholarly shut-ins. After all, Stygian now has a thousand years of research to catch up on. Sunburst wants to ask him one more thing, particularly about his last few words. Stygian essentially still agrees with himself. If anything, turning into the Pony of Shadows proves he's no hero. Sunburst disagrees, pointing out all the ways Stygian was brave, wise, and determined in the story. But most of all, he brough the element of friendship to the group. If things had gone differently, Stygian might have been the first princess of friendship instead of Twilight. ("Princess" is really more of a title, you see, not a gendered position of royalty.) Sunburst thinks all this means Stygian is a hero, which Stygian is grateful to hear. He's also interested in showing Sunburst some other journals he has, and they begin discussing some of their theories as they walk into the sunset~

Stygian’s tale is very much an interesting one, and honestly he has probably the most sympathetic motive for turning to villainy of any My Little Pony villain, right up there with Nightmare Moon. He sees his whole thing as a big cautionary tale of “never meet your heroes”, as you might notice Starswirl takes a big chunk of the focus this issue. The other Pillars are put into a collective aside (Mistmane in particular gets very little focus), but the best part of this is that they become a cohesive unit of “Stygian’s loving and supportive friends”. They cover in the episode that if Stygian had just talked to them, it might never have escalated to where it did, but that’s feelings of inadequacy for you. This has been one of my favourite arcs of the entire comic series, and it concludes very nicely.

However, this isn’t the last we’ll see of our friends in Legends of Magic. Seems like the upcoming Annual issue is also going to focus on them, as a final conclusion to their arc. And then I guess we’ll see what comes next. This is, after all, the third spinoff series to conclude, following the Micro Series and Friends Forever. I guess the Annual will tell us if another complimentary ongoing series will begin, or if the main series will now be the only pony comics you get~

#comics #reviews #My Little Pony Legends of Magic #Taiblog

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black-wolf066 · 7 years ago

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Never a Dull Moment (Revamped) [1/?]

Words: 1827

Rating: pg-13 (for language and whump I suppose)

Summary: In which the land of untold stories should have been a warning, that it wasn’t just fairytales that were real.

Warnings: Killian Jones injured and BAMF!Henry protecting and taking care of him. (Slightly AU I guess considering I’m disturbing the canonical peace of Storybrooke and season 7 hasn’t happened yet)

(((A/N: Here is the rewritten version of “Never a Dull Moment” I had posted on Friday (you can click the link if you want to compare them both). I didn’t realize just how rushed I had felt when writing the first one, since I had places to be that night, until I came home and reread it and realized so much more meat could have been added to its bare bones.

[1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [FF.Net Link]

I’m happy with the final result now (pretty much tripling the word count from the 600’s to 1800’s), and I hope you guys enjoy!! (I don’t know when I’ll update again, but I promise I will eventually update when the time allows… I honestly don’t see this being any more than 2 possibly 3 chapters)

Also tagging @killian-whump (hope you don’t mind, I just figured it’d be easier for you to find if you were still interested in reading it)

P.S. on an unimportant note... it’s 2am now after finishing this and I need sleep.... why won’t my brain shut off when I need it too!!!!)))

Chapter 1: Goosebumps… Really?!

Henry should have expected this.

Their current predicament should not, in any way, have surprised him as much as it did. It was Storybrooke after all.

(You would think after six months filled with nothing but a crock full of crazy–beginning with his Aunt Zelena, watching the man he’s grown to see as a dad die not once but thrice, and ending with the madness that was the Black Fairy–that one would have become desensitized by now.)

Yet it had.

Four years of nothing but utter, blissfully wonderful, peace would do that to a person, he supposed.

So, like every disaster to wreak havoc on Storybrooke in the past, it had happened suddenly and without warning.

They had been on his grandparent’s farm, with most of his convoluted family and their friends gathered to celebrate his graduation; all sides of the property filled with wide smiles and echoing with mirth filled shenanigans. It was just after food and presents (finally being handed down his Grandpa’s broadsword, and the pleasant surprise of his moms and dad gifting him the brand new motorcycle hidden in the shed), that Henry found himself filled with contentment; his momentary stress of deciding what he wanted to do with the rest of his life taking a back seat for now (his first mistake he realized too late).

Out in the field, his little Uncle Neal and little Robin both were squealing joyously as they were chased across the grounds by old, faithful Wilby. And close by to them, was the ever watchful eye of his heavily pregnant grandma and Aunt Zelena; the two leaning against the wooden fence and smiling and laughing as their children were herded around by the sheep dog. In the house, both his mothers, Grace, Granny and Geppetto, were clearing the food away and getting the desserts ready, their easy chatter and laughter that filtered out of the opened windows nearly being drowned out by the impromptu ‘sword’ fight taking place by his Grandpa, his dad, August and Jefferson; the others goading the four good-naturedly as they observed from the sidelines.

Henry himself had just finished putting most of his presents away in the back of the bug, his hand reaching for the broadsword to put on top of the boxes, when it happened.

An orange swirling portal had opened up far off to the side of the house, the whirling wind it created blowing trash and table cloths across the ground as it slowly grew bigger in size and strength. Not bothering to slam the trunk shut, Henry gripped the handle of the now unsheathed sword tight and raced back around the house toward the backyard where he could hear orders being shouted over the panicked cries of the guests.

Across the field, Zelena and Snow were ushering the kids and those closest to their location to the barn, where Regina had poofed herself to the front of and was already throwing up a protection spell to shield them. He caught a glimpse of Emma doing the same to the house as he rounded the corner, with Jefferson, August and some of the dwarves ushering everyone else inside the home when the first attack from the portal came.

Green leafy vines, the size of tree trunks, shot out of the opening like speared whips; knocking David—wielding the pitchfork he had been using for the ‘fight’—and Grumpy and Happy—both wielding their pickaxes, that none of the dwarves ever seemed capable of being without—off their feet while acting as a line of defense for the others. Henry was stopped from moving any closer to help as a few more vines came slithering toward him. He jumped and rolled, a move he had perfected over the years of being taught by David and Killian, and blocked the point of another vine from piercing straight into his gut.

“David!” He heard Killian shout; risking it as he spared a quick glance toward the house to see him, Jefferson and August racing down the steps, each with swords in hand that his grandpa had retired to be decoration over the fireplace.

In the next moment another vine was shooting for him, and Henry was forced to back up and farther away from help, and he cursed as he caught sight of the size the portal had become. It was large enough now to engulf the two-story barn, and the ‘oh shit’ feeling didn’t recede as the massive plant the vines were attached too, came out of the gaping swirling hole; with more than seven dozen, equally as massive, Venus fly trap heads snapping and hissing as they slithered into view.

And seriously, the ventriloquist dummy cackling manically, and hitching a ride on the back of one of them, should not have surprised him as much as it had to know that “Goosebumps” was a bloody thing too.

The battle froze just long enough for the puppet to ask where R.L Stine was hiding, before the chaos erupted again, and it took everything Henry had to avoid the slithering groping vines as they fanned the expense of the property; hissing in outrage as their path was blocked by the barriers his mothers threw up to prevent it from leaving and entering the rest of town.

“There’s too many!”

“Regina, stop throwing you’re fire, you’ll burn us all!”

“Where’s Henry!?”

“I thought he went into the house with the others!”

Henry didn’t have the time to answer, let alone take stock of where his family was and how they were fairing off in the fight; too busy dodging, hopping, blocking and hacking away at the plants to do much of anything else. Sure he had come a long way in four years, but that didn’t negate the fact that this was his first real battle and not just a simple sparring match. His life—and his family’s—were on the line here and he couldn’t afford to risk anymore distractions; not at the wild rate the vines were multiplying and striking all around them.

“Jefferson, watch out!”

“Regina, there’s your opening!”

The shouted commands from his family seemed to grow fainter the more he fought and dodged. He was no longer by the house, and every time he took one step forward to get himself back within range, the vines and snapping fly traps made him take two more in reverse.

“Henry! Behind you!”

This shout was louder and clearer as he twirled with his sword up to see a fly trap aiming right for him. It was easily bigger than he was, with saliva dripping off sharp thorn-like-teeth; the mucusy-liquid hissing and sizzling each time it made contact with the ground. He had just enough time to side-step left to dodge its gaping maw and slash his weapon to the right, the inhuman screech nearly bursting his eardrums as it made contact.

“Henry!”

He was about to yell that he was fine, but the air was suddenly knocked from his lungs by a body pushing him harshly to the ground on his stomach; barely having the time to register who had done it before the heavy weight was lifted off his back and a familiar, and very much human, scream rent the air.

It shook him to his core and would forever be the new soundtrack to haunt his nightmares to come.

With a grunt, he rolled out of the way of yet another reaching, groping vine, and looked up to see Killian’s upper body dangling upside down from the mouth of another fly trap; the former pirate’s face scrunched in uninhibited agony as he dug his namesake into the head of the carnivorous plant.

“Killian! Henry! Where are you!?” he vaguely heard his mother cry out at the same time he yelled, “Dad!”

His body involuntarily tensed at the second scream that tore from Killian’s throat; watching in utter horror as the mucusy concoction began to mix with blood as it eat at his clothes and exposed skin.

“Shit!”

Right, there wasn’t time for panic, Henry thought frantically as he ducked and rolled away from another fly trap snapping its jaws toward him; his eyes sweeping around for an opening or a way to reach his dad when he spotted it. With a dive over a vine, and a well-timed swing to take down the chasing fly trap, he rolled onto his feet and used the opened space to race head long for another; using the momentum to jump and spring up toward the barely conscious pirate.

With a shout of strain on his shaking arm muscles, he managed to dig the sword into the upper stem of the thing to prevent himself from falling back to the ground; cringing as another ear-splitting screech bellowed out and caused his ears to ring.

“Dad, hang on!” he yelled over the roar; yelping and clinging to the handle as the monster began to shake to and fro to try and dislodge him.

The movement only served to work the broadsword through the multi-cellular tissue however; effectively decapitating the head of the fly trap and causing him and the carcass holding Killian to fall back to the earth with a thud that once more stole the air from his lungs.

He definitely was going to feel this come morning.

With the flailing and the screeching ringing louder, and some of the vines retreating to lick their wounds, Henry used the opportunity to roll and crawl toward the now unconscious pirate. Jabbing the point of his sword into its mouth, he began to pry open the jaws; hissing out in pain when the toxic saliva spluttered out and onto his exposed arms and hands. Gods did it hurt, far worse than anything he could remember (even that one time when he and his ex-girlfriend had unfortunately and quite literally stumbled upon a fire ant hill), but he pushed through the scorching pain and moved as quickly as he could; knowing the monsters would be back with a vengeance otherwise as he worked.

It was after the third crunch of something breaking within the head as he worked it open, that Henry heard the movement from behind. He pivoted around with a rage filled cry as he swung the sword at its next victim, only to groan as they were replaced by two more (and Henry felt for all the world like Hercules battling the Hydra, only he wasn’t a demi-god and his tired arms were screaming murder for a single moments respite).

As he hacked and blocked and dodged, keeping his protective stance by Killian’s vulnerable form; he realized too late that they were being surrounded on all sides, the thick vines weaving into walls and effectively cutting them off from help by the rest of his family.

Than a portal opened under his feet and he and Killian were falling through it and landing only the bloody gods knew where.

#captain cobra #killian jones #henry mills #killian-whump #BAMF henry #once upon a time #ouat ff #ouat fanfiction #set four years after season 6

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neoduskcomics · 8 years ago

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Samurai Jack Season 5 Review - Part 1 (SPOILERS)

So, for those of you not in the know, Samurai Jack had a final, conclusive fifth season this year that aired on Toonami/Adult Swim. It consisted of ten episodes which ran successively over 11 weeks (one episode being displaced by a Rick and Morty surprise season premiere). This is going to be a review of that season, with one section dedicated to each episode, and then a “closing thoughts” segment. This review will also be split into two parts since it’s so damn long, so hopefully that will allow more people to actually read it. The second part will go up tomorrow.

SPOILERS

XCII

This episode was loads of fun and set a high standard for what was to come. While not a whole lot happens in terms of advancing the plot, this definitely felt more like an episode that sets the stage for the following nine. It allows us to see what sort of a state both Jack and the world around him are in. The world itself seems very unchanged, but Jack has changed a lot, and we can understand a sort of causality between the two.

We see how fifty years of status quo has left Jack in a torn and jaded state, haunted by hallucinations that chide him over his failure. A Jack tormented by shame, frustration, and survivor’s guilt really gives you a compelling gateway into this new story arc for the character—not to mention the fact that he’s lost his sword. But, we also see that the old Jack is still in there somewhere, as he’s still not willing to back down from a fight or run away from innocents in peril (at least, when he’s not being overwhelmed by tree leaves carrying the visages of his dead parents).

Ashi, our deuteragonist, is also introduced in this episode, and we can see through the circumstances of her birth and upbringing just how deeply Aku’s shit storm has seeped into the earth. We get some really dark and intense imagery in this episode that is unlike anything we’ve seen in the series thus far, and it really serves as a great starting point, pulling the audience in to wonder if and how things could ever go right again. Aku’s got cult followers birthing and torturously training assassins to kill Jack, Jack has lost his sword and nearly his mind, and Aku is no closer to releasing his dark hold on the world at large.

When Jack says in the opening “hope is lost”, these first couple episodes really make you feel it. And yet, again, we can still see glimmers of humanity and hope in our central characters to keep us connected. Jack still fights to survive and to help survivors. Ashi, despite her horrendous upbringing, shows glimmers of a soft side and curiosity in the beauty of the world beyond her underground den. The episode does a great job of balancing out its darkness and light. It lets things get intense, but also remembers to keep a bit of warmth and sentiment, however subtle, to keep the emotional stakes from getting out of hand.

And with that in mind, this brings me to Scaramouche, who is, to me, the absolute best part of this episode, and maybe one of the best parts of this whole series. After such carnage and emotional distress, we get introduced to a scene that reminds us “Hey, guys. This is still Samurai Jack. We can still have fun.” And “fun” is definitely a fitting descriptor for this character. Apparently he was modeled after a real actor and singer, Sammy Davis Jr., and while I’m not personally familiar with his work, I’m sure he was a great entertainer if Scaramouche is anything like him. The way this robot assassin talks, moves, dresses, and fights are all wildly stylish and amusing. Moving mindless puppets with a magic flute did give me Naruto flashbacks, but telekinetically manipulating his sword through scatting and his kickass tuning fork blade that blows up shit with residual vibrations were crazy creative and fun.

Overall, this was a great episode. It wasn’t mind-blowing, but it definitely hooked me in to see what came next.

XCIII

This is probably my favorite episode of the entire season or, hell, the entire series. Not only does Jack have seven highly trained and highly deadly assassins chasing after him, not only is he in the most mortal peril he’s ever been in in his entire life, not only is it fantastically animated, not only are the pacing, music, and atmosphere drenched with the most palpable tension and adrenaline…but—BUT—it completely removed all of my hang-ups about Aku having a replacement voice actor.

And I don’t want to make this out to be like it was the highlight of the episode. Because it wasn’t. There was way more stuff to like in this episode. But goddamn, man. In the middle of all this horrible, super dark, super serious and traumatic shit, what is the first scene we get reintroducing the show’s main antagonist and the literal sole cause of all this horrific chaos and torment?

We get Aku waking up to an alarm clock, smashing it, opening his nightstand drawer, pulling out two flaming eyebrows, and then placing them on top of his eyes as though they were miniature eye-hats.

That was it. I was on board.

And let me emphasize the fact that I don’t think this scene was comedic genius for the fact that it had some of the absolute most clever visual or scripted humor ever in an animated series. But for me, especially in a show such as this, comedy works best when it is used to break up tension. A lot of comedy comes from surprise—seeing something somewhere or in such a way that you weren’t expecting. When you use comedy to unexpectedly break a pattern of darkness and desolation, it becomes that much funnier simply because of that contrast. Aku could’ve been reworked to be a much more serious and diabolical threat in this season, sort of like how he was in the “Birth of Evil” prequels, but they did not go that route, and I was super happy that they didn’t when this scene happened.

Giving Aku such a comical introductory scene not only provided much needed levity to the opening of this season, but it also reaffirmed to the audience that we weren’t just getting some post-apocalyptic nightmare-scape. We were going to get a story with a widely varied tone which, for me, is my favorite type of story. I enjoy narratives that let you gasp, cry, clench your teeth, and laugh. Hideo Kojima, the creator and overseer of the Metal Gear franchise (before leaving Konami) said something similar about how he thinks all stories, no matter how serious, require levity. This was a primo example of that.

But, okay, on with the actual bulk of the episode. Whatever that initial Aku scene did for giving the show brightness and levity, the main Jack plot did for reinforcing the show’s drama, atmosphere, and tension. This episode is so beautifully paced, scored, and animated that I honestly don’t even know where to begin in extolling it. Keeping Jack’s humanity in tact from the first episode proves to be an incredibly essential calculation on the part of the writers here, because without it, all we would’ve been seeing is a man who has given up on life and success, following his animal instincts to survive.

But this is Jack. Even without his sword and without his ability to look at anything without it turning into an emaciated victim of war, he still wants to live and fight another day. We remain invested in Jack as a character, and so we are completely and absolutely terrified for him as we see him go up against an enemy the likes of which we have never seen before. Jack is completely outnumbered and seemingly outmatched, and the episode plays this out with masterful execution. Jack tries to fight at first of course, and we get not a fight where Jack is just mowing down baddies effortlessly, but where he’s in a real, life-threatening struggle. It’s packed with adrenaline. And then, when he’s quickly cornered, we shift into a state of survival horror. Where are they? What will Jack do? How will he survive? Can he survive?

The colors, the lighting, the environments, the slow pacing of the events punctuated by huge rushes of intense action—it all plays out beautifully and made me feel like I was watching a segment of a foreign animated film. We also get a deeper look into Jack’s heavily weighted psyche as he converses with an illusory version of himself. We see all of his shame, frustration, and even suicidal notions given a voice—and not just any voice, but his own. It works very well to show us the struggle going on within him, even if it is a bit played out as a plot device.

The ending sequence where he slits that girl’s throat, while we all knew it had to happen eventually, is still a bit of a shock both for us and Jack. And even with this pyrrhic victory, Jack is not only now at death’s door, but he’s still being pursued by the seven (now six) still-deadly and still-threatening assassins. It’s a grim ending to the episode, and it really leaves the mind to wonder just what could possibly happen next.

XCIV

This episode basically marks the end to the new season’s opening act. It’s where Jack pulls his shit together, is reawakened with a new resolve to fight and survive, and (mostly) puts an end to his deadly pursuers. While it didn’t give me the same highs as the previous episode might’ve, it still worked quite well to give this segment of the story some closure and have Jack undergo some real growth as a character (something that’s almost a bit of a stranger to the Samurai Jack series as a whole).

Seeing Jack in such dire straits, bleeding out into the river, still running for his life, struggling to remain conscious and yet still vigilant and on guard, keeps us on our toes as we know he’s not out of the woods yet (literally). But we are allowed to ease off a bit once the wolf from the previous episode returns (who we may have thought was just a thinly veiled symbol) He meets Jack and we see the healing process that Jack undergoes. While this part of the episode may come across a bit as padding, I think it was important for us to see Jack recuperate and see him form a connection to something—in this case, the wolf. Again, it’s a reminder that humanity still dwells in that guilt-ridden mind, and it makes the process of Jack’s both physical and mental healing seem natural, so that he is prepared for the climactic fight at the end of the episode.

It is also in this time that Jack is able to recall a vital lesson from his childhood. It was nice to see Jack when he was a child living with his family—a good reminder of the time before; what it was that Jack lost and once sought to reclaim. And, more importantly to the plot, it provided Jack with some much needed guidance. Jack understands from this memory that he is responsible for his actions, but his actions are also what define him as a person. It was a succinct if a bit simplistic way of getting Jack through the guilt of killing another human being. To me, this also helped absolve Jack of some of his other guilt as well—the guilt of never having returned home to save his people. The flashback itself is well-told, giving us just enough to understand what Jack experienced, what he and his father were feeling, and why it was such an important lesson for Jack to learn.

The resolving fight that follows is of course greatly animated and a lot of fun. The tides have turned, and Jack is now ready and capable to take his assailants down. This turning of the tide is also reflected in the background. In the previous episode, the landscape was always dark, foggy, and obfuscated in one way or another, complementing and enshrouding his black-clad enemies. Here, the land is so pristinely white that the only thing you can actually see is Jack and his opponents. It harkens back to the “Samurai vs Ninja” episode wherein while the Ninja uses the darkness as his domain, Jack uses the light to combat the darkness.

We also get a tiny bit more of Ashi’s humanity working its way to the surface in this episode. We see her volunteer for guard duty and then use the opportunity to gaze at the starry sky. It’s not a lot, but it communicates to us that there’s something more to her than there is to her sisters, and that we can probably expect more to be explored.

Jack, of course, beats all the bad guys as the episode leaves us on an almost literal cliffhanger, as Jack and Ashi are dropped from a towering precipice to the ground far below. It’s not quite as intense or exciting a cliffhanger as the last couple episodes, but the show at this point has demonstrated enough quality and gotten us invested enough in the characters and events that we’ll definitely tune in again anyway. Overall, a well-told story and a pretty fitting end to the season’s first act.

XCV

This is probably what you could consider to be the first “comedy” episode of the season, and it actually comes at a good time. Jack has just dealt with probably the shittiest situation in his life (maybe short of the time he realized that he was sent thousands of years into the future, that his whole family and nation were dead, and that Aku essentially had taken over the world). If there was a time for some levity, it was probably now.

Here is where we first see Jack and Ashi directly interact outside of combat, and we really get a sense of just how thorough her brainwashing is, in spite of her glimmers of humanity. What results from these interactions varies a bit. We get some genuinely funny exchanges, but we also get a lot of Ashi consistently and unyieldingly berating Jack and praising Aku. While I still welcomed the episode at the time despite it not being my favorite, and while I do still think it was a nice change of pace for the season, I now kind of recognize that it wasn’t just a break from the incredibly tense first several episodes. It was actually more of an indication of the general direction the show would now move in, and this has caused me to revise my initial opinion of it.

This is getting ahead of the episode, but a lot of the story that follows relies heavily on Jack’s relationship with Ashi. In fact, their relationship is kind of the emotional backbone for the final act of the whole season, and for that to work, we really needed something skillfully and gracefully defined. This episode, if you ask me, was a bit of a missed opportunity—in retrospect, at least.

This was basically 20 minutes of us having nothing but Ashi and Jack alone together, but instead of learning more about them and them learning more about one another, we spend most of it just repeating the same motions over and over again, either to play up the pointlessness of Jack trying to reach Ashi, or for the sake of escalating the absurd comicality of it all. Or perhaps both. But in either case, especially when the past few episode were so rich with characterization and insight, it does kind of feel like some time was wasted here, and this is reinforced by the fact that we really don’t get much meaningful dialogue or interaction between Jack and Ashi even after this episode, which I will discuss when we get to the relevant episodes.

This is part of why I felt like Ashi’s turnaround at the episode’s end was somewhat unnatural. Okay, as a scene by itself, it’s pretty well done. We have Ashi flash back to a moment from her childhood concerning a ladybug, and then a parallel is drawn with Jack and another ladybug. It mainly uses visuals to communicate to us how Ashi has a change in perspective, and it’s done pretty well. But I couldn’t really shake just how stark a change it is when, for the first couple episodes, Ashi was unyieldingly determined to kill Jack, and then for this entire current episode, Ashi was totally closeminded and did nothing but hold fast to her belief that Jack was evil and Aku was the shit.

I’m not saying that I didn’t believe this shift in perspective could’ve happened, but, again, it feels like there were a lot of opportunities, not just in this episode but in the whole season, to give us a more natural and emotionally poignant transition. This discussion of Ashi’s turnaround from evil to good will be further explored in the next episode, and I hope that my views on it will be more substantiated by the evidence provided there.

However, all that said, this episode was still good. It was nice to see Jack find himself resolute enough to try to save Ashi not just from bodily peril, but from the poison in her own mind. We get more of Jack debating with his inner, negative self over whether he should continue to bother with all the trouble, and Jack struggling to remain steadfast in his resolve. We also got a bit of a return to the show’s roots, putting Jack in a new and fantastical environment with strange creatures and obstacles for him to explore and overcome—only this time with a very, very vexing and trying companion (who also wants to kill him). The comedy in this episode also still worked pretty well, and I did enjoy some of the ways in which Ashi and Jack displayed that comical chemistry. Not an amazing episode, but still a pretty good one.

XCVI

Scotsman is back. This is easily the highlight of this episode. He is very old, but he hasn’t lost a step (well, figuratively speaking). And he and his (now deceased?) wife were apparently very busy making an able-bodied army of warrior daughters, except not the vicious murderous kind that we were familiar with from the first couple episodes. Seeing Scotsman charge into battle against Aku before bombarding him with his trademark longwinded flurry of insults was great for longtime fans of the show, even if it did end with Aku laser-eyeing him to death (and then thankfully him returning as a ghost). It was another fun and funny return to a beloved character from the show’s history, not unlike Aku’s own introductory scene this season.

That being said, I actually did not care for much of the remainder of this episode. I discussed previously how I felt that there was some missed opportunity in exploring Jack and Ashi’s relationship. It instead devoted an entire episode to Jack fruitlessly trying to reach Ashi, only to be spurned at every turn and then only for Ashi to undergo a decisive emotional epiphany through a single moment at the episode’s end. Here, we now spend half the episode with Jack providing Ashi with exposition, explaining to her how Aku is evil and, like, literally just the worst with some visual aids.

Now if you were to ask me how else I would’ve done it, I honestly couldn’t tell you. All I can tell you is that the high bar set by the first several episodes of this season left me a bit disappointed with this one and the ramifications that spread outward from it, both forward and back. It lessened my appreciation of the prior episode and it made me feel like there was something missing from the episodes that followed. Again, this turning of Ashi from Aku to Jack, her emotional transformation, and the resultant relationship between Jack and Ashi was all incredibly important to the season’s ultimate plot, and having an episode that’s half exposition and half nearly meaningless action took a lot away from all that, at least for me.

And, yes, I felt that a lot of this episode felt kind of insubstantial. Once we get to the village with the dying villagers and abducted children, it basically turns into a generic villain-of-the-week plot where we don’t really learn anything new or interesting about the characters, the characters themselves don’t really undergo any interesting changes or experiences, and the plot itself is just not really all that captivating. Jack has that moment at the end where all the children seemingly die and he finally gives into the mysterious horseback rider in the distance, but it all feels a little cheap. After all, those children didn’t actually die, for one. And for another, Jack didn’t even cause their seeming death, which is obvious. It’s not as though he finally gave into his anger and started beating the kids up, and then they all collapsed and Jack was like “oh, no! I killed them all! I must accept my punishment!”

You could argue that it was more guilt from not being able to save them rather than from causing their deaths directly, but I would argue that this is in direct contradiction to the seminal lesson he learned only two episodes ago—it is the decisions you make and the actions that follow that define who you are. Jack knows this now. He decided to help the villagers and save those children. He decided not to harm them and do whatever he could to survive and help. They SEEMINGLY died anyway, but if he really understood this lesson, and it was pretty clearly conveyed that he did, while he may not be totally absolved of guilt, he definitely isn’t at a tipping point where he should now face the music and kill himself.

But perhaps that isn’t really the problem. Maybe the real problem here is that, I mean, come on, it’s all just a misunderstanding. Jack left two minutes too early to see that the kids were actually fine and for Ashi to explain to him what happened. Whatever character development (or regression) that follows is merely the result of an overly convenient plot device and not because of any natural causality. I might be sounding a bit harsh, but this is exactly the sort of character drama that I hate. I hate drama that is caused not by problems with the characters and the consequences of their inherent flaws and deliberate actions, but drama that happens because it’s necessitated by the story to promote conflict.

This episode was quite underwhelming for me as it was half heavy-handed explanation and half mindless, predictable action. It lacked the emotional punch of the first several episodes and really left me wanting more.

When Ashi was left at the end to go save Jack, it was also the first time where I really felt that more should’ve been done to establish a more meaningful or at least complex relationship between her and Jack. Sure, Ashi now had to save Jack, but is there really enough of a connection there to make it a journey I’m going to be invested in? After all, their relationship is presently defined by nothing other than a single one-sided connection Ashi made via flashback and Jack lecturing Ashi about how wrong she is and how bad Aku is. I would have to watch the next episode to see for myself whether that would be enough.

PART 2 TOMORROW.

#samurai jack #review #spoilers #season 5 #part 1

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