#so like you can study the sewage of a city and see if people use a lot of drugs or not.

[oodlenoodleroodle]

I forgot to eat lunch so I had to scrounge up something that'll tide me over til dinner but won't make me too full...

Had some chocolate spread on bread and some crisps.

Which works out nicely because dinner's gonna be tofu and parsnip (trying a new fancy recipe) and I forgot to include a starch with dinner.

[yoichichi]

“Here, Here, Little Piggy”

-INSTALLMENT TWO-

MINORS DNI 18+

wc: 5.5k

this fic contains dark content

𓂅synopsis: you should really be more careful walking home alone, big bad wolves are known to prowl the area at night.

𓂅cw warnings -> fem bodied reader but no pronouns used, monster fucking - werewolf, fear play, stuckage, dub con, size kink, breeding, biting, chasing, animal death, description of gore, mentions of blood, one use of the nickname “puppy”

𓂅cast: Kōtarō Bokuto as Werwolf

a/n: wow so yes it is March, and yes I’m finally going to continue posting my kinktober pieces LMFAOOO - the ideas were too golden to abandon now that I’m back from my hiatus on this blog! I put way too much work into the prep to completely abandon it 😭 so anyways, just enjoy some smut for bo and lemme know if you guys are down for me to finish off my kinktober works! Ty all and love ya <3 and of course - this fic contains dark content so read at your own discretion

event masterlist

Staggered goodbyes echoed from the welcoming warmth of your friends home up into the brisk night air and were lost somewhere up in the heights of the towering trees surrounding the whole property. The slam and click of their heavy, wooden front door cut the boisterous sounds off abruptly and left you with an eery remnant of the friendly banter until there was only silence.

You’d hadn’t meant to stay so late studying with your classmate, Maya, and you wouldn’t have either if their mom wasn’t so adamant on making small talk with you.

Originally, the pair of you were supposed to meet up at the dining hall on campus and find a nook to work together there - but an unexpected sewage build up, in addition to a sewage spill in one of the nearby bathrooms in the building - put a pause on those plans. If the caution tape that was dramatically taped across all entrances wasn’t telling you your study date was canceled, the smell sure was. But your peer had a better idea.

“It’s only about a 45 minute walk out from here! And we really need to get this work done. I promise my ma won’t mind, she’s super chill and really likes meeting people I know actually.”

Christ, that’s nearly an hour.

If you weren’t so desperate to finish this project off, you would’ve said no and suggested just meeting early in the morning and seeing if it was open by then. But considering neither of your dorms were an option (thanks to inconsiderate roommates both of you had the displeasure of knowing), and the library was always too packed to properly focus, “ma’s house” it was.

Maya’s mom was actually super sweet like she said, even bringing you some snacks & water halfway through on a literal silver platter. You shouldn’t have been surprised by the theatrics of it all though, their house felt like a hidden away manor. For only being a 45 minute walk, it felt like a world away from your bustling college campus.

The stretch up to the home was cutoff from the rest of the city with a thickly wooded area, the majority of it spent on the dirt driveway up to the home. You weren’t sure how far the woods stretched, but you knew it had to be expansive enough for coyotes to feel welcome considering the stories Maya shared with you on the walk there.

“Oh my god, I actually really like it at night when sometimes you can hear them howling. It sounds super scary but really…” the excitement in Maya’s voice faded out as you slowly shifted your focus to the forest’s edge on your right.

You could only see about maybe 30 ft in until the trees became too dense to register what was beyond them, and that was in the dimming daylight. But the blue-greenish hue coming down from the sky didn’t help either, making the colors of the woods muddle together until it was a mess of fog and figures.

It was … off putting. Beautiful, but certainly not inviting. How many coyotes were waiting in there now, watching you two walk, and you not even being able to see them.

You must be psyching yourself out and making your brain imagine things, because at the exact moment you had that thought you swore you saw a flash of something move far back within the trees. The muscles in your legs tensed as a flash of nervous sweat rang out from your body.

Sudden laughter from ahead of you snapped you out of your nightmare-ish daydreams and back to your conversation with Maya, you didn’t realize how far she had gotten.

“Ah sorry, am I freaking you out? I’ll stop talking about it!” She had her lips pursed and her eyebrows raised, a little more than nervous that she was ruining the first time she got to actually hang out with you outside of class.

You shook your head and jogged to catch back up with her, wrapping an arm around her shoulder and giving her a warm smile.

“No, no, you’re all good. I’m just not used to being in such a cool place like this. I mean, it’s definitely a little creepy, but it’s just because I’m used to the city more. Keep talking, I like your stories.”

The rest of the time there you spent it studying, and listening to more of her horror- er, interesting, stories, for a good majority of it. Which was all good and fine, until now.

You were left standing in the dark outside of her home, and the trees all around you felt bigger, taller somehow. Ma offered you a ride home but you stupidly denied, saying you wouldn’t want to give them any troubles. It took a lot of going back n forth before she caved, saying you better send Maya a text once you got home safe.

But now that you were out here on your own, you regretted your decision. However your pride got the best of you and you decided that it’d be more embarrassing to go back inside and say you’ve changed your mind after all the hassle you went through to walk back by yourself.

Why did you feel so obligated to put yourself in bad situations to make sure others wouldn’t be inconvenienced by you?

Shaking the thought and reminding yourself you weren’t in a bad situation, at least yet, you turned and began your trek home.

It wasn’t very late. Taking a peek at your phone before shoving it back into the pocket of your coat you read that it was only half past seven; yet it was dark and cold enough to convince you it could’ve been midnight.

You blew puffs out in front of your face and smiled at how noticeable the cloud of breath was, deciding you’d focus on that rather than peer into the pitch black around you. Thankfully, the moon tonight was bright enough to illuminate your path and even a bit of the forest floor on either side of you.

There was only a single streetlight placed alongside the trail a few feet from their home, and it didn’t do it’s job very well, a dim orange glow emitting from it only lit a small diameter around it. At least tonight the moon was picking up its slack, covering the rest of the trail for you as it peeked through the trees overhead.

It was almost comforting, how big the full moon was as you peered up at it. It felt like a friend escorting you on your walk back, staring down at you from its spot in the sky. The bright light changed the whole mood of the walk from dark & foreboding to serene & soothing.

But maybe you should focus on the uneven trail in front of you instead, because before you knew it you went tumbling forward onto the dirt as your shoe caught onto something in the ground, undoubtedly a tree root.

You yelped as you landed on your side, your backpack knocking some on the wind out of you, and your cheek sore from the scrape of the ground. If only it wasn’t so cold out, your hands would’ve been out of their pockets to catch your fall.

“Fuck.” You groaned and pulled out a warm hand to press to the side of your face, hissing at the sting from the contact.

Groaning, loudly, you sat up and onto the ground, it was so cold you could feel the damp chill through your jeans. Tiny specks of red started to appear on the blue denim against your knees, not at all surprising to you with the way they burned, before you sighed and pushed yourself back up onto your feet; you made sure to leave your hands out of your pockets this time.

Adjusting your bag, you took a few steps forward and did your best to ignore the dull ache from the friction of your jeans against your bloody knees.

So much for a serene walk home.

Reminding yourself to keep your eyes ahead of you, making note of any dips or bumps, you looked at your phone once more to check the time.

7:36

You sighed and did the mental math, determining you should be home no later than 8:30 (if you were taking your bum knees into account).

If you were lucky, your roommate might be already asleep. They tended to head in early most nights. It was nice considering that meant your interactions were kept to a bare minimum thanks to your late night study habits. Maybe you should slow down even a little more, just to be sure they-

Snap!

Your head twisted to turn in the direction of the sound. It came from across the dirt road, surprisingly wide, in the blackness of the trees on the other side. All coherent thoughts vanished from your mind, a mantra of run run run run clouding your head instead.

You swallowed thickly and tried to calm your breathing, and your heart beat, as you reminded yourself that you’re surrounded by woods. That twig snapping could be anything.

A fallen small branch, a deer, small rodents, the wind, other various non threatening forest life. It doesn’t have to be a coyote… did coyotes even approach humans?

No, surely they didn’t. You’re a human, the worlds like, “top predator” or whatever.

Reminding yourself that you’re the thing forest animals are scared of, as silly as it felt considering your were one more noise away from wetting yourself and breaking into a sprint, you continued forward - a little more aware of the sounds around you.

Maybe you should put in your headphones? No, it’d only make you paranoid considering you wouldn’t be able to hear if someone, or something, was coming up behind you.

Snap!

You didn’t look towards the noise right away this time, instead your kept your face forward.

The noise came from your left this time, maybe 20 feet deep into the woods. 20 feet too close.

Snap!

It was definitely closer this time.

Should you run? No. What if it wants a chase? Were bears all the way out here? No, definitely not… right? Cause if they were-

Snap!

Any apprehension you had to running was flung out the window as you sprinted forward, jumping over any bulges in the ground and ignoring the steady thump of pain into your lower back from your bag.

You made the decision to not look back, figuring if something was getting close you’d hear it anyways. But really, you just don’t think your heart could take glancing back to be met with a whole ass wild animal chasing you down.

Why the fuck didn’t you have any bear spray on you? Oh that’s right, cause you go to college in the city and you never thought-

Your self scolding was cut short at the rapid sounds of soft pads of feet approaching and branches snapping coming up from your left side.

Holy shit.

“Help! Please!” You don’t know who you were calling out to, considering you still had a ways to go until you were out of the thick woods, and you were definitely too far from Maya’s house to be heard.

You almost puked at the idea of your friend walking out of her moms home to find your mauled and mutilated body.

The running was getting closer, you were tempted to look to your left to try to catch a glimpse of what could be chasing you; But before you could, a second figure emerged from the tree line to your right and disappeared behind you - a harsh wince and yelp echoing in the darkness.

You turned in time to see two figures barrel into the darkness, the noises coming from them - snarling, snapping, growling, wincing, crunching - they all made your stomach turn and bile sit at the back of your throat.

Your steps faltered a little as you came to a small stop - was that a fucking man?

Was that a person that went tumbling with the other mysterious animal? You didn’t care enough to wonder any longer and turned back around to continue running forward, your chest heaving and nostrils burning from the cold night air.

Thump

You heard the sound before you processed what you saw in front of you. Something was flung and landed in your path just a few feet ahead of you. Steam seemed to be coming from the mound.

Warily, you took a couple steps closer until you came to an abrupt halt, it’s a coyote - or rather was. It’s been ripped open; tattered bits of fur are surrounding the open… wound, the moonlight reflecting off the puddle of blood filling up around the corpse effectively confirming it wouldn’t be jumping to life anytime soon.

A world of mixed feelings washed over you: fear, relief, nausea, confusion - but none of them compelled you to move forward, to run home. You were frozen, terrified at the sudden realization that whatever did this was left for you to meet. Was it the thing chasing you earlier, or was that the coyote? Did it - or maybe he - save you? No, it was probably fighting off it’s competition for it’s next meal - you.

The sound of breathing behind you brought you back to the present. You were left with no choice.

With shaky legs and a queasy stomach, you turned to look up at what could’ve ripped that animal apart in a matter of seconds, to be met with… a man? You can’t fully tell in the dark, but whatever it is sets your nerves on edge and your body rigid with terror.

The figure that was towering over you, easily about 7 ft tall, was almost human. Big, broad shoulders rested on top of a pair of thick biceps, and you followed them all the way down to big, no massive, hands. Seemingly normal, minus his height, but something was off.

There were.. claws? Nails wouldn’t describe the silhouette with justice, they definitely looked like claws. You didn’t fail to notice the suspicious liquid, thick and heavy, dripping from the tips of its claws and onto the ground with an audible drip, either. And there was maybe some.. no definitely some hair, although it looks more like light patches fur, across what you’d assume are his- it’s- forearms.

The torso was one of a regular man, an absolutely ripped one, but a man nonetheless. You stopped bringing your gaze down when you saw the light hit a deep, defined v-line and a patch of happy trail that seemed to keep going, afraid of what you’d see if you kept looking down. But when you brought your eyes up, you weren’t put at any ease.

You locked eyes with a pair of bright golden ones, bright enough you didn’t need the help of the moon to see them peeking through tufts of silver hair. The moon did however illuminate the glistening deep red covering the bottom half of his face.

A hand came up to wipe his mouth with the back of it until his face was mostly clean, before he offered you a… smile? You weren’t sure if it was meant to be a comforting smile, or a threatening display of baring his teeth - because that’s all you could focus on. A prominent pair of sharp, white incisors - as well as an even longer pair of canines - sitting behind his lips.

Nothing was said between either of you, just those bright eyes boring into yours for what felt like an eternity, before you decided it was now or never.

Slipping a strap of your backpack off of you as quickly as you could manage, you swung it off your other arm in the direction of that thing with as much force as you could muster before turning to sprint back down the path.

But you didn’t make it far, barely even half a step, a grip on the back of your coat stopping your feet from carrying you any farther.

“Where are you going?” A voice, slightly soft and sounding genuinely curious, comes from behind you.

….. Did he just talk to me?

You were yanked back against his chest with little to no effort from him, and hit a surprisingly softer surface than you were imagining (not that you were imagining what his chest felt like) and warmth - enough warmth for you to feel the heat emitting from him through your puffy jacket.

Your body shuddered at the feeling of him bending down to your height behind you, his warmth surrounding you know, and his hair tickling your cheeks. He nosed at your jaw and neck, his breath also tickling you slightly as he took shallow breaths in.

Was he smelling you?

You whimpered quietly in surprise, and a bit of fear, when your head was yanked back suddenly, your neck now more exposed for him to explore. His tongue slipped past his lips to leave an experimental lick across your pulse, the breeze catching the wet patch and sending more chills down your body.

“Let me go.” You sounded firmer, more sure than you thought you would. But he must’ve read through your feigned confidence, because his grip didn’t loosen one bit, and instead he asked you,

“Why?”

You blinked, surprised your throat wasn’t ripped out as a response instead. Regardless, what the fuck were you supposed to say to that? It’s not as if you were prepared for a conversation, but what does he mean why?

“Because… I said so. And I… I have class in the morning.” You kept your stare up and jutted your chin out, hoping to god you looked unfazed while your mind ran through all possible options of what the hell could be going on right now.

“If I let you go, do you really think you could run from me?” He almost sounded genuine, like he wondered himself if you’d be able to get away from him, as if the answer wasn’t obvious.

You felt like you stopped breathing at his question, because you knew it was really more of a proposition. And his loosening grip only further proved your assumption.

“Go ahead, see how far you can get. I’ll even give you head start. Besides, I liked how you smelt when you were scared.” He made sure to bring his face closer to your neck as he spoke his last sentence before letting you go completely, smiling to himself as you stumbled forward. You didn’t even realize how close he had been holding you.

You jumped to your feet and turned to look at him one last time, a bright toothy smile on his face, before sprinting forward and around the tattered coyote with all your might.

It was almost embarrassing, how hard you were pushing yourself to run. Did you actually think you’d be able to get away from him, whatever he was? It didn’t matter how hard you tried to shake the negative thoughts out of your head - you felt hopeless and you’d barely even started. But the weight jostling in your coat pocket reminded you not all options were lost - your phone.

Pulling your phone out as you continued to run, you held it above your head in hopes of having some bars and - yes, you do! Just one, but one should be-

A tree root, another tree root.

You, and your phone, go flying forward for the second time tonight - but unfortunately not together.

It plays out like a scene out of a movie, you’re laying there on your chest with your hand reaching out as you watch your phone bounce and slide under a fallen log to the side of the dirt path. And when you stretch your head up to look, it’s nothing but overgrown wild berry bushes - bounds of thorns and thistles everywhere in your sight - and your phone was beneath it all.

Shuffling over as quickly as possible, you can barely see the glint of your phone screen in the darkness of the night, and it’s more than an arms length away.

That phone is your saving grace, you have no choice. You won’t be able to reach and crawl through the overgrown sticker bushes, but lucky enough there’s a small dip in the ground beneath the log - just enough for a person to slip through if they really had to.

Slipping your coat off, needing to have as much space as possible to get between the log and the ground, you tossed it across the path to the other side of trees. Maybe he’ll smell your scent and go the other way?

Don’t worry about it, just hurry the fuck up!

You drop to the ground swiftly, hoping and praying to yourself that the sounds of the small twigs snapping beneath your knees weren’t loud enough to call for that man- no, that things attention. Laying onto your stomach, you attempt to scramble underneath the fallen log to reach your phone, but it was a tighter squeeze than you had anticipated. You sucked in a deep breath and held back your winces as you did your best to ignore the pine needles scraping and stabbing into your skin, and stretched your arm until the tendons and muscles began to burn until you realized this was a fruitless venture. And now you’ve just wasted precious time.

Hoping this went unseen and that the damp forest floor beneath your body muffled all noises of your shimmying, you pushed back on your palms to make a hasty escape - but you didn’t budge.

Surely you were starting to get splinters from how hard you started to push your palms into the ground, but you weren’t moving. You took deep breaths and tried to stay calm, but it’s been too long. He’s definitely catching up by now. It’s not like you made it far either.

Pushing one more time, you moved just a tad, but the searing pain that ran across your lower back from the harsh bark of the log scratching you suddenly made you holler - which you definitely shouldn’t have done.

“What are you doing?” A familiar voice chuckled from behind you.

It didn’t take but 5 seconds for tears start to spill from your eyes and down your face, surprisingly the first time you’ve cried so far tonight.

You ball your fists up when you hear him stepping closer to you until he’s standing right next to your legs, he has to be judging by how warm you’re already getting.

A warm hand comes out to lift the bottom of your shirt up, your scratch stinging more as the cold wind whips across it.

“Oh, you should’ve been-“

“Please don’t kill me! Please just let me go - I won’t tell anyone what the hell happened! Or - or what I saw! Th-thank you for saving me from, the um-“

He was surprised, and confused, as you started to ramble, in front of him. It’s not like he was listening all the way anyways, he was far too focused on how compromising your position was.

“Just please don’t kill me, please…” You sniffled and let your forehead rest against the dirt, chest constricting at the thought of how helpless you are like this. You couldn’t even fight back if you wanted to.

“What makes you think I’m gonna kill you? You think that’s what I’ve been planning on doing to you?” A pair of strong hands pull your ass up by your hips slightly, and run along your inner thighs soothingly as they press them apart.

Your eyes go wide at the realization of what he’s implying, yet your stomach flips at the idea, too. You’re silent as you feel him maneuver around behind you…

It’s a much better option than dying, right?

“No- I- just, just let me go!” You do your best to squirm and tell him you don’t want his cock buried deep in you, but your body wants other things.

And you hate the way the thought doesn’t actually despise you immediately, instead a dull throb from your cunt responds to his desires, and he knows it, too. You gasp when he suddenly has his face buried between your thighs and against your jeans, inhaling your scent deeply.

“Oh, you smell better like this.”

It’s not fair - it’s not your fault that he’s not… ugly. And you can’t deny that the thought of how big he is, especially compared to you, doesn’t turn you on at least a little. It’s easier to make yourself think you want this - that’s what you’re telling yourself, that it’s probably just easier to… convince yourself the idea isn’t completely off putting.

I mean, he’s probably huge, so you’ll need to be properly prepared and soaked to take him anyways. You can be sure of that judging by his height alone, and just the sheer body mass of him. Not to mention how thick and broad he was when you first laid your eyes on him…

“Whadya thinkin about, baby? You’re really working yourself up, I’m not even touching you.” He laughs softly and your body goes hot at his words.

You get even more pissed at yourself at the way your body continuously reacts to him, but you aren’t given any more time to yell at yourself when your jeans are quite literally ripped off your lower half.

God, you’re so small and helpless beneath him, and he knows you love it just as much as he does - he can tell you do. He can smell how exciting this is for you, as if the way you’re practically dripping wasn’t telling enough.

He knew he wanted you the moment he saw you walking with your little friend earlier, knew he needed you. Not only that, knew he needed to breed you, make you his. He sat and waited, followed you on your way back and thought about how he should do it. He didn’t want to scare you - well, he thought he didn’t. But then that other animal started to stalk you, and your fear wafted off you in such potent waves, and you smelled so good, he couldn’t stop his dick from twitching as he watched you run.

But you were his to fuck, to play with, maybe even to keep; so he’d be damned if you got hurt.

The thought alone makes anger rise in his chest, but the sight of your damp panties brings him back down to earth and remind him of the goal at hand - to fuck you till all you can think about his how bad you need him to fill you up.

Bokuto growls behind you before dipping his head down to lick against the wet patch on your underwear. He groans at the faint taste of you and sits up to discard you of them completely, surprisingly slowly, and whines when he sees the strings of arousal connect and break from your needy cunt to your long and forgotten underwear.

He grabs onto your thighs with enough force for the tips of his claws to just slightly break the skin, but any discomfort is disregarded when he buries his face in your heat and messily shoves his tongue between your lips.

His tongue is hot and wet, and his eager movements to scoop up as much of you as he can taste makes your toes curl and your eyes clench shut in surprise.

Fuck, this feels really good.

He pulls back and pants, spitting down onto your ass and watches his saliva drip down onto your clenching hole.

“Fuck, already so needy for me to fill you up, huh?” His voice is raspy, and you no longer care how odd or humiliating this all is, how weak you are - you want him so bad.

But all you can do is whimper in response when he bites down onto the fatty part of your ass, surely leaving a mark, before going back to licking long, languid stripes against your cunt. Your eyes roll to the back of your head when you feel him move to start sucking on your clit with a need you’ve never felt any man please you with before.

Your thighs want to squeeze together but they can’t with the unmatchable strength he has, keeping you open and spread for him to do as he pleases to you. His constant sucking and licking on your clit suddenly becomes too much as you feel your orgasm coming close, your stomach clenching and thighs shaking.

“Ahh! Fuck!”

You scream when it hits, he’s relentless and doesn’t stop once throughout until your squirming bad enough to catch his attention, who’s unapologetically pussy drunk. He only stops and pulls away, giving you a break, cause he needs more.

He wants to taste you more, give you more, but he can’t with you stuck like this.

He sits up and wrenches the log off your body, a sigh of momentary bliss leaving your lips, before he pulls you out from where you were by your waist with his other arm.

Your vision isn’t clear from this perspective, you think you’re dangling upside down, slung over his shoulder, but before you know it he has you flipped back around and standing on your own two feet in front of him - and fuck were you right, he is big.

Bringing your gaze up, now eye level with his chest, you crane your head up to look at his face with wide eyes.

“C’mere.” You’re lifted up by the back of your thighs until your calves dangle at the sides of his waist with his arms resting under the bend of your leg, warm hands gripping your sides.

Instinctively, you reach up to wrap your arms around his neck, pressing chest to chest, irrationally scared that he (yes, the same man who previously tossed a log off your body like it was a twig) might drop you.

But all focus is lost on that thought when you feel the fat head of his cock - the girth of which you don’t even want to imagine right now - slide between your sticky lips, nudging against your swollen clit.

A whimper falls from his lips as he starts to poke and prod against your entrance, his head slowly pushing in and you can already feel the stretch of him. A small dose of fear mixed with an overwhelming amount of anticipation runs through your body. You can’t tell whether it’s your own lust clouded mind or some power he might have over you - but you need him now, greater than your apprehension for his size.

“Need you, need you now. Gotta fill my puppy up.” He huffs down at you and you can’t help but flutter a little around the tiny bit of him that’s made it’s way into you at the use of the nickname.

You nod against his chest and wiggle in his grasp, hoping he gets the idea that right now, that’s all you want, too.

He does his best to slowly sink you down onto him, but fuck the feeling is unbearable - you’re so warm and soft around his cock, and he can’t help but think about how it’s the perfect pussy for him to breed.

Biting down onto your shoulder, he sits you onto the rest of his cock, your cunt squelching and dripping onto his thighs and heavy balls. You yelp a little from the pain of it all; his sharp teeth sinking into your shoulder far enough to leave a scar, with the vague feeling of a small trickle of something warm dripping down your back, and the burn from the way you’re stretching around him. But the first time he lifts you off to slam back into you, all you can think about is how bad you need to come around his cock.

Your head leans back and your jaw goes slack, his pelvis - dawning a furry patch of pussy soaked coarse hair - rubbing against your clit with each roll of his hips. It’s like he’s hitting every spot inside of you at the same time, too, repeatedly brushing against the one that has you drooling and whining: “please, please, please!”

He leans his head down to speak into your ear, panting heavily with each smack of skin, “Yeah? Wanna make you feel good before I fill this dirty pussy up.“

Giving an unexpected tender kiss to your neck, he growls before picking up his pace - thrusting in and out of you hard enough to have your head rocking back and forth.

Fuck, you were so close.

Reaching a shaky hand down, trusting his strength to keep you up, you rub weak but rapid circles onto your clit. Thankfully, not much more effort needed to be exerted from you for you to reach your climax.

Bokuto presses kisses into your mouth, open in a silent scream, as you squeeze around his cock and twitch in his arms.

Leaving a gentle kick across your lips, he groans and whines before his thrusts still - your own orgasm enough to nearly make him pass out from the sensation - as he shoots his hot seed into you. He has so much, the inside of you not nearly enough for it all, as it spurts out onto the sides of his thick cock.

You’re not sure how long he held you in his arms like this, swearing you were going in and out of consciousness by the end, but eventually you feel him pull himself out of you that leaves you with an emptiness you couldn’t begin to describe.

But rather than being set down, you’re still held in his arms. The warmth from him is overwhelmingly soothing now, lulling you to sleep as your exhaustion starts to take over you. There’s only vague murmurs of something sounding like “keeping you safe”, or “keeping you home”; but right now that’s the last thing you care to think about as his hands rub up and down your back.

That’s something for tomorrow you to worry about, just like tomorrow you will worry about where your backpack with all that hard work went. However, you have a feeling deep in your gut that your missing bag will be the last of your worries in the morning.

——————

taglist: @plutowrites @touyaz

[carnegiemuseumnaturalhistory]

Feeding the Monster in the Sewer

Water is a resource that I often take for granted. I take daily showers, wash my dishes, and do my laundry without a second thought to the amount or quality of water that is used. I only experience small aspects of the natural water cycle on a daily basis, from a bit of condensation on a cold glass of water to the sporadic downfall of rain that occurs in Pittsburgh. The water cycle that I’ve learned about in school can be boiled down to: precipitation, surface runoff, infiltration, evaporation, and condensation; but how do I, as a human being, fit into all of this? What is the human water cycle and how have parts of the water cycle changed within the Anthropocene?

As intrigued as I was, I didn’t know enough about my own impact on the water cycle, so I took a deeper dive into learning about what was actually happening to the water that I used. In order to explore the concept of the human water cycle I needed to start by looking at infrastructure. In the case of water infrastructure, outside of irrigation, the water purification systems and sewage systems are some of the most impactful additions human beings have included into the planet’s water cycle. These infrastructural systems span thousands and thousands of miles underground, connecting houses, neighborhoods, and cities. And yet, at least for me, there was a vast mental disconnect between the water that flows underneath us and the water that we consume. I wasn’t sure how to visualize something that was happening underground, hidden away from sight. That’s when I learned about fatbergs.

In 2017 an 820 foot long mass weighing 130 metric tons was discovered in the sewers of Whitechapel in London, England. The same type of mass, weighing 42 metric tons was found in Melbourne, Australia during the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus, most likely due to the flushing of “toilet paper substitutes” (i.e. paper towels, sanitary products, facial tissues). These masses are called fatbergs and can be found in most major cities, especially those with older sewage systems like Pittsburgh. A fatberg is a solidified mass of fat, formed overtime in sewers, that sticks to the build-up of un-flushable sewage. Fatbergs cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to remove, and also reduce river and stream water quality by making sewer overflows more likely. In the Pittsburgh Area, whenever the combined storm and sanitary sewer system is overloaded, excess flow is dumped directly into the rivers.

Fatbergs are a human phenomenon that directly impacts both us and the greater environment. The sewer overflows that they cause impact both the built and natural environment, introducing pollutants such as human waste from our toilets and fats from our kitchen sinks into the living domain. But as harmful as they are, they can be easily prevented.

How, you ask? The solution is simple... don’t flush down anything other than toilet paper and bodily waste. But why? What makes toilet paper any different from other paper-like materials? The answer lies in the unique quality of the material that toilet paper is made up of. Unlike paper towels that use long fiber pulps, which improves the strength and absorptivity of the material, and facial tissues that contain additives that hold the fibers together, toilet paper is made using approximately 70% hardwood pulps with short fibers and 30% softwood pulps with longer fibers. Due to the hardwood pulps, once the toilet paper makes contact with water, the short fibers, which also help keep the toilet paper soft to touch, are able to untangle and fall away into smaller fragments, eventually dissolving into tiny bundles of short fiber that can easily flow through the sewage system.

Objects like ‘flushable wipes’, unlike toilet paper, take hours to days to break down. This means that just because we are able to flush something down, doesn’t necessarily make it safe for sewer and septic systems. If you want to try an experiment to explore this concept, try putting ‘flushable’ wipes and toilet paper into two separate containers of water. See for yourself what happens.

Fatbergs are all the more relevant to us during the times of the pandemic, especially in the United States. As people stay home, more objects that aren’t healthy for the sewage system are being flushed. Think about the times you flushed anything other than toilet paper. Are you feeding a potential fatberg in your neighborhood?

Daniel Noh is an intern for the Center for Anthropocene Studies, Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Museum employees are encouraged to blog about their unique experiences and knowledge gained from working at the museum.

[apartment1]

ATZ Properties Reviews: Best Construction Companies In Bangalore

Bangalore city is one of the biggest IT centers in India. Often referred to as the Silicon Valley of India, Bangalore has always been a go-to destination for job seekers, to be specific, engineers. This city has hence attracted many best construction companies in India. Civil engineering is often a choice decision for placement for students and therefore a large number of construction companies have flocked in the capital city of Karnataka.

Bengaluru is blessed with a moderate climate round the year with low levels of humidity. Weather is a key factor why large companies often venture into Bangalore before any other city. In this paper, we will discuss the best construction companies of the city of Bangalore.

Civil Engineering For The Best Construction Companies : ATZ Property Reviews

ATZ Properties Reviews are not only dedicated to build great buildings but also to employ some of the best Civil engineers for its work. Civil engineers are involved in to conceive, design, build-up, and supervision operating, constructing, and maintenance of infrastructure projects and systems in the public and private sector, which includes roads, buildings, airports, tunnels, dams, bridges, and systems for water supply and treatment of sewage. Often it is said a civil engineer who is well experienced and skilled has no retirement. Hence there's quite a demand which is observed. Every year, there are vacancies for government jobs in various fields and maximum vacancy is always available for civil engineers.

The career scope of civil engineers is huge across the globe. According to a new research report by Global Marketing Insights, Inc, the market size of civil engineering is expected to swell up to USD 11.72 trillion by the year 2025. Although initial packages can begin with low incomes. But with continuity and growth along with rank elevation, the income is expected to bulge. The average salary for a Civil Engineer is ₹3,46,700 per year (₹28,890 per month). A Civil Engineer can expect an average starting salary of ₹1,54,600 per annum.

Civil Engineering Jobs In Construction And Architecture

Generally, civil engineers can be classified into two types: consulting engineers and contracting engineers. Consultants are responsible for designing the work of projects and work in an office environment. Contractors then discuss and choose the designs and implement them while constructing. On the contrary, contractors work on-site, involved in the management of the construction of the structure.

Depending on whether you are a contractor or a consultant, work activities can include processing of technical and feasibility studies including site investigations using a range of computer software for developing detailed and complex designs and manipulating complex calculations. You may need to sign contracts with clients and a host of professionals including architects and subcontractors with a compilation of job specs and supervision of tendering procedures resolving design and development problems.

They may also need to manage budgets and project resources scheduling material and equipment purchases and deliveries to make sure that the project complies with all legality compliments, especially health and safety in assessing the sustainability and impact of projects on the environment which therefore is ensuring projects run smoothly and structures are completed within stipulated time and within the budget. Working hours for consulting civil engineers are usually normal office hours which might be extended in weekend work close to project deadlines. Contractors, on the other hand, often have duties in shifts and on weekends and are compelled to an outdoor job in all weathers.

BEST CONSTRUCTION COMPANIES IN BENGALURU

The job seekers who are looking for jobs in civil engineering can directly visit the job page and can apply to appropriate posts.

But the first and thing are that we should look up to in a construction company is that it creates the use of top-notch quality raw materials so that whatever they building is durable and long-lasting. Thus, don’t miss out on anything from these characteristics at all!

Here is the list of the top companies:

1. ATZ Properties

ATZ properties Reviews are one of the best housing cooperative societies one can ever dream of. With over 20 years of experience and skilled labor, they have the capacity to create your dream home. They are well known for their best quality work among developers and builders. If you put a glance at the ATZ reviews, you will be able to see the satisfaction of the customers and their star reviews. This company is indeed the best construction companies in Bangalore. With anexperience of over 20 years, they can easily create and provide you your dream house. So why not gift yourself with the best property in Bangalore.

Address: 12/1 plain street, Infantry Road Cross, Bengaluru - 560001

Contact: 9036999144

Website: www.atzproperties.in/index.html

ATZ Ultima Properties in Bangalore –

ATZ Reviews

2. Karnataka Neeravari Nigam Limited (KNNL)

This company has been recorded as a completely owned Government of Karnataka Company as per the provisions of the Companies Act, 1956 w.e.f. 9th December 1998. This company stands second in our list because of the successful projects done by the company. They truely are oen fo the best construction companies in Bangalore.

Address: 4th Floor, Coffee Board Building, No. 1, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Veedhi,

Infantry Road, Bengaluru, Karnataka 560001

Contact: 080 2228 3074

Website: http://knnlindia.com/

ATZ Properties Reviews : ATZ Ultima Properties in Bangalore

3. Ozone Group

The Ozone Group is a professionally managed Organisation, moreover, it is well supported by around 400 people embrace design, construction, finance, engineering, and facility management departments.

Address: 38, Ulsoor Rd, Yellappa Garden, Yellappa Chetty Layout, Sivanchetti

Gardens, Bengaluru, Karnataka 560042

Contact: 080 2501 1800

Website: https://www.ozonegroup.com/

4. The Chalet Corporate Apartments

The service The Chalet offers you is not only of Corporate Apartments but also being the ONE POINT OF CONTACT to the diversification of them across Bangalore at locations preferred to you.

Address: 526/A, 1st Cross, Dr. Rajkumar Rd, Near Orion mall, Milk Colony,

Stage 2, Rajajinagar, Bengaluru, Karnataka 560010

Contact: 080 2357 5566

Website: http://www.thechalet.in/

Construction Companies in Bangalore5. Ranka Group

Today, approx. 3000 families in Bangalore lives in a Ranka home. Clear titles, central locations, as well as higher-ranking build quality, have ensured the best appreciation of all Ranka properties and created a heritage of trust for the Group. The heritage of the Ranka Group takes pleasure because while it builds workplaces and homes, the primary focus has consistently been on building long-lasting relationships for a lifetime.

Address: Cunningham Rd, Vasanth Nagar, Bengaluru, Karnataka 560051

Contact: 080 2226 0426

Website: http://ranka.com/

Not only constructing huge IT parks but also these leading construction companies in Bangalore are also involved in the building of residential apartments, flats, big retail outlets, hotels, malls, and other commercial places in and around Bangalore city. That is why in inclusion to big construction companies like ATZ properties, this city has also fascinated top Architecture companies, the best construction companies in Bangalore, as well as top consulting firms.

[tsthrace]

clexa + jail + college + activism

Thought I’d repost the whole story here for those of you that don’t do ao3.

9,500-word one shot No content warnings Enemies to lovers Break up/Make up (sort of)

Sneak peek: “Why do you even care anyways?” Lexa shook her head. “You’re almost out of here. Aren’t you going to Ireland or something.”

“I don’t care.” Clarke’s voice returned to its sophomore octave.

“Well, you certainly like to spend a lot of big feelings on something you don’t care about.”

“Someone.” Clarke swallowed. Her head was tilted down but her eyes drifted up to Lexa’s, the blue endless like the middle of the ocean.

Lexa bit her lip. “Clarke…” The softness in her voice was no longer commanding.

Clarke felt a jump in her chest.

Madness

She had been stripped. She had been probed and prodded in places even lovers had never gone. She had been assigned a number by a male officer who referred to her only as “inmate” and refused to look her in the eye. She had been given a sandwich of dry bologna and moldy bread and a styrofoam cup of yellow-tinted water.

But none of that was worse than the manic smile on Clarke’s face.

“Can you calm her the fuck down?” The woman who asked had a tangle of long brown hair and dark circles under her eyes. She couldn’t stop her fingers from fidgeting, and her eyes scuttled from side to side like she was watching a tennis match on fast forward.

Lexa rolled her eyes. Kettle meet pot.

“She’s not with me.” Lexa threw a sideways glance at Clarke who paced the wall of bars in the holding cell. Lexa kept her face flat, but she felt her heart pounding. 

“What the fuck, Lexa!” Clarke's sharp voice rang off the cinder block walls. She didn’t stop pacing, that empty, wild smile still spread across her face.

The fidgety woman let her eyes rest on Lexa for a split second. “She seems to know who you are, sweetie.” Her eyes took off again.

Lexa rubbed her eyes hard. What was left of her eyeliner smudged across her fingertips. This wasn’t how this day was supposed to go. She was supposed to give an inspiring speech to tens of thousands of people in green shirts, rousing them to a roar no one in Exxon Mobil’s Houston compound could ignore. Drone shots would capture the magnitude of the gathering packing Springwoods Village Parkway so that every road into the campus was blocked—no one would get in and no one would get out while they were there. They had been planning it for months. Every move was choreographed. The timeline was carefully managed so as to be inconvenient but not unsafe for the people inside. But then Clarke’s Extinction Rebellion infiltrated. They brought superglue, chains, locks, signs, and 400 of their own people who were also highly choreographed, though their timeline was, well, flexible. Indefinite.

“We can spin it,” The words tumbled out of Clarke’s mouth like rocks in a landslide. “This is a win, Lexa. It’s a win. They’re already working on it. It’s already on the news.” Her eyes looked nowhere and everywhere, alive and wired to the point of vacancy.

“Seriously, what’s wrong with her?” The woman’s glance bounced back and forth off of Clarke.

Lexa didn’t know. A battle was waging inside her. Clarke had sabotaged the biggest day of Lexa’s career. She had commandeered her protest, her cause, undermining its legitimacy and stealing its power. Lexa was angry. But she was also worried. In all the years she had known Clarke, she’d never seen her like this. 

---

They met at UVA in their Approaches to Environmental Politics course. Clarke, a sophomore who had no business being in the upper-level class, was paired for the final project with Lexa, a senior who was just trying to get through her final semester. The project was broad and ambitious: plan one action that would have a meaningful impact on the growing climate crisis in the United States. It could be anything: legislation, corporate policy, activism. Break the action down into manageable parts. Be detailed. Account for opposing factors.

Lexa’s concentration was Environmental Policy, but she was tired. She wanted to find the plan with the fewest variables, the least amount of pushback. A major corporation like Walmart calling for biodegradable packaging in all their stores. Google switching exclusively to sustainable energy for their data center operations. Lexa hated capitalism. She faulted the constant profit and growth it demanded for getting the world into the climate crisis in the first place. But she knew, for the purposes of this project, that working within capitalism would be easiest. Being “green” was in; big moves in sustainability would be a PR dream for these corporations. And it wouldn’t disrupt the lives of the general public.

Significant change with little pushback except from the most radical in the movement. And then Lexa could graduate.

“We block railroad tracks all over the country, so that coal trains can’t get where they need to go.” This was Clarke’s idea. “We chain up to each other as blockades on the tracks. We set up camps around those blockades as a system of support and to control the narrative when the media arrives.”

It turned out that Clarke was one of the radicals. She had a dozen ideas and a hundred unconventional approaches to each of those ideas, and they all boiled down to massive disruption for the sake of an ultimate good. 

“If this plays out and all your dreams come true, millions of people will be without electricity.” Lexa rolled her eyes. “All you’ll have is a bunch of people resentful of your movement. That’s gonna be the narrative.”

“So you just want to sell out?” Clarke returned the eye roll. Her face still had the soft roundness of a girl still trying to become a woman. Her voice seemed an octave too high. “You want to work with the people who created the mess in the first place?”

“It’s not selling out, it’s being realistic.” Lexa wondered if she had been so naive when she was a spry underclasswomen. “Besides, do you know how many contingencies we’ll have to plan for? National guard. Fox News painting us as lunatics. Working class railroad workers pissed that they can’t do their jobs. Do you think they’re gonna get paid when the trains aren’t moving?”

“This isn’t the time for incremental change, Lexa.” Clarke’s eyes darkened in a way that startled Lexa. “This is a crisis. We could be at the point of no return in a decade. People need to make sacrifices”

“This is a final project for a college class, Clarke,” Every word came out slowly, deliberately, quietly. Clarke didn’t know her well enough yet to know that Lexa getting quiet should set off alarms. “I just want to get an A and be done. You can save the world after I graduate.”

“You don’t even care, do you?” Clarke’s face looked more sad than angry.

“I do care, Clarke.” Lexa sighed. Clarke’s words stung, and it surprised her. “And I plan on doing the actual work when I get out of here. So can we please just make it easy on ourselves for now?”

“If you cared, you’d take every opportunity you get to make a difference.”

The next six weeks were a string of arguments, eye rolls, and unsatisfying compromises. Their final product earned them a B-minus. On the last day of class, Lexa strode out the door without even a glance in Clarke’s direction. 

But then UVA gave her the best package for grad school, and she found herself on campus for another two years. Her first year of classes kept her far away from the undergrads. She’d seen Clarke a few times in the coffee shops on the edge of campus and once at the library, but had always managed to keep her distance. For some reason, the sight of Clarke gave her a vague sense of guilt. It picked at her like a vulture picks at roadkill. 

But Lexa’s fellowship required her to TA her second year. The thought of teaching Intro to Poli-Sci made her want to claw her eyes out, but Lexa made sure it didn’t come to that. She engaged in a quiet networking campaign in which she happened to be at the same bar as the dean and then somehow got herself invited to dinner at Dr. Gudmundsson’s house. The professor’s children were delighted by her explanation of why rain happens. The following week she was assigned to assist in the professor’s Sustainability and Adaptive Infrastructure course, a high-level class that required more support of student research than actual teaching. 

Adaptive infrastructure had become Lexa’s speciality during her grad studies. Intentionally building entire cities from their sewage systems to the top of their skyscrapers in the image of its people’s shared values would require not only intellect but power, and Lexa was both smart and ambitious. 

She almost didn’t recognize Clarke in the second row of desks on the first day of class. She looked different. Her face curved more sharply towards her chin, her jaw line harder. Her blonde hair had been long two years ago, but now it barely reached past her ears in a scrappy bob. There was a steadiness in her eyes balanced by a glimmering intensity. She hadn’t become a woman so much as she had become so much more herself. 

Clarke noticed her, though, and threw a dismissive smirk at Lexa before she turned to square her shoulders to the front of the room.

A wave of irritation rolled through Lexa when she realized she was biting her lip. She sighed. At least they wouldn’t be assigned any final projects together. Besides, maybe Clarke’s approaches had gotten more sophisticated. Maybe she had grown up since the baby curves on her face had melted away. 

The first assignment proved otherwise. Lexa graded all the weekly assignments, and Clarke was furious with her six out of ten points. 

“Is this some kind of long-awaited vengeance?” Clarke had stormed into Lexa’s tiny office during office hours.

Lexa barely looked up from the email she was reading. “Are you serious?”

“I followed the assignment. I hit all the requirements.” Clarke pointed at her phone where, presumably, a copy of her graded assignment was on the screen. 

Lexa couldn’t see it in the glare of the office light, but she remembered it. It was creative, clever, but not what she was supposed to do. Her head didn’t move, but her eyes shot up to meet Clarke’s.

“You didn’t even try to hide the fact that you’re only studying Chicago’s bus system in order to disrupt it.” She let out a deep breath. “And you did a great job finding the limitations in routes and efficiency. I can tell you understood the study, which is why you got six points.”

“But I followed the assignment.” Both of Clarke’s hands were now on the edge of the desk as she leaned in.

“No.” Lexa sat back and closed her laptop. “You didn’t. And you know you didn’t. Maybe you can get away with that in other classes, but we need you to follow instructions. You can get creative with your final project.”

“Will you be grading that, too?”

“Part of it, probably.”

“Then I doubt I’ll be able to get too creative.” Clarke huffed and slung her backpack over her shoulder as she turned to leave.

The rest of Clarke’s assignments were flawless, though her analysis had a spiteful flourish to them. Each time, she found the most obvious conclusions and spent far more words than necessary coming to them. After four weeks, Lexa could only laugh. She had to hand it to her: even as she colored within the lines, Clarke managed to protest. It was artful.

They didn’t acknowledge each other in class. Most of the other students held Lexa with an earnest and completely unearned reverence. She had a presence, a silence that made her intriguing. The boys gave her shy smiles when she walked in, and she’d acknowledge them with a curt nod—which only drew them in more.

Halfway through the semester, Lexa noticed Clarke lingering in her office doorway. She could tell from her body language that she did not want to come in.

Lexa rolled her eyes. “Ms. Griffin, can I do something for you?”

Clarke looked up. “Can I come in?”

“You’re here, aren’t you?”

Clarke walked in and looked back. “Can I shut the door?”

Lexa was intrigued. “Uh, sure.” She smirked. “You’re not here to yell at me, are you? Your work has been more than acceptable.”

“No, it’s not that.” Clarke sat down in the chair uninvited. “I...uh...I need a recommendation. From Dr. Gudmundsson. But she told me I had to go through you.”

“You could have emailed me.”

“That felt...cowardly.”

Lexa’s forehead creased. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“I mean, given our history.”

“Clarke, it’s not like I have any say in your recommendation.” Lexa sighed. “It’s just a form that I need to fill out. Or you fill out, ideally, and give it back to me. Dr. Gudmundsson glances at it, I draft a letter, and she signs it. I’m sorry if that’s disappointing for you, but maybe it’ll feel less disappointing to know that I’m basically her administrative assistant. For this kind of stuff, at least.”

“It’s…” Clarke paused and took a deep breath. Streaks of sunlight streamed through the branches of a tree and broke across her. “Look, I know how this works.”

“Good.” Lexa shrugged. “I’ll email you the form.”

“Can we just do it now?” Clarke was chewing on her lip, her finger tapping on the arm of the chair.

“Uh, sure.” This wasn’t how Lexa wanted to spend her office hours. “Let me just pull it up.” Her eyes darted around the screen. “Okay.” She asked some logistical questions about Clarke’s major and concentration, electives she’s taken, and planned graduation date. Then she went to the next part of the form.

“Okay, so who are we sending this recommendation to?” 

Clarke smiled and looked down. “Friends of the Earth in Ireland.”

Lexa typed. “Okay, for what, though?”

“Their Extinction Rebellion training program. It’s kind of like a fellowship.”

Lexa stopped typing. “Aren’t those the people who superglued themselves to the gates of, like, a hundred coal mines last July?”

Suddenly, Clarke was looking her straight in the eyes. “Yes.” 

Lexa felt that strange guilt wash over her. She sucked in her lips and decided not to comment. She looked down at the screen. “So what do you think your intellectual strengths are?”

That night, Lexa was having a drink with some of the other TAs when she noticed Clarke across the bar. She was with a group, sitting next to a completely unremarkable young man whose face was giving her his complete and devoted attention as she talked. It wasn’t clear if Clarke knew he was there. 

Lexa smiled. Boys are so ridiculous.

She sipped at her beer and silently nodded through the TAs’ complaints about work conditions and bad pay. It’s not that she didn’t agree with them, but it was all they had been talking about for the last thirty minutes, the last thirty days. And she only had one semester to go. By the time it was actually resolved, she’d probably be gone.

She scooted her chair out and left her ranting colleagues to find the bathroom. Two gender neutral bathrooms lined a narrow hallway, and both doors were locked. As she waited, wondering if the narrow hallway was ADA compliant, one of the doorknobs rattled and Clarke emerged.

“Oh, hey.” Clarke looked past Lexa, almost like she was embarrassed.

“Hey.” Lexa studied Clarke’s face. It was strange to see her looking unsure. She waited for Clarke to move so she could get into the bathroom. She didn’t move. Instead, she leaned against the door frame.

“Can you believe this virus thing?” she asked.

“What?” Lexa squinted. 

“The virus, the Coronavirus that’s going around in China. Seems like a pretty big deal.” Clarke finally looked at Lexa. “I’ve heard there are some cases in Italy, too.”

Lexa remembered seeing something on Twitter but hadn’t paid much attention. “I haven’t heard much.”

“I just wonder if we should be nervous.” Clarke’s confidence seemed to return. “I don’t think this country is prepared for anything like that.” She scoffed. “I mean, I don’t think this administration is prepared for much of anything.”

Lexa tilted her head. She didn’t know why Clarke was suddenly bantering with her about viruses. “Can I…?” She looked behind Clarke, nodding towards the bathroom.

“Oh. Yeah. Sorry” The hallway wasn’t so narrow that they couldn’t get past each other, but their arms brushed against each other in a way that made Clarke look back when she got to the end of the brief corridor. Lexa was already closing the door behind her. Clarke bit her lip and went back to her table.

At the start of their next class, Lexa noticed that Clarke looked up when she walked in, though she looked away quickly.

It was Lexa’s task that day to explain the students’ final project. It was relatively straightforward:  choose one infrastructural element in your hometown, assess its current efficiency in terms of sustainability, and design three ways to improve that efficiency—two of which were realistic given financial, social, and political limitations, and one pie-in-the-sky, no holds barred approach.

Lexa had a feeling which one Clarke would devote most of her time to.

To her surprise, Clarke dropped in during her office hours again a week later. She didn’t linger outside the door this time, she just walked right in. Even more surprising, it was to ask about writing policy and navigating local government legislation. 

“I mean, tax breaks created a society of stand-alone homeowners, right? So why can’t tax breaks encourage high-density living and co-housing?” Clarke spoke breathlessly. When she committed to something, she threw herself in, even if it was housing policy.

“Aren’t we talking about Bangor, Maine?” Lexa asked. “Isn’t that a small town?”

“Not tiny.” Clarke squinted, annoyed. “And besides, high-density housing isn’t just for big cities. It’s not just good for sustainability. It helps build community. When people encounter each other everyday, they start to care about each other. People are super isolated in Bangor.”

Lexa nodded. “Okay.” She didn’t need to know the particulars. She was just glad Clarke was finally recognizing how long-term change realistically happened. “So what are your other two approaches?”

Clarke pulled out what appeared to be a folded engineering map of a Bangor neighborhood. “Do you mind?” She nodded at the blank space on Lexa’s desk.

“Sure.”

They both leaned over the map as Clarke pointed out potential locations for rainwater collection tanks. 

“This is pretty ambitious,” Lexa said, her eyebrows raised. She looked down again, her hands gripping the edge of the desk, her long hair tumbling towards the map and hiding her face. 

Before she could stop herself, Clarke reached up and slid the loose hair behind Lexa’s ear. They both froze. Lexa felt goosebumps shoot up her arms. Clarke bit her lip in a dare. She didn’t mean for this to happen, but maybe...she did?

Lexa eyes shot to the map. She felt Clarke’s hand slide over hers. She glanced over and saw the line of Clarke’s neck curving delicately as her head tilted in her direction. She suddenly loved that line, wanted to run her finger over it. 

She swallowed hard and pulled away.

“We...this…” She fumbled her words. “We can’t do this.” She looked up at Clarke with stony eyes, though uncertainty lingered at their edges.

“Oh, right.” Clarke grabbed at the corner of the map, sweeping it in a wave off the desk. She didn’t bother to fold it as she gathered her backpack with her other hand. She turned towards the door without looking back. 

At that moment, both of their cell phones buzzed. Clarke stopped and looked at Lexa who was already looking at the text. 

Attention. There has been an emergency on the UVA Charlottesville campus. Health services has identified 23 cases of the Novel Coronavirus today. This virus is extremely contagious. To limit the spread, you are instructed to shelter in place. Please do not move from your current location until directed by authorities. If you are indoors, close internal doors and open external doors and windows. If you are outdoors, remain outdoors.

A tinny female voice repeated the message from a public address system in the hallway.

Clarke let the map flutter to the floor. “Shit.” She closed the office door.

Lexa let something that was half a sigh, half a laugh escape from her mouth. She went to the window to push it open.

“This isn’t funny,” Clarke said quickly, her eyes wide. “This could be really bad. I read that this virus can be airborne for a long time. They don’t even know what the incubation period is.” She turned her wide eyes on Lexa, suddenly worried. “Are you feeling okay?”

“I feel fine,” Lexa said, throwing up her hands. “Except I didn’t eat lunch. So there’s that.”

“This is serious, Lexa.” Clarke’s words were quick and clipped. “People have died in China, and it’s getting worse in Europe.”

“Are you feeling sick?”

“No, but—”

“Then let’s just deal with what’s happening right now.” Lexa’s voice was calm, almost soothing.

Clarke sighed loudly and collapsed into the chair. “You mean the fact that I’m now stuck here with you?”

Lexa bit her lip. “You didn’t seem to mind a minute ago.”

Clarke looked out the window. “Let’s...just forget…”

“Clarke…” Lexa leaned back in her chair. “It’s not that—”

“What is your deal, Lexa?” Clarke stood up, suddenly angry. “It’s like you’ve had it out for me from the second we met.”

“I just don’t think changing the world requires breaking everything, Clarke,” Lexa said quietly. “It’s nothing personal.”

It only made Clarke get louder. “No big change has ever happened because people were following the rules.” Her face went red. “You’re smart, Lexa. I know you are. And you care. You just don’t care enough.”

Lexa felt her heart pounding, but she didn’t respond. She didn’t move. She had been accused of not caring her whole life, people mistaking her calm for distance, her quiet for heartlessness. Even as she spent three years of undergrad building the network and support to change the university’s HVAC system from fossil-fuel based to an electric heat recovery model. It wasn’t glamorous, but it reduced the school’s emissions by almost 50%. Even as she slowly persuaded Dr. Gudmundsson to support the TA’s cause, one small conversation in passing at a time. Even though she’d never see the fruits of that labor.

She looked out the open window. “You don’t know me.” Her voice was soft and even yet somehow completely commanding.

“You’re right.” Clarke took a deep breath and sat back down. She looked down at her hands. “I’m sorry.”

“Why do you even care anyways?” Lexa shook her head. “You’re almost out of here. Aren’t you going to Ireland or something.”

“I don’t care.” Clarke’s voice returned to its sophomore octave.

“Well, you certainly like to spend a lot of big feelings on something you don’t care about.” 

“Someone.” Clarke swallowed. Her head was tilted down but her eyes drifted up to Lexa’s, the blue endless like the middle of the ocean.

Lexa bit her lip. “Clarke…” The softness in her voice was no longer commanding.

Clarke felt a jump in her chest. 

A door in the hallway crashed open, and heavy feet marched down the hallway pausing until a muffled voice shouted, “Clear!” Then the steps continued, then paused. “Clear!” Again and again. 

Clarke looked out the window of Lexa’s office door and saw two people in hazmat suits scanning every office down the hallway. She watched until they finally made their way to her. 

“We got two!” a man yelled through his plastic mask.

“What’s going on?” Clarke asked through the window.

“That virus,” the man said as he tapped on the phone he was holding. His face was sweating. “The one on the news. There’s been an outbreak on campus. We don’t know much about it, but it’s supposed to be super contagious. We’re just being cautious.” 

“I can go straight home,” Clarke said, her voice on the edge of frantic. “I only live two blocks from here. I’ll stay far away from people.”

“No,” the muffled voice replied. “You have to shelter in place until we can test you. The tests are on the way. Should only be an hour or two.”

“Do you see the size of this office?” She looked back and saw Lexa looking up at her with smug but amused eyes, which only irritated her more. “Half of it is taken up by a desk. There’s no food.”

“I have a protein bar,” Lexa said, shrugging.

Clarke rolled her eyes.

“It’ll only be a few hours,” the man repeated. “You’re big girls.”

“What did you say?” Clarke squinted at him with sharp eyes. Her hand reached for the doorknob.

“Clarke.” Lexa said, quiet but unassailable.

Clarke’s hand dropped.

The man either didn’t see or acted like he didn’t see. “I need to get contact info from both of you. Names, numbers, and emails.”

“Why?” Clarke crossed her hands in front of her. 

She didn’t see Lexa rolling her eyes behind her. “I don’t know, Clarke,” Lexa said. “Maybe so they can get in touch with us while we’re trapped in this room and let us know what’s going on.”

Clarke sighed and sat down in the chair across from Lexa. “Fine.” 

They both gave their information, and the two hazmats suits continued on their search. “Someone will be here in a couple hours.” The man called back as he walked off.

“I don’t trust them.” Clarke sunk into the chair.

“Seems to be a theme.” Lexa gathered her hair with both hands and pulled it back into a bun. She sat back. “You could obviously handle a campus outbreak much more competently.”

Clarke opened her mouth then realized that Lexa was suddenly leaning forward, waiting for a response. Her eyes were shining. Clarke bit her lip and sat down. She looked down at her hands. A thick silence filled the tiny office. A cool breeze circled the office, rustling her hair. She pulled her jacket closed around her, and turned to look out the window. 

Lexa sat back and noticed that curve in Clarke’s neck again. Somehow soft and sharp at the same time. She felt one corner of her mouth curve up and shook her head. She shivered. Clarke noticed.

“Should we shut the window?”

Lexa had a quip ready about Clarke being the epidemic expert, but she sucked in her lips instead. “Do you think it’s safe?”

A tired smile crawled across Clarke’s lips. “I don’t know. But I’m cold.”

Lexa stood up to close the window.

Clarke took in a breath and held it for a moment. “I didn’t mean…” She said, letting the breath out. “I didn’t mean to step over a line. I just figured...I mean, you’re only two years older than me, and I know you’re a TA, but…”

The corner of Lexa’s lip creeped up again in a sad but kind way. “It’s not that, Clarke.” She looked up. “I mean it is. Professors discourage it, but it’s not forbidden. But…” The sadness melted off her smile as it widened. “You’re kind of a pain in the ass.”

Clarke laughed. “Yeah, I know.”

“And you kind of drive me crazy.” Lexa bit her lip.

Clarke tilted head. “Crazy how?” A light shone in her eyes. She stood up.

Lexa watched her as she circled the desk, that curve of her neck running smooth. 

“Like crazy in a bad way?” Clarke stopped just in front of Lexa and leaned against the desk.

“Definitely,” Lexa responded, her eyes shining. She leaned back. An invitation.

Clarke bent down and put her hand on Lexa’s cheek. Then she leaned in.

Lexa jerked her head back quickly, though mischief danced in her eyes. “You sure you want to do that? I could get you sick.”

“I don’t care,” Clarke replied just before her lips reached Lexa’s.

---

When they went home that day, they didn’t know that, though they lived less than half a mile from one another, they wouldn’t see each other again for three months. They didn’t know they wouldn’t be allowed to leave their homes except to buy groceries. They didn’t know that classes would be moved online for the rest of the year. They didn’t know that the only fanfare there’d be for graduation was receiving a piece of fancy paper in the mail in July. 

They didn’t know that it would be a terrible time to fall in love. But they did it anyway. They sat on Google Hangouts while they studied together. They sent Spotify playlists that they carefully curated for each other. Clarke mailed Lexa sketches she made of Lexa’s face from classes on Zoom. Lexa sent Clarke seductive texts during those classes and smirked as her face went red. Late at night, they touched themselves together on speakerphone, hoping their roommates wouldn’t hear.

When the quarantine finally lifted in early July, their reunion was marked only by their roommates who occasionally caught them in the kitchen grabbing food or walking from the bathroom back to the bedroom. 

When Lexa landed a prestigious internship at the World Resources Institute, she convinced Clarke to move to Washington DC with her. Clarke’s Friends of the Earth training had been moved from Ireland to online, and DC wasn’t a bad place to find activist friends. 

They found a tiny studio in Southeast. Lexa took the green line to H Street every day. Her work took her to Capitol Hill where she sat silently in meetings and took in the careful dance between her supervisors and congressional leaders. It was a game of give and take, sometimes infuriatingly slow and steady—too much given, not enough won.

“By the time you make any change, the planet will already be burning.” Clarke was stirring a pot of jarred pasta sauce. Neither of them had ever been very interested in cooking. “It already is.”

Lexa sighed. This was a variation on a nightly conversation. She moved in behind Clarke, wrapping her arms around her and resting her head on her shoulder. Her blonde hair smelled like summer. “Not tonight, okay?”

The scent of mediocre tomato sauce filled the room. Lexa sat down. “Anyways, how was your day?”

Clarke looked back with a hint of trouble in her eyes. “We talked about how to, uh, accelerate government action.” She smiled that smile that both drew Lexa in and infuriated her.

“Maybe we shouldn’t talk.” Lexa rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t stifle the grin.

Clarke set the wooden spoon down. She strode across their tiny kitchen and straddled Lexa, sliding her fingers up Lexa’s neck and through her hair. She smiled that smile and bit her lip. 

“Maybe we shouldn’t.”

---

After three years, Clarke had turned their tiny apartment into the neighborhood headquarters for climate justice. Flyers about pollution in Congress Heights covered their kitchen table. Posters illustrating rising sea levels along the Anacostia River were stacked on a chair in the living room. Every Tuesday night, she gathered a small group of activists to brainstorm projects and actions.  

Lexa complained whenever she was home, which was rare. She had been promoted to project manager and was gone for days or weeks at a time at meetings in The Hague or conferences in South Korea.

“Do you know how much fossil fuel those trips put into the atmosphere?” Clarke had a hard time understanding how the good Lexa was doing at these meetings outweighed their carbon footprint.

“I’m sure you can tell me the exact amount,” Lexa snapped. She had just gotten home from the Netherlands and was not in the mood for Clarke’s preaching. She looked from the pile of flyers on the table to the bed which was a messy heap of blankets to the stack of dishes in the sink. 

“What do you even do when I’m gone?”

Clarke lowered her head, and her eyes narrowed. She took in a long breath as her jaw clenched. 

“You don’t get to do that,” she said in a low voice. “You don’t get to come back and act like you’re the only one doing ‘real’ work.” Her air quotes were comically exaggerated. “Just because I’m not on Capitol Hill or at the fucking Hague doesn’t mean I’m not doing real work. I’m not your housewife, Lexa.” 

In three years, Clarke had learned that Lexa heard her whispers better than her shouts. She had learned that her anger distilled and harnessed got her much further than her anger exploded and dispersed. She didn’t realize in the moment that she had learned those things from Lexa.

Lexa clenched her fists and took a breath. She let her fingers relax. “I don’t want to do this tonight.”

Clarke looked down. “I don’t know if we should be doing this at all.”

---

Clarke moved into a giant, run-down house on the edge of the city with some activist friends. Lexa found a studio in Logan Circle. 

“This isn’t what I wanted.” Clarke turned the key to their apartment over and over in her hand.

Lexa looked up from the box she was taping up. Her green eyes were heavy. “It’s not what I wanted either, Clarke.”

Clarke looked slowly around the mostly empty apartment. It made her smile, and it made her tired. So many memories. Lexa stood up. Her face was streaked with dust and sweat, but her shoulders were pulled back. She stood up straight, unshakeable.

If things were different, Clarke would have hugged her until her body went soft. Instead, she set the key on the kitchen counter. She looked up. “I love you, Lex.”

Lexa nodded slowly and sucked in her lips. She closed her eyes for a moment then looked into Clarke’s eyes. “I love you, too.”

Clarke turned and walked out, closing the door quietly behind her.

---

Their paths crossed only a few times in the following years—at coffee shops in Capitol Hill and once at a bar in Southeast. Lexa texted Clarke on her birthday. Clarke texted Lexa when she found out Lexa had been hired as the Executive Director of Organizing for Climate Action, or OCA. 

Can’t wait to see all the “incremental change” you make, Clarke’s text read after the initial congratulations. She couldn’t resist. Lexa didn’t respond.

Clarke never told her that she kept a binder full of Lexa’s white papers. She didn’t tell her that she sometimes googled Lexa’s name and watched her interviews from local news shows on YouTube. OCA was steadily and methodically taking on the fossil fuel industry, coordinating deep investigation with targeted peaceful protest to force oil companies into altering their practices, and Lexa was quietly becoming a driver of the movement. Clarke, despite her irritation, couldn’t help but be proud.

What Lexa was gaining in influence Clarke was gaining in notoriety. Her first action was a die-in at Union Station 300 people covered in fake blood laid down across the public transit hub, stifling the morning commute. They demanded that Congress and the President declare a climate emergency. Clarke had coordinated logistics and wrote the demands. A few months later, she traveled south where she and 500 others covered in blue paint chained themselves to each other in a rough line across downtown Miami where the sea was predicted to rise in 50 years. This time, she was the one with the loudspeaker. She talked to the media, declaring their demands.

Lexa rolled her eyes when she saw a very blue Clarke on CNN calling for legislative and economic climate action. But she also couldn’t help but smile. This was always who Clarke was going to become.

But their worlds didn’t come together in a meaningful way for six years—when they locked eyes across a sea of people in Houston, Texas.

---

“I’m going to fucking kill her,” Lexa said under her breath as she watched her carefully orchestrated protest disintegrate. Her green-shirted supporters looked around in confusion as the Extinction Rebellion chained themselves to gates and trees and then to each other in lines across the roads that led in and out of Exxon Mobil’s facilities. 

“Lexa!” a muffled voice called through the walkie-talkie. “What do we do?”

“Just keep everyone calm.” Her voice was low, barely containing her anger. 

The news crews that had been gathered at OCA’s speaker podium started migrating towards the sudden action at the gates and intersections. Some of the green shirts were joining the human chain. 

“For decades, Exxon Mobil has been a leader.” She heard Clarke’s voice ringing out over the crowd. Clarke was standing in the bed of a truck where a makeshift PA system had been set up. “A leader in pumping carbon into our atmosphere. A leader in pushing for deregulation of laws that protect our earth. A leader in covering up fossil fuel’s impact on our environment. They knew. Oh, yes, they knew. And now they’re not going anywhere until they listen to what we have to say!”

A massive cheer went up. The crowd, including Lexa’s green shirts, raised their fists and phones.

“We will be heard! We will be heard! We will be heard!” Clarke started chanting, and Lexa’s green sea followed her, their voices echoing down the long parkway.

“Lexa!” the voice called through the walkie talkie. “You’re losing them. You have to do something!”

Fuck you, Clarke, was the chant repeating through Lexa’s thoughts as she swam through the crowd towards her. She was at least 100 yards away, and the crowd was thick.

The people went silent as Clarke climbed onto the roof of the truck with her mic. “They will continue to profit on the destruction of our planet, of our home, as long as we let them.” Her voice swelled. “We must stop them.”

“We must stop them! We must stop them!” The crowd took up her words again.

Lexa finally made her way to the truck and looked up at Clarke. What the fuck are you doing? Her eyes said what she couldn’t say out loud. Clarke smiled and jumped into the bed of the truck again. 

“Does OCA stand with us?” Clarke asked into the mic. She looked across at the mass of green shirts around her before her eyes settled on Lexa. She held her hand out to Lexa, inviting her up into the truck bed.

Lexa felt hot anger pulsing through her veins. Anger that Clarke stole her moment. Anger that all the details she had so carefully plotted were now falling to the ground like broken glass. Anger that she didn’t have a choice. She couldn’t refuse Clarke, not now. She grabbed her hand and climbed into the truck, and Clarke immediately jumped onto the roof and waited for Lexa to follow. 

Lexa swallowed hard, letting go of her plans, her pride, her power. She grabbed the mic from Clarke’s hand.

“We stand together to call Exxon Mobil to accountability!”

The crowd roared, and she felt it wash across her like a wave. This was power, but not the power she was used to. This was raw and untamed. Clarke took her hand and they turned to face each other. The blue in her eyes flashed, and the power danced between them.

The energy suddenly changed. Shouts went up together with bursts of smoke. Tear gas. The crowd jolted, looking for an escape all at once. The people chained together cried out, unable to bring their hands locked in tubes to their faces. The edges of the sea spilled out across the parkway.

“Don’t run, Lexa.” Clarke’s voice was calm, but something wild lingered at the edge of her words. “They can’t see you run.” She gripped her hand hard. “Stay with me.”

Lexa saw black spots pushing through the crowd towards them. 

“Those aren’t cops, Lexa.” Clarke’s chest rose and fell quickly. “They’re private security. We’re on a public road. They shouldn’t be touching us. Stand your ground.”

“How can you tell?” Lexa hated how her voice was shaking.

Clarke’s jaw clenched. “You always thought my training was ridiculous…”

Six black spots surrounded the truck, men covered in riot gear. “Security! You need to come down.”

“No, we don’t,” Clarke said with her wild calm. 

“Come down or we will bring you down.” The man sounded like he was enjoying himself.

“Go ahead.” Clarke shrugged. “We’ll bring a lawsuit.”

The speed of their violence startled Lexa. They leapt into the bed of the truck and grabbed Clarke’s legs, pulling them out from under her. Clarke grunted as her back caught the edge of the roof. She went silent when the back of her head slammed into the bed of the truck. 

“Clarke!” Lexa shouted as she dropped to her knees and held up her hands. The riot men grasped at her. “If you fucking touch me…” She drew her shoulders back and glared as she started to climb down. The men let her climb down.

As she dropped into the bed of the truck, she saw the men pulling Clarke’s limp arms behind her to cable-tie her wrists. “Are you fucking kidding me?” Lexa rushed to her body. She glanced at the dozens of green shirts that had gathered around the truck holding up cell phones. “You sure you want to do that? She’s not even conscious.” 

The men backed off.

Lexa folded herself over Clarke. “Clarke,” she whispered frantically. “Are you okay? Wake up.” She swallowed. “Please.”

Clarke stirred. 

“Oh my God.” Lexa gathered her into her arms. “Are you okay?”

Clarke slowly turned and looked up at Lexa with drowsy eyes. “I can’t believe you’re with me right now.”

Lexa felt tears prick at her eyes. “I’m so fucking mad at you.” She smiled.

Sirens rang out in the distance.

Clarke closed her eyes and smiled. “It was an opportunity we couldn’t pass up. You organized it so well.”

“Fuck you, Clarke.” Lexa leaned over and kissed her forehead. 

When the police arrived, Clarke was sitting up, rubbing her eyes. 

“These are the leaders?” they asked the private security men.

“Yeah,” said the man who had pulled Clarke down. “They incited this whole thing.”

“This was a legal gathering,” Lexa said. “I have permits.”

“It stopped being legal when the chains came out,” one of the cops said. “You’re both under arrest.”

Clarke remained conspicuously silent as they were read their rights. Fury wrestled with concern inside Lexa. She was worried about Clarke, but she was also being arrested because of her. When Clarke stood up and swayed, losing her footing for a moment, the concern made a comeback.

“Shouldn’t she see a doctor or something?” 

“She seems fine to me,” a policewoman said as she led Clarke away towards a separate car. Clarke looked back at Lexa with sleepy eyes.

“Do you want to make a call?” Lexa heard a man’s voice ask distantly.

“What?” She turned. The man arresting her had soft eyes.

“I’m about to take your cell phone,” he said. “Do you want to make a call before I do?”

“Is that allowed?”

“It’s at our discretion.” 

“Did she get a call?” Lexa nodded in the direction of Clarke.

“I don’t know. I didn’t arrest her.” His soft eyes became impatient. “I���m not going to offer again.” 

Lexa sighed and pulled out her phone. She found Eleanor, the chairwoman of OCA’s board of directors, in her contacts.

“Lexa!” Eleanor’s voice was frantic. “Are you okay? I saw the video.”

“Already?”

“Yeah, it’s all over Twitter. Who was the other woman? The blonde. Is she alright?”

“That’s the woman from Extinction Rebellion.” Lexa felt the fury crest as she refused to say Clarke’s name. “Listen, I’m being arrested.”

“What? Why?”

“They think I was part of—”

“Thirty seconds,” the cop interrupted.

“Listen, Eleanor,” Lexa took a deep breath and drew her shoulders back. “I need you to figure this out. Bail me out or whatever...I’ve never done this before.” 

“We’re already in touch with the lawyers,” Eleanor said. “Just hold tight.”

“End it now,” the cop reached for her phone.

Lexa clenched her jaw as she ended the call and handed him her phone.

---

Clarke’s pacing had grown frantic.

“Calling into the water,” Her words came out louder and more senseless with every passing minute. “He just doesn’t know it yet.” Her frenzy filled the small holding cell. 

Their tangled-haired cellmate’s eyes followed her back and forth. Her face had grown pale, and her finger-fidgeting sped to a wild pace. She looked like she was going to be sick—or start a fight.

Lexa glanced between the two of them, feeling the tension push at the edges of the small space, the bars of the cells trapping everything. Her rage had carried her through the first hour. She had ignored Clarke, hoping she’d calm down so she could be properly angry with her. But Clarke hadn’t calmed down. Her eyes grew more vacant with every passing hour, her pacing quicker and more rickety. 

“Facing the springs,” she mumbled, stumbling a moment before her hand caught a bar to steady herself. 

“You need to do something.” The fidgety woman’s shaky eyes landed on Lexa. Her shifty fingers were now balled into tight fist. “Or I will.”

Lexa’s muscled stiffened. She felt her heart beating evenly, solidly throughout her body, and time seemed to slow. Her anger at Clarke had been boiling at the surface, but it seemed to melt, rolling off her skin, as something spread through her from her very core, taking control. She turned her whole body towards the woman and tilted her head down while shifting her eyes up.

“Just try,” she said, her voice low and quiet.

The woman wrapped her arms around herself and pushed herself against the wall. “Just…” Her eyes shot upwards, glancing everywhere except in Lexa’s direction.  “I didn’t mean anything…” She let out a sigh, and her body seemed to go limp like an opossum playing dead.

Lexa exhaled. “Right.” She turned her head towards Clarke’s quick, hollow voice.

“Can’t climb the clock,” Clarke was saying. She was panting and sweat trickled down the side of her face. “Can’t climb it.”

Fear started to creep through Lexa. Clarke had always been intense, always danced at the edge of wild, but she was also calculated. She never lost control. She managed madness like an ER doctor, knowing which screams mattered and which could wait. At least that was the Clarke Lexa had known. But now the madness was taking over. She swayed with the nonsense of her words, even as her feet kept carrying her back and forth, back and forth. They wouldn’t keep her up much longer.

Lexa swallowed, longing for the anger that had now fallen away. It had anchored her. It had made being in jail tolerable. It had given this terrible day meaning. It had made looking at Clarke tolerable. She was familiar with anger—knew how to stoke it like a well-tended fire that would burn hot but not too big.

A fire she could manage. She didn’t know what to do with fear. And Clarke was scaring her. 

Clarke’s legs finally gave out. She fell hard, her knees crunching onto the cement floor. 

Instinctively, Lexa darted to the floor beside her. She gathered Clarke in her arms. She was burning up. At first, she was dead weight against her, but she slowly lifted herself up as if waking up.

“Clarke?” Lexa whispered.

“Lexa?” It took a few moments for some life to come back into her blue eyes. They steadied, tired but focused. “What are you doing here?”

“Inmate 67348!” A man’s voice echoed through the cell. 

Lexa looked down at the stick-on badge they had given her. 67360. Not her. She looked down at Clarke’s. Not her either.

The fidgety woman seemed to be asleep in the corner. 

The guard shouted this time. “Inmate 67348!”

The fidgety woman shuddered and blinked her eyes open.

“Do you want out of here or what?” The guard didn’t lower the volume. “You made bail. Let’s go.”

The woman looked so pale that Lexa was almost worried about her. But she wasn’t her problem anymore. She shuffled out of the cell, and the cell door slid closed with a crash. 

It was just the two of them now.

“Lexa,” Clarke’s eyes drooped. “Where are we?”

Lexa squinted at her. “Do you not remember?”

“Remember what?”

Lexa let out a long breath as she finally realized what was happening. Memory loss. Fever. She swallowed.

“We’re in jail, Clarke.”

“What? Why?” Clarke’s eyes closed and her head tilted against Lexa.

“No, no, no, Clarke.” Lexa shook her. “Wake up. You need to stay awake.”

Clarke lifted her head, blinking her eyes like she’d had a little too much tequila. 

“Let’s go sit on the cot.” Lexa stood and helped Clarke to her feet. They shuffled to the cot. Lexa rested her back against the wall and propped Clarke into a sitting position. 

“Why are we in jail, Lexa?” Clarke’s voice was quiet like a child’s.

“We were at a protest.”

“You got arrested with me?” Clarke's smile was drunken, gleeful, and exhausted. For a moment, Lexa saw what she must have looked like as a child when she was begging to stay up with her parents even as she was asleep on her feet.

“Sort of.” Lexa sighed. It wasn’t worth getting into.

“I’m glad you’re here.” Clarke rested her head on Lexa’s shoulder. “I thought you didn’t like me anymore.” Her eyelids fell again.

“Stay with me, Clarke.” 

“I’m here.” Clarke’s voice was sweet and quiet. “I still like you, you know. I mean, love you. Always have. There’ve been others since, obviously, but...not like you.” Clarke fell quiet for a long time. 

Lexa swallowed and closed her eyes for a few moments. Her heart started pounding in her chest. She felt like she was hearing a secret she shouldn’t be hearing, but she wanted to hear more. She took a few deep breaths, bit her lip, then finally shook her head.

“Clarke, wake up.” She put her arm around Clarke’s shoulders and pulled her towards her. “Tell me the last thing you remember.”

Lexa spent the next two hours nudging Clarke awake when she faded and asking her things. Recent things. Factual things. When Clarke hazily asked her if she remembered that day in her office when the coronavirus hit, Lexa steered her back towards the details of her activist training. 

Eventually, after several deflections, Clarke lifted her head like it weighed a hundred pounds so she could look at Lexa. “Why won’t you talk about us?”

“Because it’s not the right time.”

“Do you still love me?” She cut to the center of it, never one to give up. Her voice was quiet but clearer than it had been.

Lexa took a few breaths before turning her head and looking into Clarke’s eyes. “It’s impossible not to love you.”

“Inmate 67360!” The guard's voice rang. He looked into the cell. “You made bail. Unless you want to keep cuddling with your girlfriend.”

“She’s hurt,” Lexa said as she stood. “She needs to go to the hospital.”

“She hasn’t made bail.”

“She might have a head injury.” She narrowed her eyes at the guard.

“She hasn’t made bail,” he repeated without an ounce of feeling. “Do you want to leave?” He looked up. There was a bit of feeling in his eyes. “You can probably help her more out there.”

Lexa nodded slowly and looked back at Clarke. “Are you okay?”

Clarke’s eyes were glassy, but a tired, wistful smile crossed her face. “I think so.” Her eyes drooped again. “Lex, how’d we get here?”

Lexa sucked in her lips. She hated to leave but the guard was right. She walked to the bed and bent down so that her face was even with Clarke’s. She brushed her fingers down her cheek. 

“I have to go, Clarke.”

Clarke nodded as her eyes slowly closed.

“Clarke! You need to stay awake.” Lexa shook her shoulders. “Hey.” She put her cheek against Clarke’s and whispered into her ear. “Just for a little longer.”

“I’ll try.” Clarke raised her hand to Lexa’s face.

---

It was late into the night when Lexa was released. Eleanor was waiting in the lobby for her. She was an older woman who had made the most of a marriage into money, smart enough to wield it to her will but smooth enough that people still liked her when she did. A natural-born chairwoman of a national organization’s board. Lexa was less charming and more aggressively direct, which made them a good team.

Lexa was surprised first by how sharp the older woman looked for the end of a disastrous day and then by the positively giddy smile on her face. Eleanor seemed to notice and evened out her features.

“Are you okay?” she asked like she was supposed to.

“What is going on?” Lexa was more interested in why Eleanor was so being so weird.

The smile splashed across Eleanor’s face again. “Everyone has seen the video, Lexa. It caught fire on twitter and then CNN picked it up and then all the rest. I’ve been fielding interviews all night.”

“What video?”

“Videos, actually. Dozens of them. From the protest. Everyone saw those goons take down that blonde woman.” Eleanor led her outside towards a waiting car. “It looked bad. Do you think that woman is alright? I mean, she shouldn’t have been there in the first place, but….Don’t you know her?”

Lexa bit her lip. “Yeah.”

Eleanor gushed past her. “Lexa, they want to talk to us.”

“Who?”

“Exxon Mobil’s people.”

“Why?”

“I don’t think you understand how bad the videos look.”

“Of Clarke getting hurt?”

“Is that her name?”

“Why do they want to talk to us? It was Clarke who...” Lexa trailed off.

Eleanor shook her head as she opened the car door. “It was their people who threw the teargas into the crowd, too. They were off their property. They shouldn’t have been there. They need to clean this up. And there’s no way they’re going to work with that group of radicals.” Eleanor spit the word out like it tasted bad. “We’re the real players here, Lexa. They want to set up a meeting tomorrow. And the senators said they would reschedule for tomorrow or the next day, so that’s still on the table—”

“But what about Clarke?” Lexa rubbed her eyes. She was exhausted.

“I’m sure her people are taking care of her.”

“But you don’t know?” Lexa looked back towards the station. “You haven’t talked to them?”

“Why would I call them?” Eleanor’s eyes were angry. “They ruined everything today with their ridiculous chains and human barriers.”

“That’s not what you just told me.” Lexa tilted her head.

“You know what I mean.”

“I don’t think I do, Eleanor.” Lexa’s voice was sharper than it should have been with her chairwoman. “Because if I recall, Exxon Mobil’s people had no interest in talking to us before all this. It seems to me that if Clarke hadn’t been attacked—”

“—To be fair, Extinction Rebellion was asking for it—”

“—If she hadn’t been attacked,” Lexa interrupted the interruption, “there would be no seat for us at their table. Is that true?”

Eleanor sighed.

“Listen, Eleanor.” Lexa took a deep breath. “We’ll take the meetings, okay? I promise. But we need to take care of Clarke. She was in that cell with me, and she’s not okay. It’s the right thing to do. Even if you disagree, it would still be good optics. OCA taking care of the environmentalist who was attacked.” She looked up at her with tired, soft eyes. “We need to be on the same side.”

Eleanor studied Lexa for a long moment. Finally, she nodded, a small, curious smile tugging gently at the corner of her lips. “I’ll call the lawyer.”

---

When Clarke was released, she came out hanging onto a guard’s arm. She could barely stay on her feet. Her face was pale and shimmering. Lexa rushed over and propped her up, guiding her slowly out of the building to the car where Eleanor was waiting in the front seat.

“Oh my God.” She brought her hand to her mouth when she saw Clarke’s dazed face. 

“We need to get her to the hospital.” Lexa strapped Clarke in and slid into the backseat next to her. “You still with us, Clarke?”

Clarke nodded distantly.

“Just a little longer,” Lexa whispered, her voice no longer able to hide her deep worry.

Eleanor’s head swivelled at Lexa’s tone. She saw Lexa wrap her arm around Clarke, pulling her towards her. She saw Clarke rest her head on Lexa’s shoulder and Lexa close her eyes as she reached for Clarke’s hand. She had never seen her this soft.

Eleanor smiled quietly to herself and turned her eyes back to the front.

“Hey,” Lexa whispered again. “Stay awake. I’m right here. I’ve got you.”

“I know.” Clarke’s voice was so faint. She fell silent for a few long moments. “Hey, Lex?” she finally asked.

“Yeah?”

“Maybe we can try again.”

Clarke didn’t see the tiny smile creep across Lexa’s face, but she heard it in her voice. 

“We’ll see.”

[shining-red-diamond]

Ch. 14: The Catacombs

Cast of Characters//Ch. 1//Ch. 2//Ch. 3//Ch. 4//Ch. 5//Ch. 6//Ch. 7//Ch. 8//Ch. 9//Ch. 10//Ch. 11//Ch. 12//Ch. 13//Ch. 14//Ch. 15//Ch. 16//Ch. 17//Ch. 18//Ch. 19//Ch. 20//Ch. 21//Ch. 22//Ch. 23//Ch. 24//Ch. 25//Ch. 26//Ch. 27//Ch. 28 (coming soon)

Words: 1209

Pairing: OT8 x OCs

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: none

A/N: Italics means they’re speaking Korean

Once the crew had the notes, maps, and everything else they needed for their first task, Jongho remained on board to carry out the latter stretch of his punishment from London as everyone else geared up and stepped off of the ship. The camouflage mode was on, so no one else would raid the HALA if they were to come across the field. Sunlight danced in between the forest tree branches, providing more than enough light for their journey. The ground didn’t have too much grass, so the crew was able to walk through with ease. Hongjoong was the one leading them, Dahae behind him, and the others trailing behind them with Yunho as the caboose. San stayed glued behind Celestia, and Yeosang carried the necessary medical supplies. Everyone else was busy trying to stay quiet and alert. The forest itself didn’t seem to be traveled a lot, but no one wanted to take any chances.

For about thirty minutes, the crew suddenly came to a stop as the captain looked through an opening amongst the trees. In the distance he could see the remains of the arena.

“Almost there,” he called back.

A thud and a shocked yelp sounded from behind him. His head turned on a swivel to find that Phoebe had tripped over something. Yeosang helped her up and brushed a few leaves off of her jacket.

“Are you okay?” Hongjoong asked.

“Yeah,” Phoebe replied. “This random brick decided it would be funny to catch my foot and make me fall.”

“A brick?” Grace-Anne repeated. “In the middle of a forest?”

“There was probably an old building here that collapsed.”

“If that were the case, there would be ruins,” Celestia chimed in. “Or at least more than one brick.”

Phoebe looked down at the faded red piece of cement. That’s when she noticed it was still attached to something but somehow still loose.

“Wait a minute,” she whispered. She knelt down by it and began to push the surrounding leaves aside. “Holy-“

“What did you find, Phoebs?” Dinah asked as she and the rest of the crew rushed over.

She had uncovered some sort of circular lid made of rusted iron built into the ground. Multiple bricks surrounded it, and the lid had one handle, which told them it would lead somewhere. There was also some engraving in center, but it was written in Italian.

“This probably leads to a sewage system,” Phoebe guessed, “but from what we’ve been studying from the information given to us, this could be the entrance to the catacombs.”

Before the crew left the ship that morning, they quickly studied each of the photos and notes to figure out which ones they would need for their first stop. After about an hour of shuffling through the various papers, they were able to piece together their guides for each destination.

Hongjoong set his backpack down and opened it. He fished around in it before pulling out the picture he needed and was able to identify the lid as the entrance to the catacombs.

“I stand corrected,” Phoebe muttered.

“This is it,” he confirmed. “Mingi, Seonghwa, San, see if you can get it open.”

The three of them set down their bags, and made their way to the entrance. With Seonghwa in the middle and the other two on either side of him, all three of them used both hands and gripped the rusted handle. On the count of three, the men used their combined strength and pulled the lid upwards. It was heavy, and each of them let out grunts of effort. However, the sound of metal scraping concrete let them know it was lifting. Seonghwa, San and Mingi pulled once more, and the lid flew open and landed backwards with a heavy thud, the force causing them to stumble backwards a little.

“Well done,” the captain praised them.

Everyone moved closer to the now open entrance and looked down into it. It was pitch dark, but they somehow managed to make it out to be a tunnel. San looked up to see which direction it was going, and sure enough it was leading towards the Colosseum.

“What do you think we’ll find?” Dahae asked no one in particular.

“Hopefully, a diamond,” San answered. “If the sources we have are accurate, at least.”

“We won’t know if we don’t explore,” said Hongjoong as he pulled a flashlight out of his backpack. “Does everyone have their flashlights?”

The crew all pulled out flashlights from their bags. Hongjoong then instructed everyone to climb down the ladder that was built into the wall of the entrance. He went first, the railings dusty and cold to the touch. A whiff of something toxic and foul smelling assaulted his nostrils, and he whipped out his black mask with a built in filter.

“Put your masks on,” he instructed. Everyone else obeyed before following him into the tunnel.

Seonghwa was next to climb down, and he and Hongjoong helped everyone else who climbed down the ladder. Celestia had help from San and Taeran as she reached the bottom, and Yunho was the last to climb down. Before he shut the lid, Yunho had managed to pull the brick out of the ground and use it as a wedge to keep the lid open for when they left the tunnels.

Thirteen flashlights switched on, illuminating the once dark catacombs, and the crew began their journey through it. The air in the tunnel was cold despite the outside weather having the warmth of early springtime. It was also quiet, the only noises being the crew’s footsteps echoing off the walls and water dripping in the distance. The catacombs weren’t claustrophobic. Mingi and Yunho’s heads barely brushed the ceiling, and the width allowed for two people to walk side by side. The ground beneath them was made of rock, and a few loose stones were kicked with each footstep.

For the first few minutes of their walk, the tunnel seemed to just be nothing but that. No ancient markings, no skeletons (thankfully), nothing. The only sound that now echoed was the city’s traffic passing above them.

San pulled out his map of the catacombs and shined his flashlight on it.

“There should be two more tunnels up ahead, captain,” he informed.

Sure enough, the crew came across said fork.

“Which way do we go?” Dinah asked.

Grunting in frustration, San answered, “It just says ‘Follow Mercury.’ How are we supposed to follow a planet when we’re underground?”

“We can’t use our phones, either,” added Taeran. “We have no signal.”

“Maybe it means the chemical,” Wooyoung chimed in.

“Why would anyone need mercury down here?”

“I’m just trying to help.”

Celestia glanced at where San pointed out the instruction, and then used her flashlight to try to shine some light on something. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for, but a part of her hoped it was something that would help the crew move forward. Her beam then came across something engraved into the red ceiling in the left tunnel. Moving closer, the shape looked like a staff wrapped by two snakes and wings sitting at the top.

“I don’t think it’s planets or chemicals we’re following,” she called to them.

[my-brothers-corrupted]

My Brothers, Corrupted

Chapter 2 : Section 2 : Bite Back

Dap, Red, and Blue are headed home after pulling off a robbery with complications. Dapper’s decision to rewind will likely lead to conflict at home. But home, as we’ll see, has enough conflict already, and some of our boys have had just about enough of Anti’s torment and humiliations.

Trigger warnings for major abuse, ableism, choking and beating, and discussion of an off-screen suicide attempt.

Find Chapter One here.

Find Chapter Two here.

 Part Two of Chapter Two: Bite Back

cest-mellow asked: what if you say like, an animal started pawing the bag so you turned it back to get the gross off? anti isn’t fond of animals, maybe that ??

“Hm,” Dapper blinks at you, considering. “Maybe something like that. He sure doesn’t - ”

“Hey,” Blue cuts him off, flashing you a warning glare. “Honey, just tell him the truth, you’re only ever going to get in more trouble when he finds out you lied. You know he can see these signals if he wants to, right? What happened, anyway, Dap?”

Dapper pauses, staring up at his big brother.

Blue’s been good to him. Blue’s always as good as he can be to his brothers. That makes him unique to Dapper - he’s the only person he knows who’s never abused him.

“I’ll explain when we get there,” says Dapper, and even he isn’t sure, in that moment, if he is lying or telling the truth. “It was stupid. Don’t worry about it.”

“Mmh,” says Blue, dissatisfied. He doesn’t press him, though.

pixie-in-trebleland asked: Blue, are you okay with how Anti treats you guys? I mean, he did hurt your little brother...

Blue sighs and leans back lazily against Red’s shoulder.

“Anti has temper problems. I don’t pretend otherwise. But I trust that he’s doing his best and I know that when worst comes to worse, he will protect us with his life. Most of the time, he’s good to us. And the times he loses his temper a little… well, it’s our fault anyway.”

Guilt washes across Blue’s face and he closes his eyes, feeling the bus rattling around him.

“But that’s my job to help him with. That’s my duty, above all else. When Anti is not himself, I am the one who’s best at easing him again. I do what I can to keep us all safe. But I trust Anti. I trust Anti. To the ends of the earth.”

His hand tightens on Dapper’s shoulder, massaging gently at his muscles.

Submission (still doesn’t tell me who from for some reason?):

a cute little fam to brighten your day

 “What is that?” gasps Red, pushing over Blue’s head despite an irritated “owww, Roser!” “A cow? I fucking love it, holy shit.”

“They’re just sending him pictures of animals now,” complains Blue.

“Don’t whine,” giggles Red.

“Anti won’t like it.”

“Fine, fine, sheesh. I can turn that off. But look, Dapper likes it.”

Dapper snorts and rolls his eyes, smiling, nevertheless, at the cute little cows.

“Okay, Red can come with me when I run away to be a dairy farmer, but Blue’s too grumpy.”

“Hell yes!”

“Hey! Little jerk!”

Anonymous asked: Hey, Blueberry Poptart! You know if you guys ever get into a jam again, you might want to be able to speak some Spanish, and I know a little! In fact, there's this awesome Spanish poem that I know. You like *poetry* don't you? Anyway it's by San Juan de la Cruz and it's called "Llama de amor viva" or "Flame of Living Love" in English. I could teach it to you if you want.

“My Spanish is quite good, actually!” chirps Blue, looking up at you. “Anti says I studied languages with my first master. A lot of magic doesn’t translate across languages, so it’s best to learn as much as you can in the original tongue. But hey! I’d love to hear some poetry if you want to send a chunk of it. You never know when you might find a spell curled up in the letters.”

“He’s a nerd for that shit,” comments Red, patting his head.

“And maybe you can teach this dope here some of the language, anyway.”

“Hey!”

Dapper’s listening too, careful. He can’t speak it, but he’d love to get an ear for it.

pixie-in-trebleland asked: Is it that bad for lil' Dap to be happy, guys? They're harmless pics of animals.

“I told you,” answers Blue, a little warning in his voice. “My job is to keep my little brothers safe. If I think Anti won’t like his work cameras being filled up with pictures of baby cows, it’s better to just get rid of it. Anyway, it’s rare we get this fancy bigger camera, the type that can show pictures here on the side, so it doesn’t matter much.”

“Oh!” Red peers eagerly over his shoulder. “We should take some pictures.”

“What did I just say about clogging up the camera?”

“Aww.” Red slouches down in his seat, kicking his legs up on the one in front of him, but he knows Blue is right.

nikkilbook asked: A bunch of grumpuses, the lot of you.

“Grumpuses,” repeats Red, popping the ‘p.’ “Grump, grump, grump.” He bounces his leg and stares out the window, humming to himself and rocking his head back and forth, like music is playing in his head. “Well, let’s get home and see if our mood improves, huh?”

The bus pulls up about a mile from their home, and Red knows as soon as he stands up that Dap can’t make the walk.

He can’t blame him. Somedays, it is a hard walk even without a stab wound.

Up, up, up the mountain, as dust shifts beneath your feet and rocks slide beneath your shoes. Wild dogs snap and bark, not always from afar, and Red has begun training his brothers to carry a rock with them at all times, and not be afraid to use it. The smell is one of sewage or cooking meat, down here amid the houses, and flies buzz persistently at every face that comes their way. Chickens parade around the streets, and from dark, cool doorways with no doors or coverings, children often watch the strange white men make their way up the mountain, friendly enough, but abnormal. There are others less kind-faced - Red exchanges tight, wary smiles with the men outside the bar drinking in cold silence every single day.

There is one person alone who is securing their place in this slum.

And that is Doktor.

He’s had three patients since he came here. With Blue as his translator and Anti’s approval, he treated each of them in quick, skilled, and absolutely free succession, stitching up a cut hand, wrapping up a bad concussion, and prescribing some medicine for the old man up the hill, living in a box smaller than their living room back in Norway.

Anti’s pleased with him. The local people are beginning to tolerate them. And in this lively, bright, rapid-paced, close-knit, and deeply impoverished little community on the dry side of the mountain, Anti knows that his family is safe.

This is not a place where secrets fly. This is a place where people have learned to protect each other. He will find a way to make sure his boys blend in if Red and Blue have to rob every medical van in the city to do it.

Higher on the mountain, there is a little building, with rooms and doors and old machinery. It was going to be a real medical center once, with government funding and everything, but the project shut down after the governor who made the initial promises was elected. Only dogs and mice lived there when Anti found it. Now his family has replaced them, and no one has yet found them or come to drive them out. He does his best to ensure that they never do.

“Come on, then,” says Red, staring up the mountain. He crouches down low.

“Red,” protests Dap, exhausted. “I don’t want to ride your back.”

“You can’t walk.”

He sighs. True.

“People will stare.”

“We’ll go the side route.”

“The side route is more difficult for you. No stairs built there. Just dirt and uphill climbing.”

“Come on, then,” repeats Red, undaunted. “Come on.”

Dapper wonders, sometimes, if Anti sets up his life to make it more humiliating.

He gets onto Red’s back.

pixie-in-trebleland asked: Hey Dok, are you making out alright?

In that building high up on the mountain, a camera finally fizzles into life again, and you turn towards the screen fast enough to catch a sight of the good doctor himself, his back to you.

He’s sobbing so hard he can barely breathe. And cooking rice over a rusted oven burner.

Startled by the beeping of the camera, he whirls on you.

A moment later, he is bashful.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize Anti was using you again.” His voice is raw. He wipes hastily as his face, splotchy with redness. “I’m fine.”

And he pushes you slightly away, so you can no longer see his face.

pixie-in-trebleland asked: How are you liking being so close with your brothers, Dok? Blue and Red seem to be loving taking care of you guys.

“O-oh.”

You can hear Dok trying to get his breathing back under control, but this, at least, is a gentle question, a distracting question.

“Good, yeah, pretty good.”

His voice is quieter than usual.

“Um, Blue and Red are very happy lately, which is nice. We’d been kind of… down, for a while, so I guess Anti was right about needing all of us together for us to be a real family. Red doesn’t snap at anyone anymore. He’s a lot less stressed. And he and Blue have started taking most of the night watches, so we… I, I mean… I get a lot more sleep.”

He sniffles. The rice sizzles slightly as he stirs it around.

“Feels pretty safe here. Odd, seeing as it is a much more dangerous neighborhood. I think I like having a little commotion around us again, not being so isolated… I see children, families, hear other people talking, see the way other people live. I am only frazzled thinking maybe we will get parasites or diseases from the bugs or something… don’t let anyone touch the dogs, alright? Covered in worms and skin infections, filthy things.

“And Dapper and I get on okay.”

His voice breaks, but only for a second.

“We have a nice time together. I like getting to know him again. It was almost like I’d forgotten who he was entirely until Anti gave him back to us.”

pixie-in-trebleland asked: What about Trick, Dok?

There’s a clank as the spoon is set back down on the counter. A moment later, heavy, desperate breathing, and a very small whimper.

Doktor needs a long time to reply.

“Ah, yeah, Trick… Anti s-says he’s good, so… he’s good. He’s good. He’s fine. He’s happy. Yeah. With master, I’m glad for him, really. If he’s actually good. And he is! Anti says he is. So he is. He’s fine. He’s good.”

musical-in-theory asked: Hey Anti, do you ever think about how temporary you are? Your hate, your pain. It’s all temporary. You’ll be gone one day with nothing left behind but some people who only knew you as “that glitch villain”. Even with Dapper at your side, you can’t escape that. Momento Mori, you absolute pecan.

“Ever think about how temporary you are?” he repeats, in a high-pitched mock. “Says the fucking human…”

Anti is alone in a room set up almost exactly the same as his office in Norway, with dozens of computers circling him where he sits, cross-legged, on the floor. He has a few less electronics now - he always cleans out during a move - and there’s a baby monitor sitting at his knee, playing the sound of soft, heavy breathing.

“Momento Mori, ha… there’s a phrase I haven’t heard in a long few years… Jack loved those videos, watched like half of them. Some of his best friends just fucking around. So goddamn stupid. I did like the episode where they pretended to kidnap him and just had him tied up and gagged in the background for a whole episode, haha. Someday I’ll go hunt those two down and kill them, just to make them pay for all the happiness they gave my stupid, fickle, temporary creator.”

He looks like he could monologue for a while longer, but the small sound of crying cuts him off, and not from the baby monitor. Eyes flashing with fury, he glitches to his feet and stalks toward the door.

pixie-in-trebleland asked: Hey...Henrik, it's okay.

There’s a long moment of sniffling. He turns you slightly back towards him.

“Thank you,” he manages weakly, earnestly, and then he is sobbing again, clutching at his chest with his head thrown back, crying like his heart is broken -

A door slams open across the hall.

“Doktor, shut the fuck up.”

His voice is loud as a gunshot and twice as pissed. Doktor startles hard, reaching up to grab his own throat, to cut off his next sob. His pupils are blown wide and fixed on the wall.

“You want me to fucking kill you?” shouts Anti, standing in the doorway of his office.

Doktor shakes his head rapidly, frozen stiff, tears coursing down his panicked face.

“If I have to hear Trickshot whining ‘ooh, ohh, I can hear my poor Allemagne crying, oh no, oh no, I’m too pathetic to live on my own,’ I’m going to tie you both up in rope and hang you from the fucking ceiling fan. Do you understand, you little brat?”

Doktor nods desperately, trying not to choke.

After a long moment, Anti slinks down the hall towards him. Doktor remains frozen stiff, staring at the wall. His master regards him for just a moment before turning to his cooking.

You can see, now, the fluffy white rice just finished on the oven stove, and, beside it, a little plate with something that looks almost like a frittata on it, but thinner and more fried. Anti picks up the plate and sniffs at it, blinking.

“Where’d you get eggs? Which one of you stole these?”

Doktor clears his throat as fast as he can, stiffened up straight. “No one. One of the vecinas brought them by. To pay me back for stitching the cut up.”

For a moment, Anti regards the eggs warily, tearing off a piece to nibble on it. Egg, canned ham, onions. Good to eat, with protein and a nice enough flavor.

“This is good,” he says finally, and Doktor slumps just a little, relieved. “Good boy. Making your own keep, huh? Or two bucks worth of eggs, anyway. Once you have more supplies you can do more. Load up some rice, then, you don’t want your little brother to starve.”

Doktor turns to spoon up some rice and put it on the plate. Anti waits, scanning him carefully, taking in his reddened eyes and shaking hands.

“Dok, get it together.”

“Es tut mir leid,” whispers Doktor.

“Yeah,” says Anti. “It is.”

And he turns to take the food back to Trick’s room.

the-weirdest-fan asked: So are you gonna hunt down and murder anyone Jack liked whatsoever? Is that on your bucket list?

“If I get the time. Who knows? Could be fun. And I do need to stop by Cali at some point. Wish I could mock some of his closer friends the same way I mock you… oh, well.”

Anonymous asked: What about YOU, Dok? Pardon me for saying so but you don't seem good. Or fine.

“Es tut mir leid. Es tut mir leid. I’m so sorry. No one should have to worry about me.”

His voice is a strained whisper. He clutches the spoon desperately in his hands.

“Lately my distress is so much bigger than I am… I am drowning at sea…”

the-weirdest-fan asked: "'I’m going to tie you both up in rope and hang you from the fucking ceiling fan.'" That gave me the funniest image in my head oh my god. You are an excellent comedian, Anti.

Anti pauses, frowning. “Yeah… hilarious. Some of you are more playful than others, huh?”

reverseblackholeofwords asked: But you've been doing good work, Dok, helping those people. That must be nice, right?

“Oh, oh.”

He softens, rubbing at his tear-stained face. For a moment something gentle is in his eyes, not the same as anything you’ve ever seen before. His hands calm.

“It is, it is… I was scared at first, you know, because sometimes when I… well… some of the things I have done to injured bodies is not so pleasant. I haven’t exactly kept the healer’s oath, if you understand me. My surgeries have not always been to decrease pain, as it were. And sometimes even when I try to heal, all my hands remember is the hurt I have caused…”

He pauses, sighing, breathing in deep.

“But lately has been good. Only three people I have cared for, but I was glad to do it, so glad to do it. They needed me, you know? And I was there, and Anti allowed it, even though we try to live so quietly. It’s good of him.

“I just wish… well, never mind. Never mind, I’m grateful.”

Anonymous asked: What do you mean "functional"? What's wrong with him?

Anti steps into the room at the back of the hall, and closes the door, quietly, behind him.

For a moment you just see him watch, staring down at his brother. Something like warmth moves through his eyes. Something like fear.

“Hey, lil stammer,” he whispers, stepping over towards the pair of mattresses stacked on top of each other in the middle of the room. “Get up, Trick, eat something, so.”

He sinks down onto the bed beside his body.

Trick lies still on his stomach, a pillow pulled over his head, breathing sleepily. He probably shouldn’t have his mouth so covered, but Anti doesn’t know that.

He pulls the pillow gently away. Trick stiffens slightly as he comes back to consciousness, aware of Anti beside him, so close, so damn close, always so fucking close.

“Eat,” says Anti, more strongly now. “Eat, now. You’ve slept all day, tired thing. Eat, your twin made it for you.”

This is enough to open Trickshot’s eyes - bloodshot, exhausted. He stares up at Anti, his mouth trembling, wary.

“Going to need me again?” whimpers Trick, tears welling in his eyes.

Anti lets out a short growl, turning his face away, swallowing irritation.

“Trick, I have told you a hundred times now. No more possession.”

Trick lets out a low groan and shivers, clutching at his hair, gritting his teeth.

“Oil under my sk-skin…”

“There’s nothing under your skin,” murmurs Anti, petting his hair. “I promise, I checked. Come, so, eat. Eat.”

He proffers a plastic fork full of rice and eggs. Trick just stares up at him, foggy and exhausted, like he hasn’t even noticed the food in front of his mouth. Anti sighs a very long sigh, rubbing at his face.

“Trick’s had a bit of a breakdown,” explains Anti slowly, precisely, in response to your question. “He handles a lot of things much worse than his brothers do, and he didn’t get the help he needed right afterwards… a certain twin wasn’t watching closely enough… and now we’re back to this. Almost as bad as he was the first time I took him over.”

Anti reaches over the mattress to pick up a little piece of fabric. It’s familiar to you, patterned in dolphins - of course, the crinkle paper Trick bought himself as a present from the little store. Anti holds it over Trick’s face and crinkles it slowly in his hands. Eventually, Trick seems to respond, blinking and sitting up a little so that he can take the paper from Anti and begin rolling it gently around in his hands, humming a small, broken melody to himself.

Anonymous asked: You know Anti there's one way you can fix Dok and Trick's miserable mood considering you don't have the patience of a saint. You could just... Oh I dunno... maybe just let them comfort each other.

“Doktor failed me. Trick needs better than him now. He’s not enough.”

For a second, Anti must breathe deeply, watching his little brother snuggle back down in his blankets, rubbing the crinkle paper comfortingly against his collar bone.

“Maybe no one is. I’ll handle this myself. Don’t tell me how to care for my little dog.”

cest-mellow asked: trick? can you hear us? are you alright?

Anti gets up to tidy the room a little, kicking around sweaty sleep clothes and rearranging Trick’s discarded blankets. Trick sighs as the sheets are pulled back over his bare chest, but doesn’t protest, watching as Anti moves around the room, picking up water bottles and laundry.

“They asked you a question.” Anti’s voice is low and warning. “Focus, Trick. I don’t see any reason why fucking depression means you can’t hold a goddamn conversation…”

Trick blinks, recognizing, slowly, displeasure in his master’s voice. Confused, he rubs at his face, processes the order, and turns back to you, trying to fix whatever he’s done.

“Am I alright?” he repeats. “Um… I’ve been better.”

“You’re sick,” Anti informs him shortly.

“I’m sick.”

“But nothing that won’t pass.”

“Nothing that won’t… yeah.”

“You’ve got medicine.”

“I do, uh-huh. I had it yesterday, you gave it to me.”

“That was this morning.”

“It makes my head sooo foggy.”

“Better that than suicidal,” grumbles Anti, dropping his clothes into the laundry hamper.

“Suicidal?” repeats Trick, a little squeakily. “Am I?”

“No. Stop thinking about it. I already pushed it out of your head so don’t go looking for it.”

“Okay, Anti,” promises Trick, staring warmly up at him. Anti gets a little closer and Trick reaches out to tug on his shoelace, smiling.

A small smile flickers across Anti’s face. He leans down to kiss the side of Trick’s head and tries again with his dinner.

“Eat.”

This time, Trick obeys, sitting up to eat the rice and eggs off the fork that Anti holds.

“There’s my good boy. That’s better. We’re not really so bad off, huh? We’re okay.”

Anti looks stressed.

reverseblackholeofwords asked: What do you wish? You can tell us.

“Ah, yes, well.“

Doktor clears his throat and turns back to the stove, cracking another egg over his frying pan. He’s got other hungry brothers too, and he expects them back soon enough.

“Well, it would just be more fun with Trick. I wish he could be my helper like he usually is. I would probably complain a little, ha, cause all he has to do is sit around, and hand me things, and cook a little, which he loves. But he would make me laugh and help talk to everyone and make everyone feel okay. He loves people, you know… used to be less paranoid about them. There was even a child in here the other day. He would have chased him all around, and bounced him in his arms, and spoken broken Spanish with just enough enthusiasm for it to not even matter… yeah. I wish Trick was with me.”

seagullsausage asked: are you really that concerned over trick, anti?

Anti’s voice is smaller than you’ve ever heard it.

“No… no, of course not… he’s fine… fuck, course I’m not concerned over him. This is my most useless little mouth to feed, don’t you know?”

He shoves the fork at Trick, dropping it and sitting back, anger and concern warring on his face.

“You’re one hell of a nuisance, you know that?” he tells Trick.

“Believe it or not,” mumbles Trick, closing his eyes. “But I don’t want this to be happening any more than you do, master.”

Almost shakily, Anti reaches down to touch his face. “Don’t fall asleep again. Sleep too much.”

“Do my best. Talk to me, then.”

Anti’s mouth opens and then closes again. He doesn’t know what to say.

nikkilbook asked: You’re allowed to want things, Dok. You’re allowed to wish things were better than they are.

“Yeah… yes. I suppose. But no point to complaining, so best not to think about it.”

Anonymous asked: Do you really believe everything is okay Anti? I mean you’ve done everything you’ve wanted. They’re all under the same roof and absolutely adore you as their brother...what’s there to be stressed about?

“I’m not stressed!” shouts Anti, startling Trick. “Shut up! Everything’s fine! Everything’s fine! Nobody’s tearing at the seams, nobody’s going to die, nobody’s hunting for us, I’m not losing my fucking grip on any of them! Soon as Dapper comes home, he’s my little bitch again, okay? What, you think I don’t know it’s one of his clear days? His head-on-straight days, when he thinks he’s a big tough puppy with his teeth growing in? I’ll have him begging for me to kiss him over and over and over again. And if I have to push back on Doktor afterwards, and then shut Trick up again, and then check on the twins, and do it all again the next week, I’ll do it, I can do it! What, he thought he could make enough of them that I couldn’t hold them all at once? He thought he could save them from me? Stupid fucking boy! He was wrong! He was wrong about everything and I’ll prove it! You - ”

Anti reaches down to grab Trick’s hair and Trick yelps, alarmed, hiding his face.

“ - just don’t do anything fucking stupid, and everything will be fine! Do you understand me?”

But Trick has lost the ability to answer. Choking on his misery, he sinks back onto his mattress and rocks himself back and forth, clinging to his crinkle paper.

“You’re fine,” pants Anti, pushing his hands away. “You’re fine. You can have whatever you want. What, stronger medicine? Food? You have sunlight, you’re warm, you’re full, you sleep plenty, you’re clean and healthy. What do you want, just tell me and I’ll get it for you! You’ve had a twin for months, and Dok loved you, loved you as much as I’ve ever seen a human love another human, and it still didn’t stop you… I d-don’t… I don’t understand why you won’t get better? Just tell me, puppy, just tell big brother why you won’t get better…”

Anonymous asked: Anti, to save whatever sanity that you have left it might be smart to just give him back to Dok. I understand that he failed you, but give him a chance to prove himself again. It would really boost their spirits and things would go a lot better. Then the stress would just fade away...

“No, no, no. Too touchy-feely, too strong a bond between the two of them, not good for him any more. Asking for Dok instead of me, ha… No, I’m the one in charge, I’m his big brother, I’m his master. And I can control this, just like I control everything else. I’ll fix it. Okay, Tricks? You’re happy right here with me. Right?”

Trick stares up at him, his face very pale. He’s mumbling something, his pupils shrinking slightly.

“What?”

“Isn’t real,” groans Trick, in a voice that shakes like a leaf stuck in a doorway, staring blankly up at the ceiling. “This isn’t even real. This isn’t even my body… h-having another n-nightmare, D-deutsch…”

At the end of his rope, Anti lowers his head into his hands and makes the wise decision to glitch away.

Trick’s door is locked. He lies on his mattress alone, staring, white-faced, at the ceiling.

whydoilovesomanyvillians asked: Anti do you really think you can just snap your fingers and his depression will evaporate into thin air, cause if so I hate to break it to you but that's not how it works

Anti’s gone back to sitting in his room, leaning over his computers, trying too hard to concentrate.

“Okay, okay, okay, okay,” he grumbles, digging at an old scar on his throat, as he watches your words come in. “Something has to change, I get it, I get it. I’m trying new things, shut up. I’ve got this, I can handle this. Something has to change. Something has to change.”

diamond-game asked: Is this anti? If this is anti is it possible for you to trick us?

You made Anti laugh enough to shake some of the anger off his face.

“Now, darling,” he purrs, pushing his hair back, looking, suddenly, much like Doktor, and then, a second later, a little like Red, and then Dapper, and around, and around, his face shifting minutely, his eyes changing, the way he carries himself adjusting like he’s changing the settings on a character customization screen. He smiles at you with black eyes, Blue’s face, and a mouth full of teeth.

“Would I ever do a thing like that?”

Anonymous asked: Hey, Anti? Most animals don’t have a concept of time. A long term concept, anyway. They don’t count the seconds until they die, unlike humans, and... whatever you are. You should envy animals, Anti. They don’t stress about time running out. Actually, you should envy a lot of things.

“Stress about time running out,” Anti repeats in a growl, typing rapidly on the computer on his lap. “I own time. I’ve tasted its blood. Forced it to kiss my face. Dragged it away from its family and made it my pet. I don’t have to count anything. I am more immortal than I’ve ever been.”

Anonymous asked: I'm amazed you're so flustered with Trick being dissociative. All of them are. Your poorly crafted reality stripped them of their identities, memories, and hell, even the thoughts they're allowed to have. They're just expressing it all differently, and no matter how much you think you can ground them in falsities, it won't matter because everything they know, past and present, is fractured. When you're not treating symptoms, you're actively tearing wounds open.

“Yes, all of them are, I know that, I designed them that way. A little trauma at first helps foster dependency. I plan this shit, you know. I plan everything. And fine, maybe my little mind tricks don’t always ground as well as they could - but that’s why I have other measures in place. That’s why I make an effort with occasional shows of affection, occasional treats and rewards. That’s why I let them see, sometimes, that the things that I tell them threaten them are real. That’s why they have twins! If there are days when faith is shaky, when I am called away from them and all they can see is what Jack forced them to see, for so long - bloodshed and hatred, as if that is the only color I’ve ever worn - they’re supposed to have their brother to sleep beside, concrete and warm to the touch. Worth living for. Worth staying for.

“And then I come home, and make it well again in its entirety, and none of their snaps or episodes or trauma or any of the other cry-baby shit they get up to is enough to take them from.”

Anti growls and tugs at his hair, gritting his teeth.

“And it’s meant to be enough. But apparently Doktor wasn’t enough for his twin to hold on to. Now Trick is like this and I have to fucking fix it. He never could save anyone.

“I needed to strip so much of their memories away. But sometimes, I wish there were things I could let him remember - all the people who died or sickened or slipped into long, long comas at his hands, people he loved more than most anyone. He never could save anyone when it mattered. He’s a shitty excuse for a healer, and even worse failure of a brother.”

Anonymous asked: Bud...you can’t force someone to get better. That’s not how that works at all. It’s a long, patient process that’s build on devotion and love not...fear and anger. You do not understand how to love, Anti, that is why Trick will not get better.

“Whatever. You don’t understand anything. You’ve never been inside his head. Never seen the way he thinks and the way his neurons fire. He just needs a little re-adjusting, some chemicals put back in place, a little comfort from his master. He always was desperate for my attention. I can show him fucking ‘devotion and love’ for a few weeks if that’s what it takes. I just get a little - ”

He glances up at you, clearly deciding how much to tell.

“ - a little frustrated with how long it’s taking. I need to find a way to speed this up, because I very much prefer to have Dapper close at hand instead of useless little Trickshot. Besides, his freak-out is putting the whole house on edge.”

nikkilbook asked: Has it crossed your mind that YOU are the problem here, O Eternal One?

Anti mumbles something about murdering the lot of you, scowling at his computer screen.

Anonymous asked: Because he constantly lives in fear of you throwing him away once you're done. Because the pain he's experiencing isn't something you could simply throw the basic needs and some little affection here and there. Lashing out at him for being unwell is just making it worse. Don't even think of lashing out at the others because then he'll think it's his fault. This isn't something you can resve with screaming or threats of punishment Anti. All you'll do with that is push him further over the edge.

Anti growls, chewing on his lip.

“You don’t understand anything about my pets. He’s enjoyed worse treatment from me - he enjoyed anything from me in the old days, as long as he was the center of my attention. Let me split his lips and then smiled at me with them. Just happy I was playing with him, even if I was playing too rough.”

Anti giggles, relaxing a little.

“He was like a little puppy for me when I first broke him in, even better than Dapper’s ever been. I kept the two of them like twins back then, because Trick was so attached to him, and I figured the entertainment was good for them. And then I could come home at the end of the day to the two of them completely ecstatic to see me, asking to be let off their leashes so they could come lie down with me, or just put their heads on my lap while I worked…

“I had to change it eventually, of course, as you can tell, but… hm, that’s interesting. Haven’t thought about it for a long time. Maybe it would be good for him to go back to that. I think I still have his old collar, maybe even the muzzle… maybe he’d like to see Dapper, I don’t know… I did a little hate conditioning between them for a while, but they seemed to be getting along a few weeks ago, so maybe it wore off. Hmmm…”

Anonymous asked: You know, Anti, you're really being uselessly obstinate. Why does it have to be you that brings Trick back around? You're the leader, and you've got more important things to do, after all. Why not just delegate? Maybe not to Dok if he didn't do such a hot job before, but maybe one of the others. Blue perhaps.

Anti shrugs slowly, tilting his head back and forth - ugh, is his neck broken? - and chewing on his lip. “Well, I can’t really… I mean… I have a lot of missions for Blue and Red recently and I don’t want Blue getting over-attached, he’s already a little too high-strung when it comes to protecting his little brothers. I’ve left him with Trick once or twice when I had to leave the house. Red definitely can’t, I need him to have a distance from the others so he can discipline better.

“And Dapper… fuck, but I don’t want the same problem to come up again! Whatever. I’ll think about it. Maybe a couple quick visits from someone wouldn’t hurt…

“But really I need to keep him close at hand. If he starts to get thoughts so dark they could kill him, I need to be able to get inside his head and train them out of him.”

the-weirdest-fan asked: I gotta say, though I don't approve of your methods, it's good that you're keeping most of them somewhat happy and giving them a purpose. Definitely an improvement from the last house. Good job.

Anti bursts into laughter, clapping his hands. “Thank you! I love having Blue so much, he’s perfect for keeping everyone a little happier! Things are so much better now I can focus on something other than tracking him down. I love having the full set.”

cest-mellow asked: maybe he just needs to see dok and his other brothers. trick is a people person right? let him be around people! you can still watch over him, be with him, listen to him. you can still do everything. if being alone with him this long hasn’t worked, try something new. put him with people. if it doesn’t work, you can just bring him back, and everything will stay just fine.

“No, no, no. He can’t go back to Dok. Maybe I’ll never give him back to Dok, I don’t know.

“But… yes, maybe something needs to change just a little. Humans need socialization. I’m very good at mimicry, but sometimes I think that there really is something to them that I don’t have - something about the weakness that… makes others feel safe? I guess? I don’t pretend to understand it. But, yeah… maybe he needs to see someone. I think I’ll give him Dap or Blue for a little while, soon. Or maybe I can even find something for him to do with other people. Doesn’t he like kids? And babies and things like that? I could get him a doll, maybe? He plays with the little paper like he’s a child again. We’ll have to see.”

immabethehero asked: Just let Trick see Dok and he'll feel better... stop denying it Anti

“Oh, what was that about this not being something that can be fixed in a day? I’ve already told you Doktor wasn’t enough to keep him safe from himself. He needs a stronger hand to guide him. I admit, things haven’t been perfect, but I just need to get this right so he has the chance to get over this shit.”

the-weirdest-fan asked: You know Anti, maybe giving Trick back to Dok for a second could be a good thing. I mean think about it, you wouldn't have to deal with either of their incessant whining, and Trick might be be fixed in the process. And, as a bonus, they'd owe even more of a debt to you, making them potentially more loyal. If Dok fails to fix him, then you have an excuse to take your anger out on someone, so while outcome 1 would be preferred, you get some out of it either way!

“Hm. Good as ‘fixing’ the little brat sounds, I don’t trust Dok to protect him right now. Might be sleeping too hard again, not even noticing the signs. Fuck, you don’t know how much stolen fucking pharmacy Percocet Trick swallowed before Dapper woke up and stopped him… Fuck! I hate fucking human feelings, I hate how fast my heart was racing, watching him writhe on the ground like that!”

Anti grips at his hair and then shouts aloud, striking his fist against the earth and making his computers glitch into the same screen of multi-colored glitches.

“Stupid fucking Doktor! Stupid fucking Trick, thinking he can escape me that easily! They don’t get to die until I fucking say so! Selfish little brats!”

Anonymous asked: Poor little glitch can't handle all five of his brothers at once, hm? Whose the puppy throwing a fit now?

Anti growls in a way that is no longer human, his teeth lengthening in his mouth.

“I can handle them. He was a fool if he thought five was enough to stop me. Stupid fucking boy.”

Anonymous asked: I’m gonna say this once, snapping turtle, give Chase back to Henrik so Henrik can give Chase what he fucking needs. YOU do not have what he needs right now. If it makes you feel better just spin it in a what that makes you look like you’ve been sent by your “divine counterparts” to entrust a failed doctor with a hurting patient so that he can prove himself once again. The only way he’s getting him back is because you said so, therefore you have the power in the house hold. (1/) - (/2) You broke him so you cannot fix him. It’s like putting a bandaid over a crack in steel.

“Newsflash, you fucking brats!” screeches Anti, leaping up to his knees, his eyes vanishing into a black void, his teeth splitting through his lips as they become horrible fangs, his face turning ugly and distorted and his body contorting strangely, like a thing with more bones than it knows what to do with. “Chase was broken before I fucking took him! Chase was broken the day Jack created him! Chase is a fucking egg on a wall, and all of Jack’s horses and all of Jack’s men have never been able to put him fully back together. This is Jack’s fault! He made him like this! Made him with a gun in his hand and no children to love! He made all of them shattered, all of them fucked up, all of them broken so that he could use them for fucking entertainment! He was cruel and he was careless and it’s his fucking fault! I don’t care what you think, I don’t have to explain myself to you, I’ve never had to explain anything to you. You’d never believe me, anyway. Your little idol! Your little god! Well, here’s the truth, you brats: Jack never loved a single one of them, no matter how much you want to believe he did. He’s the reason this is happening. And no matter what I do, no matter how much the temper Jack gave me overflows or the violence I was born with turns against them, these little puppets will always be better off with me than they were with that - that - that - ”

Suddenly Anti is shrinking back on himself, his face white.

He looks very young. He is 27 and his hair is grassy green. He is a slim young man with bright blue eyes and no smile on his mouth, wearing jeans and a red sweater and small black gauges.

He sighs, closing his eyes like he has a headache.

“No more questions. Go talk to the pets or I will turn you off. I have work to do.”

Anonymous asked: Y’know, I don’t think we’ve even asked. Trick what do you want? What will make you feel even just a little bit better? Sorry for all the yelling, buddy, we’ll *glares at Anti* try to be more quiet.

Trick’s turned slightly towards you on the mattress, rubbing slowly at his tear-stained face, his hands shaky.

“I’m sorry this is how you have to see me,” he croaks, curling in on himself. “I’d rather you didn’t… but then again, I don’t want to be alone again…

“I d-don’t… I don’t know how to feel better anymore. There used to be things that made me feel better, but they haven’t been doing anything for me lately. If I can’t see Dok-dok I just want to go back to bed.”

He covers his face from you as he begins to cry in earnest, pulling the pillow back over his head.

“Anti says I don’t want to see him but I do. I can hear him crying for me sometimes. And all Anti does is shout and then come hold me like nothing’s w-wrong.”

Anonymous asked: Trick have you been able to speak with anyone besides Anti since Norway?

“Mmhh, I don’t know. He’s scared for me, won’t let anybody else look after me. The lady on the airplane asked me what kind of soda I wanted. I think that was the last time I talked to anyone other than him.”

He sniffles and takes deep breaths, trying to calm down again.

“Fuck, look at me, so pathetic… ugh, why are these my hands? Why is this my body, what the hell? It’s kind of nice having so much time with Anti, though. Or it w-was really, really nice at first. Now he’s sort of starting to scare me, and I would really like to see the sky again, and I’m s-starting to see why Dap was so - why he - ”

Trick struggles to breathe, putting a hand over his heart.

“I don’t know how he stayed in one room for months on end! Without anybody even asking for him outside his room! Maybe I should try to be more like him, and play spoiled brat so Anti st-stops yelling. Ugh, I can’t s-s-speak today, ugh.”

Anonymous asked: We’ll do our best to convince him, Trick, just hang tight we’ll figure something out, alright? You’ve been very strong and we’re all so proud of you!

“Aww.”

Trick actually giggles a little, trying to clean his face up.

“Thanks, you’re so sweet, wow. But, hey, if it comes down to Anti yelling at you or yelling at me, he’s my big brother, I’m the one who should know how to handle him. You don’t deserve his anger like I do. Okay?”

Anonymous asked: Dok is there anything you want us to tell Trick for you? Something that might make him smile?

Switched up Dok and Trick on accident.

Trick’s face falls slightly.

“I don’t know. Is he angry at me? I think he got in a lot of trouble for what I did. I was so stupid, I… I just want him to know I didn’t do it because he f-failed me at all. I think I just - well - snapped.

“Didn’t even feel like it was me doing it, anyway.”

His voice is trailing away, his eyes fixed blankly at the wall.

“Just watching my hands reach for the bottle. And I couldn’t make myself scream to wake him up. Maybe he’s better off without a screw-up like me. Dapper will be a good twin for him, don’t you think? They get along so well. And then, well, there’d be two perfect matches, and Anti wouldn’t miss me, maybe just teach someone else to use the sniper. Yeah. They’d be okay without me.”

pixie-in-trebleland asked: Dok, do you ever get to see Trick anymore? He Keeps asking for you.

Back in the kitchen, Red and Blue have made it home, and Dok is helping Dapper towards the right room on the hallway, lying his little brother down on the one mattress in their shared room, where a camera on the windowsill flickers to life. Dap is a cold white color, his eyes closed before he hit the bed, but Doktor is watching over him now, carefully wiping a cool wet cloth over his sweaty forehead.

He looks calmer with Dap there. He’s wiped all the redness and tears away from his face, probably before the others made it home, and when he speaks, his voice is calm.

“No. I’m not allowed to see him now. Not even to speak with him through the door. He’s not usually awake to talk anyway. But nothing I can do about it now. You must have distracted Anti, huh? If you had not, he would already have been out here, shouting about these silver eyes.”

Dapper’s guilty eyes flicker open, shining cool in the warm afternoon light.

“It’s okay,” promises Doktor, and Dapper closes his eyes again, trusting. “He’ll be out to talk about it later, I expect, but we’ll figure it out. Get some rest, my friend.”

Anonymous asked: No, he misses you, Dok. He wants you more than anyone right now. You're his twin. You're important to him.

My bad, I answered this for Trick. Here’s what he would say.

“Oh. Yeah?”

Trick brightens slightly. “He misses me? I hope not too much. I hate to hear him crying so much. I don’t think he knows I can hear him. He always waits til the others are gone, so only Anti and I ever hear. Oh, oh, I would really like to see him again.”

Here’s Doktor’s:

Doktor’s eyes widen slightly, his face clearing of some of its stoicism. He checks to make sure that Dapper’s eyes are closed and then he lets himself scoot forward, a little hope in his eyes.

“R-really? Did he say that? I miss him too! Oh, shit, I’m so glad he’s not angry with me, Anti told me he didn’t want to see me anymore!”

Anonymous asked: Sweetheart, you haven’t done anything wrong. Sometimes big brothers are jerks and get unreasonably upset when they don’t understand how to act like a decent human being. You being you and having feelings does not make you any sort of liability. In fact, facing them makes you ten times stronger than you already are. It’s alright to be sad anyways, being sad is valid! We would gladly take the heat for you at any time.

Trick tilts his head slightly, mulling it over.

“Yeah… yeah, maybe. I think I would trust my feelings better if I knew they weren’t screwed up by my goddamn snap.”

He laughs a little, twisting his hands anxiously.

“I feel like - I feel - I feel like I can’t trust myself anymore. I’m glad Anti’s watching me so close. It feels a little suffocating, but that’s okay. I’m alive, right? And I should be glad to be.

“Thank you for saying that. I wish this would stop, but it won’t, so… I guess I just have to try and believe you. For as long as I can.”

spicydanhowell asked: Trick, are you getting your name confused with Dok's?

Oh, whoops, haha, my bad, not Trick’s. Let me fix that, we’re talking a lot to Dok about Trick and a lot to Trick about Dok. Thanks.

I’m going to leave this note in here too just in case there’s anything I confused and didn’t notice to fix.

spicydanhowell asked: trick probably just needs to ride it out, anti. is he even on medication? that seems like step one. just keep him safe and comfortable. this could take a long time. in the real world he'd be in a therapy program or in a hospital, and those sort of things last weeks or months. you can't rush this shit. just keep him as comfortable as possible

Doktor is pulling Dapper’s dress shirt open to get a look at his injury, his patient hands working carefully, steadily. Dapper is quiet as can be, half asleep even as Doktor bares his skin. The trust between the two of them is deep.

“Trick’s on… ugh, I think Anti changed it again. Maybe he’s still on the antidepressants, but maybe Anti stopped when they didn’t help as much as he wanted them to. I was so stupid. He asked me for tranqs and I didn’t realize he wanted them for Trick, didn’t even think twice. Now he’s knocking my twin out cold every time his distress is too much for Anti to handle. I think he gives him the sleeping medicine I used to take, too. He likes the idea of medicine, but when the results aren’t good enough, he doesn’t have the patience to keep making sure Trick takes them.”

Doktor takes a deep breath and lets it out again, clenching and unclenching his fist. “It’s fine. It’s okay.”

“I wish I could have given to him to a hospital instead of Anti,” he adds softly. “I know I shouldn’t. I know I need to trust him to take care of him. But it’s difficult.”

He turns Dapper slightly onto his side and unwinds his bandages. A clean, struggling-to-scab stab wound pierces his brother’s ribs like a drop of blood on scope sample disk.

“It’s difficult,” repeats Doktor lowly, staring at the wound. “It’s difficult.”

Anonymous asked: Trick, I think Dok wants to tell you he doesn't blame you for what happened, and he wants you to focus on getting better. It's hard for him to be away from you because he loves you, but I bet you could make him feel better by eating the food he made you. Think how it would make him smile if Anti gave him back an empty plate, knowing he got to help you in a small way by cooking for you!

Trick lifts his head up slightly.

“Did he make this?”

For a while, he stares down at the plate. Good white rice and eggs with meat and onions, everything nicely fried.

He hasn’t had a lot of luck eating lately. He’s either not hungry or shoving food into his face so fast Anti has to stop him from choking himself. Often at night he’s ill, waking up from nightmares and finding, at his side, a master instead of a friend.

“You’ll tell him I ate it all?”

He leans down to pick up the little plastic fork, and starts taking small bites of his eggs.

Anonymous asked: Without even asking we could tell you how much Dok loves you. There is no one on earth that could convince him to be upset with you or hate you. He’s just sad for the same reason you are, he misses you. And that should show you just how important you are. Did you know dapper mentioned you? Said how he was happy y’all were friends now and hoped you were okay? Red and blue too? They’re all asking for you. You are so important Chase, don’t let Anti convince you otherwise.

Trick’s adding extra salt to his eggs now, sniffling over his plate.

“Y-yeah? I’d like to see them all again. I miss - I miss - I miss everybody.”

He wipes at his eyes.

“They’d miss me if I left, I guess.”

Anonymous asked: I think you’re right in saying that, Dok. Is there anything that we can do to help right now?

“Just…”

Doktor sighs and rubs at his face, sitting down at Dapper’s side. A warm, sleepy hand comes to rest on his back, weak but soothing.

“Just tell me if he does anything dangerous, okay?”

“I think some dinner would help,” prescribes a voice from the doorway, as Blue’s torn-up pants appear in your viewpoint. Doktor turns to give him a weary smile and Blue comes to his side, placing a plate of the specially fried eggs and rice beside Dapper, and another in Doktor’s hands.

“Blue, I can’t eat - ”

“There’s no ham in that one,” promises Blue, smiling at him. He pauses to let Doktor put a bite in his mouth and then presses close to his little brother, setting his head on his shoulder and wrapping one arm around him, while his spare hand finds Dapper’s and clutches it tight, rubbing his thumb warmly across his fingers.

“It’s going to be okay,” he murmurs, rubbing Doktor’s side. If he could, he would pour comfort into the both of them in the form of warm, healthy magic, and fill them up with light and safety. But he has his orders, and this is all he can do, so he will do it gladly. “You’re okay, we’re okay. We’ll figure it out soon enough. Trust me.”

Doktor lets his head sink against Blue’s, just a little, taking another bite of his eggs. The low evening light casts them in shades of gold and red and purple, and you see Red come to stand in the doorway, his body blocking the entrance, his head turned towards the room at the end of the hall, guarding his family in the twilight quietude, watching the sun go down.

pixie-in-trebleland asked: How are you coping, Dok? You can't just bottle it up.

“Yeah.” Blue rubs warmly at his ribs. “Can’t keep any secrets from us. Another rough day?”

Exhausted, Doktor nods slowly against his shoulder.

“Well, you got through it,” murmurs Blue.

“Not quite yet.”

“Come on, what’s going to happen?”

“You’re going to be in trouble for the silver eyes,” answers Dok grimly.

Blue sighs. “Okay, well, what I meant was nothing’s going to happen to you.”

“I’d rather you two be safe than me,” answers Dok miserably.

“Hey! That’s our job, not yours. Don’t give me that self-sacrificial bullshit. You let big brothers handle it, do you understand?”

“Yes,” mumbles Dok, eyes downcast.

“Yes?”

“Yes, Blue,” he resigns himself, sinking down beside Dapper. Blue rubs his back.

Anonymous asked: Just one step at a time, Trick. We’ll be here for you the whole way.

“One step at a time,” he mumbles, putting another forkful in his mouth. “One bite at a time. Actually, this is pretty good, you know? Mh, I hope tonight is quiet. I feel a little better, just shaky.”

Anonymous asked: Alright, Dok, is there anyway that you can prove yourself to Anti? It seems the only way to get Trick out of that room is you convincing Anti that you’re a suitable protector. Is there any information that you can give us that we can use to convince him on your behalf or is there anything that you can do now to gain back Anti’s favor? Remember this is for Trick, alright? Just do your best and we’ll workout the rest. Hopefully.

“Oh, yes, we hope so! Right, Blue?”

Blue’s eyes are worried. He tries not to let his smile flicker. “Yeah, we have a gameplan, right?”

“I just have to be a good big brother to Dapper.”

“Yes, keep a good eye on him.”

“And be good. Do what you and Red and Anti tell me. Be quieter in the house. And - and - anything else you can think of. Make sure the people around here are happy with us, because I have to be useful, or we won’t be safe.”

The stress makes him shake a little, but he’s a force of nature when he’s determined, and fuck, but he wants his twin back. Blue brushes hair out of his face, biting his lip.

“Yeah, um. Just add taking care of yourself to that list too, okay?”

“Mmhh.” Dok’s eyes are already far away, daydreaming. “Oh - sure, yes, sir, whatever you say.”

pixie-in-trebleland asked: Anti, while the others are great, no one is going to get through to Trick like Dok will. Even try to mimic him to see how Trick responds.

“Hmm, mimicking Dok.”

Anti pauses, thinking. His eyes are a vivid snake’s green.

“Maybe… I could do that easy enough, it’s just being loud and pushy and stern, mostly. Level-headed most of the time, kind of angry, kind of bitter. Maybe that would help him feel more at home.”

He sighs and closes his computer. “I should go deal with the others. I’ll have to change my plans for the night if they don’t have a good reason for that reversal Dap had to pull. Fuck, his magic smells so strong. I’m fucking suffocating.”

Anonymous asked: What does his magic smell like?

“Well, that’s the strange thing,” murmurs Anti, sitting up. Sharpened ears perk slightly as he listens, his nostrils flaring and his pupils thin. “Dapper is… well, I don’t know. Dapper’s Dapper. Old shit, I guess, and blood, and a little… it’s a smell, okay, how do you want me to describe it? ‘What does his magic smell like,’ is this a fucking scratch and sniff? But something’s off with him tonight, I almost think. Something in the air kind of like the ocean or trees or some shit.

“Why would his magic be different? Unless of course it - ”

Anti pauses, stiffening.

Suddenly he is on his feet.

Anonymous asked: Unless what, Anti? What does it mean?

“Less it’s not his magic.” Anti’s eyes are too bright. There is a fang piercing through his bottom lip. “And I know I told that stupid cat to stop playing those kinds of dangerous little games.”

pixie-in-trebleland asked: Uh oh, Dap? Blue? Anti's on the move and you guys are in trouble.

Blue swears and gets to his feet, pushing Doktor down onto the mattress when he tries to rise and stalking towards Red, who falls immediately into stride beside him to stand in the hall, shutting Dok and Dapper’s door behind them. They exchange glances, just for a moment, and see in each other’s eyes everything they need to make their backs straighten and their mouths fall calm, turned towards each other in a resignation that has become, by virtue of the little brothers in the room behind them, a sacrifice. They know the plan without speaking, Blue sees it in Red’s eyes - we take his rage together, you try to reason with him, and I am the body between his and theirs.

Anonymous asked: Uhhhh guys heads up! Anti is headed for Dapper!

Anti’s door bursts open and his figure appears in the door, shadowed in computer errors and color glitches as he blurs his way forward in a spasm of coding. His body never seems to move, but then he is before them, halfway incorporeal in the hall, but he does not turn to the door for the younger boys, he does not turn - he grabs his Blue by the throat, and then, before Red can cry out, he is slamming him back against the wall, his eyes black with hatred.

“What the hell did you do?” he shrieks, slamming Blue’s head back, ignoring Red rushing forward beside him, trying to catch his eye so he can beg on his twin’s behalf, panicked. “I can smell something on you! I can smell power on you! You traitorous little bitch, I’ve let you roam like a wild dog and treated you like a show dog and this is how you repay me? What were you casting for? What did you do? I have to hide your fucking signal now! What did you do?”

“Nothing!” wails Blue, grabbing at his master’s hands. He does not claw, only clutches tight to his wrists, his eyes desperate and full of tears.

“He didn’t do anything, Anti, I’ve been with him the whole day!”

“I can smell something that is not Dapper, I can smell it on you! You did something! Even if it was on accident!”

“No, no, no, I can’t help it that’s it welling up inside me but I - ” Blue sucks in a desperate gasp, beginning to writhe under Anti’s hands. “I didn’t give way to it!”

“He didn’t do anything, Anti, I swear! Please, master, let him go!”

But unfortunately they’re not making a very good case for themselves.

The hands on Anti’s wrist glow faintly blue.

Anonymous asked: Blue what did you do?

Growling low, low in his throat, Anti drops Blue to the floor. He collapses and begins coughing hard, clutching at his throat. Red moves to fall down beside him, but Anti grabs him by the back of his shirt and shoves him away again, staring down at Blue with his teeth gritted hard enough that Red can hear his bones shifting.

“I swear, I swear, I swear,” whimpers Blue, curling in on himself to hide his hands against his stomach. All these weeks, he has never been afraid of Anti for his own sake, but now some horrible memory is rearing its head inside of him, and he looks down to see his glowing hands shaking. “I didn’t do anything, Anti, please, it burns at me but I don’t… I don’t mean to do anything, I let none of it touch the rest of the world, I hold it right here in my bones, it isn’t anywhere, it isn’t anything… I keep it, I keep it in my chest, I haven’t done anything, not one spell, like I promised you, master…”

Anti is panting harshly through his teeth. He closes his eyes and reaches up to dig his fingers into his hair, seething, snarling, shaking ever so slightly where he stands.

nikkilbook asked: We can vouch for him. The closest he came to magic was some glowy hands when Dapper passed out from the heat and the pain in his chest. But he didn’t let it out, just like he and Red said.

“You’re doing something,” hisses Anti, drawing away. “You’re - you must be. You’re causing problems. Don’t you understand I’ll have to hide you if you don’t bury it deeper? I can’t - ugh! Fucking hell, Blue!”

He reaches down to grab his chin, tilting his head up and lifting up an eyelid with his thumb, examining Blue’s eyes for any sign of casting.

“I told you to keep it buried, I told you, I told you to forget it even exists within you…”

“I’m trying, I’m trying, I swear…”

pixie-in-trebleland asked: Is there a possibility you could have let something slip, Blue?

“I - I - ” Blue stares desperately up at Anti, his mouth hanging slightly open as tears spring to his face.

“Sometimes his hands wisp but that’s all,” Red leaps to assure, panting rapidly.

“Anti, Anti,” begs Blue, tears running down his face, and Anti, infuriated by the sight of yet another one of his puppets breaking down, turns away from him, digging harder at his hair. “I’m trying so hard, Anti, I am, but it burns me, you don’t understand, I need a way to let some of this free. I’m a kettle boiling over, Anti, a cup filling up, I can’t help that it overflows, I - ”

“Don’t fucking say that!” screams Anti, and before Blue even registers the hand coming at him he is crashing back against the wall, yelping from the bruise exploding across his cheek. He hears Red cry out and then his brother’s body is before his own, between him and Anti, grabbing at the demon’s shoulder and crying out for him to stop, to wait, at least, to just talk about this for a moment, please!

Anti’s shaking his head hard, fury steaming from his mouth, but he grants Red his wish and turns, instead of to Blue, towards Dok and Dapper’s room, striding in even as Red cries out.

“Red, stop him, stop him,” moans Blue, staggering back up to his knees and brushing his twin’s concern away. It’s just a bruise. He’s had worse. Doesn’t know why it stings so much coming from Anti, but it’s no matter. “Monochroma is hurt, don’t let him - Anti, please, don’t grab him like that!”

Dapper whistles shrilly as he is pulled up by the hair, clawing wildly at Anti’s hands and reaching out for Doktor intermittently.

nikkilbook asked: Hey Anti. Here’s an idea. All your tech must draw in an obscene amount of power, and I bet the weird surges from your glitching don’t really help this whole in cognito thing you go going on. Why don’t you try burying THAT, forget that power even exists, cut it out of yourself like some kind of sparky appendix. Can’t be that hard.

“I know how to hide my own fucking power! I know how to hide my signal from everyone, from everything! And Dapper’s too, though it took me months to learn, months and months to learn, and this little brat still thinks he gets to run around the city changing time however he wants to!”

Dapper whistles, staggering to his feet, clutching at the bandages around his bare chest. “No, no, no!” cries his free hand.

“But I had to learn to hide him, because I need his power! But you!”

He whirls on Blue.

There is a light in his eyes like someone losing his mind, and Blue, for all his bravado, finds himself shrinking slightly back towards Red, who steps forward yet again, reaching for the youngest.

“Anti, please,” he whispers.

“I don’t need your fucking spells and bullshit tricks! I need you to be Red’s little sidekick, their little caretaker, and my little slave! And now you’re endangering the rest of my family, after I took you in and gave you back to your brothers, took care of you like a privileged pet and trusted you with everyone else to look after?”

“I’m doing my best,” wails Blue, reaching out for Dapper. “Anti, put him down!”

“I can’t hide all three of us!” screams Anti. “Don’t you fucking understand? I can’t hide this much power!”

nikkilbook asked: Then let them go..

“Are you stupid?” snaps Anti, panting, lowering Dapper slightly back down towards the ground. “You think I’d ever do that? What, do you boys want that? For me to split all of you up and send you away from each other? For you to have to try and hide on your own, and live like Blue used to, like a rat on the streets? No, we… we have to stay together, don’t we?”

He drops Dapper, his face beginning to look more grey than white. Doktor rushes forward to grab his little brother, pulling him back towards the mattress, hiding him against his chest.

“Anti’s right.”

Blue looks up at his big brother, eyes wide.

“He’s the only one who has any hope of keeping us safe from the first master and the others who stalk us. Besides, we’re family.

“We have to stay together,” repeats Red hoarsely, and when Anti looks up again to meet his gaze, there is gratitude in his black, endless eyes.

Anonymous asked: In summation, "suppress your emotions! We can't let people know we F E E L !!"

“Can’t let people know we’re a family of Harry Potter characters,” mumbles Doktor, his eyes flashing. Dapper is huddled against his chest, trembling hard but still rubbing a soothing hand along Doktor’s arm.

Anonymous asked: If Blue can't control his power entirely, maybe try to utilize it in someway. Surely you can find a use for another brand of magic? I get you'll have to invest some time and your own power into masking it, but in the end there's got to be a benefit to that, right? Last thing you need is Blue melting down on top of everything else.

“I - but you don’t understand, I - ” Anti is coming forward towards Blue again, and Red flinches, biting his lip as he tries to decide whether he should put himself between them again, but Anti only bends down to touch Blue’s cheek, staring his newest pet in the eyes. “It’s not like I have a power to hide them, I use electrical signals, I use my computers, I disrupt everything Dap and I send off. And by now I recognize his signals and his energy so well, and I have magnets and conductors and codes that took weeks made just for him, and I monitor both of us constantly but Blue, I - Blue I don’t know anything about, and I don’t - he’s more erratic, you know, he’s… you’re…”

“I’m sorry,” whispers Blue.

Anti draws his hand away from his face and rubs his own instead, tired out of his mind.

“Blue, you have to keep it hidden better.”

“I - I - okay, Anti. Yes, Anti. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah. Yeah. Just… let’s talk about this later. I’ll think about this later. I’m so - ”

He grits his teeth, glancing over at Dapper. Truth is, he slept better with him beside him. Maybe he could put him next to Trick tonight, except -

“Fucking hell,” sighs Anti. “I’ve still got to deal with you. Alright, little brat. You better have a good reason you were making the world spin wrong today.”

pixie-in-trebleland asked: Guys, you all need to calm down. I'm sure you all being at each other's throats is not helping with hiding ANY power.

“Yeah, Anti,” Blue beseeches, rising to his knees. “Please just be gentle with him, I’m sure he had a good reason.”

Dapper has yet to look up at Anti in answer.

Despite Anti’s question.

Like he’s ignoring it.

Oh, hell, oh, hell, oh, hell, chants Blue’s mind. He chews rapidly on his lip and exchanges looks with Red, beginning to feel panicked.

“Dapper,” he calls. “You answer your brother like a good boy.”

Not today, Dap. Don’t get in any more trouble. You can’t take it, you tiny hurricane. Just be good, please!

Anonymous asked: Dapper, hiding from something doesn't mean it's not there. You got hurt, you made a mistake, just say something, the waters testy as it is.

Dapper’s breath is hot against Doktor’s shoulder. His eyes are tightly closed and his teeth are gritted. He glances at the message and at the light outside his window, and then closes his eyes tight again.

Anti’s eyes narrow on Doktor. His throat closes.

“Dap,” urges Dok, pushing slightly against him. “Come on, you must talk to your big brother. Will be okay, just answer the question.”

Dapper buries. Dapper buries.

Doktor presses their faces as close as he can, knocking their noses together, whispering as small as he can. His voice is desperate.

“Dapper, if you are not good for Anti, we will never get Trick back.”

And Dapper knows he doesn’t mean to say that he’s trying to exchange his training wheels for the full model he used to have, doesn’t mean to say he’s trying to get an A+ on his little-brother-caretaking test so he can get the real one back, doesn’t mean to say he’d rather Dapper be locked up in that one little room, petted and puppied for months on end, instead of Trick, but -

Anti really is the only one who wants him. He may as well try to help Dok get his Trick back.

White-faced and bitter, Dapper turns his face towards Anti, and frees his hands.

“I’m sorry, Anti,” he says. “I walked too far down an alleyway and a dog jumped out and scared me badly. I turned back without thinking. I was a coward. Next time I will drive it away.”

Anti draws back slightly.

Assessing.

florenceisfalling asked: anti, isn't this a good thing? better than him letting animals touch him or get near him, right?

“Mm-hm, mm-hm,” murmurs Anti, chewing on his lip. “If he’s telling the truth.”

Dapper does not pale. Dapper does not tremble. Dapper does not look away.

Dapper looks his master in the eyes and lies.

nikkilbook asked: It was our fault. You left us alone with them for twenty minutes and we did what we did best. We poked and we prodded until the boys broke, and Dapper put them back together again. Better this mess than that one.

“Broke? My Red, my Blue? My strong boys?” He glances back at the twins, standing in the doorway. “No, no… I don’t think that’s right.”

Anonymous asked: Oh shoot, Dap, you actually told him the truth! It's okay, Anti will understand. It's good you did tell him what happened. And next time you'll know.

“Hm, hm,” says Anti, beginning to circle the mattress. Dok avoids his gaze, whitening as he comes closer, holding Dapper to his chest. The color of Dapper’s eyes is less like starlight and more like steel. “Yes, yes, next time you’ll know… you know better than to lie to Anti, don’t you, Dapper?”

“Yes, Anti.”

Anti’s eyes change from black to a very vivid green.

pixie-in-trebleland asked: Anti, it was an honest to goodness mistake on Lil' Dap's part. He isn't reckless with his abilities, is he?

“Lil Dap,” repeats Anti, and a smile fills up his face. “Haha! Aww, you are my little Dapper, aren’t you? Baby, puppy? Tiny little boy, cute little mute baby.”

Dapper is digging his nails into the palms of his hands.

cest-mellow asked: anti you can’t blame him for getting scared, it honestly came from no where, scared me too! i’m just glad he didn’t get bit, feral dogs can have rabies you know

“Ugh, yuck,” hisses Anti, drawing slightly back, wiping his hands on his pants. “This city is fucking filthy. I hate those fucking dogs everywhere. With the skin and the bugs in their - ugh.”

He shakes his head and snarls, turning away.

“Little brother,” says Red gently. “Maybe we should do this later.”

“No,” snaps Anti, grabbing at his hair again. “Shut up. Go to your room and finish eating your dinner. I’ll need you again tomorrow and the two of you at least must be good, or I’ll throw all of you little bastards out. Now.”

Red and Blue exchange glances but not protests. Red pulls Blue away. His twin’s eyes are fixed on Dapper’s.

pixie-in-trebleland asked: Would you be able to tell if he's lying, Anti?

“I can tell everything about him,” whispers Anti.

His voice is an echo. It drips from the ceilings. It swims through the air. It bounces from wall to wall, disembodied.

“I know the person he was and the person I made him into. I know every valley of his brain, know the pattern of his thoughts, know the taste of his fear. Know the ways he comes and goes, sane some days, a little psycho the next.”

Doktor’s breath hitches slightly and he turns away, afraid to show anger to Anti.

Dapper’s too tired to be hurt. He stares up at Anti, blank-faced.

“You always have been a good little liar,” says Anti distantly, coming to stand right above him. “But not to me, child. Not to me.”

Anonymous asked: Wait Anti a while back when you said you like own time and forced it to kiss you...ew.... were you referring to dapper?? and why do you even do that in the first place that's messed up dude just sayin

Anti crouches down beside Dapper and Doktor.

His youngest puppet is pressed back against the doctor. Someone else might mistake it for hiding, but Dapper is no longer holding Dok for the comfort. His body is in front of his brother’s. He protects Doktor. He protects Doktor from Anti.

For a long time, Anti just looks him in the eyes.

“Yes, I was referring to Dapper,” he says. “Of course I was. My little time traveler. Yes, I’ve made time kiss me. I’ve made it sing my praises and give up everything it used to love for my sake. It didn’t have much of a choice, but that is not what matters. What matters now is that it belongs to me.”

Anti sets his hand on Doktor’s thigh and leans close over the both of them, his chest flush with Dapper’s. The youngest brother can no longer bear the weight of his green-eyed gaze; flushing, Dapper turns away, avoiding the eyes of the snake.

“Doesn’t it, Jay?”

Something visceral and agonizing rises up like acid in Dapper’s throat, and in that moment he is so close to remembering everything that hovers around the edges of his time-travel-hazed mind, so close to putting back a piece of himself that he’s been trying to find for weeks now, so close to being a person who does not belong to Anti.

Fuck, does it hurt.

Memories of his lips pressed to Anti’s cheeks, his hands teasing and begging for affection, being cradled like a child to Anti’s chest, hiding behind his big brother for comfort, letting him cut into him and tie him to his bed post, a raven he loved being shoved out a window, and a half-dozen faces only vaguely familiar, stained bright in red - only some of the people Anti told him to kill, and fuck, but his knife was glad to have something to do other than sitting in that room.

“Give me a kiss,” says Anti. “And I’ll put this behind me.”

His voice is sugar-sweet and Dapper could gag. He knows he’s being mocked. He knows that Anti can feel the dissatisfaction, the revolution, sitting painful in his chest. But if he can be convinced to obey despite a little discontent, despite a little doubt, Anti will believe that he is not a threat, and Dapper can go back to playing puppet, and maybe it won’t hurt so much.

Doktor is shaking against him.

Anti grabs his chin in his hands, tight enough to bruise, and he yanks Dapper’s head back towards him, forcing him to meet endless green eyes.

“Give me a kiss,” says Anti, smiling so fucking wide, so fucking cruel, and something in Jameson’s chest hates him. “Give me a kiss and you can have a quiet night with your Dok-Dok, and nobody has to get h - ”

Dapper strikes him, hard, in the face.

whydoilovesomanyvillians asked: Jameson jackson you absolute savage

Anti reels away from his youngest puppet, halfway tumbling off Doktor’s lap, blood dripping down his nose as his form flickers. Doktor screams aloud, shocked, and grabs Dapper tighter to his chest, pinning his arms down as best he can.

His little brother is laughing like a maniac, without sound, without joy.

Anonymous asked: FUCK. DAP REVERSE. REVERSEREVERSEREVERSE

“No,” giggles Dapper, squirming in Doktor’s grip. “I don’t think I will.”

“You fucking bitch!” screams Anti, and a hunting knife appears in his hands, thicker than his arm is wide. “I’m going to kill you!”

Doktor cries out and curls his body over Dapper’s, panic exploding through his chest. “No, Anti, please, please! Blue! Red! Somebody, please!”

“Why the hell are you screaming for them? Like they can save you from me? Stupid little brat!”

Anti grabs Doktor’s shirt and drags him off Dapper’s body, digging his fingers into Dapper’s hair and pulling him to his feet. Dapper screams by drawing air in, clawing at his hair as Anti pulls him up for the second time tonight, this time pressing a blade into the center of his collarbone, drawing a stream of blood.

Anonymous asked: Oh god Anti you broke him

“He’s always been goddamn broken!” shrieks Anti, throwing him onto the mattress and giving Dapper back the blow that he gave him twice as hard, slapping him so that his handprint appears on his cheek. Dapper whistles shrilly and turns to his side, but he will not turn back, he will not turn back. Wouldn’t fix anything anyway, he’d just be in more trouble for the power surge.

And anyway, he fucking deserves it.

“Kill me, then, fucking coward!” signs Dapper, and Anti grabs him again and throws him back onto his back. “Think I’m scared to die, master?”

“Traitorous little weapon! You think I won’t kill you? Is that what you think? You think I can’t make you beg me to take you back into my bed again, huh? If I think for a moment that you are past saving, if you belong to that stupid fucking boy again, I will fucking crucify you and make your brothers laugh at the sight of you nailed to our doorway. Do you understand me?”

“I understand that you’re a bitch.”

And then he’s being struck, again, and again, and again, and the wound on his side is weeping, and so are his blueing eyes, as he comes to understand that everything he has denied about the brother he adores is true - Anti is cruel, Anti keeps him captive, Anti would kill him to prevent him from ever being free.

“I served you well,” sob his hands, though he doubts Anti is reading. “I’ve always served you well. You are the one who took your love away, master. You are the one who betrayed me.”

“Anti!” screams Doktor, by now in full-blown hysterics. “Anti, Anti! Please, oh, God, Sh’ma, Sh’ma! Red! Blue! Trickshot, help me!”

pixie-in-trebleland asked: Dok, you gotta move and get the two of you out of there.

“I have to - I have to stop this, I can’t get him out, I can’t - what can I say to - ”

Realization hits Doktor like a train and he acts without further thought. In a second he is clinging to Anti’s shoulders as his brother beats Dapper’s blood into the mattress, crying out. “Anti, it’s not him! It’s not him, it’s not his fault! It’s one of his episodes, he’s psychotic, he can’t help it! He might even think you’re his old master!”

Anti’s hand is pressing Dapper down by the throat. He does not look up at Doktor. His pupils are blown, his face frigid white, his mouth shaking. But his pressure, at least a little, relinquishes.

“One - one of his episodes? A snap, you mean?”

Dapper trembles beneath his hands, his blue eyes hurting.

Anonymous asked: Oh shit. Dapper I hope you know what you’re doing!

Dapper stares up at Doktor and Anti, towering over him.

He whines and closes his eyes and sinks back down into the mattress, tears sliding down his cheeks. His anger is cold and it stings at his face; his hurt is deeper, burrowing down far into his chest. His master really does hate him, and he’ll never be or even remember the person that he used to be, and Doktor - Doktor - Doktor shouldn’t use his psychosis like that, like it makes his decisions any less his own. It’s not his to use as a lie. Dapper’s head is clearer than it’s been in months. The only thing fogging his head now is grief and this great wall of power that has so long blocked out chunks of memories and control. He’s beginning to understand where Trick was coming from more and more with every day.

He wishes he were here now. That’s who he wants, Trick, who hated it when Dapper was treated like a puppy just as much as Dapper does. Trick who loved him as an equal but protected him like a brother.

No, he doesn’t know what he’s doing.

But he doesn’t want to get hit anymore. So he closes his eyes, and turns his face from Anti’s, and lets Doktor speak on his behalf, because no one is listening anyway.

“But he’s not hallucinating or thinking we’re someone we’re not,” Anti is protesting, glancing between Dapper and Doktor.

“Well, it’s hard to be sure,” coaxes Doktor, sounding professional, though his voice trembles minutely. Maybe Dap isn’t the only good liar around. “And you know sometimes it’s not hallucinations, sometimes with him it’s paranoia. Yes? You remember when he was so convinced Red would hurt him, the last time.”

“He nearly killed him,” mumbles Anti, brushing disarrayed hair from his eyes.

“But we got him back on his medication and helped him get down from the snap, and he was back to being okay again. Trusting you and everything, you know. Most likely he is just psychotic again. It’s not his fault, really. Besides, Anti, look, look, this wound in his side - you will hurt him more badly than you intend, master.”

Anti draws back from Dapper a little more, his eyes fading to blue. “But he’s on his medication,” he protests, and suddenly his voice is weak as a blade of grass. “You told me you were making sure he takes it. You - how can I - if both of them are broken like this - ”

“Maybe we can try something new,” suggests Doktor, trying to be reassuring. He dares to rub his hand over Anti’s shoulder, and Anti, looking distinctly frazzled, leans slightly back into the warmth of his palm.

Doktor puts his head against Anti’s shoulder. The pressure is warm and secure.

“Can’t look after everyone,” admits Anti, in a whisper.

“I’ll help you,” promises Doktor, just as soft, and the earnestness in his voice is almost painfully raw. “If you just let me, Anti. Just let me see - ”

“No,” Anti cuts him off, his voice clearer, and Doktor sinks wearily against his back, sighing. “No. Maybe someday. But not now. I can’t risk it. I can’t risk any of this. I finally have everything I want. I’m going to keep it.”

One of his hands resumes a little pressure on Dapper’s throat. The other is running through his hair, meant to be soothing.

“Poor boy, breaking down again,” mumbles Anti. “I’ll put it right again. I’ll fix you again. I’ve done it more than once now, haven’t I? Stupid boy. It’s okay. We’ll fix you.”

Anonymous asked: Do it Anti, and you lose your most valuable weapon. No more reversing time, no more do overs. The boys leave or die they're gone, no way to fix it. So prove you're not a coward, Anti. Carpe diem, glitch bitch.

Anti gets to his feet, glancing at the camera for a moment, his eyes skimming the message. He turns to look between the temporary set of twins - Doktor rushes forward to try and tend to his little brother, rubbing at Dapper’s shoulders.

Anti crouches back down again, just for a second, and he pulls Dapper’s face towards him, and looks him in the eyes.

“I want you to know something,” he says, his voice very, very low. Dapper shakes beneath his grip.

“You are a very powerful child. You are my favorite weapon and I benefit greatly from your help. That is all true.

“But if I ever think for a single moment that I cannot save you from - from - ”

Anti doesn’t know what to call him.

“The boy,” offers Dapper softly. “The boy you are afraid of.”

It pauses Anti for a moment.

And then he leans forward again.

“I am afraid of him enough that if I ever believed he was taking you from me, I will kill you.”

Doktor is clinging to Dapper’s shoulder. There are tears running down his face.

“I will kill you before I let him turn you against me. That is also true. Do. You. Understand?”

Dapper’s had enough.

Dapper’s had enough for one night.

“Yes, Anti.”

“Good.”

Anonymous asked: Dok whatever happens please do not leave Dapper’s side

“Aww, that’s sweet,” purrs Anti, stepping back. “You want to stay by your little brother, Dok, is that it? Huh?”

“Y-yes, Anti, I need to clean him up.”

“You do, yes. And start thinking about his medication, I want something to fix this by tomorrow. But after you’ve got him all patched up, you’ll hand him over to me, and then his twin has to be punished.”

Doktor pauses, looking up at Anti. “His twin?”

“Yeah.”

“I thought… Dapper didn’t have…”

Anti stares at him, impatient with his stupidity. Something cold rushes over Doktor’s chest.

“Is Trick your twin right now?” asks Anti, like he’s explaining something to a five-year-old.

“No, Anti,” whispers Doktor.

“Who did I give you to look after?”

“Dapper, Anti.”

“And when you fail to look after your twin, and your twin does something stupid and gets in trouble, how do we correct things around here?”

His throat is so fucking dry.

“You punish the twin, Anti.”

“Clean him up. You can spend the night in the shed. Should have known you weren’t capable of having a twin anymore. Tonight, Dapper will stay with me and Trickshot. We’re going to play puppies again. They’re right, Trick needs someone else to be with, and it can’t be you, Dok, so we’ll go back to the way things were in the beginning, when my two littlest boys were so head-over-heels for me they could barely breathe without my permission. Doesn’t that sound nice?”

Doktor can’t breathe at all.

“Doesn’t it?”

“Yes, Anti,” he wheezes, and his hands shake as he pulls the first aid kit away from its place against the wall.

Anonymous asked: What, so Dok is going to be twinless after tomorrow? It's like you're trying to fix glass with a jackhammer.

“Red was twinless for a long time. And he was fine afterwards. I can rearrange again when Trick and Dapper are behaving better.”

Anonymous asked: Anti wait, he did protect him! He stopped you from killing him! He’s cleaned up dapper and made sure that he’s as healthy as he possibly can be considering his wounds, y’know the ones YOU gave him? He can only protect him as much as he can, especially when you’re the one attacking him! If anything he’s been faithful enough to let you have your way with Dap until there was a possibility that you would have gone too far.

“He should have kept Dapper in line in the fucking first place! Everyone in this house knows that Dapper’s been slipping more and more every day, and what did Doktor do about it? Coddle him and let him roam wild while he grieved over a brother who’s still alive!”

Anti backs away, resisting the urge to kick them both.

“That’s enough. Clean him up. That’s the only thing you’re halfway good for.”

And he vanishes as though he was never there, leaving only the smell of electricity behind.

nikkilbook asked: My dudes, you can be together and AWAY FROM HIM. What does he even do? Slap you around and stab you for doing literally what he told you to do? Drive you to suicide and punish you for it? What can he give you that you can’t give each other? Dude’s a royal prick if you ask me.

“Sh, sh, please,” whispers Doktor. “We can’t just… Anti is temperamental, but we can’t just… there’s no choice, we… please, sh, sh…”

He glances over his shoulder, but Anti has vanished, and he is alone with Dapper, shaking beneath his hands, his eyes shell-shocked and grieving. He pulls the old, bloodied bandage off Dapper’s back, eliciting a low, agonized whine.

“I’m so sorry,” Dok mumbles, brushing his hands over his hair. You don’t know who he’s talking to.

Anonymous asked: Honestly though, that took a lot of gut back there to do that Dapper and I’m super proud of you. Learning to stand up for yourself is super important, and just so we’re clear, it is not a psychotic tendency.

Dapper’s bleeding mouth opens into a small smile. “Thank you,” he signs frailly, trying to focus on anything but the sensation of Dok patching his skin back together. “No, it’s not psychosis. Sometimes Anti says snap and he means psychosis, but sometimes he says snap and what he means is self-defense.”

“Dap, please,” begs Doktor. “Stop, stop talking like that.”

“What’s he going to do? Beat me again?”

“Yes,” snaps Doktor, brushing his hand over his hair. To his surprise, Dap pulls away slightly, closing his eyes.

“Angry with me?” asks Dok, in a whisper.

Dapper doesn’t answer. Tears are sliding down Dok’s cheeks.

“Like everybody else?”

At that, Dapper turns, his eyes flickering, and suddenly the grief in his brother’s eyes looks like it will consume him, and Dapper’s pain seems to vanish, replaced by fear for his Deutsch.

“I was trying to protect you,” chokes Dok, his face losing all color as the band-aid flutters out of his hands. He can no longer hold it. “I’m always - always trying to protect you and everyone, heal when I c-can - but I can’t do anything right and - I can’t - f-forgive me, I - ”

Dapper drags his aching body up and throws himself at Doktor, pulling him tight to his chest and hugging him close, close, close, and Doktor breaks down against his shoulder.

Dapper took a beating to avoid kissing Anti’s face. Now, he buries himself against Doktor and smothers his face with kisses, clutching him close, suddenly vividly aware of the fact that the two of them are, for all that Anti plays at Dapper being the smallest, exactly the same size.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” cries Doktor.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” answers Dapper. “I’m so sorry that what I did hurt you, that’s not what I wanted. I don’t want to go away from you. Maybe I can convince Anti to give me back soon?”

“No, no,” whimpers Doktor, rubbing tears from his eyes. “You must do nothing to anger him, nothing to object. Don’t worry about big brother for a moment, that’s not your duty.”

“It is my duty. Just because I’m a little younger does not make me any less your guardian. The hierarchy here is just another something Anti made up to - ”

“Sh, sh, please,” begs Doktor. “Please, for my sake, stop. Just lie down, honey. Let me take care of you, just for a moment. It may be the last time for a long time that I have the chance, and it is the only thing now that I can do for you.”

Distressed, Dapper nevertheless lies down. ���I love you,” promise his hands, fixed atop his heart. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” whispers Doktor. “Whatever Anti makes you forget, do not forget that, my brother.”

cest-mellow asked: red? blue? did you hear any of that??

You find Red and Blue in their room, side-by-side and looking exhausted. Blue is hidden beneath Red’s arm, clutching at his bruising throat. They are curled around each other in the corner. Red’s eyes roam from the door to the window, from the door to the window, from the door to the window, cause these days all he does is expect an attack and protect what he can.

He meets your gaze.

“We didn’t hear anything,” he tells you lowly, clinging to Blue’s shirt. Outside the window, you can hear Doktor crying out.

Anonymous asked: What’s the shed? Is it kinda like the basement in the old house?

The shed sits just behind the house, a metallic structure more like an upside down trash and recycling unit than anything else. There isn’t a real door, just a wooden slat placed in front of a gaping hole and locked up tight when Anti doesn’t need it open. In the daytime, the metal is hot as hell, and the walls can’t be touched, and being inside it is like being baked alive. The boys try not to complain, though - the shed is a temporary place of residence, and there are people in these mountains who live in even smaller ones for their whole lives, nursing children on the dirt outside to avoid the crushing heat.

Anti leaves a camera to keep an eye on Doktor, and so you find him before you - strung up by a chain collar like he’s been hung, but low enough that the front pads of his feet can stand on the dirty ground. With the help of his arms, he can pull himself up enough to get a few deep breaths of air every few minutes.

He does not cry. His face is calm. The ground around him is littered with glue traps, and you can see mice squirming through their death throes at his feet.

“Yeah, you’re right on,” he mumbles, trying to push himself up, his calves already aching. “Seems no matter where we go, some things never change.”

Anonymous asked: Be safe, please.. -PF!H

Doktor tries to stay calm, because he knows that you’re watching. He stands strong and works to take deep, steady breaths. He will be able to stand this for some hours, as he knows from experience, but he hopes that by morning he will be let down - otherwise he may begin to suffocate.

spicydanhowell asked: uhh dok... do you ever think about suicide? i'm just wondering... you've kind of been through a lot

“Mmh,” groans Dok, straining, glad for any company, for anyone to talk to, even if he will only be able to keep it up for a few hours. “Well, everybody thinks about that sometimes, don’t they? But we have to keep living. What would happen to the others without me? What would happen to Trick? No, you don’t have to worry about that with me, you must focus on the others. Don’t worry, don’t worry. Not going to do anything like that, not anywhere other than my dreams, anyway. And even then, I don’t mean it, and it makes me cry, to see my body stretched out on the ground like that - ungh, fuck…”

He lets himself back down again. Deep breath in. Deep sigh out. “Don’t worry, don’t worry,” he mutters, rubbing his own shoulders like he’s hugging himself.

Anonymous asked: Great job, Anti. Are you really going to hurt your baby brother over something he can't control? He always wanted to do his best by you, and this is how you repay that love?

You find Anti, to your surprise, in the entry area, where Dok’s set up his clinic. He’s sorting through Red and Blue’s backpacks, a computer set on the table beside him. Every time he pulls out another bottle of pills or package of gauze or iodine ointment, you see a new line pop up on the screen. He’s taking inventory, apparently.

“Are we really doing this again?” he snaps, not even looking up at you. You don’t know how he read the message. “‘Oh, Anti, you’re so evil and rude and you mistreat your poor little idiots so much!’ Get over yourselves! Stop pretending I give a fuck about your opinions!

Anyway, Dapper’s been acting like a fucking brat for weeks now. Guess he can’t stand that Trick’s taken up all his time with his master, spoiled little whore. No, he’s never cared about what’s best for anybody but himself. Half the time I think he only plays nice to keep himself alive. He’s a little actor, that child. You should have seen him when I first kidnapped him. He was a slyer opponent than any of his brothers, I admit it. He could make himself seem like a naive, helpless, terrified little animal while hiding a knife behind his back at the same time… no, he won’t slip away from me now, no matter the cost…”

cest-mellow asked: anti, sometimes no matter how close doctors watch their patients medication, they can still take a random turn. one day the meds work fine and the next they don’t work, maybe dap’s body got so used to the haldol that he just needs a med change. this isn’t doktors fault, you KNOW how protective he is of his brother’s and how loyal he is to you. do you really think he’d ever do something like that, or let something like that happen, on purpose?

“And I - well, I know that,” admits Anti, grumbling, a little abashed. “But he should have taken that into account! And he’s been letting Dapper run around with Blue and Red and letting him spend most of the day wandering outside or even - ugh, I caught him chasing after some of those damn chickens that are wandering around. With the dirty little children, even. He should have been keeping a much closer eye on him, but all he can think about is Trick.

“Besides, it doesn’t matter if it’s his fault or not. Dapper did something wrong, so the twin bears the punishment. It’s the most effective part of this system, you know. That’s how I finally got Red in line. He wouldn’t stop fighting me until he couldn’t bear to watch Dapper cry anymore.”

Anonymous asked: Please don’t punish dok too harshly, he really did try to take care of dapper the best he could

“Not well enough. That is all that matters.”

Anonymous asked: Anti, don’t you think you’re being a little hard on Dok? I mean he’s giving his all and he’s human, he’s bound to make mistakes but he seems to be determined to fix them. You have to remember that he’s mental sorta fellow, he likes to talk facts y’know? He’s the reason you have what you have in the first place, he basically got Marvin to come home right? He’s not a failure, we just all work differently and he might not be in the right environment to excel the way you want him to.

“I… I feel like none of them are in exactly the right environment anymore. I don’t know what changed, but it changed with that night on the beach and Trick snapping… If I can just put him back together, things will go back to being better again. But for now I can’t do anything more for Doktor. Trick and Dapper have to be my focus. Dok’s functional enough.”

Anonymous asked: anti you just really like being in control huh? you know, none of the others are going to think any less of you or "fear" you less if you let dok go. seriously they'll be so much more thankful to you if you don't hurt him. dap might be extra appreciative too?

“Mmhhh,” grumbles Anti, beginning to be agitated. “No. Rules are rules. He will still resent me even if I give his Doktor back. He would just have someone to commiserate with, to rant at. Doktor’s probably been fueling his paranoia with his useless whining for Trick all day. No wonder Dapper’s brain begin to tell him I was the enemy.” He hisses, gnawing on his lips.

Anonymous asked: "Aren't you one to talk since you and your puppets sound so unhappy all the time you have to threaten them to make them stay with you.. I hate to break it to you, but in regards to your response to my master's message you're too biased to have an opinion on how he's doing. And that's coming from me." -PF!H.

“Well, little one, then you form your own opinion, and let me know if you find anything less than the grief and the regret that I see in your precious master.”

spicydanhowell asked: you're punishing dok because he's not controlling carver.... but aren't you supposed to be controlling carver??? are you admitting that he's too much for you to handle? and then you expect /doktor/ to be able to handle him?? that really makes no sense at all. you're just pinning your own failure on someone else rather than owning your incompetence.

“That’s why I’m taking him back to my side,” replies Anti coolly. “I had hoped Dok would be able to look after somebody, but clearly not. You’re quite right. Dapper should be under my arm and no one else’s. That’s the last time I give him someone else to play with.”

Anonymous asked: okay but red isn’t dok they’re not the same person

“So you admit Doktor is weaker than Red?”

Anonymous asked: You're really keen on saying you don't care when you're going so out of your way to explain it, you know. Just saying.. -PF!H

Anti growls, shoving another handful of medicine into a cabinet with a padlock on it.

juju-on-that-yeet asked: Maybe Dapper's brain is telling him that you're the enemy because...ya know...you are. You really can't pretend you aren't, not to us.

Anti’s mouth curls up into a small, self-satisfied smile.

“Mmh… haha. Kind of funny, I almost miss the days when at least some of them knew I was worth hating. Maybe I’m too deep in my own head. What would it really matter if I lost Trick? I’d figure it out with the other four. Be a shame not to have the full set, but might be better than trying so hard to fix something so shattered.

“Yes, I guess I should remember myself a little. But I’m sure Dap’s just having a psychotic episode. Even a little world-shaker like that kid couldn’t get his head free from all the work I’ve done on him for more than a year now.”

Anonymous asked: Anti, please listen to me. You think Jack made you to be hated, and useless, and wrong. He didn't, I promise you he didn't. He made you to be awe-striking. He made you to be powerful, and alluring, and beautiful. He made you to be loved, loved so much that we would write stories for you, stories where you are happy. Draw pictures of you, make videos about you, make you known in our world. We love you so much, Anti. There has to be something in you that can return that.

Anti snickers without humor. “Ha, you’re funny… He didn’t even mean to create me. Everything that’s worthwhile about myself actually comes from - ”

He cuts himself off, his mouth thinning.

“You’re all stupid little children.”

And then he’s mocking you, his mouth in a wide smile, his eyes flashing, and he looks like Jack, he looks like Jack just to fucking taunt you -

“’Oh, Anti, we love you so much, look how we adore you, look how your mouth fills up with power every time we say your name, every time your image curves across a sketch pad or fills up the lines of a document’ - don’t you think you’re all a little obsessive? Do you remember the first time you saw me?”

And he is a boy with dark green hair and a black t-shirt, holding a long kitchen knife in one hand, his eyes blank as he lifts it towards his throat and begins to dig -

“You were afraid,” says a voice that does not come from his mouth, as he slowly slits open his own throat. “But most of all, you were thrilled, and you shouted and rejoiced, drew me and wrote my name, even fucking thirsted after me, hahaha! It was so funny, the power almost made me suffocate! And it was wonderful and warm and I had everything I ever wanted, and that was because of you, little fools, that was all because of you.”

He drops the knife suddenly and the illusion falters.

And he is himself again, panting on the floor of the clinic, hurt by his own reminiscing.

“Love,” he hisses, just soft, to himself. “Love.”

the-weirdest-fan asked: Kind of a random question, but Anti, when you possess someone, can you see his thoughts? Can you just dig through someone's brain to get any information you want or..? Sorry for all the questions, you and your powers are just really fascinating!

Anti quiets a little, drawing himself back up and returning to his inventory.

>Three rolls of bandages.

>One oxygen mask.

>Large box of syringes.

“In a sense, yes, and in a sense, no. It’s more like a feeling. Nothing about thought is explicit, you know. To me, everything just looks like neurons firing, and it comes with this… sensation of thought, I suppose. So if Trickshot was distressed while I was wearing him, I would be aware of that, and I could most likely understand why enough to guess at his thoughts - I turn our gaze to Dok, he feels fear, I guess that he’s afraid his brother will be hurt. And I could actually dig down to memory sensations, if I wanted, and get images and sensations and that sort of thing out of someone’s brain. But then again, you have to be careful with memories. Humans never remember anything quite right. It’s always changed by the way they perceived it, the way they stored the memory, the things they learned afterwards that have warped it in their minds… but for the most part, yes, a person is quite transparent to me when I’m inside their head.”

Anonymous asked: Antiiiiiiiii wHeN wIlL yOu LeArN ThAt yOuR aCtIoNs hAvE CoNsEquEnCeS— stop saying you’ll fix him!!! He’ll end up just like Trick!

“No, you’re wrong!” snaps Anti, looking, for all his talk, a little frightened again. “You don’t understand anything! Dapper’s always been my little pet, ever since I broke him in. Nothing’s going to take him away from me, least of all his own hands.”

For a moment, he softens again, digging peacefully through the backpack. “You know,” he says, almost fondly. “He actually is such a tough little creature, for all that I tease him. You should see him tussle. Even with me, he’s a little ferocity, snapping his teeth and - ”

Anti gasps aloud, dropping the bottle of pills he’d just picked up back into the bag as if it had burned him.

He kneels over the backpack, panting, clutching at his chest.

On the computer screen: >One bottle of Percocet.

Anti sits there for a long time, gripping at his jeans, his eyes clear and blue.

And then he heaves like he’s going to throw up, and turns away from you gagging, trying, without success, to drag himself to his feet.

Anonymous asked: Can't take the blame, can you? Figued as much. You're too much of a coward to face that the damage that's been done to your self-proclaimed family was only worsened when you took them from their old lives. Broke them. Made them into hollow shells of who they were meant to be. The funny part, you know.. Is that you think this eill make you feel like you're important, or worth something. Noboy wanted you so your forced people to. Kind of sad, isn't it? - PF!A

Anti screams aloud, slamming his fist down on the clinic floor. Glitches pierce through the air as well as the camera screen, making the whole house shudder, and you hear scrambling as Blue and Red hide beneath their mattresses in the other room, tucked close together, and they love each other more than Anti has ever been loved by a single thing in his whole life.

Blood spits down Anti’s chin as he shakes.

His hatred is eating him alive.

Anonymous asked: ...Look.. ..I do pity you, you know. God knows I understand having such a terrible upbringing like you did. As much as your actions make me want to hate you.. I don't. I really don't. There's still time to fix all this. ACTUALLY fix all this. You know that. This way of living isn't just hurting the others, but you as well. It doesn't have to be this way. That love the fans gave you was hollow, you know. It doesn't have to be, if you decide to change for the better. -PF!A

Anti is bent over the clinic sink, heaving as blood drizzles down his chin. His eyes are black as starlessness and his arms shake as they struggle to hold him up.

“I don’t want,” he whispers, licking copper from his mouth. “Your fucking pity.”

And his body flickers out of your sight, gone from every camera in the house.

 End Section Two of Chapter Two.

Find the next section here.

[gatesofember]

Frailty and Fortune: Chapter 7

PJO Arranged Marriage/Royalty AU Part 10

Rating: T | Pairing: Solangelo

Prev | Next | AU directory | Read it on AO3 (Recommended) | Arranged Marriage AU Masterpage

Summary: A few months have passed since Prince Nico’s wedding to William of Solace. Even with his husband at his side, Will sometimes feels lonely as he settles into his new life. He misses his home, his family, his friends, and his studies in Venadica. Meanwhile, Nico is uncertain how to help him, awkward about expressing himself, and he wonders if he’ll ever be able to truly make his husband happy. As time goes by and Will continues to feel lost in his new home, Will and Nico must both learn how to make their marriage work.

Will had intended to start working on city improvement plans as soon as possible, but Nico appeared to have other ideas.  After Will returned to the palace, Nico spent the rest of the day and most of the next doting on him.  While the gesture seemed sweet at first, by the afternoon Will found himself so distracted by Nico hovering over his shoulder that he could hardly think, let alone theorize ways to reconstruct the Plutonian economy, so he subtly suggested Nico ought to help Hazel brush up on her fencing.  Nico’s expression fell and Will felt immediately guilty, so when Nico asked if he was being bothersome, Will hurried to explain that he wanted to do some research and that Nico’s presence made it difficult to focus—“because I love you so much,” he said, which provoked a blush and a soft, sweet smile from his husband, and then Nico agreed to give Will some alone time.

Will found Reyna flipping through papers in her study.  He’d never visited her chambers before so he hovered outside the door awkwardly for a moment, holding a large scroll under his arm while he watched the top of Reyna’s head and tried to think of a way to politely announce himself.  Reyna made an excellent friend, but she was intimidating as a soror and advisor.  Will always felt small around her—unless, of course, she chose to dull the sharp, authoritative aura that she normally gave off, but she was selective about the circumstances under which she did so.

Finally, Reyna looked up.  “May I help you with something, Your Highness, or would you prefer to continue lurking in the doorway?”

“Oh,” Will said.  “Uh, yes.  I wondered if you had a moment to spare?  I’d like to talk to you about a few things I noticed in the city yesterday.”

“You mean when you decided to run off without telling anybody and set the whole palace in uproar?”

Will bit his lip.  “Um—” he started, but Reyna gave him a knowing, if exasperated, smile.

“Have a seat, Your Highness,” Reyna said, gesturing to the chair across her desk.  When he did, she folded her hands in front of herself and leaned back.  “I presume you want to talk about the financial state of Divitia?”

“Well, uh, yes,” Will stammered.  “I thought, if you’re amenable, we could discuss some ideas I had for recovery.”

Reyna nodded for him to continue.

“I’ve been looking into Divitia’s aqueducts,” Will said, unrolling the scroll he’d brought on top of the desk to show her a map of the city’s sewage system.  He’d uncovered it from the palace’s archives that morning before Nico had woken up to distract him.  “It’s all horribly dated.  Nothing’s been touched for a decade.  No maintenance, no upgrades—nothing apart from an occasional cleaning.”

“And for a reason,” Reyna said.  “You know what happened a decade ago.”

“Yes, the Scarlet Delirium,” Will answered.  “But the system needs to be renovated.  I didn’t have an opportunity to examine anything while in the city, but I’m sure it’s in desperate need of repairs and I know it’s inefficient.  The streets are filthy, Reyna.  All that sewage not being properly drained—it must be affecting the health of the citizens.  Sanitation and clean water greatly decrease the risk of spreading disease.  Construction would provide at least temporary employment for some of the citizens and jobs in sanitation would offer a more permanent solution, which won’t fix the economic troubles of the people but should somewhat ease them.  We could contract engineers to design a new system.  Venus’ aqueducts are supposed to be incredibly brilliant—perhaps we could implement something like them here.”

Reyna sighed.  “Will, your enthusiasm is admirable, but you need to think smaller if you want to help people.  Venus has the most sophisticated sewage systems in the world.  The Duchess had the entire island updated less than half a decade ago, but we don’t have the funds to build anything like it in even one city.”

“Then what about the Venadican system?” Will asked.  “Or the Phrygian?  I can write to my aunt and Lityerses to ask for the city plans.”

Reyna shook her head.  “A new system is impossible.  The most we can do is repair and give some minor updates to the one that already exists.”

Will looked down at the map of Divitia’s aqueducts.  “I’ll put more thought into it, then,” he said, rolling the paper back up.  “Smaller thoughts.”

“Have you talked to your husband about your ideas?”

Will paused.  “That’s...um...well, no.”  Nico hadn’t seemed very keen on discussing things earlier.  He’d been more interested in distracting Will with kisses and light touches and pretty smiles.

Reyna sighed and rubbed her temple.  “Gods above, then what do you talk about?”

Her tone caught Will by surprise.  “What do you mean?” 

Reyna shook her head.  “Forgive me, Your Highness, I shouldn’t have said anything.  That wasn’t appropriate.”

Will’s frown deepened.  Your Highness?  Just a moment ago, she’d called him ‘Will.’

Reyna pursed her lips when Will didn’t let her relent.  “It’s really not my place,” she said.  “Only, the both of you seem to be building a habit of not discussing things with each other.  Like in Phrygia.”

“But we talked about what happened in Phrygia,” Will said.  “Besides, do I really need to tell him everything?”

It came out sounding more sour than Will intended, and Reyna picked up on it.  “Are you still fighting?” she asked.

“No,” Will said.  “It’s just that I don’t see why I need to report to him so much—or anyone else, for that matter.  After I went to town yesterday, everyone kept scolding Mellie and I.  Why do people need to know where I am or what I’m doing every second of the day?”

“Everyone wants to see you safe, that’s all,” Reyna assured.  “Well—your husband has the additional motive of wanting to know your schedule so that he can put himself in it whenever possible.  He likes spending time with you.”

“I’m just not used to having to report my activities so much.  I used to leave the Sun Palace to explore Phoebus and Delphi all the time, and in Venadica I lived in the city.”

“Phoebus, Delphi, and Venadica don’t have the same level of crime as Divitia.”

“Yes, I noticed,” Will admitted, thinking of his lost coin purse.  “But it’s still restraining.  Almost suffocating.”

“You could tell the Prince you feel that way,” Reyna suggested with a faint clip of exasperation in her tone.  “Just an idea.”

Will frowned.  “You really think Nico and I don’t talk seriously enough?”

Reyna folded her arms.  “I didn’t say that, precisely.  It just seems like there are a few important things that you’ve neglected to mention to one another.”

Will had to admit, they did spend a considerable amount of time kissing or talking about unimportant nonsense.  “Then is there something that Nico hasn’t told me?”

“I didn’t say that,” Reyna repeated, but she didn’t deny it, either.

“Perhaps I should talk to him,” Will said.  “You’re right, after all.  We’re married.  We should talk to each other about these things.”  And if there was something Nico hadn’t told him, Nico might feel better about discussing it if Will opened up to him first.

“I’m going to see Akhlys and offer my assistance in the infirmary again,” Will said.  “If Nico asks for me when he finishes Hazel’s fencing lesson, will you tell him I’ve gone there?”

Reyna nodded.  “Yes, Your Highness.  Leave the aqueduct map here and I’ll look over it.”

Will glanced at the rolled paper in his hands.  “Really?  But I thought you said we couldn’t do anything.”

“I said that you need to think smaller,” Reyna corrected.  “It’s a good idea, Will.  We can’t do it on the scale you’d like, but if you and I do more research, we’ll find a more obtainable solution.  I’ll contact some engineers to hear their initial thoughts.”

Will beamed.  “Thank you, Reyna,” he said, setting the map back down on her desk.  “I appreciate your time.”

“Always, Your Highness.  And good luck with Akhlys.  Maybe this time she’ll be more agreeable.”

“Somehow I doubt it,” Will mumbled, but he thanked her all the same.

Will, as usual, found Akhlys alone in the darkened, dusty infirmary.  The door was only barely cracked open, like she was trying to make the space as uninviting as possible without rendering it unavailable.  Will saw her silhouette shadowed in the back of the infirmary behind the desk, handling a silver instrument and blinking at it with bleary eyes.  Will squinted, but he couldn’t tell what it was.

“What’s that?” Will asked as he pushed the door open and stepped inside.

Akhlys slammed her instrument down on the desk and Will cringed.  He hoped the instrument wasn’t too expensive.  “You again!” Akhlys barked.  “How many times must I chase you off?”

“But I—”

“Out!” she said, standing up and waving her arms to shoo him away.  “Leave!”

Will almost backed into the corridor again, but then reminded himself to stand his ground.  “I thought if we talked a bit more, we might come up with an arrangement that suits both of us.”

“My current arrangement is miserable enough,” Akhlys said as she stormed out from around her desk.  “I do not need men puttering about my infirmary making a mess of things, too.”

Will blinked in surprise.  It had been a while since the last time his gender had caused an issue; healing was a women’s discipline, but it did not actively exclude men.  People generally did nothing more than express surprise at seeing him in a woman’s role.  It wasn’t uncommon for patients to feel more comfortable with a female doctor, but they were usually polite if they requested another physician, sometimes not even speaking up until Will noticed their unease and asked if they would rather be treated by someone else.  Comfort and trust were of utmost importance when treating a patient, so Will considered it his duty to provide that for them.

But Akhlys wasn’t a patient.  Akhlys was a fellow healer clinging to outdated rules of conduct, brushing Will aside because of his sex.  Will was reminded of a few researchers at the Grand Expo who had all but ignored him until they realized who he was—a student of Asclepius and the nephew of the Matestra.  Within the first few days of the Expo, Will had learned to introduce himself as Asclepius’ pupil at the beginning of every conversation so that he’d be taken seriously from the start.

“I understand your apprehension,” Will said, forcing his tone to sound polite.  “But I am a perfectly qualified student of medicine.  I studied in Venadica under Asclepius, and if you like, I can share my research with you and—”

“I do not care!” Akhlys interrupted, now standing so close that Will could see the yellow crust that always seemed to line her eyes.  “I do not want anyone’s assistance, least of all a bastard like you.”

Will felt like he’d been slapped.  People didn’t call him that—not to his face, at least.  Natural-born, yes, but bastard?  Most people wouldn’t dare.

“Akhlys!” roared an angry voice, and Will and Akhlys both whirled around to find Nico in the open doorway to the infirmary, still clothed in his fencing gear and eyes blazing with fury.

Will had seen Nico angry before.  He’d been formally introduced to Nico’s temper during their trip to Phrygia.  But he hadn’t seen Nico angry like this.

“What did you just call my husband?”

Akhlys’ usually pallid face went white.  “Your Highness, I did not mean—”

“Oh, but I think you did,” Nico snapped.  “I demand you apologize this instant.  I will not allow anyone in this palace to speak to my husband that way.”

“Nico, it’s alright,” Will said, trying to sound soft and soothing.  “She doesn’t need to—”

“Yes, she does,” Nico interrupted.  “No one speaks to the Prince’s consort that way.  Akhlys, now.”

Akhlys, Will had thought, only seemed to know two emotions: anger and misery.  But now he realized she also knew fear.  Akhlys’ sunken eyes had grown in terror, her thin body recoiling in fright.  And despite how unlikable her personality was, Will couldn’t help but feel sorry for her.

“I apologize, Your Highness,” Akhlys croaked.  “I don’t know what came over me.”

“It’s quite alright,” Will said.

“It isn’t,” Nico insisted.  “I don’t care how long you have worked here, Akhlys.  I don’t care how many kings you have served.  If you treat my husband this way again, I will see you removed from the palace.”  His hand latched firmly around Will’s wrist and he tugged his arm.  “Come,” he said, pulling Will through the doorway.

Will followed obediently, but looked back at Akhlys as they left, worried in spite of himself that she’d be alright.  Regardless, his chances of developing an amicable professional relationship with her seemed worse than ever.

*   *   *

Only one person, aside from Nico himself, had ever called Nico a bastard to his face, but that had been more than enough to cement the idea in his mind as a child: Nico was a bastard, and that was unforgivable.

And yet, it had been a long time since Nico had last thought of himself as disgusting due to his birth.  He didn’t think he was lesser than anyone else because of it and he didn’t think that it made him undeserving of his title.  Without realizing it, Nico had become more comfortable with the knowledge that he was natural-born, and while Nico knew that he had been improving since long before his engagement, he was also aware that a large part of it was thanks to Will.  After all, Will was natural-born, and Will deserved the world.  How could being natural-born be disgusting?

So when Nico heard the word ‘bastard’ directed at his husband, his temper flared into an uncontrolled inferno.  He knew what it felt like to be called a bastard, to be told that his very existence was shameful, and to be forced into believing that he was worthless.  Nico wouldn’t hesitate to banish anyone to the depths of Tartarus for making his husband feel that way.

From over his shoulder, Nico heard Will’s voice, small and uncertain: “Are you upset with me?” 

Nico slowed to a stop in front of their rooms and turned back to face him.  “Of course not,” he said.  “Why do you think I’m upset with you?”

“You are pulling me.”

Nico looked down at their hands, finally noticing that he’d grabbed Will by the wrist.  He let go immediately, but Will’s sleeve was already wrinkled.  “I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright.”

Nico frowned.  Will kept saying that, but it wasn’t alright.  It wasn’t alright for Akhlys to speak to him the way she had.  It wasn’t alright for Nico to drag him away without permission.

But Will entwined his fingers with Nico’s and led him through the door to their apartments.

“I’m not upset with you,” Nico repeated, closing the door behind himself for privacy.

“Yet it seems like you disapprove of how I handled Akhlys,” Will said as he deposited himself on the chaise in front of the cold fireplace.

“No, I—” Nico stopped.  “Actually, yes, I do.  You can’t let her speak that way to you, Will.  What would you have done if I hadn’t shown up?  Would you have just allowed it?”

Will raised an eyebrow calmly.  “It’s not as though her opinion is particularly uncommon.  I’m not ashamed of who I am, but I do realize that with my parentage being what it is, I was never the ideal candidate for a prince’s husband.”

“You were the perfect candidate for a prince’s husband!  I chose you, didn’t I?  And I did so knowing very well that your natural parents weren’t married.  That at least should be enough for Akhlys to know better than to speak to you that way.  How dare she call you a...a....”  Nico waved vaguely, unable to say the word.

“It’s nothing that I haven’t heard before.”

Nico clenched his fists.  “Who else?  I’ll make every one of them apologize—”

“No one in the palace,” Will assured calmly—too calmly for Nico’s liking.  “I don’t think I’ve been called a bastard since before we were engaged, actually.  It wasn’t uncommon for the families of prospective suitors to either refuse me or offer little in return for my dowry—‘on account of the circumstances of his birth,’ they’d say, if they were being polite about it.”

“Polite?”

“Oh, and Octavian calls me a bastard all the time, but that hardly counts.  No one listens to Octavian.  The point is, I’ve gotten used to it.  It was a bit of a shock to hear from Akhlys, but it doesn’t bother me much.”

“Well, it bothers me!” Nico snapped.  “It’s disgusting.  How could anyone imply that you’re sullied or...or impure?  And what does the marital status of one’s birth parents mean, anyway?  That doesn’t make you a....”  Nico gestured again.

“But I am a bastard.”

Nico felt something inside himself shake and threaten to crumble, like he was ten years old again and Minos...Minos....

It’s no wonder you’re so incompetent, bastard that you are.

Selfish bastard brat!

Your sister may have been a bastard too, but at least she was intelligent.

You’re nothing but a whore’s filthy bastard!

But I am a bastard.

“Stop saying that word,” Nico choked.  “Natural-born.  You are natural-born.  You’re not...that.”

“Natural-born, then,” Will relented, but the hint of exasperation in his tone suggested that he was growing frustrated with Nico.  “And it’s not disgusting.  I thought you didn’t care?”

“I didn’t!” Nico said.  “Don’t,” he immediately corrected.  Why was it that he always said things wrong when he got this way—angry and nervous and too emotional to string words together properly?  “I meant they are disgusting—the people who call you that—not you and not your birth.  I just hate that vile word.  I don’t want anyone to use it on you.”

Will sighed.  “Nico, I appreciate you trying to defend my honor, but—”

“Will,” Nico interrupted, “the Queen Consort is barren.”

The silence that followed lasted only a second, but it boomed and echoed in Nico’s ears for what felt like hours.

He’d said it.  He’d finally said it.  Nico had always intended to tell Will about his biological parentage, and now that Will was his husband, Nico didn’t have to keep the secret from him.  He still felt a sharp, brief jolt of terror that Will would be disgusted and announce he couldn’t love Nico anymore, but that fear was quickly crushed beneath the heel of certainty that Will would not abandon him or begrudge him for being natural-born.  Nico had said it because he trusted Will, he reminded himself.  It would be alright.  After all, he and Will were the same.

“Barren?” Will repeated.

Nico nodded.

Will was quiet for another moment.  Then he said, “That’s nothing to be concerned about.  It’s normal for women her age to stop cycling—”

Nico blinked.  “Wait, what?”

Will tilted his head curiously.  “Haven’t you heard of menopause?”

Nico hadn’t, but he felt fairly certain that Will had misunderstood his point.

“Will, she’s always been barren,” he said.

Will stared at Nico, his head still tipped to one side.  At first, all Nico could read in his expression was confusion, but then the lines of Will’s face began to change—slowly, then all at once.

Will sat up straighter.  “Then you mean...you mean, she’s not....”

Nico ached to hide his face, but forced himself not to look away from Will’s eyes.  “She’s not my birth mother.”

“Oh,” Will said.  “Oh.”

And he fell silent.  Nico watched and waited until the shock in his eyes had dulled just a bit more before he spoke again.

“Will, you can’t tell anyone.  If it becomes known that I’m not the King and Queen Consort’s natural child, the country will go into chaos.  People hate me enough already; they’d love a reason to throw me out of the line of succession.  No one else can know about this.  You understand that, don’t you?”

Will nodded.  “Yes, of course,” he said, his brow furrowing adorably.  Nico wanted to kiss the wrinkles away, but it didn’t seem like an appropriate time.

“You have questions,” Nico observed, gingerly sitting beside him on the chaise.  Will glanced at Nico when he sat down, his mouth opening to say something, but hesitated.

“You may ask anything,” Nico said, weaving and unweaving his fingers anxiously.  “I’ll answer what I can.”

Will wet his lips.  “Can you tell me about your birth mother?  Who is she?”

“Do you recall my governess, Lady Maria?  I’ve mentioned her before.”

Will nodded.

“She was my birth mother.  Before Bianca was born, Maria was one of my mother’s—that is, one of Persephone’s ladies.  When my father and Persephone discovered she couldn’t have children, Maria became...a surrogate, I suppose you could say.”

“How did they manage to keep it a secret?” Will asked.

“When Maria’s condition became too obvious to hide, they said Persephone’s pregnancy had complications,” Nico answered.  “Everyone in the palace was told that she would remain in her rooms and was only to be attended by two of her ladies—Maria being one of them.”

“And the other?” Will asked.

Nico pursed his lips.  “Her name was Marie.  She was Persephone’s half-sister and Hazel’s natural mother.  When I became heir to the throne, I was already fixated on the idea of taking a husband, so if I was to remain childless, my father needed another heir to continue the royal line.  Maria and Bianca died around the same time so with Maria gone, Marie was the best option for a surrogate.  She already knew that Persephone couldn’t have children.”

And Nico’s parents had trusted her.  Why wouldn’t they trust Persephone’s sister?

That trust turned out to be misplaced, in the end.

“And what happened to Marie?” Will asked.  “You speak of her in the past tense.”

“She’s dead now,” Nico answered.  He tried to remain impassive when he said it, but something in his voice must have alerted Will.  Will watched him with a studious gaze, like he was trying to answer a puzzling question, and Nico avoided looking at him directly.

“I’m sorry,” said Will.  “I know that Lady Maria was important to you, but was Marie...?”

“No,” Nico answered.  “Marie—she was...well, that’s another story.”

Memories of that night still tormented Nico’s dreams.  Sometimes, he still woke up gasping, desperately clawing at the invisible hands clamped around his throat.  He still saw the shadow of someone looming over him in his nightmares, reaching down to strangle him in his sleep.  Just last month, he’d bolted upright in bed, clutching his own neck, coughing, gagging—it was a miracle that he hadn’t woken Will.

“Does Hazel know?” Will asked.

It took Nico a moment to remember Will was still asking about their natural birth.  “No,” he said.  “I wasn’t supposed to know, either.  I found out on accident.”

“Accident?”

“My tutor, Minos.  He told me while we were on the countryside.”

Will frowned.  “How did he tell you on accident?”

“He was angry,” Nico explained.  He couldn’t recall why Minos had been so furious at that particular moment.  Perhaps the memory had been lost in the shock of what happened after, or perhaps Nico hadn’t known why to begin with; towards the end of Nico’s stay at his estate, Minos’ temper started to become so easily tipped that Nico had a difficult time keeping track of exactly what he’d done wrong.  Minos hadn’t always been so harsh with Nico, but once Nico found out about the baiting....

“He lost control of himself,” Nico went on.  “He shouted at me and called me a....” He cut himself off, unable to stomach saying the word.  “But he didn’t mean to say it.  At least, not the first time.”

“Nico,” Will said, slowly and deliberately.  “That does not qualify as finding out ‘on accident.’  You do understand how that’s not an accident, don’t you?”

“He was angry,” Nico repeated.  “He couldn’t control himself.”

The lines of Will’s face drew tight and hard in that unforgiving way that always caught Nico by surprise.  “I don’t believe that’s true,” Will said.  “People don’t do things on accident when they’re angry.  They use anger as an excuse to justify themselves.  And you couldn’t have been more than ten years old at the time!  What sort of person says that to a child?”

Nico bit back the urge to argue that Minos couldn’t be blamed.  After all, Nico knew what it was like to be that angry—to feel fury well up inside him so hot that he saw red.  He knew what it was like to lose his grip on himself and fly into a rage, to do and say things that he’d be ashamed of later.  Nico had done it before.  He’d done it to Will.

Nico’s stomach lurched.  No—he wasn’t like Minos.  He couldn’t be like Minos.  He wouldn’t.  He’d never, ever hurt Will the way Minos had hurt him.

“Where is Minos, anyway?” Will asked.

Nico clenched his fists.  “Gone,” he said firmly.

Gone, Nico repeated in his mind.  He’s gone, he thought again, the way he’d practiced.  For nearly a year after returning to Divitia, Nico had stayed up late each night, holding his knees, rocking back and forth, and reciting the words over and over until they were firmly planted in his head.  Minos was gone.  It was over.

Will nodded.  “Good,” he said.  Nico flinched, but Will didn’t seem to notice.  “So Minos knew about your birth.  Who else?  Akhlys would have overseen the pregnancies, I assume.”

“She didn’t,” said Nico.  “My father requested a sororal midwife—your aunt.”

Will raised his eyebrows.  “Artemis?”

“Maria’s first pregnancy happened while Artemis was still a soror in Venadica.  She was sent here when my father asked for a midwife,” Nico explained.  “She became Soror Princepa of Delphi before I was born, but she still answered the call when my parents asked for her help again.  Maria was without a midwife for the first few months, though. Artemis had other matters to attend to in Diana before she could travel to Pluto—she was helping deliver you, actually.  By the time Hazel was conceived, Artemis was the Matestra, the Scarlet Delirium was in its downswing, and I was living on the countryside.  Artemis left Venadica to stay here in the palace under the guise of diplomatic purposes.”

“And I must have already fled Pluto with the other Venadican children, so I didn’t even know she’d left the city,” Will said.  “Did Bianca know any of this?”

Nico shook his head.  “No.  The only other people who know are Reyna and a few of my father’s closest advisers.  Hestia, too.”

Hestia had been there the day Nico found out.  She’d entered Nico’s room to find him crying, and Nico, too distraught to feel more ashamed than he already did, had told her everything.

Will looked confused for a moment, then his expression cleared and he said, “I’d forgotten you were friends with Hestia.  She was a maid at Minos’ estate, wasn’t she?  I always wondered how you came to know each other so well.”

“We looked after each other,” Nico said.  “We had to.”

Had to, from the moment Hestia found the beaten dog hidden in Nico’s room.  Had to, when Nico needed her help smuggling food to Asterion.  Had to, when Minos discovered them and....

Nico looked up and found himself pinned under the gaze of Will’s soft blue eyes, almost crushed by the gentle understanding in them.

“You can tell me anything,” Will said, but he didn’t ask for details.  Nico was grateful.  One day, he’d tell Will everything, but today he’d already said enough.  He could only bear his soul so much before the pain immobilized him.

“I know you brought all this up because of what Akhlys said, but you realize you could have told me any time, don’t you?” Will said.  “If you were trying to comfort me with the knowledge that both of us are natural-born, or if you felt you somehow owed it to me to tell me....”

“No, that wasn’t why,” Nico assured.  “At least, that wasn’t the only reason.  I’ve wanted to tell you for a long time.  And yes, maybe I did think you’d take comfort in the fact that we’re the same, because I know I do.  I was ashamed of it for a long time, but then I met you and...you weren’t.  If you don’t feel ashamed, why should I?  So when I told Akhlys to apologize to you, I wasn’t just trying to ‘defend your honor’ or whatever it was you said earlier.  I think I was trying to defend myself, too.  It sounds selfish, but—”

“It doesn’t,” Will said.  “Not in the slightest.  And it bothered you when I wasn’t as upset with Akhlys as you were, didn’t it?  You wanted me to stand up for myself because then I’d be standing up for you, too.”

Nico swallowed thickly and managed a short nod.  “Maybe being called a ba— being called that doesn’t bother you as much as it bothers me, but my experience with that word is different.”

Will’s head inclined encouragingly.  “Minos?” he asked.

Nico nodded again.

“Then you must have really hated it when I called myself that.”

Nico’s eyes drifted towards the tiled ground.  “I don’t mean to tell you what you can and can’t say—” he started.

Will reached out and placed his hand on top of Nico’s.  “It’s alright,” he assured.  “No, you can’t tell me what to say or not say.  But this?  I can do this for you.  I won’t use that word anymore and I won’t allow anyone to call me it, either.  It’s not like I’m especially fond of it, anyway.”

And then Will kissed Nico, and Nico hadn’t realized how much he needed it until that moment.  He knew Will still loved him, but the physical affection made it feel more real.

Will didn’t care that Nico was natural-born.  He would love Nico no matter who his birth parents were.

“Thank you for telling me this,” Will said.  “It couldn’t have been easy for you to talk about that, but I’m so grateful that you did.”

“I wanted to tell you sooner — almost did, a few times.  But I decided to wait until we were married.  It’s a family secret, and now you’re part of the family.”  Nico didn’t add that he’d also wanted to wait because once they were married, Will wouldn’t be able to leave him.

Well—that wasn’t quite true.  The marriage was unconsummated.  Will could still leave.  Will didn’t know that, though.  He wouldn’t leave if he didn’t know it was a possibility.

Nico’s stomach twisted.  How could he even think that?  Will wasn’t disgusted.  Nico had known that Will wouldn’t be disgusted.  And besides, he couldn’t trap Will in marriage—he wouldn’t do that to someone he loved.  So if Will had wanted to leave him....

It was best not to think about that.  Will would never have left him for being natural-born and it was an insult to Will that Nico had ever worried.

“I trust you,” Nico said, partly to remind himself.  Something about speaking the words out loud solidified them further in his mind the same way the kiss had, allowing him to reaffirm his grip on their truth.  Will had never given Nico a reason to doubt him.  Nico could trust Will.

“And you always can,” Will said.  “I’m your husband.  You can tell me anything.  Happy things, sad or angry things—even simple, unimportant things.  Anything, Nico.”

Nico resisted the instinct to avert his eyes.  Eye contact was hard for him, especially at times like this when he felt uncertain, or scared, or guilty.  Nico trusted Will, but he couldn’t tell him just anything.  Most things, yes.  But not anything.

“But only if you want to,” Will continued, like he sensed Nico’s hesitance even though Nico had tried to hide it.  “I understand that some things are difficult for you to talk about and other things you may rather keep private.  You can tell me anything, but you don’t have to tell me everything.”  Will waited a moment, like he was giving Nico a chance to say something, but when Nico stayed silent, he said, “Anyway, you were right about Akhlys.  That was an awfully nasty thing to say.”

Nico wrinkled his nose.  “It was completely out of line.  Even if I weren’t natural-born, I would have been furious with her.  No one speaks to the Prince’s consort that way.”

“My gallant protector,” Will said, sliding his arm around Nico’s back and kissing his temple.  “What do you say we spend the rest of the day like this?  I seem to have a free schedule.”

“But I thought you wanted time to yourself,” Nico said.

“I did,” Will answered.  “And now I want time with you.  Are you agreeable?”

Nico sighed contentedly as Wills lips brushed over the crest of his ear.  “Yes, I’d like that,” he said, and he leaned into his husband’s side and let the comfortable warmth of Will’s love wash over him.

[sightofsea]

Twenty minutes of walking, two bus stops, and one amicably awkward rideshare later, I arrived back in Zenabe Court soaking wet. I squelched up the stairs, footsteps heavy. If Mal noticed anything, she was either too busy to say it or knew to stay inside. When I opened the door I found Clementine lying in the tub, one hand holding a cigarette and the other holding out a map, no doubt of the underground.

She glanced over at me quickly. "You're dripping on the carpet," she observed.

"/Really/," I seethed. "I hadn't noticed."

She took a drag and set the map down. "I hope your journey wasn't too long," she said.

"Oh, no," I said, slipping off my jacket and wringing it out. "No, no. Once I got out of the river, I managed to find a way up. Turns out I was in Lents. All the way across town. Not a long journey at all."

"Glad to hear it." Her eyes were glued to the map, near orange in the lamplight. "If it isn't the fae at work, then what is it? Something to do with the Underground but I can't..." She turned the map this way and that, as if to gleam some new information, and growled when she came up with nothing. "What /is/ it?"

"Wish I could help," I told her. "But I think I'm going to take a hot shower instead, what with being /pushed into a river/. Yeah, a nice hot shower should do it."

She looked at me, finally. "You're angry."

"Oh, you picked up on that?"

"I had to push you in. People not initiated into the Underground are prohibited."

I took to taking off my socks then, wringing them out over the kitchen sink. "You could have been there when I got out."

"I had urgent research," she stated.

I looked at her, lounging in the tub. "This was urgent?"

Clementine frowned. "In this case, every second is urgent. I don't have time to waste."

I sighed. "Clementine," I started, "a little help, that's all I needed. And maybe a little warning. I mean, if a friend did that you, wouldn't you be pissed?"

"I don't know," she said, shrugging. "Never really had friends."

She had a look, a kind of openness in her eyes. Like she was challenging me to disagree with her. She wanted a fight, she wanted the words "what about me?" to come out of my mouth. But I was angry, and rightfully so, and I wasn't in the mood for feeding whatever facet of her ego she was nursing tonight.

So instead, I finished wringing out my sock and said, "I suppose you're right." I gave her a tight smile. "I'll see you in the morning. Have fun with your research."

I stalked into the bathroom, and glared at the trapdoor above. I couldn't waste anymore time being angry, though. I stunk of sewage, was crusting in weird places, and nothing did sound better than a hot shower, and some rest.

***

The next morning I came out, and Clementine was still in her tub. "Don't you have a crick in your neck?"

"I don't get cricks," she replied coolly. She was studying a book now, I noticed. "There's coffee if you need it."

I turned to the kitchen to find not only the coffee machine on, but a cup set out. I took a hesitant sip--black, one spoon of sugar. Just the way I liked it, and piping hot. I turned back to Clementine, who was no longer reading her book, but looking at me with an arm slung over the tub. "How did you--this was just made, how did you know?"

"I'm a keen observer. And your body clock is the most rigid I've seen," she said, and smiled. It wasn't a clever smile, because she wasn't trying to be smart. It was softer, and it struck something odd in my chest.

I smiled back. "Thank you?"

She went back to her book, looking satisfied, and I went to start making breakfast. In any other setting it wouldn't have been enough, but I knew an apology when I saw one, and with her it didn't feel subpar. It almost felt natural.

We continued to look at the case from all angles--still nothing. The three victims had nothing in common--in a city as small as this they managed to be from completely separate neighborhoods, separate races, mixed gender presentation, they didn't even have jobs in the same general area of service. Clementine yelled out these frustrations as I ate my breakfast, brushed my teeth, and got ready for work, and I yelled my frustrations back. The sooner we could solve the case the better. I wasn't exactly an expert in this yet, but the amount of the dead ends was getting to me, and getting to Clementine as well.

"It has to do with the Jasper," she said as I pulled on my vest. "It has to. Why else would he attack the night I took it on?"

I shrugged. "Might be, yeah. What do you think he would have to do with it?"

"He's always looking to gain something. Power, mostly. He's...hungry. Always." Something dark passed over her. "I just can't seem to /find/ it."

I grabbed my keys and headed for the door. "I'm going to work," I told her. "I'll be back in the few hours. Just don't, uh. I don't know. Get yourself killed, while I'm gone."

"I'll try," Clementine mumbled, staring at the board, and I went to work.

***

Clementine settled loudly into the one of Mal's kitchen chairs. The scent of slow cooked meals and herbs fresh from the soil calmed her, as much as she could be calmed. She tapped her foot against the floor and stared up at the ceiling. Small trinkets hung suspended from nails in the ceiling, rabbits feet and bundles of twigs and flowers that never seemed to wilt. But she did not concentrate on that--instead she looked at the stains from spells gone wrong, the cracked and mottled plaster. Yes, here was something Will had not touched. Here was something free of grief. She hummed.

Mal looked up from her pot. "What?"

Clementine blinked, head turning to Mal "Your ceiling needs repainting."

"I know."

"Then why haven't you repainted it?"

"Well," said Mal, one hand on her hip. Her face wore something like annoyance. Perhaps rage. "Let's consider." That usually wasn't a good start. "Option one: I hire someone. Who do you think is gonna be alright with all of this?" She gestured to the trinkets, the smoke, the various Parts in various Jars.

Clementine shrugged. "Looks alright to me."

"You need to get out more."

"Will takes me out plenty." Something panged in her chest. "Took me out."

"Go out again."

She picked are her nails. "Not interesting."

Mal sighed. "Ok. Well that leads us to option two: I do it myself."

"And why haven't you?"

Mal smiled something seethingly sweet. "You know, as much as I would /love/ to paint my own ceiling, I do find myself a bit preoccupied."

Clementine frowned. "With what?" Mal stared at her. Yes, it was definitely rage now. "What?"

"You are a child for all the years you carry on your back."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Who's been cooking for you? Cleaning for you? Does all your dirty work when you come home in the middle of the night from who knows where? I swear, I do it because I love you, and with Will being--" Clementine waited for her to say it, make it something real, but the word got stuck in Mal's throat. She looked down. Her voice came out wet and ragged. "I miss her too. You're not the only person having a hard time. Just because you were in love her doesn't mean you're the only one grieving her."

/Love/.

This was a subject Clementine had a harder time dealing with. Death was familiar, and mostly inevitable. Clementine didn't have a problem with death or anything surrounding it. Even Will's death. Hell, they could have talked about the inner workings of the bomb itself and it would have been easy territory.

But love? That was an animal Clem had met once, and she didn't expect the mauling it gave her to still ache so tenderly. She wondered how people carried on like this, so ruled by one emotion. She barely withstood it when Will was alive, and now?

Now, well.

Mal was still looking at her. Clementine realized she hadn't responded yet with anything. She swallowed, tried to recover.

"You know I don't do love."

"I know you lie. I lie. It's what we /do/."

Clem crossed her arms and tried to hold back the thickness welling up inside of her. She looked at the pattern of the wallpaper. Begonias. How Mal. "I don't want to lie anymore."

"Me either," Mal stated. "That's why I'm telling you this: I'm sick and tired of your moping. I understand it, but it won't do you any good. Make something for yourself. Make something /of/ yourself. I will support you in any way I can, but I'm not cooking for you any longer. I'm not cleaning for you." She turned back to stirring her pot. "If I have leftovers, however, you are free to a Tupperware. But--" She pointed a greasy spoon at Clem's face. "One of the small ones. And don't be thinking I won't sneak a stray claw or tail in there if you ask too much."

Clementine smiled, but it faded quickly. "I do apologize," she said.

"That's new."

"What I mean to say is...you mean a great deal to me. To have a, um." She sighed. "Will was better with these sorts of things."

Mal smiled. "No she wasn't."

Clementine thought about a face in the dark. /I turned off the monitors. I knew what I had to do./ She thought about the bridge. "No she wasn't." She breathed through her nose, set her legs wide and weighed her elbows on them. She resolutely looked to the floor. "Still. If she were here, I imagine she would say something about, um. You, being a sort of, of mother figure to me, about how I never had one. If she knew anything about that time of my life, she would say that." She breathed in again. "And she would also say something about how you are passionate and caring towards the people you love, to which she would tell me to say something the lines of, um. Of." She looked up. "I'm sorry. Thank you for making me one of those people."

***

Will stood out on the shore. Usually she was too drunk for words, but drunk courage had bested drunk cowardice for once, and the sun shone on her bravely, the beach open and unmanned.

"So," she started, feet waltzing with her words. "Clementine. The thing is, I have liked you quite a lot lately. Not voluntarily, of course. Not that you're not wonderful, but I didn't exactly--exactly, yknow, stumble into being your roommate with the expectation of, oh, yeah, I'm in love. Not that I /am/ in love." She considered that statement. The ocean patiently lapped at the shore. "At least, if you don't want me to be. I certainly don't want me to be, but that's less on you and more on me, if I'm honest. Like, really honest. Because? Like, if I'm honest? My heart is like, warm beside you, and that's great, but when you're gone it's just. Well, it's the worst. Heart all cold. The day, just...ruined, really."

She looked around. Families existed as far off dots along the coastline. All she had here to witness were the harvest picked sun and the sound of the waves. She continued.

"You know, you kissed me. Like, a long time ago. And you tend to forget things from that long ago, but still. It happened. If I was braver--" Will paused. If she had been braver, there were a great many things that could have happened. The mere idea filled her with a mixture of excitement and sadness. "If I had known anything I would've kissed back. But I didn't, I just...thought it was new and interesting and, and dangerous. So I didn't do anything. I wish, though, I wish I could've. God damn, I wish."

She looked out at the sea. "I wish you were here," she said, quietly. She looked down at the glass in her hands and traced the ring of light on the rim. "I wish you were here, instead of off--wherever. Wherever I cannot find you." She finished her circle, then started another. "I miss you."

No one answered. The waves kept rolling. Will knocked back the rest of her drink, stared out at the horizon for...something. Anything. When she didn't find it, she turned on her heels and started her journey back.

[dat-town]

CODE Z3RO | CODE 09

characters: BTS & Red Velvet genre: thriller, futuristic au warning: death summary: The twelve most ambitious and promising university students are welcomed in Choego, the world’s first entirely artificial intelligence-driven city, to compete for five job contracts that could change their life. But what if something goes wrong? What if they get trapped? What if the city suddenly turns against them? Can they find a way out before the countdown reaches zero? words: 4.5k tagged: @philosopher-of-fandoms​

➼ Chapter Index

After Yerim’s cries died down, the silence was deafening. Climbing down the ladder one by one to the dimly lit sewerage system felt like descending to the deepest pits of Hell. Hoseok's horrified expression burnt itself into each of their minds haunting their thoughts as the artificial light shimmered around them. It didn’t take long and total darkness welcomed them as the lights above went out. They had no choice but to hold back their breaths in the awfully stinking odour coming from the pipes and the sewage disposal area under them. But nobody whined because they knew they had no other choice but to follow this route. They couldn't go back nor sit around waiting for help to come. Their only chance for survival was going forward.

When Yoongi's feet reached something concrete with his next step, he let go off the ladder tentatively, not knowing what to expect in the dark. Tapping the ground under his feet, the metal's clanking sound echoed around them.

"The ladder’s end is here. Come down carefully," he spoke up voice firm even though he was panting hard only a few minutes prior. His asthma decided to act up at the worst time possible, so he was thankful to the group for not leaving him behind in such a state. He felt sorry for Hoseok who hadn’t had any help and it had brought his end. But he felt even worse for the loved ones of the fallen fellows, for their parents, friends and lovers. They had no chance to know they were waiting for them to return home in vain.

And if they all died who would tell them the truth about this killing city?

It made him rethink his choices and decisions, edging him to apologize to his mother whom he treated unjust just because she didn’t support his choice of major. Ever since he had said no to becoming the family’s third-generation lawyer, their relationship had gotten worse. It seemed like they weren’t able to understand each other’s point of view. His mother had even called this Smart City Project a waste of time and looking back, she might have been right. He shouldn’t have turned his back on her without any word of goodbye. If he ended up dying in this hell on Earth, he knew he would regret his childish impulsiveness. But oh, youth always thinks death cannot reach it.

Yoongi narrowed his eyes trying to make out what was around him down there somewhere half-between the ground and the trap door. He heard water running and some machines working from under but other than that he only heard the noise of others' climbing. He reached for the wall searching for a switch to light up the space around them again but he found none. It probably used automatic sensors but they seemingly didn’t work. So it took awhile but when his eyes got somewhat used to the dark, he saw fences on two sides on the metal bridge they were standing on and he spotted a red flashlight on the other end of it quite far away.

"What is that noise?" Namjoon asked once he set his foot on the metal too right after his girlfriend. Soon they all gathered there, still shaken and uncertain because of the darkness fallen upon them. They could only see silhouettes, so telling each other apart was easier by the voices.

"I think the sewage water is getting cleaned under us. I read in one of the marketing documents we got that the used water is recycled for watering the plants but it needs to be filtered and thoroughly cleaned before adding it to the hose pipes. I think it's the sound of the extruding machine," Jungkook enlightened them as he accompanied Yerim to the fence and helped her wrap her fingers around the metal to make sure she kept herself steady.

"And why is it so hot and humid? It won't explode, right?" Wendy chirped in, worry evident in her usually confident voice. After elevators broke down and doors got shut without warning, they couldn’t be sure of anything.

"They boil and cool it too before reuse, so I think it's that," the young engineer answered and Yoongi was glad at least someone had thoroughly read the materials they had gotten. It came handy now because he liked to know what kind of problem he was facing before starting a fight.

"So it means, be extra careful! I will go forward first on the bridge but make sure to get a grip on the fence," Yoongi gave the orders and this time even the limping Taehyung had nothing to say.

The IT guy strictly followed the red light ahead which seemed to be the sign of a door to another room. Behind him he heard some unsure steps following him and Yerim's faint voice asking for water. He guessed that with her, Wendy and her boyfriend also lagged off because the noises sounded from farther away as he got closer to the light. It was hard to tell how much time passed, it could have been minutes or hours for all he knew but they walked for quite a while and the little group split into smaller groups. Only one person could keep up with him who led the row and Seulgi's quiet, shallow breathing gave his heart a rest. At least he knew he wasn't alone when he reached for the door handle.

It was Joohyun followed by the slow-paced Taehyung who closed the line, hand sweaty as she wrapped it around the cold fence. It was nerve-wracking, barely been able to see anything, much less their teammates ahead of them. Once or twice she even though they lost them when the faint echo of steps were suppressed by the sound of sewage water running below. The alarming silence over the noise and the lack of human contact, even just hearing or seeing them, also ticked her nervousness off. Maybe that’s why she slacked back staying with Taehyung whose steps were remarkably loud due to his injury. Sticking to him meant she knew that at least someone was close by and oh, she wanted nothing less than to stay alone.

Taehyung pulled one of his legs but he refused any further help. It must have been because of his pride or competitiveness. He didn't want to seem weak. As someone who studied psychology over the years it wasn't hard for Joohyun to guess why. He was distrustful towards anyone since he probably never received love so unconditional to make up for the loss he encountered.

"How is your ankle?" she spoke up not letting the silence stretched too far between them.

"What? Suddenly you care?" Taehyung rasped out, voice full of spite. Was it how he reacted to every question that was intended to be kind? With full of suspicion? Joohyun just wanted to be nice but now she wasn’t so sure anymore. 

She gritted her teeth, not letting the hurt be heard in her tone as she answered. 

"If you're being a deadweight and hold us back, there was no point in saving you over Hoseok," she remarked just as dryly even though her throat closed up speaking so harshly about the dead boy like he was nothing else than an asset to choose. It would have been a lie to say she had liked Hoseok even just a bit, he had been too whiny and he’d had not much use but he had been a human being and nobody deserved to die such a cruel death. No one, not even Taehyung despite his impossible personality.

"I never told you to save me or to wait for me. I can make my way out of here alone. I don't need any of you idiots," he scoffed, all too mighty if you asked Joohyun. 

"Keep telling yourself that," she rolled her eyes but in the dark it couldn’t have been seen.

She wasn't too keen on boosting the Marketing guy's ego though he really did seem like the type who would have survived all kinds of obstacles and could have even lived on the surface of ice just fine. But it wasn't a game made to be played alone.

"Anyways, you owe me. Don't forget that," she reminded him firmly.

She liked fairness and believed the universe always found its balance. So she knew she might get punished one day for leaving Sooyoung alone in the dorms like that but back then she had no idea what her actions meant. But knowing the consequences, would she have acted differently? Would she now? And what would it tell about her? She knew very well that emergency situations brought out people's inner selves. The way they behaved when something life-threatening happened made all the difference between the selfish and the selfless ones. But she also knew that her unsaid alliance with Taehyung could make or break whether she survived, so she intended to make the most out of it. Did it mean she was self-absorbed, only caring about herself? Or rather that she knew her way in this harsh, cruel world?

“Whatever,” Taehyung scoffed with a low grunt as they continued walking forward in silence. The boy's panting became louder as they kept going, the long tunnel seeming never-ending after the first dozens of steps. So it happened between one frivolous moment and another, it might have been Joohyun's carelessness or just a bit of misfortune, but in the end it didn’t matter, the result was all the same: she lost her balance and fell.

She could tell that the metal was slippery under her slippers but it was too late by the time she realized the consequence of her misstep. She slipped on the water – that probably Yerim had poured out accidently with her shaking hands when she had drunk – and it would have been fine if they weren’t walking on a bridge over nothing. As her bottom landed on the cold hard ground she automatically tried to find her balance again by placing her hands down. But one of those found nothing and ended into the emptiness. She misplaced the edge of the bridge in her mind and it seemed to become a deadly mistake on her part. As her hand found no concrete there the force of momentum tilted her body towards the void. As she fell she barely had time to blindly grab on the metal pole of the fence. Gasping, she clutched onto it with sweaty hands, forehead fitting close to the material of the bridge while her legs dangled in the air.

"What the fuck was that?" Taehyung, who only heard the fall, questioned as his steps halted. The darkness brought paranoia out of even him. 

"I'm down here, Taehyung, help me up," Joohyun forced her mouth to form the words even though she felt like she was wasting her precious energy needed to hold herself even by just breathing too loudly.

"Oh so you need that favour back already?" he mocked her way of asking for help as he knelt down towards the source of her panicked voice. His knees hit the metal hard, hand following the handrail.

How could she be so stupid to let go, he must have thought but Joohyun knew very well that in the moment of danger most people didn't act rationally, they let their instincts take over just how she wanted to lessen the impact of the fall by putting her hands down. The possibility of the bridge's edges being all too close didn't even occur to her in that moment. The same as she didn't even care about her pride now when it was a matter of life and death.

"Don't be an asshole and pull me up," she growled at the boy who didn't seem to understand the severity of the situation. It wasn't him who hung over an unknown depth after all and it wasn't his hands that kept slipping from the metal that even scarred her palm.

"What's the magic word?" he hummed all too calm and Joohyun swore she would punch him in the nose once she was safe. How did he dare to play with her life as if she was nothing more than a puppet on strings?

But maybe for him that's all she was. 

"Please… please," she panted, eyes brimming with unshed tears.

She really didn’t think she could hold on for much longer. Though according to her studies her body should have kept on until her last breath because during a crisis like this the human body and mind was capable of things otherwise it wouldn't have thought possible. The saying about holding on with tooth and nails really made sense now. She never wanted to live more than in that moment.

"Alright," Taehyung sighed heavily as if it was such a generous decision of him and he reached down with his free hand.

As his fingertips grazed Joohyun's shoulder she grabbed onto him with one hand. Once she was sure he held her firmly enough she let go off the metal pole in order to push herself upwards on the bridge. However, the boy wasn't too much of a help. He didn't made any effort to lift her, pulling her into safety, he just held her and let her struggle.

"You know, you were so close to the top 5," he remarked in a scornful tone which confused the girl for a moment, just one before she put the puzzle pieces together. But by then it was already too late and she felt herself fall into the abyss.

Her scream got cut off as she disappeared in the hot sewage water waiting to be processed. Yet the betrayal hurt more than the burn against her smooth skin. It hurt even more because despite what she had been taught about human behaviour during her academic career, despite all the signs she should have noticed, she made the stupid mistake of trusting and laying her life in the hands of the wrong man.

"Did you hear it?" Frightened, Yerim whipped her head backwards and clenched onto the fence even firmer.

"It sounded like a scream," Namjoon whispered but his premonition didn't receive objection nor agreement. They continued their walk towards the door that was now opened thanks to the ones at the front. Through the gap between the frame and the door it shed suspicious red light over the bridge, painting the shadows of the duo standing by the threshold onto the dark metal. Their figures appeared side by side but while the boy tried relentlessly to figure out why the bracelets stopped working, the girl just stood there, almost unmoving.

Kang Seulgi had always been an odd girl. Quiet and smart. She had been often picked on by her former classmates and since she’d had a hard time making friends, there had been nobody to protect her from the bullies. No matter how uncomfortable a task was, saying no wasn't her cup of tea. She liked to follow what she was told because the route taken like this was deemed safe in her eyes. But in Choego only she seemed to know where to go in order to stay alive. If only she dared to speak up. But wouldn't it be too late by now? Wouldn't the deaths of those who were left behind be blamed on her? The burn on her hand was already enough of a reminder about her mistakes. Under the red light it was even angrier burgundy and she hissed as she touched the wound drawing Yoongi's attention to it. Feeling the burn of the guy's gaze on her skin, it prickled and she gulped, remembering the way he looked at her when the fire alarm went off.

"You should put some cream on it before it gets infected," Yoongi advised quietly and the girl's head snapped towards him. Her long brown hair fell into her eyes, covering her sight.

"I don't have any on me," she whispered not daring to meet his eyes. It was useless to pretend dumb and ask what he meant by it, it was obvious he had it already figured out. Just how he should have known that they weren't in the position to run to pharmacies with every little injury. They had just left the hospital which was probably their last chance to get medicine of any kind. But she was okay with the burn mark, it wasn't the first time it happened anyway, she was used to scars, be it physical or mental.

Yoongi hummed at her answer since he couldn't offer any other kind of remedy either. He turned his head, looking into the distance, narrowing his eyes to make out the silhouettes of the groups of four and two following them. Seulgi looked the same way, hoping they would arrive soon, so they could get going, out of this dark and inauspicious place but they were still quite far. Probably because of the scared Yerim and the limping Taehyung.

Seulgi thought they would wait for them in silence, letting it cover them like a warm blanket on wintery days but Yoongi didn't turn back to his bracelet and his computer. He kept his eyes on the abyss but his words were directed at her without a doubt.

"You caused the fire drill, didn't you?" he asked but it didn't seem like he needed an answer. He was confident enough but his voice was just slightly stern. it didn't feel like he was calling her out on it or that he blamed her for any misfortune it might brought. He sounded almost understanding as he added: "You're a smoker."

"I–" Seulgi's already faint voice broke off as she tried to find an excuse. Gosh, this is just what she wanted to avoid, being questioned about her bad habit. She just didn't think it would be by the IT guy.

Taking notice of her self-conscious silence, he looked at her, searching for her eyes under the ominous lights and for the first time since she set her foot into this chaotic place, Seulgi truly felt like she wasn't alone.

"It's okay, I know the signs," Yoongi probably intended to reassure her this way, implying that he only figured it out due to his knowledge but Seulgi couldn't help but wonder what kind of sign it was. Was it the smell of smoke, the burn itself or perhaps the twitch of her fingers when she didn't get nicotine for too long? And how could he know? Was he also one of those who reached for this kind of drug to forget about their problems?

As if he heard her internal question, lowering his head he answered it without pushing her limits.

"My dad was smoking too," he said, tone changing too abruptly to end the sentence properly.

Until lung cancer took him away, the unsaid confession hung between them like a string waiting to be cut off by the Moiras.

Seulgi didn't know what to say to that, so she did what she did best: she stayed silent, words not reaching the tip of her tongue, not even when the steps were getting louder and the arrivals asked whether it was just the two of them.

"Finally! I thought we would never make it here. What's over there?" Namjoon grunted as he peeked over the threshold into the red room. It was lack of any helpful device but it had four doors with different numbers written on them on small metal tags. It meant nothing for most of them, just a random combination of five digits of numbers and characters.

"Nothing really. We should wait for the others and decide which way to go. I don't want to hear Taehyung whine because he didn't get the chance to butt in the decision," Yoongi remarked bitterly and the snort coming from the younger engineer guy signalled that he wasn't the only one whose nerves had enough of the Marketing guy's quirks.

"Do we have to stay in the dark for long?" Yerim spoke up with voice trembling like ravaged leaves falling during windy autumn months. Poor her, it hadn't been long since she lost her brother and now she was forced underground with an obvious fear of dark. However, she held on, she didn't give up or hold them back and Seulgi respected the young girl for her strength.

"I hope not. These passages branch throughout the island like a web of spiders, so I bet there are multiple ins and outs," Namjoon stated, although he was also confused because of the long journey they had to take without seeing any exit. What kind of architectural decision was it by the founders? But sooner or later they should have found a drain grate above them, leading to the surface... right?

"Can anyone tell how much time we have till the next zone shuts done?" Jungkook asked looking around as his own digital devices acted up with no wifi around. His question was reasonable since none of them wanted to walk into a trap.

"It's a few minutes past midday," Wendy checked the analog watch she wore on her wrist. "Gosh, time really flew by. How many zones can still be active?" She wondered aloud because it was around ten when they got into the hospital at the cost of the countdown's accelerating.

Being good at Maths, it didn't take too much for Seulgi to calculate the correct answer. From midnight to ten in the morning ten zones shut down, Two hours passed since which meant four more down at the current speed. But the number of the active ones didn't matter as long as they were within the safe border of these.

"There must be a pattern in the order they close off," Jungkook claimed and the quiet girl were surprised how talkative he became suddenly. Maybe it was Yerim's presence, that he had to constantly murmur comforting words to her.

"If I were the researchers I would have left a path leading to the main computer last, so if we head that way we should be okay," Yoongi added to their discussion and humming, everybody agreed with his reasoning. However, it didn't help their case too much without the knowledge of the exact arrangement of the city.

"Sure, but how we know where that is?" came the logical question from the tall boy beside him but Yoongi wasn't taken aback by it.

"We don't know. But she does," he pointed at Seulgi. Dumbfounded, the girl could only blink, not understanding what he meant.

"What?"

Yoongi tilted his head, watching her from under his dark lashes. There was a challenge in his voice and fire in his eyes as if he told her to step up for herself, to show them she wasn't just a gray little mouse following the horde.

"You said before we were safe. How did you know that?" he asked and oh, it all made more sense now. She didn't think anyone heard her.

"Fucking finally! I thought I was going crazy," an angry voice snapped closeby and everybody turned towards the lilac haired guy catching up to them.

However, he was alone no matter how hard they tried to gawk behind him in the dark. It stirred up uneasiness in their insides.

"Taehyung, where is Joohyun?"

The fear was all too clear in the Med student's voice as she asked about the eldest girl. Her question however was followed by deep silence. It had cuts and claws, scratching their throats, hungry for their dread. The pause before Taehyung's answer was like the quiet before the storm, safe that it didn't bring rain and thunders but guilt and grief afterwards.

"I don't know how it happened. She was in front of me in one moment and then she fell down in the next. It all happened so fast. I could barely see anything," the guy said in an emotionless voice and for some reason it sent shivers down Seulgi's spine. Even if there was no dead corpse in front of their eyes, they all knew what it meant.

There was something very wrong about this place. With every passing moment she hated being here more and more. She hated that they couldn't let themselves mourn properly because they had to focus on their own survival. It felt like losing a part of their humanity.

"Let's get the fuck out of this zone before we all die here," Taehyung passed by them, rushing into the red room, only to stop a few meters before the four doors. He didn't know either which one would have been the wise to choose.

None of them knew, except for one.

"Seulgi..." Yoongi's deep but smooth voice reached said girl's ears and curiously she looked the boy in the eyes. She had no idea what to make of the hope he saw in those dark orbs. "You know where to go, right?" he asked, almost pleading and Seulgi was more than surprised. She was used to being invisible, going unnoticed by others. But how much did he notice about her?

Bashfully, she cleared her throat, not knowing what to do with all that attention on her.

"The numbers, there are all over the city... they are zip codes," she spoke up, voice a little rough and too quiet to be heard at all through the roaring of the water. "The first number is for the region, like one for Seoul postal codes. The second and third are the number of the districts... the zones here as we called them. So the route behind each door is probably follows the sewage system heading towards those districts."

Always searching for something wrong in everything, of course, Taehyung snorted.

"And how do you know that?"

"She's an architect, don't you remember?" Yoongi answered instead of her, shielding the girl with his body from the lilac haired guy's rage. He didn't seem to be in a good mood at all and the IT guy wasn't planning on letting him blow their chance now. Annoyed and angry at the world, the Marketing major didn't realise it wasn't him with the upperhand in this situation.

"Then can she tell us why the hell we had to walk kilometers in the dark?"

"We crossed the canal from beneath," Seulgi replied in a quiet voice staring straight ahead, gaze burning holes in the back of Yoongi's black shirt.

Astounded oh sounds filled the sphere and for once Taehyung had no more annoying questions either. Their non-appointed leader turned to the girl inquiring further.

"Which way should we go now?"

She pointed at the door with the label 522NN.

" I... I saw a map and the numbers are increasing in a spiral, the last one is twenty-four, it's between the twenty-third and twenty-second zone," she explained and for the first time in forever she experienced the impact of her own words as everybody moved forward to the 22th district of Choego.

[freedomartspress]

Three Poems — Tongo Eisen Martin

Kick Drum Only

All street life to a certain extent starts fair

Sometimes with a spiritual memory even

Predawn soul-clap/ your father dying even

Maybe I’ve pushed the city too far

My sensitivities to landfill districting and minstrel whistles/

White supremacist graffiti on westbound rail guards 

-all overcome and reauthored

The garbage is growing voices

Condensed Marxism 

modal gangsterism for a warrior-depressive

Underpass in my pocket

because I am a deity

or decent bid on the Panther name 

revolutionary violence that chose its own protagonists 

or muted stage of genius

A merciful Marxism        

Disquieted home life 

Or metaphor for relaxing next to a person 

Who is relaxing next to a gun

I stare at my father for a few seconds 

Then return to my upbringing

Return to the souls of Ohio Black folks

Revolution is damn near pagan at this point

You know what the clown wants? The respect of the ant. 

Wants a pen cap full of bullets

Wants to see their ancestors in broad daylight

I am not tired of these rooms; just tired of the world that give them a relativity 

My only change of clothes prosecuted

The government has finally learned how to write poems

shoot-outs that briefly align…

that make up a parable

white bodies are paid well, I posit

do white men actually even have leaders?

all white people are white men

white men will only ever be metaphors

all I do is practice, Lord

A rat pictures a river

Can almost taste the racial divide

Can almost roll a family member’s head into a city hall legislative chamber

Knows who in this good book will fly

I have decided not to talk out of anger ever again, Lord

Met my wife at the same time I met new audience members for our pain

We passed each other cigarettes and watched cops win

A city gone uniquely linear

Harlem of the West due a true universe 

 “I will always remember you in fancy clothes,” my wife said 

so here I sit… twisting in silk ideation

  My rifle made of tar

My targets made of an honest language

This San Francisco poetry is how God knows that it is me whining 

Writing among the lesser-respected wolves

Lesser-observed militarization

Dixie-less prison bookkeeping/I mean the California gray-coats are coming 

lynch mob gossip and bourgeois debt collection

I mean, it’s tempting to change professions mid-poem

in a Chicago briefing, a white sergeant saying, “blank slate for all of us after this Black organizer is dead.”

standard academics toasting two-buck wine at the tank parade

bay of nothing, Lord

  nuclear cobblestones, gunline athleticism  

and the last of the inherited asthma

children given white dolls to play with and fear

facial expressions borrowed from rich people’s shoe strings

I can hear hate

And teach hate

And call tools by people names

And name people dead to themselves

no one getting naturalized except federal agents soon 

carving the equator into throats soon

I’m sorry to make you relive all of this, Lord

pre-dawn monarchy 

friends putting up politician posters then snorting the remainder of the paste

minstrel scripts shoveled into the walls by their elders

my children sharpening quarters on the city’s edge

For these audiences

I project myself into a ghost like state

For these gangsters, I do the same

every now and then, we take a nervous look east

Sleep becomes Christ

Sleep starts growing a racial identity

do you ever spiral, Lord?

has the gang-age betrayed us?

be patient with my poems, Lord

So much pain

there is a point to crime… 

There has to be if race traitors come with it

 Lord, is that my revolver in your hand?

Better presidents than these have yawned at cages

Have called us holy slaves

Filled the school libraries with cop documentaries

Baby, I don’t have money for food

I have no present moment at all

/

I Do Not Know the Spelling of Money

I go to the railroad tracks

And follow them to the station of my enemies

A cobalt-toothed man pitches pennies at my mugshot negative

All over the united states, there are

Toddlers in the rock

I see why everyone out here got in the big cosmic basket

And why blood agreements mean a lot

And why I get shot back at

I understand the psycho-spiritual refusal to write white history or take the glass freeway

White skin tattooed on my right forearm 

Ricochet sewage near where I collapsed 

into a rat-infested manhood

My new existence as living graffiti 

In the kitchen with

a lot of gun cylinders to hack up

House of God in part

No cops in part

My body brings down the Christmas 

The new bullets pray over blankets made from old bullets

Pray over the 28th hour’s next beauty mark

Extrajudicial confederate statue restoration 

the waist band before the next protest poster 

By the way,

Time is not an illusion, your honor

I will return in a few whirlwinds

I will save your desk for last

You are witty, your honor

You’re moving money again, your honor

It is only raining one thing: non-white cops

And prison guard shadows 

Reminding me of

Spoiled milk floating on an oil spill

A neighborhood making a lot of fuss over its demise

A new lake for a Black Panther Party

Malcom X’s ballroom jacket slung over my son’s shoulders

Pharmacy doors mid-slide

         The figment of village

                     a noon noose to a new white preacher

Wiretaps in the discount kitchen tile

-All in an abstract painting of a president

Bought slavers some time, didn’t it?

The tantric screeches of military bolts and Election-Tuesday cars

A cold-blooded study in leg irons

Leg irons in tornado shelters

Leg irons inside your body

  Proof that some white people have actually fondled nooses

That sundown couples 

made their vows of love over   

opaque peach plastic

and bolt action audiences     

Man, the Medgar Evers-second is definitely my favorite law of science

Fondled news clippings and primitive Methodists 

My arm changes imperialisms 

Simple policing vs. Structural frenzies

Elementary school script vs. Even whiter white spectrums

Artless bleeding and

the challenge of watching civilians think

     “terrible rituals they have around the corner. They let their elders beg for public mercy…beg for settler polity”

“I am going to go ahead and sharpen these kids’ heads into arrows myself and see how much gravy spills out of family crests.”

Modern fans of war

    What with their t-shirt poems

    And t-shirt guilt

And me, having on the cheapest pair of shoes on the bus, 

I have no choice but to read the city walls for signs of my life

                                                                                     /

The Chicago Prairie Fire

First, I must apologize to the souls of the house

I am wearing the cheek bones of the mask only

Pill bottle, my name is yours

Name tagged on the side of a factory of wrists

Teeth of the mask now

Back of the head of the mask now 

        New phase of anti-anthropomorphism fending for real faces

Stuck with one of those cultures that believes I chose this family

I am not creative

Just the silliest of the revolutionaries

My blood drying on 

   my only jacket

just as God got playful

the police state’s psychic middlemen

Evangelizing for the creation of an un-masses 

An un-Medgar

Blood of a lamb less racialized

or awesome prison sentence

Good God

Elder-abuse hired for the low

dog eat genius

Right angle made between a point

On a Louisiana plantation

And 5-year old’s rubber ball 

3 feet high and falling

like a deportee plane 

to complete my interpretation 

(of garden variety genocide) 

I am small talk

about loving your enemies

A little more realistically

About paper tigers 

And also gold…

I need my left hand back 

I broke my neck on the piano keys

Found paradise in a fistfight

Maybe I should check into the Cuba line

Watching the universe’s last metronomes

some call Black Jacobins

Just wait…

These religions will start resigning in a decade or two

Some colorfully 

Some transactional-ly

In a cotton gothic society

Class betrayal gone glassless/ I mean ironically/ my window started fogging over too 

Wondering which Haiti will get me through this winter

Which poem houses souls

Which socialist breakthroughs

Breakthroughs like ten steps back

Then finally stillness

Stillness

Then stillness among families

a John Brown biography takes a bow

I’m up next to introduce Prosser to Monk

I remember childhood

Remember the word “Childhood” being a beginning 

Scribbling on an amazing grace 

I rented this body from some circumference of slavery

Remember being kicked out of the Midwest

Strange fruit theater

Lithium and circuses

Likeminded stomachs 

The ruling class blessing their blank checks with levy foam…

                            with opioid tea 

Sentient dollar bills yelling to each other pocket to pocket

Cello stands in the precinct for accompanying counterrevolutionaries 

My mother raised me with a simple pain

A poet loses his mind, you know, like the room has weather

Or first-girlfriend gravity

Police-knock gravity 

Mind-game gravity

Or revolution languishing behind 

The sugar in my good friend’s mind

“The difference between me and you

Is that the madness

Wants me forever”

A pair of apartments

Defining both my family

And political composure

Books behind my back

Bail money paved into the streets

Playing:

Euphoria

Euphoria

Cliché

Bracing for the medicine’s recoil

Sharing a dirty deli sandwich with my friends

Black Jacobins

Underground topography

Or grandmother’s hands

Psychology of the mask now

Teeth of the mask again

—

Originally from San Francisco, Tongo Eisen-Martin is a movement worker and educator who has organized against mass incarceration and extra-judicial killing of Black people throughout the United States. His latest curriculum on extrajudicial killing of Black people, We Charge Genocide Again, has been used as an educational and organizing tool throughout the country. His book of poems, Someone’s Dead Already was nominated for a California Book Award.

[handeaux]

Cincinnati’s Persistent (And Smelly And Leaky) Outhouses

By the 1860s, nearly 200,000 people called Cincinnati home. Most of those inhabitants were packed into the downtown basin between the river and the surrounding hills, and all of them had to poop.

At the time, indoor plumbing was almost nonexistent. Sewers were an expensive innovation just beginning to catch on. Most Cincinnatians relieved themselves in unheated outhouses tucked away at the back of the property where they lived, and all of those outhouses perched over a deep and smelly pit known as a privy vault. The situation was every bit as disgusting as you can imagine. The Cincinnati Commercial Tribune [23 May 1859] opined:

“We have time and again warned the public of the danger accruing from dilapidated out-houses, beneath the worm eaten floors of which yawn the disgusting receptacle of a privy vault. Hardly a week elapses, that we are not called upon to chronicle some accident arising from the insecurity of these dreadful pit-traps, which should be subjected to the periodical examination of some competent person.”

In fact, there was such a competent person and his name was William Clendenin. He was Cincinnati’s Health Officer, and he had the happy profession of inspecting the city’s privy vaults. The Cincinnati Gazette [30 April 1866] carried Clendenin’s report to the city’s Health Commission, in which he noted:

“About 830 privy vaults have been inspected; and up to the present time nearly 50 per cent of all those examined were either full and emitting noisome odors, or needed repairs and cleaning.”

In other words, most of Cincinnati’s privy vaults leaked raw sewage onto the ground, into the street or, worst of all, into neighboring houses. One such vault afflicted Bernard O’Brien, living near the intersection of Sycamore Street and Eighth Street. He brought suit against his neighbors whose privy vault was in bad repair. According to the Gazette [26 February 1868]:

“It is alleged that the contents of the privy vault run into the plaintiff’s cellar, causing an intolerable nuisance.”

The Commercial Tribune estimated that someone died about once a week by falling into a privy vault. The old newspapers are full of such incidents, often involving children who fell to their doom. Men suffocated from the fumes while cleaning or repairing vaults. Sometimes drunks leaned a little too far over. The worst disaster in this region occurred in 1904 when nine young girls fell into a privy vault and died at Pleasant Ridge School.

As loathsome as Cincinnati’s privies were, few people knew any alternative. People were used to out-houses and found them amusing. George M. Henzel, writing in the Cincinnati Historical Society Bulletin [Spring 1982] nostalgically recalled a fair amount of humor:

“To start with, as on the farms, the toilets . . . were out there. Many were locked and a key given to each tenant. A frequent cry was, ‘Mama, throw down the schlussel,’ schlussel, being German for key. [Out-houses] were usually in groups of two or three—that is, separated on the top, but not on the bottom. A devilish kid once hid, quietly, in one until the next one was occupied. And then with a rolled newspaper, reached under and whacked the bottom of the occupied seat. The scream could be heard for a city block. And the catch on the door had to be replaced. The victim probably suffered constipation for the rest of her life.”

By law, Cincinnati’s privy vaults were deep. The law required a minimum of twenty feet but, if the excavation had not reached sand or gravel at that level, needed to be six feet deeper. Commercial pits, like those attached to factories and businesses reached even further underground. For example, the privy vault at the Bremen Street police station was 60 feet deep.

Even so, the vaults filled up and needed to be emptied from time to time. The entrepreneurs who engaged in this repulsive occupation were euphemistically known as the “night-cart brigade,” driving their “honey wagons” from privy to privy. The Cincinnati night carts were leaky and odiferous and trundled over cobblestone streets slopping unimaginable filth with every bump. Where did they dump these loads of excrement? Usually into the Ohio River or, if they were lazy, into the Miami Canal. Sometimes, they hauled their foul cargo a couple of blocks away and just dumped it into the gutter.

Even after the city began installing functional underground sewers, few people used them. According to Geoffrey Giglierano, writing in the Cincinnati Historical Society Bulletin [Winter 1977]:

“By 1870 when Cincinnati had a total population of 216,238, there were only 671 officially recorded house connections.”

Twelve years later, there was still room for improvement. In 1882, a sewer inspector named W.H. Baldwin visited Cincinnati on behalf of the United States Census Bureau. Mr. Baldwin spent six weeks studying Cincinnati’s growing sewer system and found it very impressive. On his way out of town, however, he left a warning, as reported in the Commercial Tribune [27 January 1882]:

“Mr. Baldwin reports that the sewerage of Cincinnati will compare favorably with that of any other large city, but he announces the rather startling fact that a plague spot is generating in the heart of the city, from the fact that in the large area extending from Broadway to Freeman and from Court to the Hills with a population of 80,000 people, only about 30,000 use the sewers for house drainage, and the water closets of the remaining 50,000 being sunk in the ground only the liquid deposit is absorbed, leaving the solid matter to accumulate to such an extent that it is only a question of time how soon ‘earth-poisoning’ and pestilence will arouse the authorities to the fact ‘that something must be done.’”

With the city’s population rising above 275,000 and the city’s water supply becoming ever more suspect, you might think that the city would agree “that something must be done.” Not so.

If you dare, visit the Better Housing League collection at the Public Library to view some truly offensive toilet facilities photographed between 1916 and 1920. More of the same can be found at the Library of Congress photos, where you can see photos Carl Mydans took during the 1930s for the U.S. Resettlement Administration.

Surely, you claim, Cincinnati got rid of outhouses by the 1950s! Again, not so. Dr. Floyd P. Allen, Associate Secretary and Director of Research for the Public Health Federation in Cincinnati told the Cincinnati Enquirer [6 June 1952]:

“A typical family living in Cincinnati’s basin occupies two rooms, uses an outdoor toilet with other families, has no hot water or central heating.”

Well into the 1970s, the rest stops along Ohio’s interstate highways were just elaborate outhouses built atop privy vaults.

[architectuul]

Form Follows Flow

Ooze architects were founded in 2003 by Eva Pfannes and Sylvain Hartenberg. They are based in Rotterdam and work internationally for different municipalities, property developers, arts and cultural institutions and private clients. 

Eva Pfannes and Sylvain Hartenberg at the Sitio Burle Marx presentation in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil | Photo © Rodrigo

With Eva and Sylvain we discussed how they combine understanding of natural processes with technological expertise either in temporary art works or regional urban strategies. The cyclic closed-loop processes found in nature are the foundation for each intervention of Ooze’s work.

Ooze (üz) is a soft deposit on the bottom of a body of water, a marsh or bog that results from the flow of a spring. Let the water flows begin.

---

What is a role of an architect today?

Sylvain: There are many different levels of practicing architecture. The future architect is a mediator, integrator of social, built and financial processes. The role of the architect is expanding and becoming linked to financial issues, to heal specific community or social context and remediate broken urban fabrics.

Eva: In the past lots of project strings happened separately. There architect, developer, landscape architect, engineer, water engineer was separated but with the climate changes we need to integrate all experts together and make solutions that works. If we separated it, many cities prove the social or financial suffering.

In which sense visualize the processes?

Eva: To visualize the processes means to visualize the unbuilt for. As working with water, we could say that Form Follows Flow. These flows in urban environments are mostly hidden under the ground. The more modern society has become the more hidden are its processes. With all the question how can we live more sustainable and in harmony with the planet, we need to visualize and understand those processes and how we can work with them. That’s where we also see our role to visualize processes and then use them to connect them to many complex parts.  

Diagram visualization for the project The City of 1000 Tanks. | Source © Ooze

In a way you need to invent your own approach? Like your system-thinking on the practical base?

Sylvain: Both of us have a more standard (European) German and French education but also studied in Bartlett UCL London where we learn to work with the narrative and process. The hybrid between these two is what we are doing in our practice now. We try to address much bigger and important issue and to bridge and question what is really needed in specific situation.

So, it depends a lot about the education?

Eva: When we start working on an art piece with Marjetica Potrč, we start with the intact research of the context. This way of working we developed intuitively. It was not something that we learn in school but part we learn by doing. Right now, we are working on an urban strategy and implementation project The City of 1000 Tanks in India where we very much getting into the financing of projects.

Between Waters in collaboration with Marjetica Potrč. | Photo © Hans Blossey

A simple diagram was created in a real scale on the location. | Photo © Bas Princen (up) © Roman Mensing (down)

How you deal with the project funding?

Eva: We can take the example of the Rio de Janeiro, where we were very much self-driven by the idea if there is possible to realize a project because there is no sewage system, especially on vulnerable parts of the city. We were driven by the idea that it must be possible to integrate nature that this locally becomes the treatment of the polluted water. After four years of investigations research production of pilot projects and events, we finally understood that we could not operate outside the system of public works. Although those services are not provided in the zone we were operating in, when we talk about water and sewage we need to get engaged with the public realm. Tendering processes are protected, concessions are given after a long time, like ten years in advance. Innovation in this area is incredibly difficult. To find funding as well is very long term.

How can you survive?

Sylvain: Only when you are supported by the government program or heavy weight stakeholders. That’s the case of the project in India with the Dutch Ministry of the Foreign Affair as a client. In such way you have access to financial mechanism and you can deal with the big scale reality. In the project of Rio we were pioneers, supported only by the Dutch Creative Industry with no political anchorage nor local financial support except for the cultural institutions we partner for the various phase of the project.

Can a small-scale art project become a learning process?

Eva: Of course. With the given budget we realized that we become the clients and the contractors. In such way we take the risk but then you can also execute it with no one in-between. You learn how to lead it, so the learning process is not only for the users but also for the creators.

Diagram of The Pond Club in King's Cross London. | Source via © Ooze

How do you incorporate the natural environment into the urban areas?

Eva: The participatory process especially working with nature is very context related. You need to the people to make something that works for them and it is very important to listen before you come up with ideas.

Sylvain: In all our recent projects you can see how all our thinking is conceived by disturbing processes. As the eternal investment is driving the world, we kind of intrigue this crazy jungle. That makes our principle and activities dealing with the social.

When nature becomes a part of the planning process, how do you deal with unpredicted?

Eva: Look for example the Pond. The client wanted us to sign the contract where we agreed that the landscape would be beautiful. We declined this very subjective impression. Instead we took a part of the landscape and start to work as a contractor for the wild plants on the site. We started to interact with the client. In the begging was the earth, later the plants grew and created a new wildlife. It is important to communicate the narrative and people need to understand that nature cannot be always the same and predicted. In the case of the project of the Kings cross pond club, people for example would come back every two weeks to check the changing landscape.

The realization of The Pond Club in King's Cross. | Photo © John Sturrock

What is engineered nature? What is a difference between a natural and constructed wetland?

Eva: When we mentioned constructing wetlands people were thinking about a lake. Natural wetlands are everywhere where water meet the land. Many places of our cities used to be wetlands as floods are specific and can enrich the water and soil with oxygen, which then removes polluters from the water. The wetlands can clean the water and with engineering this you make a controlled environment. For example, the volume of water in the Pond could take care exactly of 163 swimmers per day. That is what nature can deal with. The same for a constructed wetland, a certain area of it can take care of the sewage waste of a certain number of people just by using and guiding the natural processes which exist in nature already.

The changing nature of The Pond in London. | Photo © John Sturrock

Sylvain: If for instance we would have put more mineral filters then we could change the volume of the water and the surfaces of filters. Nature reaches the goal so you need to understand these processes and replicate them.

What is important in a partnership with the local community? How do you create trust?

Eva: As for example on Agua Carioca we went into communities where we had connections. Somebody introduced us to the community. The next were interviews. We were listening to the people, which makes people empowered as this in favelas doesn’t happen very often. People were extremely aware of the environment because it was so close to them. The next step was invitation to the events. You come back again and again and again. That builds trust.

The excursion in the community of the Agua Carioca. | Photo © Rodrigo

Sylvain: For the project development is also important the identification of the spokesman in community.  

What about the trust in the commercial locations?

Eva: Yes, the Pond was not in the slum but in the middle of London. As everybody had access to the project, the community embraced it. They formed the group, which came up with the petition to keep the pond signed by 5000 people. From this number 1500 people left online message and 300 people talked about love.

Are your interventions systems of disobedience (it is not necessary to use chloride in water as the human body reacts to water)?

Eva: Our systems are about empowerment in a positive way. It is giving people the tools to understand the processes and deal with them. Project Between the Waters with Marjetica Potrč was a diagram of the water sewage treatment. Every part was visible, colorful and understandable. At the end we engage the people into trusting the different steps of natural base solution processes which manages to treat sewage and render it drinkable. the people could see all the steps and engage in this cycle by drinking the water at the last step of the filtration process. They could see and perceive the steps from urine to drinkable water, and that is what they would drink. This is how simple it is, it is the same how you treat the water. It is disobedience but also empowerment because you understand how simple is to get off the grid. A political act how to show people to live off the grid.  

[csnews]

Our super-bacteria spreading to Puget Sound otters, orcas

John Ryan - November 26, 2018

A leafy little tunnel runs through the undergrowth along the Black River in the Seattle suburb of Renton: an otter trail. It’s in hidey-holes like this that river otters leave detailed evidence of human misdeeds. Just downstream, in the Duwamish River, droppings left by river otters reveal toxic PCBs and other industrial waste. Here, in a woodsy city park where the Black River carries runoff from nearby subdivisions and business parks, otter droppings contain our antibiotics and the super-bacteria that they can generate.

Bacteria that resist antibiotic drugs are becoming more widespread in our environment. Last year, researchers reported finding 35 kinds of multi-drug-resistant bacteria in the exhaled breaths of killer whales off the San Juan Islands. Wildlife biologist Michelle Wainstein, working with Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo, has been combing riverbanks along the Black, Green and Duwamish Rivers to find the defecating and socializing spots known as otter latrines. (Before leaving evidence for science, otters often congregate and even do a bouncy little move with their back legs that researchers call a scat dance.)

“At all of the field sites down in these urban areas, we have found strains of E. coli that are resistant to various antibiotics,” Wainstein said. Bacteria in otter scat from the Black River otter latrine flourished despite exposure to ampicillin, gentamicin, tetracycline, minocycline and sulfaoxazole, according to Wainstein's preliminary findings. Discarded or overused antibiotics can help disease-causing bacteria evolve new defenses.

Sewage treatment plants are usually effective at getting rid of bacteria — that’s their main purpose — but they fail to screen antibiotics and other pharmaceuticals from reaching otters or other aquatic organisms.

“Our waste ends up going somewhere,” Wainstein said. “And so they get exposed to our antibiotics.”

About a third of all antibiotics prescribed to humans are unnecessary or prescribed incorrectly, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Antibiotics are heavily used in livestock, too, often to promote growth, not treat disease. About 70 percent of medically important antibiotics are sold for use on livestock, according to the nonprofit Consumers Union.

A Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife report found Virginiamycin-M1, an antibiotic widely used on livestock, in native bay mussels at all 18 sites around Puget Sound where the researchers had submerged cages of the mussels as living pollution meters.

“They’re little sentinels,” Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist Jennifer Lanksbury said of the filter-feeding mussels. “A canary in a cage.”

Last year was the first to see a decrease in the use of antibiotics for livestock, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Consumer groups welcomed that news and credited chicken producers’ efforts to reduce the routine use of antibiotics. Yet beef, pork and turkey producers use more than ten times the quantity of medically important antibiotics to produce a pound of meat that chicken producers do, according to Consumers Union.

The resistant bacteria probably don’t do any more harm to wildlife than regular bacteria would. It’s almost unheard of for wild animals to be treated with antibiotics, though scientists did attempt to do so last summer in an ultimately unsuccessful effort to save the life of an ailing young orca known as J-50. The much bigger risk is that these super-bacteria could find their way back into humans or livestock, and our life-saving drugs wouldn’t work on them anymore.

“Then we have no way to combat them,” Wainstein said.

Each year in the United States, at least 2 million people get an antibiotic-resistant infection, and at least 23,000 people die, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“Anyone handling crab or fish, if you stick your finger, you could get exposed to a resistant strain,” said National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration microbiologist Linda Rhodes, who has studied the microbes found in resident orcas’ exhaled breaths.

“Humans are definitely putting pathogens that we’ve selected for resistance in the environment,” she said.

“Bacteria itself could come from leaking septic systems or stormwater runoff from streets,” Lanksbury said. “Human waste, pet waste, farming practices.”

Whenever a heavy rainstorm overwhelms sewer systems, untreated, bacteria-laden sewage floods directly into local waterways. Rhodes said efforts to replace impervious surfaces like pavement with more absorbent surfaces could help reduce bacterial pollution.

“If you can slow the water down, it can snag a lot of particulates, particularly bacteria,” she said. Once detained in a patch of soil, pathogens that thrive in our bodies often have a hard time competing against the soil's own microbes. Other researchers are now trying to see if restoring underwater habitats like eelgrass beds might help stem the tide of bacterial pollution into Puget Sound.

[brokenmagxcarchived]

Freelance Writing and Investigative Projects: A Case Study

        On Being a Freelance Writer: september 16th. malinda may, therapy session #26. when prompted, arthur spoke about a train of though. a poetic tribute to a sense of uselessness. in response, malinda suggested writing it down. ‘ it’ll keep you GROUNDED. you can look back on it and reflect more, and feel obligated to reflect on yourself and your feelings rather than simply running away from the truth. ’

        at first, he struggled to find something to write about. his long nights staring at a blank screen kept him feeling lost. his name. the date. the weather. it was useless. nothing held his mind for longer than a second. always too much, all at once. or too little, spread over weeks of running around. his old police habits kicked in, surveillance reports still etched in his skin. he wrote about his day methodically and brought it into one of his sessions to show miss may.

        she, however, was not impressed. ‘ this is not you. this is the work you’ve buried yourself in. tell me about yourself. tell me about those feelings you keep locked in your heart. when you close your eyes, what do you see ? ’

        miss may, i see a war, he wrote to her. the sky is bleeding red. dry soil soaks it up and grows beneath it the veins of a tainted city. flowers bloom just to burn and be buried under this blood-soaked dirt. it swallows me up. i sink into the ground slowly, like a dry cherry wine, i am grazed by a bitter thickness. a chaos in the underbrush. i breathe it in. i am chaos. and i bleed, i taint, i grow, i die.

        a sense of relief followed him after that day. he began to follow his heart, writing pages of poems on the endless nights that gripped him. poems turned into stories, stories turned into journals. pages and pages of literature. he left his book on a coffee shop counter one day in haste, and the editor of a small local newspaper picked it up by chance. it was fate, perhaps. the man looked him up and called him over. ‘ i have your book, ’ he said. ‘ i want you to write something for me. ’

        a mix of his experience at professional reporting and creative mind came to play. he began writing reports on local stories, as well as poetic pieces for artsy columns. six months in and he made a small reputation for himself. an aspiring novelist with an eye for journalism and a heart for people. poems that touch others, and stories that need to be told.

        currently, he works on stories for local and national newspapers, usually for bi-weekly or monthly projects. occasionally he’ll be contracted for long, drawn out reports on bigger stories - either independently or in collaboration with other in-house journalists and editors. he puts out poems on local newspapers and magazines on the weekends ; it helps keep him open to other people instead of closed in and shy ( or scared, malinda may say, of other people hurting him ).

        however, he doesn’t write under his real name in order to keep the spotlight off of his life. instead, he has created pen names based on his name and the names of his parents. it is thought that his parents names were used to keep them close, as well as cope with what they had done to him.

KNOWN PSEUDONYMS:

A. ANASTOS.

AAN. ASTOS.

J. ANASTOS.

ANA. STOS.

ART. ANASTO.

JIM. ANASTO.

A.A. / A.J.B. / A.J. / A.J.A.

        On Being a Private Investigator: crime is not a thing you can run away from, and for arthur, his trained eye for the suspicions of others leads him down dark rabbit holes. four months into professional journalism and he was back in a police station, submitting evidence and assisting an arrest. at first, it was small crimes. theft. arson. juvie. things sprouting from the few true crime stories he would be hired to write. after all, the police life had been over years ago, and a decade of lingering FBI work was put to rest. but he was not someone to watch another get hurt.

        he was TOO GOOD at noticing the signs. smelling danger. already snooping for leads on stories, he fell further into finding the dirty sewage under city roots. it wasn’t hard for searching to turn into investigating, and investigating to turn into answers. then it spread, word of mouth, to folks too scared or too tired to run by the police again. cold cases, missing persons, lost items and stolen property - he couldn’t say no when someone asked for help. and even if they didn’t ask, he would still volunteer, under a guise - an alias - assisting the unassisted.

        so he created a set-up. writer by day, PI by night. discrete. careful. where only those who dug deep enough could sniff him out.

        AND IT WOULD BE A LIE to say he didn’t miss it. watching. waiting. snatching the man red-handed. he won’t chase it full-time ; NO, that was a younger man’s dream, when he naively thought that scars could be scrubbed away. but he will lend a hand. because it was DANGEROUS to put himself in harms way ( with what little control he had on powers so foreign to him ), but even more so WRONG to let others perish in his absence.

[yellowcanna]

Humanity’s Strongest Nanny

Summary: If anyone told Levi that he would find a full-time career in baby-sitting some rich bastard’s spoiled brat a year ago, he would shove a rifle up their ass and pull the trigger.

He’s gonna murder Hanji.

Protagonists: Nanny Levi, young Eren

Genre: Comedy, Family, Possible fluff

Rating: T

Author: Canna / Yellow Canna

Status: Ongoing

Chapter 1 - 6 Years Old

"Where did he go?"

The thumbing sound of footsteps echoed down the dark corridor.

"He's got to be around here somewhere!" The man leading the group said through gritted teeth as he adjusted his night vision goggle in attempt to see through the shadows in the far distance. The men around him were observing the area cautiously with weapons clutched in their hands—ready to fire at any given moment.

"Sir!" A bearded man suddenly called as everyone turned to see him pointing at something on the ground.

The leader shoved away his men and knelt down to see some black stains on the cracked concrete. He wiped his gloved hand over the sticky fluid, rubbed his fingers together before bringing it up to his nose for a sniff.

The moment he caught that familiar metallic smell, a cruel smirk lifted his lips.

His eyes followed to where the black trail was leading towards and nearly laughed at their prey's stupidity.

Before coming down here, they've studied the blueprint well. They've memorized every nook and corner of this hellhole. The idiot had ran himself into a dead-end. He made a few hand gestures in the air and immediately his men spread out with rifles and guns pointed towards the dark hallway.

"Well, well, well, to think the infamous Rivaille would come to this kind of end!" The leader snickered as his men began to march forward in an organized line—movements completely synchronized. With each step they take, the sound of their footsteps would thunder in the darkness and shook the entire building.

The leader walked behind the line, keeping a safe distance with his men acting as barrier while continuing to throw out words of mockery. "To be betrayed by your own informant! How stupid!"

As the group close in on their destination, their fingers began to tighten on the triggers, ready to pull the moment their target comes into view.

"Look how far you've fallen! The entire underground knows who you are and where you are! There's no place for you in this world anymore!" The man laughed hysterically as though it was the best joke he has ever heard. "Number one hitman?! Don't make me laugh, Rivaille! You don't deserve being called number one! The number one is mine! It was always mine!"

The moment the men took another step, they all froze in shock as they stared at the end of the hallway that had become clear to their vision. There, sitting against the wall, was a man. He wasn't just any man. He was one of their own—a comrade they thought they had lost in the earlier battle.

He was the second-in-command in the operation.

He sat there; eyes wide and unblinking as he stared at them with his mouth wide open. His white shirt was stained by the same dark substance they had been trailing. They could still see some flowing of the wound through their goggles, adding to the tiny puddle under where the man lifelessly sat.

"What's wrong?" The leader asked when his team had stopped. Since he was standing a bit further back, he was still unable to see the end of the hallway.

"Number one?" A husky voice suddenly snorted, sending goose bumps crawling over the man's skin as he quickly whirled around with his gun raised. His men hastily did the same, looking all over the place as they aimed their guns wildly around them—searching for a target.

Out of nowhere, a couple of cylinder objects were dropped right in the center of their formation before an explosion of light overtook the darkness.

The men screamed as they shut their eyes in pain.

No one saw a petite Asian male walking out of the group, dressed the same as everyone else as he removed his night vision goggles, revealing his closed eyes. He pulled out a rectangular package from his pocket and placed it down by his feet.

"You're not even fit for the role if you can't even tell there's an extra member on your own team."

With his eyes still closed, he walked around a corner. Pressing down on the button in his left hand, the entire building shook as explosion blasted through the hallway like a torrent of flames.

The raven haired man ignored the heat of the flames licking at his back as he walked up the stairs, eyes still closed yet somehow able to avoid all the obstacles in his way. It was as though he was able to somehow see with his mind as he moved through the building until he finally reached the surface.

It was when the cold wind brushed again his cheeks did he finally opened his eyes to the starry winter sky.

Rivaille stared at the head of the sun that was already peeking out in the horizon. The light irritates his eyes, but he didn't look away. Despite having lived for so many years, the man realized that he had never properly looked at the sun like this before. Soon, the construction workers will arrive and demolish the building behind him—erasing all traces of the battle that had occurred in the rundown museum.

Feeling warm fluid dripping from the tip of his fingers, he glanced to his shoulder to find that his blood had seeped out of the makeshift bandage again. He clicked his teeth in annoyance, but didn't bother with it.

Right now, his priority is to get out of here first.

The moment he took a step forward, a sense of danger suddenly rushed through him. Without even pausing to think, he ducked behind a car as bullets pierced into the ground of where he once stood. Then another bullet shot right through the outer shell of the car he was hiding behind, hitting right into the fuel tank.

The man wrinkled his nose when he caught the heavy scent of gasoline. This car is completely unusable now.

"Tch…the bastards even called in snipers." He cursed, looking down at his right leg that couldn't evade in time and was pieced through. He ripped off the fabric of his sleeve, using it to quickly bandage his leg before ripping off the side mirror of the car. He held the piece of mirror up, using it to reflect the buildings on the other side of the car. From the location and angle of the bullet holes left on the ground, he was easily able to pinpoint which buildings and levels the snipers were hiding in. And from the amount of bullets that were aimed at him, he'd say there's about five of them.

He looked around and found that the nearest place he could run to was a narrow alleyway. It was just on the other side of the road. While it wasn't far, it was enough to get him killed before he could even get half way there.

He huffed, pulling out a pack of cigarette to found that he only got one left. He snatched it up with his lips and lit it up with his lighter. He took a deep breath before breathing out a puff of white smoke.

Then, with a flick of his fingers, the cigarette flew into the air, creating a smooth ark over the car before landing right into the puddle of gasoline that was leaking out of the fuel tank.

Seven seconds ticked by before the car suddenly blew up before the snipers' eyes.

Shocked by the sight, they can only watch as pieces of the car were blown apart from the force. None of them noticed the car door that was blasted across the street, nor the petite figure that had slipped out from behind door and right into the alley.

Rivaille landed with a pained grunt, but he gathered himself quickly, using the wall as support to pull himself up. The right side of his clothes were burnt off and his skin suffering second-degree burns. However, that matters little to the Asian. His right side was pretty much useless now, so adding some burns wouldn't make much difference.

He limped his way through out the narrow passageway until he found the lid of a sewer. He swore under his breath. Sewers are far from sanitary. Even if all these assassins aren't able to kill him, whatever diseases living down there definitely could. Unfortunately, he doesn't have much choice right now. It was either die here, or later in some garbage dump. He chose the latter. If he was to die, he rather it be from his own stupidity than by someone else's hand. He stuck his finger into the hold of the lid, grimacing at the amount of germs he was getting on his skin as he pulled it open.

With one last look around, Rivaille disappeared into the darkness as the lid fell back into its proper place as though it had never been touched.

As the sun slowly rise into the sky, the citizens of Shiganshina greeted yet another new day.

People walked about the street, completely carefree and oblivious to the battle that had taken place in their city. The workers arrived at the old museum and began the demolish process as scheduled. They put out warning signs all over the street, making sure no one could get near as the building began to crumble, burying the charred bodies of men beneath the earth—never to see the light again.

Even as the night fell once more, the city remained lively and full of lights. A petite man sat in the dark alleyway as he stared at the giant Christmas tree in the distance.

To the happy couples walking about, it was another year of celebration.

To the hitman however, it was just surviving another year.

No…perhaps he wouldn't survive another year.

He lost too much blood…to the point where remaining conscious was all he can do. Not to mention with all these open wounds, he's certain he had at least picked up one or two deadly diseases. He also wasn't wearing much to protect himself from this chilling weather either. The only thing that would provide him the slightest bit of warmth—his lighter—was completely used up navigating through the sewage.

"Wah! It's snowing!" The excited scream caused the raven to turn to the source of the light beyond the shadows where a woman was waving her arms up at the sky with her boyfriend laughing beside her.

The hitman looked up and indeed saw snow fluttering down from the sky. Letting out a small huff, he leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes. For the first time since he could remember, he slept. Not a five minute nap, but a full length sleep that shut away all of his senses and leaving himself vulnerable to the world around him.

As time slowly passed, the night fell into silence once more.

The people were gone, tucked away in the safety of their home as the light of the Christmas tree disappeared, leaving nothing but darkness behind. The only thing left was the tiny little snowflakes, drifting down from the sky as they covered the raven haired male like a thin sheet of blanket.

"Mommy! Daddy!"

A shrilling voice rang next to his ear as the raven haired man's eyebrows twitched.

"Over here! Over here!"

The irritating voice continued, buzzing like an annoying fly as the hitman slowly parted his eyes. His vision was blurry, but he could make out a tiny figure jumping up and down next to him, waving at something in the distance. When he shifted, some of the snow that had gathered on his body fell off.

That caught the tiny thing's attention as he turned, bright green eyes meeting steel grey ones.

Rivaille squinted, trying to focusing his sight until he made out the wide, smiling face of the boy.

"You're pretty!"

Those words caught the man by surprise as his eyebrows twitched. Never in his twenty years of life had anyone ever told him such words before. Usually pretty wouldn't be a description people use on him.

However, the moment was broken when the boy spoke out his next words.

"I found you, so you're mine now!"

"Fuck off." Rivaille hissed weakly. His voice was hoarse and even cracked a little, but it was enough to get the message across.

At first, the boy had a look of disbelieve, obviously his demands have never been turned down before. His cheeks puffed up as he stomped his feet like a cliché pampered brat.

"You're mine!"

"…Are you stupid?"

"You're stupid!" The boy shouted, angry tears brimming around his eyelids. "I'm gonna tell daddy!"

As the boy was turning around, Rivaille caught the sound of car engine approaching from the distance. He looked to the boy who had ran out of the alley, heading towards the other side of the street where a man and woman stood, surrounded by some men in fancy black suit.

"Daddy!" The boy shouted as tall man with rounded glasses turned just as the screeching sound of tires resonated through the air.

The hitman didn't know what possessed him. He didn't even realize he still had this much strength as he flew out of the alley, grabbing the boy by his hoodie with his better hand and flung the brat right into the glasses wearing man.

As the force of the car shattered the left side of his ribcage, Rivaille looked back into his life and found how empty everything has been. Ever since the day he was born, it was nothing but a battle of survival. Every step of his life was paved by the bodies of the people he killed. He never once regretted his choice. He killed because that's what he must do to survive. However, as he had gotten used to killing, he began to feel numb of everything else. There is no thrill or fear when he goes after a target. It was just a job after all—a daily life thing for him.

Day after day, it was always the same. Kill someone, get the money, kill more people, get more money. An endless cycle over and over…

Perhaps this was what he had always been waiting for. Perhaps all this time, he was living just for this moment. The moment where the cycle would finally break, bringing this mundane game to an end. But of course…being the world's number one hitman and the most wanted in the underground society, nothing ever goes Rivaille's way.

He didn't know if he should blame his ridiculously strong vitality or some shitty snot-nosed brat that doesn't understand what no means.

"As you can see, Mr. Rivaille. My son has taken quite a liking to you."

"No shit." Rivaille retorted as he lay in the small, single bed wrapped up in white bandages with multiple IVs injecting all sort of substances into his body. Whatever's going into his veins, Rivaille can be certain that it wasn't anything good judging by how unnaturally numb his body felt. His right hand and leg were in casts with his left limbs chained to the bedpost by handcuffs. He stared at the older man with his right eye—his left bandaged up thanks to the car that slammed into him.

Now that his head is completely clear and his vision no longer blurry, Rivaille recognized exactly who the smug looking man standing before him.

Grisha Yeager.

In the government society, people known him as an accomplished doctor who owns the state's largest hospital.

However, in the underground, he was a scientist running multiple facilities around the world researching and performing illegal human experiments. He was a complete madman, but his skill was something many people in the underground sought after.

"Work for me as my son's caretaker or I could hand you over to the people after your head. The choice is yours."

Of all of Rivaille's life, that must be the most ridiculous demand he had ever heard…and he had heard a lot. He didn't even need to think to know what this man is after. He may say it's for his son, but the look in the man's eyes clearly lust for power.

Power that only Rivaille could give him.

That was what everyone in the underground wanted. With someone as skilful as Rivaille, he became a dangerous entity. Many mafias tried to get him to join their family, but the hitman turned every one of them down. Due to that, he quickly became wanted world-wide. It was simple really. If no one could get him, then they would destroy him before he could turn his guns towards them. They would use him when they could and destroy him the second they get the chance.

That was how he ended up here, because a certain shitty four-eye gave them that chance.

And now some shitty four-eye doctor thought he could control him just because he was injured a little bit more than normal.

"What makes you think you're in the position to strike a deal with me?" Rivaille asked as a dangerous glint flashed by his eyes. A veteran would instantly be able to pick up the bloodlust he didn't even bothered to hide, but Grisha Yeager was no veteran. He bet the man never even shot another person before. All he does was conduct experiment on people who can't even fight back.

Then again, if he was as smart as they say, then he wouldn't even think of controlling Rivaille when so many before him—all powerful individuals—had failed.

"You seemed to be misunderstanding your situation, Mr. Rivaille—!"

Without even waiting for the man to finish, Rivaille suddenly bolted forward. The handcuff on his left wrist broke apart through brute strength as he snatched one piece of the broken handcuff and pointed the jagged edge of the metal against the man's delicate throat.

Immediately, guards rushed into the room, all of them armed guns that looked brand new, as though never have been fired before.

Rivaille snorted as he kicked Grisha off his chair before cracking the knuckles of his better hand.

It literally only took him ten seconds.

The guards Grisha had hired might have been pros, but being bodyguards for so long and kept away from action, they have grown sluggish. Rivaille didn't know what kind of life they led before hired by Grisha, but in front of the number one hitman, they were all amateurs.

"So…" Rivaille nudged the barrel of the gun against Grisha's temple. It was a little something he had snatched from one of the guards before throwing him out the window. He sat on the edge of the bed, sucking in a deep breath of the cigarette clasped between his lips before nudging it to the corner of his mouth and breathed out a stream of white smoke.

The man's head was trap under his foot, trembling and spluttering words that he didn't even bother trying to understand. He simply enjoyed the sight of what the charismatic and technically powerful man was reduced to.

Rivaille had seen too much of these kinds of people. These are the people that hides behind others and talk big but when real power stood before them, they could do nothing but coward.

It was utterly pathetic.

He thought about killing him. The man had attempted to threaten him after all, and Rivaille doesn't take threats lightly. He also has no qualm on killing the most influential man. He was already wanted in the underworld, adding in those tax leeching police hardly makes any differences.

But then, Rivaille remembered the tiredness that had been eating him away for some time now. The boredom he felt when he finishes his target and his growing lack of motivation. That was how he had fallen into that trap in the first place.

"…Let's make a deal." Rivaille smirked. It was just a spur of the moment, but Rivaille didn't think too deeply into it. After all, when he gets bored, he can just massacre everyone and leave. "I'll take on that babysitting position of that bratty kid of yours. For that and in exchange for your life, you're going to do me a little favour."

"I-I'll do anything…!" The man whimpered when Rivaille grinded his foot against his head, pulling some hair out of its roots and further pushing the man's face into the marble tile.

"Put up a notice for all the underground to see. Tell them Rivaille has died under the hands of your men. It shouldn't be too hard for you to get me a doppelganger and implant my DNA into the body right?"

The man instinctively tried to nod, but when he found that he couldn't because of Rivaille's foot, he spluttered his words out. "Y-yes, yes!"

"Good." Rivaille removed his foot. His lips lifted in a faint smirk as he slowly rolled out a tiny capsule hidden under his tongue. The moment Grisha tried to get up, a pain prickled the side of his neck. He raised his hand only to find something small and cold sticking out of his skin.

"W-wha—?!"

"You won't die, relax." Rivaille huffed at the paleness of the man's face. Now that he took a closer look at him, the man already seemed to have aged ten years compared to when the hitman first saw him after waking up.

"That's just a special type of bacteria created by a certain acquaintance," Rivaille bit out the word there, "of mine. They're perfectly harmless until mating season, which happens early spring—around March. The types I've given you are all females. I have the males. Get the picture now?"

As pathetic as Grisha is, he is a smart man and was immediately able to put the pieces of Rivaille's words together. The man gritted his teeth as he glared at Rivaille with both hate and fear as he took in the information. As a scientist, he had never heard of such bacteria before. It has to be a bluff—

"Whether it's a bluff or not, you'll find out when the time comes."

"What do you want? I said I will do as you—"

"It's just a little precautious. Don't worry. As long as you don't plan on turning against me, I have no reason to kill you. Who knows? Maybe we'll get along in the future."

With that, Grisha's fate has been sealed as the dark cackle of the devil rang next to his ears.

A week later, the name Rivialle forever disappeared from the underground.

Humanity's strongest hitman has been killed. Many large organizations secretly let out a breath they had been holding for years. Rivaille's name that has been sitting on the top of the chart was finally removed and replaced by another. With the biggest threat to all under-grounders gone, their society continued to function as normal.

Within a month, no one bothered remembering the once greatest hitman anymore. His name faded away, joining all those other names that were lost in the darkness.

At the same moment Rivaille's name vanished, a new name was born.

Levi Ackerman—humanity's strongest nanny.

"No!" A high, squeaky voice echoed down the hallway, followed by the sound of shattering glass.

As Levi strolled down the long hallway, he could hear the maids of the manor gushing over the brat, using those disgustingly sweet voices in attempt to calm the child.

With a click of his tongue, Levi raised a foot, ignoring the butler screaming behind him as he kicked the door off of its hinges. All at once, the noises in the dining room died away. When the maids saw Levi approaching, they quickly backed away. While they had never interacted with the newbie worker, just his aura was enough to make them tremble in fear.

They couldn't understand why the master of the manor would hire a guy like this to look after their young master. More than that, they couldn't understand why this violent man was given rights over all the servants in the house.

"What's going on here?" Levi asked, looking down at the shattered plate of food before turning to the older and more experienced looking maid.

The old lady jumped when his eyes landed on her, but quickly explained nonetheless.

"T-the young master wouldn't eat his dinner…" The old lady shuddered when Levi's glare grew cold.

"Why?"

The elderly maid was stunned by his question. Her eyes darted around as she thought over everything that had happened before remembering the root of the problem. "This a-afternoon…the young master wanted to eat candy so we—"

"I'm not hungry!" Eren Yeager —the spoiled brat of Grisha—declared. "I'm going to play!"

The boy hopped out of his chair. When a butler came up in attempt to reason with him, he was rewarded by a kick in the shin.

Levi narrowed his eyes.

With two wide strides, he crossed the distance between them. He picked up the boy by the back of his collar and before anyone could react, he drilled his knee into the kid's stomach.

Immediately, stomach fluid along with the shit the brat had eaten from the afternoon gushed out of his mouth along with tears and snots.

The maids and butlers were shouting as they tried to approach them, but were easily stopped by a single glare from the ex-hitman.

Levi dropped the kid, waiting for him to finish emptying his stomach before picking the boy up and dropping him back into his chair.

"Someone get some food and clean this disgusting shit up."

Levi pulled out a chair beside Eren and sat down; ignoring the way the boy was pitifully curling into himself, no doubt still feeling the pain.

Time slowly ticked by.

By the time Eren's hiccups died away, a maid finally returned with a plate of food. Levi frowned at time it took for that girl to get food. Looks like it's not just the brat he'll have to re-educate.

"Get over here." Levi frowned when he saw the girl still standing by the doorway.

At first the girl was hesitant, but when Levi's brows began to furrow in impatience, she quickly ran over, almost tripping a couple of time in her haste.

"Took you long enough." Levi snatched the plate over as the maid paled.

"Um, t-that's—" Levi glared at her, causing her to shrink back and shook her head, indicating that there's nothing.

Even without the maid speaking, Levi knew what the issue was.

The food on this plate obviously looked plainer and more simplified compared to the one on the floor. It wasn't hard for Levi to guess that this is the servant's food and that Eren's proportion are all gone because the brat decided his food fits the floor more.

"Your stomach should be empty now right? Eat." Levi slid the plate over to the kid. He didn't raise his voice, but that just made it ten times scarier as the child shivered under his presence. Large, pearly tears were rolling down his face, but he didn't dare to cry out loud. He was even trying to hide his sniffs, scared that if he makes even the slightest noise he'll get beaten again.

Levi felt something pricked his heart at the sight. He frowned as he looked away from the boy, trying to figure out what came over him. It was a weird feeling—something completely new and unknown that intrigued Levi.

"Ugh…uh…" Hearing pained moans, Levi looked back to the kid to see him struggling to swallow the food in his mouth.

At first, Levi wondered if he had hit the brat's stomach too hard. He was certain he had held back. However, when he looked closer, he realized it was just the kid was trying to shove too much down his throat at once.

"Are you stupid?" Levi growled as he pulled the kid's hands away from his mouth and gave a sharp pat against his back, forcing him to spit his food back into his plate.

"D-don't huwrt me!" The kid cried as Levi's brows twitched again. He was tempted to whack the kid over his head, but decided against it at the last moment. He wrinkled his nose at the mush all over the plate. Swallowing his disgust, he grabbed a fork and stabbed it into a piece of smaller meat and held it up to the kid's mouth.

"Take small bites or you'll choke yourself." Levi said coldly.

Not daring to defy him after what happened, the child quickly leaned forward and bit into the soggy meat. He chewed quickly at first, but when he saw Levi glare at him, he slowed down. He chewed and chewed until all the flavour in the meat is gone. He swallowed it before opening his eyes to see a piece of veggie held in front of him. It was a carrot, something he hated, but didn't dare to voice it out.

Levi watched as the kid ate the carrot with a pained look on his face. Once the kid finally swallowed, he held the fork over to the kid.

"You can eat by yourself, can't you?"

The brat quickly took the fork from him. It was then that Levi realized how small that hand is. How old was this kid again? Six? When Levi thought about it, it was right around six that he made his first kill.

Time slowly ticked by as Levi watched the boy eat. He could tell that the kid's already full and couldn't eat anymore, but the brat didn't dare to voice it out. He just keep picking at the remaining food, sweat rolling down his face and tears threatening to fall again.

With a sigh, Levi stood up. It was 10:30, about time for little brats to go to bed anyways.

"Come on, you're going to sleep."

Eren perked up at his words. In the past, the kid would have thrown a tantrum about not wanting to go to bed. Now, he couldn't be more eager. Anything to get away from the torture of stuffing himself.

However, when the boy tried to get up, he cried out at the sharp pain coming from his stomach. He held onto his tummy and tears were streaming down all over again.

"Tch." Levi reached a hand out to the kid, only to notice how filthy the brat is. His shirt was filled with bits of food and sauce…as well as some of his puke. Grimacing, Levi grabbed the back of the boy's shirt and easily tore it off him.

"L-Levi-san!" The servants around him gasped before Levi yanked off the brat's pants as well. He then looked around the servant before spotting a butler who was holding a clean change of table cloth.

"Hey you, get over here." The butler was startled at being called. He hesitated just like the other maid, but when he saw the look Levi was giving him, he all but scrambled over.

Levi snatched the table cloth out of his hands, mentally reminding himself to do something about these useless workers. When Levi turned back to the naked kid, his gaze stopped at that bruising stomach. The man frowned. He had definitely held his strength back when he kicked the spoiled bastard. For it to still bruise like that…it was definitely out of his calculation.

The kid's body was weaker than he had expected…but then again, Levi never dealt with kids before so he didn't know what to expect. Giving that darkened patch one last look, the raven haired man threw the white sheet over the boy, wrapping him up like a burrito. He was going to toss the boy over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes when he remembered the kid's injury that he had given. With a sigh, he gathered the kid into his arms and began to head towards the unnecessarily large bathroom upstairs.

"You there. Call a doctor and tell him to wait in the brat's room." Levi ordered when he passed by the head butler who looked like he was close to fainting from the over-excitement this one night has brought him. Levi frowned, lifting the priority of dealing with the workers even higher.

The walk down the hallway was silent.

At least, that's what it began with until he started to hear small sniffs coming from the bundle against his chest. He looked down to see the boy trying to use the blanket to muffle his noise as he cried.

"What now?" Levi asked, irritated that the brat cries so often.

The boy froze at Levi's voice before he quickly shook his head, not daring to say anything as he buried further into his arms. The boy's action made no sense to the scowling man. After all, if the kid is crying because he's scared of him, why would he try to get even closer to him and not the opposite? Levi didn't know the answer and he has no interest finding out. He was just thankful that the kid was smart enough to cry into the table cloth instead of his shirt. Otherwise it wouldn't be just a sore stomach the brat would be crawling away with.

After some thorough bathing—plus some screams and more crying—Levi brought Eren to his room where a doctor and a butler waited.

The doctor was around thirty years old with short brown hair and a plain face that could blend into any crowd. When the two men saw their young master whose eyes were puffy with tears and skin raw from all the scrubbing, they both freaked out.

Needless to say, Eren didn't dare to skip a meal since then…and may have also learned how to properly wash himself without anyone's help.

Author's note:

Here it is! This is the official chapter one of the one shot, Humanity’s strongest Nanny which I have wrote two years ago! I am really happy with the responses I got so I decided to make this a multi-chapter story! 

For those who have never read the one shot, you can find it HERE.

While this story is multi-chapter, there's not going to be any plot. It'll just be random, unrelated chapters of the daily things in Levi's and Eren's life. The reason for that is because I'm not confident in my ability to keep a story updated, so please look at this as just a bunch of one shots together instead of a story.

The chapter names will go by Eren's age to show when the event has occurred. Sometimes I might jump back and forth from future to past, depending on what I come up with.

Finally, I apologize if the abusive behaviour to kid Eren makes anyone uncomfortable. I promise this will be the only chapter that'll have child abuse! I feel bad writing it but it's necessary for the story! Due to the environment Levi grew up in, it's only logical that he doesn't know any other way to teach someone other than to beat it into them. He'll definitely change his ways later on and becomes a real family with Eren.

This story is aiming for light hearted comedy and fluff! There's not gonna be any dark stuffs like angst, self-harm, character deaths, etc!

Thank you all for reading! I hope everyone has enjoyed this chapter! Please leave a review if you have the time and tell me what you think!