#the thing about sludge is that he's so fun to draw until i remember that he has gradients. because of course he would make me deal with tha

[bonetrousledbones]

you startled him :(

[plaidbooks]

May I PLEASE have a Sonny Carisi x reader fic where they're fake dating?! Thank you in advance my lovely ❤️

Undercover

A/N: What? Two Sonny fics back-to-back? That’s right! I love this trope too damn much, and I was done with the whole “home for the holidays” cliche, so this is different. Also, the second-hand embarrassment in the beginning killed me. Hope you enjoy, Karen, and thanks for the request @the-baby-bookworm <3

Tags: none, just fluff

Words: 1640

Taglist: @the-baby-bookworm @beccabarba @thatesqcrush @itsjustmyfantasyroom @stardust-fray @permanentlydizzy @infiniteoddball @ben-c-group-therapy @glowingmess @whimsicallymad @reading--mermaid @averyhotchner @mrsrafaelbarba @detective-giggles

You had an arm wrapped around Sonny’s waist, his arm around your shoulders, as you walked through the park. You chuckled lightly, pretending he had said something funny as you both moved closer to the perp you were tailing.

“He’s heading for Alice,” Fin’s voice came through your earpiece. But that was the plan; Alice was the bait to draw out the man who had assaulted her. On a different trail, you saw Amanda stretching in her tracksuit, subtly watching the perp. You and Sonny moved closer, making sure Alice wasn’t in harm’s way, that you could grab this guy if anything happened.

And then, someone cut off your line of sight. “[Y/N]?? Hey! How are you?! And who’s this??” they asked. Your eyes focused, and you panicked; it was your cousin.

“Shhh! Abby, not right now,” you whispered, trying to look to see if the perp had heard any of this exchange. So far, it seemed like you were still in the clear.

“Is this your boyfriend??” she asked, looking Sonny up and down. He grinned nervously, trying to be polite, his eyes still trained on the perp.

Fin’s voice came over your earpiece. “What’s going on? Who is that?”

“Abby, look, this is a really bad time—” you started before she cut you off.

“He’s cute, though! Good job, [Y/N]! You have to bring him over for dinner though!” Abby was gushing, her voice getting louder and louder. The perp turned and looked over at the three of you, and you gave Abby a huge smile, playing the part.

“For sure! I’ll bring Dom over later…tonight work?” you asked, trying to just get rid of her now.

Sonny, sensing your plans, pulled you closer, kissing your temple. “Yeah, I’d love to meet some of your family, babe.”

Abby smiled. “Tonight sounds perfect! 7 o’clock work?”

“Yep! Bye now,” you said, just as the perp started walking down the trail again. You and Sonny pushed by your cousin, keeping on his trail. Sonny quirked an eyebrow at you, but you simply shook your head; you’d explain later.

 ********************

Thankfully, the run-in with your cousin didn’t blow your undercover, and you were able to apprehend the perp. But by the time you caught him, made it back to the precinct, interrogated him, and sent him to processing, you had completely forgotten about the encounter with your cousin in the park.

After filling out the paperwork for the arrest, you made a cup of bad, precinct coffee and downed half of it in one gulp, making Sonny chuckle as he watched.

“What’s so funny?” you asked, raising an eyebrow playfully.

He grinned. “I’ve never seen anyone actually drink this sludge, let alone that much.”

You opened your mouth to reply but stopped when your phone chimed with an incoming text. Brow furrowed, you glanced at it, seeing it was from your cousin, Abby, reminding you to come over at 7pm. You let out a groan. “Fuck, I forgot about dinner at my cousin’s place!”

“Oh shit, I did too…have you told her I’m not actually your boyfriend? That we were undercover?” Sonny asked, leaning back in his chair.

You shook your head slightly. “Nah, Abby’s kind of an airhead. I don’t know if she even knows what the word ‘undercover’ means….”

Sonny was silent as he thought this over. “So…” he started. “Are we going undercover at your cousin’s place?”

You swallowed at what he was suggesting, touched that he would do this for you. There was no rescheduling when it came to Abby, no explaining things away. You’d have to go to this dinner, and you’d have to bring Sonny. Even if you did tell her you weren’t dating, she’d still insist you were, tell everyone in the family.

“Even if we did, this means my whole family’s gonna be asking about you,” you murmured, staring at your half-empty coffee.

“And if we blow off this dinner?”

Your cheeks burned. “Then the rumors Abby would spread would be a hundred times worse…and the family would still be asking about you.” You remembered the last time you were late bringing an ex over, and Abby not-so-subtly tugged the collar of your shirt down, looking for hickeys.

Sonny chuckled. “Well, I guess that leaves us no choice, now does it…honey?” He grinned at you, his eyes crinkling in that way they do when he’s amused, and you shot him a playful glare.

“I’ll owe you cannolis for a month,” you promised, and he laughed, shaking your hand, and sealing the deal.

 ******************

You and Sonny stood on the doorstep of Abby’s brownstone, waiting for her to answer the door after you knocked. “Thank you again for this,” you murmured, heart in your throat.

“Of course. We’re partners. I’d take a bullet for ya…or pretend to be your boyfriend for a dinner,” Sonny replied, making you laugh.

“Glad those are on the same level for you,” you rolled your eyes as the door opened.

“[Y/N]! Welcome! And Dom!” Abby greeted, and you furrowed your brow, trying to remember if you really called Sonny be his first name in the park. You normally referred to him by his last name only. Guess you were sticking with Dominick tonight.

Abby moved out of the way, letting you enter her place. “Thanks for having us over,” Sonny said, smiling.

“Nonsense! I’m happy to meet [Y/N]’s…friends,” she gave you a knowing look, and you grimaced. “She’s always so busy with work, I’m amazed she has time to date!” You groaned and Sonny chuckled good-naturedly. “So! How’d you two meet?”

 ***************

Abby’s husband came home soon after you had arrived, their two children with him. Then dinner was served. Abby never stopped asking questions, and to Sonny’s credit, he answered everything thrown at him—mostly about his family and life. He answered truthfully, neither of you really lying, even when asked “couple” questions. When asked how long you’ve been together, you were able to answer how long you were partnered at SVU. Having worked so close for so long, spending many days and nights together, meant you could answer pretty truthfully, even if Abby didn’t get that you weren’t really dating. Your only issue was catching yourself almost calling him Carisi, which only happened a few times, and you quickly corrected yourself. Otherwise, you answered everything perfectly. Except for one question, asked after dinner, when Abby was watching Sonny play with the kids.

“So, any talks about marriage?” she asked, sipping on her glass of wine.

You choked on your own wine, putting the glass down as you coughed. “Ah, no—not yet,” you sputtered.

“Well, you should get on that. I mean, look at him,” she said, gesturing at Sonny. One of the kids, the five-year-old girl, pushed his chest, and he dramatically fell backwards onto the floor, making both kids squeal with laughter.

You grinned at him; it was adorable watching Sonny with the kids. This wasn’t the first time you thought your partner was cute, but it hit…differently this time. Your cheeks burned as you caught yourself starting to feel…no. You stopped the thought right there; you were not falling for him.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” you replied, finishing your wine. “Well, it’s getting late.” You walked over to Sonny, helping him up off the floor. He got up, pulling you close, placing a kiss on your cheek, and your heart stuttered.

“Ready to go home, love?” he asked, nuzzling his nose into your hair, his arms wrapping around your shoulders.

“Yep! Let’s get out of here,” you replied, squeezing him to you before pulling away. “Thanks for dinner, Abs; it was delicious. Nice seeing you, too, Jake.” You hugged them both while Sonny high-fived the children, then said goodbye to Abby and Jake. Placing a hand on your lower back, he led you out into the night, heading towards his truck.

“Thank you again for tonight, Dom,” you said once you were far enough away from Abby’s place.

Sonny grinned at you, and you melted. Fuck, you really were falling for him. “Of course, doll. I had a lot of fun tonight, undercover or not.”

You climbed into the passenger side and Sonny slipped into the driver’s seat. He turned the engine on, but didn’t move to put the truck in drive, instead gripping and regripping the wheel nervously. “Listen, [Y/N]…would you, uh, like to go out for coffee with me sometime or something?” he asked.

You turned to look at him, dumbfounded. “Like…like a-a date?”

Sonny swallowed. “Y-yeah…I mean, if you wanted…. Look, just forget I asked—”

“I’d love to,” you replied, smiling.

He looked at you, eyes wide before he broke into a wide grin. “Okay, great. That’s…that’s great.” You both sat there for what seemed like forever, just grinning at each other like idiots. “Oh! I guess I should take ya home, huh?” Sonny asked, his cheeks going red.

You laughed. “That would be nice, yeah…. It’s been a long day.”

“Yeah, it has…but a good day.”

“A fantastic day,” you agreed, making his grin grow. You had butterflies in your stomach as you thought about going on a date with Sonny, your heart fluttering. Your heart full on stopped when he parked in front of your apartment, though, pulling you in for a chaste kiss over the center divide of his truck, his face beet-red after he realized what he did.

“I’ll text you tomorrow,” Sonny said in a small voice, leaning back in his seat and looking embarrassed.

You smiled, leaning over and kissing his burning cheek. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow then.” He watched you leave his truck, waiting until you made it through your front door before driving away. You smiled to yourself, thrilled about going out with your partner, excited to wake up in the morning.

[joezworld]

Fools in Love (5/10)

James And The Diesel Engine

1978

When 46 040 had declared that she would become friends with James, nobody in the sheds had really believed it.

James was vain, occasionally pompous, and immensely suspicious of diesel traction. It was a minor miracle that Bear and BoCo had been accepted by him, and Gordon speculated that it was due to the fact that neither engine was in a role that would displace the red engine.

040 on the other wheel, was in direct competition with him - right down to her shiny red paint. The big diesel had been eager to prove her worth, and had gladly accepted any work that the Fat Controller had given her. This meant that for most of the past year, there had been two red mixed traffic engines on Sodor.

Naturally, James was quite upset by this - he felt that he was being supplanted instead of supported, and tried valiantly to make 040 go away.

Unfortunately for James, 040 was determined to make a friend out of him, and treated him and everyone else with an almost impenetrable level of charm and good cheer that soon ingratiated herself with the other engines.

“She is of good stock.” Gordon said when she came up in discussion.

“A hard worker” was Duck’s assessment.

“Aye, if more diesels were like ‘er, the other railway would work a treat!” This from Douglas - high praise considering his well established and totally understandable dislike of diesels.

When he first met 040, he’d growled at her to ‘stay away’, and after a moment’s reflection, she’d apologized.

“What MPD were you at?” She’d asked after he’d growled at her.

“Glasgow - Eastfield.” He’d replied after a confused moment.

“Yeah, that figures.” She sighed ruefully. “I’m sorry, by the way. They only had enough of the “I hate steam engine” bits for the 45s, so us 46s and 44s never quite understood why everyone was so eager to replace you. Well, everyone except Spamcan, but he’s an arse to everyone.”

“Aye?” Douglas was very surprised.

“Of course. We tried to make them be nice - they certainly didn’t need to be so vicious about it - but once they know you care - well, it’s said that you can smell weakness in someone’s exhaust, so we weren’t treated much better than you were.”

“I... had no idea. Do they truly do that? There’s no’ even unity amongst diesels?”

“Not a whit. At least, not in the Midlands. Don’t worry though - they’re getting what’s coming to them. All three of us Peak classes are ‘non-standard’ now, so they’ll see what it’s like to be on the wrong side of progress soon enough.” Her tone was not light, but neither was it overly dark. She clearly had private opinions on the subject that she wanted to keep private. 

Douglas stared at the big diesel with newfound respect.

James soon found himself in the minority of opinions about 040. His resolve began to waver when she would cheerfully keep her composure even in the midst of a heated argument.

“You’re wrong and I can prove it!���

“How?”

“You haven’t got a boiler! You wouldn’t understand what boiler sludge feels like!”

“Ah! That’s where you’re wrong my steam-powered friend! I do have a boiler - for steam heating! I know exactly what boiler sludge feels like!”

“Cinders and Ashes you are impossible! Why are you so cheerful?!”

“I like arguing with you Jamie, it’s fun!”

“Jamie??!”

-----

One morning, the Fat Controller arrived in the sheds with some important news:

“The Thin Clergyman and his son will be visiting the island once again!” He declared cheerfully.

The engines were surprised. “I thought that he had retired from writing?” Gordon said.

“He has,” explained the Fat Controller. “But his son has decided to follow in his father’s footsteps and will be writing books of his own.”

Most of the engines were excited, but 040 was decidedly not. As soon as the Fat Controller left, her face fell into an uncharacteristic scowl. “I am not appearing in those fucking books.” She said menacingly.

This was arguably more surprising than the news of the Thin Clergyman’s arrival.

“Whyever not?” Asked Henry, who was quite pleased to have stories written about him.

“None of you know this,” She grimaced. “But the only more damaging thing than those books was the fucking Beeching Report! When he wrote about that 08 that tried to cause trouble for Duck, he might as well have thrown a bomb into every yard in the country! Everyone was either saying that we diesels were evil masterminds or that steam engines were idiotic dupes! There was zero civility between engines! Friendships ended! Lives were ruined! Locomotives were scrapped over this! I wasn’t even built then and I still have been forced to deal with it!”

She laughed at the jaw-dropped stares of the other engines. None of them had been on the mainland at that time, and they had no idea of the trouble that had gone on.

“And then there’s one-nine-nine! That nincompoop has gotten every one of us Peaks called a Spamcan! And that’s impressive considering there’s three different classes of us! I didn’t even know what Spam was before that book!”

Silence fell over the sheds for a good while.

“I had no idea...” Gordon eventually said in a small voice.

“I know.” 040 said as she slowly regained her cheery demeanor. “And that’s okay. But I really do not want to be in the books.”

“What’s this about books?” James had been out on an early stopper train, and had missed everything.

“Oh nothing Jamie, do you want to have an argument?”

“No! and stop calling me that!”

“Great! So I think we are actually having an argument right now, but what’s your take on it...?”

-----

The Thin Clergyman arrived onboard Gordon’s express, and was given a warm welcome by the Fat Controller at Tidmouth. Fortunately for 040, Gordon had been able to pass the word on with an earlier train, and she was able to flee the station before the author arrived.

The next week of her life was not unlike a scene from the Benny Hill Show - wherever 040 went, the Thin Clergyman and his son followed.

She ran a parcels train to Barrow - the Thin Clergyman was waiting on the next platform,

She hid behind the Works, only to find his Son riding on Skarloey’s footplate,

At Haltraugh she tried to hide behind Duck - with exactly as much success as one would expect,

The two men starting interviewing engines in the shed, and she was forced to hide amongst the coaches in the yard,

Thomas’ driver unexpectedly fell ill at Tidmouth, and she leapt at the chance to take his train - despite being longer than Annie and Clarabel put together! She made it as far as Elsbridge before curious trainspotters began flocking to take her picture, and she beat a hasty retreat to the main line just before the Clergyman arrived,

The engines at the Kirk Ronan branch were quite annoyed when she tried to squeeze into their shed - she was so big that the door wouldn’t shut!

Planned track work meant that one of the Ballahoo tunnels was closed, and she bluffed her way onto the work train so she could sleep in it. This was an effective hiding spot, until she told Henry, who laughed so loudly that the Thin Clergyman heard the entire story from across the yard,

She even tried sleeping in the electric branch sheds at Peel Godred, but was not only glared at by the very antisocial locomotives who lived there, but also had to hide from both the Thin Clergyman and His Son when they came to see the Culdee Fell Railway.

Finally, there was nowhere left to run - she had managed to find all of these hiding spots while still doing her jobs, but today she was the ‘relief’ engine at Knapford, which meant that she had to sit in the yard all day in case another engine failed.

In full view of the station building.

At midday,  James bustled in with a load of vans for Thomas’ branch line.

“What are you so anxious about?” He asked 040 with a mixture of scorn and surprise. The annoying red diesel was looking positively frantic as her eyes scanned the station building. It was most unlike her.

“Jamie! Hide me!” She hissed as James’ driver uncoupled the vans.

“What?”

“Hide me! Quickly!”

“Why?”

“The Clergyman! He’s right there in the station!”

James looked over, and sure enough, the Thin Clergyman and his son were sitting down to lunch in the station café. “Why?”

“Because he might write something about me!” 040 was frantic.

James was baffled, but remembered Gordon mentioning something about some engines not wanting to be written about. He’d assumed that Edward was just being introverted again, but perhaps there was more to it than that...

He was tempted to do the exact opposite - to blow his whistle, attract attention, and pay back the loudmouth diesel for all of her arguments and nicknames, but when he looked back at her, he realized that 040 was frightened of the Thin Clergyman.

James was many things, but sadistic wasn’t one of them, and he ran around his train and shunted the vans so that 040 was almost entirely obscured from sight.

“Thank you!” She whispered as he backed away.

“Keep it dark,”  He hissed back. “I have a reputation to uphold. And I’ll try and draw his attention to me so he doesn’t go looking for you.”

“Shouldn’t be too much of a problem for you.” She said with a small smile. “You always are the centre of attention!”

James smiled back as he backed into the yard proper, doing his best to make as much noise as he could until he came to a stop at the far end of the yard - as far away from 040 as possible.

His plan worked flawlessly. The Clergyman and his son had been so engrossed in their meal that they hadn’t noticed that any engine was there at all, and quickly made their way across the yard.

Unlike 040, James was always pleased to have someone write about him, and spent the better part of an hour answering the Clergyman’s questions.

“There was one other thing I wanted to know, James.” The Clergyman’s son said after a while. “We’ve been told that there’s a new diesel on the Island, but we can’t seem to find him anywhere!”

“Her.” James corrected before he could stop himself.

“Her?”

In for a penny, in for a pound. “Yes. She’s a girl, and she’s quite shy.”

“Really?” The Clergyman said as he scribbled in his notebook. “Can you tell me about her? Or where she is?”

“I don’t want to talk about anyone behind their back...” James said, knowing exactly how often he did just that. “But I saw her going to the works a few hours ago. You might be able to find her there and ask her yourself.”

This pleased the Clergyman and his Son, and they immediately set off in their hire car for the works. James waited until they had vanished from sight before he called out: “They’re gone!”

“Thank God!” 040 shouted from across the yard.

“Don’t thank him! Thank me!” James called back.

“Thank you James! Really, I owe you one now.” James couldn’t see the diesel, but he could somehow tell that she was smiling.

----

040′s luck finally ran out on the last day of the Clergyman’s trip. She was rostered to pull the night express, and didn’t realize that the Thin Clergyman was going to be on board. She almost jumped off the rails when she saw him climbing the stairs to the platform, she let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding when he entered the train, and her face fell when she realized that he was merely putting away his luggage before he got out of the train and walked up to her.

“Hello there! I haven’t seen you before!” He said jovially while admiring her paint and stripes.

“I’m new.” She said, trying to keep her tone somewhat polite. The ugly anger rising in the pit of her engine block was making that a very hard thing to do.

“I can see that - you have been quite hard to find!”

“Have I?”

“Very much so, but nevermind that. I was wondering if you would be willing to let myself and my son write about you? You see, we write books abou-”

“I know what your books are about.”

“Oh you do?” The Thin Clergyman said, not missing the sudden undertone in the diesel’s voice.

“Oh yes. And I’m not even talking about Spamcan.” She smiled viciously as the Thin Clergyman winced at that reference.

“Yes, well-”

“I’m not done. I'm talking about the other book you wrote. About the 08? The one that got more than a few engines killed?”

“What?” The author recoiled at the now-undisguised venom in 040′s voice.

“Of course you don’t know. You don’t care about diesels, just your precious steam engines.” She glared at him with undisguised malice. “Do me a favor - take that notebook and go fuck yourself with it - I will never be in one of your books.”

As she said that, the signal dropped, and the guard - who couldn’t see the Clergyman due to a porter’s trolley in the way - blew his whistle.

040 set off immediately, leaving the Thin Clergyman standing on the platform, taking his baggage with her.

-

When the Clergyman’s son started publishing his books several years later, 040 was nowhere to be seen in any of them.

[red-writing-on-asylum-walls]

FebuWhump Day 17: Field Surgery

Based on a series of drawings Em did a long while ago that I’m too lazy to go look up and link here.

I had Adagio for TRON playing on repeat for an hour while I wrote this because that’s my dramatically tragic writing music. Anyway, I don’t think this one turned out as well I imagined it in my head. But it was still fun to write. Most of what I know about “meatball surgery” comes from watching M*A*S*H.

Warnings: meatball surgery, improper tools for medical procedures, descriptions of medical procedures, vomiting, foreign substances, blood, trauma

--------------------

“Are you sure you don’t want to go back? You don’t look like you’re doing that well…” Max hovers uncertainly, watching Milo stumble through the underbrush to catch up.

“No, no, I’m good,” Milo gasps, leaning against a tree, “Jus’…jus’ need to catch my breath is all…” Sweat has matted his hair to his forehead and he’s dreadfully pale, breath wheezing out of his lungs, his legs shaking where he stands. Max gives him a doubtful look and Milo plasters on a pained grin, straightening up, “See! Just needed a break! No prob—“ His smile drops and he convulses, hands flying to his mouth.

Black sludge erupts through his fingers and splatter down his front, staining his hoodie.

“Milo!” Max runs back as Milo’s eyes roll and his legs give out from under him. Max manages to catch his friend before he hits the ground, easing them both to the forest floor with Milo propped in hi lap. Milo’s eyes are lidded and unfocused, his nose has started bleeding and the red is tangling with steady stream of sludge oozing out of his mouth now.

“Milo! MILO!” Max presses his fingers to Milo’s neck, feels a pulse fluttering there, and then whimpers when Milo’s body shudders and a fresh deluge of gunk splatters down his cheek to splat into the undergrowth. Max’s eyes are burning and his hands are shaking as he frantically looks around for help.

But there’s nobody out except for them.

They’re in the middle of the woods, hiking around to nowhere in particular, exploring because the sun is out and the weather is nice and they had energy to burn.

They’re just kids and stuff like this isn’t supposed to happen to them.

“Help, help, gotta get you help…” Maxis mutters, shifting Milo in his arms as he clambers to his feet, “Could fly you back…would get me in trouble…no wait, I don’t know if I have the stamina to carry you and fly…” He looks around helplessly—nothing but forest and trees and nature and sunlight through the canopy and everything looks so happy when it has no right to! Milo gags, his head lolling backwards to expose the pale stretch of his neck, his throat bulging. Panicked, Max shift Milo so Milo is sideways in his arms and more of that awful, pungent black ooze comes frothing out of his mouth. There’s red in it now and Max doesn’t know if it’s from Milo’s nosebleed or something worse.

Something internal.

It’s hurting Milo.

It needs to come out.

Taking a deep, shuddering breath, Max hurries back the way they came to a clearing they’d passed through a few minutes before. It’s open to the sky, full of light and flowers. It’s very beautiful. And it has exactly what Max needs.

Max carefully lays Milo out on the soft green grass of the clearing and gently removes the stained shark hoodie, folding it up to rest under Milo’s head. Milo coughs up another bout of black sludge, his eyes closed now, his breathing weak and shallow. Maxis works faster, frantically trying to recall everything he knows about field surgery as he goes. He shoves Milo’s t-shirt out of the way and shrugs out of his own vest. The water bottle in his pocket is lukewarm and he focuses on channeling heat into it until it’s boiling. As it cools on the grass next to him, Max tugs at the loose thread of his t-shirt, carefully unravelling as much of it as he can. When his fingers fail, he pulls his pocket knife from his shorts and picks the hem of his shirt apart. When he thinks he’s got enough thread, he inspects his knife and tests the edge of the blade. Still sharp. He looks down at Milo’s pale face, stained in red and black.

“Sorry, Milo,” He whispers, “This is gonna suck a lot…”

Max pours the hot water over the knife first, then Milo’s chest, and then his own hands.

Then he kneels in the grass next to his unconscious friend.

The knife quivers in his hands and he has to take several steadying breaths. He’s never done this before, not on a live person. Not on a friend.

He expects Milo to scream when the knife cut into his belly. But the only sound Milo makes is a gurgling moan. More black sludge crawls up his throat and smears down his face. It doesn’t stop.

Max tears his gaze away from Milo’s face and concentrates on his work.

He tries desperately not to think about how this is his friend. He tries to focus on what’s in front of him and ignore the rattling wheeze of his friend’s labored breathing, tries not to look at the pale face smeared in gore. If he starts thinking about Milo, he can feel the desperate, hopeless fear and panic trying to claw their way to the forefront of his mind. And he can’t afford it. Milo can’t afford it. So Max grits his teeth and keeps going, stubbornly ignoring the tears that want to spring into his eyes and obscure his vision.

It’s bloody work and Max has never had so much red on his hands.

But he remembers his training, remembers where to cut and how to hold his knife, how to gently slide his fingers between membranes and organs. He knows Milo is losing blood and losing it fast, so Max just has to work faster. He tries to find something, anything out of place. But nothing looks wrong. Milo’s insides are the way a normal teenage boy’s insides are supposed to look and—

Max finds something dark and oozing clinging to the rear of Milo’s stomach.

That is definitely not supposed to be there.

Swallowing hard, Max slides his knife between the black thing and the organ. It takes a bit of careful leveraging but after a moment Maxis able to peel it off with a sort of awful slurping noise. It’s hooked to the inside of Milo’s stomach with a long, thin arm of sorts and Max carefully tugs it free, using his other hand to press against the small hole it leaves behind to prevent stomach acid from leaking into Milo’s abdominal cavity. He drops the black thing on the grass beside him and snaps the zipper off his vest, using his strength and powers to fashion it into a crude, thin needle. It will be messy but it will get the job done. A hospital can patch him up properly.

Milo still doesn’t move when Max stitches closed the tiny hole in his stomach.

Nor does he when Max holds his skin and muscles together and closes him with grey thread already staining darker with blood.

But he’s still breathing.

Max counts that as a win.

He splashes the last of the water over Milo’s front and tries to scrub the worst of the stains from his hands. They’re still dark and still very red.

Max glances at the thing on the ground that he’d pulled out of his friend.

He’s never seen anything like it before. He remember once Milo joking about having a parasite. Is this a parasite? It doesn’t seem right. Something about it has Max on edge. It fills him with a raw disgust and visceral need to get as far away from it as possible. Something about this thing is wrong. It’s iridescent in a way that somehow sucks in the line, a blotch of darkness on the world that prickles Maxis’ sense of danger, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He’s considering burning the thing with a well placed fireball when there’s a shift in the grass beside him.

Max snaps his head around to see Milo stirring. His eyes are wide open now, sickly and unfocused, dazed like someone’s rattled his skull. But at least he sounds like he’s breathing normally.

“Milo, thank goodness, I’m glad you’re awake,” Max sighs in relief, “I gotta get you to a hospital, though, you lost a lot of blood and—Milo, wait!”

Milo struggles to sit up, heedless of the pain he should be in with the fresh wound in his stomach. His head lolls, flopping almost lifelessly on his shoulders, mouth hanging open and sweat and tears mixing with the blood and gunk smeared on his face. He looks like a puppet on someone else’s strings, being dragged along to someone else’s song, and it’s got Max on edge.

“Milo, you need to lie down,” Max urges, putting a placating hand on Milo’s shoulder, trying to gently push his friend back. But Milo resists, leaning forward instead. One pale, quivering hand reaches under Max’s arm, “Milo! Please! You shouldn’t be trying to move right now!”

“…M…Max…” Milo wheezes and his voice sound hoarse, his throat no doubt raw and sore from the constant vomit.

“Milo! Milo, I’m right here!” Max grabs at Milo, holding him up as Milo sways alarmingly. There’s a distant fog in his eyes, staring into nothing, like he can’t see Max or the clearing or anything anymore. Adrenaline and panic start gnawing at the back of Max’s mind and he doesn’t know how much longer he can keep them at bay.

“Max…” Says Milo in a voice that doesn’t sound like him at all. He sounds lost, hypnotized, vacant even. His hands paw at the air, shaking, and he clutches at the sleeve of Max’s shirt when he finds it, fingers dragging slowly at the fabric, “Mmmaaaaaaaxx…”

“Easy, Milo, take it easy,” Max shifts, sliding his arms around Milo as his taller friend clutches at him like a lifeline, “Deep breaths, Milo, deep breaths, it’ll be okay, I’ve got you, I promise, I’m right here for you!”

“Max…” Milo whimpers again. Confusion, vacant panic, desperation, something wholly and profoundly wrong twisting in his voice, “I…I can’t…I can’t…feel…I…”

It scares Max, this specter of his usually energetic and lively friend. Maxis has never been scared before, not like this. But this does not feel like Milo. This feels like an empty creature, haunted by something awful and unspeakable, and it fills Maxis with a dread he can’t put into words.

But Milo’s hands are holding onto him, clutching at him with a frightened familiarity. The way Milo had grabbed at him when that horror movie they’d been watching had scared him.

“It’s gonna be okay,” Max says, snatching up his vest and the shark hoodie, one to wear and one to tie around his waist for safe keeping. After a second of thought, he grabs the black thing still oozing sludge onto the grass and stuffs it into the pocket of his vest. Milo is clutching at him like he’ll disappear if he doesn’t hold on and Max has to struggle with him for a moment before he can stand up, “I’m gonna get you to a hospital, okay? You’re gonna be all right, Milo. I’m not gonna let anything hurt you.”

Max hefts Milo up in his arms despite his friend’s larger size. Then he takes off running, vanishing into the trees in a whirl of wind that rustles the grass and leaves with his speed. Milo lets out a choked sob in his arms and presses his face into Max’s stained shirt.

And Maxis, not for the first time in his life, wishes that his powers worked on people other than himself.

[captainkippen]

RECKLESS • A PUNK! TYRUS AU

Summary: 

RATED TEEN for smoking and swearing. 

TJ never expected to fall in love with a guy who hung out in the library for fun. Cyrus never expected to kiss a guy in the middle of a mosh pit. Once in a while, life surprises everybody. 

Chapter One: Respect The Tub

"Shut up. I'm having a mid-life crisis."

"You're twenty-one."

"Fine, an almost-quarter-life crisis or something, whatever."

"You know, I've seen you overreact before, but this time really takes the cake. Are you sure this is a good idea?"

"Pfft. It's a great idea. The best idea I've ever had."

"You literally just said yourself that you're having a crisis."

TJ let out a long suffering sigh and glared at Marty. Andi snickered from where she was perched on the edge of the tub behind him. She had two gloved hands covered in bright red sludge buried deep in TJ's hair.

"Don't worry, Marts," she said. "I used to help Bex do her hair all the time when she got bored. Well… one time. If it goes wrong, we can just cut it off. Hair grows back usually."

"Usually?!" TJ spluttered, attempting to turn and face her only to be held in place by her firm grip.

Marty snorted. "Still sure about this?"

"Shut up, Marty. Jeez. You're worse than my mom."

"Hey, your shut your mouth about your mom. That woman is a saint. How she put up with your annoying all these years without committing murder, I’ll never know."

That earned him the bird and he snorted again, blowing smoke into T.J's face. The bathroom of their crappy apartment didn't have a smoke detector, which was probably the only reason Marty was even sat in the room with them. 

"Gross," Andi said with an appreciative smile. She might have stolen the cigarette for herself had her hands not been busy. TJ wrinkled his nose at the two of them. He wouldn't say anything, it hadn't worked the first thousand times and it wouldn't work now, but he had learned that if he made enough disgusted faces Marty would eventually put the cigarettes away.

"Whatever," he rolled his eyes at TJ's face and stubbed it out in the sink. "I'm meant to be quitting anyway. I promised Buffy."

"You made that promise like three months ago."

"Well I gotta have at least one flaw, otherwise it wouldn't be fair to you mere mortals, would it now?" Marty grinned and stood up, stretching his arms up until his back gave a satisfying click. 

"Careful bro," TJ said. "If your head gets any bigger you won't be able to get out of the door."

It was Marty's turn to cheerfully flip him off. As he wandered out of the bathroom he called over his shoulder asking if they wanted any snacks, even though TJ was pretty sure he knew they only had ketchup and coffee left in the kitchen.

"So, this mid-life crisis of yours," Andi said, slipping some more dye on to TJ's head. It slid against his scalp cold and unpleasant, dripping down his neck in a wet mess. "You think Epic Death Red is gonna fix it?"

He considered this for a moment. The brand name was splashed bright and obvious on the bottle, and it glared at him from the sink. It had made them laugh at the time, but now it was in his hair it felt a little daunting. "Nah, probably not. But it'll make me feel better about it, feels productive."

"Turning in your assignments would probably feel more productive."

"Hey, I thought we banned school talk from the tub. The tub rules are sacred. Respect the tub."

"I'm just saying-"

"Did you finish your figure drawing assignment yet?"

"...touché."

They lapsed into a comfortable silence. After a few minutes, Marty loped back in holding a paper plate with an unwrapped Twinkie carefully cut into three pieces on it. Andi let him shove a piece unceremoniously into her mouth without a word.

It had become a sort of tradition. Well... not a tradition. TJ didn't know what you would call it. A habit maybe? Anyways, it had become usual for the three of them to hang out in the bathroom. Sometimes they'd be joined by friends and roommates. Two or three of them cramped in the tub, maybe splitting a bottle of cheap wine between them all, with someone else balanced on the toilet seat and another sprawled across the floor. But today, everyone else was out at work or class or living their life in some tub-free environment.

It was only TJ and Marty that lived in the apartment of the three of them. They had two other roommates, Walker and Jonah, who were pretty decent guys. Walker was an art major like Andi and Jonah had awesome taste in music. Sometimes he and TJ would walk to campus together, they were both based in the music department, but other than that and a shared interest in sports and skateboards they didn't really have anything in common. Buffy, Marty's girlfriend and (by apparent coincidence) Andi's childhood best friend with whom she was now reconnecting, would sometimes swing by to join them too. However, her disgust at  just how useless four boys could be at keeping their apartment in order mostly kept her at bay. Old take-out containers were not part of her ‘aesthetic’ or whatever. TJ was never sure if he was glad about that or not, the two of them spent most of the time squabbling, but she did make Marty happy and it was hard not to be cheerful when Marty was.

"So I had this dream right," TJ said. 

"Oh God."

"No, it's good right. Because it made me, like, realise I should be doing something."

Andi and Marty exchanged amused looks. They were used to it, TJ's various whims and impulses and Important Decisions About The Future That Usually Turned Out To Be Not So Important. They found it funny. TJ might be offended if it weren't for the fact he had listened to them spout of conspiracy theories more times than he could count.

"Go on," Andi prompted. 

"Okay, so like... I'm standing on this cliff, right? Like on the very very edge of it. And I'm staring out to sea all dramatic and shit, and then suddenly it gives way underneath me, right? And I'm falling and falling, and I look down and there's just like... nothing there."

Another pause. "...and that's it?"

"That's it. That's the dream."

"Okay, lay it out for me. How did you go from falling off a cliff to dyeing your hair red? Give me the logic. I wanna follow your train of thought here."

He takes a deep breath, trying to shake away the lightheadedness the mingling scents of cigarettes and ammonia is bringing on, then twists around to face her.

"When you're falling to your death you're supposed to reminisce about, like, all the good shit you did in your life before you fall to your death right? And for me it was a total blank. Like nothing. Like I haven't lived."

Marty groaned. "Not this again."

"What?"

"You have this same crisis like every other month. Last time you wanted to 'live your life' we got arrested for trespassing on private property."

"Well, if you had run faster-"

"Fuck you! I run faster than you, asshole. It's not my fault there were literal guard dogs-"

"Guys!" Andi interrupted before they could really get going. They both muttered half hearted apologies with a huff. Marty sighed and leaned back, stretching his legs up to rest on the edge of the bath.

"The point is," TJ resumed, knocking Marty’s foot away from his face. "The point is that I've done, like, zero important things in my life. And we're adults now, y'know? I can't just bum around doing nothing forever. I wanna do something that matters."

Andi rolled her eyes. "'Adult' is a strong word for a guy who just this week learned what fabric softener is."

"I never claimed to be Martha Stewart."

Marty laughed. "You're criminal enough to be."

"Okay but," Andi said, before another bickering match could spark up. "The real point is... we're only in our twenties. Pretty sure we're not meant to have everything figured out yet, right? I mean, we haven't even graduated yet."

TJ and Marty both hissed.

"The G word is also banned, remember?"

Andi made a face, but didn't press the point. She hated thinking about the future just as much as the guys did. None of them knew what they wanted to do. They spent all their time in sleazy bars moshing to terrible local bands, getting drunk in a moulding tub and watching Andi paint in the student studios. TJ couldn't imagine any of them with nine-to-five jobs, commuting or working for some big evil corporation. He said as much.

"It's two thousand and five," Marty complained in response. "We should totally have robots to do all the boring jobs by now."

TJ agreed. How could humanity not yet be at the point where they had hover boards and flying cars? They had the internet for crying out loud. The possibilities were endless.

"So what're you gonna do?" Andi asked. “How are you, TJ Kippen, going to change the world?

TJ pondered this for a moment. 

"I'm gonna start a band."

*

Sometimes Cyrus seriously hated his friends.

Not in an actual 'I wish I didn't know you' way but in an 'oh man, you suck so hard right now' kind of way. Tonight was one of those times. He would never say that to them, of course, he had no desire to hurt anybody’s feelings, but a little mental cursing never hurt anyone.

He shivered and pulled his jacket tighter around himself. Rain smattered down on the concrete around him. Water seeped through the canvas of his sneakers, soaking his socks and mood both at once. He was cold, wet and fed up. Buffy had asked him to meet her here, outside some dingy rock club filled with scary kids wearing studs and too much makeup, but she was nowhere to be found. She had answered her phone when he called, but the line mostly crackled and all he got was a muffled "-inside" from here.

Whatever. It was fine. It was totally cool that he was stuck out here being eyed by suspicious punks in leather jackets and scary scene kids with scary scene hair. It was great. He could totally cope with the fact that the bouncer wouldn't let him in because he forgot his I.D. and apparently he looked like he was twelve years old. Totally, totally fine. Really, it couldn’t get any worse.

It was as if the universe had heard this very thought and decided to have the last laugh. A large truck roared down the street, sending a fresh wave of freezing water over his legs and shoes. 

Screw this. He was going home.

He hadn't even wanted to come out in the first place. He should be back in his nice cosy dorm room, preferably doing the lit assignment he had due in on Monday, maybe wrapped in a blanket. Two blankets, even. Yeah, his dorm sounded pretty great right now, even if he did have the roommate from hell. Fate had other plans, though. Right as he made the decision to head back, he heard his name being called. Turning, he saw Buffy waving frantically from the door. Huffing to himself, he turned back again and headed to meet her.

"He's with me," Buffy said with a smile to the bouncer. The guy looked doubtful as Cyrus slipped passed, but he didn't question it again. 

"The reception is really bad in here," Buffy said apologetically, pulling him into a sideways hug. "But you found the place okay, right? I mean you're here, so that's good. I didn't think you'd come. I’m glad you did.”

She seemed unusually antsy, and he suspected she was a little nervous about introducing him to her friends. He would be nervous too if he was her, he knew he wasn’t much, especially to a group of cool and interesting people. He decided it was best not to tell her that he almost didn't come. He had been perfectly ready to stay in his dorm all night, even though it was a Friday night and he had little to no social life at the current moment in time with all the work his professors had been throwing at him. Except, Roommate-From-Hell-Reed had come banging into the room, all but yelling into his cellphone to some girl. Cyrus had been able to stand it for about ten minutes, and then he got tired of hearing the word "baby". A night at some dive being shoved around by sweaty drunks wasn't much of an improvement, but at least he didn't have to listen to Reed's obnoxious flirting. 

"It's good you came," Buffy continued. "You don’t get out enough. I think you'll like the band too, and they're friends with Andi and Marty. They’re pretty good - I mean, TJ is a little obnoxious, but they’ve already got a big following on MySpace, and they’re close to getting a deal with Cranked...” Cyrus let her pull him through the crowd, nodding in all the right places but struggling to keep up. Who was TJ? Cranked? What was that? He felt like she was speaking another language. “

They've even got some songs recorded now... did you know Gus- you know Gus Knight? He works at the dining hall. Apparently he’s local and has this whole studio set up in his mom’s basement. He has all the equipment and everything. It's crazy.”

"Crazy," Cyrus agreed, narrowly avoiding getting elbowed by a teary girl gesturing wildly at a boy that looked too out of it to be taking in what she said. The whole arena smelled like puked. He prayed that none got on him. "So when are these Cranked guys meant to go on?"

Buffy rolled her eyes. “Cranked is a record label, Cy. The band’s called Conduit For Gods.”

The problem was not that Cyrus wasn’t into music. He liked music. He thought it was fun, especially if you could sing bad karaoke to it, and who didn't like to listen to their iPod on the bus? But Buffy's friends' world seemed to revolve around music, more specifically punk music, and the whole scene that came with it. He had accepted a few of their invitations to hang out just to be polite, but most of them involved parties and shows. Parties and shows meant drinking and coming home with wild stories. Cyrus wasn’t a wild stories kind of guy.

As a kid, he had really wanted to be a wild stories kind of guy. He’d longed to be one of the popular kids who knew how to make friends with everybody, who was never bored on a Friday night and wasn’t totally invisible. He had never succeeded in becoming that kind of guy. Even at college, where he'd figured it would be easy. All the television shows and magazines had made it seem like that was what you were meant to do in college - party and drink. Become your own person. Become interesting. 

What he'd learned from actually being in college? He didn't like to party and drink. He had no problem with other people doing it, obviously, but he'd rather he was far away from them while they did. Drunk people had a habit of throwing up on him, and in crowds like this Cyrus had lost his shoe more than once. They might be drenched in grimy rainwater, but tonight he felt like keeping his shoes firmly on his feet. Preferably not covered in somebody's dinner. The other thing he’d learned was that he didn’t really vibe with the whole alternative music scene... or it didn’t vibe with him. He liked things neat and non-violent. In his experience, college-aged punks liked things sweaty and aggressive. Sometimes with a hint of insane thrown in. It’s not like it scared him or anything, he just didn’t want to die in a mosh pit.

“They’re on at ten. You want me to grab you a drink? I got us a table - I know you don’t like being in the crowd.”

He gave her a grateful smile, forgiving and forgetting the last half an hour in one fell swoop. Buffy was a really good friend not just sometimes, but all the time, even if she did make him hang out with scary people that wore studs and eyeliner. She always respected his boundaries.

As she disappeared towards the bar, he meandered his way over to the table she’d pointed out to him. There were a couple of bags and jackets strewn across the booth’s seats, but no people present. Scanning the crowd, he managed to spot Marty and Andi stood off to the side with a couple of other people. Andi caught his eye and waved him over, but he shook his head. She rolled her eyes, but smiled and sent him a thumbs up anyway. He smiled back.

Andi was a nice girl. A cool girl. She wore her hair cropped short and spiky, had a leather jacket with her name painted artfully across the back and her skin was constantly smudged with paint or coal or glue from her art projects. She’d known Buffy forever, and Cyrus was still surprised someone as cool as her was willing to hang out with a loser like him. It was the same with Buffy, honestly. He was always one step behind the laughter and she was the one making people laugh. Once, he’d made the mistake of voicing these thoughts out loud and Buffy had smacked him over the head with a copy of Rolling Stone, telling him he was being stupid and that he was cool. He knew she was lying, but he appreciated the lie anyway. 

A figure loomed over him and he turned.

“That was quick,” he started to say, but the words died on his lips. It wasn’t Buffy.

“Um, hi,” Said the most beautiful boy in the history of all existence.

Bright red hair. Green eyes ringed in black. Torn up denim jacket over plaid over faded t-shirt. Cyrus mentally catalogued all of these things and tried to unstick his tongue from where it seemed to be stuck to the roof of his mouth. He wasn’t sure what to do. How did English work again? What were words?

In the end, he stuck one awkward hand out before he could stop himself and stuttered out a greeted. The guy took it with a warm smile and shook. 

“I’m Cyrus,” Cyrus finally managed to say.

Understanding dawned on the guy’s face. “Oh, you’re Buffy’s friend. That’s cool. I’m TJ, Marty’s roommate,” he jerked a thumb back towards the crowd. Much to Cyrus’ horror, he realised Andi and Marty were watching them with interest. He dropped TJ’s hand quickly. “I was just grabbing the keys to the van, could you pass me that bag?”

Cyrus did as asked, expecting TJ to take it and flee from the obviously crazy person who had just shaken his hand like they were at some sort of business meeting instead of a nightclub, but he didn’t move from where he was standing. Instead, he rummaged through the bag for a second and then withdraw a set of car keys and dumped it back on the table. Turning, he signalled to one of the guys in the crowd and launched the keys through the crowd. 

“So are you sticking around after the show?” TJ said, turning back to Cyrus with a curious smile. 

No. Cyrus was going to go home and shower at least twice then snuggle up in bed and get a good night’s sleep where nobody could accidentally spill a suspicious substance on his nice clean pants.

“Yeah, I think so,” is what came out of Cyrus’ mouth.

“Awesome,” TJ grinned, the thousand-watt smile disarming Cyrus once again. “Well, I gotta scoot, ‘cause it’s my band…”

“Oh! You’re in Condu-whatsit?”

“Conduit For Gods,” he laughed. “Yeah, I’m the singer.”

Oh great, a cute guy in a band. Just what Cyrus needed to make this interaction less intimidating.

“Break a leg?” He offered.

He didn’t know if he was imagining it or not (probably) but TJ looked a little reluctant to go, but after a moment he flashed him another smile and departed. Cyrus resisted the urge to bang his head on the table and berated himself for not being able to hold a conversation like a normal person. Oh man, he had made himself look like a total idiot. Luckily, Buffy returned not long after, and he drowned his sorrows in his drink. 

*

“Okay, not to be dramatic but we have to play the best show we’ve ever played tonight,” TJ said, speeding over to Jonah behind the stage.

Jonah looked up from tuning his guitar in surprise. “I thought the label weren’t seeing us ‘til next week?”

“It’s not a rep,” he shook his head and sighed as dramatically as he could manage. “I just met the most amazing guy I’ve ever seen and I’m pretty sure we’re soulmates, so we have to impress him, okay?”

“Soulmates, huh?” Jonah grinned. “Do you even know this guy’s name?”

“Cyrus.”

“Cyrus? As in Buffy’s Cyrus?”

“That’s the one.”

“Okay, man. If you say so.”

The stage fright seemed twice as intense as usual as TJ clicked the microphone on. Through the glare of the lights and the packed room he could barely make out the table tucked away in the corner where Cyrus was sat. The crowd roared back as he greeted them, and it felt like the entire room exploded into life as the boys launched into the first song. For the first time ever, TJ worried less about cracking a rib as he surfed across the top of the crowd and more about how exactly he was going to ask Cyrus for his number without sounding weird. 

But by the time the show was over and TJ was drenched in his own sweat while blood dripped down from his nose from where someone had accidentally hit him in the face during the last song, Cyrus was nowhere to be found, and the question of the phone number became obsolete. 

[theouterdark]

Tag: Character Questions

Thanks for the tag, @sassypandacandy​. It took me a while to decide who to do this for, but I chose...

Adam Brand

1.) What was the first element of your OC that you remember considering (name, appearance, backstory, e.t.c.)?

Backstory came first. Name second. He is a tragic character, deeply flawed, and emblematic of a number of issues I was dealing with at the time of his conception. I won’t get into those here, they are deeply personal. But his story was one that deeply interested me following work on Coldwater Sound, and most of his chapters in The Devil from the Outer Dark were the easiest, and most exciting to write.

2.) Did you create them with any other characters/OCs from their universe in mind?

I did. Both Juliette Saint-Yves, and Bertrand Faure were developed in situ, as their stories and lives are so deeply intertwined. 

3.) How did you choose their name?

I like the name because it pops, and I referred to him by three names as I was developing him. Adam, Adrian, and Branch. It went through iterations like Adrian Branch, Adam Branch, and Branch solo like Cher, but Brand came about and it just popped. It sparked joy, okay? Or rather, it sparked misery, which in turn sparked joy because that is exactly what I needed.

4.) In developing their backstory, what elements of the world they live in played the most influential parts?

The poverty of someone in his position at the time. An artist that cares more about creating than general self-care appealed to me greatly. It was an interesting time in history too, to pursue that profession so wholeheartedly.

5.) Is there any significance behind their hair colour?

No.

6.) Is there any significance behind their eye colour?

Also no.

7.) Is there any significance behind their height?

No, he’s decidedly average. That’s one thing about the story tone that I wanted to embrace. Horror is more horrific when the people facing it are mostly unexceptional.

8.) What, if anything, do you relate to within their character/story?

Adam is the embodiment of a lot of issues I have with myself. His fear in particular, and the feeling of lost potential or losing one’s way in life... I certainly relate to those bits.

9.) Are they based off you, in some way?

Answered above, in a way. Yes, some bits of him are. He’s what would come out if I hacked up a black-sludge entity of my worst personality traits. But writing him was also a form of catharsis/coping with some personal issues I was dealing with at the time. 

10.) Did you know what the OC’s sexuality would be at the time of their creation?

I wanted part of his story to involve romance, so this was something that was addressed early on. So, yes, I did know.

11.) What have you found to be the most difficult about creating art for your OC (any form of art, writing, drawing, edits, e.t.c.)?

Making sure his arc made sense. He does a lot of things that some people would only ever think about doing, but would never really do, and in his desperation, some terrible things occur that he is both directly/indirectly responsible for. But I wanted everything to track so he never strayed into the unbelievability zone.

12.) How far past the canon events that take place in their world have you extended their story, if at all?

Hmm. Not going to answer this. I’ve done thinking.

13.) If you had to narrow it down to 2 things that you MUST keep in mind while working with your OC, what would those things be?

“He has both more courage, and more fear than you do,” and “He likely hasn’t slept in over 40 hours.”

14.) What is something about your OC that can make you laugh?

He’s a monumental pessimist, and sometimes it’s just funny.

15.) What is something about your OC that can make you cry?

The derailed life, going so far down one track that it becomes a physical impossibility to turn back/alter course. This is his life now. What could have been can never happen.

16.) Is there some element you regret adding to your OC or their story?

Not at the moment, no. His upbringing is kind of nebulous, and I did that intentionally. Will I stick by this decision in the future? I don’t know. We’ll have to wait and see.

17.) What is the most recent thing you’ve discovered about your OC?

His capacity for kindness is just as strong as his capacity to hurt, but the two are never reconciled.

18.) What is your favourite fact about your OC?

While he is deeply flawed, I admire his fortitude. I’d go on, but...spoilers.

This was great fun, I urge you to participate, @writingmyassoff. I’m just gonna spam you with these until I run out, mmk?

D

[elfinchick]

Only Lovers Left Alive

This is one of my favourite movies of all time and has inspired three pieces of work. One is still in my head, one is in the processes of being written and more importantly researched and one is below.  Thank you Jim Jarmusch, Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton for the inspiration.  Please find below Adam’s suicide note, which Eve never discovered.

My dearest darling Eve,

My lady,

Please forgive me for I can no longer stand the stench of fear that comes from the zombies. Their panic is instilled in their very souls, chasing their tails, digging a hole so big it drowns them in sludge of their own making.

Even the good stuff from the haematologist at the hospital is tainted these days. It has lost the sweetness of vegetables, replaced by the chemical sweetness from sweeteners and preservatives in their drinks and cakes.  At least it is free of the drugs they consume for fun; we really knew what fun was in the old days, running through Venice, Paris and Rome, late nights routs through the streets, sharing our works with Byron and Schubert, revelling in their successes because they were ours.  Remember that night in Paris when we got the old priest out of bed in the early hours of the morning of our third wedding day, 23rd June 1868, I think he thought he was dreaming. That memory always makes me smile, how I wish we could go back and stay there.  

Did you know they have been poisoning the bees and butterflies?  The zombies spray their crops with insecticides to kill aphids and other crop eating insects but forget there are beautiful creatures that eat them. They think they know better than nature, what idiots they are.  I remember the days before you turned me when I used to bring you beautiful butterflies and drawings of the birds I saw. There was a lady bird in the house the other day, it had seven shiny black spots on its crimson back, it kept climbing up the window, so I couldn’t do anything about it until dusk. It now lives on the red roses you planted when you were here last, the aphids are no longer safe. I keep meaning to get Ian to buy a few bee hives, it might help some of the plants.  In some parts they rent swarms of bees to pollinate their crops because they have wiped out the insect population.  

They really need to turn back to nature, surely their zombie alarms are ringing by now, no insects and farmers in bio-hazard suits.  The population is rising and instead of looking at modifying their methods, encouraging nature and nurturing the ground. It is overworked and dead, like dust. Sometimes it is best to look backwards not forwards, but as much as I would love to I cannot turn the clock back.

Ian bought me some new guitars yesterday, one was a so well made so perfect I named it after Will, the one big regret of my entire existence. I tried so hard to get to him that night, to save him, to turn him but I was too late. The thing a vampire has on his side is eternity, but what use is that when the innocents you need to save, and preserve, are taken by something as futile as war. Back then it was guns, swords and arrows but today they have invented weapons that can devastate whole areas for decades if not centuries. Chemicals that pollute the environment, biological weapons and Oppenheimer’s pet project who’s deadly fall out is still happening.  These zombies really know how to heighten their fears turning their fearful childhood fantasies that had been fed to them by the politicians into a terrible reality.

Amongst the guitars Ian bought me was a plastic and wood affair, at least they recycled the plastic in a unique way, it usually ends up floating the oceans choking birds, fish and killing like the weapons of mass destruction they love inflicting on each other. These silent weapons have ended up in their own food chain and yet they continue to produce and discard their little invention.  There are vast areas of floating garbage arriving onto beaches where there is normally no plastic.  The seas we used to travel are long gone now my love, all those nights watching the stars and wondering which ones had life circulating around them, wondering what the sound of the cosmos was like.  All the sounds of nature, the lapping waves, the call of the gulls, the wind when it whipped up the seas into a frenzy, the lashing waves in a storm tilting the ship to perilous angles, the laughter tinged with fear as we fought not to be swept away! Oh God I miss those days when we had the world ahead of us unencumbered by mankind’s follies and I miss you even more my darling Eve.  

I cannot stand the suffocating stale air of the city, yet I cannot leave it.  I long for the soil beneath my feet, the leaves brushing my skin, the moonlight peeping through the canopy of forests.  The night insects, the earthy scent of the ground, moths float by and the owls call out while hunting for the rustling mice scurrying around trying to avoid them.  I long for the mysterious sounds of the rain forests we visited in South America, how full of energy it was as the trees introduced new oxygen into the world. Can you believe they are chopping down the lungs of this planet and their potential medicine cabinet.  Not to mention the species they are bringing to extinction before they have even discovered them.

I cannot live in a world governed by them any longer!  Their cruelty towards each other gets worse each day, they step on those they consider below them to get higher up the ladder.  When the water starts to run out they will ration and build technology that destroys the planet even more quickly.  Even now when the charities come and find fresh water for the poorest, the greed of others steals the technology and rations it.  Promises of better housing, of schools and medical facilities are broken and the villagers forced to pay for the rations they are given. They kill and maim those of different ideologies, pollute the air with their chemical bombs and superior fire power, forcing their innocents into leaving their homes just to escape the violence.  Not only do they terrorise their poorest and most innocent, they destroy cultures, history and art along with society, the things that bring out the best in them. Instead of building and growing they deny their souls for no other reason than because they can!

They attack new ideas, new thinkers, especially the scientists.  They are still teaching creationism rather than the science put forward by Darwin in some American schools!  They have abandoned the beautiful ideas of Tesla and destroy their most brilliant simply because they do not conform to their idea of what is normal, just like they did to Turing and Galileo. At least they still remember the talent of Lawes and Marlowe, even if he did have to give Shakespeare to pay him back when you helped him fake his own death and Shakespeare hid him for a while. That was quite a game of cat and mouse the three of you played, I am amazed you got away with it.  Then again you were and always will be brilliant.

I so wish you were here, how I crave your phone calls, you can always lift my soul, take the bad feelings away.  I say I have no heroes, but we both that is not true!  Out of all the people I admire the most in this life, you are the biggest of all, for the love you have for dancing, the love you give me and most of all for the way you just know what to do.  You have the calmest of souls, gentlest of touch when giving me comfort and you always have the right words.  I love you my darling and long to dance with you one last time, feel your touch, your caress…

Please forgive me my eternal love

Adam

[jorelassicpark]

Imagine Being Thanos (AU, spoilers, duh)

Something I wrote really quickly.

Apologies for turning Titan into Man of Steel’s Krypton.

Imagine this: you're young, you're optimistic, you're among the brightest and best of your planet. Your family loved you. You're among friends who'd die for you. You've had one of the best upbringings you could ask for. You never go to bed hungry and you've got a job lined up for you once you complete your well-earned education.

But outside of your circle, what your family and friends ignore, is strife - poverty, racism, homophobia, xenophobia, nationalism, us vs. them, politics vs. politics, riots, hunger. Resources are dwindling while the population rises. Your hometown was once quiet, even if it was big - now it's stuffed to the gills with the rich getting richer while the middle class can't afford a house now because all the jobs are being taken by either the overqualified or the rich, while criminals prey on the poor and rich alike who're moving in hoping to snatch up a job. The schools are stuffed to bursting and the teachers get paid for shit. Your friends who start families have to start homeschooling them or scrape up money to send them to a private school to get a quality education, or keep them away from gangs that are popping up. You're assaulted twice, and criminals looking to start fights with you because you were born big break your bones. Even your family can't afford the bills anymore. You're followed by beggars - some you recognize as your old classmate from high school, hit by another recession. Some are completely out of their minds, talking to Gods that aren't there and screaming and hollering. One nearly slashes your throat open with a rusty blade because he thinks you're recording him with your phone.

You notice the summers getting warmer, earlier. Winter doesn't feel like winter anymore. Everyone knows it's the factories struggling to keep up demand spewing smoke into the air. The leaders of each country repeal the fragile environmental laws in place. Your dad used to take the family jetskiing and fishing. You can't do that anymore - the fish are completely gone and the last person who took a swim is dying in the hospital from Gods-know-how-many chemicals. Last week, it hit

In your lifetime, one war after another pops up, in one way or another. Nation A accuses Nation B of meddling in their politics. Nation B invades Nation C that used to be a part of it. Nation A's citizens argue back and forth about Nation B. The right is cleaved in half, one finding Nation B a right-wing aliy, while the other half can't forgive the shadow war waged for the last century. The left fares no better - one half despises its lack of free speech, its own bigotry, while the other half believes it to be an ally against Nation A's own longstanding issues with hatred - slavery in the past, subtle racism that keeps minorities in ghettos now, police brutality. Your nation elects a bigot who seethes against the other every day. Your university shuts down several times. You're tear-gassed by police as you try to make your way to the laboratories. You're mistaken for the Other by one faction or another and you barely escape with your health more than once.

You try to help. You donate to charity, and find the board has been stealing what should be cancer research funds to go party on their yachts. You give blood, only to read that 99% of it goes unused because the collection methods spoil it before it can be used. You

Then it hits. War comes home. Half your family is dead. Half your friends go missing, disappeared into prisons to never be seen again or simply *gone*. You used to share a room with your brother and it takes a long time for you to stop coming home and start talking until you realize the bed above yours is empty. You don't see the sun for days because there's so much thick smoke choking the air from all the bombings. What's left of your family huddles in candlelight after the power shuts down for the nth time, hoping the rifle cracks don't get closer.

The war doesn't get better. Nations are gone overnight. Another half of what remains of your family is drafted to die in a land they don't know. Half of your university is gone, also drafted into the war. In the break room, the professor of philosophy - a man you respect, a man who taught you how to debate, to question what you see, to make sense of other people's suffering - watches the news. The damage is catastrophic. Nuclear weapons poison lands irreversibly. Another scientist is quoted that out of a once roiling planet of one trillion, five billion are left, and dropping *nightly*.

The city mayor calls an emergency meeting. The food supplies are dwindling. Medicine is zero. The remaining hospitals had to put the old, the terminally ill, the critically wounded in palliative care and lie to them that they'll make it.

Something inside you snaps. Maybe it's the fact you barely made it out of an artillery shelling last night. Maybe you're so hungry that you've considered eating the bugs coming out of the rubble. Maybe you're tired of the arguments on who to banish next for some petty thing - banish him because he looks fat and maybe was hoarding food. Banish him because he used to be a racist. Banish that guy because he voted for the party that got us into this war.

You suggest everyone draw straws. One half with the tallest straws get to stay. The other half... you want to say banishment, but you've seen the girl down the street die of radiation poisoning in the gaping crater when she took the wrong path out of town.

Everyone - even your own family - stares at you like you're pure evil.

You work alone, now. Trying to find a cure, and it's hard without anyone to help you move isotopes or work the microscopes or bring you raw materials. But what you can do is math. Prove that your plan, as evil as it is, is right. You draw up statistics. You call on census records and the remaining orbital satellites to determine who is left. You sample soil and watch the clouds and orbit and temperature and all the food sources - animal, plant, and otherwise. Math is simple and easy to understand - it didn't make fun of you for being different, it didn't care if it couldn't understand you.

You have your final plea to save the world. There isn't much time to execute it, and a shred of you hopes you are wrong.

You broadcast your plea. End this. Save what we have left.

You find nothing but mockery. Your plans are broadcasted to other nations to prove yours is an evil, genocidal one when you meant nothing like it.

Another half of your city is destroyed in a bombing sweep trying to target you. The cowards didn't even spare one of their foot soldiers to do the job personally.

One night, your father wakes you up. His eyes are red, and there is something other than hollow shock in his eyes. He leads you to what is left of the laboratories. The readings are getting worse - the tremors are shaking continents apart. The oceans will evaporate in a year, no matter what anyone does. Soon, everyone who survives the quakes will have their lungs collapse into a poison sludge - if the last leaders of every 'great' nation just finally settle for Mutually-Assured Destruction.

He used to be a rocket scientist. He helped Titan meet other worlds, trade peacefully, explore the stars - and that technology is now used to deliver more missiles to nations no longer there.

His personal ship can only fit one. He says he was trying to modify it to fit the family, but that's moot now. It's just you and him.

You're not going, you say. You don't want another hole in your heart. You don't want another ghost haunting this world. You tell him he's older and wiser and he can orate and argue and that he was a diplomat. They'll listen.

You know you screamed at each other, begging not to go. You don't remember much of the exact details - but you remember one. You remember the strength you inherited from him picking you up and tossing you bodily into the cockpit.

You are in orbit when your father is proven right. Nuclear strikes scour light into your eyes. For days, you can't see anything but the memory of your planet turning to the sickest pitch black for a second is burned into your eyes forever.

You drift through space. Your father had set coordinates for the nearest friendly planet. You hope and pray for a diplomatic mission to meet you, to have some kind of shelter. You look forward to a bed and clean food, even though you know they'll probably ignore you at best.

You're beset upon by pirates, beaten to an inch of your life, your ship scrapped for parts. But you live. You manage a living doing hard labor. You work your way into the sciences. You hope this planet avoids another war.

And this world repeats what your world did.

Once again, you escape with your life on a one-man ship. And this time, war has spread through the system - into the next one. You see ships burning unnatural fires into colonies. You see planetary rings formed from endless dead fleets.

It is here, alone in the galaxy, utterly, completely alone, that you decide you will make them listen.

[parkersanders]

Deep Waters

Summary: Sometimes Thomas dreams of fantastic things. Sometimes Thomas dreams of logical things. Sometimes Thomas has emotional dreams. And other times…Thomas has nightmares.

Warnings: Some nightmare imagery, vagueish drowning imagery, but nothing serious.

Word Count: 1493

A/N: I wanted to try out a bit of a ‘what if’ scenario. It’s probably influenced by @momfriendlogan‘s Anxiety series they just started. As well as my own love for the emo edgelord, of course. I listened to Staying Up by The Neighborhood for atmosphere if you want to listen along.

Thomas’s sleep schedule may not have been the most consistent, but he always got to sleep and had dreams. The Sides usually switched between who would have the most control over the dream, and eventually they’d gotten into a steady rhythm where Logan would control dreams early in the night and Roman would control the ones closer to the wakeup time. Patton would hop in every so often when he got excited, but the other two were usually able to hold him back. It seemed like one of the few times that Anxiety wasn’t usually around, and the other Sides liked it that way. Anxiety usually put Thomas on edge, and that would always affect the three of them negatively as well.

“I just don’t think it’s fair that he always ends up remembering your dreams,” Logan said with a frown. “I provide him with adequate simulations of everyday life that could help him improve his problem solving without needing my help all of the time as well as give him reasonable solutions to problems so he doesn’t have to worry about things that may make him nervous.”

“Yes but when I take control, he can slay a dragon,” Roman replied with a wide grin. “And that’s far more exciting than repeating the dream of him going to the grocery store only to discover he wasn’t wearing pants.”

Logan grinded his teeth together. “Anxiety steps in one time…”

“Look it’s my turn anyway,” Roman said. “So I think he would enjoy having a relaxing time on a mountain filled with powdered sugar instead of snow.” He raised his hand and snapped to transition the scene, but nothing happened. “…That usually works.” Roman snapped again, but everything only began to get dark.

Patton let out a whiny noise from behind them. “Oh no…”

Even Logan looked a little uneasy. “It seems Anxiety has found his way into Thomas’s dreamscape.”

“Curse that poisonous bunch-backed toad!” Roman growled.

Logan looked impressed. “You’ve been reading Shakespeare.”

“Of course. He’s a genius. But that’s not the point! We have to find him and get him out of Thomas’s dreamscape before—ugh!!”

Black water began to pool at their feet. It was almost completely dark around them now, and the water was ice cold. It easily soaked through their shoes and began to climb quickly. Patton whined behind them again and Logan looked around, squinting through the darkness.

Logan pointed to a vague figure rippling in the darkness. The others followed in understanding. As they approached, Anxiety came easier into view. The black water was pouring out of him, as though his entire body was just a faucet. His eyes looked hazy and unfocused—even more so than usual—and she stared down at the water absently.

“Kiddo? You okay?” Patton asked nervously. “You’re making this whole place pretty dreary. Wouldn’t you like a little light? And maybe a boat?”

Anxiety didn’t look up. “No. Go away.”

“We will not leave!” Roman said with a firm glare. “You know that you don’t get to take over this place. You pester Thomas enough in the waking day, so nighttime is our time! So stop this nonsense and get out of here.”

“You don’t get it,” Anxiety said. His voice sounded distorted, like a monster’s, and his gaze was still blank and distant. “I don’t cause this. This isn’t my idea.”

Logan couldn’t resist rolling his eyes. “You’re Thomas’s anxiety. You’re the only reason why he would be dreaming of something like this.”

“It’s not my fault.” Anxiety’s tone grew more insistent. The water pouring off of his body grew thicker and soon he was covered in black muck as it poured off of him. The water at the Sides’ knees was quickly replaced with the same thick muck. “I don’t cause these. You think I could dream this up? I react to what I’m faced with. I don’t cause these nightmares.”

Roman was getting fed up with their arguing. The sunrise was drawing nearer, and if Thomas grew too scared, he would wake up and not be able to fall asleep again. Then Roman would have to wait until the next sleep cycle to have fun! “You can stop all of this right now by just stopping this fear and doing your own job!”

“You’re wrong!” Anxiety shouted. The black sludge rose, wrapping around the Sides’ waists. Roman waded, grimacing at how disgusting it was to feel the slime seep through his clothes. “You’re all your own side. You can be logical without needing anyone else. You can be creative without anyone else. You can be emotional without anyone else. But I can’t exist without something else. You all can operate free of one another and you take that for granted! Fear exists from things that can logically hurt you, from the supernatural that’s made up, and fear is inherently emotional. I rely on all of you but none of you want me. Then Thomas wouldn’t be experiencing this, right?”

Roman felt perspiration on the back of his neck. Anxiety was emanating so much nervous energy that even they could feel it. “Hot Topic, you have to calm down. You’re just overreacting.”

“Isn’t that what I do? I overreact all the time. It doesn’t matter that that’s what I was born to do.” The gunk began flowing quicker and it climbed up to their chests. “I’m an inconvenience to everyone!”

Patton began to cry and covered his eyes. Logic looked back at him. “What are you doing?! There’s no reason to cry!”

“It-It’s scary!” Patton cried. Tears streaked down his face and his wails grew louder.

“There’s no reason to be afraid! None of this can hurt us!”

“Doesn’t matter,” said Anxiety. “The fear doesn’t have to be logical. It doesn’t have to have a reason, and it doesn’t have to be creative. It’s its own entity.”

Roman was growing equally panicked. “It’s a part of you! You’re Thomas’s fear!”

“I’m his anxiety. I react to his fear, it’s connected to me, but I can’t control it. I can never control it. That’s what you’re here for. You’re supposed to control his fear. I don’t have anything to do with this.” The sludge had risen to their shoulders, but Anxiety seemed to be sinking even lower, as it was at his chin. “I can’t do anything. I can never do anything. I just make it worse.”

Logan had only heard fear in Anxiety’s voice three times: once when Thomas was five and was certain there was a monster in the closet, again when Thomas was thirteen and watched an R-rated horror movie because Patton insisted he should, and finally a few years ago during a certain near-death experience. But now Logan had heard it again, and he knew it was not good when even Anxiety showed outright fear.

“We’re all here!” Logan shouted, trying to get Anxiety to hear over his own mumbling and the sludge over his ears. “If we’re supposed to control it, then we can. What are we supposed to do?”

Anxiety was unresponsive. The muck rose over his mouth, his nose. His eyes were still lifeless as they sunk below the surface.

“Hot Topic!” Roman yelled, but Anxiety was already gone. Roman and Logan were able to somewhat tread the ‘water’. When Patton’s wails were suddenly cut off, they both spun around in time to see him being swallowed up by the darkness. “Patton!”

“Roman, we have to remain calm,” Logan said. He hoped the strain in his voice wasn’t obvious. “This is only a nightmare. A dreamscape. Neither of them are dead. We have to wake Thomas up.”

“But—”

Logan cut him off. “He wouldn’t be able to enjoy whatever dream you’d create, even if we could somehow gain control of the situation. It’d be better for everyone if we wake him up. Whatever caused this, we can solve it and help him sleep better tomorrow.”

Roman clenched his jaw but nodded. Waking Thomas was easy. A sudden scare, making him aware of how illogical the world was, whatever the means.

When Thomas did wake, three of the Sides were with him in an instant. Patton was still crying and apologizing for frightening Thomas and Logan was there to provide them both with logical solutions and explanations for the symbolism of the dream. Roman promised for a nice, feel-good dream the next night to make up for all of this. Thomas was upset, but having his Sides with him to explain everything made him feel better. It was just a nightmare, after all, no matter how terrifying it was.

Anxiety never surfaced. He remained in his own space, staring into nothing, as he shook and shivered. He could still feel the chill of the water and the disgusting taste of the slime rolling down his throat still baked in his mouth. Anxiety took a shuddering breath and exhaled slowly. Thomas didn’t need him right now. Never after a nightmare.

[mollymauk-teafleak]

The Seal Lullaby: Chapter 4

Next chapter is live! 

Thanks so much to @minky-for-short @childofdustandashes @purearcticfire Also, huge huge huge thanks to @brainypaperbullets @hollywoodx4 @arya-durin-77 for their amazing art, fantastically kind reviews and much needed support.

Feedback and comments would really mean the world, hope you enjoy!

Eliza had never been so happy to be exhausted.

She always looked forward to the walk from the tiny little bungalow that served the town’s elementary schoolers to her home. It gave her a chance to relax her mind after a busy day, wave hello and exchange pleasantries with the people she passed, remind herself just how beautiful this place was.

The dusk was gathering tonight as she strode along and she found herself immeasurably glad she’d remembered her scarf and gloves. As nice as summer had been, late November was proving to be a different kettle of fish entirely; one of these mornings, Eliza was certain she’d wake up to frost on the ground. Her azaleas weren’t going to like that at all.

She pulled her collar up a little higher as the walk to her isolated little cottage exposed her to the open sea which was kicking out a ferocious, heavy, wet bluster that seemed to reach under every protective layer of clothing she had to raise goose bumps on her skin. If she got sick, she was going to be so miffed; she had so much fun stuff planned for her class for the holidays and really didn’t fancy dressing up like Rudolph on the last day of school or organising a times table themed chocolate coin treasure hunt with a stuffed-up nose and headache. She was already feeling much more worn out than usual, although that probably had more to do with having her first nine to five, Monday to Friday job ever.

But it was a tiredness she could be proud of and she wouldn’t trade it for anything. If this was the cost of having the tiny class of tiny third graders look at her with such trust and devotion, having all twelve of them (it was a small town, there weren’t that many children to speak of) hanging off her skirt at playtime, bringing her little sprigs of the rough lavender that grew along the edges of the yard which she dutifully tucked into her ponytail, coming to her when a particularly hard piece of homework had them feeling down on themselves for hugs and reassurance. It was a price she was more than willing to pay, she’d never felt so driven or invigorated about anything, she’d never been so sure that she was doing exactly what she’d been built for.

The instant embrace of warmth and a familiar cosy scent as soon as she pushed back the front door (it always jammed a little, you had to shove it hard with one shoulder) only strengthened her good mood.

“Babe?” she called, stripping off her sodden coat and wilting knitwear, speckled with raindrops that would hopefully dissipate in the heat, “I’m back.”

The fact that Alex wasn’t immediately hurrying out from wherever he’d tucked himself away, hugging her and demanding details about her day and covering her face in kisses and wrapping himself around her like a koala in an attempt to warm her back up, that was her first clue that something was up. Her second clue was the realisation that the fire wasn’t on, the smell of burning and the slight sooty haze in the air were actually coming from the kitchen. Her third clue was the smoke alarm suddenly flaring to life with a panicked, skittish beeping.

That was all the incentive she needed.

“Alex?” Eliza’s voice was significantly more panicked as she dashed into their poky kitchen to see her husband coughing and spluttering in a plume of black smoke that had apparently just poured from the opened oven.

“Oh, hey Betsey,” he croaked back, hacking into the back of his hand but still attempting a light, casual tone, “Did you have a good day at work?”

Eliza gaped at him, going to throw open the windows and grabbing a dishcloth to wave the smoke away, “Uh, fine? Thanks? What on earth are you trying to burn down our house for?”

“I…um…” he looked sheepish, his hands wringing behind his back as he took a step back to shamefacedly watch Eliza swoop in and quickly retrieve the source of the trouble; a baking dish that held something that looked more volcanic than edible.

“I…I was trying to make you dinner?” he confessed in a small voice, both of them looking in bewilderment at the blackened sludge in the dish.

“You…” Eliza processed this slowly, “And what exactly were you trying to make?”

Alex paused for a long time, looking at his feet, “Mac and cheese?”

There was another, heavy pause before Eliza couldn’t hold back any longer and burst out laughing, having to drop the culinary disaster and clutch the counter for support as tears that had nothing to do with the smoke in the air streamed down her face.

After a while, Alex couldn’t help but join in. There was something pretty hilarious about the situation, even he could see that.

Eliza was still chuckling even after the dish had been abandoned to the trash can outside and the open windows had taken care of most of the smog. The little glass window in the oven was probably always going to be stained black from now on but they could live with that.

“I really am sorry,” Alex said for the fiftieth time, though he was smiling. He was pulling out ingredients for his second attempt, this time with supervision, “I have no idea how I messed up that badly.”

“It’s okay,” Eliza insisted fondly, rubbing his arm as she passed by to get another mixing bowl, “it was so sweet of you to want to cook for me. You could have just waited though, I’d love to teach you how to cook?”

Alex shifted a little, looking coy, “But that’s not how it’s supposed to work.”

Eliza turned, giving him a careful glance, “Not how what’s supposed to work, exactly?”

Alex rubbed the back of his neck, getting some flour in his long, dark hair, “Well…I’m your mate, right? I’m supposed to provide for you, I’m supposed to get you food and shelter and all that. I thought, seeing as I can’t just go out and snag a fish in my jaws, this was the next best thing? Except I ruined it…”

Eliza tilted her head, a fond smile growing on her face. She wandered over to him, caught a little flour on one forefinger and dabbed it on the tip of his nose playfully, chasing away his forlorn expression.

“It’s a little different up here, Alex,” she smiled, “We’re a team, okay? We work together. Although…” she rose up on her tiptoes to press a gentle kiss to his mouth, “It is incredibly sweet of you.”

Alex was blushing now, grinning goofily in that way she knew and loved, “Even though I nearly burned our house down?”

“Ah, what’s a little light arson in a marriage?” Eliza shrugged nonchalantly, grinning, “I’m sure most first time homeowners have to deal with a mild nuclear meltdown occurring in their oven?”

The sarcasm wasn’t lost on Alex, he was losing his explicitly literal nature, “I’m never living this down, am I?”

“Absolutely not,” Eliza kissed him again, already thinking of how she was going to retell this little escapade in the most exciting way in her next email to her sisters.

Alex kissed her back, winding his arms around her waist lovingly, anchoring her against him, drawing out every second of contact until they had to break apart for air.

“Come on,” now it was Eliza’s turn to blush and squirm under Alex’s intensely loving gaze, wriggling away to turn back to the scales, “You’ve got me hungry for mac and cheese now, show me what you can do.”

Eliza quickly saw where Alex had been going wrong, with the amount of times she had to stop him from just tipping an avalanche of salt into the sauce or remind him that water needed heat under it to boil. He apparently forgot after two seconds that there was a recipe he was supposed to be following and the instincts he followed instead were a little…misguided?

They had a lot of fun though, ending up with bright smiles and flour handprints scattered across their clothing (not to mention two matching ones on the seat of Alex’s jeans that Eliza crossed her heart and swore weren’t her doing), eating pasta from the dish set between the two of them on the table.

“This is really really good Alex!” Eliza made sure to shower him with compliments to soothe his bruised ego, “Honestly, it’s amazing.”

Alex gave her a rueful smile, suspecting what she was doing but not particularly minding, “I’ll get better. But this is an okay start.”

“Better than okay,” Eliza shook her head, spearing some more on her fork, she really was ravenous after working all day, “Perfect.”

He pulled a face at her, earning one right back until they both dissolved into giggles. They kept eating, chatting companionably.

“So…seeing as being a world-famous chef might be just a little bit out of your reach?” Eliza smiled teasingly, “Did you have any more thoughts about sending off your manuscript?”

Alex shifted, his cheeks reddening a little. It had taken weeks and weeks of persuasion and promises not to laugh for him to give over the pages he’d been scribbling on for a while now, whenever his wife was at work or on the frequent nights he couldn’t sleep. When Eliza had finally been allowed to read it, she’d been stunned.

It was like long form narrative poetry, something Joyce-esque with a shifting, mesmerising plot that could never really be nailed down, only in the most teasingly imperceptible way of a voyage and a struggle and a searching. He wrote the way he ran, the way he swam and sang to himself in the shower and made love to her. Like someone from another reality. It was so beautiful, there’d been tears in Eliza’s eyes by the time she’d finished.

Her father had a lot of friends in publishing, it made sense for a politician to have an in with the people who dispensed knowledge. The offer to send it to one of them, to see if they’d want to actually print it, was one of the first things that sprang to her mind. Alex had reacted with pleased embarrassment, books were things of real magic and power to him and the idea that he could produce one himself was absurd flattery. But Eliza had been perfectly serious, she was still perfectly serious, the stuff Alex wrote in just a month or so was the stuff people studied and students poured over for years. He’d eventually sighed and groaned and rolled his eyes but promised to think it over.

Now, he huffed in resignation, he’d been anticipating her bringing this up again, “I just don’t think that one’s good enough, maybe if I had time to write something different I could put more effort in…”

But Eliza had been anticipating this too, she knew her Alex well. He’d insist that it wasn’t ready, that he just needed more time, he just needed to tweak it, until they ended up never taking any steps forward. She opened her mouth, a firm but gentle argument ready and perched on her tongue but her stomach gave a sudden and violent lurch, turning it all into just a soft, anxious squeak.

“Eliza?” Alex said cautiously, not at all liking the way her expression suddenly fell and her skin took on this green tinge.

“God damn it,” Eliza groaned softly, a cold sweat breaking over her forehead as she dropped her fork and leapt to her feet, just about making it to the bathroom, heaving and retching into the toilet.

Alex’s heart dropped and he went after her, cursing himself. First, he’d created a miniature volcano, then he’d gone and poisoned his wife, he couldn’t fucking do anything right…

He was never much good with illness, it was hardly the biggest problem out there in the ocean, humans were much more fragile, but he did what he could, gently rubbing between Eliza’s shoulder blades and keeping the long trailing ends of her braids safe from harm. He murmured soft, sorrowful apologies as he helped her move gingerly until she was slumped against the wall, groaning.

“It’s not your fault,” she breathed, her voice trembling and weak, “I knew this damn weather would make me sick, I always get flu when it’s cold…”

Alex gave a mirthless laugh as he passed her a hastily poured glass of water, “And I bet you always get food poisoning when you eat food made by a complete moron.”

She gave him a look over the rim of the glass, warning him off. She never let him get away with any self-deprecating comment.

“I’m telling you, there’s nothing wrong with your food…the second time,” she made the amendment quietly and quickly, “You watch, next it’ll be a blocked nose then a headache, I’ll feel sorry for myself for a few days and then I’ll be totally fine.”

Alex still looked fretful, still holding her braid, toying with it anxiously. Eliza caught his hand in her own, squeezing reassuringly.

“Totally fine. I promise,” she gave him a rough, tired smile.

“Totally fine,” Alex echoed, nodding and trying to relax.

As it happened, they were both wrong.

-

“Wait I’m…what?”

The doctor on the other end of the phone was still talking but Eliza wasn’t hearing any of it. She’d thought they were calling to tell her that her tests came back completely fine, that it was just a nasty flu and she could just take some pills or whatever and clear it right up. That’s what she’d told Alex, at least, when he’d begun to seriously panic after about a week of her throwing up and not being able to get out of bed until midday and getting dizzy at odd moments. He’d been insufferable to the point that she’d gone to her appointment with the doctor’s, a generous handful of miles away from their isolated little fishing village, alone.

She could see him out of the corner of her eye, shifting anxiously on the sofa and watching her, studying her face. She realised her expression right now must be terrifying him but she just couldn’t change it.

The doctor kept saying that word in a gentle, understanding, congratulatory voice but every time she said it, it made less and less sense to Eliza. She just wanted her to stop talking really, go away and let her process this, the buzz of information was turning her neutral confusion into out and out panic. Finally, mercifully, she went, Eliza finding herself promising to come in the day after tomorrow for a follow up, nodding along at mentions of weights and measuring and plans and procedures, until she was left with a dial tone.

“What did they say?” the words were out of Alex’s mouth the second the phone slipped from Eliza’s ear to hang limply at her side.

“Um…” Eliza blinked, feeling very far away from her surroundings, the shock playing tricks with her perspective as it has a way of doing.

“Is it flu?” his voice was stained with panic that he was making no effort to hide, “Or iron deficiency? Stomach ulcers?”

Eliza sighed softly, coming over to sit by him, finding it easier to deal with his fright than her own shock, “Baby, I told you not to read those old medical journals, they’re a little grisly…”

Alex didn’t seem to notice the gentle rebuke, his hand scrambled like an injured bird to catch hold of hers, “Eliza, I’m scared, what did the doctor say?”

Eliza ran her thumb over his knuckles, trying to bring him back down. If he fell apart, she’d go right with him and then there’d be no hope.

“Alex, I’m not dying, I haven’t got a disease.” That much was true, anyway.

“Then what is it?” Alex let go of a little of his worry, just a little, he could still see the distress in her eyes as clear as day.

Eliza wasn’t quite sure how to phrase this, her mind was stalling and stuttering like the thought was too hot to pick up and she flinched away from it every time she touched it.

“You told me that there were…stories? Of people like us, Selkies and humans that bonded?” she spoke carefully, not letting go of his hand.

Alex blinked in confusion, sitting back on his heels. He rationalised that if Eliza was asking him about folktales and songs, then there couldn’t exactly be a disaster on the horizon.

“Yeah, there are some songs,” Alex nodded, shifting closer to her to rest his head on her shoulder, “I don’t know how true they are but that’s the only way my people pass on any kind of history.”

Some part of Eliza’s brain that hadn’t quite caught up with the rest of her wondered if that was why her husband had such a talent for writing, for constructing these amazing, epic poems that seemed almost tangible. It was what he was used to. Did Selkies trade around such beautiful lyrical verses like casual conversation? Eliza couldn’t even imagine it.

She swallowed, tucking her legs up so she was closer to him, “And…did they have happy endings? Those songs and the people in them?”

Alex frowned, “Not a lot of our stories do, sweetheart.”

That was the truth, a life spent avoiding predators and constantly facing starvation or destruction, a life of being hunted didn’t tend to produce happy fairy tales.

“Oh…” That wasn’t the answer she wanted and Alex could tell.

“Eliza?” he breathed, begging now, begging quietly for reassurance that she was okay because he was starting to seriously doubt that she was.

Eliza closed her eyes tight, shrinking down into herself a little, “Alex, were there…did they…”

He clung to her hand, sensing her slipping away.

“Were there children in those stories?”

The words jumped out of her once they were found, making her recoil a little, like they had physical force behind them.

Alex tilted his head, “Yes. In some of them…” Realisation sank in and his eyes widened, his jaw dropping a little.

Eliza faced down his gaze, her lower lip starting to tremble as the truth as yet unspoken struck both of them.

“You’re pregnant?” Alex, always the bravest with emotion despite the consequences, was the one who finally said it. It had a question mark at the end but it wasn’t a question. There was no doubt.

“Yes,” Eliza nodded, her mouth now downturned and shaking, tears creeping up on her with an unstoppable approach. She didn’t want to be crying. She didn’t want Alex to think this wasn’t what she wanted, it was, in some very real way it was. But at the same time, she was scared. God, damn it, she was terrified. She was twenty one and so far from home and everything she’d known up until this point, being faced with the idea that she could do something as raw and significant as have a child, that she had a whole other soul and life to take care of. She’d never been so scared in all her life and now what would Alex think when he saw her on the verge of sobbing at the discovery that they’d made a life together?

As it happened, what he did was he wrapped his arms around her, pressing her against him so she felt nothing but his warmth and his strength and the pounding of his heart.

“Eliza, I love you,” he whispered, his words holding as much truth and power and beauty as she found in his writing, like he was pouring out his soul to her. Even more intense for the fact that it was held in four words rather than fourteen pages, like it obeyed the physical laws of force dissipated over a larger surface area.

And then she was crying, sobbing against his chest, dissolving and surrendering to her emotion but knowing now that it was okay. Alex was holding her, he’d bring her back once it was over. She was safe with him.

His long, careful fingers stroked her hair and his arms rocked her and his gentle voice murmured words in her ear as she cried her eyes out, asking nothing of her, just giving her space and security to deal with this. And when she was through to the other side, he just held her face and kissed the burning salt from her cheeks and rested his forehead against her own.

And Eliza felt like a different person. She felt like someone strong enough to do this. As long as there would always be those arms to hold her and that voice in her ear. As long as she had her mate, her Alex.

Eliza’s shaky hands left his shoulders and settled on her own belly. Of course, there was nothing there yet, nothing physical. But she felt the spark all the same, she felt the presence of someone reaching back.

“Betsey?” Alex murmured softly, daring to hope.

A slow smile spread across Eliza’s face, crinkling her red, bloodshot eyes and lifting her flushed, blotchy cheeks. And, as far as her husband was concerned, she’d never looked more beautiful.

“We’re going to be parents,” she laughed, a delighted and bewildered sound, “I’m going to have a baby, we’re going to be parents!”

Alex started to laugh too, his thumbs running along her cheekbones, “Yeah. Yeah, we are, you beautiful, gorgeous, perfect, amazing woman…”  

Eliza blushed under his praise and the messy, hurried kisses that followed, their lips crashing together with no finesse or care, their feelings too raw to bother about such things. Eliza tipped backwards, pulling Alex with her. She laughed, her voice rasping, as she stroked his hair while his kisses travelled down her body until his head rested over her stomach, resting his forehead against her skin like he’d done with her just moments ago. Saying his first hello to whoever was in there.

Alex smiled and closed his eyes, certain, despite all medical science, that he could hear a tiny second heartbeat under the more familiar thud of Eliza’s. A thought occurred to him in that moment, a thought he’d share with Eliza later as she braced herself to call her parents, as his fingers soothingly massaged her shoulders.

Selkie stories didn’t have happy endings.

But theirs would.

-

Eliza stood on the threshold of their cottage, stood on her tiptoes and waved, the wind whipping her dress and hair into a storm around her, but still she stayed until the car had crested the hill and dipped out of sight. Even then she lingered a little, until it got too cold and she couldn’t ignore the goose bumps rising on her skin, until she heard Alex’s voice calling her back. She gave a small, fond smile; he’d been agonising over her nearly constantly in an endearing, protective way.

Over them both, she thought to herself, her smile widening. Her hand gently skirted over the swell in her woollen dress.

Eliza came back inside and sat down heavily on the sofa with a bone deep sigh of relief, her head lolling back and her eyes closing. As glad as she was that the rift she’d opened in her family was completely healed, as happy as she was to have the chance to show them her new life that she’d build for herself and how comfortable she was now, she still was so, so glad they were gone.

That was family, she supposed.

Time, distance, Angelica and Peggy’s mediating and the fact that they had their first grandchild on the way, the combined weight of all these factors was enough to bring her parents down here for a visit. It had been a little stiff, a little awkward, some pointed questions had needed dodging but Eliza thought that only added to the success of it. Enough to satisfy them that she’d made the right decision but enough to make them keep their distance, to not feel the need to micromanage her life the way they did with Angelica (despite the fact that she didn’t need it) and Peggy (despite the fact that she didn’t listen). Her two sisters had come down too, made themselves invaluable as ever, acted as a buffer to soothe their parents’ fears and Eliza’s exasperation. But of course, what had really made the reconciliation an inevitability had been the sight of Eliza cradling her small but noticeable, fourth month old bump. Her parents melted instantly.

“You little miracle worker,” she murmured softly, not opening her eyes. She always felt that they could hear her better when she was focusing on nothing but the sensation of them under her fingers. Whenever Eliza talked to them- which was very, very often- she did it with closed eyes and a small, enigmatic smile.

She heard Alex’s footsteps coming down the rickety stairs, the sound of bare soles on uneven wood, his airy voice singing to himself under his breath. Music was another human concept he’d latched onto almost obsessively, though he claimed it was a little lacking compared to the kind of lyrics he’d heard before he walked on two legs. All the same, he treasured the vinyl record player she’d brought with them from Albany, he’d play a record over and over until he was sickened on it. For the last few days it was Edith Piaf who’d stolen his heart in particular. Eliza didn’t mind, she’d owned that box of records since she was fifteen, she loved every song in that box with a deep, nostalgic adoration. And she was finding the melancholy, the memories of lying on her bed as a teenager and finding solace in these songs, extremely comforting in her pregnancy.

Just yesterday, when the blues she couldn’t quite pinpoint or tangle her way out of had caught hold of her, the lowness and discomfort her doctor just shook her head and explained away as a normal symptom, Alex had known exactly what to do. He’d taken hold of her hands and pulled her into the kitchen, taking her around the floor in a kind of slow, careful waddling waltz that was all she could manage right now but it had brought Eliza back into the light in moments. They’d ended up making slow, gentle love against the wall with that gorgeous, lilting music still accompanying their movements and Eliza had ended up crying from the beauty of it, how happy she was.

And it left Alex always singing. That she loved more than anything. His voice lent itself well to song, it was raspy and it snapped in places and some notes wandered away but it was real and it had so much more feeling to it than she’d ever heard. She could listen to her Alex sing all day long.

She opened her eyes to watch him, laughing in amusement but not surprise when she saw he’d stripped right down to his boxers. He never was going to get the hang of clothes.

Eliza could almost actually see the stress and anxiety trail out of him, like ribbons of steam leaving a burning hot surface, she was so relieved. She knew having her whole family come to visit had been the most she’d ever asked of him. The weight of fabricating a whole life, a childhood spent in this town, running into Eliza at college, falling in love, a whirlwind proposal, having to keep all the little tics and habits that made him himself in check, hold himself awkwardly, like he was balancing a book on his head for the entire day, it had almost been too much. They’d had to pull away for an hour or so in the middle of the day, under the pretence of Eliza needing a nap, for her to just sit with his head in her lap, stroking his hair and rocking him, loving on him every way she knew how. She knew it made him feel like an outsider, to have to play this part. Talking art with her mother and listening to her father’s political rants he’d happily dispense to anyone who showed a passing interest, hiding so much of himself and who he was, it all just reminded him with a painful sharpness that he didn’t fit.

But he’d done it for her. And he’d done so well, her parents had gone from eyeing him distrustfully to shaking his hand and smiling warmly in the space of six hours, that in itself was no mean feat.  

Eliza poured every scrap of love she could find into the gaze she gave him as her weary husband came and knelt in the space between her legs, resting his head against her stomach and breathing in a sigh so deep it must have made his ribs ache.

“My brave, beautiful man,” Eliza cooed softly, bending over him, “My hero.”

Alex gave a small laugh, her voice tired, “That went well.”

“It went better than well, Alex, they loved you!” she praised him generously, knowing it would be like a balm on his raw anxiety, “They probably like you more than me! You had them laughing and you answered all their questions perfectly and…and, baby, I’m so proud of you…”

“I’m just glad it’s done,” he mumbled, catching her hand and pressing his lips to her palm, “If I’m allowed to say that.”

“Honey, I am right there with you,” Eliza reassured him with a gentle laugh, “That’s satisfied my desire to see my family for…the next twelve years, I’d say.”

Alex snickered along with her, the giggling, bubbling laughter of relief at the end of a long journey, as social batteries recharged and familiarity returned. He took his kisses over to her stomach, that had been the focus of his attentions recently, like it was the centre of his universe.

“Your daddy did pretty good, huh?” he grinned, his voice gentle, “Didn’t do a half bad job passing as human?”

Eliza laughed, Alex was as talkative with their unborn baby as he was with anyone. She loved it, actually, held onto the thought that their child would be born knowing their father’s voice like a precious coin. Like a lighthouse’s glare.

“You did amazingly, Alex, I can’t thank you enough,” Eliza answered for their little one.

He gave her a sleepy smile, looking proud of himself. And that was all Eliza could ever have asked for. That was part of loving someone so completely, she’d realised, having them love themselves being as necessary your own oxygen. Needing them to see and know everything amazing that made you love them.

“I have an idea,” she said quietly, grinning.

Alex tilted his head, quizzically, “Yeah?”

The only answer she gave him was to gingerly get to her feet, waving at him to stay put.

“Eliza?” he narrowed his eyes, “Baby, you shouldn’t be on your feet, c’mon, just tell me and I’ll do it…”

Eliza shot him a warning look, “Sweetheart, if you don’t calm down you’re going to have a heart attack before the baby even gets here. I can walk up stairs, okay? Now shush and stay put.”

Alex dropped back down onto his ass, scowling and folding his arms. A combination of the two things he hated the most, having his pregnant wife moving around when he could be fetching and carrying for her. And not knowing what was going on.

He sulked half-heartedly until he heard her soft voice coming from upstairs. He was up and moving in a heartbeat, only skidding to a halt when he pushed back their bedroom door and saw what she’d made for him.

This time he didn’t need prompting. He took her hand and pulled her into the blanket fort that was taking up most of the floor space, curling up with her gladly, back in the soft, warm glow of the place they’d both first discovered exactly what it was they had. This was one thing that hadn’t gotten away from them, however far they’d come in such a short space of time.

“Thank you, Eliza,” he sighed for the millionth time, his face happily buried in her hair.

“I thought you could use some space,” she replied with a satisfied smile, her eyes closed and her head pillowed on the lower part of his stomach so he could koala himself around her in the way he liked to do.

“I kind of did, yeah,” he laughed at the understatement, shaking his head a little at her canny.

Eliza’s smile turned a little wicked as she made up her mind that they’d been lying here cuddling for long enough, “I think I have something else you could use.”

Alex blinked in confusion, making a soft noise of perplexity, until he felt her hands pulling his boxers down his legs.

“Betsey…” he breathed, heat pooling in the base of his stomach as her warm breath touched the most intimate part of him.

The unpredictability of her hormones had given them both a lot of sleepless nights recently but Alex had rarely found himself on the receiving end. Not that he minded at all, he enjoyed giving as much as anything and felt so relieved to have a problem he knew and enjoyed fixing.

Eliza felt his hesitation as her hands rested on his hips. She looked up at him, her eyes catching the low light, “Alex? Sweetheart, we don’t have to, I just want to bring you back to yourself a little? I just want to make you feel good…”

What she really wanted was to show him how loved he was, human or not, how none of that mattered to her and what they’d been through today didn’t mean that fitting in with her family was a condition of her wanting to be with him. If her mother and father had taken one look at him and spat on the ground in disgust, it wouldn’t have changed a thing. It was nothing more than convenience; her love was tied to something much deeper and unshakable.

But that was a little too complicated to say. She just hoped it came across in the way she ran her fingers across his skin.

Alex answered with his hands tangling in her hair, a silent gesture of permission. By the time, Eliza was finished with him, after she’d broken him with her mouth, turned him around and put him back together, again with her mouth, they were exhausted. Sleep came easily, all worries and anxieties forgotten, replaced with closeness and warmth.

Alex and Eliza were finding that sometimes they didn’t need words.

-

Summer couldn’t come back around sooner for Eliza.

As much as she’d loved the months that had gone by, as fun as it had been introducing Alex to the concept of Christmas, celebrating the new year with the knowledge that one of the top publishers in New York city, a close personal friend of Senator Schuyler, had accepted Alex’s submission and already asked for more. Something about the concept of a reclusive, postmodern poet scribbling away his tomes in some salt burned corner of Oregon had a rustic magic to it that the intellectuals of the city couldn’t get enough of, positive reviews were flooding in. Alex didn’t have a clue what half of the words people used to describe his work meant but the advance cheque would easily cover the cost of a crib and paint for the nursery so, frankly, he couldn’t care less. And Eliza was proud of him.

As much as she loved spring, seeing her new flowers coming through and getting to feel the sun on her skin again and some blue return to the sky rather than near constant grey so monotonous that the clouds and the sea seemed to run into one, unending canvas.  Seeing the buds studding their careful, delicate trails across the open palms of the tree branches had broken her out of a day’s long slump and made her laugh for no reason other than flowers were beautiful and she was happy.

But Eliza found herself more than ready for summer. Not just for being free of work, of standing on her swollen ankles and fighting her instincts to do nothing all day but curl up and nap, but for the freedom of having nothing in the world to do but wait. She was unlike Alex in that way. While he was in a constant state of restless, impatient shifting, ticking the days off on the calendar, she was more than happy to enjoy the waiting. She’d always had the personal philosophy that there was nothing she could do to make time go faster, so it was much better just to watch it flow past at its own pace. There was comfort in the inevitability, the certain future. So, she was the one who chuckled affectionately and ruffled Alex’s hair and kissed the back of his neck, reminding him that the baby would come when they were ready and not before. He was the one who huffed and sighed exaggeratedly, more in performance than anything, whining about the infuriatingly long gestation periods for humans and groaning that he was going to explode if he had to wait another second. It was a fun, familiar little routine they had, resolving nothing between them.

Both of them were relieved when Eliza’s first day of vacation arrived, when they went to bed safe in the knowledge that they could stay there as long as they liked and not a damn thing could make them move. Despite their shared sleepiness, they stayed up late, making love in an almost defiant, celebratory way.

Eliza had discovered a deep, ravenous delight in watching Alex pleasure himself. She could lose herself in moments, in how his tight, lithe body rolled and rocked as if to music, how his hands moved like they had minds of their own, brushing lightly and teasing and palming before suddenly gripping and striking with enough force to make him shriek, seemingly without any command from Alex himself. He took such uncomplicated joy in performing for her, emphasising every single movement so she didn’t miss anything, making loud, exaggerated noises and throwing himself into it until his hair came loose and clung to his damp face, riding as many fingers as she instructed him while stroking himself off, moving with such wanton need but still denying himself if she asked it, only finishing on her express command. That night she worked him hard, repeatedly, until he was a mess and her own body was screaming for some attention, practically pouncing on him when she finally let herself go, gripping his shoulders and dragging him between her legs.

If Alex and Eliza hadn’t finally fallen asleep so exhausted and satisfied and happy, the storm would have woken them for sure; Alex wasn’t fond of storms and Eliza was a light sleeper these days. But, as it happened, they managed to sleep on for a few hours as the rain began beating its rapid tattoo against the windows and the wind started up its angry, robust howl and their little cottage swayed under the furious pacing of the storm around the bay.

What eventually woke Eliza was the sudden, sharp pressure against her skin, flinging her back into consciousness with a sensation not unlike she’d fallen from a great height and struck the ground with sickening force. She moaned groggily, shifting out of Alex’s arms, jolting him awake too, just in time to scream hoarsely as lightning turned their room into a negative of itself.

Eliza forgot her own discomfort in an instant, taking hold of Alex’s arms and snapping his gaze to her, “No, no, sweetheart, it’s okay, it’s only the storm…my love, it’s okay, you’re safe…”

Alex’s breathing was ragged and his eyes were fixed on the window, awash with so many raindrops they blurred into one solid sheet like melted glass. There was a rumble of thunder, partner to the lightning and he moaned, trembling.

“I don’t like storms, I don’t like storms, I don’t like storms,” the rapid, garbled chanting replaced his breathing, his fingers turned to white jointed claws in his tangle of hair.

Another burst from outside and the harsh, excruciating light fell across his angular face. And for the briefest of seconds his teeth looked longer and tapered to points, his eyes became solid black, there were shadows across his cheekbones that weren’t there before, sharp and predatory and…fearsome. Eliza actually withdrew, before her brain could pull her back, her hands flying from his shoulders to wrap around her swollen belly protectively. It was just how her body reacted.

The moment that drew out between them was sickening. Alex watching his wife flinch away from him in fear. Eliza seeing his fear and panic turning him into something neither of them recognised, her body betraying her. Eyes wide, hearts stopping, bile rising in throats. And a thought shared between the two of them; please god no, take it back, take it back…

Then Eliza doubled over, a sudden pinching sensation forcing another groan from her, sweat beading along her hairline and between her shoulder blades.

“Eliza?” Alex’s stomach went into freefall, “Baby, what’s wrong?”

And the moment was forgotten, it was gone, like it never happened. They both somehow knew it needed to be that way, letting it disintegrate with no protest. It wasn’t like either of them wanted to hang on to it.

“I’m fine,” she took deep, rapid breaths of air, running her hands over her skin, “They’re just kicking.”

“Are you sure?” Alex’s anxiety had taken a backseat, a little happy for something else to focus on even as his fretful father to be instincts went into overdrive, “What if it’s, y’know, it?”

“We still have about a month, baby,” Eliza tried not to sound like she was convincing him, stroking his bare arm and hoping the darkness hid how ashy her skin had turned, “They don’t have a whole lot of room in there and they mustn’t feel like sleeping- “

She was interrupted by another loud shout from the sky that seemed to shake the ground underneath their little home. And a beat later by another hard kick from the baby, a little too rough and sudden to let her hold back the pained yelp.

“Ow…” she whimpered, her eyes tightly closed.

Alex gave a small, worried croon, shuffling forward on his knees and placing shaky palms against her stomach, frowning a little at how hot and thin it felt, even more compared to his own cool skin.

“I…I don’t think they like the storm…” he murmured thoughtfully, vaguely, like the mechanics of his brain were still clicking even as he spoke, “I think they’re scared…”

Eliza’s bottom lip trembled, ache and exhaustion and tenderness bringing tears to her eyes. Her hands rested over Alex’s, the teardrops gradually dripping from her chin to dampen the outward curve of her nightdress, “Scared? Oh no, honey, it’s okay, please don’t be scared.”

All she got in response was another forceful kick that rattled her ribs; Alex had to catch her and gently ease her down onto her back, she couldn’t move herself until the crest of it had passed.

“I feel like this is my fault,” Alex’s eyes were wide and unhappy. His own reaction to the storm had been abandoned, all he cared about now was his child’s.

“Oh, Alex,” Eliza sighed softly, her voice trembling just a little.

“No, I mean it,” he looked so forlorn, like he’d reached an uncomfortable conclusion, as he carefully settled himself next to her with the tension of someone standing guard rather than going to sleep, “The…strength and the storm and everything…this is me, this is my half, they’re like this because of me…”

Eliza couldn’t hear any more, couldn’t see that expression on his face any more. She shushed him gently and reached out to take his face between her hands, like before, but less of a frantic snatch away from the edge and more of a gentle pull towards the warmth.

“Hey,” she whispered, her fingers resting over his lips, soft and split from the cold and the temperature of a pebble pulled from the shoreline.

“Hey,” he answered, recognising her little signal to ease his grip on what was bothering him, give her the chance to take it from him.

“You know what else our baby is going to get from you?” she tilted her head, eyes sparkling in the shifting light. The moonlight split into scattered handfuls of shards, held within her iris.

Alex shook his head, easing himself closer so Eliza could drag the duvet back over them from where his thrashing had sent it to the floor.

“Well,” she rested her head on his chest, “Personally? I hope they have your lovely thick eyelashes. I hope they get your wonderful tawny skin. Your smile that uses your whole face and makes the bridge of your nose wrinkle up. And your kind heart and your curiosity and your reckless capacity for love.”

Alex was the one crying now, his eyelids fluttering as tears beaded on his lashes, as his thin shoulders shook with a mix of giggles and snuffles. But Eliza knew, as she smiled tenderly and covered his face in kisses, he was okay again.

There was more thunder and more lightning, the seconds between them climbing as the storm’s anger dissipated but with each one there was a powerful lurch inside Eliza that left her trembling and breathing hard so she didn’t scare Alex even more. She had it under control now, it wasn’t the discomfort, it was the idea that her precious little cargo was frightened and there was nothing she could do about it.

“It’ll pass, the storms leaving sweetie, it’s going,” Eliza whispered, curling into Alex, trying to keep the hard roundness of their baby tucked safe between the warmth of its parents.

“I have an idea,” Alex had been unusually silent for a while, just holding her, kneading her lower back to try and help with the pressure, “Might not work but…if my weird ass genes caused the problem, I can maybe fix it.”

Eliza opened her mouth to shoot down his choice of words but he was gone, ducking under the quilt. She turned over a little, gingerly, shifting her significant weight, trying to figure out what his plan was exactly. He’d been caressing her stomach for the past ten minutes without it having it’s usual impact, what on earth was he doing?

Eliza froze as soon as she heard his voice, his gentle, quiet singing, muffled a little with the blankets and the racket outside but still sounding so clear as if it originated from inside her own chest. This was nothing from her old records, it wasn’t listed on the back of any dust jacket in that case, this was nothing from her world at all. The language he sang in was constructed for another set of vocal cords, another medium and another time. It was unmistakably a lullaby, it had the right texture and lilt, dropping to almost a whisper at the end of each verse and easing through the cadence, rocking and swelling in an expressive mimicry of the movement of a mother’s arms. Or the roll of the waves. Eliza didn’t understand the words but as she listened, images were painted upon her mind that hadn’t come from her, light refracted through green water and seaweed tracing a thoughtful dance in the current and a slight tipping of perspective, looking at the world through a different angle. Within the confines of Alex’s song, up was down, down was up, gravity was nothing more than a slight compression against a gentle floating sensation, sight was useless but the nose, ears, fingertips were alive.

It was haunting.

But the baby growing inside her settled within a few lines, the pinching and the pressure eased into a soft pattering as they searched for their father’s voice, finding his hands and placing their tiny palms against his own. Even as more thunder and more lightning rocked the cottage, their nameless little one was still, soothed into sleep. Before much longer the storm broke and the weather let go of whatever grudge had riled it, leaving nothing more than a slightly sullen rainfall. Alex let go of the song, it seemed to have no natural end but just left his throat to continue on somewhere else, out of their reach.

He kissed Eliza’s belly, murmuring, “You be nice to your mama, okay, try not to hurt her for me? You both need some sleep now. I love you.”

He resurfaced, expecting a kiss or at least a grateful smile, his own a little bashful. What he found, to the breaking of his heart, was Eliza’s face twisted in grief and pain, tears flowing down her heart shaped face, following the exact shadows that the rain and the moonlight were tracing on her skin.

“Eliza?” he breathed, reaching out for her.

“I’m sorry,” she croaked, twisting her eyes shut as if to hide from him what he’d already seen, “It’s not…I mean…”

Alex sat up, gently easing her over to him so her head was cradled against his chest, “You can tell me? Please?” He couldn’t help if he didn’t know.

So many times, in the past eight months he’d been forced to accept a truth that sat bitterly with him, that some problems Eliza had he just couldn’t take away. All he could do was nod and hold her while she cried over the unfairness of throwing up every single morning and having to pull six hour shifts with no coffee or being unable to doze on her stomach like she loved to do on lazy Saturday mornings while Alex read the paper and fed her bits of toast. Little things that didn’t seem to hold that much importance at first glance but still she wept and the fact that she was weeping over such apparently trivial things made her weep even harder. And Alex couldn’t do a damn thing to change it. And that stung him.

But this was something deeper.

“I’m n-not crying b-b-because they’re like you,” Eliza sobbed, her voice dripping with misery, “I swear I’m n-not. It’s just…”

Alex stiffened, letting her cling to his arm as her stomach kept her from throwing her arms around his middle.

“Then what, sweetheart?” He was getting the sense he wouldn’t like the answer.

“What if they…if they w-want to go?” Eliza wrenched the words out, dissolving into freshly agonised sobs at having spoken the words out loud.

Alex felt a chill as he realised what she meant. What if their baby was so much like him that they felt the same pull in their hearts that he felt every time the smell of salt caught in his nose or on his tongue or he heard the waves breaking on the shore, knowing just by sound alone which held the right currents to take him back. Back where was a question too vast to answer. Anywhere.

For Alex, the temptation was only ever brief, the old stale hunger for a drug he’d kicked long ago. The scent of Eliza’s hair or the brush of her fingertips on the back of his neck or the impossibly soft skin under the curve of her breasts chased it back down. Even when she was at work and he had the sea song caught in his head and there came that sly reminder from some part of his brain he didn’t fully control- his skin was just upstairs, the chest at the foot of their bed, it was right there- all he needed to do was find the diamond patterned sweater she’d been wearing all day yesterday and bury his nose in it, inhaling the smell of petrichor and garden soil and dew and flour, the scent of his mate. How could he want to be anywhere but here, by his beloved’s side?

There was no guarantee his child would feel the same.

What if they wanted to go? They baby Eliza had carried and formed with so much love, that Alex already adored with every scrap of himself without even seeing their face, what if they wanted the sea more than their parents?

“C-could they? I m-mean, they’d be half human, they won’t have a pelt, they couldn’t, could they? Alexander?” Eliza dug her nails into his arm in her desperation for comfort, silently imploring him to tell her she had nothing to worry about, their child would belong to the land.

“I…if they wanted it enough…” Alex’s throat felt half paralysed as he forced it to work, pushed away the desire to lie to his wife to preserve her feelings, “They’d get their sealskin from me.”

Eliza lifted her head to blink at him, her eyes confused, “What?”

Alex swallowed hard, “There’s a way. I’d cut them one. From my own.”

It would hurt, he knew that much. He’d never fully recover. But god, it would cost him more than just blood to do it.

“If they came and asked me, my love, I…I don’t know if I could say no,” he fought against tears of his own, “It would kill me, Betsey, of course it would but I couldn’t deny them it.”

“I understand,” Eliza rasped, miserably. She couldn’t resent him for that, she knew she couldn’t. At least, she tried so hard not to.

“I guess…Betsey, all we can do is just love them as much as we can and trust that they’ll make the right decision for them,” Alex sighed deeply, clutching her hand, “Look at the home we’ve made for them, the life we can give them…who could refuse this? Sure worked for me.”

The gentle attempt at humour earned him a watery smile. Eliza felt her weariness come flooding back, a wall of emotion that made her want to close her eyes and hide in the comfort of sleep. Alex was more than willing to provide, hugging her from behind, burying his face between her shoulder blades so she could rest in the safety of his arms. And it worked, in minutes her heavy eyelids closed to the world and she found peace.

But Eliza knew she’d discovered a fear that would live in some corner of her heart for the rest of her life.