#she thought he was in on the whole fraudulent thing somehow!! that he MUST be if he apparently doesn't care about it!!!!

[treatian]

The Chronicles of the Dark One: The Dark Curse

Chapter 118:  Staying Ahead of the Future

The Dark One Vault wasn't far, Guinevere and Lancelot would be there soon enough, even if they didn't know where they were going. So, with the pair on their way, he used his magic and beat them to the vault. Merlin's Tower he'd returned to time and time again since learning about it, and the conversation he'd had with Nimue at the forge was not the first he'd had, but this vault…it was the first time he'd been back since he'd become the Dark One. It had been well over one hundred years. Like the stone, the forest looked hardly any different. It had been pitch black when he'd first arrived here then, and other than some overgrowth, it appeared just as it always had. There was the spot he'd first seen Zoso. There was the place he'd first discovered he'd no longer needed his cane. Over to his left was the place the Dark One who had shown him water to view Baelfire had waited for him. And where he was standing now was the first place he'd caught a glimpse of Nimue. He wasn't at the forge now, but as he looked down upon the platform he'd once arisen out of, he channeled her knowledge to see it as he hadn't that night. It wasn't a platform. It was a door. There were symbols around the metal platform, symbols he'd seen in his work and in the work of the Dark Ones that came before him. But here, they were more than that. They were the key. Nimue whispered away in his ear and he reached his hand out over them, using magic to touch them: the Eye of Providence, the Pentagram, the Sun.

He stood back as the vault opened to him. How the Guinevere and Lancelot were going to get into the vault was a mystery to him, but the Seer hadn't been wrong yet. Somehow, they were going to manage. And he would be ready for them when they did.

The inside of the vault was not unlike a mining passage. In fact, it reminded him a lot of the tunnel he'd encountered at Bald Mountain, only instead of draining his magic, as Bald Mountain had, the magic he felt around him now had a signature that matched his own. There was no fairy magic here. Only very, very Dark Magic. He could feel traps that were set, he recognized them, even felt as though Nimue was warning him they were there. But they were traps meant to keep intruders out, not Dark Ones. In the end, all he needed to do was allow his own magic to flare so that their magic recognized his own and they stayed hidden from sight, and, with a little extra push, for the foreseeable future. Lancelot and Guinevere were on their way, his vision showed them getting to the dagger and he wanted the Gauntlet on her arm. He saw no reason to try and keep them out. He stopped the traps that he could and left the ones he couldn't for them to figure out. They'd never know, they'd never be grateful.

Finally, up ahead, at the end of the tunnel, he saw a door. It was the same door he'd seen in his vision. He used his magic to open it and observed as something like the surface of the water appeared behind it. It moved and flowed to an invisible current, another trick of magic put there by Nimue herself to scare people away and keep them out. He, however, was the Dark One. He knew what was on the other side. So he walked through the door with confidence, and on the other side…

Yes, this was certainly where he was supposed to be.

The vision had passed by him fast before, and the focus had been on the dagger and the pedestal, but the second he saw the world around him, a tropical paradise, he knew that it was right. It reeked of Dark Magic. And there, in the center of the room, on a gray pedestal held up by black, snake-like legs, was the dagger. Or rather…a dagger.

He let out a sigh of relief as he came closer to it and found confirmation that it wasn't his dagger. He could feel his own in his boot. Someone would have been an idiot to put it here for anyone to find, even with the traps outside set. It was a fake. And as he looked it over he was assaulted with a memory of another time, from another Dark One. His name was Lucifer, he'd set it there as a trap, a warning. The second he removed the fraudulent dagger from the pedestal, he heard a ringing in the back of his head that told him the dagger was in danger. Lucifer wasn't a fool. He'd done it this way on purpose. This way someone could take a false dagger, but the Dark One could be alerted that someone was after them and destroy them before they ever figured out the fraud and carried out the actual deed of collecting the real dagger. In his heyday, when Lucifer had set the spell, it was a very clever decoy. Now it was ancient and nearly forgotten, but still helpful. The false dagger still bore the name of Lucifer, a reminder of just how little magic it carried. For a moment, he considered leaving it alone, not risking the pair learning his name, but if he had it his way, and if Lucifer had done his job right, they would never get their hands on it. With a wave of his hand, he inscribed his own name on the blade, then placed it back in its trap and just in time it seemed. In his head, he could feel another warning, one that Nimue herself had put there telling him that someone was at one of the vaults. This vault. They were coming, coming for the dagger that they didn't realize wasn't real with Merlin's Gauntlet and a broken kingdom on their minds. Knowing his dagger was safe was reassuring, but that didn't make this trip useless. For the first time in a long time, something had been removed from Merlin's Tower, and he would take it for himself. This could work out for everyone, just so long as he was clever about it. He wanted that Gauntlet and they wanted the dagger, or at least they thought they did. They didn't know what he knew. Magic could solve anything.

He cast a quick spell to turn himself invisible just as the door opened. And then there they were. The two he'd seen in his vision. Queen Guinevere and noble knight Lancelot at her side!

"There it is!" the woman exclaimed, coming closer at a quick pace. "Excalibur will finally be complete."

She was excited, and he stood by the little table and the fake dagger watching to see what would happen as she extended her hand to take it and-

Magic pulsed through the air and through him, magic that was tied to him but not set by him blasted the couple back so that they landed a dozen feet away on their backs. The magic was not unlike what Merlin had used at his tower, only, if he had to guess, and he didn't because he knew, it worked in reverse. He was free to take the dagger because he was the Dark One. No one else was. Well now, that was a handy little trick.

"Not exactly a sword in the stone, but it still does the trick!" he announced, allowing his spell to disintegrate and show him to them. He laughed as the pair noticed him but didn't miss a beat. They rose to their feet and pointed their swords in unison, showing off that cord he'd seen in his vision that they were either ignorant to or purposefully ignoring. Given their comfort around one another, and their loyalty to Arthur, he'd guess they were blissfully unaware of one another's feelings. But there were ways around that, just as there were ways around those swords. With a wave of his hand, the blades were gone, and the pair looked at each other with worry and shock. It surprised even him. Those couldn't have been the only weapons on them, or else the King greatly underestimated his knights! Not that he'd worry about another weapon, he was more concerned with what the girl was wearing now that the sword was gone: the glove that had led them here. He could feel the magic coming off of it from here. It was powerful, and he wanted it for himself. The question was how to get it. "So, that's how you found this place, Merlin's gauntlet. That's quite a powerful object, at least for a wizard stuck in a tree."

"That dagger is Arthur's birthright, and you will surrender it to us," Guinevere declared bravely.

He smiled. Was that what she thought? Birthright? Had he inherited it? Or was it something else? The Gauntlet suggested the latter.

"So, that's King Arthur's weakness, is it?"

The girl didn't respond, just held her head up high and eyed him with suspicion at his knowledge. A sweet thing to be sure when he could do so much better than know about magical objects.

"So that must make you Guinevere. Sadly, I can't give you what you want, though I might be willing to part with the next best thing, assuming, of course, you're willing to make a deal for that gauntlet."

"What's the next best thing to completing a magical sword?" Lancelot questioned sarcastically, unbelieving. The dear Queen was just silent, she didn't respond one way or another, but her gaze told him that worked in his favor. Now why would that be? Was it because perhaps the Good Queen didn't truly want the sword to be whole again?

"Making it appear like it's been completed," he answered the Knight. "With this…"

From his workshop back home, he summoned into his hand a small vial of fuchsia grains that Jefferson had once retrieved from him. "Enchanted sand from the mystical Isle of Avalon." It was powerful magic, and it had taken a lot for Jefferson to retrieve it. He hated the idea of giving it away, but he was willing to part with it for a price. And much to his delight…the Queen appeared willing to bargain. "One pinch of this can 'fix' anything."

"Even Excalibur?" she questioned.

He smiled. Perhaps Arthur's Queen was not as loyal as he thought. "Your husband need never know. After all, what's one little secret if it means getting your husband back? Assuming, of course, that's, uh, still what you want," he stated, looking between the pair of them before he began to circle. He was examining something. That cord of love they shared was stronger now than it was in the vision. Something had happened on this trip that had strengthened their bond. Did they sense it? Would Arthur?

"And why should I trust you?" Guinevere called out, turning to meet him.

Well now, that was a question that he hadn't considered. Nor had he planned on it being asked. He didn't have a great answer for her, only a shot in the dark based on the tether he could see flashing between her and Lancelot. And a vision.

A vision of sitting at a table with the pair of them when they were older. There were children there. They belonged to both Guinevere and Lancelot. All but one pale little boy with sandy hair who couldn't stop talking with the children and rambling about being in a castle. He felt a great affection in his chest for that little boy. Arthur was nowhere to be found as they ate and yet, he felt a hand wrap warmly around his elbow as they had dinner together. But as he turned to respond to the gesture...

The vision faded before he could see who it was...

How…interesting.

"Because I know what happens when a woman's heart is torn between duty and desire," he dared to guess as he moved around them and concentrated on the little bottle. "And believe me, it never ends well."

He was trying to get the vision back, trying to see the person who had touched him, who was eating with the three of them like they were old friends. But nothing sparked. It was as if the Seer was keeping a secret from him.

"Please, Guinevere," he heard Lancelot whisper affectionately behind him. "Don't listen to this demon."

Demon! That was a new name. Harsh. Interesting that one day they might be friends.

"I will accept your deal," the Queen declared.

He forgot the vision and instead laughed as he spun back to look at her removing the Gauntlet from her hand and Lancelot looking him over with distrusting eyes.

"Good girl!" He didn't know how they'd ever get to be friends, but handing him the Gauntlet certainly would go a long way for that. Perhaps…so would a little warning. "But be careful. Love is a weapon, dearie. The most dangerous weapon of all, which means the pain you should worry about isn't the kind inflicted by a broken sword, but the kind that comes, from a broken heart…" he stared up at Lancelot as they spoke, suddenly aware of how much time there was between now and the vision he'd had.

Guinevere took off the Gauntlet, and he took it as Lancelot snatched the bottle from his fingers and said, "Let's go!" to his Queen. The Knight's eyes were on him the entire way as they backed out of the room, and he was graced with one more small flash of a vision.

Watching Lancelot and Guinevere ride through the streets of Camelot with their children as he watched in the crowd. They both wore crowns.

His Queen indeed. He couldn't wait to see how their future would play out.

[drrove]

The Last Joke on Earth

"So there's a donkey, a cow, and a sheep and they're all standing in a field just eating grass and crapping and such when they see the farmer coming. The donkey says-"

"Sorry what is this all about?" The voice in Sala's ear asks.

"It's a joke. I'm telling a joke," she responds.

"Oh." The voice seems exhausted and slightly confused. "I never really understand your jokes."

"You'll love this one. So they see the farmer coming and the donkey says 'He's out early today'."

"Can donkeys talk? I thought only humans exhibited coherent speech. Am I thinking of the right thing?"

"It's a joke," Sala grumbles, "things are different in jokes. Animals talk. Just let me finish and you'll be laughing your ass off."

"I should probably not laugh," the voice admits, "my bowels are loose today and I have been vomiting rather regularly. I suspect I will die quite soon. Perhaps we should focus on this mission of yours?"

"Maybe you're dying 'cause you've never really lived, Oleb." Her sage advice comes courtesy of a mis-quoted poster - the kind with beautiful people admiring glorious vistas from mountain tops. "Get out and explore a little."

"Just - BLARRGUH!" Sala grimaces as Oleb takes a moment to expel some disagreeable fluids in his unseen lair. "Just focus for once. If you don't get the job - urk - done in the next... 15 minutes then this whole 'living' discussion is rather moot." He ends the censure with a wet belch.

"Fine. Just stop making those noises," Sala sighs, "it's disgusting."

"I'll do my best," her ear promises with a long slurp. "Try to get here before - urk - before The Auditor."

The name sends chills down Sala's spine. She quickens her pace and crosses a busy street against the warning of the orange hand. A taxi honks, but she pays no attention, except to present her favorite finger in reserved reply. She pushes through the throng of people waiting on the curb and brushes off the indignant grumblings. If they only knew, she thinks, they would carry me to my destination upon their shoulders like a glorious hero. She trips over a small dog and hustles away before the owner can bemoan the assault. Idiots.

"Hey! Stop those kids!" A voice shrieks from somewhere ahead. The sea of humans packing the mid-morning sidewalk fluctuates slightly as a pair of teen boys in jerseys and cargo shorts shove their way through, both their arms fully stocked with snack-foods. An angry store clerk shouts frantically at them, his wide bulk preventing an effective pursuit. The lead boy, in all his excitement, slams headlong into Sala.

While the young thief crashes to the ground and spills his loot on the sidewalk, his notably smaller accomplice darts onward, muttering an unexpectedly polite "Excuse me," before abandoning his friend and rounding a corner. The fallen boy growls at Sala. "Watch your fu-" He stops mid-sentence as his eyes turn up to her, widening in terror. "Oh, shit."

Sala, having only herself just recovered her composure, raises an eyebrow. What does this little bastard know? Before she can learn more, he jumps to his feet and sprints away at full speed, leaving his misbegotten loot where it lay. Sala pauses, then grabs a candy bar. “12 minutes,” the voice reminds her.

"Ya had him!" The shop owner cries. "Why the hell'd ya let him go?" Sala ignores him and begins to walk away, certain the sweaty man must be shrieking at someone else, but he imposes himself. "I pay my taxes you know!"

The non-sequitur sheds new light on the boy’s fearful reaction at the sight of her, and Sala suddenly remembers the blue uniform, the standard-issue side arm, and the small, silver shield above her left breast. She had found some time ago that people tended to give her a wider berth and greater discretion when she wore this costume. She had somehow avoided the inconvenience of the implied civic duty in all her previous sojourns, and has since been lulled into a sense of social invulnerability. This time, circumstance and an angry shopkeeper seem intent to spoil the illusion.

Just my luck. Sala glowers at the man. "Get out of my way." She takes a defiant bite of the candy bar and pushes past the obstacle.

The clerk follows for a few strides, blathering about honest work and civil responsibility. Now less than a block from her destination, Sala taps her sidearm and considers the pros and cons of just shooting him. Eventually, a middle-aged woman chimes in, stealing the clerk's attention and the two pause to have a lengthy discussion about the decline of society and their shared, sober observations of humanity's failings. Sala walks into the coffee shop on the corner, oblivious to the two self-appointed watchers of mankind.

"Damn. There's, like, ten of these jerks in line here." Sala grimaces as she steps in to see the overlong queue.

"Will you - uuuggh - be able to get it in time?" Oleb asks over the earpiece.

"Yeah, I got this," Sala strides confidently to the front of the line and shoves her way to the counter, glancing for a moment at the furious patrons. "Official police business!” The fraudulent police woman places a firm hand on the counter and looks sternly at the girl in a brown apron. “Coffee person, give me a cup of coffee! Stat!"

“Uh…” The girl looks apologetically at the other patrons in line, then back at her companion manning the espresso machine. His blank expression offers no help. “Um. Yeah, sure. What size?”

“Make it big.” Sala nods assuredly.

“That’s a…” the barista seems ready to educate her on the correct naming conventions of serving sizes, but thinks better of it. “That will be a large black roast?”

“I dunno,” Sala’s confidence begins to crack, “that’s how coffee usually works, right?”

“Of course. I just want to make sure you want a brewed coffee and not an espresso.” The young lady smiles helpfully and points to the sign above her head.

Sala squints at it. “Wait, which one has that foamy stuff on top?”

“A macchiato?” The barista suggests. “Or… maybe a latté?”

“Whichever one Damien usually gets.”

The barista smiles glassily and glances around, wondering if she’s the only one hearing this conversation. “Who? Does he work here?” She looks back at the man on the espresso machine, and he does his best to appear deaf so as to avoid being drawn into this farce.

“Can we hurry this along?” A small, balding man in a charcoal suit lays a thick, sweaty hand on the counter.

Sala ignores him and twists her mouth thoughtfully. “Maybe if I see what it looks like. How long will it take to make everything?”

Oleb whines into her earpiece again. “Sala! We don’t have time for this!”

The suit chimes in as well. “You shoved to the front of the line and you don’t even know your order??” He becomes red in the face. “Police business my ass! I should report you to the-”

Sala silences him with a wave. “Obstruction of justice.” Before he can object further, she turns to the confused girl with a smile. “Big Mackayoto. Stat!” Sala slams a wad of crumpled, slightly moist bills on the counter. “Keep the change.”

The girl gapes at what must be over 100 dollars. “Um…” she smiles politely, “big macchiato right away.” She looks back at the man on the espresso machine, who is now eyeing the wad of cash. The girl slyly stashes the bills and glares smugly at him. “You heard the officer.”

Sala leans casually against the counter while the pions on the other side fill her order. The angry suit saddles up to the register and curtly rattles off his order which, judging by the number of items, must be for his entire office and then some. Sala tries to glare a hole in the side of his head. And this asshole was getting on my case, was he?

She quickly tires of murdering the suit with concentrated hatred and tries instead to catch the eye of a young man with curly black hair and an eyebrow piercing. Sala waves awkwardly and he glances up from his phone. “You like jokes?” The man’s eyes dart back and forth and he responds with a shrug.

“Sala. Focus.” Oleb pleads. She turns off the receiver and smiles widely at her new beau.

“Alright, so there’s a donkey, a cow, and a sheep and they’re just chilling out in a field eating and crapping like they do. So they see the farmer coming and the donkey says ‘He looks like he’s seen a ghost. What do you suppose happened to him?’ The cow says ‘I was in the north fields last night and I saw a strange light over his house. Maybe aliens got him.’” Sala pauses to chuckle. The young man looks back at his phone. “Meanwhile, the farmer is stumbling around like a drunk. The sheep’s like-”

“Ma’am? Officer?” The girl behind the counter holds out a cup.

“Ah!” Sala grabs the beverage and shrugs at the curly-haired man. “To be continued.” He deftly ignores her as she trots triumphantly out the door.

“Oleb, I have the item. How are we doing on time? ...Oleb? You dead? Oh!” Sala realizes she never re-enabled the earpiece and switches it back on. “I’m en-route. How we doin’, boss?”

“He’s here.” The voice hisses. “The Auditor is here. Get to the headquarters now.”

“Stall him!” Sala commands, trying her best to sprint without disturbing the delicate foam atop the beverage. “I’m five minutes away!” She knows it’s a lie.

Sala’s sprint quickly morphs into a trot, then gradually into a brisk walk. She stretches her free arm over her head and tries to ease a traitorous side-stitch. She silently curses the sacrifices she makes for all mankind. Or at least coffee.

Sala stops at a plain door set into a wall of particle board. The shop front is sealed off with a banner promising the imminent arrival of a store that appears to deal exclusively in pottery and throw-pillows. Sala glances at her watch and nods in self-satisfaction at the fact that her five-minute marathon has only taken a little over nine minutes to complete. She opens the door.

Her eyes take a few moments to adjust to the darkened interior. A foul stench fills her nostrils and a pair of hushed voices fall entirely silent upon her arrival. Two hunched figures fade into focus huddled around a small table in the back of the sparsely furnished room. A sad fern wilts in the corner.

“Agent Sala.” A familiar voice greets her. A thin figure rises from the table and approaches. Oleb is a lanky old black man with a sharply trimmed beard, his features withered and strained. His rumpled button-up shirt is stained a pinkish hue and his brown slacks leak something onto his loafers. Sala suspects he hasn’t bothered to change his clothes since acquiring this body. He extends a sweaty hand and Sala recoils in disgust.

“Did you shit yourself?” She plugs her nose and tries to enforce a minimum distance from the reeking cadaver.

“Yes,” Oleb replies without a hint of embarrassment, “I suspect I have but a few hours remaining in this one. Please, The Auditor-”

“-Is quite losing his patience.” The shadowy bulk still sitting at the table growls. “Could we get this over with?”

Sala’s eyes adjust enough to the darkness to finally make out this fearsome bureaucrat. What she finds is quite unexpected. The morbidly obese man is hairless except for a heart-shaped carpet of black fur on his chest. He appears at first to be entirely naked, but Sala spots the promise of a fuzzy pink thong somewhere beneath the voluminous folds of skin. His beady black eyes glare at her from beneath an obscene tattoo inscribed in the middle of his forehead.

“What the hell are you wearing?” Sala’s mouth blurts out before her brain gets the chance to advise otherwise.

“I would expect you could answer that.” The Auditor spits through two lipstick-smeared lips. “This form was among the default selections you provided, was it not?”

Sala opens and closes her mouth a few times as, among hazy memories of bourbon and ecstasy, the image of a bloated, hideous clown dances in her mind and into the “Physical Form Database” directory marked “default.” It had seemed funnier at the time. She smiles. “I must have mislabelled that. It’s… a regal form? Like a king.” She tries to smile more convincingly and silently begs for some weed to take the edge off.

The Auditor glances at his baby-oiled body. “Odd,” he grunts, then looks back at her with his eyes that seem too close together for his face. “No matter, I won’t be keeping it long. Why have you requested this special review?”

Oleb steps forward. “Thank you for your time, Honorable Chief Auditor- URP.” Something splashes on the floor and Oleb collapses face-first onto the edge of the table, falls to the floor, then becomes very still. Sala and The Auditor stare in silence, either considering how they might help, or more likely, considering the etiquette of continuing their meeting over his corpse. A grunt and a shudder from the body reveals he has not yet expired. “Pardon.” Oleb’s weak voice is slurred as he tries to lift himself to his feet. He repeats the apology. “Pardon. I… we thank you…”

The Auditor puts up a pudgy hand. “Prime Agent Oleb, perhaps you could use some fresh air?”

“No, urk, I’ll see this through. I don’t - hurk - want to waste any more of your time.” His face drips with sweat and other fluids as he forces himself to stand on shaky legs.

The Auditor grits his teeth. “I’m sure your protégé can handle this review. Please-”

“Get the hell out!” Sala bellows at the shivering mess of a man. “You stink like hell, man!”

Oleb looks to the Auditor, who confirms the sentiment with a nod, then sheepishly limps towards the door. Sala and The Auditor watch in silence as the pathetic, shambling creature, with some difficulty, turns the knob and finds his way out into the late-morning air.

As soon as the door closes behind him, The Auditor grunts in disgust. “Please tell me that’s abnormal for these things.”

“Yeah,” Sala shrugs, “I think he’s allergic to their bodies. He has to get a new one every week or so and I guess central never quite figured out what’s wrong. They called it ‘auto-immune failure’ or something. He’s pretty much been constantly dying over-and-over since we got here.”

“When we’re done here, I intend to identify how many bodies he’s requisitioned. That seems like a simply inexcusable waste of resources.” The Auditor’s beady eyes train on Sala, who has taken a seat and is sipping casually on her coffee. “Speaking of an inexcusable waste of resources, what exactly do you have that you believe can salvage this fiasco?”

Sala straightens up suddenly. “Yeah! Mr. Auditor, thank you for your time, much appreciated, yadda-yadda-yadda.” She rushes through the pleasantries, oblivious to the mounting rage on The Auditor’s round face, and pushes the coffee cup across the table to him. “I give you: coffee! Go ahead, give it a try!”

The rage on The Auditor’s face abates only enough to make room for confusion. “A beverage?”

“This, my good man,” Sala does her best impression of an infomercial power-seller, “is the pinnacle of craft. It is an art unknown throughout the universe.” She lifts the lid, prepared to wow him with the lovely patterns in the foam, only to find the foam itself has long-since flattened and mixed into the coffee. Her shoulders slump a fraction. “Just give it a taste.”

The Auditor sighs, lifts the cup to his lips, and violently expels the mouthful of brown liquid in a fine spray. “Ugh! It tastes terrible!”

Sala’s shrugs. “I guess it’s an acquired taste.” She takes the cup and sips at it in disappointment.

The Auditor taps a small orb on the table and it begins to glow. He glares intently at it for a moment, then grunts. “I was sure I had misread your message, but here it is, a request for Executive Review. ‘Item of second order progression’ it says.” He snatches the cup before Sala can take another sip and glares furiously. “Do you know what ‘second order progression’ means? Do you know how substantially you have failed to meet that mark with this putrescent water??”

“Oleb wrote that. He might have gotten a bit overzealous.” Sala fishes through her pockets for a joint, and pulls out a black pamphlet advertising a stripper named “Mike Hardon.” She crumples it up and tosses it absentmindedly. “Listen, it’s a cultural achievement. It at least makes eighth order progression, which means further analysis, right? Just give us an extension and I think you’ll see this planet’s population has reached well beyond the minimum requirement for retention.”

“If it’s so advanced, perhaps you should have mentioned that in your report.”

“We did!” Sala objects, then struggles to remember what she actually reported. There was certainly something about cars, she assures herself.

The Auditor once again studies the glowing orb. “I see you turned in a single page on which is simply written: ‘Golden Girls’-”

“That’s a classic. You're definitely a Dorothy.” Sala points out. He seems unimpressed, so she quickly fills in the details. “Also, it’s part of a complex cultural and technological achievement called television.”

“-‘The Yellow Monster’-”

“Yeah, that’s what we call my friend John’s car. It’s a piece of crap, really, but it’s great for doing donuts on the beach.” Sala confesses to herself that perhaps that was not made entirely clear in the report. “But it’s a machine that produces motion via repetitive chemical combustion, which I’m pretty sure is a technical milestone.”

“-And ‘all the porn’.” The Auditor holds in his seething rage and awaits her hasty clarification.

“Oh,” Sala considers, “yeah, that’s probably the internet. It’s a world-wide communications platform. It’s mostly porn, but there’s other stuff too.”

“And how was Central expected to glean this information from three cryptic phrases?”

“I dunno!” The young agent throws her hands up in frustration. “Honestly, I sent it to Oleb, and he never gave me any feedback. I figured he would have filled in the gaps before sending it. He’s the senior agent on this, after all, so he should have known better.”

The Auditor buries his face in his pudgy hands and groans for a rather impressively long time. His rage seems to melt into despair, then apathy. The fat man sits upright and speaks evenly in his bureaucratic monotone. “Agent Sala, do you have anything further to provide for this Executive Review?”

Sala looks at her coffee cup and frowns. She had been quite insistent with Oleb that it was sure to change Central’s decision on the matter, but now her brilliant plan seems to have fallen apart. She wonders where things went awry. Then she gets an idea. “Actually, they have this great joke. I think you’ll like it. So there’s a donkey, a cow, and a sheep-”

“If you have nothing further to provide, I now declare this Executive Review complete. Please decouple with this physical form and report to System HQ. Reclamation will commence in eight minutes.” He taps the small glowing orb and it vanishes.

“Wait, come on!” Sala cries. “Give me some time to beef up the review! These creatures have clearly surpassed the retention benchmark, and I think there’s a lot here for them to offer. Give us another week-”

“Denied!” The Auditor bellows, pushing the small table and knocking Sala from her chair. She dives and expertly catches the coffee cup before it spills its contents on the floor. “This is the most egregious failure I have ever witnessed! What the hell have you been doing here??” He puts a hand up to stop her answering. “I don’t care. Decouple your form and report to System HQ.”

Sala stands, cradling the coffee cup, and grimaces. “So you’re just going to slate a complex societal ecosystem for reclamation just because you don’t like our report? That’s cold, man.”

“I loved your report.” The Auditor’s face suddenly twists into a sinister smile. With a flick, the small sphere once again brightens. “It was very conclusive. ‘No coherent language… basic improvised tools… makeshift shelters are the epitome of technology.... so on.’ That sounds pretty conclusive to me.” He sees the shock and confusion on Sala’s face and sits back smugly. “You can read the rest when you get to System. It may be worth knowing the details of your own findings.”

“I never wrote this.” Sala stares, mouth agape.

“No, your predecessor did. Last review cycle.” The Auditor once again darkens the sphere. “I just made a few creative edits to throw off suspicion.”

“Why? Why would you do this?”

The Auditor strokes his naked chest absentmindedly. “You keep up much with Central’s course decisions? I suspect not. You don’t seem like the type to read… anything, really. Well, as it happens, the newest generation genesis-seed process is rolling out, and they need some test locations. A lot of the higher-ups are very excited to make way for the future, and it’s our job to make that happen.”

Sala’ mulls this over for a moment. “Prick.”

The Auditor frowns. “We all stand to make a nice bonus for this find. I recommend you stay quiet if you don’t want to ruin that for yourself.”

“And what if I talk?”

“I suspect it wouldn’t be too difficult to get Prime Agent Oleb to sign off on this. It would be your word against ours.” The Auditor shrugs and stands. “Besides, I think you’ll find any further appeal will come too late. Enjoy the rest of your brown beverage. You have… six minutes until reclamation. Decouple or be decoupled forcefully. Your choice, I don’t care.”

Sala wags a finger indignantly, but before she can object any further, The Auditor suddenly collapses to the floor into a lifeless heap. “Hey!” Sala stands and pokes the corpse with her foot, then delivers a few forceful kicks. “What a dick,” she grumbles. She reaches into her pockets for a joint and comes back empty.

Sala grabs her coffee and brings it to her lips to take a sip. Something in her pocket vibrates and she pulls out her dented flip-phone. It’s Damien. “You got Sala.”

“Hey Trouble, you still up to no good?” Damien’s cheerful voice annoys her.

“Just finished,” she replies, “I kinda’ fucked up and now the world’s gonna’ end.”

“That sucks. You still going to John’s thing tonight?”

No point in getting into things now. “Yeah, see you there,” Sala shrugs. She stares down into her coffee cup. “Hey, you want to hear a joke?”

“Sorry, I gotta’ run. See you tonight.”

Sala frowns at her phone, then tosses it lazily over her shoulder. She shuffles sullenly out the plywood door and onto the sidewalk. Sala blinks in the morning light, then glances down at the rumpled mass that is Oleb’s body. “You still in there, O?”

“Yesh…” Oleb whispers. “How’d it go?”

“Reclamation.” Sala replies flatly, then leans against the wall and stares absently up at the towering buildings above.

“Thank the stars,” Oleb moans. “Oh, sorry. I know how much…” He trails off, seemingly ready to pass out.

“Forget about it. Go ahead and decouple.”

“What about you?”

Sala shrugs. “Figure I’ll just…” she raises her cup. “Can’t let this go to waste.”

Suddenly, a breathless woman in her mid-fifties rounds the street corner on stubby legs, waving her purse. “Señor, I found a phone! I called an ambulance!” She spots Sala and slows her stride. “Ah, gracias! Officer, this man is very ill!” She signals the motionless Oleb.

Sala takes a sip from her cup and nudges the recumbent figure with her foot. He’s already decoupled. “Yeah, he’s dead.”

“Dios Mío!” Purse Lady brings a hand to her face and sinks slowly onto the edge of a bus stop bench. “Dios mío. I… He was so ill. How could such a thing…?”

“Eh,” Sala moseys over and lounges beside the distraught woman, “everybody’s gonna die.”

The woman is taken aback. “How can you speak so heartlessly?”

Sala glances up at the sky. “You know what’ll help you feel better? A joke.” She smiles and waits for the older woman to jump with enthusiasm, but powers forward when she remains silent.

“Alright. So, there’s a donkey, a cow, and a sheep, and they’re all on a hill just munching on grass when they see the farmer stumbling up the hill. The donkey says ‘He looks like he’s seen a ghost. What do you suppose happened to him?’ The cow says ‘I was out in the fields last night and saw lights over his house. Maybe the aliens got him.’ The farmer’s walking around like he’s drunk, and the sheep says ‘What would aliens want with an old bastard like that?’ and the cow says ‘I’ve been taken by aliens before. They did experiments and gave me an anal probe.’ The sheep’s eyes get wide and it says ‘What’s an anal probe?’ The donkey’s like-”

“Is this a vulgar joke?” Sala freezes in the excited half-standing posture of an impending crescendo, and stares at the sour face of the Purse Lady. “I don’t like vulgar jokes.”

“It’s… I…” Sala purses her lips, then slumps back down onto the bench. “Fine.” She absently reaches for the cup of coffee beside her, misjudges the distance, and knocks it over, spilling the contents all over the sidewalk. She curses under her breath and stuffs her hands in her pockets. “You know, I’ve had the worst day.”

It’s at just about this time when the gamma rays hit the upper atmosphere. Anybody looking up at the sky might notice a stark color shift from blue to a deep indigo. By the time the optical messages reach their brain, they have little time to process the unusual phenomenon before being incinerated in a bath of supercharged photons. When the beams reach the surface of the Earth, despite a valiant effort from the planet’s atmosphere and magnetic field, they pack approximately 4.5 gigawatts of incinerating power per square meter, sufficient to vaporize most organic materials in less than a second, not to mention a few inches of dirt and stone beneath them.

Sala’s consciousness quickly decouples from its temporary physical form, which has become a rapidly expanding cloud of free atomic particles, and beams reluctantly to System Command. She delays for just a moment, though, deciding that she represents the last mind on this planet, and tries to come up with something poetic to think about in the off chance that final thoughts may linger on a planet’s soul. In the end, all she can come up with is: At least it was worth a good laugh.

The End.

[gertruderobinsonscat]

More self-indulgence because actually writing this AU out in prose form with a plot and chapters is too much for me right now:

Jon had a crush on Martin first. They met when Jon had his first in-person interview at the Jonah Magnus Memorial Library (known to students of this fictional university as “The Mag”). Jon is fresh out of library school, this is his dream job and he’s doesn’t meet the job requirements 100%, and he thought he flubbed the phone interview so didn’t expect to be called in for an in person interview. So he’s nervous, on edge, and desperate to prove himself already. He was told on the phone that Gerard Keay, rare books librarian and head of the search committee, would meet him at the front desk and take him for an interview. He’s met Gerry before at a conference, has read several of his academic papers, and he feels confident he can win him over. 

Instead the person who greets him is this six feet six inches of pure Boyfriend Material™.

He introduces himself as Martin Blackwood, donor relations coordinator, and explains that Gerry is stuck in a meeting and will be a few minutes late (he is actually in Elias’ office having a rant session about Jurgen fucking Leitner, the head of the library system who everyone fucking hates. Everyone except Gertrude Robinson, head of Special Collections, because Leitner is afraid of her and she can make him do her bidding)

Martin says he can give Jon the standard tour of the library he gives donors. Jon is internally flailing, because Things Not Going Exactly as Planned throws him off, he has been mentally rehearsing his opening interviewee speech with Gerry in mind, not this unknown quantity of freckles and soft blue eyes and gentle offers of making tea! And the donor relations coordinator, he must have all kinds of degrees and be very important, Jon must impress him!

So Jon goes into full blown imposter syndrome/overcompensation/infodump mode to prove how much he already knows about the library/its history/its founder. Somehow it comes up that Martin doesn’t actually have a degree, just stumbled into his position due to a quirky number of factors. Jon’s astonished, he knows that the position he’s interviewing for only has funding due to a dramatic increase in donations. Jon can’t believe someone without a degree got that position and is doing so well at it, and he tells Martin. He means it as a compliment, that Martin is smart/hard working/etc and doesn’t realize it comes across as an insult, especially since he’s spent most of the tour Jonsplaining Martin’s own library to him.

Martin has his own issues with imposter syndrome and not having a degree. Sometimes he worries he only got the job because Elias likes him and likes pissing off Jurgen Leitner even more. There’s also the fact that Martin is one of only three people that Elias’ husband Peter actually enjoys spending time with (Martin worked very briefly as Peter’s personal assistant when he was transitioning from “kinda fraudulently claiming to still be a student” to “actual full time employee”.) There’s also the fact that Martin isn’t some genius at PR/donor relations, he’s a fairly normal guy who is just really good at admin stuff and has great people skills, especially when it comes to chatting with rich and elderly donors. 

So naturally Martin reads Jon trying desperately to impress him/being too awkward to know what to do with feelings as being a pretentious dickwad. Especially since Jon is doing his whole ‘playing up his super posh accent to seem important and educated’ and Martin doesn’t realize how much of it is a defense mechanism due to the lowkey racism Jon’s had to deal with in academia.

It gets worse when Jon is hired and starts working with Martin. Because Jon gets an actual full-blown crush on Martin once he gets to know him and learn more about his history. There’s a very awkward few years of Jon having an unrequited crush, then Martin gets what he thinks is an unrequited crush when he realizes Jon isn’t being a dick he’s just neurodivergent and bad at social interaction sometimes. Then there’s this horrific period of sad, mutual gay pining that drives their coworkers up the wall until they finally realize they’re on the same page romantically speaking. 

Enjoy this drawing of JonMartin on Halloween from my “no fears” AU where they all work for a normal academic library and the events of the series are a TRPG they play as a staff team building exercise. Jon is the head archivist (and has an actual library science degree). He got his scars through non supernatural but still traumatic means. Martin started as a student worker, but he had to quit school. However due to a glitch he kept getting a paycheck so just never stopped working. Elias Bouchard, current library director, figured it out early on but said nothing because 1)He likes Martin 2)it would annoy Juergen Leitner, the head of the entire library system and 3) it’s hilarious. Eventually Martin was hired on for real and is currently head of donor relations, the Fairchild Foundation’s donation has increased by 20% since he took the role.

[stellatex]

Nine Questions I Need Teresa Giudice to Answer

Originally published February 9, 2016.

Today’s the day. Christmas all over again for Real Housewives of New Jersey fans. Teresa Giudice, who has mostly been laying low since her release from federal prison on December 23, is set to make the media rounds to promote her new book, starting tonight with what is undoubtedly a contractually-obligated appearance on Watch What Happens Live with Bravo’s resident trash-TV obsessed Machiavellian puppet master Andy Cohen. Tomorrow morning, she will appear on Good Morning America with actual journalist Amy Robach.

The Housewives conceit–catty women posing as wealthy, fighting over petty drama, a trope from the heady days of 80s prime time soaps that quite obviously influences Cohen’s work, and one which Gloria Steinem recently called “a minstrel show for women”–may be of waning interest now, ten years on from the premiere of the Real Housewives of Orange County. Certainly, RHONJ has taken a dark turn, first with the introduction of Teresa’s family members (without her prior knowledge), then with the failed Giudice bankruptcy and subsequent criminal investigation, trial, and conviction. It feels like the Housewives have run their course. Certainly, the newest installment, Real Housewives of Potomac, feels like a Potemkin village of a Potemkin village, complete with early 90s fiberboard kitchen cabinets.

I’ve been watching the Real Housewives of New Jersey since it premiered on May 12, 2009. I have seen every episode multiple times. I have watched every web exclusive available on Hulu and every behind-the-scenes video on the Bravo web site. I’ve watched every RHONJ cast appearance on Watch What Happens live. I’ve read all of Richard Lawson’s uhmazeing recaps on Gawker. I’ve followed Vicki Hyman’s meticulous reporting on the Giudices’ legal woes (she is truly doing God’s work covering this shitshow; reward her by giving a listen to her TV Hangover podcast). I’ve read all the forums (here’s one) and all the shady gossip blogs (but I’m not linking to them; you’re on your own). I have all of Teresa’s books, and even Melissa’s. I have corresponded privately with one of Teresa’s ghostwriters. I follow all of the RHONJ cast members, former cast members, friends of Housewives, and tangential friends and family on social media. I have a RHONJ Twitter list [now defunct, sorry]. I started and am admin for a Real Housewives Feminist Discussion Group on Facebook (invitation only, sorry).

I’m in deep.

I know as much about RHONJ as any viewer could possibly know. Sadly, I am somehow an expert on this show. The reasons I am obsessed with this show are personal and academic; cultural and escapist. That’s a whole other post. Or dissertation.

Point is, despite my better judgment, I love this show. I love it. I can’t fully explain it. I even love Teresa. I think she was the one who was “set up” in previous seasons, with producers and other cast members acting in unison to take advantage of her as a narcissistic simpleton, to amp up the drama. But that’s all for another post, too, and in the past at this point. The fact is Teresa–along with her four beautiful dorters–is and always has been the star of this show. People watched because she was good TV. She and Joe exhibited character flaws on the scale of a Greek tragedy, sure; but they were also hilarious. Hilariously inept, if caricaturishly stereotypical. Somehow strangely lovable, even though they were also criminally delusional. From the first episode, Teresa was flashing those hundred dollar bills, buying that gaudy furniture in cash, and we, the viewers, knew Something Was Up. It’s been a long, unspooling tale from then to now. In hindsight, viewers know that Joe and Teresa had already been living on fraudulently obtained money for years. Their crimes, according to court records, date back to at least 2004, five years before they appeared on America’s television screens.

To date, Teresa’s line has been that she was misled into “signing some papers” that she either didn’t read or didn’t understand (her story varies), either by Joe or by her accountants (!) or her lawyers (!). She’s played the role of innocent, “old school” Italian wife–the same role she’s played on RHONJ. Joe tried to take the fall for her in court and failed. Due to the Giudices’ decision to continue hiding assets right up until the sentencing, Judge Esther Salas rethought her original impulse of possibly giving Teresa only house arrest or probation, and instead sentenced her to 15 months in prison.

Teresa’s complicity in the crimes is not a matter of debate, though the extent of her participation is. Teresa pled guilty. She expressed remorse in court, presumably in an attempt to receive a lesser–or no–prison sentence. It is my opinion that she really believed the judge would take pity on her as a traditional mother of four beautiful dorters. The Giudices’ financial scams had been working for years, after all. She was famous. People loved her. She deserved and was well accustomed to her McMansion lifestyle. She was obviously not very financially astute. She was a good Italian wife who deferred to her husband. She was a good girl.

She thought wrong.

We can all read the indictment and draw our own conclusions. Now, Teresa is trying to make a comeback. According to Teresa [link lost], the Giudices have paid their court-ordered restitution and their mortgage is current. No mention is made of the $551,563 still owed to the IRS for unpaid taxes, nor the the creditors listed in their 2010 bankruptcy filing, totaling $13.4 million.

Based on the teaser clips already released by GMA, Teresa is continuing, in her obviously memorized, stilted, eye-blinking way, to hold on tight to her claims that she had no idea what she was doing, or signing. It has been my contention all along that this is probably what we would see from post-prison Teresa. I almost admire her dedication. The sheer hubris. The chutzpah. Too bad she hasn’t yet channeled all that white-knuckle stubbornness into anything more productive than unflinching denial of her multiple felonies, holding grudges against her own family members, and a devotion to flawless 24/7 drag queen makeup.

But I think she’s placed her bets on the wrong horse and fundamentally misunderstands her fame.

Despite everything, there are still viewers–myself included–who love watching Teresa. Who want her to come good. Who want to see some Goddamn Character Development. It seems like she’s going to keep pretending everything is okay, even though it very obviously is not, and that she will continue to deny her culpability in obtaining the millions of dollars of fraudulent loans that financed her over-the-top leopard-print lifestyle, the craven bankruptcy filing intended to wipe the slate clean, and the way she and her husband have financially ruined the many local business and small contractors whom they stiffed in the process.

So far, there has been zero accountability.

What Teresa doesn’t get here–and Teresa, as we know, doesn’t get a lot of things–is that the only remaining way to endear herself to the viewing, cookbook-buying public is through showing genuine remorse. She is being presented with yet another golden opportunity that she doesn’t really deserve in the form of this press tour for her perfectly timed, hastily-released biography. I don’t think she realizes that, without performing–convincingly–this type of epiphany for her ever-dwindling audience, her ��career” as a Bravolebrity is over after this final fifteen minutes. It seems that I’m not the only one who thinks so; even her former co-writer, Heather MacLean, tried to explain this to her, to no avail.

Teresa needs chart a course that will keep her on TV and thus allow her to continue making the type of money she needs support herself and her children, especially in light of the fact that her husband is about to “go away” for at least three and a half years. Unlike others, I don’t blame her for capitalizing on her moment in the spotlight, and the prurient interest of the public, to hawk an autobiography and book a bunch of paid appearances. It’s the only legitimate way she has to earn an income, and certainly the only way to earn the type of money she needs to continue paying down those back taxes and massive debt (and I expect some lawsuits will be forthcoming from her many creditors).

But to make good, she needs to provide some real answers to some hard questions. No doubt Cohen will only lob only softball questions and make schoolboy jokes at her expense. He may ask a few tough questions tonight in the guise of “viewer Marge in Omaha on Twitter,” but his interest is in coddling his “star” and presenting a coherent narrative for RHONJ. In another timely moved that surprised no one (who was paying attention), Bravo announced yesterday that a seventh season of RHONJ will be on our screens “later this year.” Perhaps GMA’s Amy Robach will ask her some tougher questions. We’ll have to wait and see.

To my mind, there are certain things Teresa must address if she expects to return from federal prison and jump back into her role as Housewife.

So, in the spirit of Brian Moylan’s 98 Questions I Had During Last Night’s Interview With Joe and Teresa Giudice, here are the questions that I need Teresa Giudice to answer, presented in advance:

1. You said in your statement to the judge during sentencing that you “fully take responsibility” for your actions. You said, “It’s time for me to wake up… I will make this right no matter what it takes.” Why, immediately afterward, in your interview on Watch What Happens Live, did you backtrack and try to deflect blame to your husband while insisting things were just put before you to sign?

2. You claim to be “business savvy,” telling your husband on an episode of RHONJ, “Like, you know, that’s what I do now. I’m a businesswoman, so I’m thinking business.” You’ve touted your online businesses, your Fabellini drink line, your Milania hair care line, your success as a “New York Time [sic] best-selling author.” So how is it that you are also simultaneously claiming to be a clueless housewife who knows nothing of her own finances, including the assets from said businesses that you tried to hide during both your fraudulent bankruptcy and your sentencing?

3. If you are blaming your husband Joe for your ten-plus-years of financial fraud and the year you spent unjustly incarcerated in a federal prison, why are you still with him?

4. What would you say to the creditors, banks, and, most importantly, small business owners of New Jersey whom you and your husband fleeced to the tune of millions of dollars? Do you feel any obligation to repay these debts?

5. Explain this.

6. Why are you and your husband suing your bankruptcy attorney? Furthermore, do you not realize that, in doing so, you will be giving up your attorney-client privilege and opening yourselves up to a new investigation of your finances during the discovery process?

7. What are you going to do when Joe is deported?

8. You talk constantly about your love, love, love for your four beautiful dorters. Why did you put them in this position?

9. Why should viewers overlook your felonious criminal past and continue to support you by watching RHONJ or buying your books or products?

She’s taken to calling herself Teresa 2.0, and insisting that her time in the slammer transformed her into a zen-like superwoman who has her priorities straight. But we, the viewers, will be the judge and jury. Based on what we have seen to date, it appears that Teresa hasn’t learned a damn thing. I wish she would prove me wrong, but I don’t think she has it in her.

All images from the amazing T-Kyle.

[statusquoergo]

A marvey prompt: how about Mike thinking about everything Harvey has done over the years and suddenly realising that Harvey's in love with him

Read on AO3

When Michael James Ross was eleven years old, he lost hisparents to a car crash.

This isn’t a secret to anyone; the test isn’t who earnshis trust enough to tell. No, the test is what they do with the informationonce they have it.

Usually, the answer is nothing. Usually, the answer is totiptoe around him for a day or two and then ignore it completely, pretend hehasn’t told them, maybe forget about it altogether until the subject comes upby accident and then it’s more of an “Oh god Mike I’m so sorry, that was sostupid of me.”

Sometimes, the answer is “Oh, well, now I get it,” andwhat they mean is “Now I understand the way you are,” even though they don’t,because that’s a big part of the story but it’s not the whole thing, and on itsown, it just floats in a sea of static.

There’s this one time that he tells someone and that’snice but it’s just another piece of him, a thing that can be an asset (empathy)or a burden (too much) or a detail that’s good to know but doesn’t define Mike,might have shaped him in some ways but doesn’t make up the core of who he is(his own man).

Harvey Specter is a good person.

—

The secret is fun for a little while, when everything isso fresh and new that none of it seems real and surely this won’t last foreverbut let’s have fun while we’re here. Mike works as hard as he can and tries toexceed Harvey’s expectations, which he manages to do every now and again, andeventually the secret moves to the back of his mind; if he isn’t thinking aboutit, then surely no one else is, either, so they’re safe and it’s fine and don’tworry about a thing.

Then Jessica finds out.

Mike distracts himself from being terrified by submerginghimself in work until he’s drowning, until he can barely breathe from thestrain of it, pretending that feigning ignorance will somehow melt intomaintaining the status quo; maybe he’ll lose any chance for advancement, buthey, that was never part of the deal to begin with, and he’s happy where he is.

Then everything really does go back to normal, andeventually Jessica even admits that he’s worth keeping around after all, andMike remembers that he’s living in the most fucked-up fairy tale ever writtenbut it’s also the best one he’s ever heard.

Much later, when he finds out that Harvey was the reason,he has to feign most of his surprise.

—

It was a mistake to leave Pearson Specter, but a mistakethat needed to be made, like spending the week at a friend’s house after a badfight with a roommate or significant other; Mike is sure there’s a flawsomewhere in that logic, but he’ll be damned if he can figure out whereexactly.

It doesn’t feel so bad while he’s away, but then he goesup against Harvey, and oh, yeah, there it is.

A little while later, when Louis has gone behindJessica’s back to re-hire him because he doesn’t know any better, Mike settlesback into his role very carefully and resolves not to make that mistake again.

—

The thing about the secret is that once is was discoveredfor the first time, the idea that it might eventually destroy him stopped beinga theory and started being a fact.

The thing about the two of them is that when you destroyone, you destroy the other.

Mike is mostly frustrated with Harvey’s efforts to takethe fall for him, when the time comes to lay down their arms; it’s him, it wasalways going to be him, it has to behim, can’t Harvey see that? After everything Harvey’s done for him, every jamhe’s bailed him out of, how can he think that Mike would ever let anythinghappen to him that he could so easily prevent?

Lying on his threadbare cot in his tiny cell andcataloguing all the ways that he hadn’t expected prison to be so disgusting,because television and movies leave out the mold and the dead bugs and the leakingwalls and ceilings, and they can’t really convey the pervasive stench of sweatand cheap cleanser, Mike remembers that Harvey volunteered to go to this placefor him, to spend days and weeks and months in this hell so that Mike wouldn’thave to learn these things. Mike could have gone to his grave not knowing howto peel and slice five dozen potatoes in under an hour, or the spitefulsatisfaction of “accidentally” walking off with another man’s unbroken showersandals, or the quiet dread of those simple words, “The counselor wants to talkto you.”

It only takes a couple of days for Gallo to start speakingto him with extra spitefulness, a layer of anger over the vicious taunting thattells Mike that Someone must have said Something, and it doesn’t take a geniusto reason who or what it might have been.

Harvey doesn’t mention it when he gets out. It’s okay;Mike knows.

He’d say “Thank you,” but he isn’t really sure what for,and he doesn’t want to give the wrong impression.

Anyway, the words are too small to encompass everything they’resupposed to mean.

—

The drop that makes the cup run over, as it were, isn’tthe moment Mike gets into the Bar, the moment that all of the sacrifices andhard work, all the unabashed fraudulence and self-deluded justifications, allthe years of stress and struggle and concern come to a head and turn outsomething “worth it.”

No, that drop comes early the next morning, when Mikewakes up to a brand new day and nothing is the way it was when he went to sleep.

Lying beside him, her tired eyes crinkled up at thecorners, Rachel reaches slowly to stroke his hair; “You did it,” she murmurshappily, and he smiles and nods and—no.

No.

He didn’t.

They did.

Harvey did.

It’s always been Harvey, from the moment he stepped up toMike’s stupid challenge—I’ll become thebest lawyer you’ve ever seen, as though he wasn’t asking him to set himselfon fire for a stranger—to the moment he saved Trevor (he’s my oldest friend, Harvey), the moment he rescued Mike from theHarvard Club (if I hadn’t paid him off,you’d be in jail right now), the moment he threatened to beat up Tess’shusband for daring to lay a hand on him no matter what the circumstances (that’s not who I am) and everything inbetween, it’s always been Harvey.

Harvey, who was willing to give up his license for Mike.Harvey, who was willing to sacrifice his dream, his senior partnership(well-deserved and hard-won), for Mike. Harvey, who was not only willing to doall that but tried so desperately tomake it happen when he couldn’t see any other way because this is Mike, Mike,it’s all for Mike.

It’s always been for Mike.

Today, Mike will walk into his office—Harvey’s oldoffice—with the world laid out at his feet, every arrogant demand met and everylofty desire granted because Harvey was so pleased, so excited, so gratifiedthat Mike is going back where he belongs, and he’ll prove his worth a dozentimes over if that’s what it takes because it’s the least he can do for a manwho loves him so much.

He does.

Holy shit.

“Mike?”

Rachel stands over him, buttoning her skirt along her hipand dangling a pair of glossy stilettos from her fingertips, and he looks up ather, flustered.

“You coming?”

How can I?

(How can you not?)

“Yeah,” he says, pushing the covers aside and stretchinghis arms overhead, “yeah, just gimme a sec.”

Smiling falteringly, she leaves the room; he hears adrawer open and close in the kitchen.

He’ll go about his day as though nothing has changed. Asfar as everyone else is concerned, nothing has, so it’ll be alright.

Everything will be alright.

—

Mike doesn’t keep his promise to himself.

He tries, god, he tries so hard; be grateful, be grateful for what you have, over and over on a loopon the seventh track of his train of thought, the back of the line, but bumpingup to six-five-four-three-two-one is that reminder, he loves me, louder and louder and louder, he loves me he loves me he loves me, over and over again.

He doesn’t mean to skip lunch; it just sort of happens.

At some point, day becomes night; Mike turns his desklamp on when it’s too hard to read otherwise, realizing some time later thatit’s gotten dark out.

“You coming?” Rachel asks sweetly, leaning against thedoorframe with her coat hanging from her fingertips over her shoulder, and helooks up at her, startled.

“I wanna finish this before I go,” he says, seeing in herposture and her pursed lips that she’s going to offer to wait, to stay so theycan go home together, which is the very last thing that should happen (trackeight). “It’s gonna be awhile,” he finishes apologetically, and she nods,shrugging her arms through her coat sleeves.

“Don’t work too hard,” she teases, and he offers a weaksmile as she walks away.

At some point, he’ll be the last one here.

A gentle knock at the door jerks him upright to stare atthe offender—ha, offender. Right.

Harvey, of course.

“What’re you still doing here?” Mike asks, closing hislaptop (“PSL PSL PSL,” reads the screensaver).

Harvey steps carefully inside, pacing around invisiblelandmines.

“I didn’t think they’d give you so much stuff for your firstday back,” he says, and Mike smirks.

“You would know,” he retorts. “And, you didn’t, I wasjust…thinking.”

Harvey puts his hands in his pockets and raises hisshoulders. “Everything okay?”

Sighing out through his nose, Mike folds his hands infront of his face and narrows his eyes at his desk.

Well, once the promise has been broken, there’s nowhereto go but down.

“Are you in love with me?”

A kinder man would have phrased it more delicately.

(To be fair, a kinder man wouldn’t be asking in themiddle of the night when no one else is around.)

A wiser man would have refrained from asking at all.

(To be fair, a wiser man wouldn’t have found himself inthis situation to begin with.)

Mike is neither.

Harvey looks him dead in the eye and clenches his jaw, asilent dare to keep talking, to push this further than it’s already gone.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Harvey purses his lips for a moment before he answers,gathering his thoughts.

“You know why.”

True enough.

“Why are you bringing this up now?”

Bracing his hands flat on his desk, Mike stands with hishead hanging down and speaks to the floor underneath Harvey’s shoes.

“Would you believe I just figured it out?”

Harvey scoffs.

“Some genius you are.”

Mike chuckles quietly.

“Nothing has to change,” Harvey says after a beat. “Thisisn’t on you.”

“Uh, it kind of is,” Mike refutes, raising his gaze toHarvey’s face. “Unless I’m very much mistaken, it’s mostly about me.”

“I mean you don’t have to do anything about it.”

Oh.

Oh, that.

Mike raps the side of his fist against the edge of hisdesk; a highlight reel of Mike and Harvey’s Greatest Hits scrolls through hisbrain on repeat as he gathers his nerve and braces for the worst.

“What if I wanted to?”

Harvey’s response is immediate and predictable:

“Mike, you’ve got Rachel.”

Mike is about to argue, the words on the tip of histongue when he remembers how this must sound to Harvey; the wounds of hischildhood cut deeper than he lets on, and he won’t break up a marriage, even anengagement, when he could suffer in silence instead.

“I would never cheat on her,” he says (and don’t forgetthat she did it first). “But, Harvey, I…”

“Don’t say it.”

Mike gapes at him. “Why not?”

Smirking, Harvey shakes his head. “Remember that partwhere I said nothing has to change?” He gestures to himself, ending with theblade of his hand resting against his sternum. “It’s all on this side of thetable, Mike. Let’s keep it that way.”

It’s the ultimate out. Mike should take it, he knows heshould; maintain the status quo, that’s what’s gotten us this far, that’s what’sgotten us everything we have, everything we are.

Bullshit.

“It’s not,” Mike corrects, and the sorrow in Harvey’seyes splits him right down the middle. Stepping out from behind his desk, hestops a few feet away and feels suddenly weary, worn down and beaten.

(Is this what you’ve been living through?)

“You know what wears off?” he inquires. “Gratitude. Heroworship. Shock and awe. You know what doesn’t?”

Harvey glares at him, but speaks without fury. “It does.”

“Not this time.”

It’s written all over his face that Harvey still doesn’tbelieve it, or won’t, maybe, and Mike doesn’t know exactly why he keepspressing but this is important, this is so important.

“You know all that time you spent saving my ass?” he asks.“All that time you spent looking out for me, protecting me, doing everythingyou could to help me? To make me happy? Well you know what I was doing?”

Harvey opens his mouth to reply, but no, that was arhetorical question.

“I was trying to do the same for you, alright, I wasdoing everything I could to prove that you hadn’t made a mistake by hiring me,to prove that I could do you proud, to prove that I was worthy of you. To prove that I could make you happy, too.”

Mike hears himself, hears his voice ratchet up in ashallow slope until he’s nearly shouting, and he pulls himself back, gettinghis breathing back under control before his denouement.

“I was falling for you,” he admits. “I just…didn’tnotice.”

Harvey pauses for a moment before he laughs quietly,rubbing between his eyebrows and looking away.

“You picked a hell of a time to figure it out.”

“We haven’t even set a date for the wedding yet.”

Then Harvey sighs, and Mike wonders if that was the wrongthing to say.

“Look,” he tries again, “I’m not asking you to take herplace. I’m not asking you to marry me, or move in with me, or…get a dog withme.” Harvey scoffs, and Mike carries on more boldly than before:

“But if that’s really how you feel, and I’m telling you,this is how I feel, then I think…we oweit to ourselves to try. I think this feels right to me, I think it’s the firstthing that has in awhile.”

“After getting into the Bar.”

“Oh, no, that’s still way too surreal to be true.”

Harvey smiles softly, sliding his gaze sideways to Mikewithout facing him head-on just yet.

“I don’t know how to do this,” he confesses.

“Me neither,” Mike stage-whispers, and Harvey laughsagain.

Squaring up, he turns to Mike and offers his hand.

“To trouble.”

Mike glances down perplexedly, then up at Harvey’sincreasingly uncertain face.

(Fuck that.)

Wrapping his arms around Harvey’s shoulders, he cradlesthe back of his head and draws him in for the headiest first kiss he’s everexperienced; Harvey withdraws his arm from between them and brings it to reston Mike’s back, closing his eyes and giving in like he’s been waiting for it.

Well, to be fair.

They come apart much more slowly than they came together,and Mike smirks.

“To trouble.”

[canaryatlaw]

Today was....mixed lol. Some of it was pretty good while other parts of it were very much not good. Alarm went off for church at 9 and I came very close to postponing it for 40 minutes and just ubering to church, but somehow I convinced myself not to and got up. Got ready, got on the bus to the train to church, went to the volunteer lounge and sat with some friends for a few minutes before heading into the service. Worship was excellent, as always. We're starting a new sermon series called "An Unstoppable Force", referring to the church (but of course the whole service all I could think was "an unstoppable force meets an immovable object") and this week's installment was about two qualities a church needs, grace and growth, and how both must be present and balanced to be effective- grace towards those around us and growth realizing that we are not perfect and still need to learn and pursue God. I thought it was very good! They also announced their first international missions trip, which will be to El Salvador in October (I'll be in school, sadly). They had gone down there to scope it out a few months ago and presented a video talking with the people they'd be working with and they spoke about how their purpose is to empower the people in the community to make change that will be long-lasting, rather than coming for a week and then leaving and everything going back to how it was. I thought that was very good because too many church trips end up as "voluntourism" and don't end up helping the actual people there, and this seemed very much opposed to that idea so I was pleased to see that. For the ending song we did Amazing Grace which of course has a special place in my heart, and it just felt so good to be in church and worshipping God. I've been kind of out of sync with God for a little while now, maybe the past month, probably because I missed 3 weeks of church in a row, but it just felt so good to be back there. Most of the sermon series is coming out of Acts so our pastor challenged us to read all of Acts throughout July, since there are 28 chapters and it's the 2nd day of July, so I'm gonna try to do that to get back into reading my bible every night, which is a small thing which makes a big difference I think. So yeah, it was good. After the service I went upstairs for what I knew was going to be a very chaotic nursery time. Since it's a holiday weekend apparently everyone was short on volunteers so they decided to combine the babies and the preschoolers- so essentially, we had from birth to 5 years old in the same room. And while we were short on volunteers, we most definitely were NOT short on babies. There were 3 of us, and I think the final count was 14 little ones running around, ranging from 5 months to 5 years. Pretty crazy, right? You have no idea lol. At that point you basically can only triage, you handle the ones who are crying and as long as the rest of them aren't hurting themselves or someone else, you're more or less free to run wild lol. It was nice though because I got to see some of my kiddos who had gone on to the preschoolers after turning 2, including my favorite little munchkin who immediately said hi to me when I walked in and when I asked for a hug she came bounding over and jumped into my arms (it was seriously the cutest, I was dying). For most of the service I ended up holding a few different babies, at first I had a little girl who was in and out of sleep and would cry at random intervals unless she was being bounced, and even when she had been sleeping for like 10 minutes I could not put her down without waking her up, and she was HEAVY. I had to have held her while walking around, because she wouldn't let me sit down either, for a solid 20 minutes, while bouncing her the whole time before my supervisor took her because my poor arms were ready to give out lol. A little while later a smaller boy, about 8 months old, who was only on his second time in the nursery, started to cry a bit so I held him and he just snuggled up to me and I ended up holding him for most of the rest of the service. He would also start randomly crying out of nowhere, but I was usually able to soothe him and get him to stop within a few seconds. The new director of family ministries came in for a bit to help out along with a few other random volunteers at different points, so the extra hands were helpful with the chaos. The preschool teachers did the little video lesson thing they do with some success haha I think the older kids paid attention at least, so that was good. Towards the end once kids started getting picked up my little munchkin started to get upset like she does sometimes because her parents are always among the last if not the last to come since they're on staff and have other stuff to deal with post-service, so she sat in my lap for a while and I just comforted her and kept her from crying for probably about 10 minutes. She definitely responded better to me than to others because she still remembers me, so that made me feel good lol because she's the cutest. She was very happy when her dad did arrive of course. At that point it was just her and the 3 brothers who we happened to all have (they're 10 months, 3, and 4, I believe) today, whom the female lead pastor came to pick up because their parents were attending to some other business. They're all cutie pies, bright blonde hair and big blue eyes, I miss the 3 year old because he was also a favorite of mine when he was in our room. And with that our hectic time there was over. I finished cleaning up and headed out. Got on the train, got off the train only to watch the bus I was hoping to catch pull away as I was stuck on the train platform, with the next one a full 20 minutes away. Dammit. Oh well. So I go to the donut/coffee shop right there that I like (I had given the homeless man that hangs out outside of it an energy bar when I saw him that morning and he remembered me and was very kind, it was sweet) and I ordered an ice tea and a bagel, because I was curious as to if their bagels are any good. So I get to the register and reach for my wallet and......it's not in my purse. It's just straight up not there. FUCK. What could've happened to it??? I know I had it in church this morning, because I used it for the offering. So somewhere between then and that point it had gone missing. So I embarrassingly backed out of line and cancelled my order, texted my supervisor at church to see if she was still there, because I was hoping it had just fallen out of my bag at church at some point. She didn't answer yet. So I went to the train station desk and told them I lost my wallet and gave them my info in case anybody turned it in. Not much else I could do at that point, so I sit and wait and get on the bus. It's like, 3:45 by the time I get home, and just around then I get a text from my bank saying there had been a suspicious purchase on my account and they wanted to know if it had been me. Uh oh. Well, it definitely hadn't been me, so that means someone had my wallet. Either they somehow managed to steal it out of my purse, or it fell out and they just grabbed it. So I called my dad and filled him in, and we started the irritating process of cancelling all my debit and credit cards, as more and more fraud notifications piled in from each of them. I handled my debit card, but my dad ended up having to handle the rest since the accounts are technically in his name and I'm just a cardholder on them. So I was on the phone with my brother while my dad was on the phone with various ones of them relaying information for a while. I'm trying to wrack my brain to make sure I got all my cards, since I usually only use one or two of them (but have others for random reasons, not my decision) then there's my health insurance card, my 711 law license card, and my Starbucks card. Well, I can handle the Starbucks card on the app and online, so that's easy enough. My dad will have to handle the health insurance card since I now effectively have no information about it, and the policy is in his name anyway. I checked online about the procedure for replacing 711 license cards, but it was completely absent, so I had to call the number on the paperwork that came with the license (so happy I kept that) to the administrative office of the Illinois courts and left them a message about obtaining a new one. And that's about all I can do for now. I should have my new debit card in about 5-7 days. Until then my account still works, but I just have checks as my form of possible payment, so I probably won't be spending anything this week. It's good my account still works because since it's the beginning of the month rent is due Wednesday as well as utilities, so it's obviously important that those checks don't bounce. My roommate offered to get me some cash once she gets paid on Thursday because I covered her some rent money that she was gonna pay me back just because of bad timing with getting paid and she didn't want to risk getting overdrawn, so that will be helpful. After all that was dealt with I called the police non-emergency number and filed a report with them so at least it's on record, and on the rare chance they find the wallet (it does happen sometimes) they can return it to me. So they took down all the info about what happened (not that I could tell them many details) and between where and where it happened. They said they'll mail me copies of the two reports- one for stolen/missing wallet and one for fraudulent credit card use. Alright, so that went as good as it could've I suppose. Not exactly how I wanted to spend my Sunday. And I still can't do laundry because I don't have any money to trade for quarters! Agh. So that gets suspended once again. At this point I decided to make cheddar bay biscuits since I got the ingredients for them the other day and they're all sorts or delicious so I figured that would cheer me up a bit. Those were pretty quick, then I watched legends for most of the rest of the evening, which was enjoyable. I got up through 2x06, the second old west episode, right before the crossover. Definitely enjoying rewatching the second season so far. Still a ton of great lines and little things to pick up on. So that at least was a pleasant night. I was texting my roommate and it looks like we're gonna end up grilling out tomorrow night, so I started making the Angel food cake and cutting the strawberries for the trifle so when I get home tomorrow I can just assemble it and we can eat it. I'll probably miss most of it because they're all getting off work early, when I don't know how long I'll be at work, and then I have a PT appointment at 6:30 anyway, but they're just gonna hang for a while so it should be fine. That took a little while, I messed up and forgot to put the cake on the lowest rack so it got a tiny bit burnt on the edges of the top which isn't a big deal since I'm gonna be cutting it into cubes anyway, I just hope it's not undercooked in the middle because of it. Oh well. Hopefully it'll still turn out good. And yeah, okay that's it, it's 1:30 and I DEFINITELY need to make it to work tomorrow if I don't want my boss to kill me so on that note I'm going to go to bed now. Goodnight dears. Hope you had a lovely weekend.