#this was a MONSTROSITY to post on tumblr let me fucking tell you. this post editor was NOT made for a 13k text.

[eldritchqueerture]

Chapter 12: All That Matters

Chapter Summary:

All things must change. All things must end.

CW: suicidal ideation, arguments, death and murder, shock (a bit), child violence (kindof?? but not really), self-deprecation Jarchivist style, themes of chronic illness, themes of terminal illness

Author’s Notes: um. you may want to sit down for this one. in my defense - i did warn you. i did warn you, okay?

god. i can't believe this is it. take a deep breath, mind the content warnings and see you on the other side.

Work Summary: Jon awakens with a tidal wave of memories that don’t make any sense. In an attempt to go on with his life, he searches for the cause of the turmoil in his mind. He knows, though, that something inside him is waking up.

Likes are greatly appreciated, but please consider reblogging so other people may see it! Thank you 💜

-

The tunnels are just as cold, damp, and unwelcoming as Jon remembers them. The darkness looms with a promise of something lurking just around the corner. Under their boots, the squelching painfully reminds them what has been creeping in the walls.

Tim grimaces, casting a half-horrified, half-disgusted glance at the floor. “Geez, this is… They've all been here the whole time?”

“Yes,” Jon answers. “Biding their time. Waiting.”

He steps around the carcasses carefully but without need for light, using the cane as additional support when his recent wounds flare. Tim glances back at him briefly, keeping his flashlight focused on the worm-riddled floor.

“Waiting for what?”

Jon shrugs and winces at the sting in his shoulder. “Until there was enough of them to overpower the Archives. But they weren't ready. The Web wanted them to fail.” He scoffs to himself. “Not that they would succeed in any substantial way at any rate.”

“The Web...” Sasha frowns, searching the rough, stone walls with her light. “The spider Tim killed?”

“Yes.”

“And there's no chance it could've just been… A coincidence?” Tim offers weakly, at which Jon barely stifles a pitying chuckle.

“There are no coincidences where the Web is involved.”

He carefully keeps his voice soft; he's finding it hard to keep explaining things that seem so obvious to him now, but he knows that's just one of the things defining his inhumanity. He casts a glance at Martin who's been quiet ever since they descended into the tunnels. His gaze is fixed somewhere ahead, and there's a slight frown on his forehead.

Jon laces their fingers together to make him look down. He doesn't say anything - he wouldn't know what to say. There are so many things between them now and yet no words spring to mind. They need to kill Jonah Magnus, end this once and for all, and then...

And then hopefully we can live happily ever after, Martin thinks. Jon averts his gaze, blinking rapidly. He hasn't thought about what comes after — after Jonah Magnus, the heart of the Institute, is dead. What happens to him. He doubts the Eye will let him go; in fact, he's quite aware that's not possible anymore.

“Can I ask you a question?” Sasha speaks up in the silence. Her voice joins the echo of their steps reverberated on the stone walls.

“Of course,” Jon replies.

“You said there was an apocalypse, right?” She starts. “Various domains of fear, you travelled through them to get to Elias—”

“—Jonah Magnus—”

“Yes, yes, Jonah Magnus, in this… Panopticon.” She hesitates. “Where do other universes come into play then?”

Jon takes a breath to launch into a detailed statement, something about a grand plan and apotheosis, but Martin precedes him.

“Basically the Web fucked us over,” he says. “There was a rift on Hill Top Road, something about multiple entities converging on one place or some such. The catch was that if Jon killed Elias in the tower, he’d have to take his place. But Annabelle offered us another way. We could stop all of it. We could send the Fears to other realities and turn the world back to normal.”

Something dawns on Jon — a realization coated in dread that makes his heart stutter and his throat close up. He stares down at the floor, pressing his lips together. He knows he should speak up —they still have time, they can still come up with a plan— but his throat seems to have lost the connection to his brain.

“And you did?” Tim raises his eyebrows.

And maybe that’s for the better. Maybe this is his one last chance to do something right. It wouldn’t fix all the wrongs, nothing ever would, but maybe that was some sort of justice he could offer the world. Maybe it would be for the better.

“Well, Jon wanted to kill the whole world to contain them, so we didn't exactly have an alternative,” Martin scoffs, catching Jon’s attention with the tone. “And we were hoping that the Change doesn't happen in other worlds. The Fears would have marginal access to them, just like they did before the Change happened in ours. And—And we couldn’t exactly be held accountable for what could possibly, maybe happen in alternate universes, now, could we?”

Jon grinds his teeth to stop himself from arguing. There's no point reviving the same discussion, not after the fact. They've got to press forward and face what’s awaiting them. One way or another.

“Okay, but that doesn’t explain why you ended up here,” Sasha points out.

An uncomfortable silence follows her words. From the corner of his eye Jon sees Martin look away and bite his lips. Something heavy makes itself at home in his chest.

“We had an argument,” he speaks, taking extreme care that his voice doesn't show any emotions. “Martin and I. I… I could really destroy them all at the source. I had a chance to end it all for good. I had to take it.”

“You mean, you had to orchestrate the most elaborate suicide—”

“Martin.” Jon's voice takes on an exasperated edge. “This isn't about me, it’s about all the worlds and all the people I’ve—”

“No, Jon!” Martin stops and looks at him with desperation in his eyes, letting go of his hand. “It is about you, it's all about you! The Web chose you, the Eye chose you, and you keep putting yourself in danger because of some fucked up martyr complex—”

“They didn't—They didn't choose me, Martin, I was just” —Jon lets out a frustrated breath. “There's nothing special about me. I was just a conveniently placed chess piece that did exactly what it was meant to.”

“You're not a—a chess piece to me!” Martin says, his eyes glistening.

“I know,” Jon says as softly as he’s able to, and takes Martin's hand. "But the world doesn't care about—"

Martin takes a step back. “I had to kill you,” he whispers shakily. “I really thought I wouldn’t be able to, if it came to that, but I did. I had your fucking blood on my hands, Jon, I had to watch you die. Do you have any idea what it was like? I don't give a fuck what the world cares about and frankly, I feel like we deserve something nice for a change! So, if that’s alright with you, I would like to focus on us this time, without involving the entire world in it.”

Jon stares at him, too stunned for words for a moment. Martin clicks his own flashlight on and steps past Tim and Sasha, who are equally speechless, albeit for slightly different reasons.

“Come on, let's go,” Martin says.

None of them look each other in the eye for a while and the silence hangs heavy. Jon bites the inside of his cheek to stifle the self-loathing lapping at his core in powerful waves, as he rewinds Martin's words in his mind. Of course he's still reliving what happened in the Panopticon, why didn't he think of that? How could he be so heartless? Talking about the Web and the grand scale of things… Martin is still human, it must have been awful for him. How could he—

“A fork. Left or right?” Martin asks.

“Uh, forward,” he says without really listening.

Martin stops and all three of them look back at Jon.

“Jon? There's no forward,” he supplies.

“What do you mean there's” —Jon looks up and pauses. “Oh, good lord.”

“What is it?”

Instead of answering, Jon limps past them and turns to the right.

“Jon—?”

As they all light the corridor, the beams stop at an unmoving figure of an old man, slouched down by the wall. His head is drooping forward, with the chin resting on his bloodied chest, and his eyes are half-lidded, unfocused. A pool of dark liquid has gathered on the floor beneath him, already substantial but still fresh.

“Shit,” Martin hisses between his teeth. “Is that who I think it is?”

“In the flesh,” Jon replies gravely, as he kneels carefully next to the body. “Jurgen Leitner.”

“Wait.” Tim blinks in confusion. “You don’t mean—”

“Yes, Tim,” Martin presses his lips together. “That Jurgen Leitner.”

“Bloody hell.”

“Guess we mark him as no longer missing,” Sasha mutters under her nose. “What d’you think happened to him?”

“Jonah Magnus,” Jon supplies, rising to his feet, and shoots a glance at Martin. “He took the book as well.”

“Is there a way to get there without it?”

“We’ll find a way around.” Jon frowns and looks off to the side. “He might try to stop us.”

“Can he even find us here?” Martin asks. “I thought this was a blind spot.”

“I don’t know.” Jon shakes his head lightly. He glances at Tim and Sasha hesitantly. “This could get dangerous very fast. The tunnels are—”

“We know what we signed up for, Jon,” Sasha replies, her face changing instantly from concern to stubborn determination.

“Do you?” Jon quirks his eyebrow inquisitively at Tim, who has been rather hanging back.

Tim looks up at him startled, as if feeling his gaze on his skin. There’s a moment where the entirety of Tim’s identity is sprawled open before Jon — every thought and feeling, every memory, both remembered and lost — everything that makes him who he is for Jon to Know. He vividly remembers rebuilding this identity from the very core. There’s nothing inside Tim that could be hidden now.

Tim lets out a breath and the quiver of his lips is the only sign of his distress, invisible to the eyes of others. Jon sees the fear in the glint of his eye as he relives the memory of being ripped apart and put together again every time he closes his eyes.

“I—I mean,” he stammers out and laughs to relieve some of the tension. Does he even know where it’s coming from? Does he realize Jon was the one to put the pieces of him together? “We can’t turn back now, can we?”

Jon blinks, forcibly withdrawing himself back to his own body. He grips his cane so hard his knuckles go white, unable to fight off a grimace. Or is it a smile?

“Yeah, we can’t. Let’s go.” Sasha waves her flashlight further down the corridor.

“What do we do with him though?” Martin asks, pointing at the body. “We can’t just leave him here.”

“What else are we supposed to do?” Sasha shrugs. “We can call the cops later, it’s not like he’s going anywhere.”

“Yeah, she’s right,” Tim says and clears his throat. “We do not want to be found near his body with a knife.”

“Okay, fair.”

Jon limps behind the rest of them as they continue forward through the tunnels. He entertains the thought of sneaking off and finishing this on his own, but that wouldn’t do anyone any good. He knew extracting Tim from the NotThem would have its consequences, but this… If Tim and Sasha are bound to him rather than to the Institute, then killing Jonah Magnus will do nothing to set them free. Better to continue with the former plan. And as for Martin…

Jon frowns at the ground. Can he do something like that to him, after everything?

Then again, he is already beyond redemption. Another unforgivable sin on his record wouldn’t make much of a difference.

He doesn’t notice Martin sidestepping him until his hand is taken hold of. He looks up to meet his concerned gaze.

“Hey,” he says in a hushed tone. Jon averts his eyes, the ache in his chest too strong to bear. He hears Martin sigh softly. “I understand if you’re angry with me.”

Unwittingly, Jon looks back up, ready to wipe away doubts of this sort, at least.

“I’m not!” He assures and squeezes his hand. “I’m not angry with you, I promise.”

“Then what’s going on?” Martin asks. “Talk to me, Jon.”

Jon looks ahead and bites his lip. They’ve lagged behind a bit, but Tim and Sasha seem to keep their distance, apart from the occasional glance back. Giving them some space, perhaps.

“I’m just worried,” Jon says carefully. “About what we’re going to do. What we’re going to find.”

Technically not a lie. Martin frowns and studies his face, but Jon knows he can’t see very well in the dark.

“Seems pretty straightforward to me,” he replies cautiously, as if daring Jon to reveal a detail that would derail the whole operation. “We go in there, we stab the bastard, we get out. Right?”

Jon can’t bring himself to look Martin in the eye.

“He’s going to be there,” he says half-heartedly. “He won’t go out without a fight, you know that.”

“There’s four of us and one of him, I think I like our chances,” he chuckles and gently nudges Jon with his elbow. “What’s on your mind? Honestly. I can see it’s not that.”

Jon stops with a sigh and passes a thumb over Martin’s palm, looking down at their hands.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers.

“Jon—”

“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” he continues, looking up into Martin’s eyes. “Back then. It must have been horrible. I didn’t think… I—I can’t even imagine…”

Martin’s features smooth out in a sad smile and he brings up his hand to Jon’s face.

“It’s okay,” he mutters. “I’m sorry I yelled at you. I got… A bit carried away.”

Jon stares into Martin’s eyes for a moment and wishes it could become eternity. This is the face of the man he sacrificed everything for — the destruction of the very beings of fear, the thing he deemed the right thing to do. His life was more important than all the other universes, all the other people in them; all the people in this universe, Tim and Sasha included. And still, he was so close to losing him…

“I’m glad you’re here,” he whispers, not trusting his voice to carry the sound. He feels tears forming in his eyes, so he closes them. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

He’s pulled into a hug that lightens the load he bears just a little bit, for a little while. Martin passes a hand through Jon’s hair and turns his head to press a kiss to his temple.

“I’m glad you stayed here long enough,” he whispers, and a new pit opens in Jon’s stomach. He feels the emptiness acutely when Martin pulls away. “Let’s go finish the job, yeah?”

Jon hesitates as Martin directs his flashlight away. A hurricane of thoughts and guilt-ridden feelings rises in his mind, but one thought is clear: he can’t do this to Martin. Not again. Not like this.

“Shit,” Martin speaks before Jon can say anything. “I can’t see them anymore.”

He starts ahead, faster than Jon can keep up with, and the words die in his throat, replaced with the low thrumming of dread. Martin sweeps the corridor with his light, but there is no trace of Tim or Sasha anywhere.

“They’re gone,” Jon realizes.

Martin turns to him, alarmed. “What do you mean ‘gone’?”

“They’re… Not here anymore,” he forces out through the tightness in his throat. The tunnels —the presence of them— encroaches on his mind, making itself known.

They’ve left the Archives’ territory and stepped into Something Else. He remembers the hunger of the earth, the walls pressing in on him from all sides — this is the domain of the Buried.

And he let his assistants out of Sight.

***

“Should we wait?” Tim asks, casting another backward glance at Jon and Martin. They’d slowed their pace to build some distance, and both Tim and Sasha took it as a sign not to interrupt the conversation they clearly needed to have. Now, it seems they’ve stopped altogether, and they’re already far away as it is.

“It’s fine, they’ll catch up,” Sasha waves her hand. “Besides, with Jon’s all-knowing abilities, they’ll find us if we get lost.”

“You know, it would be best not to get lost, if we can help it,” he says, but he still follows her lead forward.

“Think of this as scouting ahead,” she suggests with a smirk. “It’s not like we can make a wrong turn here or anything.”

Indeed, the corridor continues forward seemingly without end or so much as an alcove on either side. The farther they get from the archives the more decrepit the tunnels look, some more earthy and some roughly hewn in stone. Water and age have taken their toll on the state of the place, carving the walls and, in places, even forming stalactites.

Tim casts another look behind. It’s getting colder the deeper they descend, and a nagging feeling of anxiety has been buzzing in his stomach for a while now.

“Oh, what the hell?” Sasha mutters. “Look at that.”

Her beam of light points at a break in the wall, quite narrow and steeply descending downwards. The steps are uneven and no doubt slippery, but what immediately draws Tim’s attention is the simple, stark-white arrow pointing down the passage.

“Don’t tell me you wanna go in there,” Tim scoffs half-heartedly.

“Someone must have drawn it,” she says, lightly touching the arrow with her finger. A chalky residue sticks to it.

“Who, Elias?” Tim laughs. “If you just go right this way, this claustrophobic, horror passage will lead you to your death, where you can’t bother me and my Wednesday scheduling anymore.”

“Ha ha.” She rolls her eyes. She directs her light further down the stairs, but it doesn’t reach the end. “I wonder what’s down there.”

“With our luck, probably some kind of a sculking nightmare,” he mutters, taking another look back. His light doesn’t reach Martin this time. “I think we should—”

“Hold on, I think I see something.”

He turns back around to find Sasha already a few steps down the staircase.

“Sasha!” He hisses. “I’m not going down there with you.”

“I’m just taking a look!” She turns around with an amused expression. “I’m sure the lovebirds will catch up in no time, might as well take a peek, alright?”

“Famous last words,” Tim sighs in defeat. He knows this brand of excitement in her voice — she will not be deterred until her curiosity is sated. “I’m not coming to your funeral if something eats you.”

“If something eats me I probably won’t even have a funeral,” Sasha counters with a scoff. “Thanks a lot, Stoker.”

“You brought this on yourself, Miss Have To See It For Myself!”

Sasha’s reply is unintelligible, distorted by the echo of the stone. Tim is about to ask her to repeat when she yelps, scrambling back a few steps.

“What happened?!”

“I just felt the wall move,” she breathes out. “I’m getting out.”

“Finally, reason has graced you once more,” Tim sighs with relief. “What was that about walls moving though?”

Sasha climbs up the narrow stairs, helping herself up on the walls. “I felt the wall move under my hand,” she says. “As if it was getting narrower. I might be too curious for my own good, but I’m not stupid.”

“Clearly,” Tim says sarcastically. Sasha swats him on the arm.

“Alright, where are they then?” She asks, directing the light the way they came.

“I can’t see them.” The words come out of his mouth weaker than he expects them to. Anxiety churns in his gut and a cold feeling constricts his chest. He takes a step forward, searching the darkness frantically.

A dead end.

What he previously took as darkness where the light of his torch didn’t reach, now turns out to be a solid, stone wall right where the tunnel used to be. There are markings of age on the stone which seamlessly connects with the walls on both sides of the corridor, as if the structure hasn’t changed in years.

“Sasha…” Tim says as if she somehow hasn’t noticed.

“Impossible corridors…” She mutters, eyeing the walls suspiciously. “It’s got to be Michael, right?”

“What would it be doing here?” Tim scoffs, carefully stepping backwards.

“I don’t know, what would it be doing anywhere?” Sasha shrugs. “We should move.”

“God, we’re going to die here,” he groans.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” she nudges him in the arm. “He’s helped us before. Maybe he’ll lead us back to Jon.”

Tim lets out a weak, noncommital sound. He sweeps the walls with his light every now and then as they walk down the tunnel, trying not to let the shaking of his hands show. The silence around them presses heavy on his shoulders, and the echo of their steps makes an uncomfortable amount of noise. How long have they been underground? What time even is it? He imagines daylight and a clear sky, and for a second they both feel like a dream that’s never been real.

The corridor starts gently curving to the left. If Tim’s spatial skills are anything to go by, they should be heading northwest from where they split up with Jon and Martin, so at the next crossroad they should keep to the left and hopefully catch up to them from that side. A side look at Sasha tells him she’s making similar calculations in her head.

“Hey, Sash,” he whispers. “What do you think about… All this?”

She glances at him briefly. “’All this’? I’m afraid you’ll have to be a bit more specific.”

He chuckles weakly. “Just… Jon and his… whole thing. Killing Elias? Just...” He sighs. “If I knew what this job really was, I never would’ve taken it.”

“Well, that’s probably reasonable,” she shrugs. “I don’t know, maybe it hasn’t really hit me yet, you know? But I’m just going with it, spooky distorted people, worm women, omniscient bosses…” She lets out a laugh. “I think I knew something like that would happen to me eventually.”

“What about Jon?” Tim asks tensely.

“What about him?”

He looks away with a frown. “I don’t know. Don’t you get a… Weird feeling around him? Ever since…” He hesitates.

“Weird how?” She inquires with a side look at him.

“Just… Like he’s watching you all the time, noticing every single thing you do.” Tim grimaces as a shiver climbs up his spine simply at the memory. “Like there’s nothing you could possibly hide or keep away from him.”

“That does sound in line with what he told us about the Eye,” she offers. “I haven’t really felt like that though. Not to a noticable degree at least.”

Tim’s throat tightens with an unnamed anxiety. He grits his teeth, staring down at the floor ahead.

“Are you okay?” Sasha peers up at his face.

“It’s just…” He hesitates again, his lungs feeling slightly too small for comfortable breathing. “Don’t tell Jon,” he starts quietly. “But… You know how he told us we can’t quit the Archives, right?”

Sasha nods attentively.

“Well. I sort of. Tried,” he continues. “Wrote up all sorts of resignation letters, more or less professional. Almost wrote Elias an email to just fuck off and let us go. I even searched how to get law reinforcement involved, but I just… Couldn’t follow through. I’d always somehow end up deleting the drafts or just abandoning the attempts.”

“Yeah,” Sasha smiles slightly. “I tried that myself once, just to see if I really couldn’t, but I obviously don’t actually want to quit, so...”

“But…” Tim tightens his hold on the flashlight to stop his hand from shaking. “I didn’t want to come here. These tunnels… They’re too much. I was going to stay at the archives, maybe call up Gerry and help with whatever mess you three would surely end up creating down here.”

Sasha stops, staring at him with a frown. “What? Why didn’t you say so?”

He chuckles stiffly. “I couldn’t. Jon looked at me like he could… Pierce me to the core, like he knew every single little thing I was afraid of and still wanted more. And it was just like with those resignation letters. Not worth the hassle. Too late to turn back now. Always some excuse not to follow through.”

Sasha blinks at him, concern and doubt visible in her eyes. Tim shakes his head self-consciously and looks away.

“You don’t believe me.”

“No, I,” —she tuts. “I do believe you, I just... Are you sure it’s that? It’s normal to have doubts about places like this, but Jon wouldn’t force you to come with us if he knew you didn’t want to.”

“Wouldn’t he?” Tim raises his eyebrows. “Do we still know what he would do? Martin got his memories back and instantly proposed murder!”

“Okay, so what exactly are you saying?” She frowns with concern.

“I’m not saying anything, I’m just…” He groans. “Maybe they’re not the people we know anymore, Sash. If they’re still people.”

Sasha bites her lip. “That’s a pretty bold statement.”

“And causing an apocalypse and forcing people to spill their trauma isn’t?”

“You’re saying we shouldn’t trust Jon anymore,” she gives him a serious look. “That’s different.”

An echoing sound of quick footsteps down the corridor turns their attention towards the yawning darkness. First, they see the faint light of a flashlight — the next second Jon appears in their view, clumsily leaning on his cane, with eyes wide and full of barely hidden fear. Behind him, Martin shows up with a similarly concerned expression that soon melts into relief.

“Here you are,” Jon sighs heavily. He leans one hand on his knee to catch his breath. “Are you okay? Did anything get you?”

“Get us?” Sasha frowns. “No. Just some weird stuff happened with the corridor, so we might get a friendly visit from Michael, but otherwise—”

“What, Michael?” Jon asks, surprised by the name. “No, that’s not him. The—The tunnels are something else.”

“There’s something else in here?” Tim raises his eyebrows.

“Not to my knowledge.” Jon shakes his head. “The tunnels themselves are… something though.”

“Best not to think about it too much,” Martin offers with a faint laugh, seeing Tim’s distaste.

“I’m glad you’re okay. We’re not far now,” Jon says, looking them both over again and turning his gaze away. Tim gets that uncomfortable feeling again; he feels Jon’s stare on his skin, in his eyes, into his very core. Don’t tell Jon, he told Sasha. How utterly naïve.

His legs start following Jon’s lead without caring to check in with his brain as they walk in the direction he and Sasha have just come from. When he glances at her, he finds her already looking back with a question in her eyes — What do we do? Tim swallows heavily, not knowing how to answer.

She must get something from his expression though, because she turns to Jon and stops abruptly.

“Jon,” she starts with conviction in her voice. He turns around, startled.

“Y-Yes?”

“Do you know the way back to the archives?”

Jon blinks at her for a second, as if he did not expect a question like this.

“I—I think so? I mean, if you’re worried about getting back, there shouldn’t be any trouble after—after everything…” He trails off, blinking heavily. “Why do you ask?”

“Would we make it there if we wanted to go back now?” She asks, gently pointing with her head towards Tim. He looks between her and Jon with stiff anticipation.

“You, uh… You want to go back?” Jon’s eyes stop at Tim and immediately widen with realization. “Oh. Uh, I…”

“You know what we talked about,” Tim states with a sinking feeling.

“I—I…” Jon takes a breath. “Tim, I didn’t…”

“You didn’t what?” Anger starts to bubble in his chest. “Don’t say you didn’t know.”

Jon takes a step back, horror written on his face. Martin places a steadying hand on his arm, looking beween them all with confusion.

“What’s going on?” He asks.

“I can—I can explain,” Jon looks at Tim pleadingly. A part of him is growing to hate this expression that tries to play innocent, yet begging for forgiveness. As if he knows he’s already done something unforgivable.

“Apparently that’s the only thing I can ask of you,” he growls. “So please, go ahead.”

Jon shakes his head in disbelief. “I didn’t… Tim, I didn’t intend any of this. I didn’t think… I didn’t know this would happen.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Martin insists.

“In—In the Artifact Storage, when I, uh, pulled Tim from the NotThem,” Jon says, frantically searching the floor with his eyes, as if the solution was misplaced there somewhere. “I had to… I had to remake him. Extract the pieces of his being as knowledge I could glean from it and put him back together. I… I’m not even sure how I was able to do that,” he lets out a laugh. “By all accounts that should be impossible. But… I didn’t think it would have consequences like this but it makes sense, doesn’t it? Damn it.” He closes his eyes, in pain or in shame — or both.

“What consequences?” Martin asks with horror dawning on his face. Jon looks up at Tim, his voice quiet but dispassionate.

“You belong to the Eye now.” He pauses and adds, quieter. “You belong to me.”

Tim’s world shrinks to contain only Jon —or whatever he’s really become— and the impassive eyes that watch and drink in the horror of realization on his face, in his body, and mind. Tim didn’t know if he’d believed in a god before, but it doesn’t matter anymore — right now he stands face to face with his literal maker, who feeds on his fear. Who is his fear.

What kind of life awaits him, if his fear knows everything there is to know about him?

“Stop it,” he hisses, stepping back and shaking his head. “Just… Stop. Get away from me.”

“I’m really sorry, Tim,” Jon says quietly. “If I didn’t do it, your fate would be worse than death. This really is the better outcome.”

“I get it! I get it, okay?” He shouts, glaring at Jon. “D’you expect me to just magically be okay with it? You expect me to go on my merry way knowing my friend turned into a monster?”

“Tim!” Martin looks at him with indignation.

“No point skirting around it anymore, is there?” He takes a breath and grits his teeth. “You should’ve told me.”

Jon finally looks down, and Tim feels ever so slightly vindicated in a way.

“I really didn’t know,” he says. “But I could have. If I paid attention sooner. I wanted to give you time to recover.”

“Don’t paint it as some sort of charity on your part,” he hisses. “If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have even been here in the first place.”

To his surprise, Jon lets out a mirthless chuckle. “I am sorry, Tim,” he speaks. “There’s nothing more I can give you.”

“Fuck this.” Tim shakes his head and makes up his mind. “And fuck you. I’m done being scared for your sick enjoyment. I’ll find my way back even if it kills me.”

He turns around and forces his feet to walk away.

***

In his mind, Jon curses the lack of foresight to all hells.

He stopped himself from digging deeper into Tim’s mind, extending Martin’s rules from the apocalypse to the rest of them as well as he could. He wouldn’t willingly look in their heads; the fact that he had to scrape every little piece of knowledge about Tim from the NotThem notwithstanding.

Or so he thought.

If he only looked further, probed deeper, maybe he could’ve noticed Tim was unable to turn back on his own. Maybe he could understand why.

As it is, he watches him turn heel and stride the other way. Martin calls after him and, when that proves unfruitful, looks at Jon incredulously.

Jon’s eyes meet Sasha’s for a moment. She draws her eyebrows together, clearly weighing choices in her mind. Then, she shakes her head slightly and runs after Tim.

“Aren’t you going to stop them?” Martin asks in disbelief.

“Do you think I could?” Jon replies, clearly knowing the answer. “I did this to him.”

“Jon…”

“I know what you’re going to say, Martin,” Jon interrupts, still staring at the lights disappearing in the darkness. Then he turns around and starts walking. “And it doesn’t change anything. We have to kill Elias.”

“So, you’re just not going to talk about this?” Martin follows.

“What is there to talk about?” He sighs heavily. “This was bound to happen sooner or later.”

“It’s not your fault,” Martin insists. “You saved his life.”

“I appreciate you saying that,” Jon says almost automatically in a tired voice.

“I would like you to agree, though.”

Jon keeps staring forward like his life depends on it. The weight of their destination sits heavy in his chest. One more reason to follow through with his plan. He’d be leaving a mess behind, but… At least he’d fix something.

Martin sighs. “Are they going to be safe out here?” He asks.

“I think so.” Jon nods. “I don’t know for sure. Nothing ever actually happened to us in our time, though.”

“Will they find their way back?”

Jon smirks slightly despite everything. “The archives will act like a beacon to Tim, whether he acknowledges it or not. I suspect they’ll be fine.”

The walls of the tunnel soon open up to a vast space of the chamber. Stone-hewn openings yawn from the circular walls at various heights, hundreds of corridors leading further into the maze. And at the centre of it all, the tower.

It's smaller than the one they climbed after the Change, and definitely less daunting. It still looms over them, surrounded by silence as thick and oppressing as if material, and both of them feel it would not be wise to disturb it.

“I can’t believe we’re here again,” Martin mutters almost inaudibly. “Where is he?”

“Inside.” Jon hesitates. The tower radiates finality, and he’s suddenly very aware of Martin’s hand in his own. He squeezes it, mostly to reassure himself. Is he really prepared to let him down one final time?

“Martin…”

“Hello, Jon.” A voice echoes from the entrance to the tower, and Elias comes into view to greet them. With a spark of vindication Jon notices a bandage on his right hand. “Martin. You really took your time getting here.”

“It’s over,” Martin announces and draws his knife. “Prepare to die.”

Elias smirks and tilts his head curiously. “Straight to business, then? Somehow, I don’t think that’s quite how this little meeting is going to go. Am I wrong, Jon?”

Jon curses in his head. “I’ll kill you myself if I have to,” he growls.

“And deprive Martin of his sweet revenge?” Elias raises his eyebrows. “How selfish of you.”

Jon grits his teeth, guilt twisting his insides.

“Martin,” he mutters, as if that provided them with a shred of privacy in this place. “You have to trust me now, okay? Give me the knife.”

“What?” He looks down at him with a confused frown. “You really want to argue about that right now?”

“Trust me.”

Elias chuckles in genuine amusement. “Oh, sweet, ignorant Martin. It is a kind of joy to be able to play such mind games with people, isn’t it, Jon? Knowing so much they just have to trust that you know what you’re doing.”

“Shut up!” Jon snarls.

“Such a shame you’re so self-destructive,” he tuts. “You really showed great promise.”

Jon sees Martin tighten his grip on the knife, ready to close the distance. He lets go of his cane to grip Martin’s other hand.

“Don’t!” He hisses. “Please, trust me. Let me do this.”

“What the hell are you doing?” Martin looks at him desperately without comprehension. “What does it matter?”

“You really haven’t told him, have you?” Elias shakes his head. “Maybe you and Gertrude aren’t that different after all. You keep surprising me, Archivist.”

“Told me what, exactly?” Martin growls at Elias, keeping a strong grip on the knife.

“Martin, I…”

“That if you kill me, you’ll kill him as well.” The smirk on his face betrays just how much he’s enjoying this revelation.

“What?” Martin laughs. “You can’t seriously believe this bullshit will work on us.”

Jon squeezes his hands tighter, and that must give him pause, because he looks back at Jon. His smile falls away.

“No,” he lets out. “Don’t tell me that’s true.”

“I was going to tell you,” Jon whispers, clinging to Martin’s faltering hands. “I just…”

“You wanted to use poor Martin to kill yourself out of guilt,” Elias finishes for him. “No need to sugarcoat it for him now.”

Martin drops the knife to the floor and pulls away from Jon, all blood draining from his face.

“You just what?” He asks shakily. “When were you going to tell me, exactly?”

“I—I just thought…” Jon grimaces at his own inarticulacy. “You are all still bound to me. Not to him, not to the Institute — to me. Killing him would not give any of you freedom. And Tim… You said it yourself, you all deserve something nice for a change! You deserve a life away from all of this! And I could—”

“You can’t be serious right now,” he laughs disbelievingly. “You were going to make me do it again…”

“No!” Jon steps towards Martin, instinctively reaching out, trying to make him understand. “I wasn’t! I—I promise, I wasn’t going to actually let that happen. I wanted to tell you.”

“You wanted to be the one to kill him,” Martin points out, grasping for the detail like it could save him from drowning. “Why? What difference does that make?”

“I—I, uh…” Jon glances at the knife and takes a breath. “I am the Institute’s Archive,” he says quietly. “If it dies, I die as well. But Jonah Magnus’ death doesn’t have to mean the death of the Institute.”

“You’re kidding me.” Martin looks horrified. “You want to take his place?”

“I don’t!” Jon’s voice raises without his intention in the heat of the moment. “I don’t want any of this! I didn’t mean for it, I didn’t want any of it, and it still happened! There are no right choices anymore, all of them are incredibly bad or worse, and I’m the one who takes responsibility! When I say the world doesn’t care about our feelings, Martin, this is what I mean. We’ve never had any other choice than that between inhumanity and death.”

With that, he picks up the knife and looks up at Elias. The dawning terror on his face shows he’s just realized his miscalculation.

“Jon—”

“You thought I really wanted to let Martin do it,” he speaks out of breath. “And you knew Martin never would. But I’m afraid you were wrong.”

He closes the distance between them before Elias has a chance to get his bearings, and he pushes the knife deep between his ribs.

“No…” Elias groans, gripping Jon’s wounded shoulder tightly. In the fervor of his fury he barely even feels the pain. “I—”

Jon lets him fall to the floor when his body goes limp in his arms. For a moment he just stands there, his hands shaking uncontrollably. The blood covering his skin is warm and sticky, and the smell makes him nauseous.

“This body doesn’t really matter,” he says emotionlessly. “It’s the original one that counts.”

“…What happens when you kill it?” Martin’s voice behind him is quiet. Sad.

“It won’t destroy the Institute,” Jon replies, still unmoving. “It won’t free any of you. But we will be rid of him forever.”

“What happens to you?” Martin repeats a bit impatiently.

“I don’t know.” Jon shrugs numbly. “I don’t imagine much will change. I’m already…” His voice cracks. “I’m already something entirely else.”

“Jon—”

“It feels right to do it,” Jon says in disgust. “Just as it felt right to walk the apocalypse world. I can feel the pull of the Eye, which is why I didn’t want to do it, but…” His voice becomes thick and he can feel the prickling in his eyes. His hands still tremble, and he knows he won’t be able to stop the tears this time. “I just couldn’t do that to you again. Everything I do comes back around to hurt you and I just...” He stifles a sob, his legs barely supporting his weight. “I just wanted to do this one thing right for you—”

Martin catches him before he falls, and pulls him into a tight embrace. “Oh, Jon…”

“My conscience didn’t let me let you send the Fears away but I still did,” he continues, words tumbling out of his words before he can stop them. “I thought—I thought I had to atone for that. I was ready to make myself pay for all the… the transgressions if I could take him with me, if I could give Tim back his freedom,” he lets out a laugh. “But I can’t. I’m weaker than you, Martin, so much weaker. I—I couldn’t watch you die. And I couldn’t hurt you like this again. I don’t want to hurt you ever again.”

“It’s okay, Jon.” Martin places a hand on the crown of his head, gently rubbing his fingers on his scalp. “It’s okay now.”

“I—I tried to cling to my humanity, but I don’t think that’s possible anymore,” he whispers. “And I think it might not even matter. Time and time again I prove to myself that I just can’t. Do it.”

“Jon. It’s alright. You don’t have to—”

“Because of you,” he whispers somewhere near to Martin’s ear, gripping his arms tight. He falls quiet. “You’re all I have left, Martin. You’re all that matters to me. S-So if I have to live as a monster who can only inspire fear? If that’s the only way I can be here with you? Then so be it.”

Jon feels Martin’s arms tighten around him. He looks up at his face to see silent tears on his cheeks.

“I’m sorry. For all of this,” he adds quietly.

“It—It would be easier if you’d just talk to me, you know?” Martin lets out a laugh. “We’re supposed to figure it out together. You have to… You’ve got to tell me stuff like that.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” Jon looks down. “I almost did a couple times, but there was always something… And then I’d feel like it’s too late. There was a voice in my head that wanted to… I thought maybe some good would come out of it, you know.”

“I know, Jon.” Martin’s palm cups his face, and he passes his thumb on Jon’s cheek. “But you can do more good being here. We can do more good. Together. Okay?”

Jon sniffles and nods, trying for a smile. “Where you go, I go.”

Martin smiles, spilling more tears onto his cheeks. “Yeah. That’s the deal.”

Jon casts a glance at Elias’ body lying just under their feet, and lets out an unwitting chuckle.

“What?”

“Nothing, it’s just…” Jon looks away almost bashfully. “I just remembered something about you wanting to make out over his corpse.”

After a second of processing what he’s heard, Martin bursts out laughing.

“We just had a tearful heart-to-heart and this is where your mind’s at?” He teases.

“Well, we are just standing here, aren’t we?” Jon tilts his head with a faint spark of playfulness in his eyes. “Would you rather I ask if you’re a ghost?”

That’s all the invitation Martin apparently needs. His lips are warm and familiar when he presses them against Jon’s. His eyes falling closed, Jon hooks his arm around Martin’s neck to pull him closer and, in doing so, smushing his nose against his glasses.

Like riding a bike after a long break, they find their rhythm almost instantly after that. Martin lets out an involuntary sigh, his hand diving deeper into Jon’s hair, while Jon himself deepens the kiss like a man starving. He savours Martin’s sure and solid presence pressed against his own body, rediscovering just how much safer he feels in his arms. He breathes Martin in, and he smells like home.

They pull away, out of breath and shaking slightly from emotion. Martin’s eyes glisten, now less with tears and more with something far more meaningful — hope.

“What happens now?” He asks almost inaudibly, as if afraid of dispelling the feeling.

“I’ll go up the tower,” Jon says, painfully reminded of the task ahead. “End this.”

“I’m coming with you,” Martin announces, in a voice that is prepared to argue. Jon just smiles fondly.

“Alright.” He nods.

“Do you have to…” Martin hesitates. “You know. Actually take his place? With that whole… uh, eye-jumping thing?”

Jon’s eyes widen and he lets out a surprised laugh. “No! No, good lord. Thankfully, that’s not necessary.”

Martin heaves a sigh of relief. “Oh. Good. Good, that we can do.”

He picks up Jon’s cane and the knife from the floor. Jon frowns with amusement while he takes them.

“Would you… I mean, I’m obviously not going to do that, but… Would you still be on board if I said I had to?” He looks up to observe Martin’s reaction keenly.

He looks at him, startled at first, then his cheeks turn a bit red when he realizes Jon is teasing him.

“Look,” he presses his lips together in barely held in laughter. “I’m just glad you don’t, okay? Don’t laugh at me.”

“Just wanted to hear you say it.” Jon gives him a self-satisfied grin.

“Fine. I would still love you if you had to pick someone’s eyeballs.” Martin rolls his eyes. “But I’d be picking the people you’d jump into.”

“Oh, don’t tell me you have standards now,” Jon replies, as they make their way towards the entrance to the tower.

“Of course I do,” Martin smirks. “Tired, academic, oblivious. Sweater vests are a must.”

“Hilarious, Martin,” Jon deadpans, not hiding his amusement very well.

“Oh, they also have to play up the accent for shits and giggles, otherwise no deal.”

“I’m not playing it up—”

“Mhm,” Martin hums sceptically.

“Well, it’s definitelly not for shits and giggles.” Jon grimaces with distaste.

“So, you admit—”

“Oh, shut up,” Jon rolls his eyes with a smile.

Ascending the stairs is a feat with Jon’s wounds, but the tower is nowhere as tall as the one in the apocalypse world. The chamber at the top is open, with thirteen openings in the outer wall looking out all around the structure. At the centre, there’s a stone-hewn throne, upon which sits the two hundred year-old body of Jonah Magnus.

The body is visibly withered and slightly decayed, but there is no smell of rotting flesh, and most of the bones are still hidden under the skin. His hair has mostly fallen out, as have his teeth, and his eye sockets yawn with emptiness.

“Is it weird that I sort of expect him to move?” Martin asks in a whisper.

“Let’s make sure he doesn’t.” Jon adjusts his grip on the knife and walks up to the body.

From this point he can feel the power of the Eye and the others, like electricity condensing in one spot. His hairs stand on end as his hand is directed over Jonah Magnus’ chest almost without his conscious input. He’s been denying the Eye for far too long. With one push he can finally seize power from the man who had ruined the world; step above the boundries and redefine them however he wishes.

This world is nothing compared to the rich landscape after the Change, but that is not to say it is without any merit. There is plenty of fear to be found, plenty of people who beg to be heard, noticed and Seen — plenty of them he can yet make his.

As he plunges the knife into the chest of the founder of the Institute, his eyes fall closed, and something in his chest lurches. Images and feelings flash before his eyes, spanning years of searching, cataloguing and gathering statements of fear. Trying to understand and if not that, then to know and see how this thing called fear works, just to answer one simple question.

How do you stop being afraid of death?

The answer found itself in witnessing the fear of others, of watching and revelling in it, of wanting more. In finding a Power, something other than god, something more — something real. Something that bestowed upon him the gift of evading that which he was always most afraid of.

Naturally, he sought to give back to the power that had become his life, forsaking the ways of mortals who never really knew, never understood how the world worked. Naturally, he sought to remake the world, like so many others attempting before him, so that the power he served would thrive, and that he would thrive with it.

Then it’s over. His hand still grasping the knife trembles, his eyes fill with tears, and a giggling laugh escapes his lips. Jonah Magnus lies dead before him, and Jon can feel the deep, primal fear in his mind. He watched with sightless eyes as the knife approached and sunk in his chest, and Jon can witness him standing on the precipice of his greatest nightmare.

Jonah stands at the edge of a dark cliff, with a yawning, hungry abyss behind him, and Jon watches. He watches the little redheaded boy, in fancy, colorful frills of the nineteenth century look up at him with brown-grey eyes, wide open in fear. He sobs, trying to climb away from the crumbling precipice, but something just doesn’t let him. He calls out to Jon.

It would be all too easy to reach out and help him. Grasp his frail little hand and pull him out of that deathly chasm. But Jon stays back, the pleas of the child falling on deaf ears.

“Jon!”

He feels something touch his body — did the boy manage to grab purchase? Jon flinches, swats the touch away, pushes whatever it is towards that chasm — nothing but him is allowed the safety. Everything but him must be afraid.

The boy screams as he loses his footing on the shifting stone. His eyes flash before Jon’s face, presented perfectly for him to savour the final moment of overbearing terror as he falls to his demise. His cry still reverberates in his ears, even as he disappears in the darkness below.

Jon finds himself back in the Panopticon, sprawled on the floor, his cane abandoned nearby. Martin has retreated to the wall; his hands are outstretched in a placating gesture.

His face paints a stark picture of fear.

“You’re afraid of me,” Jon mumbles, his voice cracking slightly.

“Just because you tried to wrestle with me,” Martin says defensively. “I was afraid you’d hurt yourself. What happened?”

“I—I, uh…” Jon looks around to bring himself back to reality. “I saw Jonah Magnus meet his end.”

“Yeah, I got that,” Martin snorts nervously. “Why did you attack me?”

“Ah… Attacked you?” Jon blinks at him without comprehension.

“I thought you were going to pass out, so I tried to help.” Martin keeps observing Jon cautiously. “But your face… And you pushed me away, started fighting when I tried to bring you back…”

“Christ, I’m sorry, Martin.” Jon winces as he tries to stand up. Martin instinctively comes closer to help, but falters halfway. “I—I have to admit I wasn’t exactly myself.”

“Are you… Back?” He asks.

“Yes. Yes, I think so.” Jon tries to smile, but his shoulder wound has chosen this time to be particularly painful. He ends up grimacing and clutching at the bandage.

“So it’s done?” Martin looks at Magnus’ body. “He’s dead dead?”

“Dead dead.” Jon nods. “I’m… I’m the heart of the Institute now.”

Martin gives him a tense look. “What does that mean for us?”

Jon chuckles mirthlessly and shakes his head.

“I have no idea.”

***

The legal aspect of it all is a new kind of nightmare Jon has not anticipated to ever deal with. The documents have not magically amended themselves, so any claims to the position of the Head of the Intitute would be refuted, if not ridiculed. And they didn’t exactly have time to ask Elias for an express promotion before Jon killed him.

Martin’s suggestion to just let the fate of the Institute run its course while sound, would not be viable. Throughout the years, the place had become a sort of stronghold to the Eye, a place of power (to avoid the use of the word ‘temple’), and it would be a great loss to let it go.

Martin then offers to help — while his legal forgery isn’t the strongest, he could easily lie his way through as many interviews and negotiations as needed. Jon meagerly suggests he could hold some information over some people’s heads, but this line of thought is quickly shut down and not spoken about again.

“Can’t you just Know what we need to do?” Martin whines, sorting mindlessly through the papers on Elias’ desk. Jon rolls his eyes.

“That’s not how it works,” he says. “Elias could wing it however he wanted because if someone had a problem—”

“—He threw their trauma back at them, yes, yes, I know,” Martin sighs. “Obviously, we’re not doing that.”

“Obviously.” 

Martin eyes Jon carefully. After a moment, Jon chuckles.

“I’m not suggesting it, stop looking at me like that.” 

“So, what do we do?”

“Sasha used to be good at this stuff,” Jon says grimly. “We could use them. Both of them.”

“Only they could be anywhere at this point,” Martin sighs, rubbing at his face.

“Not quite. I’m pretty sure they…” Jon looks away for a moment. “Yes. They’re both at Sasha’s place.”

“That’s not far,” Martin picks up. “We can still catch a tube.”

“Right now?” Jon looks over his bloodied clothes and sighs in defeat. “Let me grab my coat.”

The ride there is quiet; under a layer of a newly established peace, there is tension brewing about the imminent conversation. Jon keeps his eyes glued to the ground most of the time, occasionally looking up at Martin to exchange glances.

When they’re about to walk into the building, Jon stops, grabbing Martin’s arm.

“I think,” he says carefully, “it would be better if I waited here.”

“What?” Martin frowns. “Why?”

“I’m not exactly popular with Tim at the moment,” Jon winces.

“All the better for him to see you’re not some evil entity out to get him, then.”

“That’s the problem,” Jon says. “I don’t know what he sees when he looks at me.”

Martin stares at him for a moment without understanding.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s like…” Jon tuts. “You’ve walked through the Change with me. You’re used to it. But people can tell something is… Off. With me. I don’t think it’s exactly pleasant for them.”

“Well, Tim is not people,” Martin points out with indignation. “He’s… Well, Tim! You guys used to be friends!”

Jon lets out a bitter laugh. He knows it isn’t Martin’s intention, but the phrasing still stings.

“You saw him back there,” he says quietly. “He’s scared of me. Do you think he’ll approach it with sense, when he sees I followed him here?”

Martin presses his lips together, clearly unable to deny Jon’s reasoning but not thrilled about it either.

“And you’ll be okay staying here?” He finally asks with a sigh.

“If it helps you get through to them? I’d do anything.”

Martin’s concerned gaze doesn’t leave his face. “Not sure I like this energy, given it’s the Institute we’re talking about,” he mutters. “But okay. I’ll be just up the stairs if you need anything.”

“I know, Martin.” Jon gives him a warm smile and a brief kiss.

Once Martin disappears inside the building, Jon finds a bench nearby and sits down. Instinctively, he reaches into his pocket and produces a crumpled pack of cigarettes. He focuses on the sound of the lighter, on the warmth of the flame near his hand, and on the taste of the smoke; trying to distract his mind from the conversation Martin is about to have. He knows he could listen in — Tim’s mind is a part of him; it would be all too easy to just reach and take all he knows.

Instead, he closes his eyes and listens to the small sounds of the neighbourhood. There are quite a few trees around, and the evening wind rustles in their leaves; an echo of children playing somewhere nearby mingles with the everpresent sound of cars. The smoke burns on his tongue ever so slightly — the familiarity of it calms his mind. He idly wonders whether nicotine even works on him anymore.

“That’s a nice lighter you’ve got there.”

Jon jumps at the dreadfully familiar voice. Next to the bench stands Annabelle Cane, dressed in a vintage black and white suit.

“You,” he breathes, scrambling to his feet. Annabelle lets out a light laugh.

“Relax, Jon. Can I still call you Jon? I’m just here to talk.” She gestures to the bench. “Shall we?”

“What do you want?” Jon asks, disregarding the suggestion.

She rolls her eyes and sits down, leaning her cane against the bench.

“I thought congratulations were in order,” she shrugs. “You’ve got a promotion, from what I hear.”

Jon grits his teeth. “What of it?”

Annabelle sighs. “Are you really so opposed to a bit of friendly conversation?”

“Yes,” he hisses.

“Well, that’s a shame. We both got what we wanted, though. We don’t have to be enemies.”

“You made me send the Fears away,” Jon growls, anger boiling in his chest. “You made me become the Archivist, my whole life just a series of carefully manipulated strings, so you could have what you wanted.”

Annabelle raises her eyebrows in surprise. “And you really think I did all that? Me, personally?”

Jon falters.

“I really wish I could take credit,” she laughs. “But I am just a very small part of something greater. Much like you.”

Jon frowns and looks away. In a sense, she is right. In a sense, there is something greater at work here; something that he doubts he —or she for that matter— could control.

“You brought the tapes to the Institute,” he says. “Why?”

Annabelle gives him another shrug, and he runs out of patience. “Why?”

“Because I wanted to,” she chuckles at the compulsion. “You still don’t see the big picture. You weren’t the only one being puppeteered, Jon — just the only one trying to resist it. I knew that my actions were motivated by what the Mother wanted, but I could tailor them to my advantage. By fulfilling the Mother’s plan, you’ve freed both of us from the Grand Web. My actions are my own once again, and so are yours.”

She puts one leg over her knee. “I told Martin the tapes were a thank-you gift, and I meant it. And, of course, I suspected you wouldn’t be able to eliminate Jonah Magnus without him.” She smirks.

“I’m surprised the Web didn’t want to repeat the last success,” Jon points out snarkily.

“I’m not,” she says. “The world of fear is delightful, but you already know it’s finite. Terminus claims all in the end.”

“So, this outcome is preferable,” Jon grimaces. “Sustainable for longer.”

“Exactly.” She flashes him a smile.

With his adrenaline dropping, he sighs and sits back down. His cigarette has almost burned out, but he takes a last drag. It tastes tangy and bitter.

“You haven’t really answered me,” he speaks. “If it was your decision to bring us the tapes, then why? There must be something else.”

“Must there be?” She chuckles. “Fine, if you must know. I believe it will be more interesting to see what happens next, with him around. You are too easy to predict. No offence.”

Jon looks up at her with a frown. “Interesting how?”

“You and your boyfriend, managing the Institute on your own?” She raises her eyebrows. “I’m curious what you do with it. How you’ll choose to stay alive. And the whole situation with your assistants…” She lets out a giggle. “Really a mess. I’ll be enjoying the show to come.”

“Yes, I’m sure it’ll be very entertaining,” he scowls, knowing there is nothing he could do to really stop her.

“And, of course, there is the case of Martin’s future,” she continues with a slight smirk. “He is mostly human after all.”

A nameless dread grips Jon’s heart.

“He will die, eventually,” she speaks mercilessly. “I wonder what you’ll do with it. Will you try to keep him here at all costs? Or will you let him die a human death? Will there be enough left of you to even want that? Or, maybe he spurns the One Alone and joins us after all, to stay alive. So many possibilities...” She shakes her head with a sigh. “But know one thing, Jon. I may be watching, but I will not interfere. All decisions both of you make will be entirely your own. The question is, whether that is better or worse.”

With the help of her cane, she stands up and tilts her head at him.

“Either way, good luck. You’ll need it.”

Jon swallows and grits his teeth, stifling his emotions for the moment.

“You have an interesting definition of a friendly conversation,” he remarks.

She laughs. “Perhaps. Or, perhaps I am still the director of your story, and this was an important conversation to have. I guess we’ll never know.”

She winks at him and walks away.

Martin takes a big, steadying breath before knocking on Sasha’s door. For a moment there’s only silence, as he figdets with his hands. Will they want to talk to him? Will they be angry? Betrayed? He can’t help but think back to the state of the Archives before the Unknowing in their own timeline. Can they prevent that from happening?

Then the door unlocks and opens to reveal Sasha’s frowning face.

“Where’s Jon?” She asks immediately. There is a surface level of hostility in her voice, but Martin sees that deep down, she is curious. Maybe even glad he showed up.

“Downstairs,” he sighs. “He decided it’d be best if we talked without him.”

“Hm,” Sasha presses her lips together. “Come in, then.”

The flat hasn’t changed since the last time Martin was here, although he barely remembers it through the layers of fog and fear. He remembers Jon’s arms on his shoulders, calling him back from the Lonely in the centre of this very room. The armchair he sat in.

Tim sits on the sofa with a disgruntled look on his face. He eyes Martin suspiciously.

“Hi, Tim,” he tries for a smile, which isn’t reciprocated. Feeling slightly awkward, Martin takes a place in the armchair and leans forward. “We figured, we need to talk.”

Tim scoffs. “Boss didn’t think to show up himself?”

“I can call him up if you want,” Martin offers genuinely. “He’s just down the stairs.”

Tim grits his teeth and looks away.

“I thought so,” Martin says. “And he did as well. It was his idea that I come here alone.”

“So what?” He growls. “He probably knew that I didn’t want him here, because apparently he knows everything about me now.”

Martin glances at Sasha. She’s standing a few steps away from the two of them, listening with her arms crossed. There’s a focused look on her face, and she’s biting her lip, as if she’s silencing herself.

He takes another deep breath. “I’m sure you both know that Jon isn’t… Entirely human anymore.”

“Figured that, did you?”

“Tim, please,” Martin says. “I’m trying to help you approach this.”

“Why should we approach this at all?” He asks. “He’s clearly gone, we should fucking run. All of us.”

A flash of anger passes through Martin’s face, but he quickly regains control of himself.

“We’d die. Most probably,” he says. “We’re all still tied to the Institute whether we want it or not, and we have to approach this somehow. Better together than apart, trust me. We’ve done this before.”

“Institute?” Sasha speaks up. “You didn’t kill Elias?”

Martin deflates. “The situation was… more complicated than we thought. Turns out destroying the Institute would kill Jon as well,” he says quietly. “But if he was the one to kill Elias, he’d… Well. He did take over Elias’ role.”

“Fucking hell,” Tim sighs, hiding his face in his hands.

“So…” Sasha starts carefully. “So, he’s in charge now?”

“Essentially, yes.”

Sasha frowns, looking between Tim and Martin.

“Isn’t that a good thing?” She asks, as if it’s an obvious thing they’re missing.

“We’re still trapped,” Tim points out dispassionately.

“And Jon has no control over it,” Martin finishes. “We’ll probably be stuck here for the rest of our lives.”

“Peachy.”

“There must be something we can use that for,” Sasha insists. “If he’s more powerful—”

“Yes, well, we haven’t gotten there yet,” Martin interrupts her, waving his hand. “We’ve got a bit of a, uh… Paperwork problem. Elias must have gotten these things done through blackmail, but we obviously don’t want to do that, so—”

“Consider it done.” Sasha shrugs, making Martin huff out a laugh. He looks at Tim, carefully choosing his next words.

“I know Jon can be… A lot, sometimes,” he says. “He used to be worse back during the apocalypse, all cryptic phrases, doom and gloom… But he’s still himself, deep down.”

“How can you know that?” Tim grimaces at the table in front of him. “That he’s not something that puts on an act, that tries to get us to let out guard down—”

“Because I know him,” Martin replies gently. “You do too, and if you give him a chance you will see that. He cares about you, and he— We really don’t want to lose you again.”

For a moment, Tim battles his thoughts, staring at the table. Then, he lets out a deflating sigh and looks up at Martin. “Fine. Fine, I’ll give him a chance. Where do we start?”

***

4 Years Later

Jon lets out a heavy sigh and tries to rub the exhaustion from his face. The written statements do make him feel slightly better but they’re not… Enough. They’re not nearly enough, and Jon knows sooner rather than later, he’ll have to face that fact.

“Recording ends,” he says quietly to the recorder and pushes the STOP button. He doesn’t have the energy to resist recording the statements he reads, but he doesn’t leave any follow-up on most of them anymore. The recordings get transferred to the library for any students or other researchers in need, and Jon never sees them again.

A knock on the door catches his attention, and Martin’s head pops up into view.

“Am I interrupting?” He mouths, eyeing the recorder on the desk.

“No, just finished.” Jon shakes his head with a small smile. At least there is one thing in this world that still brings a smile to his face unprompted. An anchor to hold onto. A reason.

“Good.” Martin smiles and enters the office with a mug in his hand. “Brought you some tea.”

He accepts the hot mug and feels Martin press a kiss to his head.

“Thank you,” he whispers over the mug.

“You will never guess what happened,” Martin starts, sitting at the edge of the desk. He goes into detail about some innocent mistake Lisa made that led to a renovation team arriving at the wrong address, so now they have to go to Sasha for additional funding, because the team is charging them for expenses.

Jon really intends to listen —he really does!— but he’s quickly distracted by Martin’s genuine amusement. The sight of him smiling like he’s got no cares in the world is so rare these days. He cherishes the glinting sparks in his eyes.

“—And you know, I’ve worked for years to win Diana’s approval, I’d really hate to lose that just because someone put the books on the wrong shelves—”

Jon wonders how he’s gone from additional funding to Diana and the library so fast. He takes a sip of his tea with a smile, and nods along.

“Well, anyway,” Martin says with a sudden realization. “Seems I’ve rambled for quite a bit, haven’t I?”

“I don’t mind,” Jon murmurs. “I was due for a break anyway.”

“How are you feeling?”

Jon looks away, his smile souring. “I’m fine.”

Martin’s expression morphs into concern. Jon really tries not to hate himself for always managing to wipe that lovely smile away, but it’s hard not to.

“Do you want to get lunch?” He asks with a heaviness in his chest. “Tell me about that upcoming Winter Holidays party.”

Martin laughs. “You really want to hear about that? Tim almost laughed Sasha out of her own office when she suggested it.”

“All the more reason to know what the deal is,” he raises one eyebrow, satisfied with the successful change in subject. He grabs his cane and gets up with effort.

His vision swims for a second as his stomach lurches. It’s worse than he thought. His skin goes cold, whether from fear or hunger, he cannot tell.

“Well, Tim’s been doing better!” Martin says, opening the door of the office for him. “And Sasha says he used to love organizing these things.”

Jon smiles. “Oh, did he now?”

“So, she put him in charge of that,” Martin laughs. “I think he’s never realized her chaotic potential as the Head of the Institute.”

They walk through the Archives, accompanied only by the hundreds of thousands of files. Martin’s laughter echoes in the space.

“You know,” Martin picks up, as they go up the stairs to the ground floor. “I think it was a good decision to put him back in Research. He seems to be doing better there.”

“I know,” Jon sighs. “Truth be told, it wasn’t exactly my idea.”

Martin glances at him.

“Is that why you told me to say I thought of it?” He asks. “Oh, Jon.”

“I know he’s doing better,” he says quietly. “He doesn’t see me as often anymore. That’s not a coincidence.”

Martin tilts his head in concern and stops to grab hold of his hand. “Jon…”

“Don’t. There’s no point pretending, when I Know what the truth is.” He looks away. “I have to accept my losses.”

Martin presses his lips together and squeezes his hand. “I’m sorry.”

Jon squeezes back and gives him a half-smile. They ascend the few last steps and make their way towards the canteen.

“I am glad he’s doing better, though,” he says. “And it’s sort of nice to have the Archives all to ourselves.”

Martin chuckles. “Careful, or you’ll have someone filing an HR violation. We actually have that now, if you’ve forgotten.”

“Right.” Jon huffs. “I did forget Sasha—”

“Oh! Mr. Blackwood-Sims!” A voice behind them interrupts. “I have these files you said I should—”

As they turn around, they see a young woman with a startled expression drop three file folders onto the floor. The papers spill everywhere, but her wide eyes are glued to Jon.

“Lisa, I told you, just Martin is fine,” Martin chuckles and steps forward to gather up the files.

“I’m… Uh, that is, I—I wanted to…” She stammers, frozen in place.

Jon finds himself frozen as well. Locked in her stare, locking her in place. He should do something, step aside, introduce himself, anything… But oh, isn’t this fear something? Isn’t this what he’s owed from these people who work under him without even realizing?

He doesn’t blink, not even a twitch in his muscles; is he afraid he’d do something to hurt her? Or would that break this delightful spell in which they found themselves without his intention? Surely, it wouldn’t be bad if he indulged himself, just a little bit.

After all, when was the last time he felt like this? He needs it.

He needs it.

“Jon!”

He finally blinks, broken out of the trance. Martin’s face comes into view, looking at him in alarm but trying not to show it. For Lisa’s sake. Right.

He blinks heavily a couple times.

“I wanted to introduce you,” Martin says with a tight smile. “Lisa, this is my husband, Jon.”

“The Archivist,” she whispers almost inaudibly, and then shakes her head, as if waking up. “I—I, uh. It’s nice to meet you, sir.”

“Likewise,” he mutters. Forcibly, he drags his gaze away, digging his nails deep into his palm. He can hear the rustle of paper as they pick up the remaining files from the floor.

“I’m so sorry, I don’t know what’s gotten into me,” Lisa laughs nervously.

“Don’t mention it,” Martin says gently. “Happens to everyone.”

“What I wanted to ask you is, uh…” The rustling stops, as she takes the folders from Martin. “These files are all ready to be transferred to the archives, but you said we can’t—, I mean, uh, where should I leave them?”

“Rosie’s desk will be perfectly fine, she’ll know what to do with them. We’ll pick them up on our way back.”

“Okay! S—Sorry for making a mess and, and for bothering you. I’ll get on, get on those files.”

“No worries. And be careful!”

“Okay, I will!”

Jon hears her turn around and almost flee the corridor. He shuts his eyes tight and focuses on the pain in his hand, as something inside him wails in despair.

“Love,” Martin whispers and grabs his shaking fist. “Can I ask what that was?”

“That,” he hisses through gritted teeth, “was a mistake. That is why I barely leave the Archives.”

“No, Jon, that was worse.” Martin’s concern is almost palpable in the air. “How bad is it?”

Jon swallows around the lump in his throat. “Bad.”

Martin sighs softly and gently pries Jon’s fist open. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I thought I could—” He trails off and leans his head on Martin’s shoulder. “I didn’t want to worry you. I’m sorry.”

“I’m always going to worry,” Martin says quietly. “Is it time to reconsider?”

Jon grimaces in pain. “I’m afraid it is,” he says hoarsely. “I won’t last on stale ones much longer.”

Martin takes a breath and nods. “Alright. I’ll bring it up with Sasha.”

Jon grabs his hand and shakes his head. “No. I’ll do it. It’s my responsibility.”

“Jon…”

“Come with me, if you insist. But I should be the one saying it.”

Martin looks at him with a grim understanding in his eyes, and nods. “Okay.”

***

September evenings this year have been surprisingly warm, so this one finds them curled up with blankets on the balcony, staring out at the sky. Martin combs Jon’s hair with his hand, a soothing habit he’s developed through the many sleepless nights spent cradling an equally sleepless Jon to his chest.

Jon is looking down, playing with the rings on his hand. One of them is black, an old little thing he’s had since uni all those years ago —almost in a different lifetime altogether. The other is much newer — glistening with gold in the evening light.

“It’s our anniversary today,” he says out of the blue. Martin’s hand stops, and he looks down at him, confused.

“What? Jon, we got married in May.”

Jon tuts impatiently. “I know that. I mean Scotland.”

“Oh,” Martin lets out.

“I barely even remember it now,” Jon muses.

“Me too,” Martin chuckles. “But that might have been the Lonely.”

Jon smiles at Martin and plants a small kiss on his lips.

“It pales in comparison to what we have now,” he whispers. Martin pulls him back for a longer kiss, stroking his head.

“I can’t imagine wanting anything more,” he says when they part. “Although… I wouldn’t say no to visiting some good cows.”

Jon laughs, cuddling up closer to him. Martin’s hand strokes his back, but then travels up to his neck and folds his shirt collar back. He feels Martin tense up beneath him.

Jon lets out a sigh. “I was going to tell you.”

“When did it appear?” Martin asks.

“I think I felt it… At the Institute.”

“When Lisa—?”

“Earlier.”

“Hm.” Martin presses his lips together and strokes Jon’s head.

Jon rolls up his sleeve. In the middle of his forearm his skin turns darker — almost black, and textured. Hundred thin, glistening bands that seamlessly turn into muscle and bone; and nestled among them a lidless, green eye.

“How long are we going to ignore this?” Jon asks under his breath. “Because it’s not going to stop.”

“I know,” Martin says. “And we’re not ignoring it. We’re just not worrying in advance.”

“Not worrying in advance?” Jon pulls away to look Martin in the eye.

“Look, we can’t stop it from happening by freaking out, can we?” Martin points out. “All we can do is enjoy here and now. That’s all we have, Jon. That’s all that matters.”

Jon blinks to stifle the tears that spring to his eyes for a reason that doesn’t quite register in his head yet.

“And besides, it doesn’t change anything,” Martin adds softly. “I love you. I’m not going anywhere.”

Jon nods. “I’m scared,” he whispers. Martin pulls him close, as if with his arms alone he could protect him from all the dangers of the world and beyond.

“I know,” he says. “I am, too. But right now we’re safe. Here. Together.”

And that’s all that matters.

-

I don't even know what to say. I wanted to make a bunch of jokes but now that I'm here, I'm just really emotional. I've been working on this for more than two years and I sort of can't believe I actually managed to bring it to a close. I can't thank you guys enough for taking such interest in this silly little story and keeping my motivation up with so many comments. I'm sorry it took so long to actually get here, but we all know how writer's block works. I also have the most incredible beta reader without whom I would not have gotten this far at all and I feel like it needs to make an appearance in the end notes. I love you, Nessie <3

I've laughed, I've cried, and I've screamed when writing this story, but most importantly it brought me an unmeasurable amount of joy over these two years, so I hope it brought you at least a fraction of this emotional rollercoaster. I think I'm going to cry for a bit :')

Seriously, thank you for being here. Say hi in the comments. Or scream and cry. I'm right there with you. If you've got any questions, my tumblr ask box is also open whenever. I'm always up for screaming about this fic. You know how it is.

This chapter's title inspiration: "All That Matters" by Blanco White

OftM playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6YAyVIilJ0ZikpttT1kvkH?si=cce0e408d7644623

[bingodotorg]

Waffle House Parking Lot

Ship: Alive!Ruby/Leon

Description: It’s a hot summer night. Leon comes to pick-up his girlfriend after her shift, hoping that it’s his last time doing so. Instead, he’s forced to break up a fight in the parking lot and it just keeps going downhill from there. 

Tags: RE2!Leon to RE4!Leon development. Canon/OC. Cop/Criminal. Doomed relationship. Planning a break-up. Manic Pixie Nightmare. Angst. Hurt with no Comfort. Savior Complex meets Self-Destructive Behavior (guess who wins). Possible OOC Leon because I never wrote this man before.

TW: Drug Addiction Mentioned. Suicidal thoughts but not in a traditional sense. Manhandling. Leon driving. 

My friend once told me that I “don’t know Leon” so I’m writing him purely out of spite. My first time posting "proper" writing on tumblr so sorry in advance.

WC: 1300

Leon expected to just pick her up, like normal, but instead was met with a different image.

He didn’t even walk into the building yet, as he heard angry screams and an obvious sound of a tussle right in the parking lot. It’s closing time, so the place is completely empty with only a couple cars present, probably the ones that belong to workers.

It was really easy to notice two silhouettes beating the absolute shit out of each other. He decided to interfere just to see the exact person he was trying to pick up, turning someone else’s face into red mush. 

- Ruby…

Once Leon noticed that the guy underneath her didn't respond anymore, he rushed in, grabbing Ruby and pulling her away. Ruby fights back for a couple of minutes, until she loses so much energy that her legs couldn’t hold her anymore. He gently sat her on the ground and went to check on the man who was still unconscious. 

God, it was hard to look at his face. Both of his eyes are drowning in dark blue skin, covered in stretch marks as if she was trying to pull his face right off, there’s a bite mark on his cheek and not a pretty one. 

Leon comes closer and checks his pulse, hoping that the guy doesn’t wake up suddenly.

He’s alive…thank god. 

After making sure that he was alright, or, at least, as alright as he can be, Leon came back to Ruby. He grabs her face, trying to look into the whites of her eyes but she pushes him away with nearly a grawl. From what he was able to see in a split second, it seems like she’s sober.

- Ruby, what the fuck?!

The second she got enough strength, she was up again, already beelining for the man on the ground, to finish the job. Leon grabbed her arm right away, stopping her so suddenly she nearly fell over.

- Where do you think you’re going?

She tried to get out of his grasp, turning her own arm red from the force, but he pulled her in closer, holding on harder, to let her know that he’s NOT letting go.

- Stop!

Ruby stays in place for once but she’s not too happy about it. Leon didn’t want to hold her like this, but he felt like there were no more options. Her actions, the thoughts inside her head, felt as if they were outside of human morals. Words just go over her head…as if she’s doing it on purpose to annoy him or just avoid responsibilities. 

He can’t judge, he really can’t. He will never understand what she went through. He had seen his own share of monstrosities but they will never be the same, because he’s not her.

He shouldn’t judge but god does he want to.

- Car. Now.

He slightly pushed her in the right direction as he let go. Leon’s eyes fall onto the man’s body again, as he takes out his phone to call for an ambulance.  ***

Ruby herself wasn’t completely unscathed. He did put up quite a fight before passing out, leaving her with a black-eye, messed up nose and blood dripping from her forehead. The drive to the hospital was…awkward. Ruby didn’t even try to break the silence, explain what happened and Leon had no idea how to start. The plan was to pick her up and tell her how he feels once they’re at the spot but now they’re not even driving to her house.

- Do you want…to talk about it?

He finally asks. She stays silent, rubs her nose, staining her fingers red.

- What did he do?

- I made an order wrong…he yelled at me.

She sniffles but no tears come out. 

- Said I don’t deserve you, that you’re probably out there, fucking someone else.

- I’m not.

- I know. You probably would’ve been happier, if you did.

Her eyes were completely empty as she said that, as if it was something she thought about so often she grew to accept that fact. Leon’s eyes darted to look at her.

- Maybe.

He answered in nearly a whisper. 

Leon seemingly only looked at her for a second but as she suddenly glanced at the road and screamed,  he realized that the car had moved to the opposite lane of the highway. He reacts fast, swerves to the side and the car stops at the border. 

As Leon catches his breath, he turns on the emergency lights with a shaky hand and pushes his back into the seat with a sigh. He closes his eyes, for a moment, as he hears Ruby begin to laugh. The thought of them dying makes her so ecstatic, she nearly chokes…but he doesn’t laugh with her. ***

Ruby holds his arm like she’s trying to pick a slice of steak. When she’s high she can do this for hours, outline muscles under his skin, call each by name. It was like a lullaby…like counting sheep. The fact that she can see under his skin always gave him a strange feeling of paranoia. She knows where each muscle is, how they’re deformed, it was a strange type of intimacy between them. He never realized how personal the things underneath your skin can be. It’s not something he felt like he had to “open up” about but now that someone has such a deep understanding of what is going on inside his body, it made him feel vulnerable.

As she started to outline pieces of muscle, Leon pulled her hand away and started holding it in his own, gently drawing circles on her palm with his finger. She didn’t fight it, just sighed and placed her head on his shoulder. When she fell asleep like this, it felt like taming a wild animal.

Once this is over, he will miss moments like these, despite everything.

- Miss Bates?

Leon raised his arm for her, as the nurse called out the name.  ***

Once she was looked at and deemed to be fine, It didn’t take a while for her to fall asleep in the passenger seat. Ruby looked awful, she needed a shower. He couldn’t bring her back to her own “house”...she didn’t even have running water in that dump. 

It was funny. Even though they stopped living together, it still felt the same. She would spend most of her nights at his place just because leaving her in that apartment felt…wrong. Technically, Ruby’s homeless, but she doesn’t consider it as such. An abandoned apartment that doesn’t even have functioning doors, is considered a home, in her eyes. 

Blond, strawy hair, ruined by the dye job. She never went to a hairdresser, it’s not like she has money for one. No, she colors her own hair, which is pretty obvious. The uneven patches of pink and light blue show her attempts at making it look like cotton candy, but it’s more like someone dumped watercolor paint on her.

He undressed her but somehow, didn’t feel a thing. He couldn’t even register it as a body of someone who’s alive. Everytime Leon sees her it’s like she’s getting closer to death…he probably won’t even notice when she crosses that line.He checks her pulse again, just to make sure. Her blood still responds to the pressure of his fingers, surprisingly. 

He waited for the right temperature to start pouring, checking it with his fingers. Leon wasn’t planning on washing her thoroughly, just letting the water flow clean whatever it can.

Complete silence, only the sound of water and his sobs, echoed through the bathroom. Seemingly, that was enough to wake her up, as he hears the water in the tub shifting. Cold, wet hands touch his face.

- You’re so pretty…

She whispers, watching the pain in his eyes.

[spelviin]

I posted 18,713 times in 2022

203 posts created (1%)

18,510 posts reblogged (99%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@rise-of-the-zombicorns

@chinchillasinunison

@harperhug

@aryashi

@j-mart

I tagged 1,040 of my posts in 2022

#og - 198 posts

#tma - 188 posts

#insert clever queue tag here - 128 posts

#kaleigh listens to tma - 36 posts

#blorbo from my campaigns - 33 posts

#tma spoilers - 29 posts

#dndads - 24 posts

#ardreth - 9 posts

#rieta - 8 posts

#jarchivist - 5 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#but the closest they can approximate is spiral and jon is just like 'aw hell no spiral avatar you ain't gettin me to no secondary location!

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

normal: screaming, crying, psychologically and spiritually and emotionally connecting with an eldritch monstrosity

grant: stealing the sun while everyone's distracted, probably

142 notes - Posted November 29, 2022

#4

AITA for wanting a promotion?

My boyfriend (32M) and I (34M) had a bit of a tiff about our situation at work. My boss (245M) recently got a promotion, but I don't think he's handling the job well and I know I'd be better suited for the position. I have a lot of great ideas about how to change things around here, and think I could make the most good of the current situation if I had this job. (Also, my boss wouldn't even be where he is now without all of my hard work)

My boyfriend is worried because he thinks I'm enthralled by the promise of power and "trying to be the ultimate judge of everything". He also made some mean remarks about how I acted in recent confrontations with former business rivals. I think this is unfair because a) he was very supportive of me smiting them at the time, and b) he knows the slow, inevitable loss of my humanity is something I'm sensitive about.

We had a fight and then he ran off with a spider lady. AITA here? And WIBTA if I went for the promotion anyways without telling him? Yeah, he might be mad at me but I think it would be better for everyone in the long run.

EDIT: Listen, I know everyone is trapped in their own personal hellscape of fear, but if literally anyone could get on reddit and offer some advice about this I'd really appreciate it.

EDIT 2: Everyone weighing in from the Lonely domains telling me to dump my boyfriend can fuck off.

EDIT 3: Does anyone know where I can find a rowboat?

184 notes - Posted March 22, 2022

#3

the fact that sparrow voluntarily helped lark with the switcheroo

the fact that sparrow voluntarily helped lark with the switcheroo that could very, very feasibly have ended in lark's death

the fact that they clearly planned this in advance and agreed on it

the fact that sparrow was fully committed to going through with it, even to the point of getting physically violent with henry, to give lark the chance to potentially sacrifice his fucking life

the fact that despite all the ambiguity in sparrow's outburst about what was actually coming from him and what was projection/just trying to sound like his brother, the only thing we can be absolutely sure of is that when he said

"if someone's gonna die for it, it's gonna be me"

what he meant was

"if someone's gonna die for it, i am willing to let it be lark"

...this fucking family is gonna be the death of me

323 notes - Posted December 2, 2022

#2

four teens from the forgotten realms flung into our world on a quest to rescue their lost dads

500 notes - Posted July 12, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

2,643 notes - Posted November 6, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[hacash]

ted lasso 2x09 thoughts

ARGH

those are it. those are my thoughts.

Ok, slightly more coherently…

Sam’s getting recognition! Sam has his own chant! I love that for him. Love it all. It’s obviously so good that Sam is becoming an in-universe hero when we’ve loved him from his first scene - however, that also comes with the caveat of not wanting him to move anywhere from Nelson Road. I’m curious to see where they take it though, because I obviously can’t see Toheeb Jimoh leaving the cast before the show finishes, but at the same time this offer is so good for him?? I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know.

(If, on the other hand, Toheeb is being written out because he’s going on to star as a lead in another show where we could see more of his beautiful face and stellar acting every week? I would find that acceptable.)

Screeners’ reactions for this episode had me thinking something cataclysmic and dreadful was going to happen between Sam and Rebecca with them reuniting and it hitting the papers - and it ended up being fine?? Of course she’s torn about him leaving. Even if they end up never being together again Sam clearly represents something wonderful to Rebecca - possibility and the sense of being treated right - and those feelings don’t just go away.

I expected a bit more reaction from Ted about the whole Sambecca thing, but that little look in his eyes after their conversation did have me curious - does he disapprove more than he lets on? is he secretly pining for Rebecca already? only time will tell. also I did notice Ted was once again basically saying whatever Rebecca wanted to hear and agreeing at every single line - he might be going to therapy but he’s not out of the people-pleaser woods yet.

Another bombshell next year? OH COME ON. If that’s not a prediction of some sort of confession of love I will go out and buy a hat just to eat it.

SHARON. How I am going to miss thee. But it was a lovely and understated farewell to a character that I’ve really come to love - Sexy Mother Fucker; he stole my move, yaas - showing how much she and Ted have helped each other grow and I just *tear*. Also I’m a Tedbecca shipper through and through, but Jason and Sarah do have such lovely chemistry together.

Also the pub regulars basically pleading for free therapy? Aww.

Higgins luring Ted back to read Sharon’s note with a well-chosen letter based pun? I love this man to the ends of the earth.

I FUCKING KNEW THAT HIGGINS KNEW EVERYONE’S BIRTHDAY. I PREDICTED THAT SHIT.

Roy and Keeley…I’m sorry, I’m emotional and anxious and hopeful and I do not think they’re going to break up. Relationships go through messy spots and people struggle, and the mark of a good, communicative, grown-up relationship is that you take time and discuss your issues and move past them. Keeley and Roy’s relationship has always been characterised by that maturity, and I just don’t see a couple of ill-timed romance confessions breaking that down.

(If anything, we might get a discussion from Roy about Keeley trusting him - I’m guessing there’s a fair bit of time lapsed between Jamie’s confession and her telling all to Roy, and I can see that being the sticking point that upsets Roy, that she hid this from him for some time. He clearly didn’t feel at all upset by what happened with Nate; it’s the - arguably fair - point that Keeley didn’t let him know that her ex confessed love for her that I think is going to be the issue.)

Also, the ‘are you married’ question - coupled with the fact that we keep seeing Roy on his knees in front of Keeley - makes me think we’re going to get a proposal next episode.

Also I love that we’re seeing more of Keeley’s psyche beyond the ‘cute and supports everyone’ façade - her mother’s experience with ambition and not being able to achieve it is a really interesting little snippet, not to mention the reason she bonds so much with Nate and is able to see how someone seemingly ‘undeserving’ should be able to realise their dreams.

also her and Rebecca’s ‘bleargggggh!’ competition! and Ted thinking he was going to be on the cover of Vanity Fair! return of Biscuits with the Boss!

ok, deep breaths now

NAAAAAATE

WHAT ARE YOU DOOIIIIIIING

Is it bad that I sort of liked the whole thing with Keeley? Not in a ���yes I want this to happen’ sort of way, but because it makes so much sense that Nate (particularly Nate in his current state) might mistake that level of bonding and emotional support as something romantic. We know Nate is insecure and hasn’t had much of a social life in the past, and that he idealises Keeley for her basic kindness and decency: much like Jamie in 2x10, he’s mistaking Keeley’s kindness as something more…it’s absolutely gutting to watch, and also so human and real that I can’t help but take my hat off to the writers for it.

(Honestly, there’s been so many posts on tumblr about how toxic masculinity fucks men over to such an extent that when they receive kindness and friendship for a woman they immediately think romance - but yeah. this show does tick all the boxes.)

I did see the kiss moment coming a mile away and was really worried that Nate was going to be…uh, very entitled about it, given his current state, but the fact that he wasn’t - that he was immediately horrified and realised he’d fucked up and stumbles away muttering about how he ‘is worried about it’ and ends the scene spitting at himself in the mirror again and looking absolutely disgusted with himself - well, in a way that just hurt more. (I mean, I’m relieved Nate wasn’t all bolshy with it because his reaction does show there is still some of the old Nate still there…but still, owch.)

And then that text from Trent…

Next episode is going to hurt like hell, isn’t it? I absolutely cannot wait for the showdown between Nate and Ted, it’s been a long time coming…like I’ve said, while I think ultimately Nate is going to have a redemption arc, because thematically it makes sense and would send some pretty iffy messages if he doesn’t, I don’t think it’ll come until season three. Right now I just want to see Ted get angry after several seasons of suppressing his anger, I want a full-blown emotional hash-out between them both - basically I want Jason and Nick to have me sobbing before 9AM.

My one question is: are we going to see Nate realising what he’s done, or not? Was this a pragmatic, doing-this-for-the-sake-of-the-club betrayal or a blind, lashing-out-in-frustration betrayal? In short: is Nate Lando or Anakin in this scenario?

I’m very curious as to what show people who say this ‘came out of nowhere’ have been watching. Nate’s been heading for some sort of implosion since mid-season, and we all knew it was going to hurt some innocent bystanders.

I’m saving something light and cheery after all the angst, so let me just say: cinema has never surpassed, and will never surpass, the scene of the Richmond boys dancing along to Bye Bye Bye. Almost made up for the fact that they were criminally underused in the rest of the episode, and quite frankly this had better be redressed in the season finale.

and WE FINALLY SAW COLIN DRIVING THE LAMBO. I don’t know what I find funnier: the fact that it’s some neon lime green monstrosity that every fourteen-year old boy would have dreamt of owning growing up (should my new Colin tag be Colin ‘I Need To Rethink My Relationship With My Car’ Hughes, or Colin ‘More Money Than Sense’ Hughes? enquiring minds want to know…) or as was pointed out to me by @kamillahn, the look of absolute terror on Colin’s face as he begins to drive. Colin, hun, please just buy yourself a Fiat. It’s not worth it anymore.

[littlestarofthewest]

Santa’s Little Helper

This was supposed to be a Christmas present for the lovely @verai-marcel​, but tumblr fucked me over and didn’t post it. I’m sorry, dear. Please accept a veeery belated Merry Christmas ❤️️ It was hard to write something for the person who already wrote everything, but I did my best :)

Pairing: Arthur Morgan x female reader | Words: 2674 | Rating: Explicit!!!

Summary: You hate working at the mall as an elf. At least until a new Santa comes around.

You have to dig deep into your closet for your costume. You remember exactly how you tossed it in there last year, fed up from hanging around the mall wearing a stupid get up and a fake smile.

Every year, you tell yourself that you'll do better and won't have to do this anymore, but your year has been shitty, and while you hate being an elf, it's a steady gig with good pay. 

After changing in the staff room at the mall, you head out to assist the others in setting up Santa's workshop. Without customers around, you can hold on to the rest of your dignity for now.

Santa's little helpers are a combination of a few new people and some regulars like you. They happily welcome you back, lifting your spirits a little. While decorating the giant slide, you overhear them talking about the new Santa. The old one went into retirement last year, making him the second one you saw come and go. It makes you curious how the new guy is going to be. 

He shows up about half an hour later in full costume. The black belt digs deep into his full belly, a fake white beard hanging over it. The big boots make a heavy sound as he walks, the bobble on his cap swaying back and forth. 

He exchanges a few words with the mall's manager before he walks over with purpose in his stride. It makes you confident that he's not a drunk or otherwise abuses substances that will hinder his performance. There's nothing worse than having to constantly supervise Santa, so he doesn't scare off the children.

He greets the other elves and helps with a few last-minute preparations. You're battling an oversized candy cane that's about to topple over and bury you when a huge hand grabs its top, holding it in place. New Santa is standing next to you, so close that you catch a glimpse at his piercing blue eyes. 

"Careful," he says, his voice a deep rumble.

"Thank you," you say, tying down the rope that holds the candy cane in place. "I feared that one of these monstrosities might finally get me."

"You've done this before, huh?"

His voice sends a shiver down your spine, but you do your best to act calm. "A couple of times. You?"

"Me, too. Just not at this scale," New Santa says, looking around. "Usually, I go from door to door in small towns."

"Why the change then?"

"I just moved here, closer to my brother. My sister in law has a baby on the way, and I'm planning on helping out. Chances are she'll kill my brother otherwise."

"Sounds like a lot of responsibility."

"I'm Santa," he says with a laugh, clapping his huge belly. "I think I can manage."

"Let's see how you handle the mall crowd first," you say in a teasing tone.

He sizes you up for a moment, amusement sparkling in his eyes. "You're going to help me?"

"It's my job," you laugh, "like, literally."

New Santa smiles, holding out his hand. "I'm Arthur, by the way."

You tell him your name while shaking his hand, warmth spreading up your arm and to your chest. There's something so very different about this Santa compared to the others. It's going to be interesting to work with him.

-----

Since you've started working with Arthur, a miracle has happened. For the first time, you're actually enjoying the job. Arthur's great with the kids and endlessly patient even with the most pretentious parents. He doesn't take their shit, but he always finds a way to defuse the situation. 

The breaks with Arthur are nice as well. He's quiet, but when you find the right topic, he's easy to talk to. Over time, you go from joking over teasing to right out hazing each other. If you're honest, it sometimes even feels a little bit like flirting. Still, you try not to read too much into it. The days of working with him are numbered, after all.

After one horrible shift where a kid is dead set on ripping off Arthur's beard, and another one vomits all over his shoes, you tell him to clear out. You and the other elves clean up, and when you finally enter the locker room, it's quiet. At first, you think you're on your own, but then you turn the corner, finding another co-worker half-hidden in his locker.

"What a night, huh?" you say, making him aware that you're here.

"You can say that again," he says, the voice sending the usual shiver down your spine. Arthur appears from inside the locker, smiling at you. "Thanks for cleaning up. I'll help out tomorrow."

You wish you could say anything, but you're too distracted by Arthur's appearance. It only occurs to you now that you've never seen him without the costume before. Without the fake beard, there's still a nice stubble shadowing his chin and cheeks. The huge Santa belly makes way for a nice little tummy that you wouldn't mind kissing, especially to get to whatever's hidden under the tight jeans Arthur's wearing.

"You alright?" Arthur asks, honest concern on his face, so you decide to tell the truth.

"I just realized I've never seen you without the costume. You're not really old and fat."

Arthur laughs, clapping his stomach. "I'm getting there, especially with the holidays coming up."

"Is your partner a good cook?" you ask, hating yourself a second later, but Arthur shrugs before pulling a shirt over his head.

"Nah, I'm single," he says, sitting down to put on his shoes. "Just got a bunch of friends who drown me in holiday treats."

"Not the worst way to go," you say, and Arthur laughs.

"You're right. I really can't complain." He picks up his bag but leans against his locker, obviously in no rush. "How about you? Any plans for the holidays?"

"The usual," you say with a shrug. "Eating, drinking, and staying in bed as much as possible."

"That sounds great," Arthur says, and the way he looks at you makes you feel like you're in a heap of trouble.

-------

"I can't get you all in the frame like this. Move closer together, people," the photographer says.

It's your last day on the job, and the manager insists on an annual picture of the Christmas Crew. You shuffle closer to your co-workers, but the photographer still isn't satisfied. He alternates between checking his camera and barking instructions.

"You there, stand behind the slide. You three on the side, get on the ground in front. And you, you can sit on Santa's lap."

With horror, you realize that the last order is directed at you. When you don't move, the photographer clicks his tongue with annoyance. "Go on, dear. I'm sure he doesn't mind. It's in his job description."

You throw a questioning look at Arthur, and when he gives you a little wave, the photographer claps his hands. "See? Now, the two of you, up here."

He keeps giving orders while you settle down on Arthur's lap, trying your hardest not to put any weight on him. That works for about a minute, but the photographer keeps giving orders, and you fear your legs might cramp up.

"I'm not going to break, you know?" Arthur whispers behind you, and you move around a bit to get in a better position.

It's not so much about not hurting Arthur but more about not embarrassing yourself. You had a crush on Arthur from the start, but ever since you've seen him out of costume, it's been way worse. You've been thinking about him a lot, and he even showed up in your dreams. Being close to Arthur is dangerous. It wouldn't be the first time you did something foolish because of a guy.

The photographer keeps rearranging people, giving you ample time to notice how good Arthur smells and how hot his body feels against your own. It makes you tingly all over to think about certain things you could do together. Without meaning to, you move around even more until you hear Arthur's breath hitch behind you.

You're about to ask if he's alright, but then you feel something pressing up against your ass, and a wave of heat rushes through your body. Arthur tries to shift his weight under you, but then the photographer finally seems satisfied.

"Alright, nobody move!" he instructs before diving behind his camera. "Big smiles!"

You do your best to force a smile on your face while you still feel Arthur pressing hard against you. The photographer lets all of you make faces or wave, every second of it seeming like hours. You wish you could say that it didn't affect you, but the thought of Arthur's dick merely a few layers of clothing away from your pussy gets you all worked up.

Thoughts of you together rush through your head, and you can't help but move a little, making Arthur groan behind you. You wish you could just turn around and make things interesting, but instead, you jump up the second the photographer releases you.

You still feel hot all over by the time you arrive at your locker, and you busy yourself with your phone, not wanting to change now with other people still around. 

This morning, you even thought about asking Arthur for his number, so you wouldn't lose track of him, but that's out of the question now. You just hope he's not one to harbor a grudge in case you both end up working here next year.

"Hey," a deep voice says next to you, and you jump in surprise.

Arthur's standing at the far end of the row of lockers, fidgeting with his hands. "We're the last ones here, but I can leave as well if that makes you uncomfortable."

You didn't notice that everybody left already, but you don't mind at all. This gives you a chance to apologize. "No, it's alright."

"I just wanted to apologize for what happened out there," Arthur says. "It's just that you're so goddamn sexy, especially in that stupid costume, and you were sitting right there-"

You can't believe what you're hearing, but Arthur stops himself, taking a deep breath before speaking again. "I'm not trying to make excuses. I'm just very sorry for what happened, and I hope we can just forget about it."

"Don't worry about it, Arthur. I'm not uncomfortable, and you did nothing wrong," you say, trying to reassure him. "I would be happy to ride on your lap any time."

"Oh, okay. Good," Arthur says, a nervous smile dancing around his lips. "Have a good evening then."

He disappears behind the lockers, and you lean back against your own, swallowing a sigh. You can't believe you said something so stupid. Arthur's a sweetheart, and you totally blew it.

You open your locker to get out your clothes when Arthur rounds the corner. "You said 'ride,'" he says, "not 'sit' on my lap but 'ride.' Did you mean like-?"

He doesn't finish the sentence, but you can't help yourself. "Like sex, yes."

You both stare at each other, and you're about to apologize, but then Arthur moves. A second later, your hands are in his hair, and he cups your face in his hands as you kiss. You end up pressed against your locker, you and Arthur both ready to devour each other. Still, he manages to move a few inches away, both of you breathing heavily. 

"Is that okay?" Arthur asks in between breaths. "Do you want to-?"

"God yes," you say, cutting him off to pull him in for another kiss.

Your permission seems to hit a switch inside of Arthur. He picks you up, and you end up on the next durable surface, Arthur's hands roaming all over you. You reach down to lift his shirt over his head, and while he opens the buttons on your blouse, you run your hands over his chest and stomach.

As soon as you're out of your blouse, Arthur kisses along your neck, down to your breasts. Your fingers dig into the skin on his shoulders as he teases your nipples with his tongue, both of you not wasting any time. When Arthur runs his fingers up your thigh, you pull up your skirt and spread your legs. 

Arthur simply pushes your underwear aside to tease your pussy, and you're getting so wet that you can think about nothing else but getting off as hard and fast as possible. You open up Arthur's pants, his low curse when you pull out his dick, giving you way more satisfaction than it should.

Grabbing your legs, Arthur pulls you closer, and you can't help a little cry when he pushes into you. It's been a while since you've been with someone, and with the way this is going, you won't last long. 

You put your arms around Arthur's neck, and he lifts you up a little. It's not exactly riding him, but you roll your hips to welcome each of his thrusts, both of you moaning and panting.

It feels so good; you wish you could drag it out, but the way Arthur's holding you in place to have his way with you already got you going, and then Arthur does the worst thing he can do.

He's holding on to your hair, his lips right by your ear, whispering between eager breaths. "Dammit, you feel so good. I dreamed about this."

Arthur talking right into your ear feels like someone poured honey all over you, a nice glaze soon covering every inch of your body. You pull him closer, doing your best to get as much friction as possible.

"Jesus, sweetheart, you're killing me here," Arthur groans, sending you right over the edge.

Your muscles clench around him as you come, your face burrowed in the crook of his neck. He doesn't move until you relax and your breathing evens out a little. Still, you feel how Arthur is, so you roll your hips, drawing more curses from him.

"Come on, Santa," you whisper in his ear, "let your little elf please you."

Arthur groans, his fingers digging into your hips as he buries himself inside you with short, hard thrusts. With eager moans, he picks up the pace, and although he seems like he might explode any second, he manages to kiss you in such a tender way that you feel like melting.

Finally, Arthur pushes deep into you, and this time he stays there until he comes, the tension slowly fading from his body. While he's focused on breathing, you scratch his back and stroke a few loose strands of hair out of his face.

Arthur looks up to you with a thankful expression, and you smile. "This morning, I thought about asking for your number."

"I guess we rushed way past that," Arthur says with a laugh, but then he reaches into the pocket of his jeans and hands you a small piece of paper. I usually start with coffee - not this."

You kiss him one more time before you part to get dressed. "I wouldn't mind coffee."

Arthur runs a hand through his hair. "I've got some great coffee at home."

"Do tell," you say, acting nonplussed as you get your things out of your locker.

"Remember what you said about not getting out of bed, just relaxing?" Arthur asks. "I have a nice bottle of wine I could never finish by myself."

The mere thought of spending more time with Arthur makes you all tingly, and you turn around to look at him. "Did you borrow that suit, or do you take it home with you?"

Arthur grins. "Really? Santa?"

"Probably not every Santa," you say, running your hands over his chest before kissing him again, "but I like this one."

-------

For the next two days, you and Arthur only leave his bed when you absolutely have to.

[breakingsomething]

Dawn Station - Pilot

Basic summary: Video game developer Jack Mcloughlin is finally releasing a new game after a ten year hiatus.

Content warnings: Murder, dismemberment, body horror

It comes as a shock to everyone, including you, when Jack Mcloughlin announces the release of a new game at the start of the second week of October.

There are several reasons why this is such a big deal. One: Jack Mcloughlin has been making games since he was twenty seven, and has released only five of them in the thirty years he's been doing it. Two: Jack Mcloughlin is world renowned for his fantastic horror games, all done in wildly different styles, but still notably his own. Three: Jack Mcloughlin has not, up til now, so much as mentioned working on a new game. The only social media site he's fully active on is Twitter - which you check regularly for any updates - and before the release of his last game, Ehrmann Lab, he had left a series of cryptic clues for two months leading up to the announcement. Those had been probably the most fun two months you'd ever had in your life, and even helped you make new friends. But this time around, there is no warning. The trailer is dropped at Purina Expo, one of the biggest American gaming conventions of the year. You were incredibly lucky to be able to snag tickets. Usually, this convention is where the hottest games that would be coming out the following year would be announced, trailers would be played, and developers would discuss - so everyone there on October 10th is shocked to not only be the first to see the trailer, but to hear from the man himself. Jack Mcloughlin takes the stage, gleefully announcing the release of Dawn Station on October 31st this year.

Now, the release of a new game from Septic Games - Mcloughlin's own software company, which he founded after his second game's release - is a big enough deal. But this… this is something else. Mcloughlin explains it before the reveal of the trailer, and you listen with great excitement.

"Dawn Station," says the man, practically bouncing across the stage with glee and shouting into his mic with a hoarse Irish accent. "is a feat of modern gaming. Now, I understand that when you play games, it can get boring to replay them later on after you've finished, because - well, you know how it goes! You know all the twists and turns, all the jumpscares, all the fights, all the spooks. But what if I told you that there was a way you could play where things were different each time?"

Behind the man, on a large screen, an image comes up. This is the first promo image for the new game to be shown to the people. The image is of a tilted hallway in what looks like a complex, broken down space station, overgrown with unusual plants that glow and spark. In the centre of the image is an astronaut. His helmet is on the floor, blood soaked. His face is half in shadow. All that can be seen is curly olive hair and neon green eyes - two on his face, and one embedded in his neck. The suit itself is torn, ripped open with a mouth and a dripping tongue where the being's stomach should be. A torch is on the ground behind him, attempting to cast light on the room. The words "Dawn Station" come up in solid, bright green font next to the being's face.

"This is Dawn Station!" cries the developer, over the many excited murmurs of the crowd. "The first ever virtual reality game with a fully developed artificial intelligence antagonist! An antagonist who learns from the players movements and choices, who grows and changes based off of what you do. You control the game, now more than ever! He's clever, he's learning, he knows where you are, and his objective is to kill the player - introducing... Alien X, otherwise known as… the Anti!"

Everyone cheers. Mcloughlin steps aside, a beam splitting his pale face, and allows the room to darken, and the trailer to play.

You're in awe. The trailer shows that you play as a character named Drew Oliver, an astronaut in their mid twenties who's aboard the Dawn Space Station, which has fallen to the planet you seemed to have been monitoring - the Othohiri 5RM. The game seems to revolve around attempting to explore the little bits of the planet that you can while repairing the ship and dealing with your descent into madness, all the while being chased down by the Alien X, a shapeshifting monstrosity who's eager to end your life before you can finish your goals. After watching it… well, everyone is absolutely blown away, especially you. This is unlike anything Mcloughlin had ever produced, especially to this scale. It's no wonder he hadn't produced a game in ten years if this was what he had been working on. You're practically vibrating with excitement at the breathtakingly beautiful scenery and realistic yet perfectly stylistic graphics, and the 8D sound design that seems to echo from all around you. It's incredible. The second you get back to your hotel room that night, you're one of the first to preorder the game.

Your week at the convention ends, and you go back home, counting down the days to the game's release. However, even more exciting things are happening. On Twitter, a few of your favourite youtubers are acting rather cryptic. KrisDoesGAMEZ and rrroadblock, two streamers you like, retweet Mcloughlin's announcement tweet with eye emojis and promises of the game being good. DUSSST, visualthursday and BroAverage make their own posts about it. PeachCheerio and TheSkinnerr upload short update videos promising exciting things to come.

On October 15th, it happens - ten youtubers each upload an early access demo of Dawn Station, having been chosen and given the code to play it by Mcloughlin himself. You don't watch the videos because you want to play the game yourself with no spoilers, but from what you've seen, it's fucking amazing. Critics are already calling it the game of the decade. The internet is thriving, and a few people have already cosplayed Drew, the main character. Your best friend uploads a joking cosplay of the Anti and walks around town with it on. He gets over a thousand likes and teases you about being too good for you now that he's internet famous. You're living for all of this.

On October 16th, youtuber PeachCheerio is murdered in his own home.

Everyone is shocked, rightfully. Here is a man who had streamed just the day before, chatting with his members and looking at Dawn Station memes on Twitch. Today, he was discovered by his girlfriend in his own home. Leaked police reports tell you that the man, whose real name was Ronald Murphy, had been messily dismembered, his organs removed, half of them missing. You're in shock. He was one of your favourite streamers, and maybe it's silly to mourn someone you've never met, but you're deeply, deeply saddened by the news.

However, it doesn't stop there. The very next day, youtuber DUSSST - or Louise Greendale - is found the same way Ronald had been. Louise's girlfriend apparently called the police in hysterics before panic tweeting about the incident. The posts were taken down an hour later. The screenshots of what she'd said trend of Twitter and Tumblr anyway.

This is when the conspiracy theories arrive. Two youtubers dead in two days, both brutally taken apart and missing organs? Some people mock the theorists for it. Who had even said Louise had been killed the same way as Ronald, anyway? That is, until more apparent police reports are leaked revealing the details of Louise's death. The internet goes wild. The Los Angeles police department posts a video begging whoever's causing the leaks to stop, to think about the families of the deceased. All this does is prove that they're true. This video, too, is later taken down.

You log off in disgust. Some people have no fucking shame.

Things heat up the next day, on October 18th, when user rrroadblock, or Aryan Jha, dies as well. The death is covered up for the first few hours afterwards, but eventually is leaked in the same manner as the last two murders. This time, the theorists are no longer labeled as crazy. In fact, everyone's getting in on this mystery now. Three popular youtubers dead now, each found in bloody states in their own homes, three days apart? No one knows what's happening, but that doesn't stop people from guessing. And while you refuse to involve yourself in any of this, you also find yourself wondering who or what - not what, of course it's not a what, that's just ridiculous - who is killing all of these people.

Day four. The internet is silent, waiting. And yes, sure enough, youtuber KrisDoesGAMEZ, or Kris Velvet, is dead.

This time, someone realizes something that makes everyone pause. Each of the dead youtubers are all the ones who were given the free demo of Dawn Station, and are even dying in the order that they played it in. Everyone goes insane. Even you're suspicious - of what, exactly, you don't know, because why would someone murder someone else so brutally over a video game? Despite that, this can't be a coincidence. People place bets on whether youtuber ducksontheroof, or Donna Campbell, is going to be the next one to be found dead. Donna herself makes a statement on her Instagram, expressing disgust at all the people who were spreading such information around. She then deactivated all her socials apart from her YouTube. The people who had been making bets were shamed, and you have to log off yet again. This is getting to be too much.

You stay offline until nearly four pm the next day. Your friend calls you up to give you the news, but you already know what they're going to say. Let me guess, you start, voice flat and tired. Donna Campbell's dead.

They confirm it. You don't know what to say.

Her family put out a statement asking people not to theorize about her death. People do it anyway. Reports state that the remaining five youtubers who had played Dawn Station, along with, surprisingly, Jack Mcloughlin himself, had been taken into police custody. For protection, you assume. Once again, the internet goes insane. This proves their theories about the game connecting all the deaths, and a silent dread and buzz of twisted excitement hangs over everyone. You're just disgusted. People are treating this like some kind of murder mystery game, like this isn't real, actual lives.

Two days pass without news. At the end of the second day, there's yet another leak. Youtubers Doomandgloom - Persephone Henry - and TheSkinnerr - Rodney Pratt - are dead. You're just numb. You're just so fucking numb.

This reveal, of course, inspires yet another debate. If the youtubers had been under police protection, how had they died? Had the police seen anything? Why hadn't the leak said anything about it? Who was killing all these people in so little time, how hadn't they been caught? Had, really, no one seen anything at all?

There are now three youtubers left who'd played the game. Hothothotstanley, or Stanley McIver, visualthursday, or Khia Herrera, and BroAverage, or Chase Brody. You met Stanley McIver, once, at a convention in London three years ago. You have a picture on your memory board of you standing in the convention hall, him with his arm around your shoulder, you with a grin and sparkle in your eye. You can see the picture from your bed. You turn away from it.

However, the next day is a surprise to everyone. A video is uploaded to someone's Twitter - a full, uncensored video of the murder of Stanley McIver inside the government safe house he and the others had seemingly been kept in. The video is immediately taken down and the Twitter deleted, but everyone has seen it. Including you. The video is… horrifying. Of course it is. Why did you watch it? But you do manage to see who it is that killed him. Everyone on the internet does. And this - this video, that's maybe five minutes long - is enough to make everyone go silent.

The killer looks exactly like the Anti from Dawn Station.

No one knows quite what to make of this.

Even less so when Jack Mcloughlin dies the next day.

He's murdered. Same way as all the rest of them, in police custody. Now this is enough to shock everyone into mourning silence. Only a few pricks are left, and their accounts, channels and blogs are swiftly deactivated. Nine deaths in nine days. Nine deaths. Nine. Jack Mcloughlin.

The next day, Khia Herrera - well, you know.

Chase Brody is the last one left alive. You never watched his channel that much - he's really into horror, and is known for his Walking Dead playthrough and his Undertale Genocide run - but you still already feel a strange sense of loss. A sort of emptiness. Something churns in your stomach that you don't understand. There's a lot that you don't understand.

The release of Dawn Station is cancelled.

You spend the night at a friend's house, and just bawl for hours. You shouldn't be so upset, you shouldn't! You never knew any of these people! But fuck, there's something about seeing all these people who you'd been watching online for so long, who have given you so many happy days, so many laughs and inside jokes… just die. How had this happened? Who was it who was doing this?

Your friend sadly suggests it's some sick Jack Mcloughlin hater who decided it'd be fun to cosplay as his newest character and kill people to scare everyone. But while you outwardly agree, you internally know it's not true. Because every time you watch that video, every time you watch Stanley die - and you watch it a lot, just trying to make yourself feel something, even if it's just sick - you can tell the person isn't human. You know that's ridiculous, of course. But there's something about its eyes. Its face. It glances up at the camera and makes eye contact, and grins with too many white, jagged teeth, like an anglerfish. The eye in its throat sees you too. It glows. You shudder every time, watching it shake with glitches and laughter.

You're scared. You feel sick and dizzy and you lock your doors out of fear. You stay inside and open Tumblr, Twitter and Instagram again.

Poor Chase Brody, says the internet. They're already mourning. Already accepted his death. Poor, poor Chase Brody.

You hope he's ok, wherever he is.

[woosansang]

breakfast in bed | reddie

Pairing: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier

Rating: Mature (rated for later chapters)

Summary: Was it possible to fall in love with someone in less than a month? Richie didn’t know, but he suspected he might have done so anyway. OR: Richie Tozier and his sister own a Bed & Breakfast in country Montana. Eddie Kaspbrak is a stressed med student who needs a fucking break. Richie sure knows how to make his guests feel welcome.

Read Chapter 1 on AO3!

(Long ass author’s note and taglist under the cut)

Author’s note: 

So, uh. Hi.

(this is a repeat of the author's note from the other fic i just posted)

For those of you who are subscribed to me for my runaways fic from July... I am truly sorry. If you've just stumbled upon this fic and have no idea what runaways is, I would love for you to give it a read (you can find a masterpost in my writing tag), as I am currently (FINALLY) in the middle of writing the last chapter. I'll probably give a bit of an explanation of where I've been on that chapter if anyone was interested/concerned/whatever, but I am here, I am still around and I fully intend to finish that fic.

Anyway.

This is the first chapter of a fic that I wrote in July, and I really only have another chapter and a half pre-written as of now. I have outlined the whole thing and it's 8 chapters, but they'll be much shorter than my usual multi-chapter monstrosities. But in all honesty, as much as this fic has been knocking about in my head for a literal year, I have no idea if I'll continue this - it will depend on reader response, so leave kudos and comments and chat to me on tumblr if this fic interests you!

(Also, this hasn't been proofread. I didn't even read it before posting so I'm just hoping I proofread when I wrote it lmao. If there are major errors though, pls tell me in the comments.)

Taglist: Again, I just copied this list from the last fic I posted so please let me know if you want to be taken off. @richietoaster @that-weird-girls-blog @mikeuris @bellarosewrites @s-s-georgie @cupcakeefrosting @ghostnebula @madi-main @gazebobullshit @thoughtfullyyoungduck @reddieonwheels @ambitiousskychild @kaspzier

[keelywolfe]

Drabble: An Egg-ceptional Day (baon)

Summary:   There was a reason Stretch slept in on Saturdays. The Universe was out to get him. A little nugget of luck doesn’t hurt.

Based off a tumblr post @kiwaid reblogged. It was adorable and I could not resist. ^_^

Tags: Spicyhoney, Established Relationship, Domestic, Fluff, Chickens!!

Part of the ‘by any other name’ series.

Read it on AO3

or

Read it Here!

~~*~~

Usually, the curtains in their bedroom were pulled tightly closed at night. Specifically chosen to be room darkening, because Edge had a thing about making sure Stretch got enough sleep.

Yeah, Stretch had it good and he knew it.

But somehow, last night a quarter inch of fabric didn’t get quite pulled into place (and yeah, Stretch was the one who closed them, no way Edge would’ve missed it), and a sliver of sunshine was creeping through it. That it landed directly on Stretch’s face was the Universe’s way of being funny and Stretch could only grudgingly appreciate its rude sense of humor.

It was way earlier than he normally got up on a Saturday, but he was awake now, may as well give sleep up for a loss. With great reluctance and a groan, Stretch hauled himself out of bed, scratching at his pelvis as he scrounged for something to wear. A pair of shorts and a bathrobe later and he shambled downstairs, thinking wistfully fond thoughts of coffee.

There was a full pot on the burner and a couple of bowls with rising bread dough in them, but no sign of Edge. That wasn’t too worrying, he was probably up to his elbows in some weekend project. Stretch would stumble over him eventually; hell, once he’d done it literally and that’d teach him to scrub the floor behind a door without a warning.

One cup of glorious coffee later, Stretch went outside to check on the girls with a bran muffin in hand. As per protocol, he would pick at it disinterestedly before giving most of it to the chickens. So far, he hadn’t been caught out and he was hoping his luck would hold. Whoever decided to make bran the main ingredient of the deliciousness that should be a muffin had a cruel soul.

Probably the Universe again. It always thought it was funny.

The chickens were clucking loudly the moment he opened the sliding glass door, only getting louder as he approached.

“all right, i’m coming,” Stretch shook his head. “what’s up with you two, anyway, i—“ he trailed off. Two. Two chickens, Noodle and Dumpling were at the gate, clamoring for attention. Nugget was nowhere to be seen.

With trembling hands, Stretch opened the gate, swallowing back panic and gently nudging the other two aside with his slippers as he stepped inside. There was a little food in their trough, which made him frown; Edge didn’t usually feed them, even though he got up earlier. A peek in the coop didn’t reveal a little black chicken, but her leash and harness were also missing from the hook inside the door.

Welp, he was no Sherlock Holmes or even a Scooby Doo, but Stretch figured he had enough clues to solve the mystery of where. Why was still up for grabs, though, so onward he went.

As quests went, this one was pretty short, not lasting past going through the gate to the front yard. Edge was kneeling on the ground, weeding through his garden plots and honestly, anyone who thought Edge was at all scary really needed to see him in his gardening hat.

Next to him, happily pecking at the grass, was Nugget in her harness. Her leash was fastening to the handle of a trowel that was sticking out of the ground, not that she was likely to run away, not from Edge.

Why was it he never had his damn phone in these moments?

Stretch walked up to him, crossing his arms over his chest and looking down the slight protuberance of his nasal cavity at Edge. “you know, you make fun of me when i take her for walks.”

“She’s not being used as model to cadge Instagram upvotes with me,” Edge told him loftily. He tossed a handful of weeds into a basket with a pile of others. “She’s helping me.”

“helping you?” Stretch repeated slowly, tasting the words. “yeah, okay, she’s a highly skilled gardener, i’m sure. a regular johnny appleseed, bet we could find her a set of tools on amazon.”

“It isn’t her garden skills I needed.” Another handful of weeds and Edge wasn’t quite looking at him now. “Many insects are useful in a garden, so long as they don’t consume the plants, but while I was out back weeding the plot there, a multi-legged monstrosity of some sort attacked me. Nugget swooped in and consumed it. Now she’s protecting me from further incidents.”

Okay.

Yeah.

Well, that was only the funniest fucking thing he’d ever heard and Edge was so matter-of-fact about it, Stretch wasn’t entirely sure if he was even serious. That story, told in that completely flat tone? Edge was a surprisingly skilled bullshit artist when it came to the ridiculous; it was the serious shit he had trouble lying about.

But, oh, he could picture it. His big, tough Underfell hubby, shrieking and scrambling away from certain insect destruction, only to be rescued by a little chicken who gulped down the offender with a crow of delight. It was like Godzilla getting rescued by Raymond Burr.

He didn’t know if the universe was cruel to let him know what he missed, or kind enough to wake him to discover that it happened at all, because if he hadn’t caught Nugget on duty, the chances of Edge bringing that up over sandwiches at lunch ranked right up there with Edge signing them up for line dancing classes.

Cruel or kind, hm. Both. It was probably both.

While he was wrapping his mind around that, Edge paused in his weeding to give Nugget a scritch. She crooned in ecstasy as her favorite person gave her her due, leaning into his hand and Stretch couldn’t even be jealous.

Okay, maybe a little.

If they were in a cartoon, the lightbulb going on over his head would have glowed even in the bright sunshine, “oh! hang on, stay here!”

Stretch dashed into the house, bathrobe flapping, down to the basement where he kept his box of little outfits he’d made for the ladies over the last year. It took him a moment of digging through the disorganized clutter but soon he held up the little apron he found triumphantly.

One sharpie later, and he was back outside, carefully tying on the apron over the harness. Nugget only stood there, patiently allowing it; she’d always been the best at indulging his whims. In no time she stood before them with her new uniform declaring, ‘Guard Chicken On Duty.��

Edge shook his head, “It’s my fault, I suppose, for allowing you to think you’re funny all this time.”

“i’ll have you know i am hilarious,” Stretch told him haughtily. “thousands of twitter users can’t be wrong.”

“Remind me never to tell you about the Humans who think the earth is flat,” Edge said dryly, but he was trying not to smile and on him that was as a good as a belly laugh.

Stretch pulled out his phone, quickly grabbed because like hell was he missing another photo opportunity. “c’mon, get your feet in the picture!”

His sigh was long-suffering, but seriously, this wasn’t even on the top ten list of worst things he’d done for Stretch. The pic of his grubby gardening shoes with a chicken attacking the toes was on Instagram and Twitter in no time and the likes were pouring in immediately.

“Can I finish now?” Edge asked, in that sweety-sweety polite voice he got when he was being an ass. It was in the top three tones that Stretch loved on him, handily beaten out by ‘hoarse sultry’ and ‘captain command’. Top three wasn’t bad to start the day on.

“yep,” Stretch told him absently, fingers tapping furiously over his phone.

“And don’t start feeding her that bran muffin you have in your pocket yet, I need her hungry.”

“sure, babe…ah,” Stretch cringed guiltily. “um…sorry?”

Edge only hummed and his eye lights were amused. “If you’d prefer another flavor, you can ask, love.”

“please,” Stretch said immediately, because the Universe smiled upon him this day. “anything but bran. kale muffins would be better.”

“I don’t believe I’ll put that to the test, but there are blueberry ones in the pant—“ The words were smothered beneath Stretch’s quick, sloppy kiss and then he was gone, headed back into the house for his sweet, sweet breakfast.

Okay, so maybe the universe was giving him a little bit of a pass today. Missed the exceptional funny but gained the blueberry muffins.

Fair trade.

-finis-

[scribblescrabblebabble]

RoyEd Week 2k19 Day 3

   Title: Seven(?) Days

Rating: T+

Relationships: Roy Mustang/ Edward Elric

Chapter: Day 3- (Fantasy AU)

Cross- Posted on AO3 and Fanfic.net links- Fanfic.net   AO3

Best quality reading will be through the links, not on Tumblr itself because I’m too lazy to do italics and shit right now. For @royedweek2019 ‘s RoyEd Week!

pasted late bc I have other work to do oops!!

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

Roy had never seen the Great Hall so beautifully decorated; it was hard to tell where the school hall ended, and wintry palace began- the decorations were so wonderfully chosen! As he spun around with his dance partner, his long-time best friend Riza, the two other Triwizard Champions and their dates twirling similarly, Roy both admired the wonderful mix of glamour and dance and wished he wasn't dancing at the moment.

At least, he wished he was dancing with a different blonde, although Riza was definitely a close second choice. In fact, if he weren't required to take the first dance as a Champion, Roy probably would have shirked it off to go find Ed the moment he realized that his boyfriend's distinctive hair was nowhere to be seen in the crowd.

Over the snickers and awes of the crowd, supposedly assuming that Riza and Roy were something more than childhood friends, the blonde woman must have heard Roy's faint sigh, for she sighed as well and discreetly stomped on his foot as they changed direction, "Can you pretend for five seconds that you actually want to dance with me? I know it means nothing to you, but I tortured myself with wearing this monstrosity just because we're the center of attention."

Despite her disdain towards it, Riza looked quite stunning in her pale blue dressing gown, and Roy had just enough self-preservation to point it out before responding quietly, "It's not dancing with you that upsets me and you know it."

He knew that, even though he was half-assing it at best, they were still by far the best dancers out there, as years of ballroom dancing classes together would not be proven futile by their muggle parents.

Roy remembered the both of them receiving their Hogwarts letters and thinking it a big joke until two owls stampeded them in the park, and they looked at each other with such excitement that their parents knew their lives would never be quite normal again. His muggle mother had been at the school until recently, given a brief let-in to watch her only son compete in the dangerous Triwizard Tournament. Having never seen her son use magic before, it was a very… interesting time for her to watch him wave a stick at a whole-ass dragon and manage to stupefy it to unconsciousness (he chose to ignore his currently sprained and splinted wrist, and the several bandages that scratched against his shoulder and chest).

Back in the present, Riza rolled her eyes, "After this dance, you can go find him, I'm not stopping you. I think Jean's called dibbs on my next dance, anyways.

Roy smiled at the girl gratefully, and picked up the dance, noticing they were worryingly close falling out of step with the tempo of the spritely violins. After a few more laps around the dancefloor, the music finally died down to silence, and the audience clapped lightly, more eager to join in than pay mind to the current dancers.

Bidding Riza good luck with Jean, Roy quickly wove his way through the crowd, keeping an eye out for Ed. He found, instead, Al dragging a less-than-willing Winry out to the floor. The younger boy stopped when he saw Roy, and Winry sighed in relief.

"Roy, you and Riza danced so well!" He chirped.

"Thanks, Al. Hey, do you know where your brother is hiding? I haven't seen him around." Roy asked.

Al giggled, "Check around the food. He's probably afraid you'll ask him to dance."

"Well then, he's got a right to be afraid. Have fun out there." He turned from the betrayed look Winry cast him and started for the tables piled high with food. Ed's brother and closest friend (as well as Riza and Maes, of course) were practically the only ones who knew of his and Ed's relationship. Roy had no problem with making them public, but Ed had expressed his concerns enough for the other to hold off from straight-up snogging him in the halls. The blonde, for all his vivaciousness, was terribly shy about showing public affections, and didn't know how his fellow housemates would take his dating a boy- a Gryffindor boy at that!

Ed was nowhere to be found around the food, and Roy furrowed his brow in contemplation. He did see Lust, a fellow Slytherin classmate of Ed's, and decided to test his luck.

"Lust!" He called, and the aforementioned looked at him boredly.

"Mustang, what do you want?"

"Have you seen Elric anywhere?"

"The sweet one or the obnoxious one?" She quirked an eyebrow.

"The one you share a house with." Roy gave in a dead-pan, and Lust's unamused eye-roll did little to help him believe she would actually tell him.

"Well if you need to know, Envy said that he saw Ed on the staircase to the left of the Hall entrance reading.

Roy nodded, "Thanks, I guess." Lust shrugged and walked away.

Roy, thinking ahead, piled two plates with pastries and made his way out of the hall and to the left. He quickly found his boyfriend sitting on the second step, a book rested lightly between his bent knees. He looked up when Roy sat beside him, their legs bumping.

Roy handed over Ed's plate, which he took gratefully, "What're you doing out here? Already abandoned poor Riza to fend with Havoc on the dancefloor?"

The Gryffindor responded as Ed took a large bite of a particularly flaky little pastry the Beauxbatons cooks had prepared, "Riza quit on me. Said I was 'too distracted looking for you' to dance right."

Ed shrugged, "You know I don't like dances, shoulda guessed I wouldn't be in the ballroom."

Roy smiled lopsidedly, "Not even to watch me dance? I looked amazing out there; Al said so!"

Ed snorted, "First of all, watch your ego. Second, Al would tell the worst dancer out there they were great. Dances are just dumb, is all. Shouldn't just having the stupid tournament be enough celebration of inter-school comradery or whatever shit they're promoting?"

"I think it's sweet." Roy commented, not very forcefully. They'd had this same conversation hundreds of times, it seemed, "Either way, if you didn't want to be here so bad, why not just go up to your common room? I'm sure even the dungeons are more comfortable than these stairs."

"The Slytherin common rooms aren't just dungeons, I'll have you know!" Ed retorted, flicking a pastry he was holding slightly at Roy for emphasis, "They're actually very nice, it sucks you don't get to see 'em. I'm here because I didn't get to see you much after the challenge 'cuz of all the press commotion and shit." Ed frowned slightly.

The dragon challenge had been the day before, the three schools deciding that the dance and challenge should follow each other closely to 'lighten the mood' after such a frightening task. True to Ed's words, Roy had been swept away by several Prophet reporters following his close win (after his more serious wounds were treated first, of course). He'd been tired, bloody, and sore all over, so by the time they were done pestering him, Roy had barely the energy to fend off his mother's crushing hugs and frantic words. He had walked her back to the portkey once she was satisfied that he was safe until the next challenge, and from there went straight to his dormitory to sleep, Riza breaking the sea of students for him. The next morning, he had been wholly unamused to find his miserable face headlining the reports of the tournament.

He bit into his food, keeping a smile on his face in spite of Ed's fouled expression, "Well, you can see me all you want right now."

Contrary to Roy's intentions, Ed's face darkened further, "Until the next challenge."

"Ed, What's really the matter?" His proffered hand stung when Ed swatted it away, twisting in such a way to disturb several sore spots.

The Slytherin caught the other's wince, "THIS is the matter, Roy! Look at you, it's like you've been through a goddamn warzone or something! They carted you off the arena; I had to sit through two other dragon-themed ass-whoopings before I even knew you weren't dead. Your mom was in hysterics!"

Roy sighed, "Believe me, I know. I got her earful yesterday."

"At least she got to go down and see you immediately. I've barely seen you since Charms this afternoon, and that was the first time today!"

"So, you've been worried this whole time?"

Ed looked bewildered, "Of course I've been worried this whole time! I fucking lo… li… uh, care about you, you complete asshole!"

Roy, setting his plate aside, took Ed's plate quickly and ensconced the other boy in a tight hug, feeling the tension in the blonde's body coiled up in his shoulders. He relaxed a little in the Gryffindor's hold, huffing out a frustrated breath. When Roy felt a pair of hands gently wrap around his waist, he said, "I'm sorry I made you worry. If it's any consolation, I tried to find you after the challenge and at our meals today. I was too exhausted to really think yesterday, but when I looked today I didn't see you anywhere."

He could feel Ed rolling his eyes in his shoulder, and a second later he heard a muffled, "Had extra credit work in a few classes."

He hummed in response, and they stayed in their embrace for a while. Roy could feel Ed relax the longer he sat against the other, as if the constant assurance that Roy was there made his anxiety lessen. This said, it surprised Roy that Ed was the first to break the hug, standing up at the bottom step with a hand extended.

At the Gryffindor's confused look, Ed blushed, "Well, affection is sort of your thing, so I guess it wouldn't hurt me to dance, at least to make any lovesick Hufflepuff girls aware that you're unavailable." Roy sat, astounded. As far as he knew, Ed kind of hated public affection like this. Ed's blush intensified, probably because he knew vaguely what Roy was thinking, "I- I don't love this, but watching the challenge made me realize that I didn't want to waste my time across the room from you, watching other people try and get in your pants when I could just fucking suck it up and let myself have this, ya know? Shit, I'm embarrassing myself, just take my hand already, yeah?"

Roy grinned broadly, following Ed's orders. He led the way into the dance hall, noticing Ed stiffen when they were at the doors and Roy made no move to release his hand.

"Ed, you don't have to force yourself to do this if you're uncomfortable."

The blonde shook his head, "No, Roy, I want this. I want people to know we're a- a couple. This is a pretty good way to do that, right?"

His smile widened, "It's a great way!"

The brightness of Roy's smile caused Ed to smile as well, and they entered the hall to the vibrant sounds of an ending orchestral piece. They hurried to the floor before the next one started, and Roy had enough time to flash a wink at a confused but excited Al and Winry before the next dance began.

With Roy leading, there wasn't a chance they would mess up, and Ed seemed to trust their steps. Of course, he was flustered at first, glancing around at the other students too much (and sending dirty looks at Winry's smirk) and continually tripped up, but Roy got the other's attention back to him as the dance picked up with a gentle squeeze of the shoulder. Roy could feel eyes on them and heard quite a few girlish voices chirp their names, but he kept them out of his mind. He didn't care a bit about their judgment.

Once Ed was comfortable enough with the movement, he and Roy began chatting amid their dance, mostly about the other dancers.

"You know…" Ed mumbled, his sweet blush never having left his face, "You and Riza did dance very well together."

Roy laughed, "So you did see us! I didn't see you in the crowd!"

Ed mock-glared, "Well it's not because of my height, I know what you're thinking Roy Mustang!" He laughed a bit, "You probably dance better with her than with me."

"Well, I like dancing with you better." Roy murmured, leaning down to speak directly in Ed's ear.

"Oh, shush." Ed huffed, embarrassed. The song slowed to an end, and Ed pulled them off the floor with a small smile, "C' mon, we left our food on the stairs. I'd hate to waste it." His pull wasn't at all in the direction of the stairs, but to a table huddled away from the crowd, absolutely heaped with decorations and food. They could get some good privacy behind that heap…

Roy chuckled, Ed smirked, and they hurried to the table, not seeing the knowing looks of their friends and swelling gossip circles of those newly exposed to, possibly, the most unexpected coupling at Hogwarts.

~End~

[gvaf-radio-blog]

I'm in an open relationship with coffee and mental trauma

I’m hunkered down inside my favorite coffee shop in Southeast Portland having a cup of black liquid love to recharge my body and mind due to me having to dodge a blitzkrieg from the flying commie bastards. The Cupids are a unique kind of chaos as they are technically survivors of a horrific nuclear accident that irradiated an entire Provence. You know the one I’m talking about, y’all won't stop posting screen-caps of the damn thing on tumblr clogging up my steady feed of nihilism and satanic teddy bears. These cupids where re-homed to Portland because the social worker was from Los Angeles and since it works for them and another hundred thousand overpaid yuppies they thought Southeast would be perfect for the bastards to rehab. So the main problem with this (other than rising rent costs) is that their brains got rewired and now do everything hell-bent for leather. So where I get involved with the soviet love bastards is that they got dropped into my neighborhood and there is a  sense that they have of loneliness and urgency for love that attracts them to a person and to help them scratch that itch. The problem is that sense is corrupted and given a slightly sadistic bent and they have started matchmaking and sending people that I am comically ill-suited for or in some cases homicidal, Cat eared woman would be an example. Love is a battlefield, I’m a veteran of this war and I got tired of pulling heart arrows out of my ass so we’ve been fighting ever since but today is going to be a major encounter.You see I have a date in one hour and they started to fly around in attack formation as soon as I left the house firing toxic love arrows at me trying to get me to return to past modus operandi and self-sabotage this relationship that hasn’t even started yet. I dodge an arrow called “new love energy” and panic at might bit at how close it came to hitting me. They can’t get into the coffee shop, the smell of burnt bagels and french roast causes them to enter a seizure state that takes days to recover from, honestly french roast has that effect on most people but  are too tired to give a fuck and just assume the annoying anaphylactic shock is just a morning caffeine detox. I already thinned the ranks a bit by blowing up a fully automatic bow, this monstrosity looks like a mad man combined a Roman ballista and church pipe organ that can fire arrows like the President throws out lies and is painted pink and violet with both Greek and Russian equivalents for “love is a wet prophylactic”. I had left my own bows hanging at home since I was heading for a date and we agreed on melee combat for this round so I armed myself with only a bokken. I couldn’t reach the artillery positioned on the house across from me I had to do something and that something  set the bastards to full rage mode. I took a bag of cans and bottles from the recycling bin shook it good and violently like I did last night before bed while reading the new Warren Ellis comic and threw the bag at the little winged artillery battery. There was a moment of confusion  and I might have heard the Russian equivalent to “what the fuck” but then from all over 82nd Ave tweekers arose from under their rocks smelling of steel reserve and four dollar cigarettes and converged on the Cupids moaning about spare change and smokes. I felt bad about doing that but I was left with no choice! the Eros tribunal might clear me due to the circumstances or as a penance, they might require me to date a vanilla person who thinks beige is a proper color for everything and fucking lights on in doggy is kinky with “ow” being a safe word. Wouldn’t be the first time but I’d rather join a monastery than do it again, I can only hear so many Cake songs before my psychotic side goes into Hulk mode.Between the Cupids dive-bombing the windows like some kind of  Russian kamikaze toddler pilots and rattling the hipsters enough that they had to go get a vegan vodka shot and this little crotch goblin bouncing around and getting into people’s faces, I'm thinking about how this date is going to affect my partner and I’s relationship. I’m also wondering how my date’s spouse is going to handle things if we hit it off. Polyamory on paper sounds like a plot to a high production value hardcore porno but the truth is (mostly) different. You have to navigate multiple schedules, expectations, and multiple people's emotions and try to figure out how to get what you need without hiding pain, jealousy, and your own fears. Being poly also means being on the outskirts of society in away, there is a sense of resentment and fear from others that don’t get it but not nearly as the violent oppression that us in the LGBTQA+ have had to duck for a few hundred years.My partner and I don’t tell others that we are dating since there is a fear of them being disowned, I tell my family the type of relationships I have because they really can’t take anything away from me since I lost the ability to care about their thoughts on my life. I’m not completely happy with this situation where I feel like a secret but it’s not just my life it’s my partner and their spouse’s lives that would be effected. I’m not saying that everyone in a poly or open relationship should go out with a megaphone and belt out a manifesto of why they decided to break their minds with more than one neurotic trauma victim at a time or telling what happened when you  tell a lovers wife that you pegged their husband with a strap on because the wife refused because she felt it was icky and has a lube phobia. What I am saying is that those of us in relationships should start a conversation about non monogamy with our partners and maybe others so we can hear their thoughts and help root out our own.It’s not Polygamy, lets get that one out of the way because I talked with a lot of very intelligent people (and at least one military mandated lobotomy survivor) and they all have said “Oh like the thing Mormons do?” No, more love, openness, and freedom less magic boxers and misogyny.  With poly all relationships there are going to have vastly different dynamic from person to person where Bob and Tim are more open and each can have a person to have casual relationships with and sometimes they both have that dynamic with another person. Karen and Jess now are in several relationships that run casual, serious and potential for a marriage. Stacy, Jim, and Jared are in a closed trifecta where Jim and Jared being straight and not with each other they only have relationships with Stacy who only wants to have a relationship with Jim and Jared.Honestly the only thing that all these relationships have in common is communication and the bad poly relationships are non communicative, half truths, full lies, or worse one sided. I've heard the stories where on person would be dating (fucking) someone new every month but their partner was told to be monogamous and not date outside or they would be dumped, to add to this they lived together and the other partner can’t afford to live on their own. So basically one person was a Controlling , cheating waste of mommy and daddies quicky and the other was borderline being mentally and emotionally abused. Predators and halfwits will be part of every aspect of life and will find a way to manipulate or destroy said aspects of life given enough time and opportunity.Nothing is Idiot proof, nothing is safe so get your life set up how you want it and be prepared to guard this fortress against predators. When (not if) the halfwit comes stumbling in like a newborn colt on ice and manages to destroys your life because the dumb fuck is trying to help or by removing the wrong brick in the wall because it was shiny and it’s now their favorite red rock thingy, you better have a plan B to rebuild. The good news is that you now have enough bricks laying  on the ground  to stone the halfwit to death, I’m a silver lining kinda guy.The Little crotch goblin in the shop is now skipping to a fro all while  chanting what I think I recognized as the ritual to raise an evil elder thing that resembles a puppet from some children's program and then banging their fucking little fist on bookshelves. I’ve ordered a hot chocolate for the little bastard and added a bit of full spectrum oil so the crotch goblin will either soon enter torpor or start seeing a god in whatever app the frazzled parent downloaded and handed off to the kid to try and quite the goblin down. I can write now without the music blasting through my headphones  being drowned out but I did check to see how the goblin is doing, they passed out on a couch, maybe pissed themselves or just spilled water on the floor hard to say . My date shows up and we talk about ourselves or I talk too much and have to stop myself to ask them a question, after both realizing that the online interaction , attraction, and communication is also very present in a real life situation we agree it was time for the duel . We meet via social media site that specializes in the way of the Gaijin and us weebs must prove our saiyan power rankings so we walk outside and I unravel the sacred condom of holy audience and stop the Cupids dive bombing  us while each and every one of these sawed off Kalashnikovs are humming “rock you like a hurricane”. The cupids form a half circle around us and since the invoking of the spirit of The holy Pope  Ruth Westhimer the Cupids agree to not interfere and will also leave me alone until after I get off work the next day.Later that night after coming home bloodied , bruised and then the injuries I sustained during the duel I think about the date and how good it went. Talking about our partners, wants, needs and what we can and can not provide for each other, we hold off on saying we are in a relationship, we decided we’re in a trial relationship pending approval from our respective partners. Important to remember that our other partners can be affected by what we do and the clear communication transfers (or it SHOULD) to the other partners. Poly is not easy it can be worth it or as I’ve found utterly heartbreaking at times but I’m not built to be monogamous so my options are to be lonely the rest of my life, be constrained in a monogamous relationship that I may or at least fight like hell not to cheat in or I can just be honest and say this is who I am, you can stay or go. I find a dead mouse on my front porch with a note stating they were worried I hadn’t been eating, one day I’m going to spay this cat eared woman with a soldering iron.

[spectrumscribe]

Do Kaiju even like apples?

a Pacific Rim and TMNT 2014/16 fusion, introducing budding science sister and her tiny monster brothers. (who won’t be tiny for long.)

@rhi-draws-things​ provided the illustrations, bless them.

trying a new method of posting stories to tumblr, i think i’ll just add each new installment to this post under the cut of a reblog. have ‘em all together for your reading leisure. enjoy this first one!

April is pretty sure she should have stuck it out at school, and just slept in the nurse’s office.

At least then she would have had an actual bed, rather than be stuck in a hard plastic chair and drowsing while the base’s occupants ran around like kicked ants. Apparently something of the top secret project April knew next to nothing about (hence the ‘top secret’ part of things) had escaped, and everyone had gone zero to sixty in an instant the moment sirens went off.

April had found herself shoved into the nearest staff room, told to lock the door, and not to move until someone came and got her. She’d been expecting that her dad would just look over some documents too important to put off, and then they’d go home so she could sleep off her fever.

No such luck. The sirens outside of her meagrely furnished staff room are still droning, and April is falling asleep despite the awful chair. At least someone lent her a coat at some point, and she’s only shivering a little in the oversized thing.

Her unfinished lunch remains in its baggy near her face, as she leans forward with her cheek pressed to the table. She’d tried to convince herself again to eat, since getting better requires energy, but hasn’t had much luck. It drifts in and out of focus as her eyes get heavier, and giving in, April just lets the fever drag her under into a light nap.

The sirens aren’t enough to keep her awake, or even make her panic longer than the first minute they’d been going.  She knows they’re not for a Kaiju attack, and even if they were, she’s inside a military base. There are no active Jaegers here, but there’s some just up the coastline of New York. She’s safe as she could get, outside of a Kaiju shelter.

And, she’s sick. Being sick makes it easier to just not care.

April naps for a period of time she doesn’t remember, and doesn’t rouse again even after the alarms are turned off. She doesn’t notice they have been, and doesn’t know it’s simply because everyone got sick of listening to them while hunting for the escaped subject.

April doesn’t hear the door’s lock be broken from the inside, and doesn’t hear it open and shut with a quiet noise. What she does hear, oddly enough, is the sound of someone messing with her uneaten sandwich.

April blearily opens her eyes, too hot and too cold at the same time, and really annoyed with whatever’s woken her back up to that.

Three claws are sunk into the tip of her sandwich’s baggy, and four wide eyes stare back at her, just over the lip of the table.

The four gold eyes blink at her. April blinks her two blue ones a few times to confirm its real.

She screams.

The owner of the four eyes screams back, and runs away.

April nearly falls out of her chair, scrambling away from the table and the thing with all the coordination possible of a sick individual. She runs into another crappy chair and does fall over, yelping as she goes down.

There’s a dizzying moment, worsened by her illness, in which everything spins in terrible circles. April finally recovers enough to gingerly sit back up; half convinced she’s just had a hallucination.

But, no. That’s definitely a pintsized Kaiju scrabbling around on the linoleum across the room from her.

“Oh my god,” April whispers in horror, and then jumps with a shriek as the creature hisses balefully at her.

She untangles her legs from the chair’s, and manages to get to her feet and press against the wall of the room. April is hyperventilating a little, watching the tiny Kaiju pace and snarl on the other end of their shared space.

It’s between her and the coatracks, where she hung her backpack earlier. Her backpack contains her cellphone, which is what she needs, right this instant, so she can call her dad and the army and if they have one an indoor Jaeger because oh my fucking god, that’s a Kaiju.

A really.

Really.

Small Kaiju.

It’s about the size of an overly large housecat, with a long, strong looking tail whipping around behind it as it paces. Purple spots of bioluminescence follow the length of its body, which cause a bit of nausea to look at when it keeps moving so quickly, and April is still very sick feeling.

The segmented plates on its back almost look like a shell, April thinks distantly. Like a turtle and a dragon and a cattish thing all got mixed together.

It stands up on two legs then, walking perfectly fine like that. April amends and changes the cattish part to lemurish, maybe even humanish. It’s the tail that’s really the tipping point, making the walk ever so slightly abnormal in its gait.

April is very, very dizzy. Oof. Everything is spinning even while she’s still leaning against the wall. Couldn’t the tiny Kaiju have chosen to terrorize her on a day when she wasn’t ill? Is that too much to ask from fate, given that the war was supposed to be over?

“…I guess you’re the one everyone’s looking for,” April says faintly, mostly to herself. The little Kaiju shrieks and hops away to press against the far wall, pacing and tittering nervously. And it is nervous, April is realizing. If she hadn’t known better, she’d almost think the little thing is as scared as she feels at the moment.

But Kaiju are city destroying titans, not afraid even when a Jaeger is thundering towards them. It wouldn’t make sense for even a tiny one to be afraid of a sick teenage girl.

Oh, but this one really is awfully small. April could probably hold it with one arm if she tried.

April reminds herself to focus. Thoughts like that are for after she’s certain she isn’t going to get mauled.

The little Kaiju is eyeing her, but also- as April notices the break of focus every couple seconds- the table April had been sleeping at.

April looks at the sandwich on the table.

She formulates a plan.

Taking a careful step forwards, April starts to move towards the table. She’s nearly startled backwards all over again when the Kaiju makes a leap towards her, only for it to back off immediately. It’s hissing and spitting, but really, it’s just making a show instead of real threats.

The coatrack is directly above where the Kaiju is pacing. April slowly picks up her sandwich.

“Hey, little… guy,” April settles on the addressment, since it’s better than spawn of world destroyers or the like. “Do you want some food?”

The Kaiju watches her warily, but has stopped shrieking every time she moves. It’s clearly torn between following her and the sandwich at the same time; intent gold eyes boring holes into both.

April opens the bag slowly, and takes out half the sandwich.

“Here… look, its fake bologna and lettuce. Mmm, right? Really tasty, I promise. Fake processed meat is about the same as actual processed meat in nutrients anyway.”

The Kaiju inches forwards in half steps, eyes darting between her face and the treat. April takes a chance and tosses the triangle of food onto the floor in front of it.

The food is snapped up immediately, and in an act of definitely inhuman physiology, the sandwich piece disappears into the Kaiju’s mouth. April sees the hinges of its jawline open wider than a human’s would, or even most animals. She gulps quietly at the rows of sharp teeth it has, which flash as it chews noisily.

It’s looking at her now less with fear, more with curiosity. And it’s moving away from the coatrack. Good. April takes out the other half of the sandwich, and figures she can blame her illness for making her think this next step is a good plan.

“You gotta come and take this one from me, dude,” she tells it softly, holding out the sandwich halve and bending down a little. “C’mon… I’m probably not the one who’s gonna bite anyone here…”

Faster than she thought, the Kaiju approaches her. It moves in cautious steps, but is steadily losing the edge of wariness. By the time it tentatively puts a claw on the bread, its eyes are all on the sandwich, and April can step around it without even a hiss in response.

She makes a hasty beeline for her backpack, digging out her phone frantically and thumbing open the screen. She gets open her text messages, and then slowly comes to a stop, fingers hovering.

Soft and chirrupy noises have taken the place of shrieks and hissing, and April glances behind her.

The little Kaiju is sitting with its legs in a clumsy fold, resembling lotus flower position, and is talking adamantly to itself as it dissects the second sandwich halve. Rather than scarf it down, it’s taking the time to examine and… narrate the pieces of the sandwich.

And, in a way, the sounds aren’t just sounds, but are closer to actual words.

April is truly her father’s daughter, because she immediately thinks amazing, and is there more to discover here?

April looks back into the open mouth of her backpack, seeing her baggy of apple slices inside.

Retrieving them, April creeps back towards the Kaijuling. Baby Kaiju? There have only ever been full grown monstrosities publically documented, nothing about early stages of their growth cycles. There’s no word for this creature yet, and even then. April suspects there’s been meddling with its DNA, since there’s no way anything could evolve to have such a drastic growth period between infant and adult.

Except it’s an alien, so. Earth rules might not apply.

April slowly comes to kneel a cautious distance from the little creature. She opens the baggy, and steels herself from startling as its four eyes whip around to stare at her.

Do Kaiju even like apples?

One way to find out.

April wordlessly holds out a slice of apple. It’s been kept fresh by lemon she’d squeezed onto it yesterday, when she didn’t have a damn fever.

“Want one?” she asks. There’s a pause, and then the Kaiju makes a sound of joyful interest.

Without further prompt or hesitation, it slips over to her on all fours, and sits back up to wrap a small clawed hand around the slice. April watches, fascinated and rapidly losing her own fears, as it nibbles at the snack food.

When the first slice is gone, and the little Kaiju is licking its approximation of lips with its pointed tongue, it holds out its hands and makes grabbing gestures and coos impatiently.

“Say please,” April says automatically, and realizes it’s because the behaviors remind her strikingly of a small child.

It stares at her, looking annoyed. April is stunned quietly that it can express annoyance, and not just want or fear something.

“Say please?” she requests again, experimentally.

“Sss… say p’ease?”

April’s mouth falls open, a taking a sharp breath in.

“Say p’ease?” the Kaiju repeats, high voiced and unpracticed. Mimicking her, but not perfectly, missing the harder to pronounce part of a new word, like a child would.

Like a child would.

April hands over the next apple slice, and manages to mumble, “Yeah, that’s right. Say please. Good job.”

“Good job,” repeats back the Kaiju, nearly chirping it, and bites the new slice in half happily. April is still processing her shock as it shifts closer to her, pressing against her leg with its little ones and making grabby gestures again.

“Say p’ease,” it says with confidence, tail flicking against the floor in anticipation.

“…you’re very smart, aren’t you?” April says to it.

The little Kaiju coos and only has eyes for the apple slices. April hands another one over as requested. This time is a little different, though, as it catches her hand with its own free one. She holds perfectly still as it multitasks nibbling the fruit, and examining her pale pink palms and darker skin everywhere else.

April is not particularly afraid, she finds, watching the creature pick at her short finger nails with its wicked little claws.

“Say p’ease, good job,” it pronounces, apparently done with the examination. It grabs for the bag in April’s right hand, and April holds it away on instinct.

“No,” she tells it. It starts to sit up, reaching for it. “No,” April repeats, more firmly. “You ask nicely if you want more. Say please.”

The Kaiju’s face screws up in a pout, its big eyes squinting in annoyance. Its tail lashes for a moment, and then it says in a distinctly put upon voice, “Say p’ease?”

Purely and clearly, that’s the voice of a fed up toddler not getting what they want, and going along because it’s the only way to get it.

April finds herself fighting a smile, and laughing a little. He looks so cute, so frustrated like that.

“Okay, you can have another, now,” she informs him, and gives another piece of apple to the Kaiju. He takes it, but manages to look sulky about it.

April’s knees are starting to cramp like this, and she shifts into a lotus position like her Kaiju friend. She moves away from him to do so, trying to avoid disturbing him with her careful movements, but is surprised when he moves right back next to her once she’s settled.

And then climbs into her lap, fearless and curious about the jacket she’s got on, and the chance to get more apples sooner. April is a little uncomfortable having a mouthful of sharp incisors and hands tipped in claws so close to her vitals, but that’s tempered by the excited tittering the Kaiju makes, picking at the undone zipper of her jacket.

He’s so curious about everything, now that he’s not scared out of his mind. It’s almost like the time April held a large parrot, when a conservationist moved into the apartment next to her and her dad- the huge bird had been noisy and curious, and just enough of a discomfort near her face it’d been a thrill to hold him.

It’s like that, right now, combined with the time she held a baby of a colleague her dad has. Exciting and a little scary, and part of her is worried she’ll upset things if she moves wrong.

April stifles a sound of pain as the Kaiju discovers her coils and tugs on a fistful. She teaches him again about the word no.

It’s only after he’s settled comfortably into her lap, chewing on the last of slices of apple, that April remembers she should probably call someone about this.

It’s made a little harder than usual to text, since somebody has decided the thing he wants most in the world is now her phone.

She’s still trying to explain that no, he can’t have it, and that tapping it rapidly with his claws is just going to scratch the screen- “Pads, you use the pads of your fingers,”- when the door is all but kicked off its hinges behind them.

“There it is!” someone bellows, and April’s little Kaiju friend loses his cool.

The winding tail wrapped loosely around her arm is switched to her stomach, and April is treated to the feeling of being strangled around the midriff and claw tips nearly puncturing her jacket’s fabric.

“Ow, no, hey,” she says, as she gets unsteadily off the ground and backs hastily away from the door. She pats uselessly at the hard ridges of his back. “Dude, hey, I need to- breathe and stuff- ow-”

“Ms. O’Neil, stop moving!” commands the soldier, and oh joy, he’s got a gun. April thinks it’s a tranq gun, and neither it nor he and the other soldiers pouring in are doing anything to calm things down.

“April!” yells her dad, fighting his way through the clog of bodies in the doorway. His eyes are wide with fear as he catches sight of the Kaiju wrapped around his daughter, and looks about ready to throw up.

The little Kaiju shrieks, lighting up hostile purple again and baring its fangs at the intruders. Immediately the sound of safety catches clicking off are heard, and April throws up a hand. “Guys, stop it! You’re scaring him-!”

A particularly brash soldier strides forwards, arm outstretched and aiming to rip the Kaiju off April forcefully, and the tail around April’s waist comes away in a whip quick slash.

The soldier cries out as a bright red seam of blood appears across his face, and April stares in shock at the long barb abruptly produced from the end of the tail.

“NO!”  screams the little Kaiju, slashing its long thin barb in the air in front of them. “NO, NO, NO!”

April hysterically thinks she taught him the word no a little too well.

“Hey- WHOA, okay, everyone just-” April takes a number of steps back from the panicking soldiers and her father, trying to keep people out of stabbing range of the tail barb. “-take a deep breath, okay? I’m fine, it’s cool, just stop freaking him out already.”

There’s a murmur of dissent, soldiers shifting uneasily as they try to find an angle to come at them from, and April hears a quiet hiccup beside her neck.

“No, no, no,” repeats her little friend, words shifting into desperate little growls and keens. He’s pressing close as possible to her, strong little limbs clinging tightly, and he’s trembling as he does.

His tail slashing in the air and bared teeth and brightly lit threat display all say animal, dangerous, monster… but the sobs underneath all that say scared little kid.

She raises her hand to run it down his shell-like back plates, turning her own back to everyone and shielding him. “It’s fine, it’s okay, shhh, calm down, buddy. We’re okay. We’re okay. No knifing anybody with your- tail. Thing. Okay? Just… gotta calm down. Just… shh, kiddo… it’s gonna be alright… you’ll be okay, I got you. You’re safe.”

April feels his tail stop slashing around, and slowly, carefully, come back to curl around her middle. She only feels a brief moment of fear she’ll get stabbed by the thin barb, but no pain comes as the tip curls around to her front.

There’s quiet, rapid conversation behind her, and April casts a glance over her shoulder as a harsher whisper-shout makes her friend stiffen in fear.

“Hey!” she snaps at everyone gathered. “Shut up and go away!” The stunned silence following that is satisfying on a level.

Not the politest thing she’s ever said, but she’s sick and exhausted by the emotional roller coaster and there’s a kid in her arms crying still. Not okay by any account.

Oh god the military made tiny Kaijus that are actually tiny babies and April is literally just some teenager. What the hell is she supposed to do about all this? The minute she lets go of him he’ll probably end up back in a lab- a lab her dad works in, does he know that this kid is a literal kid-?

A hundred terrible scenarios flash across her mind about what might be done to her little friend, and April feels even sicker than she was already.

“…April? Are you alright?”

She looks over her shoulder again, at her carefully approaching father. His dark forehead has sweat sheen to it, and he’s darting glances between her and the Kaiju growling at him.

April shushes him again, and he quiets for the most part. He stills tightens his tail around her, though. Determined to stay, determined to defend.

Oh, but he’s so small, and clearly so young, and god, what even happened to create a creature like this? To create a person like this? A scaly little person with a tail and fangs and bioluminescence, who is terrified out of his mind and only trusts April.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” April finally responds, holding her friend in a gentle hug and wondering if she’s the first person to have ever done so.

“Did it… hurt you anywhere? Can you get it to-”

“He’s not an it,” April says firmly, feeling abruptly and fiercely protective. “He’s a little kid, dad. What the hell?”

What the hell does the military want with him? What the hell can I do to prove he’s a person? What the hell did you do, dad?

“Did you know he can talk?” April asks, angry and sad. “Did you know he learn words after only a few tries? Did you know anything like that about him?”

Her father is quiet for a moment, and then says, “No… no I didn’t. They weren’t supposed to be able to do those things.”

“…well he can,” April says, and hugs her little friend tighter. He makes a soft sound of confusion, and presses his cold flat nose to her neck, huffing in concern.

She takes a deep breath, and looks back again. “How many more?” she asks, uncaring that there’s still a few soldiers lingering in the doorway and clearly not on board with what’s happening.

“…three more,” her dad answers, a look of dread entering his expression. “We made four of them. They were only supposed to be subjects for observation and study. Kaiju on a smaller scale, with the ability to respond to communications and possibly even communicate back. But… it wasn’t supposed to be more than that.”

“What did you do to make him small and smart?” April asks, already knowing the answer.

“…we mixed human DNA into the sequence. It was a choice from above my station, hon, I swear. We didn’t know.”

April sighs, and wonders if any adults even try to remember the stuff science fiction and fantasy taught you about playing god with life.

“I think you did a lot more than make pocket-sized Kaiju, dad,” April says, petting her friend’s plated back as he makes a rumbly little purr against her shoulder.

Her dad lets out a ragged breath. “I’m starting to think that, too.”

April gets to keep holding her little friend- someone who turns out to be Donatello, according to the codename she drew out of a hat two months ago, back in her home apartment with her dad. He’d told her it’s for an upcoming project, and she’d thought the game of pulling famous artists out of a hat was just that. A game.

She named them all, all four of them, however indirectly and unknowingly. They’re only a handful of weeks old now- and already so big and smart, compared to human children- but they’re still so… young. Vulnerable.

April cradles Donatello until he falls asleep, nestled against her and playing with her shoulder length coils. Her father sends the soldiers out of the room, and someone important looking shows up in a uniform with a lot of medals and stripes on it.

April clutches Donatello close, who refuses to relinquish his own desperate clutch, and tries to talk a woman nearly three times her age around to April’s point of view.

It doesn’t work how she wants it to, but there’s room for future debate. More discussions and tests to be conducted, and a chance.

April is going to seize that chance and sink her teeth into it and refuse to let go, much like how Donatello does when he gets the idea to starting biting her hair.

She coaxes him off that idea by heckling her dad into handing over one of the hard candies he’s always got in his pockets. It goes over well, and from the intent expression of her father, and his fellow scientists peering in through the doorway, this is Donatello’s first experience with sugary sweets.

He likes it. A lot. Crunching it between his incisors and asking for more afterwards, using his most polite so far, “Say p’ease?”

April’s dad and his boss nearly fall out of their chairs at that. One of the scientists in the doorway clutches his chest and just about faints. It’s a brief spell of relief from the seriousness of things, and April makes sure Donatello gets the candy he so politely asked for.

Donatello is a little heavy by the time they lead her back to his containment cell, which is a room a little smaller than a child’s would be. And it’s bare of anything but a pet bed and some blankets shoved into a corner.

April feels so, so very bad for peeling her sleeping friend off herself, and gently lowering him to rest in the bed. She covers him up with the blankets, and sees him curl into a little ball underneath.

April is stuck for a moment, just watching the blankets rise and fall with his breathing. She doesn’t know what his future from this point will be like, and that scares the daylights out of her.

It only took about two hours for her to get this attached. God knows what she’ll feel like in another week, or less.

It’s hard to get up and walk out, but the rules are that the tests get done before anything is concrete, and that includes April staying away to not contaminate the procedure.

April is tired, still feverish, and now she’s angrily sad on top of all that. She puts one foot in front of the other, and forces herself to make it home before lying down and passing out from sheer exhaustion.

April has uneasy dreams that night, blurry and unhappy, and continues to until she sees Donatello again, and knows he’s going to be okay. That they all will be, him and his incredible siblings.

The next time she picks up Donatello, April is certain she’d never put him down if she could. Him, or any of the other little Kaiju children. Small, and strange, and so in need of somebody to love them.

Of course, within a few years, she can’t even hope to carry around any of them. By that point, they can lift her, and do so just to show off.

But she doesn’t forget the first time few times, how it felt to have Donnie’s tail coil around her midriff and curl tightly there. How it felt to have Raph’s puppyishly big hands hold onto hers as they walked through the hall. How it felt when Leo would cling to her legs and refuse to let go. How it felt to have Mikey clamber up her back and demand piggyback rides as long as he could get them.

When they’re older, they tend more to pick up April and carry her around. It’s easy, since they double in size within the first two years, and then keep going until they tower over everybody on base.

April never does forget, though. And never wants to.

Commission info & Kofi link.

[easilyaddicted]

Reimob/Ritmob/Other problematic ships discourse

Actually, my main title was: I think I’ll be inactive or delete my Tumblr permanently...

A main reason for that is I am just so busy in real life and for a while the MP100 is just letting me down rather making me happy that I am in a fandom.

So before I leave, I would like to open the can of worms discourse that had happened so far and place my opinions on it. These discourse and the opinions of the people who participated just left a fairly bad taste in my mouth.

I would be posting per discourse/topics and tag them separately.

Warnings: The pedo word is mentioned.

FIRST DISCOURSE: Shipping Reimob/Ritmob/Any other dark problematic ships

There are usually three kinds of people that are truly affected and is the main cause and effect with this discourse.

PERSON A: “I am very uncomfortable and disgusted with this idea due to a personal event that happened to me and I get attacks and flashbacks whenever I see it. I wish people would stop posting it.”

PERSON B: “I am using this ship as a coping method due to a personal event that happened to me because it helps me to objectify that event, move forward psychologically, and other more reasons.”

PERSON C: “I am truly and utterly disgusted with this ship because it is just not right! It is pedophilia and abuse! And anyone who ships this is not human and is mentally ill! I would do everything in my internet power to serve justice and help who are affected. Think about the minors in this website! How could they see this monstrosity!?

If you are PERSON A, I am very and truly sorry you have seen it. But I’m afraid to tell you that people are going to ship it regardless you tell your backstory (you are never forced to) and you can’t force it to stop because persons like PERSON B exists. The best thing everything in your power that you can do is…

“… I am going to block these tags and the people who make this so I can’t ever see them because I understand that even though this is attacking my safe space here, I would be no better than an attacker if I shame the people who do so for how could I know that that was their safe space”

If you are PERSON B, then you don’t owe anyone your backstory for justifying this ship. I repeat, you don’t owe anyone your backstory for justifying this ship. But please remember that people like PERSON A exists so the best thing everything in your power that you can do is…

“I am going to organize and responsibly use the proper tags on my ship and all the discussions and posts I made related to it because I understand that this ship is truly dark, dubious, and debatable and is certainly not suitable for all fans to see for it might hurt some of them.”

If you are PERSON C… you’re usually way more crazier than that but hey, I gave you a benefit of the doubt that you could be an intellectual of some kind. Am I being too harsh? Heavens, no. But if you feel disrespected then just so you know, you never had mine.

Also…if you are PERSON C and is aware that PERSON B exists but you firmly believe and announce to the whole world that PERSON B’s method is  “unhealthy and hurtful to others (specifically to PERSON A)”, let me remind you:

You are not PERSON B’s therapist. You do not have the professional background to even have the right to utter these things and shame/attack PERSON B. Your clinical experience with one (if you did have) is not a basis because people are different and is not you.

And again, you are not a therapist.

If you are, gladly prove me how wrong I am and I’ll respectfully accept it.

And if not,

How dare you throw the word and accuse someone as a pedophile so lightly? You know why it’s “lightly”? Because you used it for something that never existed and is fictional in the first place.

Pedophilia is used for a real person committing such horrendous act. It is a dark term for what is transpiring behind locked doors where real children could not escape. It is used for the live disgusting acts caught on tape that is presented to be marketable. It is used when a family member is sick in the head and decided to do something horrible to minor/s available to them.

It is not used over a fucking 2D drawing.

Telling these shippers to stop shipping them won’t help the real children affected by that term. Telling them to die, choke, and kill themselves isn’t making you a better person either and is still not helping real children affected by that term. If you truly care for victims, then be a positive influence not a negative one.

Search for the shippers blog not to harass them but to tell people like PERSON A who to avoid. Remind people to use their tags properly. Don’t use and throw such heavy terms casually and accuse anyone of it because some people of PERSON A and B could be harmed in doing so.  There are a lot more but in general, DON’T BE A FUCKING DICK.

Also, if you are a pro-shipper that acts like a banshee like PERSON C, then you are not any better than PERSON C is.  I’m too worn out to make a whole set of advice for you so just kindly follow the CAPITALIZED phrase in the last paragraph.

And finally, all my advice is going out to all the people in-between this discourse, whether a casual shipper, casual non-shipper, regular fans, obsessive fans, and etc.

Be the person whom PERSON A and B could rely on.

Be a civil human being to other human beings.

Thank you for reading.

~END OF FIRST DISCOURSE~

[theda-rison]

Adventures in nothing working

I just need to tell you about technology just Trying Me earlier, before I finally post my Nano post:

In the first or so week of November, I tried to make an author Instagram. A bunch of other people in the writing discord I’m in were talking about it and like, as much as I love Tumblr, Twitter is basically the online version of an author moving to NYC to be closer to agents and publishers, and I guess IG is more like LA (on account of it being more appearance driven). Tumblr is like living in the middle of nowhere - which is nice, that’s exactly why I stay here - but I do also need to be where the agents are. I’m probably never going to have a twitter because it just seems like a wash, so I went with IG.

So, the me that existed in the first week of November tries to make an Instagram with my author email. I don’t know what the fuck happens, but as soon as I make it, I can’t get into it. I try to make it again, it tells me that my email is already used; I try to log in, it tells me that the account doesn’t exist. Schrödinger's account. I get mad (because what else am I supposed to do) and find the only way of placing a complaint and place it. OF COURSE I don’t hear anything back over the course of November. Fuck you Instagram.

So today I’m like, “I need to do it. I need a presence. I need to live in LA.” and I try again. In the somewhere between a half hour and an hour:

Still can’t use that email. Okay cool. Fuck you IG.

I go to make a new email. I mistype my birth year. Google tells me I’m under the age of 13.

I fix it. I try again. Google tells me I’m still under the age of 13. Fuck you Google.

Now Google won’t let me make a fucking account. I am raging at this point because I already have like three Gmail emails for different shit why did this make you think I’m 13? Fuck you.

I consider making a Hotmail account, but I hate Hotmail.

Yahoo exists, and while I’m not 13, I’m also not 73.

I remember Protonmail exists and make an email there.

I use that and finally make the IG account.

I triumphantly told the people in the writing Discord that I have an author IG (after ranting about the stupidity that is technology), and everyone added me and I added them. I ask if they connected their personal IGs to their professional IGs, and one of them mentioned that she uses an app to post from her desktop. The people in the Discord are so smart and amazing and super great and know things.

Anyway, it was like... 9am by the time I was done and I was ready to go back to sleep and also become Amish. From now on, I will print my updates using woodblocks and nail the papers to the town bulletin board. And then I’m going to put myself in the pillory, because the internet can’t get me there.

I don’t know what it is: is it a curse? Do I have powers? I’m always the one that finds these things. Websites should pay me to test their shit, because I will be doing the most innocuous, normal shit and somehow break everything.

Like, one day I'll find out I'm actually an eldritch monstrosity and this isn't even my Final Form and I'll be like, "Nah, that tracks."

A Very Smart Doctor: The test just came back and you're actually Shub-Niggurath, the Black Goat of the Woods With A Thousand Young.

Me: .... I have kids? Are they cute?

A Very Smart Doctor: ...They're extraplanar monstrosities who are amalgamations of human, animal, and nightmare.

Me: .... So they're cute.

A Very Smart Doctor: Yeah, they're pretty cute.

Me: Sweet.

The beginning to a strange sitcom.

[donofdepravity]

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[stxardust-edd]

The Little Things (Phan)

○ the tumblr version of my newest phanfic ○

[christmastime phan, pretty vague but it's there. fluffy and lengthy but i do hope you enjoy this!]

{disclaimer : this is a mere work of fiction revolving the lives of two of my favourite YouTubers, Daniel Howell and AmazingPhil. this story, and the ones following it, are entirely fictious. the relationship that exists between Dan and Phil, as they are called, is to be labelled as what they want it to be called. i in no way am forcing anything upon them or whatsoever...you get the drift, don't you?}

(summary : in which Dan realises that the little things in life are the ones that often hold the most meaning.)

_____________

Dan can't help but sigh contentedly looking at their eight-foot tall Christmas tree adorned with little ornaments, both new and old. He and Phil had spent a lot of time in decorating and prepping themselves for the festive season, from bantering over a nice spot to place their Christmas tree, from choosing who gets what gift (while keeping their gifts to each other a secret), to dividing the chores between them, and in the last minute, choosing to call someone from the cleaning agent to do it for them instead. Their little tree debate involved choosing a spot for it, because it couldn't be too far in the corner, or else the tree would just seem like it was hugging the walls, nor could it be too far out in the centre of the room either, it'll be a bother to get around its all of the wires from the fairy lights spanning out in a fashion that resembled nothing other than its very own electronic roots. Phil cracked a joke that they could call their tree a hybrid, the first of its kind too, dubbed the FirTronic, and it made Dan laugh despite the cringe, maybe even because if it, but he didn't care. He even added his own spin to it, lamenting that his joke was "Fironic." 

It was stupid, and childish, Dan knew, but it made them laugh so much Phil almost tipped the tree over from elbowing it in a laughing fit. Dan was quick to warn him, of course, in his own way. By screaming. "PHIL YOU ALMOST TIPPED THE TREE OVER!", Dan screamed, trying his hardest to chide him, and completely giving up on it when it only made them chortle harder afterward. 

Eventually, they settled for a spot that seemed to be just the right one, one that was albeit more towards the corner of the room, but closer to the power source (and more trip-proofed) than the centre of the room. He didn't really worry about falling over and getting tangled in the wires himself rather than having Phil get hurt instead. His mind took a quick detour in the non-consensual way it always does back to the time they were filming the ninth instalment of Phil is not on fire last November. He really didn't favour the idea of Phil crab walking up the stairs - in his socks, Dan would like to add - partly because socks (mismatched or not) against a smooth surface is an incredibly slippery combination, partly because Phil was prone to be a klutz, partly because he didn't like seeing Phil get hurt. Scratch that, he fucking hates it. Present tense. 

Philip ( with only one 'L' because his parents were a tad bit hipster) Michael Lester is just too much of an angel bean for the world. 

Dan, still in his festive mood, lets himself admire and revisit the memory behind the ornaments that adorn the tree. Almost every single one of them was tied to an event, each one soaked in the sometimes sugarsweet, sometimes bittersweet cocktail that was nostalgia. He sees the penguin back from the years before, from when his videos were still a blurry mess because of the crappy camera, from their first home. He sees a fairly new red ornament with diamond shapes studded across the equator and alternating rhombi of gold and red streaking out from both vertices of each diamond hanging prettily from the branch adjacent to his height, not far from the penguin. It brings back waves of memories from when he and Phil happened to catch sight of the ornaments on sale earlier that year after they'd moved in to their current apartment. Phil liked the bright red one, Dan loved the aesthetic of the gold one with uniform waves around it. Call it a random act of friendship, or acknowledgement, but they'd promptly hung each other's favourite new design at the top tier, the one directly below the star, where it would be the most noticeable. It was a sweet gesture, nonetheless.

Even thinking about it puts a small smile on his face.

It's not often that he gets epiphanies, but when he does, no matter how small they might be, the realization is all-consuming, and he's just standing there, blinking furiously, and he knows to take them seriously, for at that seemingly insignificant moment in a far-off microscopic planet humans call Earth in the vast monstrosity that is the universe, he, an even tinier, even more insignificant man gets a small epiphany : that in life, the little things are the ones that matter the most.

Thinking about this, it dawns more and more on him that it's the little things that Daniel James Howell finds himself looking for. It might be a tiny glitch in a game, but it gets him and Phil chortling the most. It might be something childish, like when Phil wants the marshmallows that were rightfully Dan's prize for him winning a DanAndPhilGames challenge fair and square, but he gave them to him anyway, after punching him on the shoulder repeatedly and spilling marshmallows all over their desk while yelling about how unfair it all was. It might be something annoyingly domestic like Phil stealing  his cereal and leaving only a substantial amount that wouldn't be enough for him to have a satisfying bowl the next morning, and its one of the things that annoy him the most - but he'll look at Phil's sheepish smile and the crinkle in his eyes as he says in a soft tone, "Sorry..." and Dan would let him go although knowing that Phil is bound to do it again, because it's the way the little smile that thaws his annoyance and replaces it with a familiar warm  feeling instead.

Thinking about the little things there is to love about life, he's reminded of the little things he loves about Phil Lester. Like Phil's eyes - how blue they are, so much so that he could swim in them; how they shine when he does something he loves; how they crinkle when he's truly smiling. Or like Phil's smile. The way it lights up his eyes when he does. The way it makes Dan want to keep looking at it, and the way it makes him warm on the inside. The way when he's in the middle of a livestream, donned in a black Llama sweater topped off with a black Christmas hat so as to match his aesthetic, and Phil comes barging in to wrap a purple tinsel around Dan's neck because "That's what you get for making me get the post, Dan."

Well that's just not fucking  fair, because Tinsel the neck is fucking horrible, and poky, and just plain uncomfortable.

But so is social interaction.

Oh shut up, stupid internal voice.

He sees Phil sauntering into the room, making weird noises and being the fuzzy oddball he is. He looks at Dan, and back at the tree, and he understands that in that moment Dan's taking a trip down memory lane, and he just tells him in a soft voice, "We did good, yeah?" Dan just hums in reply, but then the two of them break into their usual banter again. Dan looks at Phil and thinks big, big things, things like I love you so much you spork, and Phil thinks them about Dan too sometimes, but Dan chooses not to say anything, and instead goes with the flow. The friendly banter.

Because Dan knows that he needn't say anything, that they both know that the feeling is mutual, but they don't need to say it to to say it. To show it.

Because its in the little things Phil does, the way he does whatever he does and remains as his adorable weirdo, and there and then Dan realises that he's content with the little things in life no matter how insignificant they might be, because these little things hold so much of value, and that they're what he needs to keep him tethered to reality when he wakes up to find out the colours have bled out of his world, along with his emotions, only to leave tones of whitegreyblack behind in the way that they do sometimes. They bring back the colours, bit by bit, slowly but surely.

So yes, he'd stick with the small things, because they do mean the most.

[ignis-scientia-estrogen-brigade]

For some reason Tumblr is being a buttmunch isn’t showing the proper chapter number in the link above, but I have tested it myself and can guarantee that it does, in fact, lead to the final chapter of my ongoing Blind!Ignis fic, Memory Lane and Pastries.

If you’ve been following along with the promises I’ve made thus far, then yOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS HUEHUEHUE ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

[ISEB Author’s Note: It means Ignis gets nekkid. Very, very nekkid.]

I won’t bore you with the details of what was going through my mind when I wrote it, but I will say that it’s another long, rambling story, so feel free to skip ahead to the steamy bits if your eyes start glazing over. I meant to do this last time, but I’m going to go ahead and tag a few peeps who I know might be interested: @thirdstreetcettin, @fencrocks, @roses-and-oceans, @atarostarling why u no let me tag you (´༎ຶོρ༎ຶོ`), @sweetchocobae, @emeraldlatias, @sailorwiggle, @saurgristiel, @diadyn wat u too (´༎ຶོρ༎ຶོ`), @chocobroobsession, @jellybabiestomanual cmon now (´༎ຶོρ༎ຶོ`), @ardorminerva wtf tumblr (´༎ຶོρ༎ຶོ`), @lunar-magnolia, @herondalcarstairs Lastly, I just want to mention that although this is the last chapter of Memory Lane and Pastries, the whole reason I wrote it was to establish an OC in that time frame, so that I may revisit Ignis and Ophelia in future one-shots. I’m going to make a separate post about my plans for the next week, but I do look forward to entertaining people again with my longer fics in the future!

(Abso-fucking-lutely NSFW; Click on the link above or the cut below for the full text of Chapter 5.)

“Tell me more about that Karlabos.”

“Hm?”

“You know—the one that supposedly murdered your mother. Did you ever manage to take your revenge?”

“Ah.” A smile touches the strategist’s lips as they round the usual corner of the alleyway leading back to his apartment. “As a matter of fact, I did.”

“Well? Don’t leave me in suspense.”

Ophelia’s fingers find his and she squeezes his hand teasingly. “My friends and I confronted the colossal beast on a shore overlooking Cape Caem some years ago,” he says. “We’d been sent on a quest to dispose of a Dread Behemoth that had been terrorizing the locals, and there he was—hiding like a coward behind his fellow monstrosity and taunting me with those beady black eyes of his.”

“Did he give you any trouble?”

“Not nearly as much as the prince did. Noct evidently had worse eyesight than me, because I couldn’t take two steps without having my feet frozen to the ground, no thanks to his poorly aimed Blizzaga spells.”

“I presume you were victorious, seeing as how you’re still alive to tell the tale.”

“Indeed. Can’t say it was worth the effort, though—we couldn’t even enjoy a nice lobster meal afterward, since whatever the creature had gained it size, it had seemingly lost in flavor.”

His heart skips a wayward beat when her fingers slip from his hand and move to rest at the small of his back. “I saw a Karlabos, once,” she says, her voice thoughtful. “At the monster arena in Altissia. What was that place called?”

“Totomostro—also known as the gambling addiction I never knew I had. And before you ask, I’d rather not talk about it.”

Her laughs are carried by the breeze as they halt at the front steps of his apartment. “It’s likely your own fault for losing money. You should know you’re always supposed to bet on the Spiny Speedsters.”

“An error in judgment, to be sure,” he says, as her arms slowly encircle his waist. “Maybe my luck will start to look up from here on out.”

“I’d say it already has.”

He then feels her soft lips brush against his, just as he had felt them touching his own every night after work for the last three weeks; it was getting easier for him to show his affection for her in public, the anxiety of being spotted by perfect strangers growing less and less insistent with each passing day, and the weight of the pendant against his neck hadn’t bothered him in quite some time.

It’s a chaste kiss, nothing terribly overt or ambitious, and it’s over nearly as quickly as it had begun. But he can’t fully bring himself to let go of her this time, not tonight, not like he could before, because the warmth of her body beneath her cardigan pressing against his chest was as addicting as the lure of ten-to-one Totomostro odds, and Ignis had almost forgotten what it was like not to feel so completely and utterly alone.

“Would you care to come inside for a moment?” he asks, scrambling for any excuse that would stay her departure for even one minute more. “I wouldn’t dream of forcing a cup of Ebony on you, but I did make some pastries the other day that could use a proper taste test.”

“I’ll pass on the coffee,” she demurs, “but I suppose I am a bit curious to see how well your baking skills stack up to mine.”

So she drops her hands from his waist, and the strategist’s heart cries out only a little at the travesty before he returns his attention to fishing his keys from his pocket. When he’s managed to finally open the stubborn door—‘stubborn’ in the sense that it wouldn’t open under its own free will when his nervous fingers couldn’t seem to find the correct key—he climbs the narrow stairwell leading to the unit two floors up, Ophelia’s footfalls echoing lightly behind him.

Another ‘stubborn’ door later, and he is stepping into the foyer of his apartment and showing her in. The strategist had never actually seen what the inside of his own home looked like, but he’d signed the lease solely based on the layout; the custom built cabinetry was spacious enough to accommodate his extensive collection of cooking utensils, and the open design of the kitchen flowing into the living area helped him to avoid walking headfirst into any unnecessary walls.

He flips a light switch and hangs his keys on a hook he knows is eye-level and exactly eighteen inches to the right of the front door, listening intently as Ophelia strolls into the space. “This is nice,” she says. “Quite comfortable, all things considered.”

He then moves into the kitchen, frowning slightly as he reaches for a clean plate. “All things considered?”

“One generally doesn’t list ‘bright neon lights encroaching on the living room’ as a must-have when apartment hunting.”

Ignis had almost forgotten about the supposed view from his flat; he’d saved a fortune by renting out this particular unit rather than a west-facing one, since his landlord had struggled to find potential tenants who would be unbothered by the bright EXINERIS Industries sign that glowed annoyingly just beyond his easternmost window. “One of the few perks of being blind,” he comments. “It also helps to save money on electrical, since I don’t even have to use the overhead lights when I’m home alone.”

“I was wondering if I might ask you about that.” A gentle creak echoes from the living room as she makes herself comfortable on a leather sofa. “How long precisely did it take you to regain your mobility after you lost your sight? I’ve seen you prepare complex dishes that someone with four working eyes and six arms couldn’t even manage.”

He retrieves a set of tongs hanging above the sink and opens the refrigerator door. “A couple of years, I suppose. Never underestimate the power of a strategist with an obstinate streak.”

“That’s what they call you, right? I’ve seen it in the newspapers—‘Ignis Scientia, also known as The Strategist’.”

“That’s what they used to call me. About the only strategies I work out nowadays is how best to satisfy Cid’s sweet tooth without having to go out and harvest Ulwaat berries myself.” He selects a pastry off the upper shelf of the fridge, then strides into the living room and stops at the sofa. “Speaking of, give this a try.”

“What is it?”

“Memory Lane Pastry—a Tenebraen specialty.”

The plate in his hand disappears. “Can’t say I’ve ever heard of it.”

“They were a favorite of the prince’s when he was recuperating there as a child,” he says, as he lowers himself onto the couch beside her. “I never could get the recipe quite to his liking, but he’s not exactly around to complain about it any longer.”

Either he is unable to entirely conceal the hint of sadness in his voice, or she is more perceptive than he initially gave her credit for; he hears her shift closer to him on the couch, followed by the sensation of her hand squeezing his knee. “I imagine you must miss him a great deal, considering the sacrifices you made for him.”

It was a different kind of pain, losing Noct; as he rests his arm along the back of the sofa, and his lips press together into a thin line, he concedes to himself that honor of serving the last king of Lucis in his final hours far outweighed the burden of sorrow he still carried on his shoulders. “I’ll spare you the grisly details of the time he drove the Regalia off the top of the Duscaean arches,” he says. “Go on—have a bite.”

She must have sensed his desire not to be bogged down by old memories, because she doesn’t press him for details, and instead removes her hand from his leg to focus on the dessert on her plate. It’s only when he hears her nibbling at the soft crust that he realizes he’d forgotten to set out some napkins; as he ruminates over the most polite and gentlemanly way of offering to lick any wayward crumbs off her lips with his tongue, his ears pick up on an audible gasp beside him.

“Are they to your liking?” he asks. “Or should I just set the contents of my kitchen on fire altogether?”

“These are delightful,” she breathes. “How on Eos have you been hiding these from me all this time?”

“They’re not particularly common in Lucis, although I did happen to learn my recipe from an establishment in Galdin Quay. Ulwaat berries inarguably make a superior filling, but they’re fairly hard to import unless you know exactly which merchant to talk to.”

He then hears her set the empty plate aside. “Really, Ignis—have you considered selling these for Mr. Tostwell? They’d certainly give my father’s Baklava pastry a run for its money.”

“I’m not really the competitive sort.” His nose wrinkles, and he pushes back on the lenses of his visor. “Besides, there’s something about capitalizing on nostalgia that doesn’t quite sit right with me. I suppose I’m getting a touch sentimental in my old age.”

“Come now, don’t be obtuse. You’re hardly old.”

“Maybe not, but these scars aren’t doing my features any favors.”

He suddenly feels her fingertips tracing over the lesion nestled above his right eyebrow. “I like your scars,” she says quietly. “More like marks of distinction, in service to the greater good.”

His spine begins to tingle under her gentle touch. “You are perhaps the only one who finds any measure of value in them.”

“Perhaps,” she echoes.

Her fingers then move to the bridge of his nose, pausing over the small scar there before drifting down his cheek. His mouth opens slightly when she glides a thumb across it; before he can sample the flavor of any powdered sugar still clinging to her skin, however, she removes her digit and replaces it with her soft lips.

He needn’t have worried about the sugar, he surmises, because she tastes like Ulwaat Berries and pastry crust and all the things that made her so delightfully sweet. His hand moves from its resting spot on the back of the sofa to sift through her hair and draw her in close, and he’s rewarded with the sensation of her tongue chasing after his. As the scent of her Sylleblossom perfume swirls in his nostrils and muddles his senses, the strategist yields to her playful probing and fronts his own sensual assault.

They’ve kissed before, but it was never like this; something about it was different, something wholly electrifying, and the nerve endings in his brain are firing impulses at light speed. He feels her palm slip under the collar of his dress shirt and caress the crook of his neck, but before he can reach up and entwine his fingers in hers, she ensnares his wrist and drags his hand down toward her thigh.

But a gentle leg caress evidently wasn’t what she was aiming for, because she doesn’t let go of his arm until she’s guided his hand several inches past the hem of her dress; an inkling of doubt worries away at the back of Ignis’ mind, and he withdraws from her slightly as he breaks their kiss.

The confusion in her voice is obvious. “Is this all right?”

He then retrieves his fingers from the edge of her undergarment and frowns. “Yes, of course.”

“So then, how long are you going to play the consummate gentlemen before you allow me to lead you into the bedroom?”

Her hand is still locked around his wrist; when she makes no move to release him, he gives up trying to extricate himself from her clutches and settles for resting it awkwardly on her knee. “I… don’t want you to think that’s why I invited you up here this evening.”

“I’m the one who’s offering, aren’t I?”

“Er—right.”

“Am I being too forward?”

She finally lets go of his arm, and he lets out a defeated sigh. “It’s not that. It’s just been a rather long time since I’ve been this intimate with anyone.”

“That makes no difference to me.”

“That’s kind of you to say, but, well—ah, you see—”

Scarcely anything was shameful enough to ruffle the strategist’s feathers and leave him at a total loss for words, but the matter of his own deficiencies was admittedly a source of embarrassment. “There is some lingering damage from the trauma I’ve sustained,” he says finally, pushing back on his visor again. “I couldn’t even tell you if the parts still worked properly.”

His remark isn’t precisely accurate, although there had been long stretches of years where Ignis had been unable to achieve anything remotely approaching rigidity between his legs. Just when he had begun to believe his impotence was yet another permanent reminder of the physical sacrifices he had made, however, he’d occasionally wake up in the middle of the night with an erection so painful and acute that the only source of relief he’d been able to find was by submerging himself in an icy cold shower and rubbing one out several times over. And while it had mercifully been several months since his last miserable episode, his body’s natural functions had proven to be more than a little erratic, to say the least.

Ophelia returns her hand to his arm, but it’s not to restrain him against his will, and instead she runs it gently across his shoulder. “There’s only one way to find out.”

He gnaws at the inside of his cheek and hesitates. “I would hate to leave you feeling disappointed, is all.”

“Ignis, you couldn’t disappoint me if you tried.” She then captures his face in her small hands, lowering her voice as she brushes her lips against his ear. “Now, are you going to follow me into your bedroom like a proper gentleman, or do I have to throw you over my shoulder and carry you in there myself?”

He feigns a smile, but doesn’t immediately stand up when he feels her rise from the sofa—partly because he hadn’t expected for things to move so quickly and he wasn’t sure whether he was prepared to bare his broken body to her fully just yet, but mostly because he didn’t want to draw attention to the obvious tenting in his trousers—and it’s only when she begins to tug gently on his wrist that he swallows his reticence and gathers himself to his feet.

But she doesn’t promptly tackle the buttons of his shirt the instant they step foot into the bedroom, nor does she launch herself at him like a rabid Voretooth as her insinuation might’ve suggested; if anything, she seems entirely unhurried in her plot to assess his virility, and simply asks him to remove his shoes while she briefly excuses herself from the room.

“I’m going to freshen up a tad,” she says. “I’ll be just a moment.”

And then she’s gone, and he’s left with nothing but bare feet and a testy groin to distract him from the fears that are currently plaguing his thoughts. Leaping out a window seemed like a disproportionate response to an unusual dilemma, but he can feel the bulging in his pants already starting to soften; when the silence in the bedroom grows increasingly deafening in his ears, and he’s spent five whole minutes calculating the odds of surviving a fall from the nearest fire escape, his mind slowly begins to registers the smell of newly applied Sylleblossom perfume.

He then feels her hands snake around his waist from behind, and when he turns to face her, he discovers she’s removed the cardigan she was wearing earlier; the skin on her arms is soft and velvety smooth, the scent of her floral fragrance both mild on his delicate senses and wholly seductive to the primal part of his brain, and his reservations ebb somewhat when he traces his fingers along her shoulders and collarbone.

But a flicker of panic returns when her own fingers move to his face and touch the sides of his visor, and he seizes her wrists before she is able to fully remove it. “You may want to consider turning out the lights first,” he says. “For your own benefit—I wouldn’t want you to have to stare at my bare face all night.”

“I look forward to staring at your bare face all night,” she teases, brushing his hands aside. “In fact, I’m counting on it.”

There was a deep-seeded insecurity buried somewhere in the depths of the strategist’s psyche, the origins of which could be traced back to long before he had ever lost his sight. Corrective lenses or frosted visor, the absence of the comforting weight across the bridge of his nose made him feel altogether more naked and vulnerable than even the worst torture he had endured during the Hydraean catastrophe. So when Ophelia does finally remove his visor, and he hears the sound of her setting it carefully on the nightstand behind him, Ignis is unable to entirely quell the distress poisoning his insides; he remains paralyzed in place when she caresses his disfigured left eyelid, and it’s only after her hands finally fall from his face that he lets out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

But one anxiety is quickly replaced by another as she fingers the top button of his shirt. “There’s something you ought to know,” he whispers, grasping her by the wrists again to slow her progress. “My injuries, they—well, they’re not limited to my face.”

The strategist is beginning to think she is either braver than Bahamut or more reckless than the Infernian, because her only response to his warning is to touch her lips lightly to his mouth before resuming her efforts. His heart beats hard against his ribcage with each inch of his torso she exposes to air, until there’s nothing left for him to hide behind and she’s pushing his shirt down around his elbows.

She then runs a hand tentatively across the gruesome laceration that bisects him from shoulder to navel. “Does it hurt?” she asks.

He shakes his head wordlessly, and at the back of his mind he wonders how on Eos she is able to stomach the view as he feels her rake her teeth across his pectorals. He doesn’t have time to ponder the enigma for very long, however, because her mouth soon drifts to his right nipple, and the tongue she is circling it with is working wonders to distract him from his own self loathing. He briefly considers staging one last protest—his occluded eye is sensitive enough to note she had not turned the bedroom lights off when she went to remove his visor—but he abandons all argument when her hands drop to the waistband of his trousers.

She hadn’t show the slightest hint of doubt in her resolve until now, and it’s only when several moments pass without hearing the audible whir of his zipper being released that he notices her struggling with the notches of his belt. “Sorry,” she laughs. “It seems you aren’t the only one who’s been through a bit of a dry spell as of late.”

The tension in his chest eases a tad and he offers a her small smile, running his fingertips lightly along her arms until goosebumps appear on the skin there. When she finally manages to discard the stubborn piece of equipment, he feels her grip him gently by the forearm to steady him; he acknowledges her silent signal and steps out of his trousers, kicking them far enough away so as not to be a walking hazard on the path toward the bed.

For a moment, he isn’t quite sure what to do with himself; the mental picture he conjures of standing blind and nearly naked before her doesn’t exactly recall to mind the dignity and decorum of his former self. But she offers up her own answer to his conundrum by wrapping her arms around his waist and leaning into his embrace, and his cheeks warm slightly when he feels her hips pressing against the fabric of his briefs. The tightening there has resumed its arbitrary behavior and is now standing at embarrassingly full attention, but she doesn’t appear to care—the hands gliding down his buttocks being her only outward reaction to his uncontrollable prodding—so he simply enjoys the sensation of her small figure nestled comfortably against his torso before reaching around her back to finger the zipper of her dress.

It hadn’t felt like all that long ago when he was the one quieting the trembling hands of a nervous lover; the strategist of old had always been in control, his nerves seemingly tempered in steel, and there was a period in his life when he would’ve rather been publicly flogged than ever be caught dead showing the slightest sign of weakness. But Ignis Scientia isn’t the same man he was before, and its his own hands that are trembling now, and he bites back a curse as he fights with the leading hook that evidently required the use of an electron microscope to unfasten.

But then he does finally manage to unfasten it, and relief washes over him when the zipper mercifully comes undone without further issue. Ophelia steps away long enough for him to hear the sound of her dress pooling to the floor; he had tried never to get into the habit of resenting his circumstances, but he can’t quite help the bitterness he feels at being denied the rapture of gazing upon her figure with his own two eyes.

But he still has two hands, and she is seemingly well aware of this fact as well, because she guides him to sit on the edge of the bed before grasping his palms and placing them on either side of her waist. He flexes his fingers tentatively, only allowing them to make contact with parts that weren’t explicitly covered up by her undergarments—he finds the flesh of her belly is as delicate as silk and twice as smooth, while the taut muscles of her back ripple and yield as he draws his fingernails lightly down her spine—and he takes the opportunity to nuzzle his nose against the softest part of her neck when she moves to settle herself in his lap.

The wetness he can feel even even through her undergarment is positively tortuous against aching groin, but old habits die hard, and he chokes back the growl threatening to claw its way up his throat. He had always been a quiet lover, because he’d always preferred listening to melody of his partners’ ecstasy over the sound of his own ardor, and it was even more critical to him now that he relied so heavily on his hearing; as he grips her buttocks and angles his hips against her heat, he is rewarded with exactly the moan he was hoping to elicit from her.

So he allows her vocalizations to feed his inquisitiveness and finally lets his idle hands wander, teasing his fingers under the straps of her brassiere while his other hand circles around her torso to tackle the clasp at her back. His grip is steadier now, a little of his former confidence returning each time she presses her lips hungrily to his, and he feels her nails dig into the thickest part of his shoulders when he liberates her from the constricting garment; a moment later, and she’s arching her neck against his open mouth and drawing his hands to her chest to make her insistence known.

As much as he would’ve liked nothing more than to ravage her nipples with his tongue, however, her hips bucking hard against his erection is distracting him from the effort, so he shifts his weight and guides her to lay down on the bed beside him. A frustrated whine escapes her at not having her immediate desires fulfilled, but it’s soon replaced by a whispered gasp when he settles in between her legs and draws his teeth across her belly. His fingers slip under the waistband of the lace separating him from the last of her nakedness, but he doesn’t immediately tear them off in a fit of lust; stoking the flames of passion took time and patience, and although the strategist might’ve been a little out of practice, he had never forgotten the fundamentals of his basic training.

He can’t resist indulging in a smile when he feels her writhing beneath him, and he opens himself fully to the sensations his four other senses are currently experiencing all at once. The scent of her perfume swirls in the air around his nostrils each time he glides a hand across her breasts, his fingertips lingering at her nipples and pinching them lightly until they’ve grow hard against his unyielding touch, while her soft moans reverberate like an aria in his ears. It’s the way she tastes, however, that perhaps ignites his libido the most; the delectable flavor of her skin is a borderline aphrodisiac, and the hardening between his legs strengthens with every inch he comes to closer to stripping her of her panties.

But if he thought she’d immediately wrap her thighs around his neck like angry Malboro tentacles the instant he freed her from her underwear, he is sorely mistaken. “Ignis,” she says hoarsely, as he draws the lacy accoutrement down around her ankles. “Consider trading places with me for a moment. This was my idea, after all.”

He brushes his lips against the inside of her thighs before drawing them over each of his shoulders. “You wouldn’t deny a starving man a few bread crumbs, now would you?”

His desire to please her has less to do with wanting to oversee the direction of their activities, and more to do with logistics; the evening wouldn’t be a completely wasted effort if he could at the very least bring her to climax, in the likely event that his body eventually betrayed him. It helped that the single greatest joy the strategist generally took in life was the sampling of new, unexplored flavors, and he doesn’t waste any time burying his maimed face into the warmth of her flesh.

Every partner tasted a little different, but no more or less decadent than any other, and one of the perks of having a palate as sophisticated as his own was being able to distinguish the subtle nuances between each one. He feels her legs relax around his shoulders as he nuzzles her sensitive hood, and his mind picks apart the fragrances of her natural odors and Sylleblossom perfume much like he would if he were nosing a glass of fine wine. She flinches slightly when he presses a rough tongue against her folds, but he doesn’t yield or shy away; he probes onward instead, allowing her soft gasps to entice his exploration further.

Even if his better days were behind him, the strategist was always a man with a plan, and tonight is no different; as he settles into a measured pace with his tongue, and he feels her thighs finally begin to tighten around his shoulders, he moves to wrap a hand around the back of her knee; the artery there is close enough to the surface of the skin to detect the slightest fluctuations in her rising pulse—the human body surrendered all the knowledge a lover could possibly require in order activate a pleasurable release, if one were shrewd enough to know just how to decipher its secrets—and he slips his other hand between her legs and presses a finger inside of her, alternating the pressure on her nub between his thumb and his mouth.

His dedication to maintaining a methodical cadence quickly begins to yield positive results; he can hear her breath shortening in her lungs, the whimpers escaping her lips wavering in volume depending on the pressure he is bringing to bear against her hood. It may have been eons since his last intimate encounter with anyone, but the muscle memory is still there, and as she rakes her fingers through his tawny hair, he can feel her walls trembling with each of his deft caresses. He focuses most of his efforts on employing his tongue, but he can’t resist the urge to nibble gently at her hardening nub, and it takes all of his willpower not to ravage it altogether every time her gasps echo in his ears.

At the back of his mind, though, he knows he’s losing himself in the moment; he’d be of better service to her if he could rein himself in and extend her ecstasy for just a little longer, but the stalwart discipline that had defined the strategist in years past is in direct conflict with his selfish desire to hear his own name on her lips. Which is exactly what is on them right now, because his mouth is pressed hard against her sex, his tongue lashing back and forth against her quivering hood, and his fingers are buried to the knuckle in her warm and dripping fluids. The sharp tug of his hair being yanked on and the vice grip her legs now have over his neck seem only to heighten the fervor that is overtaking his senses, and he casts aside the last of his restraint in his unwavering mission to push her over the final edge.

“Ignis,” she whispers, her fingers nearly tearing his hair out. “Please, I—”

There was something wholly otherworldly about bringing a woman to orgasm; the way Ophelia’s body writhes beneath his touch without rhyme or reason and entirely of its own accord was a curious sight for any man to behold. But Ignis doesn’t immediately cease his ministrations the instant he feels her walls clench tightly around his fingers, and instead keeps his tongue pressed firmly against her nub as he carries her through each wave of her climax, until he feels the tension in his scalp and around his neck suddenly ease and her body grows still on the bed.

Only then does he grudgingly pry himself away from her warmth, running a cheek tenderly against her thigh before moving to rest beside her on the comforter. He feels her arms snake around his neck and draw him in close, and the only sound that can be heard for a long moment is her labored exhales and her heartbeat resuming a more measured pace inside her chest.

He then feels a finger brush the lock of hair that falls across his forehead. “If you ask me,” she says quietly, “I wouldn’t have said you were out of practice in the least.”

He smiles softly and runs a hand along her bare arm. “This retired strategist still has a few methods left at his disposal.”

“Care to let me show you some of my own methods?”

“Hm, maybe not. It’s getting rather late, and I’m feeling a bit tired.”

It’s a lie, and he knows it’s a lie, and he also knows that she knows it’s a lie; she guides him to roll over onto his back before pressing an open palm against the flesh that is still—mercifully—rigid between his legs. “Then perhaps you’d agree to lie back and let me do a bit of the legwork.”

She somehow manages to push his briefs down around his ankles before he even has time to object. “Really, Ophelia—it’s fine. You know how irritable Mr. Tostwell gets when any of his employees are late for wor—”

But his words are cut off by the sharp hiss that escapes his lungs when he feels the sensation of her tongue slowly circling the head of his shaft. It had been an eternity and a day since he’d exposed his manhood to anything other than ice water or his own calloused hand, and he bites down on the inside of his cheek so hard and so suddenly he can taste blood.

If he thought that would be the extent of her delightful torture, however, he quickly begins to realize the worst is yet to come; she was merely priming his equipment, evidently, because her mouth lingers on his aching cock only long enough to deposit a copious amount of saliva there before she is straddling his waist like an armored paladin and guiding him inside of her with a gentle hand.

The flavor of blood intensifies on his tongue as he bites down on the urge to scream; his eyes roll back against his closed eyelids and he arches himself against her heat, a warmth that is at once both comfortable and inviting yet so searingly hot it feels like he is quenching his flesh-and-blood sword in a vat of boiling liquid. His breath escapes him and he gasps for air, and it’s only when she presses a palm to his forehead that he is able to regain control over his senses—but only just a little, because she’s already beginning to rock her hips, and it takes everything in his power not to immediately fire his empty rounds inside of her right then and there. He gropes for her arms in an attempt to curtail her momentum—she isn’t even moving that fast, he concedes, but anything quicker than a snail’s pace would almost assuredly bring an abrupt and embarrassing end to the evening—and she responds to his flailing by leaning over his chest and pressing her mouth hard against his.

His fingers sift through her hair, and for a moment he forgets altogether that he is blind and broken and a bitter husk of his old self, because he can see her, somehow; maybe not with his eyes, but in his mind he can envision the lithe body that fits together with his like pieces of a puzzle, can hear the smile in her voice when she moans aloud, can feel the warmth and kindness emanating from every cell and fiber of her being, and Ignis doesn’t need the use of his sight to recognize it was undoubtedly the work of the Six that set her path on a collision course with his.

Heartwarming as the sentiments may be, however, they’re little help in the fight against the growing insistence in his loins; he doesn’t know how much longer he can hold fast against her jostling, and if he doesn’t take matters into his own hands soon, he might find out a little sooner than he prefers. So he slips a hand around her waist and takes firm hold, rolling her onto her back without disturbing the union of his cock buried deep within her cunt.

But being on top has its disadvantages, the strategist suddenly—and regretfully—surmises, because now she doesn’t have the annoying nuisance of the bed getting in the way of her legs. When he feels her ankles lock around his hips to accommodate his girth more fully, and the telltale sign of his own imminent climax pulses at the base of his pelvis, he forces himself to a halt.

“I’m sorry,” he pants, desperate to delay the inevitable. “I—give me just a moment, if you would.”

He feels her nose nuzzle his damp cheek, followed by the sensation of her lips pressing lightly against his own. He yields to her kiss in an effort to distract himself from his own hypersensitivity afflicting every inch of his flesh, but the fingernails she is dragging up his spine is causing the nerves in his lower back to tingle, and he lets out a frustrated growl as the carnal side of his brain wrenches free will away from the rational one.

His hips move without thinking, his thrusts growing more erratic as her hands find his fingers and entwine them with her own. There was a time in his life that being in control was the difference between life and death, and that losing firm grip over himself meant risking the safety and wellbeing of the people he loved; that time has long since passed, however, and not even the Knights of the Round could save him now, because the blood locked away in the hard tissues of his shaft have reached a saturation point, the hormones flooding his brain sending the appropriate signals to direct the proper flow of seminal fluid, and he is suddenly spilling his hot seed inside of a woman for the first time in over a decade.

But not even a whisper escapes his lips when he climaxes, because old habits really did die hard, and instead he simply allows his body to relay the messages he cannot adequately express vocally himself. She holds him tightly in her arms through his final throes, raking a gentle hand through his hair and brushing her lips across the light perspiration dotting his forehead, until the last of his strength fails him and his biceps begin to tremble under the strain of his own weight.

For a long moment, neither one of them moves; the stillness of the bedroom is in sharp contrast to his screaming pulse galloping throughout every vein and capillary of his body. Then he feels Ophelia push back on him slightly, followed by the sensation of her fingertips tracing the outline of his jaw. “So much for not being the touchy-feely sort.”

He finally finds enough strength to withdraw from her, and pushes himself upright on the edge of the bed. “Right.”

“You clearly had nothing to worry about. Seems to me all the parts work just fine, after all.”

He then rises from the bed and moves to open the nearest window; whether it was merely a coincidence of his namesake, Ignis wasn’t sure, but his skin always felt like it was on fire after making love, and suddenly the room feels rather asphyxiating. “I suppose not.”

The worry in her voice is evident. “Is everything all right?”

His feature crumple into a frown as he leans his head out the open window. The humid breeze of nighttime Lestallum is doing little to lower his internal body temperature, and he narrows his eyes against the glare of the neon EXINERIS sign he can sense off in the distance. “Yes, of course.”

But he’s not all right, not really, because as the chaos of the last few lustful minutes begins to clear from his mind, and his feet slowly return to this plane of existence, one singular thought turns over and over in his head: What have I done?

It’s her earnestness that defines her, and he knows it, which is why he isn’t surprised in the least at her next words. “I can’t very well put your mind at ease if you don’t tell me what’s bothering you. Spit it out.”

It wasn’t Ophelia’s fault; he’d always been like this, growing ever more aloof in the aftermath of intimate relations, even when he was younger and the only thing at stake was his reputation, and even—nay, especially—when he was with the one who visited him in his dreams, because while chaste kisses and benign handholding were relatively harmless in the grand scheme of things, there was something about consummating a relationship that put a spotlight on the harsher realities of life.

He gives up on his effort at cooling off and heaves a heavy sigh, retrieving his trousers from the floor as he makes his way back toward the edge of the bed. “I can’t give you what you want, Ophelia.”

“You don’t even know what I want.”

“I don’t think you are fully aware of the challenges that lie ahead. I’d rather not put someone in a position where they have to double as my caretaker.”

“You seem to be under the impression that I am unable to make my own decisions,” she snaps. “And besides—there isn’t a thing I can’t do that I haven’t seen you do twice as well.”

“I can’t read. I can’t drive. I can’t even father a bloody child.”

Her ire suddenly dissipates, and she pauses. “You can’t?”

He resorts to stepping into his pant legs to hide his scowl. “I told you, my injuries are not limited to my face.”

She grows quiet on the bed behind him for a long while; it’s only when he is sure his argument has likely spurred her to silently weep into a pillow that he feels her fingers reach out and touch his shoulder. “I’m not asking for a marriage proposal—I’m only asking you to take things one day at a time. Preferably with me.”

A younger, more prideful version of himself might’ve deflected her advances, letting her down gently with the same words he’d used on countless other lovers in the past. But the sincerity in her voice strikes an annoyingly sensitive chord inside of him, and he’s more tired than he used to be; tired of the aches and pains of his lingering injuries, tired of carrying the grief of losing Noct and the redhead and the hundreds of thousands of people he couldn’t save from the Empire and the starscourge, and—most of all—tired of maintaining the walls that still guarded his wounded heart.

So he swallows his dismay and turns to face her, covering the hand she has on his shoulder with his own. “I would hate to be the reason your prospects wind up so limited. You have such a bright future ahead of you, and I feel like I would serve only to weigh you down.”

Her fingers lace with his, and she leans to rest her head against his chest. “Are you happy being alone, Ignis?”

“Not particularly.”

“That makes two of us, then. And if I had to take an educated guess, I’d say there there’s scarcely a person who has ever crossed paths with you who didn’t think you deserved to be happy—not Noctis, not her, not anyone.”

He thinks back to what Cid had said to him, about something tying him down here in Lestallum; maybe there was and maybe there wasn’t, and maybe one day he would eventually return to Insomnia and resurrect his hopes and dreams that had died there all those years ago.

But maybe there was actually something worth staying here for, a seed worth planting, a relationship worth cultivating. The weight of his skull necklace feels as light as a feather now, and the scent of Ophelia’s Sylleblossom perfume is unlocking a long-forgotten door inside his heart. “Perhaps you’re right,” he says simply.