#they know their body is rotting out there somewhere or doesn’t exist anymore (ashes)

[angelfoodscake]

pankopankopankopanko

[massensterben-a]

@betrayerd​ said:             ( comb ) :^)

These things always begin with the sun. Today it is a red glare, sitting astride a mountain ridge. It glowers down at the wasteland with hateful indifference, its eye a maw, a portal to hell that gapes in the sky. They’re not looking in, they’re looking out. Peopled only by carrion, this world lies flat and dead around them and the void is filled with echoes, an endless screaming that went on and on and never stopped. Cities melted, streets ran with blood. He stood waist-deep in it, watching a child’s sandal floating by. 

Now the blood has seeped into the ground and turned the soil to rust-oozing mud. The winds are harsh, the rain is sour, and the silence he once pictured never came. Now there is buzzing. An endless, hostile cacophony where the black flies lift up like smoke into the sky. Vermin will rule this world now, eating and eating and eating everything that’s left. It reeks of death, and Bertholdt can no longer tell if it is a smell on his hands or a smell in the air. No matter what he does, he can’t escape that stench. It haunts him, drives him. He doesn’t know where he wants to go, what he thinks to achieve by flight. He doesn’t flee. Bertholdt walks in time with his jailbird brother, dragged and dragging. They stumble forward as if there was still any direction they could have gone. There are no directions anymore. They only walk because standstill would kill them. And that is not how they are supposed to die.

For all the annihilation, there is still some writhing in the mud. Bertholdt convulses and heaves. His body, what remains of his body, is in bright revolt against its master. Shaken from his restless sleep, adrift in this sea of hair and molars, he has crawled from his cot, disentangled himself from the flaying grasp of his keeper. Their symbiosis has turned back evolution. They degenerate in tandem, digging into each other’s side, eating the soft tissue. Bertholdt doesn’t remember how to walk on two legs. 

His sickness is only in the head, but it is trying to leave through his mouth. Like choking up steam, it does no good. He retches and regurgitates only air. There is nothing to eat. This land cannot feed its own gods. Poetic, in a way, to be killed by the thing your killing created. Justice. Perhaps retribution. The soil itself turns to poison under their feet. There must be an end to this, somewhere else. Destruction is his birthright and if he knows one thing is that something always survives. Even in this afterlife, a world that exists past the end of its story, there must be something struggling against the ashes and the rain. Bertholdt wonders how far he needs to crawl before he can breathe again. If he could get away from here, from him, then he’d somehow learn to be a person again and could die on his feet. Madly, he curls his mind’s grasping fingers around this thought. As if proximity corrupted him and not his own bad blood. His watery eyes lap at the horizon, that constant forest fire frontier. 

He coughs and spits, sprinkling red dots onto the furloughed ground. Too loud. Traitor tongue. Eren is a specter that haunts him well. He is dutiful in his jailer’s duty, always eager to remind his dumb animal companion of his rightful place. Bertholdt kneels in the dirt, blood and spittle smudging the corner of his mouth, and waits. He listens to the sluggish steps, one wet crunching sound, then another. Bertholdt’s mind turns on its heels and drops everything it has been holding. He breathes the rot and decay deep into his lungs. 

Then Eren descends, a hulking stalking feather-beast. His fingers are talons where they sink into Bertholdt’s hair. He knows better than to wince from a violence that won’t come. They are tender with each other, so tender. (He is bleeding from every wound that has ever been drilled into him. He has strangled Eren half to death, holding him so tight, so tight.) Only tenderness here. Only a monster’s claws raking through his hair as if to soothe, to assure, to call to order. Bertholdt’s empty stomach twists as he stares at the world, eyes grey like corpse flesh, sunken into the hollows of his skull. How lucky he is, to have Eren. How lucky he is to feel touch, to be fed company until he is sick with it. He comes when called. Even when he didn’t call for him.

How could he ever abandon this feeling? He doesn’t need food, or fresh air, or clean water. He needs Eren. He needs his executioner’s embrace. Who else ever demanded to have him like this? Bertholdt’s cracked lips split into a smile, dim and bitter. His throat is on fire and he tastes copper. Like a house fire, he thinks. It’s soon time to put him out. But not before Eren curls his claws into him anew and directs him back. The blackened, corrupting touch recedes and Bertholdt, as always, follows where it leads.

[gyromitra-esculenta]

Was nice to get a back in touch with Synchronicity. Including two big reveals re: general story that could be seen as ‘spoilers’ but I’m REALLY curious if anyone’s seen those particular things coming. Tw*tter thread. Warnings: violence, blood, slighly descriptive gore - generally a big dose of turpism, also mentioned suicidal ideation / implied suicide attempt(s), and general midfuck.

*

He leans back and wipes the blade on the fabric of his pants, each breath forced under control regardless of the hunger thrashing in his lungs, and the Beast curls under his tongue - dark stinging taste of adrenaline and biting cruel satisfaction.

"Aren't you precious, Sunshine?"

It twists around his neck and slithers down his arm. Jack follows its movements to the body lying under him, hand stopped millimeters from the mask covering the man's face, fingers trembling with apprehension digging its cold claws deep into his spine. The Beast nips at his ear.

"Do you truly want to know, Sunshine?"

His fingertips wedge under the mask. He idly notices the marking on the chest armor says 'S116' instead of 'S114'.

"Doesn't matter what I want, does it?" Jack slowly lifts the facemask up. The fractures propagate. The clock is broken.

There's blood, of course there's blood, on the lips, couldn't be anything else when the knife went through the throat and then up. It's his face staring back at him, younger, unblemished, blue irises almost hidden under the dilated pupils, and a twisted derisive smile.

"You did want to know, Sunshine," the Beast laughs, a menacing sound splitting the reality into fragments that do not fit together no matter how much he wants - needs - them to. "They are lambs led to slaughter, and us, we will kill them all, this I promise you."

"Clones. They're all... That's what she..." Genetically engineered soldiers. S114. S116. S76. An obsolete model to work the kinks out of the system.

The mask falls from his numb fingers. He's not even a person, only a failed copy of one, of someone else Reaper is searching for.

Everything falls apart around him, the long grass tickles the skin of his palms, and Shaanxi makes the turn on the final approach to the landing strip. This time Jack hears it, the sound of a shot, and one of the ghosts falls to the ground - but now there's a third shadow behind.

All of this is wrong, completely wrong, the gunshot, it shouldn't be here. Because when the plane touches down, when the wheels tear on the tarmac, he gets his throat cut and bleeds out. This is how it happens, that's how it's been, and how he saw it play out before.

"Did you, Sunshine? Or is that a story you told yourself to feel better?" The Beast bites into his neck with its fangs, snarling, all the pretense of prior cordiality gone, and brings him down to his knees. The blood trickles into the thirsting ground.

"All the lies told to the good doctors, Sunshine, all the fabrications, I know them all. Oh, they all came in, they did," the Beast laughs now and its bite does not lessen, "but the only one out was you. All those times, what were you trying to kill, the truth, or the lie?"

Something hard is scraping the back of his throat, the intrusion moving deeper and deeper. The water in the bathtub runs russet red, an old antiquated razor in his hand, and he cuts again and again, against the muscle, fat, and skin, all knitting back together meticulously.

A different kind of fascination - desperation maybe - why had he forgotten? Was it only because he didn't want to remember? Jack clenches his teeth, words come halting and slow.

"I don't... Did I...? Was that me?"

"One-in-a-million lucky shot, or the perfect shot, Sunshine."

He digs his fingers into the dry dust between the clumps of the grass' roots, dry even if soaked with blood, the bitter aftertaste of alcohol and crushed pills on his tongue, he doesn't remember why, can't remember why, can't remember because he will break.

The Beast quietens. Gives out a faint chuckle of satisfaction and slackens its jaws, lets Jack fall to the ground. Allows him to breathe against the red dust as it laps at the holes left by its fangs.

"What were you trying to kill?" The seductive hiss brushes his senses.

"The truth, or the lie?"

"Myself," Jack admits. "The lie. Everything's a lie, I'm not a person, there's nothing true about..." His voice hitches and almost fades. "Did I kill him? The original, the one Reaper's looking for, because he's searching for him, isn't he?"

The Beast slots its maw under his chin, needy and insistent now, nudges his head back towards the airstrip, and Jack shuts his eyes closed because facing this truth is a gnawing terror somewhere in the back of his mind.

"You wanted to know," it hisses. "Look, Sunshine."

Again, two shades walking on the side of the tarmac, Shaanxi on the final approach, the crack of the rifle - single shot - the third silhouette lowering the barrel and firing again, at the ground. His heart is trying to escape from behind his ribs, hammering against them wildly.

The plane touches down. Translucent shadows running, not important as everything freezes in place, the flock of birds stopped in motion on the backdrop of the swirling crimson sky, out of place here as the tree is, and his vision tunnels, his gaze focused on the shooter.

The vertigo is here to stay. Nausea twists in his insides. The familiarity of the mannerism - the open palm of the hand resting on the side of the Patten with fingers bent at the exact right angles - stirs panic and hate surging in one bright flash of conflicting emotions.

And the face, the cold relief that washes down his body in waves at the recognition, putting the name to the shadow like putting a period after a sentence, or a bullet in a human. Gerard Lacroix. Butcher.

"That's rich coming from you, Sunshine," the Beast chortles.

The Butcher, a nickname taken up with the kind of morbid humor people in their profession have, not much different from Sunshine. The breeze brings the smell of broiled jungle hiding under the odor of burnt fat and roasted meat.

Cloying; revolting and appetizing at the same time. Inhale. Count to five. Exhale. The Beast nudges his head back from the still nature, to the side.

Reaper. His form keeps its shape now, the face framed by the hood and stringy hair no longer changing with the ebb and flow.

Crimson eyes are transfixed by the memory that now rewinds itself in a rush to play out again, and Jack is certain it repeats on a loop here - wherever here is.

But what startles him is his doppelganger facing Reaper, fists clenched and trembling at his sides.

As long as the apparition's attention is not focused on him, Jack takes in the small details. The uniform is non-descript, no discernible insignia anywhere, but the make and the pattern, it's Blackwatch. Black bloody stain spreads from under the jacket, exactly where the seam is.

The perfect shot. The partially congealed blood spilling from his doppelganger's mouth and the dilated in shock pupils fit. He had drowned in his own blood, there, on the tarmac. Bone shrapnel tearing through the tissue, too much damage, too rapid.

"You left me behind." Desperate rage simmers in the words. "You left me," the apparition's voice raises in pitch, becomes forceful. Accusing. "You promised to take me with you when I go."

Reaper remains rooted in place, giving no indication he even notices the presence.

"I'm here. I'm here!" His doppelganger screams, clotted blood falling from his lips as he draws in heavy breaths - almost panicked, his chest heaving - and then he starts pleading. "Why don't you look at me? Why can't you see me?"

And again, defeated, hands shaking.

"Why won't you see me?"

In a way, Jack can understand him, the desperation of screaming into the void where there is no-one who will hear you, no-one that cares enough to hear you, but it's not it.

Help him find that person, she told him.

How can you find someone who’s dead, and the other choice is forcing him to understand there is nothing to be found, not anymore, only retribution remains - but this is untrue when his screaming double persists in its existence?

“He’s here. Don’t you see him?” Jack softly asks.

Crimson eyes move, shift with glacial speed to gaze at him, focused until space stumbles over itself, and Reaper is in front of him, his claws tracing the line of Jack’s jaw. It leaves him pondering their peculiar texture again, of something left to stew in warm pond water.

Then the realization comes when they brush over his lips - not claws. Fingers. The flesh shorn off on a hard surface and the bone underneath tapered to a point, both blackened by the decay permeating all - mildew and rot on his tongue, the sickening sweetness of a thing long dead

He parts his lips for the intruding finger and the taste spreads further, addictive and revolting, familiarity undercut with decomposition - all there, ready to be experienced anew.

It's not a need, it's a dependency. Now, he understands what has been lacking in his life.

A dutiful little soldier. A failed prototype. The doctors say jump, and so he does, isn't that right?

The standing orders from his Commander remain, no witnesses, no evidence, only charred bones and black ash after they pass through, and Reaper's vengeance is indeed righteous.

"See, Sunshine?" The Beast licks his fingertips, reassuring, proud even. "This is how we are together, now and always."

"Now and always," he echoes with something dark curling around, slithering into his mind and twining with every thought. All he ever needed, his orders.

"No!" Something collides with him, hard and solid. Back of his head hits the floor and Jack brings his arms up to shield himself from the unexpected onslaught. Blood splatters on his face. "You will not take my place!" His double snarls over him, raising the fist again.

The training takes over and the blow slides along his forearm as he grabs the side of the apparition's neck with his left palm, and thrusts forward with his other hand. The blade of the knife he is somehow still holding goes through the jacket. Scrapes against the rib.

The apparition leans back with a subdued gasp, almost a whine. Looks down at him with hate palpable on his face as it starts to break up into smoldering embers drifting on the air.

A kind of Déjà vu, only this time Jack is in Replica's position, and the copy is victorious.

The embers snuff out, one after another, and the black ash they turn into swirls slowly until it fades too.

Jack falls back to the floor, next to the corpse still radiating heat. The ceiling above is grey, sooty around where the wall joins with it.

Inhale. Count to five. Exhale.

There's a lot of land to cover between here and the Still Island facility. He has his orders. He climbs to his feet and wipes the blood off his face. Straps the knife back to the jacket, shoulders the plasma rifle, and curls his fingers around the Patten's grip.

[sasorikigai]

Regarding Hanzo Hasashi’s Pyromancy 

🔥|| It is all the blooming promises that he flocks to - the heat, the hope, the potential - because he had been living like a lost wraith and despite the unbreachable resistance of a lawful, justifiable society, life beckoned him as blood beckoned sharks to a wound. Hanzo Hasashi’s remorselessly severed life, along with his anguished soul craved to be loved within his forsaken destiny, he’d await for new hope beneath closed eyes as he could count thousand moments shared in his conscious and unconscious. Such intimacy he had painted his family as their coalesced, endless shadows washes away in blue, the mellow blue of the in-between realm of day and night, night and dawn, the ninja warrior better known as Sasori would face his own destruction, as the shadows of his empty, demolished home would carve with bricks of loneliness and sadness holding him up, holding him inside. 

Perhaps Harumi’s bloodied, slaughtered form was meant to be an echo, a parallelism of Hanzo Hasashi’s own fate; as his stripped flesh would melt away from the architecture of his musculature; bones and sinew and ligament as his foundation rebuilt, the fragile human bones beaten and reshaped, soldered to adamantine as once left scattered in the ashes like stardust, as everything, except his own corporeality had been completely annihilated, as Scorpion in an earth-shattering transformation. 

Cold-blooded like a volcano was a vein, along with Quan Chi’s eldritch sorcery, flowing through every orifice and the space between empty and ecstasy as the scalded irises would turn iridescent and pupiless. Repeated feelings from new perspectives had birthed a new feral, savage creature without humanity and morality; as he would fuck fate and push it to a wall. He would push himself to find answers to questions unasked; as vitriol ire and vicissitudes of vengeance would drown him in erupting, bubbling magma. His life is merely a stage, as he would adjust to the etched tendrils of swelling, sweltering conflagration that would sweep through, as combusting embers aflame, breaking his coma, sleep paralysis and nightmares wilder than all of his unforgettable traumas combined. 

How he wishes he couldn’t love, he couldn’t feel, he didn’t sense pain, so he wouldn’t need to heal. His body and soul rotted, putrefied and grown old. He doesn’t want to talk anymore; for his thoughts are never heard and acknowledged. It feels like he doesn’t exist down here, on this volatile earth, yet below it, in the depths of the Netherrealm where he would serve as an Enforcer, Quan Chi’s most diabolical, devout slave.  

Yet, there’s a pain hidden inside him which not even he could touch. How the Hellspawn Spectre becomes an angry cynic, the once-comforting tea of his love drowned out in arsenic of his hellfire. Who would have no semblance of hope left, who would still remain blind from the illuminative light of life, who has lost his lovely baritone, smooth voice in the middle of old strife that would endlessly consume him. No sadness could bring good things and darkness could ever bring light, even when miniscule memories of love and limerence hit him in temporal flashbacks. Like a Phoenix rising from the ashes, Hanzo Hasashi has always managed to take solace in destruction, to breathe in the fire that surrounds him and let it fuel the emergence of feathers. for fire is cleansing, and the tongues of flame have the power to strip away the lining of branches and wood like clothes until he is left naked and young like he once was when he first entered this world. Still wet with water from the womb, still protected from the fire. 

Somewhere in the foggy haze of childhood, he plucks a flower from the earthy soil under the porch in his family’s backyard. the florets are speckled with iridescent dust, reflective, like a will-o-the wisp bobbing through a forest. like a guiding house’s lantern that he clutches for protection. Hanzo Hasashi’s passive ringlets are swayed by the breath of the breeze, by the streams of sun and smoke climbing through the windowsill. it is summer, and moments move slowly, the hot and humid weather dripping down the sides of time. 

Even as Grandmaster Hasashi, the ever-severe and hardened warrior who literally survived from hell and back, doesn’t completely know the clawing and fighting that getting through this world will require. none of us do. For he is naive still, but a fire is growing inside his hearths and soon the smoke will need somewhere to exit - where his heart flies and nestles in calm wilderness; an oceanic stretch of his compassion and understanding, as the once punishing wildfire of vindictive tidal torrents of his fire becomes a floating warmth nestled in a hearth - deep in devotion, as it shows how precise, genuine and wild his heart and love could be. 🔥|| 

[commanderquill]

Of Future Days Past

“I’m from the future,” Bart declares, his bold voice amplified across the stage, over the heads and into the ears of the hundreds of people surrounding him.

Jaime feels his breath catch. He tries not to let his anxiety show. There’s only one person looking at him, and that’s the boy standing on the stage with a microphone taped to his face, feet shoulder width apart and back rim rod straight like he’s preparing for battle. But even though it’s only one set of eyes, they’re the most important ones, and the ones that need encouragement the most. Jaime tries to put on his best smile. He’s sure it comes across shaky and uncertain.

It’s been a year since the public found out about the Justice League’s Watchtower in space, the weapons they mentioned nothing about, and the influx of aliens that could easily masquerade as humans. Butting heads with the government was bad enough, but a government gets its power from the will of its followers. Previously, the government could only do so much against a group of people supported by its citizens.

But after the invasion, the public grew less inclined to sympathize with the League. Jaime had almost expected the opposite -- hoped for the opposite. But he should have known better. The Justice League proved that they were on the side of the good, that the people who attempted to discredit and frame the League for wrongdoing had horrible intentions, but that means nothing when it comes to the question of trust. The Reach lied to them, but so did their so-called protectors.

The new initiative was Wonder Woman’s idea. If the League can reach out to the people, display their trust in the people, then maybe the people will trust in them again. Green Lantern volunteered to go first, and he walked on a stage months ago, the act broadcasted around the world as billions of eyes awaited with bated breath for the truth. He stood on that stage and explained to the entire world what a Green Lantern really is.

A police force, the protectors of the universe, but that wasn’t good enough. He explained what powers a Green Lantern ring, the emotion and the purpose behind it. He told everyone who the Guardians of the Universe are, where Oa is, and every other color on the spectrum.

He told the public what a Yellow Lantern is, and the effect of one on a Green Lantern, although he smoothly neglected to mention the incredible power of the color yellow itself. His victories and failures, bared for everyone to see.

Hal Jordan may be a founding member of the League, but Jaime certainly didn’t know near enough about him, not until that moment. Neither did the rest of the world. Regularly absent, the Green Lantern wasn’t often thought about, and knowledge on who he was, where he came from, whether or not there really was more than one, was a scarcity.

That wasn’t the case for long.

The Flash volunteered to go next. That was today, months after Hal’s daring move, and Jaime has been sitting here already for at least an hour as Barry described the source of his powers, his connection to the speedforce, what the speed force is, why it exists. He talked about some of his feats, some of his failures, and all the tricks and stunts he’s learned throughout the years.

Bart never volunteered, not out loud, not to the League or to the world. But when Jaime first walked in an hour ago, blending in with the crowd, and slipped into the back where Bart was pacing and asked why Bart was so nervous, it all spilled out.

“It can’t happen again,” Bart said, gripping his own arms with a haunted expression on his face, gnawing his lip. “But it will,” he continued. “Because history repeats itself. But I can...say something. I can…”

Standing there in the skeleton of the sound room, tubs of meticulously coiled wires and empty microphone stands scattered around, sheltered by padded walls and dim lights, Bart’s costume seemed dirty. When it isn’t being reflected by the sun or brightened by the smile on his own face, that’s what it always looks like. Dirty, ill-fitting -- wrong. But Jaime hadn’t made the observation until then.

This is not an advised course of action. The Impulse is exposing possibly vulnerable information--

That’s the point, Jaime thinks vehemently. Shut up, I’m trying to listen.

Jaime is sitting now in the front with Connor and Cassie on either side of him. The rest of the team and the League are scattered amongst the crowd, unwilling to risk their identities by close proximity to one another. He had spotted Artemis on the far right side of the audience on his way in.

He sees out of his peripheral the way his two teammates stiffen in shock. Barry had introduced Bart on his way off the stage, but Jaime doesn’t think Bart had warned anyone else about his stunt.

“Well, actually, I guess that’s not true anymore,” Bart continues, the spotlights trained on him reflecting harshly over the plastic of his goggles. “When the Flash told you that he can time travel, he didn’t completely explain what that means. Because time isn’t a line. It isn’t even a circle. It’s more like a...sphere. A timesphere. You can move down into the past, you can move up into the future, or you can move left. You can move right. You can move into the sphere, towards the center, or out, towards the surface. The past may be set in stone, but there’s not just one -- there are millions of other versions of the past out there, and there will be millions more, because right now, somewhere, what has already happened to you is still happening to you.”

The audience is dead silent. “Are you completely confused now?” Bart says, with something like a rueful grin. “That’s nothing. Think of right now. Think of that thing you’re going to do after you leave here today. Are you going shopping? Are you going to class? Picking up your baby from the daycare? What if you don’t? Because everything you decide to do is just that -- it’s a decision. And in a decision, there are choices, and with choices come possibilities. And that’s all the future is. A possibility. It hasn’t happened yet, and even the speed force doesn’t know what it’s going to be, so the best thing it can do is give you glimpses of what could be. What can happen, if you choose to go to the grocery store or you choose not to. Because maybe in this universe, you do decide to go pick up milk, but in the second that you decide that, another universe is created where you decide not to go pick up milk. In this universe, the Nazis lost World War II, but somewhere else one of the decisions that made them lose wasn’t made, and in that universe the Nazis won. That’s called the multiverse.”

Bart pauses where he’s standing, in a walking stance with his head angled to the ground and his arm half out like he’s holding something. “So when I say I’m from the future, it just means that I’m from one of many futures, and it’s not necessarily the future of this time. I come from the future where the Justice League lost. The Reach defeated the Justice League, and the world ended.

“No, I guess that’s not true, either. The Earth was still here, at least. But Central City wasn’t. The people weren’t. The government was gone. The Reach took over this planet completely, and there was no one left but runaways and slaves. That’s the world I grew up in. I grew up in chains, in a cage, with a collar around my neck.

“Imagine falling asleep every night on the ground. The ground is too hot and you don’t know why, and you’ve never seen winter except in stories. You can’t enjoy the stars because you can’t even picture them in your head, and even though you see aliens every day who seem one step away from disposing of you like any other meatbag, this place seems totally alone. But you like the nights better, because the day constantly burns at your skin, and you’re always breathing in dust except when you’re breathing in ash, and the only difference is that ash comes in chunks. Imagine a world where the ocean is poison. Acidic. Destroyed by your invaders so that even if you escape, you’ll never find food.

“Meanwhile, the elderly people you know, the ones in their 50’s, so incredibly old for our standards that they’re considered ancient relics, keep telling stories about flowers, and the taste of strawberries, pecans, and cookies. The soothing feel of hot tea after a cold day. They keep telling you stories you want to hear but at the same time really, really don’t. Because while they get to live in their fantasy and rot their body away every day from the knowledge that they’ll never see home again, you’re being poked and prodded at with needles because those unblinking, black-eyed aliens want something you have, your very DNA, as if you haven’t already given them enough.

“If you imagine it well enough, you might know a sliver of my life.

“In that life, I met a man who became my only friend and the savior of this entire world. No one will ever know it, and he will never know it himself. I’m never going to tell him, because that would mean there’s a world that he destroyed instead of saved, somewhere out there still, and I can’t do that to him.

“He built me a time machine.” This is a lie, Jaime knows, but if Bart says that he can build a time machine too, he’ll attract more villains than he's already going to. “Crazy, right? I bet most of you here right now didn’t even know time travel was possible until the Flash came up here and told you himself. But it is, and my friend gave one to me with the criteria that I would go back in time, to the moment when he killed the Flash, and stop him.

“I did, if you didn’t notice. We thought that would be enough. We thought that if the Flash stayed alive, the Justice League would have the chance to beat the Reach. It took more than that. But now, that entire world where I grew up? It’s gone.

“A few months ago I watched as my dad was born. Roughly 20 years from now, I’m going to be there watching the day that I’m born into a world where I get to be friends with the Flash himself, a hero that I never previously knew. I get to go to high school, something that didn’t even exist for me. I get to have friends that were probably never even born in the world where I used to live. Yesterday, I saw a man that I remembered watching die in my arms, and he was laughing.

“And here’s the thing: All of it is possible because of one decision, one event that shaped history. And most of you in this room will probably leave and one day forget what I’m saying, or maybe some of you won’t even believe me. But every night I go to bed and dream of a world that now remains as nothing more than a nightmare, and I’m the only one in this universe who will ever know it. There’s a relief and a sadness in that.

“Because I remember that world every time I eat a new food I’ve only heard about in stories. Every time I eat a strawberry, or an apple, or steal my cousin’s Chicken Whizzies. And I’ll never take any of it for granted. But you will.”

Jaime is shocked to find that Bart is starting to get blurry, and it isn’t because he’s vibrating. Jaime blinks and lets the tear roll down his cheeks because he doesn’t want Bart to see him rub at his eyes and draw his attention.

“I see it every single day. You don’t know what you have. Any time someone comes and sucks up to you, you accept it because of pride, and you listen and follow when that same someone turns around and blames someone else for lies, because of anger.

“It’s right in front of you, constantly. A man in a suit preaching to you that he’s going to make everything better and take all the pain away, because you don’t want to do it yourself. There are people taking power from you and hanging it over your head and you’re letting it happen because it’s easy, and what’s the worst it can do?

“I’m here to tell you that the worst that can happen, will happen. Sometimes it’s in our control. Sometimes it’s not. Always, we have a choice to fight against that worst case scenario, or give up and let it happen.

“People tell me that their thoughts are only their opinions, and opinions can’t harm anyone. But are your opinions really your opinions, or the opinions of someone else? We’re impacted by what people say around us, and the more they say it, the more we remember, the more we repeat instead of question, the closer we become to megaphones than individuals. We let the rhetoric we hear now dictate what we’re willing to listen to in the future. It’s called normalization. If we give in even a little, compromise even a little, normalize what our leaders can get away with, we normalize those actions for the future. Every good compromise means giving a little ground, but when you keep giving ground, that isn’t compromise -- that’s apathy. That’s you not willing to stand up for what you believe because you’re letting others tell you what you should believe, and you’re following them when they say to just let them have what they want.

“Complacency is a disease. One that gave the Reach a world to exploit that wasn’t theirs, that killed you and sacrificed your children. You don’t remember it, and that’s the most dangerous part. The people who remember World War II are the ones who don’t want war. The ones who don’t are the ones who glorify it. So what will this become? A horrifying reminder that we’re not invincible, or a claim of pride that we are? Without knowing first hand what almost happened, the next time a leader tells us to trust them, will we believe them without question because we stopped anything bad from happening last time? Did we really learn nothing at all?

“Be the change you want to see. It’s a cliche phrase, but my reality is this: If you don’t decide to be that change now, someone else will decide for you. Eventually, you won’t have a choice, and you’ll spend your last days regretting that you never saw reality for how real it can be.

“My childhood gives me nightmares, but the worst thing I can imagine is forgetting it, because then I just might let it happen again.”

The room is so still that Jaime can’t even hear a cough, and Cassie’s elbow has already hit him twice in her attempts to unobtrusively wipe at her own eyes. Jaime pats at his cheeks because if he rubs at them, his nose and eyes will get too red to hide when he sees Bart later.

“Thank you,” Bart says, and walks off. Slowly, so everyone can see him, his head held high, and his steps only falter when Jaime stands up and starts clapping. He’s joined by Cassie and Connor and the whole front row and the second row and then the whole audience, but he doesn’t turn back around.

The clapping continues even as the lights turn back on.

Jaime leaves his friends behind as he hops onto the side of the stage while the cameras turn off and people start rising from their seats. He races behind the curtains, where Bart is standing stiff, Barry’s hand on his shoulder.

“You’re not mad?” Bart is saying, quietly. Barry’s eyes are the saddest Jaime has ever seen them, shadowed in pain and dark with empathy, his skin pale with stress. “We did this so they’ll trust us… I’m telling them not to.”

“You’re telling them not to be complacent towards their leaders, and you’re no one’s leader,” Barry responds, just as quietly. He kneels and grips Bart’s shoulders. “None of us are. We’re symbols of hope. We can have fans without followers. We give smiles instead of political speeches for a reason -- and no, I wouldn’t say that was a political speech. Inspirational, if anything.” He smiles then, small, as if a too-wide one would scare Bart off. “I’m so proud of you.”

So is Jaime, which is why he has a hard time waiting for Barry to back away before he barrels right into Bart’s back. His arms come up to wrap around his friend in a death grip, to the point that he doesn’t think Bart would be able to turn around and hug him back.

The Impulse’s heart rate is dangerously elevated.

I’m just impressed his heart is still beating at all, Jaime thinks. That must have been terrifying.

He can feel Bart shaking under him, and when he loosens his grip to take a step back and finally look at him, Bart takes advantage of the release to turn around and bury his face in Jaime’s collarbone.

The Impulse is close to vulnerable areas of the human--

“He’s not a vampire,” Jaime mutters, annoyed, and startles when he feels the shaking increase. It takes him a moment to realize that it’s because Bart is laughing.

“I don’t even want to know the context for that,” he says, and Jaime feels his face heat up. He wonders how Bart could be laughing right now, but it’s probably just nerves. Once Bart starts laughing, it doesn’t seem like he’s able to stop, but he still clutches Jaime close.

Jaime rubs circles on his friend’s back as he calms down. “I’m so moded right now,” Bart whispers. Jaime only barely catches it.

“Would you be able to laugh if you were moded?” he wonders out loud. “Or would it just be an evil cackle? Like Dick’s old Robin cackle?”

“Dick’s… Robin cackle?” Bart wants to know, and Jaime cranes his neck away from him dramatically.

“I can’t believe Wally hasn’t shown you the videos,” he exclaims. “I know what we’re doing today.”

Bart grins up at him. It’s as much tentative as it is bright.

They’re watching Dick pour a bucket of syrup all over Wally’s hair in an old Cave video on Jaime’s TV when Bart’s phone starts ringing. Bart rejects the call without looking at the caller ID.

When Jaime raises an eyebrow, Bart shrugs sheepishly. “It’s BC. She, uh, I think she wants me to go in for counselling? Or something?”

“Sounds like a good idea,” Jaime says neutrally. He continues before Bart can get offended. “Everyone on the team has already gone at least once. She wants to make it a routine thing, but our schedules are so screwed up that anything routine is a pipedream.”

“I’ve lived this long without therapy,” Bart comments.

“Therapy isn’t just for when something’s wrong with you,” Jaime points out. “Sometimes it’s nice to just have someone to talk to, who won’t judge or repeat anything you say.”

Bart shoots him a look that suggests Jaime is an idiot. It’s a dramatic move, considering it means twisting completely around on his perch sprawled out over the bed, leaning up against Jaime’s shoulder, so that he can see his face. “That’s what you’re for.”

“Still not a therapist.”

Bart sighs with his whole body. He deflates like a popped balloon. “Her office creeps me out.”

“It’s four walls, a desk, and a couch.”

“She creeps me out.”

Jaime stares at him.

“I just don’t want to, okay?” Bart pleads.

Jaime gives it a moment, watching the way Bart chews at his lip anxiously. “Okay,” he agrees finally.

Bart pushes away from his shoulder abruptly to look him properly in the face. “Okay?” he echoes.

“Yup.”

“Just like that? You’re not going to force me?”

“I’m your friend, not your mom.”

“My mom’s dead, so you can’t be her anyway.”

But Jaime isn’t going to settle for pessimistic comments today of all days. “Actually, I’m pretty sure she’s somewhere out there, crying for a diaper change.”

Bart slumps again. “Smart-ass.”

“The scarab has taught me well.”

Bart snorts.

They sit there in silence for a few more extended minutes, but then Bart slowly leans back into Jaime’s side. “You’re my best friend, you know that?”

It was never specified, but implied. Jaime doesn’t think Bart has even ever gone to the rest of the team’s houses -- then again, more and more of them are moving into the Cave, so maybe that’s not the greatest method of judgement. “I better be. Do you realise how much money I’ve sacrificed in snacks that I never get to eat?”

Bart sticks his tongue out and steals Jaime’s popcorn, just to spite him.

Sometimes, Jaime wonders how that’s possible. How can Bart, who just admitted in front of the world that he still sees the Reach in front of him most nights, look at Blue Beetle and see a friend instead of a foe? He doesn’t know, and there’s a cowardly part of him that doesn’t want to ask, in case somehow bringing up the question will make Bart finally remember what Jaime did to him. “You’re insane,” Jaime says.

“I know,” Bart says casually, dismissing the comment, but Jaime shakes his head.

“No, I mean it,” he says, and waits for Bart to give him his full attention. “You’re insane and you’re...amazing. You know that, right? You’re amazing.” Bart doesn’t answer, he just looks down at his feet. “I’m glad you’re my best friend.”

Bart beams up at him now, so quickly Jaime is fascinated by his apparent inability to get whiplash, all rosy cheeks and windswept hair and buttery lips. He flops down into Jaime’s lap as TV-Wally hangs TV-Dick from a wall hanger by his costume.

“Me too.”

[middayfiddler]

Geodes

AO3

Walking feels like being trapped in the joints of a mechanical giant, every movement of the cogwheels and springs resonates deep into his bone marrow. The smell of copper and taste of rot - as if every living being in the world died many years ago and left him to spend eternity counting their bones - and he screams and screams and his own voice echoes on his eardrums thousandfold. It doesn’t sound like his voice anymore. It feels like the darkness around him stole it right from his vocal chords, just like it stole his sight and touch and hearing. He screams and there are no words anymore, because he doesn’t remember what words are. There is no one to call for, no one to save him; and soon there is nothing, nothing anymore.

“And don’t forget,” mom says in her no-nonsense voice over a stack of cardboard boxes under her chin, “bills will be split in half .”

“Sure,” Hopper mumbles, chewing an unlit cigarette. He’s easy to read once one gets over his scary Police Chief exterior; there is no doubt he will pay only half of the bills, just like there is no doubt there will be insane amounts of food appearing in the fridge, followed by a rant about how grateful people bring those to the station to “rot, Joyce, really, and those people are so unrelenting .” Will would know, even if he hadn’t overheard him explain his plan to Mrs. Flo. Will likes Mrs. Flo. She gives him and the boys the donuts she forbade Hopper to eat and pats him on the head in what he imagines is the grandmotherly way.

There are no donuts today. Only reheated chilli and Eggos and whipped cream for El and beer for Hopper, new staples in the Byers’ pantry. It’s good; the changes are good and make Will feel less like something is crawling under his skin.

El doesn’t speak. She is sitting in the living room window, feet with mismatched woolen socks hanging outside and touching long-unmowed grass. Her cuffs are stained with blood from her nose, even though hers and Hopper’s things were mostly light stacks of papers and easily packed onto the backseat of Jonathan’s car. There is something calming in knowing that you can come out of the Upside Down and still be a good person.

Will sometimes doesn’t even feels like a person. Other times, he feels it too much.

“I put El’s things in Will’s room,” Jonathan says and flicks Will’s forehead. It’s how Will wanted it; he keeps on saying that Jonathan’s room is better and has wanted it for years. Everyone pretends they believe him.

Not everyone; El doesn’t. El knows.

Music starts playing and he startles. There used to be no record player in the living room; apparently there is now, and it’s El-controlled and playing something that sounds like music Hopper might have listened to in high school.

Sure it is - Hopper and mom put the boxes away and start dancing in the small space between the sofa and the table, much slower than the rhythm of the song demands. Mom puts the unlit cigarette in her mouth and smiles, her hands on his shoulders and their legs entangled to fit into the space. They look like they belong there, like the space exists just for the two of them to be there at some point in time.

Jonathan leans to his ear and whispers: “Do you think he will arrest me if I tell them to get a room?” and they both laugh, because there is weird and there is supernatural-weird, but then there is the local Police Chief in love with your mother in your living room.

Later, when everything finds its place in the Byers-Hopper house and the record player mysteriously keeps on putting the needle to the start of the record right after it finishes, El is still sitting in the window, although the evening has gone cold and wet with dew. It’s fine with Will; it’s easier to draw people when they are not looking. The neon light from the television screen throws pretty shadows on her back.

“Mike,” she says silently, only for Will to hear.

The boys are not coming until tommorrow. Will cannot see her face, but he’s drawn enough people to recognize the tilt of the head, the posture of shoulders, the level of cheekbones to know when a person is smiling. After the Upside Down, names and people and atoms of matter are more concept than anything else. El originated from there; that’s how language works for her. Will knows. Will understands.

“Yes,” he says, only for Eleven to hear, and it’s good, it’s good, for an evening, everything is so good.

There is fire under his skin, inside his muscles, inside his organs. His body - what used to be him, because what are people without their bodies - is disintegrating into ash, but the ash is still him and it still burns and it still hurts. And he cannot scream, for he has no voice, and he cannot cry, for he has no eyes. And it hurts, it hurts, with pain human bodies were not created to endure.There is something terrible happening - somewhere, out there, outside of the range of his forgotten senses, of his clouded mind, somewhere in the world filled with people he has no remembrance of - but there is the pain-filled nothingness and he’s floating in million pieces and it’s almost - almost - like he’s at peace.

“...and as you’re coming close to the source of the weird sound, you turn to the passage to the right, and there is it - the Sphinx!”

“No, not the Sphinx! Steve! It’s your turn!”

“Ehh...I...hit it with a racing car.”

“You’re a bard, Steve. You don’t have a car.”

“A racing car, kid. And there’s nowhere written in that thing that I can’t have a car.”

“Actually-”

A half-empty pack of Cheetos flies a circle around Will’s head before landing neatly on the kitchen counter. Will looks where El and Max are sitting in the corner of Byers’ living room, Max immersed in Mike’s Atari and El immersed in watching Max play. Both of them claimed they didn’t have enough patience for hours-long campaigns. But Will notices El startling with every monster conquered, every kill claimed. He knows; he will read her bedtime story, after, with everyone gone, a story with happy ending and summer and flowers and little girls with loving fathers.

“How come he rolled eighteen? How does he always roll so high?”

The Sphinx is, indeed, defeated by the wondrous appearance of a racing car. Lucas seems offended on a personal level, while Dustin is attempting to convince Mike to let the whole party into the vehicle and just ride through the dungeon. Steve seems equally confused as he did at the beginning, except now with the enthusiasm of a person unexpectedly accomplishing something.

Mike leans to Will: “When I die, write on my gravestone: Cause of death - My D&D party.”

Will chuckles weakly. They survived unimaginable monsters, other dimensions, possessions and multiple almost-ends of the world, and yet he knows that his - Will’s - cause of death will probably be the warmth of Mike’s breath on his ear, his heart palpitating at the sound of his voice breathy in whisper, his barely suppressed need to turn his head just a tiny, tiny bit to where Mike’s lips are and where they will stop being in the matter of seconds. And, most of all, that he shouldn’t feel any of that.

Will is sure the cause of his death will be one Michael Wheeler.

And then it’s Will’s turn, and he uses magic - reasonable, from the manual - and throws twenty, then he miraculously keeps throwing twenty again and again while Steve’s character obtains a nailed baseball, a flamethrower and a flying racing car. Steve is banned from playing as a bard ever again by common decision, which Mike repeats to Will’s ear in that certain kind of whisper. Will wants to run away, but he doesn’t, because they are winning and Mike gives him a half-hug and a smile.

And if a cup of hot chocolate with marshmallows inconspicuously lands in front of Will sometime during the campaign, well, no one seems to take notice.

The neon arcade sign is turning slowly in the nightmare-tinted night. There is snow falling, and it tastes like ash, but the ash tastes like despair and fear and he is alone, alone, alone. The pavement is empty and cracked, as if all the people on the Earth just decided that since this minute, he’s not worthy of being one of them, of being in their material, fluctuant, erratic presence. He isn’t, maybe; there is no one to ask, and his screams return to him thousandfold, unanswered. Stay with me, he hears the clouds whisper, and the trees and the walls and the grass under his feet (have they always had a voice? he can’t remember; yet their whisper is familiar, and calming, and enticing at the same time; he’s heard it before, somewhere). You belong here, with us, they say. His hands are covered with lichen, his lungs full of spores that will grow into vines through his respiratory tract, he’s becoming one with this other world. Maybe I do, he wants to say, but there are no mouth anymore to make a voice.

The girl is called Donna. She was in his English class last year, and Mike’s mom sometimes goes to her mom to get her hair done.

Will disliked her the moment she came to ask him to dance, then disliked her more when Mike’s hand touched his elbow only to push him to the dancefloor. He hated the way her waist felt under his fingers - curved in premonition of woman to come, pliant and criss-crossed with the humpy lines of her blouse seams. And he hated, hated so much the look in her eyes, when she leaned to his cheek - the same way the couples around them were doing, the same way Mike and Eleven were doing, and Will’s eyes are burning and his throat is itching with bile and he wants to look away and can’t - and whispered: “You’re too obvious, Zombie Boy. Tone down the staring on Wheeler.”

She’s waiting for him by his locker now. Her eyes are following him from under eyelashes painted black and curled. He is almost sure he can hear the thoughts of the passing students; it’s the way they wordlessly agreed, back then, from behind fake smiles and eyes straying sideways. It was infinitely easier to start rumours than to wait for another ones to be started.

Will doesn’t want to be here. The boys are probably in the AV room already, with Max pretending not to be fascinated by the machinery and El - Jane now, at school always Jane Hopper - training her reading by syllabizing the Heathkit manual. It doesn’t seem to matter; not wanting to be where he is seems to be Will’s perpetual, unavoidable state of mind.

“I kissed Maggie Thompson,” Donna says. She’s wearing the ugly ribbon headband all the girls seem to wear this year, and her farce of a smile is more forced than usual.

“Congratulations,” he says. “How did it happen?”

“She saw Rick Jordan kissing some girl behind the church,” she says. “I told her he was an asshole. And that we could practice kissing.”

Will thinks that if they weren’t standing in the school hall, with a carefully crafted image to keep, she would be crying.

“Was it-”

There is nothing to say, really, and if there was, Will wouldn’t know. I would never do that , he could say and doesn’t.

“We don’t have much choice, me and you,” she says carelessly and the ribbon moves from side to side like a trapped moth; but there is sadness in her eyes, the sadness of a person who knows that some things will never change. Will recognizes it. It’s the sadness on Hopper’s face, when he forgets to go to sleep and stares at the out-of-reception TV in the hours before dawn; it’s the one his mom tries to hide when she’s looking at him. He doesn’t want to know what his own face looks like when he’s not careful. He has a hunch; it always mirrors in Mike’s eyes, wide and scared and full of unreasonable resolve to shield his friends from any harm. Will knows that falling out of love with him would be impossible, even if he tried.

“Maybe you should tell someone,” Donna says. She’s put her head on his shoulder. Wetness is soaking into his sweater, but she doesn’t sob or hiccup and maybe it’s just his own sweat. Will can hear some girls go “awww” in the hallway and they are both good at lying, so good. “After something like this, there is no way back.”

Will pats her on the back. He will not; his mom knows, maybe, and El for sure. He’s not sure either of them knows what it means. It feels like there are many people living inside Will, some of them still trapped in the Upside Down, some of them in the labyrinth of the Mind Flyer, some of them in the 80’s Indiana. Neither of them is a particularly good place to be.

He’s a hero, Mike said once, and so he has to be.

“I know,” he says, because people like them are both great at lying and terrible at it.

It’s a game of chase or being chased. And his legs are tied and his eyes are blindfolded; he’s touching the walls, but the walls are shifting and right is left and up is down and the end is the beginning and all is the same. Run, run, run, he’s calling, or maybe it’s his mind or maybe someone else.

It’s not him. Someone else is being chased; he’s just standing inside it all, unmoving like a stalactite, with eyes closed and yet still seeing. He sees shadows and the light that brought them to life. He sees the shadows move. They have bodies and limbs and look like someone had drawn them on a piece of paper and left it outside during rainpour. He wants to touch them, feel their ethereal existence on his fingertips, but his fingers are blocks of ice and he cannot move. Someone is talking, but the words - mother, friend, his own name - the words have no meaning. They are but an entropy of sounds and the sounds are hurting his ears. His ears are bleeding, but they are bleeding crystals of frost. It’s pretty, white and glistening and dead, and thus harmless.

Run, run, run, someone calls, but he cannot recall what it means.

Jonathan is home from New York and Nancy from Indianapolis, which is as good reason as any for everyone being gathered in the Byer-Hopper’s living room.

The room did not get any bigger since the last time; if something, it got only more cramped, with Hopper’s new armchair and El’s blanket fort she doesn’t allow to be taken down. It does not seem to matter to anyone. The painted letters are hidden under the new pink wallpaper; the drawing of Bob was taken down last year together with all the other Will’s drawings.

The stories are being told that Will has heard thousand times before; but it’s what is connecting all these people beside unconditional love for each other, and Jonathan has no stories from the college to tell and Nancy pretends to have none. How Mike wanted to attack a perpetrator with a candlestick. How Dustin locked a demodog in Henderson’s cellar using a trail of ham. How Hopper made a random kid sell him the whole stack of Halloween candy. The last one is new; it feels nice to hear a story no one else has been present to. It feels less like standing behind a glass wall, watching everyone assuring themselves that what happened was but a series of unfortunate, maybe entertaining events. Mike is laughing and Dustin chokes on his Coke; Steve pats him on his back and jokes that he should have become a kindergarten teacher instead of Hopper’s assistant.

A finger is put between Will’s eyebrows.

“Bad lines,” El says, reaching from her favorite chair near the record player. Her curls are hidden under Hopper’s police hat and she’s got whipped cream on her upper lip.

“Wrinkles,” Will corrects her.

“No. Bad lines. Go away.”

Will smiles. She’s whispering; she’s been taught concept of privacy and concept of things not being talked about loud, and that’s how Will knows she’s not trying to learn a new word. Mike was right, back then - El understands, understands everything, without unnecessary words, as if they were born from the same womb. And, like any other older brother, he pretends to be oblivious.

“Full sentences, El, remember?”

She shakes like an annoyed cat, but complies. “I don’t want you to be sad.”

He wants to say that he’s not; her eyes slide to Steve, recounting some event Will recognizes and doesn’t care about, then stop at Mike - smiling, happy Mike, with his long legs folded carefully under the coffee table and wonderful ability to see through Will’s lies, but not through what Will doesn’t say at all. He doesn’t say anything. She knows, of course she knows.

“I’m sorry,” he says, even though he knows it carries concepts El didn’t grasp yet, like being sorry for things that don’t hurt anyone. So he crosses his eyes to look at her finger, still stuck to his forehead, and makes her laugh. He pinches her nose and pretends to point out her own wrinkles and teases her about her hair like any other brother would and ignores her pointed looks amidst the bursts of laughter and what they mean.

Hopper is telling a story about when El started calling him Dad. He’s looking at El fondly, like his own heart was sitting before him, materialized into a curly, gangly girl. El sends him her mostly eaten plate of waffles and then hugs him, when she remembers that’s how other people show affection.  Will looks at Mike, still smiling, still happy, still here, still Mike, who looks at him with eyes full of unreadable thoughts. Will figures that maybe not tomorrow or the next year, but one days things will be how they were made to be.

He’s been burnt to ash and put back together; he’s been frozen, his veins blocks of ice under his skin wrinkled like that of old man who forgot to die; he’s been turned into atoms and wandering without hearing and sight and remembrance of who he used to be. And he was scared, in the way one is scared of death or pain or getting lost in the dark and not finding way back.

He’s alone now.

The landscape is that of desolation, of oblivion, of loneliness permeating every molecule of being. There is moss on the walls, dust on the pavement, crumbling stones under his fingers; the skies are empty, as if moon and stars were too much of companions for him. He doesn’t try to scream anymore. He knows there is no one to help, no one at all.

Something touches him, something shakes him. It’s not good; he wants to stay in this quiet, peaceful world, before something else, something more terrifying will come. Something touches him again and he recognizes the pattern of fingertips, recognizes the heat of human skin, recognizes the voice calling for him in desperation and panic. He recognizes his own name and that there are words that his throat can say and that the words can belong to him.

He opens his eyes.

“I’m having nightmares.”

They are sitting on the edge of the quarry, legs hanging toward the water-filled depths. The earth is still a bit too cold to be sitting on, and the breeze seeps through their jackets, but it’s good. It’s spring, and bad things don’t happen in spring.

Will doesn’t turn. There is something mesmerizing about the quarry, about how the sky and water seem to be one and the same. Mike’s breath is on his nape, even though it has no business being there.

“What are they about?”

Mike’s breath hitches. His hand moves on the gravel towards where Will’s rests. It’s warm; the inch of space between their fingers holds whole universes in their hopeless infinity. Will considers crossing it, less because he longs to, and rather because he doesn’t want to listen anymore.

“About you,” Mike says.

There’s the sound of universes shattered, galaxies broken to dust. Will is not El; he doesn’t think he was born a monster or made into one. He doesn’t have nightmares of regimens of people bleeding from their eyes and mouth and writhing in pre-mortal agony, the ones that always wake everyone up and Hopper hugs her until she calms and then hugs Will, too, just for good measure. A small part of his mind - the one that daydreams of school dances and ice cream parlor dates and a world different from the one outside - is pleased that Mike’s dreaming about him.

“Am I hurting you?” he asks anyways.

Mike startles, like the idea never crossed his mind, not now and not before.

“No!” he says and his hand brushes Will’s and maybe, just maybe it was deliberate. “No, nothing like that! It’s just…”

His hand grips Will’s in a spasmic, panicked movement; it’s warm and shaking and it feels like it longs to permeate the skin and the flesh and become one with Will.

“I am you,” Mike whispers. “I’m in the Upside Down and I see the Mind Flayer, and I’m the Mind Flayer, and the Spy, and I’m trapped and alone and no one is coming for me- Oh, God, Will, I’m so sorry, so sorry- “

Will kisses him.

There’s a constellation of freckles that looks like Orion but turned upside down, and it stands out against the pale skin. Mike’s hug is different from Hopper’s - he still has years to come to grow into his limbs - and Will doesn’t remember when it happened. It doesn’t matter; there’s Mike’s cheek under his lips, and it’s warm, the whole world is warm as if all the suns died and were reborn anew again.

“I know,” he hears Mike say, and of course he knows, because he’s Mike and Mike knows .

And before Will apologizes or runs away or throws himself down to the quarry - because now, he is no better than Donna, now, he’s done the worst thing and there is no way back and he doesn’t even regret it - he feels Mike’s cheekbones move and his lips open and he doesn’t have to look to know he’s smiling.

“I’ve always known,” Mike says and the Will in his eyes seems more real than Will himself; and that’s how Will knows that everything is fine and everything is good. He thinks that if this is how it ends, then maybe - just maybe - it was all worth it.

There is white and hospital smell; there is headache and blurry figures.

There is a head of black hair and striped shirt and voice he recognizes.

There is a feeling like his heart is about to burst out of his chest.

That’s the one he knows; he’s been feeling it for a long, long time.

[fmdtaeyongarchive]

↬ can you see right through me?

date: december 23, 2016.

location: a car in seoul.

word count: 901 words.

summary: in the most simple terms, this is ash being scared of doing a vlive because of his fear of public judgment/hate comments/his fans with an additional note of his fear of sasaengs. i used 2016 since it was when ash’s fear was at its highest following his scandal which happened due to sasaengs and fan sites and all of the hate surrounding that, but he still fears hate comments and interacting with fans to this day. it presents itself more as the resentment he has toward his fans than explicit fear most of the time, especially now, but it continues to stem from a place of fear related to that 2016 scandal. no one asked for this much extraneous detail and character study in the summary but you got it anyway.

notes: anxiety tw?

he hasn’t done a vlive on his own in a year. the last one was for his twentieth birthday last year, and he can’t remember it feeling even a fraction as daunting as this does now. he’s never been good at live streams, if there was such a thing, but if it was difficult to do a year ago, it feels like an impossible feat now. there has been a vlive or two since then, in smaller groups he’s included in when management dubs it necessary to show his face long enough to remind everyone he exists, but in the past year, showing his face hasn’t been something they seemed to want to do that often. he can’t blame them. he doesn’t want to show his face much either.

but the fans count the days since his last vlive. the fans he still has, that is. he knows better than to demean the size of his fan base. even after his scandals, he has more fan sites dedicated solely to him than a lot of groups from smaller companies have dedicated to any member at all. it’s a privilege of being a knight member and of being a bc idol. many of his bigger fan sites are full-time, making their entire livings off of him (and they act like he owes them something because of it) even now. a lot of them are rich kids blowing their plentiful free time on pretty boys as a hobby, sure, but it never had to be him they chose. his fan sites announcing a sudden closure isn’t new to him anymore, but new ones have sprung up to replace them like tainted flowers budding in the fertilizer of a rotting corpse.

it’d taken some bartering, but ash is doing this live from the backseat of the car on the way back to knight’s dorm from a schedule. if he’s in the car on his way to somewhere, there’s a set end. he can’t continue the vlive once they arrive back home for risk of exposing their dorm to more sasaengs. there are already faces he recognizes from how frequently he sees them lingering outside of their complex and he sees those same faces at airports and fan signs and he has to smile and pretend that he doesn’t care his right to a normal existence means nothing to them. he’s expected to smile more because he should be flattered by their complete disregard of boundaries. why dedicate themselves to showing up like an apparition in the corner of his vision when he leaves to buy a meal when they could be dedicating themselves to a member who hasn’t shattered the illusion of saving themselves for millions of fans?

his manager has to start the vlive because ash’s hands refuse to take the motion themselves. ash remembers his therapist telling him not too push himself too hard into situations his body resists against, but management would never listen to that. the pounding of his heart and the typhoon of stomach acid in his torso he feels isn’t normal. he’s a coward and there’s no good reason for him to be.

idols get in scandals all the time. the relationship between idols and fans is strictly a product-consumer one and any loyalty is completely manufactured. he knows all of that, so why does he freeze the moment he begins broadcasting? he’s lucky it hadn’t been announced beforehand so the trickle of fans entering is slower. fewer fans see his best deer in headlights impression before he gets a grip on the invisible hand twisting his lungs into knots. management will remove that bit before the replay goes up, he assumes.

he has to read the comments. they’ll notice if he doesn’t and they’ll complain about it afterward. it will be another reason to hate him. his throat goes tight the few times he opens the comments to read one off to reassure fans this isn’t a one way thing.

the first few times don’t end terribly and a foreign spark of confidence finds its way into his body too soon. the next time he looks, he’s been streaming long enough for more people to find it and he’s met with a faster flood of comments. between every saranghae oppa!! and come to europe! in the chat box are accounts spamming a hashtag demanding his exit from knight, some with an insult of choice attached.

a simple hashtag isn’t half as bad as most of the hate he reads, but the spam is enough to send his anxiety back bubbling up and overflowing into his throat, and once he can speak, he claims he’s arrived home and says a quick goodbye before turning the stream off. he checks five times that it’s ended before he pushes his manager’s phone to the other side of the car.

he’ll get yelled at for how short the stream was later. if not tonight, tomorrow. they won’t care that it’s his birthday. that means nothing if he isn’t fulfilling his duties as an idol, and he’s been slacking there majorly for nearly a year now.

he ignores his managers questions when they get home and climbs into bed, pulling the covers over his head and hoping they swallow him whole so he never has to lay himself out like a sacrificial lamb for the public to comment freely on ever again.

[finestswordsmanfandral]

And Into the Light | Fandral & Thor, ft. Loki & the Bloodwraith

[Counterpart - Thor’s Perspective]

Earlier that evening...

Fandral’s throat was dry. He was tired of screaming. The skin around his wrists and ankles was red and sore from the chains he dragged around the void. He was sitting with his head on his knees, arms wrapped around his thinned legs. His body was deteriorating, pale and aching. This creature was slowly killing him and some days he wondered why he didn’t just give up.

Perhaps it was the infrequent visits from Sir Percy and Dane. They gave him new information about the destruction; he often didn’t want to hear it. He himself wasn’t committing these thoughtless murders, but his body was. Even if he didn’t enjoy hearing about the slaughters, having company even briefly was better than the silence.

Then, he heard something. Something familiar. Someone he recognized.

Heimdall.

“Leave this place now.”

Fandral lifted his head. He was on Asgard now. His weak heart felt leapt, beating faster and stronger. The wraith didn’t say anything, but he heard Heimdall shouting and there were swords clashing.

Then came the thunder.

Fandral stood. Thor had arrived.

“Fandral is dead,” He heard the wraith say.

He clenched his fists. “No, I’m not.”

A jolt of electricity shot through his body, knocking him down onto the ground - this was the first time he had felt an external attack. He lifted his arms, and the shackles on his wrists were crackling with blue and white lightning. Even an entity of death wasn’t impervious to Thor’s power.

He could hear the battle ensuing as he lifted himself back to his feet.

“You will die now, prince.”

“No!” Fandral shouted. “Don’t hurt him! Please!”

He heard the wraith laughing - but the laugh was caught short.

“Not so fast, snake.” That voice...Loki? Before he could wonder why the long lost Asgardian Prince was with Thor, he felt something else.

The blackened void was met with a yellow white at the peak. Fandral felt the floor give out beneath him and he was floating between nothing and something. A hand reached through the darkness, grabbing hold of his body and ripping him free of the shackles. The light in front of him was so bright and he blinked a few times.

“I don’t think this will hold long, Fandral, so speak quickly.”

Fandral inhaled sharply. As his eyes adjusted, he saw the detailing of Heimdall’s conservatory surrounding him. He was in control, but only just. The figures before him focused and his eyes immediately locked with Thor. He relaxed, though the pressure of the wraith was pulsing in his brain. He felt a gentle kick and remembered he needed to speak.

“The sword is his power,” He said. Hearing his own voice reverberating in his throat was a strange sensation. “It must be cleansed. Thor, you must go to Camelot. He’s gaining power so he can return there to rule. Thor, you have to go - you need to save everyone.”

Thor was quick to interrupt: “I need to save you.”

Fandral shook his head saying, “No! He won’t stop.” The wraith was clawing its way out. He felt himself sinking back inside himself. “Thor - “

He was too late.

“No, no, no, no, no!” But the words weren’t coming from his mouth anymore.

He was falling. The light around him faded, and he landed flat on his back in the same familiar emptiness. He watched as the last flicker of white blipped out of existence. A silvery smoke rose from the darkness and wrapped around his extremities and a metal shink! solidified around his wrists and ankles. The shackles returned, and the chains secured him down.

For the first time in months, he finally had hope. Even though his imprisonment was more strict now than ever before, that meant the wraith was afraid. It didn’t want to risk Fandral getting out again and telling Thor about the Brazier of Truth.

-- --

[Counterpart - Thor’s Perspective]

Later that evening...

The Bloodwraith was weakened. He could feel they were passing through the Bifrost, which made him woozy, and he shut his eyes. He lay completely helpless and pinned. They were undoubtedly on their way to Camelot. He learned it was an old Midgardian kingdom that was sealed away. He didn’t have time to relay that to Thor, but he had the resources available to find it regardless.

As he settled back into the abyss, the creaks and aches of his bones returned. Then an intense pressure planted itself on his chest. He winced at the pain and he cracked one eye open. A ghostly image was hovering over his body. The wisps of smoke corporealized on top of him, and a knee was pressing down hard on his ribs.

The figure looked like him, which wasn’t entirely surprising.

“You’ve aged, swordsman. Soon your bones will turn to ash and your body will rot and I will prevail. Then I will kill your friends. The last thing they will see is their dear friend Fandral disemboweling them. Maybe I’ll keep you alive long enough to hear their screams...I haven’t yet decided.”

Fandral tensed and tried to lunge forward. The chains gave ever so slightly, but they were tightened quickly by the wraith. The imposter stood up and the dimension shifted, so Fandral was upright as if he were against a wall.

“Thor will defeat you,” It said, pulling forward on the chains again.

The wraith laughed. “Your tenacity continues to astound me. We will be in Camelot soon enough. Then I shall deal with you.”

Without another word, the figure vanished into smoke. He hung his head and sighed.

-- --

Fandral didn’t know how long he had waited. The wraith had never visited him before, but something told him that wouldn’t be the last time he saw it that day. As long as Thor was on the case, he wouldn’t rest until the evil was destroyed.

Soon enough, smoke manifested before him, and the shadow returned. He looked angry.

“That Asgardian is truly insufferable...though I suppose that is in your nature. You’re the strongest will I’ve come across in my entire existence.”

It sounded like a compliment, but Fandral knew it wasn’t intended to be.

“Why are you here? Are you afraid you’re going to lose?”

His fake laughed, then frowned. It pulled its arm back and punched directly into Fandral’s stomach. The chains holding him taught collapsed as his torso jolted backwards. No longer being held up, his knees dropped and his wrists strained under his weight.

“You would do well to keep silent.” The wraith snarled.

Fandral’s eyebrow furrowed. “And if I don’t?”

A swift kick came next. The creature had to’ve been afraid because it kept throwing kicks and punches at Fandral. He wasn’t dying fast enough, and the wraith was running out of time.

It reached backwards into the darkness and smoke manifested a dagger.

“Do you know what this is?” It asked. Fandral eyed the weapon, but the metal was so dark he could only see the hilt. “This is the obsidian dagger. Or...not really. That dagger was destroyed long ago, but - that doesn’t mean this won’t do the trick.”

Before Fandral could react, the wraith punched the dagger into his side. He yelled out in pain as the blade stuck his organs.

Unfortunately for the Bloodwraith, he did get his chance outside again. The same white light pulled him out of his body shone above the two. The wraith dissipated in the light, blasting away into smoke. His arms and feet dropped as the shackles unhinged and he drifted up towards the real world.

This time he saw Loki first. He coughed into his arm and saw red spatter along his sleeve.

“Loki, this thing is killing me. I - I don’t know how much longer I can fight it. You need to cleanse the sword in the Brazier of Truth - in the church.” He looked to Thor as he appeared up the steps. “Only someone worthy can light it.”

Fandral started to black out before the mind effect wore off. He slipped back into the abyss, landing hard on the imagined floor. He weakly lifted his head, seeing the bloody dagger next to him. He reached over and grabbed the hilt. As he pulled the dagger towards him, a boot stepped from out of the darkness and onto the blade.

“Leave me alone,” Fandral said, pulling his hand away from the dagger.

“And I thought you enjoyed company. After all, you spend so much time with those pretty women...and men.”

“I would rather spend eternity with Malekith the Accursed than you.”

It chuckled. “Do you still not know what this is? Do you not know where we are?”

Fandral grabbed onto his side and slid up to his knees. He stared up at the creature before him - but it was more than that. He nodded slowly.

“I’ve known for a while.”

On one of the visits with Sir Percy and Dane, they divulged information to him about what the ebony blade does to people like him. When the blade accumulates souls, it begins to break the user's soul, depending on how many lives they have taken.

Fandral had a violent reaction - worse than anyone could have imagined. His physical being shattered. The man bleeding on the ground was a mere fragment remaining of the true Fandral. The abyss was somewhere deep in his mind, but the evil being was in control. The Bloodwraith was just another side effect of the curse.

The true Fandral couldn’t hear the fight going on around him. He didn’t know that the physical wraith was trapped in fear, or that Thor and Loki were being fighting his ‘evil self’ outside. Time didn’t pass, and everything was still. His imposter bent down to pick up the obsidian dagger and extended it towards Fandral. With a small shimmer it elongated until it resembled the ebony blade.

“Once you’re dead, there will be nothing left. You will be free of this prison, off in Valhalla with our kin...or maybe you’ll go to Hel, where you belong. Assuming a fragment of a person could even find their way to the afterlife.”

Fandral looked to the ground. He clenched his side, where blood spilled from his wound. He closed his eyes. It can’t end like this.

The ground shook vigorously for a few seconds, and his alternate staggered backwards.

“Fandral!” Thor’s voice echoed throughout the void.

His eyes shot open and he pushed himself up to his feet. He charged forward and yelled, running directly into the creature. He knocked it onto the ground, and he began punching its face over and over again.

“Give me my body back!” He shouted.

“No!” The evil form growled. With a large heave, it knocked Fandral off and rolled him onto his back. It raised the sword and held it over Fandral’s heart. “If I die, you die with me.”

Fandral’s eyes scanned the blade from hilt to tip slowly. Smoke billowed around him, wrapping around his limbs again. As the smoke tightened around his limbs, he clenched his fists. He refused to die a prisoner.

He firmly planted his feet on the ground. With the last of his strength, he pushed up off the ground with his arms, knocking the wraith back. When their bodies met at a V shape, Fandral felt the sword pierce his skin. As he continued forward, it pushed through his chest and completely out the other side. His palms caught the floor, and he hovered over the wraith, breathing heavily as his body processed being stabbed.

The wraith chuckled. “You don’t give up, do you? This is why you lost.”

Fandral shook his head. He sat upright, pulling the ebony blade from his chest. He felt his wound open like a watergate. “I haven’t lost. It’s like you said...if I die…” He gripped the blade hard. “You die with me.”

Raising the sword over his head, he mustered as much strength as he could and brought the blade down on the wraith’s neck. It’s head held to its neck by threads, but it stopped moving instantly. Fandral continued breathing heavily, resting his forehead on the sword. He pushed himself up to his feet to step over the corpse before him before falling flat onto the ground again.

As he blinked in and out of consciousness, a white blip could be seen in the distance. He lifted his head an inch off the ground.The spot flickered and swelled slowly. He reached one hand out and tried to drag himself forward. He cried out in pain and placed the hand over his wound instead.

“I’m so sorry, Thor,” Fandral whispered, his eyes losing focus. He finally gave in and let his eyes close.

His skin felt warm...then hot...and then boiling. His eyelids clamped tightly and he felt like something was escaping his body. What he couldn’t see was the room around him ruptured with thousands of particles, erasing the blackness from the void around him. The body and sword next to him disintegrated into dust.

The warmth around him died out as his body burst into particles.

-- --

Something rolled him onto his back. He was pulled up and his head rested in what felt like a palm. A hand gripped his side gently, near where he was stabbed. There was no pain there, but his bones ached severely.

“Fandral...please wake up…”

The voice sounded close - Fandral realised he was back in his own body. His face contorted strangely, but he couldn’t quite figure out how to make any of his muscles move.

“Th…hh...oo...r…” He breathed.

Thor pulled him closer, and Fandral’s eyelids slid open. He blinked and looked around, everything focusing on the man hovering above him. The worry on Thor’s face shifted to a sad smile. Fandral smiled until his gaze met with a giant red bruise on the other man’s neck. He reached up and gently touched the mark.

“Did I…?”

Thor shook his head, grabbing Fandral’s hand and holding it tightly. “No...I don’t think…” He glanced away for a moment before continuing, “Do you remember what I gave you the first day we met?”

Fandral glanced away and thought for a moment.

“An apple,” He said finally. “It was gold and you said, ‘this is an apple of everlasting life. If you eat this, you will never be alone because we can be friends forever.’”

Thor sighed in relief and pulled Fandral into a tight embrace.

“Oh Fandral, I missed you so.”

“I missed you, too,” Fandral sniffed.

Thor whispered, “Let’s get you home.”