#virgil is overrated

[idontknowreallywhy]

Resurface 22 - Rescue

What went before

In which 11 year old Scott’s physics and construction methods are put under a little strain…

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“Helmet on, Scotty!”

Scott paused mid-clamber into the kayak and came back to take his his cycle helmet from Virgil, fastening it on before giving a big thumbs up. Virgil tried to tighten the strap under his own chin but his hands were sweaty and clumsy and he was relieved when Scotty’s long nimble fingers appeared and made it just right. Scott knocked gently on the top of the helmet just like Dad always did and they both chanted “Use your head - Use a helmet.”

As his brother climbed into the seat at the front the flying machine wobbled alarmingly. Virgil wondered if it might have been better to have launched from a flatter part of the roof but… well Scott said it had to be high and this was the highest bit. Too late now.

“Ok, can you steady her for me?”

Virgil nodded. Then squeaked a “yes” as he realised Scott was looking elsewhere. He clutched the back edge of the kayak and pushed downwards using his own weight to counter his brother’s. He glanced at the safety line wrapped around the chimney and secured with a tumble hitch knot - luckily that was a knot he did know and so he knew how to quickly release it when Scotty gave him the signal. Not yet though, he’d need to be in the boat first.

A crescendo of whining filled his ears as Scott started the lead drone and the rest of the swarm picked up the signal and followed. Sure enough the nose of the kayak lifted slightly into the air, so instead of pointing straight down the pitch of the roof it now looked off into the distance.

Maybe the math did work after all?

Scott looked back at him, eyes aflame with excitement. Virgil couldn’t help grinning back - they were going to do this! At his brother’s nod he climbed carefully into the back of the kayak, and settled into the seat, bracing his feet against the footrest and his knees against the sides.

Scott looked back and gave him a nearly-actual-wink “Ready First Officer Virgie?”

“Ready Captain Scott!”

Scott twisted back to face the front and stuck three fingers in the air, then two, one… he swooshed his hand downwards and Virgil pulled on the working end of the knot and it unravelled, smooth as anything.

The flying machine jolted forwards and downwards and Virgil’s stomach jumped into his neck but then the front wobbled back up again as the drones increased their intensity to fight the sudden pull of gravity. He could feel the part of the kayak immediately under his bottom go thud-thud-thudthudthudthud down the ridges of the tiles until it stopped halfway. The drones strained as Scott increased the power and pushed them forward as well as up and there was a tugging feeing which made Virgil wonder whether the flying machine was trying to escape from the claws of a monster.

Then there was a crack which made him jump and then a tearing noise and the machine slid forwards suddenly, but one of the wings stayed behind and everything tilted sideways. The drones were swaying wildly, all terrifying spinning blades and their pitch raised up another notch to frantic and it filled Virgil’s head with stinging fuzz. He couldn’t help squealing in fear but that was nothing compared to the howl of pain and horror from in front of him.

Without even thinking he dived forward and wrapped his arms around Scott’s waist just as the kayak flipped over and dumped Virgil on the roof tiles. His legs were trapped beneath it. His arms and neck and back and every muscle in him screamed at the sudden strain and he couldn’t work out why but just squeezed his eyes shut and held on tight because as long as they were together it would be alright.

The outer edge of the gutter was pressing into his cheek and Virgil fought against the relentless monster that was trying to pull Scott away from him.

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[jaratedeguadalupe]

hc that remus is actually a pretty good cook but chooses to make the most nauseating, nuclear sludge of a meal for absolutely no reason

[prince-rowan-of-the-forest]

Was watching the earlier SaSi episodes yesterday and got inspired to draw these idiots.

Twink Virgil is overrated give me tall buff Virgil.

He absolutely loves tormenting Roman I'm sure of it (I'm sure his reactions are priceless lmao)!

[incorrectsanderscharactersquotes]

Virgil: Schrödinger’s cat is overrated. If you wanna see something that’s both dead and alive you can talk to me any time of the day.

[muppetable]

give me a hot take of a fandom you're in

i have MANY hot takes of many fandoms i'm in, but as this is mainly a sanders sides blog im putting a bunch of hot takes for sasi here

-remus sanders has no angst and if he gets any it won't be for a while

-logicality and prinxiety are cute, but INSANELY overrated and outshine more niche ships like intruality or anxceit

-janus shouldn't have fangs, if anyone should it's remus. fangs don't fit with janus's vibe- cunning, condescending- despite him being a snake. remus however, is chaotic and loud, could be aggressive if he felt like it, so fangs fit him really well. i can kinda see virgil with them too, and while it's fun drawing fangs on janus i just don't think they fit him.

-roman is a bad person. despite going through so much character development, he's still garbage to logan and occasionally virgil. patton is the only side other than himself he isn't a bitch to. in this essay i will

-logan should get his own solo song (and with all the songs in the finale thomas is mentioning, he's sure to get one, but if anyone gets one it needs to be him)

-character thomas is underrated

-patton's character arc is overlooked as hell.

-moving on (in full) was the most emotionally conflicting episode.

[loopstagirl]

Fight Club, Part 1

It didn’t matter how nice the cell was. It was still a cell.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, John dropped his head into his hands. It had been four days since he’d been shoved in here, the door firmly locked against him. Three times a day, a slot opened and a meal was pushed in. It certainly wasn’t up to his grandmother’s standard, but he couldn’t call it prison slop, either. A full pitcher of water was provided with each meal and his ten-by-ten room even had a toilet and a sink positioned behind a partition to provide privacy from the cameras.

But it was still a cell.

And John had no idea where his big brother was.

It would’ve been easier if they were taken while on a mission. Then, John could’ve started guessing what they wanted and opened negotiations. Being a communications expert meant he’d trained and practiced for every scenario he could think of. Of course, in his practices, he’d always been talking his brothers out of trouble, just like always. He’d never practiced being the one locked up.

But they’d been in New York. A routine trip to the offices to show their faces and pretend they had an active interest in the business to warrant being on the pay-roll, followed by some downtime that had taken a combination of bribery and blackmail to get Scott to agree to it.

Maybe his brother had a point?

Letting out a soft groan of frustration, John dropped his hands, stared at the floor for a few seconds before starting to pace. At this rate, he was going to wear a hole with the amount of pacing he’d been doing. Four days he’d been here, and he hadn’t seen his brother since they’d been bundled into the back of a van, the gun to John’s head ensuring Scott’s good behaviour.

John pounded his fist on the door. “Where is he?” he yelled. “Let me see my brother!”

He didn’t even know if Scott was still alive. No. He couldn’t think like that. Scott had to be. It was Scott, after all. The guy thought he was invincible and given the near misses he’d had over the years; his brothers were starting to believe it.

It was the same demand John had yelled multiple times a day since he’d been thrown in here. He figured it was more likely to get a reaction than asking to be released. Every time, there had just been silence. He’d glimpsed a long, concrete corridor when they’d ripped the bag from his head, but that’d been all he got the chance to see before this cell became his home. He had no idea where they were.

His watch, cell and even shoes were missing. If they’d been on a mission, they’d have their edible trackers. One of them would’ve had time to swallow it when they’d been taken. But… vacation. No tracker. No wonder Scott thought they were overrated.

Turning back from the door, not expecting an answer, John jumped when he heard a bolt being drawn back. It was ironic: give him the most up-to-date digital lock and he’d have been out of there on day one. Give him an old-fashioned bolt and he hadn’t stood a chance.

He quickly backed into the middle of the room, hands held out away from his sides, palms facing the door, trying to be as unthreatening as possible. It didn’t matter why they’d come for him; this was his chance to get answers.

A brute of a man walked through the door. He was taller than even Scott, broader than Virgil and his misshapen nose was just one of the signs of too many lost fights. He was a walking arsenal and John’s gaze flickered across the weapons before he could stop himself. He forced himself to meet the man’s eyes instead.

“I want to see my brother,” he said. His voice was calm, in control, but authoritative.

“We gathered as much.” The man had a nasally voice, a sneer on his face. “Thought you’d be more interested in why you’re here.”

“I assume you’ve made some kind of demand from our father?” John figured it would be the same old story.

“No.”

“No?”

“Nope. Don’t care about your old man. Don’t care about your brother. You, though…”

A cold trickle ran down John’s back. Scott was ex-military: it made sense for a kidnapper to want him, even if information would be outdated. But him?

“Why’d you want me?” He tried to keep his voice steady, disguise his pounding heart. He was supposed to be on the other side of a radio in a hostage situation, not the actual hostage!

“You’re a talented man, John Tracy. Real helpful of you to put such a detailed bio on the back of your books. Like you just sent us a resume.”

“What do you want from me?” John asked quietly. His publisher had thought it was a good idea to list his achievements: John knew he’d had a good reason for fighting it.

“We’ve got some stuff that needs building,” the man said, evasively. He didn’t need to say more.

“Weapons. You want me to build you weapons? Not my area of expertise.”

“You’ll find these ones are special.”

John didn’t care if it was a wooden club. “I won’t do it.”

“We haven’t asked you to, yet.”

“I-,” John paused. That was a good point. For four days, he’d been left in here. No demands; no visitors; no attempt to coerce him into doing what they wanted. But maybe they didn’t need to threaten him. Not when….

“Where’s Scott?” John asked, his voice finally betraying a tremor. “Where’s my brother?”

“Now we’re getting somewhere.” The man looked delighted that John had asked. “He’s protecting you.”

The confusion must have shown on his face. The man looked behind him.

“Billy!”

Another man came skulking out of the shadows. There was a set of magnetic cuffs dangling from his hand.

“You want us to take you to your brother?”

John nodded.

“I can’t hear you.”

The look on the man’s face told John what he wanted: for John to beg. But this was Scott – his pride meant nothing if the result was ensuring that his brother was okay.

“Please,” he said. He kept eye contact with his captor. “Take me to my brother. I beg you.”

There was a sickening grin on his face but he snapped his fingers at Billy. The man approached, and John offered no resistance as his wrists were locked into the cuffs behind his back. A sharp shove in his back had him stumbling forward and the men set a hard pace, clearly hoping he’d fall behind.

But despite being on the space station most of the time, John still had the fitness of a member of International Rescue. It took all his control not to leave them behind and follow meekly. The more they underestimated him, the better.

They walked for a few moments in silence, but then John became aware of a noise from somewhere up ahead. It sounded like a roar, and his mind instantly went to machinery and what other technology these criminals were harbouring. But after a few more steps, he heard it for what it was: the roar of a crowd fired up.

His pace unwillingly slowed. He didn’t do well in large groups of people and his heart-race was already picking up.

Scott.

He dug his nails into his palms, using the sharp pain to try and keep the panic at bay. A few deep breaths helped settle his racing heart and John tried not to think about what they were about to walk into. All that mattered was Scott. And given the men wanted him to build something, he doubted they’d let the crowd get too close and risk harm coming to him. Not yet, anyway.

Billy opened a door and John found himself on a small platform. There was a pit below him, surrounded by makeshift stands full of hollering men and women. When he looked down into the pit properly, a small gasp escaped him.

There was a large cage taking up most of the space.

But that wasn’t the issue.

Scott was in that cage. Even from John’s height, he could see his brother was covered in blood. He was favouring his left side, holding his arm stiffly and didn’t appear to be putting his weight properly on his right leg.

As the crowd roared again, John realised there was another man in the cage. A huge, muscular man, tattoos rippling over a broad chest as he stirred up the crowd. John could tell by Scott’s stance that he was watching carefully, waiting.

The brute took a step towards Scott, who let him come. When the man was closer, John’s brother sprang into action, a fast flurry of blows that left the giant reeling.

But John had seen Scott fight before. His hits were lacking power, his speed a fraction of what it normally was, and when his opponent got in a hit of his own, Scott went down hard. The crowd roared.

“Stop this!” John cried, turning to his captor. “He’s going to kill him!”

“No, he won’t.” The same sickening grin was back on his face. “Just watch.”

With Billy’s hand on his shoulder, holding him still, and his hands locked behind his back, there was nothing John could do but obey. Sickened, dread cursing through him, he watched the fight.

Scott was in a bad way. As he took another hit, John found himself praying that, for once, Scott would stay down.

But, of course, he didn’t. He let the brute approach, waited until he was in reach, and then delivered another few blows that John couldn’t follow, and his opponent collapsed.

The crowd hissed their displeasure as their champion lay groaning on the floor. Some jeered at him to get up, but the man didn’t. Scott straightened, turning slowly as he glared his hatred at the crowd. But as he turned to face the platform, the little amount of colour left in his face drained and he stumbled. Unable to support himself, he dropped to his knees as he stared up at John.

John tried to smile. Tried to tell his brother without words that he was okay, that nothing had happened to him.

Someone shoved a cup of water through the bars at Scott. He snatched it and downed it in one go, eyes closing in momentary relief.

“What is this?” John turned on his captor. “Let him go! Look at him – he’s hurt. He needs help.”

“He’s got five minutes until the next fight, then we’ll call it a day.”

“You’re making him fight again? Why are you doing this? What do you want from him?”

If they’d taken John because they wanted him to build a weapon, he wondered if Scott was supposed to be the person wielding it.

“Nothing.” The man was grinning again. “He wasn’t supposed to be with you. We have no use for him at all.”

The words sent a chill down John’s spine. If they planned to let Scott go, they would have already done it. Hell, they wouldn’t have taken him in the first place.

“Why’re you doing this?” he asked, his voice quiet. “What did you mean when you said Scott was protecting me?”

The man looked delighted that John had asked.

“As long as he keeps winning, we’ll leave you alone.”

“What?”

“As soon as he loses, we’ll come for you. We’re patient men – we’ve waited this long to get our hands on someone who can code for us. We can wait a few more days to have some fun. No one can keep winning.”

John stared down at his brother. Scott was never going to stay down when he knew that he was all that stood between John and the men that were doing this to them.

“I’ll do it,” John said quickly. “I’ll build whatever it is you need me to build, just let him go.”

The boss looked at him with an amused expression. “Did you miss the part about having some fun? You’ll build our weapons, sure. But when we say so.”

He turned back to the cage. “Next!”

Scott hadn’t taken his eyes off John for the entire exchange. John stepped forward, helpless, knowing he couldn’t reach his brother even if he didn’t have his hands tied behind his back as another person stepped into the cage and the shouts and jeers started up again.

Scott offered a small smile, visibly took a breath, and turned to face his new opponent.

“Don’t do it!” John yelled. “They won’t hurt me: they need me. Surrender, Scott, it’s okay!”

A hard kick to the back of his leg made John drop to his knees. He pulled fruitlessly against the cuffs, fighting to get free. He tried to rise, do anything that would prove a distraction and take their focus off Scott, but a hand fisted in his hair, holding him still and forcing him to look at the cage.

“That’s enough drama from you,” the boss snarled. He lifted his hand, giving a signal for the fight to start.

But something had changed. Even from the angle he was at, John could see that Scott had stood a little straighter, his limbs held looser and a fierce look on his face.

The boss saw it too. He didn’t drop his hand, but stood there, frowning. Then he glanced at John, struggling in Billy’s grip, and sighed.

“Take him back to his cell,” he ordered to the disappointment of the crowd.

John looked at him, not sure what was going on. The boss rolled his eyes.

“Any fool could see he just got flooded with adrenaline seeing you like this. He’d have won that fight in seconds; not my idea of fun. Take him back.”

Billy pulled him to his feet. John opened his mouth to demand to be taken to Scott, when another voice broke in.

“Kemp!”

The man was calling down from the cage, and the boss turned, irritated. John glanced that way as well, and realised three men were struggling to remove Scott.

“What?”

“He won’t go quiet like. Wants to see the kid.”

John rolled his eyes. Three degrees, a best-selling novel and a guest lecturer at numerous universities, not to mention a key member of International Rescue, and he’d been relegated to ‘kid’.

Kemp looked at him. Then he looked back at Scott.

“You were about to demand the same thing, weren’t you?”

Part 2

[aorish]

Actually That Good: Aeschylus, Plato, Shakespeare, Keats, Wilde, Borges

Fine But Overrated: Homer, Sophocles, Euripides, Shelley, Byron

Worthless Dreck: Cicero, Virgil, Ovid, Horace, Terence, Seneca

[alastors-airwaves]

Lucifer, you and Alastor should set up a playdate!!!! Once Virgil is older of course but you should start setting it up right away!

Alastor: Why would I lower myself and allow my perfect little darling to play with that overrated tech’s offspring?

[fluffyzoey]

for the character ask thing mischa (or virgil (the rat))

Virgil would be pretty hard sooo. Mischa.

First impression

I thought he was just kinda goofy.

Impression now

Still goofy, with added angst potential

Favorite moment

His line about the squeeze keys after Noel’s Lament 😭😭😭

Idea for a story

I don’t currently have one but. When I do, he is either Angst Man or the oblivious asshole

Unpopular opinion

Not about him really but the song Talia is kinda overrated

Favorite relationship

NISCHA!!!!

Favorite headcanon

Mischa is just an animal person. All of Ricky’s cats LOVE HIM.

[i-will-physically-fight-you]

Gibbous Chapter 11: Never Meant to Make You Bleed

Chapter Title: Never Meant to Make You Bleed

Chapter Summary: Above anything else in life, Remy was a free spirit. He was a “Live-laugh-love” kinda guy, an embodiment of “Fuck it, You Only Live Once.”

Which was why he walked into his favorite local coffee shop, looked the barista directly in the eye and said, “I’ll take a 32 ounce blended Caramel Macchiato with three extra pumps of caramel, a half-pump of chocolate and eight extra espresso shots please.”

Pairings: background platonic sleepxiety (it’s discussed but Virgil is not actually in this chapter)

Chapter Word-Count: 5.9k

Warnings: Discussions of Mind Suggestions/Hypnosis (Enthrallment), Vomit Mention, Brief Descriptions of Violence, Arguing, Depression, Disassociation, Morally Grey Remy

Previous | Present | Next   AO3 Link 

A Gibbous update?? Within three months of the last one?? Christmas miracles DO happen!

This chapter is a bit of interlude between last chapter and the next upcoming few chapters--think of it as a surprise tool that will help us later ;)

Above anything else in life, Remy was a free spirit. He was a “Live-laugh-love” kinda guy, an embodiment of “Fuck it, You Only Live Once.”

Which was why he walked into his favorite local coffee shop, looked the barista directly in the eye and said, “I’ll take a 32 ounce blended Caramel Macchiato with three extra pumps of caramel, a half-pump of chocolate and eight extra espresso shots please.”

Willow, the barista, quirked a slitted eyebrow, “Are you sure you don’t want the eleventh espresso shot today?”

“Nah, I only order it with eleven shots if I’m in need of a creative pick-me-up,” Remy winked, “Ten shots is my usual usual.”

“Alright, one moment,” The barista turned to the side and barked, “Cade! It’s ten today, not eleven!” before facing Remy with a blank gaze, “That’ll be $10.49.”

“How are we feeling about pennies today?”

“How are you feeling like being stabbed?”

Remy considered this for a moment. He stuffed the bag of pennies away. The barista shook their head, the corner of their mouth twitching just the slightest bit. Remy knew from his frequent patron visits that it was their closest thing to a laugh while in customer service mode.

“Here you are, as always please know we are not held liable for any subsequent heart attacks you might endure from drinking this thing!” Cade announced, presenting the drink with a flourish.

“Mmhhmmm,” Remy took a long sip, “it’ll take more than some espresso to fuck me up. I’m unfuckable.”

“Don’t you mean unkillable?” Willow asked.

“I said what I said.”

“Riiiight, okay, well please try not to die on store premises!” Cade said in his sing-songy customer service voice, “I do not want to deal with your decaying corpse driving away business.”

“Excuse me, my corpse would make a fantastic Halloween decoration and you know it,” Remy said, dropping a $20 into the Jack O’Lantern themed tip jar, “anyways, peace out babes, I’m gonna go haunt a corner table to read my shitty biology textbook.”

Cade and Willow called out a passing farewell as he walked away to do that. He stared down at the horrendously inaccurate depiction of a selkie’s anatomy and definitely did not think about anything else but his homework.

Okay, well, that was a tiiiiiny lie. Just a bit. He couldn’t help it—was ten espresso shots really that lethal to humans? Or was it a case of humans being way too overly dramatic? See, Remy could consume human food and beverages, but most of them were really bland unless they contained a strong taste to them.

It couldn’t be that deadly, though, because Remy has never heard of a human dying of a caffeine dose. Oh well, it wasn’t like it truly mattered, though—it would take much more than some caffeine to kill him. He would know this after the numerous attempts on his life over the centuries.

In Remy’s completely honest opinion, the whole indefinite “not-being dead” thing? Overrated.

It was why for all his nonchalant candor he refrained from openly discussing it. There were assumptions people made when they found out you’re like a bazillion years old.

Like the idea you’re some wizened, wise being for one. Which don’t get him wrong, when you live for a long, long, long time, you do learn a lot of invaluable life lessons. Like, maybe, don’t invest everything you own into stocks because even if you are an undead being, you will still be hurting losing it all in a stock market crash a century later.

However, it was stupid to think that wisdom came from being centuries old. There were four-year-olds Remy met with more wisdom than any particularly old wizards named Merlin could give.

Being centuries old just meant that you perpetually relearned the same damn life lessons over and over again because you kept forgetting the stinging pain of learning them the first time around.

So, nah, Remy didn’t think of himself being wise—especially when there were a lot more stupid mistakes to his name than the collective living human population. Which led into the second assumption—that Remy held the blueprints on the meaning of life, the universe and everything. Or in other words, he had any idea what he was doing in life.

…Gurl. Gurl, he decided to go to art school on a whim, he barely knew what day it was, did it look like he had his shit together? In fact, that was the secret of being old—the knowledge that nobody, including centuries-old vampires, ever had their shit together and despite the dictations of society there was no “proper way” to live. A secret that took Remy a dumbass long time to learn.

The third most common assumption was that if you’re centuries-old, you had to be obscenely rich. Like swimming in a vault full of golden coins like Scrooge McfuckingDuck rich. And sure, that was a point in Remy’s life where he had that. Centuries ago, where he thought power, fame, and fortune was all that mattered in life. Now, he was completely apathetic to any of that (And no, it absolutely wasn’t because he lost all of that in a stock market crash).

“So, then, what’s immortality really like then?” They’d demand.

Remy would smile, taking a long sip of his drink as he said something innocuous as “Well, for one, vampires are not immune to back pain.”

He didn’t talk about the indescribable gut-punching feeling of waking up one day and realizing you couldn’t remember the names of long-deceased loved ones. He didn’t talk about working yourself into a panic attack trying to grasp whether or not you were the same person today as you were a hundred years ago, nevertheless five-hundred or a thousand years ago. He didn’t talk about how hard it was to cling to good memories and how tough it was to rid your mind of the bad ones.

None of that was never what they wanted to hear and never what he wanted to reveal.

It was why he enjoyed “playing” human as it were. He found humans and their petty, meaningless drama entertaining. Like, hell yeah let’s start drinking coffee as an act of rebellion against a tax placed on our favorite beverage. Or hell yeah let’s make up new paint colors and ban a certain asshole artist from using them after he trademarked exclusive rights to a specific paint color.

Wealth and power had nothing in comparison to having a front row seat to Ellen’s revenge quest against the HOA through malicious compliance.

It also came with the added bonus of being able to piss off the High Elders by choosing to live among humans rather than mingle with vampiric society. The best part? He’d quantifiably done nothing the past few centuries or so. At least nothing they found to their liking. He knew those bastards had to be seething that they couldn’t do anything about it. He mostly didn’t care about it though.

Frankly in Remy’s opinion very little in his life mattered outside of two things:

   Knowing about the Drama

   Being the Drama

Those were the two things that kept him present in life—anything else? Well, to use a human expression, it simply bored him to sleep. Oh yeah, that was the fourth most common assumption—that it’d be impossible to ever get bored as a quasi-immortal being.

Which trust him, it was waaaay easier than you’d think. There was only so much knowledge one could glean before it all became cluttered up and samey in your brain. Mixing together all the colors imaginable didn’t make one super special cool color—it just made a color of muddish, muted ugly sludge.

Being bored was dangerous. If he was a better person, perhaps he’d put his efforts towards world peace. He thought about it, at times. Then his mind would drift towards how death was an inevitable, all-consuming force. All things die, even “immortal” ones.

So spontaneously becoming a broke college student for the hell of it? It somehow kept him un-bored for a short while.

Maybe it was because the way humans openly taught and shared their art intrigued him. Creative expressions like art were always something private among vampires, shared within covens and rarely to outsider eyes.

(Humans, however, generally encouraged all to enjoy art. Especially that Bob Ross dude. He explained painting in such an unpretentious, calming way that was easy to follow.)

Maybe it was because Remy liked the tactile feeling of charcoal on his fingers. He liked the way a painting could portray a thousand words. He liked how the heaviness was expunged from his soul and onto the paper with dark, broad strokes of color. He liked how art had no inherent meaning. He like how it could be anything and yet nothing all at once.

Maybe it was because it was an excuse to enroll in a university for the party scene. He enjoyed the loud music that drowned out his thoughts, his senses. Alcohol did little to fuddle his mind yet its acidic aftertaste made him feel alive. Humans also always spilled the juiciest gossip after a few drinks.

Even so, the broke college student life wasn’t enough on its own. When he found it bringing a yawn to his throat—he thought he’d kick it up a notch.

That was when he strolled up to a shift manager at Kirby’s Burgers and said, “Hi there, I’m the new hire that’s supposed to start today.” Words that while absolutely not true, scored himself a job regardless.

Truthfully, Remy didn’t need the job. He didn’t have the same worries a human in his position would have. But, fuck it, why not? Being forced in the same building of people you may or may not hate made for better drama than any reality tv had to offer. Pure entertainment values were the only reasons why he did anything in life.

It was also where he met Virgil, who was his work bestie, the person he discussed weird indie music with. Their friendship was as shallow and trivial as any of Remy’s “friends” at the university. Or at least, that was supposed to be the extent of their friendship.

Y’see, Remy wasn’t exactly a “Friendship is Magic” person. Sure, he had friends in the loose, shallow kinda way. Most of it was out of necessity, some of it was for the laughs. He learned like forever ago that there was no point in taking them seriously. It was too predictable, all too booooring when they always ended in heartbreak or betrayal. There were instances where he couldn’t help himself in spite of knowing this.

Such an instance was Virgil. The reason he’d sought out Virgil was not out of necessity or amusement; it began from a spite-driven impulse of “Why the fuck do you secretly hate me?”

Well, not initially. At first, he’d just wanted to be served piping hot tea. In his experience it was always the quiet, withdrawn people that had the best gossip. Because A. Everyone forgets about them and B. They generally kept it to themselves.

Except, except, Virgil was annoyingly immune to the Remy charms. Not his enthrallment charms—because ew, icky, questionable morality issues aside, it took all the fun outta everything.

He preferred to operate life on his genuine charm and charisma. It made things much more interesting. It also came along with the bonus effect of pissing off the High Elders, who watched his every move. They viewed it as harmful to ignore a vampire’s natural inclinations.

Regardless, Virgil refused to engage in any conversation starters Remy threw his way. Even softballs like “What’s your favorite animal?” was met with “Dogs.” without any further explanation. Or Virgil would scurry away, claiming he needed to restock something.

Remy practically gave up when he approached Virgil with “Hey, would you be open to covering my shift this coming Thursday night? There’s, like, this band Starry Starry Sky in town and—"

“Starry Starry Sky?” Virgil interrupted, his eyes alit with excitement, “they’re in town, really?”

Remy knew he’d asked for Virgil’s music tastes before. It was one of the most basic coworker small talks out there. Virgil clammed up at the comment, muttering that he didn’t really listen to music (liar). It turned out, he did listen to music and he had similar tastes as Remy. Which were small weird eccentric bands with fan bases consisting of three people and a corn chip.

Virgil never actually hated him either. There was a similarity between the two although they went separate ways of handling it. Both of them held a distrust of others, preferring to keep to superficial relationships. The difference was that Remy cavorted around with a feigned airs of being an affable busybody while Virgil stood staunchly standoffish with his hackles raised to any and all that approached him.

Remy discovered that Virgil did know how to smile and he could talk for more than a few sentences at a time. His words possessed a biting, sardonic edge to them that only flourished under Remy’s encouragement. They mainly stuck to discussing their music tastes, but there was comfort to be found in trading lighthearted jabs at one another in the midst of frenzied rushes and sluggish down times.

When the fryer incident happened, Remy acted as any concerned person would act. He found a better paying job with a reasonable employer and stole important documents to forge a job application in Virgil’s name. A completely normal human being thing to do (except he wasn’t human, and he definitely cared more than he should for Virgil’s happiness).

Because look, while Remy wasn’t wise—he wasn’t stupid. He could tell Virgil deserved better than the shit that the oh-so-mighty gods threw at him. If no one else was willing to help the human out then for just this once, Remy would.

Even if his “helping” inadvertently reunited Virgil with a member of a werewolf pack who held him captive for a week. It was okay though! Because Remy had gone to Logan and ensured he fully understood the repercussions if any further incident occurred involving Virgil.

He intended at that point to slip away until he was barely a passing memory in Virgil’s existence. It was safer this way, for the sake of himself and for Virgil. He’d linger enough to ensure the human would be okay.

Except, Remy couldn’t stop lingering. He’d grown too dependent on their friendship, too accustomed to rambles about obscure ‘00s bands and debates about the morality of pineapple pizza. It also helped that Virgil was the first human in a long, long while who’d known the truth—and didn’t freak.

Or at least, not until Remy irrevocably fucked things up in the way he’d done.

He didn’t mean to—he’d been trying for weeks to keep himself restrained. Ever since Virgil sought him out that one night in a full-blown panic, barely cognizant of Remy’s presence, Remy had been furious. Not at Virgil, but at the person who hurt Virgil so badly that he’d reinstated his walls again and shut Remy out.

A younger Remy would be already tasting blood. The much-older and weary Remy didn���t want that. Not yet—not when he was certain that would further scare Virgil away from him.

He’d been doing so so good, waiting for Virgil to reach out when he was ready. He hadn’t thought he’d run into Virgil at the nightclub last night. Because he knew Virgil hated loud social environments—he only came to the calmer events held at the college at Remy’s behest. He wasn’t thinking when he insisted Virgil leave with him. It was an urge, an instinct to get Virgil safely away at all costs.

Now, he wasn’t certain if Virgil would ever trust him again.

Remy let out a hum, taking a long sip of his drink. He wasn’t here to think about his many, many screw-ups. Because if he was, he wouldn’t even get through half of them before Cade and Willow shooed him out to close the store.

He needed to focus and slog through this week’s homework and hope Logan kept his promise because otherwise he would hunt the werewolf down and—

“Hey Rem! Long time no see.”

Remy nearly choked on his coffee. He covered it with a loud clearing of his throat, leaning back in his chair. Standing in front of him was a person he wasn’t too surprised to see. It was just bitchy of them to show up right now of all times in his life. Or like, any time ever really.

“Andy.” Remy said, with a smile that was more of a snarl than anything else. Andy raised his eyebrow at the thinly veiled threat display.

“Man, how have you’ve been?” Andy continued, slouching his way uninvited into the chair opposite of Remy’s own, “last I heard you were still six feet under and dead to the world—”

“I’m busy,” Remy interrupted, “can we think about rescheduling this little chit-chat? Like rescheduling it to next Tuesday? Or like never?”

“Gods, what is your problem?” Andy asked as he kicked his feet up against the edge of the table, “can’t I be worried about how an old friend is doing?”

“Mhmm yeah, I don’t think you can with you being a little messenger boy for the High Bastards.” Remy said, lowering his voice to avoid any human eavesdroppers.

Andy chuckled, shaking his head as he responded at a similar octave, “C’mon, I’m more than a messenger boy. I’m a member of the Inner Circle.”

“Like I said, messenger boy,” Remy said, “Now gimme the TLDR of why you’ve broken the rules of engagement. It must be oh so important if you’re out here in broad daylight.”

“We’ve been over this before. Unlike you, I have permission to walk in the Sacred Light to fulfill the will of the High Elders,” Andy said, “You know why I’m here. We don’t hate you, Rem, all we want is to help. Y’know—”

“’—we only wish to see you be blessed with the Sacred Blood once more, so that your strength may return in full and that your eyes are reopened to the truth.’” Remy said in unison with Andy before rolling his eyes, “Bitch, I could literally care less. Like there is not a single ounce of my body that cares, at all.”

Andy recoiled at that, an unidentifiable emotion rippling across his features. There was once a time that Remy would’ve done anything to avoid seeing that emotion again on Andy’s face.

Such a time existed no more, having long since gone and passed into oblivion.

“You’re a moron, you know that? They said you’d deny it again, but I thought, well,” Andy paused for a moment, breathing haggardly, “that you’d finally see how stupid it is to keep deluding yourself with the humans. Especially with that new pathetic one—”

“Don’t,” Remy warned, his eyes gleaming crimson behind his shades, “You don’t get to speak about him. If anything happens to him, I will desecrate those responsible for it, understood?”

Andy sat up, clenching his jaw as he glared down at him.  

“Understood?” Remy repeated himself, “Capiche?”

“Understood, but you can’t ignore the High Elders’ graces forever,” Andy said, slowly, “sooner or later, you will be punished accordingly.”

“Oh, is that so?” Remy said, “Go ahead and punish me now, then. Do it, Andy. Try to eviscerate me.”

Andy winced, his body taunt. “Not now, the day hasn’t yet arrived—”

“No, go ahead.” Remy jeered. He shouldn’t taunt him. He was better than this. He should be better than this. He shouldn’t be taking pleasure in Andy's body responding to his command; it propelled in his direction, a hand curling into a fist as it pummeled towards him.

Distantly, he remembered that they were in a coffee shop, a not-so inconspicuous place. At the same time, it was the furthest thing from his mind. He didn’t care—he could always enthrall all the humans and tidy things up nice and neat. So, he allowed the fist to make contact with his face. His head whiplashed from the motion, but he steadied himself by holding onto the table.

“Huh, tickles.” Remy remarked, grinning.

In a smoldering rage, Andy leapt over the table and knocked him to the ground. Then he punched Remy, again and again. It’d been awhile since Remy had been punched in a way that actually stung. He almost relished in it. Perhaps he should just let Andy keep going until he ran out of energy.

As he was mulling this over, a wooden broom clobbered Andy over the head, knocking him away from Remy.

“Sir, I am going to ask you to leave our store premises,” Willow said, holding the wooden broom out like a saber.

“Yeah, or we will be forced to call the cops!” Cade enthusiastically called out.

Cade and Willow stood there, shielding him from Andy. Who in turn stared at Remy, shaking. No, his limbs convulsed with their own desire towards Remy. The shaking was the result of fighting against this impulse.

Remy tried to speak; all that left his mouth was a wheeze. Instead, he gave a small nod towards the other vampire. It was enough confirmation for Andy to turn and sprint towards the front entrance of the coffeeshop. He didn’t look back once as he slammed the door shut behind him.

Cade and Willow did not move. They stood guard, presumably watching Andy’s disappearing figure. It was quiet in the ensuing moment. The only noise in the coffeeshop was the echoing ring of the front door’s bell. So faint that Remy was sure he was the only one of the three to hear it.

The cold floor beneath Remy burned. Or maybe it had something to do with the rolling sickness in his stomach. Contact with the High Elders always brought out the worst side of him.

He shouldn’t have commanded Andy in that way, just as he shouldn’t have enthralled that bartender in front of Virgil last night. For all his talk, he was as twisted and fucked up as the High Elders. Only he was a different flavor of delusional hypocrite than they were. He laughed, burrowing his face into the grimy checkered tiles of the coffeeshop.

“Yo. You okay?” Willow bopped him with the broomstick. Remy didn’t move.

“Um, no, I don’t think anyone would be.” Cade remarked, in the most even-keeled tone that Remy ever heard from him. He crouched close to Remy, “Hey, listen. I don’t know what that was about, and I won’t pry but just so you know that guy is banned forever from our store.”

“Forever?” Remy croaked, the thought almost amusing to him, a quasi-immortal being.

“Well, we aren’t Waffle House,” Willow drawled, “we aren’t going to let people have the freedom to start violently punching people to death.”

“Besides, we gotta protect our favorite regular.” Cade added in.

“Really? Babes, will I still be your favorite regular after I throw up on your floor?”

“Yes of course! Wait, are you serious—”

“He was serious.”

“Y’know,” Remy mused, half-digested coffee dripping from his mouth, “maybe I should’ve went with the eleventh shot today. Think I could’ve used it.”

Fucking fantastic. Perfectly good coffee wasted due to his one millionth mental break down. It was $10.49 he was never getting back. He was almost tempted to try and sip it back up again from the floor.

“—here.”

“Huh?” Remy said, blinking back to reality. A paper napkin held out by Willow obscured most of his vision. Cade was nowhere to be seen.

“A napkin, to wipe off your face.” Willow said, upon sensing his confusion they elaborated, “Cade is a…sympathetic puker.”

“Oh.” Remy grimaced, before taking the napkin and hastily wiping the corners of his mouth. He then stared at the napkin. A small trash can appeared at his side.

“Here. Throw away.” Remy did as instructed. Willow’s hand then pointed towards a comfy sofa in the back corner of the shop, “Go, sit.”

“I can help—”

“Not necessary. I’ll handle it.” Willow insisted.

Remy complied and sat down on the couch. He tapped his fingers against the armrest, staring into nothingness. His skin was too tight, stretched thinly around his figure. Remy was tired, which was ironic because vampires did not exhaust as easily as other beings.

In fact, they didn’t sleep. The closest they came to it was stasis, a trance-like state with lowered conscious processing. They did not ever dream.

He chuffed quietly to himself—sometimes, despite forgetting what it was like to sleep, Remy really yearned for it.

If sleep was an ocean, stasis was a pond. They were both bodies of water, but a pond was a weak replication in comparison to an ocean’s seemingly never-ending vastness. In sleep, beings laid unaware of their surroundings. In stasis, the world always remained on the edges of his consciousness. His senses remained sharp, as if he was still fully conscious.

The purpose of stasis was not rest—it was for memory retention and healing acceleration.  Vampires always remained mentally alert and present; if their body lacked energy, it was replenished through feeding. Assuming it wasn’t needed to heal significant injuries, vampires typically drifted into stasis only a few times a year.

So Remy was not tired—he was physically incapable of being tired in the sense the humans and other beings became tired. Yet his body sagged against the cushions as if it were so. His shades dug into the side of his temple, no doubt leaving a red angry impression.

Remy thought he could make good on his promise of being a Halloween decoy for the coffee shop and remain there for the rest of October. After all, his true nature was something that humans feared as much as any other Halloween monster.

It didn’t seem that Cade would let up on his opposition to that promise, however. He came quietly up to Remy—or rather, as quietly as a human could disguise their movement. Remy pretended not to hear him.

“Remy?” Cade asked, all semblance of forced customer service politeness gone.

He turned to look at the human. “Yeah?”

“Is there someone you can call to pick you up?”

“Someone…to call?” Remy repeated, processing his words out loud. He straightened himself, “I’m not drunk, Cade. Trust me, I’m Gucci.”

“You just had someone beat the shit of you,” Willow deadpanned, off to the side, “You possibly have a concussion. You’re in shock.”

Well, shit. From their perspective, it did look that way.

Remy hummed, clasping his hands together, “I’ve experienced way worse, like back in—back during my freshman year of college, like gurl. You would not believe the stories I could tell you!”

“That doesn’t change the severity of it, although that only makes me more worried about what you view as being worse!” Cade said, rocking back on his feet. Willow said nothing as they squinted their eyes at Remy, glossy purple lips pressed to a thin line.

Okay, his theoretical roll for persuasion was a critical failure apparently. Remy breathed in, as he rose to his feet. Cade hovered a few feet away, arms stretched out as if to catch him if he fell. Remy pretended to dust off his leather jacket, buying himself some seconds of thinking time.

See, the thing was: while Remy had his college besties, they just weren’t the type to rely on in an “emergency” situation such as this. Logan would probably be an option, but with the Virgil thing—well, he’d prefer avoiding adding more stress onto the werewolf’s plate.

The obvious solution was enthrallment, even though his mind couldn’t stop plaguing him with the image fresh from last night; Virgil’s eyes glazed over in pure unadulterated panic, as he backed away from Remy, hyperventilating. All because Remy fucked up in his own panic of getting Virgil safely away from the assaulting visage of the night club.

There was no way they could’ve cut their way through the crowd to the front entrance. Not with how Virgil froze up at the barrage of noise and people within the nightclub. So, Remy dragged them to the outskirts, where there had to be a side entrance for employees to dump trash.

When that bartender appeared, Remy didn’t think. He acted impulsively because that was who he was—if he thought too long, it’d be the end of the world. Most of the time, it worked out. There was always some of the time where it didn’t work out.

It was mostly a harmless mental suggestion. You know me—you’ve seen me in passing, even if you can’t place when. Humans hated admitting when they didn’t recognize a person, it made them feel insecure. It was a lie most of them were eager to latch onto. Then similarly, forget you saw us—you have more important things to do. Because there was no reason for her to remember them, not when her mind needed to focus on her job. She most likely would have forgotten on her own regardless. Humans never remembered as much as they claimed they did.

Perhaps he could’ve resolved the issue without enthrallment. Virgil wouldn’t have been the first person to get overstimulated at a nightclub.

Even so, despite all his grand bravado, Remy was a vampire. Some creatures had fight-or-flight. Vampires had fight-flight-or-enthrall. There were instances it was so instinctual, that it occurred without his conscious awareness. Whether he acknowledged it or not, Remy was always projecting something to the impact of “Sup, bitches, I’m a perfectly normal human being” to lessen the chances of avoiding the end of a sharp pointy silver blade.

It wasn’t mind control in the way humans imagined it to be—vampires couldn’t completely rewrite a person’s personality and reshape them to be whatever they desired. There were ways, of course, to make the enthrallment more effective. A much younger, more ambitious Remy gladly made use of those methods.

But the core principle remained true: enthrallments are only as powerful as the human’s belief in them. The less likely they were to believe a suggestion, the less likely for it to be effective.

It unnerved humans, even the ones that were tolerant of supernatural beings. They always asked how much of their friendship was genuine or if Remy simply hypnotized them into liking him.

(Remy hated this question because it was something that also afflicted him late at night, when there was nothing to do other than drown in ones’ incessant thoughts)

It was why Remy hadn’t told Virgil what he was. Selfishly, he refused to answer, making it a game between the two. Then Virgil found out and it’d been okay. He didn’t ask that question and instead asked other questions Remy could answer. He assumed it hadn’t mattered given what set Virgil apart from other humans.

Really, after all these centuries, Remy should’ve known it mattered.

He blinked, bringing up a hand to slide his shades further up the bridge of his nose. See, this was why he disliked thinking. Because when he thought for too long, it was like his mind detached from his body and then was forcibly jammed back into it once he regained awareness. Except it was like a few wires weren’t properly reconnected and it left him feeling wrong. Like every movement, sensation and feeling did not belong to him.

“Remy?” Cade asked, still remaining a few feet away from him. Which was probably for the best—Remy might’ve tried to bite his face off if he approached during his thinking time.

Remy held up a hand—the universal sign for “One moment” and walked with clear, concise steps to the overturned table where all his stuff was sprawled out. Wordlessly, he shoved everything into his messenger bag before turning to face Willow and Cade once more.

“Listen, babes, I get that my throwing up doesn’t help my case—but really I’m fine! I mean yeah, it hurt getting punched, ten outta ten do not recommend but!” Remy cracked his neck, “Like I’ve said, I’ve experienced way worse kinds of crazy shit so this is like nothing. Anyways, sorry about the mess, I’m gonna leave, so ciao!”

This was the essence of “Faking it until you’re making it”; act like everything was normal, act like you were in control, act like the situation was not what it seemed and people will believe you. In most cases. If Remy walked a bit faster than what was humanly possible, it was definitely not because he feared his words wouldn’t have the desired effect.

An arm stuck out in front of his face before he could reach the front door. Remy staggered a bit back to avoid colliding with the person—who was apparently Willow.

“Listen, it’s like incredibly stupid to let you leave considering you could be in shock from bleeding internally,” They began.

“Yes, it’s suuuper unsafe! We could probably get sued!” Cade chimed in.

“But if you insist on leaving,” Willow continued as they fished out a phone from their pocket, “would you at least text us to know you got to your place safe?”

Remy looked down at their phone, opened up to a new contact. He didn’t know what to make of this, other than he had done enough thinking for today. As long as this appeased their concerns enough into letting him leave, he’d do it.

“Yeah, sure,” Remy managed, reaching for the phone, “no probs.”

He rapidly typed out his phone number, saved his contact under “Remy 🧀 🐀”, gave the phone back to Willow, and then left before there could any further objections from the humans.

The sidewalks of the city bustled at its hurried pace, a sense of normalcy that was smoothening. Remy could almost pretend that the past few days hadn’t occurred. Which, N-G-L, Remy was fucking done with the past few days.

He was going to return to his dorm room and scroll through Tiktok for the rest of his life (or until his phone battery died because he forgot to charge it). Or maybe, he’d finally take care of that project for his oil painting class he’d been putting off. Anything was fine as long as it allowed him to not think for too long.

The sun was setting as he reached the dorms, bringing a blissed relief to his eyes. As much as the shades aided in being able to withstand light, it was’ bothersome to be constrained in such a way. When he entered his dorm room, he was going to leave the lights off and allow himself to be delightfully swaddled up within the darkness. His body almost ached at the thought of it.

So, one could probably understand how pissed off he was that a scent stopped him short from entering the dorm building. It was a faint yet familiar scent of another supernatural being, one he couldn’t quite place.

It couldn’t be Andy. He was certain he’d frighten Andy off enough that he wouldn’t see signs of him for months. If it was the other vampire, then their shared past was going to mean very little in the face of Remy’s ire. Regardless of whoever it was, he knew without a doubt the scent belonged to someone that shouldn’t be near his dwelling. It was fresh, meaning the person was nearby, no doubt watching him.

“Okaaaay!” Remy said, loud enough for anyone with exceptional ears to hear, “whoever you are, you and I are going to go to the back of the building, near the dumpsters, and you have five seconds to tell me what you want before I tear your throat to pieces.”

Remy didn’t look, but as he made his way behind the dorm building, he could hear a second set of footsteps accompany his every movement.

[whatgaviiformes]

Fic: Skypod (Kerm/M&W Oneshot)

Surprise! Guess who had another one in the wings? Pun intended, you’ll get it in a second, I promise. 

So this one is the mash up of Marks & Wings and Kermadec/vox delphini that no one asked for but made too much sense to pass up. A Christmas gift for @gumnut-logic. This is an AU of the AUs which fits in neither series but was fun regardless. Thanks to Tippy @godsliltippy for the M&W help, as this would be my first foray and I asked a lot of questions and I didn’t want to ask Nutty so I could surprise her. Any discrepancies are 100% on me though because two sets of lore is hella hard. 

She and I had a good brainstorming session for one more fun idea in the mashup verse, so let me know if that’s something you want. It wouldn’t be until next year though because I’ve learned NOT to give myself unnecessary deadlines.

Characters: Gordon Tracy, Virgil Tracy, Enki 

Words: 1.8

Genre: A bit of angst, a bit of whump, there’s a scary moment with a drift net

Also on Ao3 here if you prefer

Marks & Wings here

Kermadec here

Both highly recommended!!

*****

Skypod

Breathing was overrated.  

Gordon’s existence proved lungs weren't all they were cracked up to be, since there were times that he didn’t need them at all. Actually he preferred when he was able to swim underwater for more than a few minutes a dive, thank you very much. But in the case of situations where he might need to rely on the air balloons inside his chest, he’d trained his human form to endure seven minutes easily and up to eleven or twelve on a good day. 

It was the fragility of his human self that it could be only twelve, and one of the reasons he preferred spending time in his life aquatic.

Much preferred, especially when heaving with his lungs bursting out of his chest. 

His brothers' worry fluttered at the edge of his mind, and, granted, Virgil and John were not so used to him nearly drowning of all things, but the exhaustion had hit him deeply. Pacing himself had not been among his priorities during the last series of changes, when as a dolphin he'd been a bit preoccupied with the illegal driftnet reeling him in. Attempting to shimmy free only dug the ropes in further, so he changed into a species of wrasse small enough to wiggle through the net's holes, and then back to a dolphin for the purposes of chasing the moving motor boat. He realized the drift net easily expanded miles in length, and approaching the boat very likely could mean being captured again. With the dark of exhaustion at the edges of his eyes and the presences in the deep showing their curiosity towards him, he desperately needed to find land before he passed out in a fish form where lack of awareness could put him in serious danger, so it was with his human form he crawled ashore. 

In his anger, he’d managed to get quite far from the Island, over an argument he barely remembered anymore. Virgil had prioritized some enhancements to One over the ones needed for Four, and he couldn’t quote any of what Virgil had said at the time, but he remembered how he felt about it. Shifting had been an instinct, a deep desire to escape to the place he could never abandon from his heart, even if Virgil had shown where his loyalties were. 

It was less a choice and more a feeling, because his heart needed the speed. He imagined it was like his brothers lifting to chase the clouds with a directionless pull to the skies, except his tether was to the waves, and his flight was that of the aerial display towards the sun that returned him to the water. When Gordon needed to run, he swam, and the seascape between the Tonga-Kermadec arc was as much his home as Tracy Island itself. 

 It was the speed that doomed him; he hadn’t even noticed the net until it was too late. 

The fight that sparked his flight through the waves hardly seemed important now that he knew there was illegal fishing happening so close to his home, to the protected, tropical sanctuary many creatures called theirs. 

God, he needed to tell Mel. So close to Raoul, she was going to be beyond pissed. And Kayo needed to know; she’d want to run surveillance. Covertly, she might be able to discover the name of the boat, and then she and Lady P could take care of the bastards. 

“Dammit!” he shouted, though there was no one around to hear except just the gentle spray of the Pacific at his toes. His fist closed around a rock, its edges made smooth by the pressure of the deep and the roll of tides and the passage of time, and he used it to pull himself further up the beach where his limbs like jelly collapsed around him and his face pressed into the stone while he heaved and wept. The collection of slick rock he found himself on was barely a landmass, but it had been enough for him to climb out of the sea and catch the breath the net had tried to steal away. 

He shuddered, remembering the panic, the scratchy ropes of the net pulled taut around his rostrum, digging where his dorsal fin met the cetacean skin of his back. If he’d been anyone other than a shifter, the drag would’ve killed him, would’ve held him under with no hope for air. He’d avoided his human form for fear the change would dig the ropes in further, possibly around his neck considering he’d found himself entangled headfirst, as distracted as he was over Thunderbird Four.  He lamented the lack of his hands to untie himself free, but it was too high a risk. 

The ropes had loosened as his form shrank, barely to 15 centimeters of blue-lined scales, but still trapped within the tangle, he’d darted between its fibers deeper into the depths until he was free, crying for the porpoises and sea turtles and seabirds and all the life that had met an end ensnared. 

He’d been so lucky. Even now, he felt a twinge along the bridge of his nose where he’d been cut, and he swallowed iron. 

“Dammit, dammit, dammit!” 

The connections he had to his brothers went wild. Though they could not share words; they understood each other’s emotions. Within himself he felt John’s presence in his mind, like the rumble of an undersea volcano, always present though with as much fire hidden deep below the surface. He felt Virgil too, who was like sea waves, buoyant and steady until the storm blew through.  Both of them snapped, and he felt his stomach roil at the flood of thought so soon after his physical body had been sent through whiplash of a type no one could truly understand. 

“I’m okay,” he tried to send through their bond, but of course, his words couldn’t reach them, and his racing heartbeat found them on his behalf. 

They would’ve felt it. As a mammal, his dolphin form would’ve been sending when he felt the spark of fear. They would’ve sensed their connection drop temporarily when he changed into the more reef-dwelling fish, a different form of biology, a different form of communication, and they would’ve been privy to his struggle to shore, his grief for the souls of his fellow life, his turbulent anger towards those who treated their corrupt business with more value than that of the good of their planet. 

Perhaps that was why he felt Virgil so strongly trying to connect with him across the distance with a pin on the direction, but not his location. He felt the warmth of his brother’s hug and the brush of his dark feathers, and Gordon knew his brother was coming. 

Virgil would always find him. 

It was like the spinning of a lighthouse beacon illuminated that he continued to receive concern from across the waves. 

Virgil, please, I really am ok. 

And then the pattern changed, not from his assurance, but with the presence of another. A softer concern, without the depth of the storm he felt from Virgil, but curious and confused. He’d never received anyone besides his brothers before, and the mind reached him as the gentle flicker of sunlight on the surface of the water. With brightness and reflection, but with a deep understanding of the sea he only felt within himself. 

Where? Who are you?

Gordon stumbled into a sitting position on the rocky shore, glancing out among the blue that surrounded him from all sides for the direction of the touch on his mind. 

The eyes that met his were cetacean. Familiar in that he now remembered the feeling of them as he raced to shore. This dolphin had seen him shift, and yet was not frightened. 

He remembered that very first shift when he was a young boy trying to save another. His heart had hammered with the rush of adrenaline, but it was also the sense of new, of the sea rushing past him in a way he could never dream, having his senses overturned with the vibrations of echolocation and a sharpness of sight below the waters.

The dolphin greeted him as he would another creature of the sea.

He received a flash of the boat.  

No! Don’t go near the boat. He wasn’t sure how much of the words his friend would understand.  But he at least could send the feeling of peril. 

Dangerous boat. 

The creature seemed confused by that, confused by the fact he felt Gordon so focused on the surface vehicle when he warned against it. 

There would be other ways, and he had no doubt Kayo would come through. They'd get the name. They just needed to do it before more lives were lost.

This was a rescue.  Please get away from here, away from it. 

Though exhausted, and knowing he had not the strength to shift, he still found himself in the water, sitting where the tide lapped at his waist. The dolphin edged closer, and Gordon saw in the distance a number of others, hovering further away. He felt a low hum of their chorus supporting the one. Supporting him, recognizing him as one with the heart of the sea.

But you’re ours. He felt it not in the words, but in vibrations as though plucked like a harp.

Ours. His breath hitched at the sensation of being among family.  Across his back, his mark sparked with the weight of it, and he felt it in every part of his being, through his sense of self while the echoes mapped him and the distant clicks and whistles welcomed him. 

“I’m okay, Enki,” he said aloud, their names exchanged in multiple forms of communication. “I have people coming for me.”

Skypod. Enki’s eyes glimmered in acknowledgement. 

And it wasn’t until the clouds dispersed into feathers as dark as night that Enki and the others crested over the horizon, away from the direction of the drift net, though he still felt their tug in his core, his mark tingling with the continuing reverb of the new connection. 

He couldn’t look away from them, even as Virgil swooped down from above, his boot nearly slipping on the wet rock in his urgency to land and find out what had happened. But he found his footing, and crouched down beside Gordon to hold him close. 

“What happened, Gordon?” Virgil searched his face, wiping blood and tears away from his cheeks.  

He heard his name from Virgil’s voice merge with the one he’d been given by those of the sea, a whistle that reminded him of the rays of the sun. 

“I think I just got adopted by dolphins,” he answered breathlessly, reaching his heart to the sky and sea where it belonged to both. Thank you. 

[jaratedeguadalupe]

can you imagining being served dick shaped gourmet meatballs on a date, with cinammon buns shaped like an ass made out of pigs blood

[alieneye]

I know I'm supposed to write a poem on Thursdays, but I don't like rules. So i'm stretching the definition of poetry, and here's my answers to the Quaestiones Praevostii (because Proust's Questionnaire is too basic):

What is your favourite god or goddess, and why? (Explain your choice carefully or suffer the consequences)

Fabilinus. You don’t know about him, but you should. He’s the god of the first words said by little kids. He just asks for one offering, and doesn’t try to kill or harm anyone, just a nice little god with a cool name (certainly better than his friend Vaticanus, the god of a baby’s first cry - and yes, that's what the Romans would think about if you told them about the Vaticanus).

What virtue do you most admire in a Roman citizen?

Constantia I guess. I need more calm people in my life.

Which is your preferred festival?

I don’t like festivals. But if I had to pick one, maybe the Compitalia. Doesn’t happen at a fixed date, just when we feel like it. And there’s that touching tradition of hanging wooden dolls at crossroads and house doors, one for each family member. Also offering honey cakes to the Lares (that will absolutely not end up in the paterfamilias’ stomach). And it was a bit of a goth festival honouring infernal deities, so that’s cool.

If you could command any legion, which one would it be, and where would you lead it?

I’m about as excited about commanding legions as Ovid was about being exiled.

What is the most memorable curse you've ever witnessed or feared?

Romans Inscriptions in Britain 154:

May he who carried off Vilbia from me become as liquid as water. (May) she who obscenely devoured her (become) dumb, whether Velvinna, Exsupereus, Verianus, Severinus, A(u)gustalis, Comitianus, Catus, Minianus, Germanilla (or) Jovina.

For some reason the curse of dissolving into water stayed with me (maybe it was because of that scene in the X-Men movie that I saw around the same time?), and also the very long and detailed list of possible culprits, which I think is hilarious.

What flaw do you most tolerate in a fellow Roman?

Overthinking.

Which dish or delicacy can you simply not live without?

Bread-honey-cheese. Alas I’ve been cursed with lactose intolerance and can’t eat too much gluten. I can't live without what hurts me. I should write a little poem about that one day.

What is your favourite spot in the Empire to visit?

I would like to visit Pergamon. Not the most famous, but it was the city of theatre, it had a library that could rival with Alexandria, and it must have had a beautiful, slightly mountainous landscape.

If you were given a triumph, what would your chariot’s most outrageous decoration be?

I love the few Roman masterpieces made of glass that survived to this day (Lycurgus cup etc), so something like that.

Who is your favourite poet, and what is your favourite line of theirs?

He’s not my favourite poet but I need to write a line, so here we go: Forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit, (Virgil, Aeneid) Maybe remembering these memories one day will bring pleasure. I don't think I have favourites but at the moment that's the line I want to share.

What profession would you have if you weren’t a Roman citizen?

If I could pull it off, Greek philosopher (hopefully nobody breaks my legs).

Which historical figure do you most admire?

I admire the version of Cato Major who would work in the field in the morning and go speak to the Senate in the afternoon. The guy who wrote three different recipes of cheese cakes. I know he wasn’t a pleasant man and somewhat jingoistic, but I like to imagine that he could have lived a simple life not bothering anyone.

What do you consider the most overrated pleasure in Roman life?

Festivals.

What would your ideal epitaph be?

Stop for a moment, traveller, and forget your fatigue. Here lies one who sought wisdom and friendship in the world, lived a full life, and was loved by those he loved. If you have a fulfilling life, rejoice. If you seek one, may you find it. Farewell, and live happily.

And there would be layers upon layers of date cores, fig tails upon it, because people would happily banquet nearby.

If you were granted one favour from Jupiter, what would it be?

I’m not very trusting of Jupiter’s favour. Maybe that he forgot about my existence.

What’s your favourite method of entertainment at the Colosseum?

I think I’d be very curious to see a re-enactment of a mythical or a historical scene. It would tell me so much about how the Romans viewed history and how they did storytelling.

Which fashion or accessory do you find the most fabulous?

Some really cool fibula I guess? Idk. Something beautiful that surprises me.

If you could own one mythical beast from mythology, what would it be? (yes Augustus, one that is alive, not one for your gallery of sea monsters)

An alcyon. It's everything you want from a mythological companion, a beautiful bird with a nice song and magical powers.

What is your greatest fear?

Vanishing. Because I’m sometimes tempted by the call of the volcano like some dumb Plinius.

How would you like to be remembered in the annals of history?

Too many people are remembered for the wrong reasons, or they aren’t remembered as themselves. I don’t want to be remembered in historical annals. I want to be like the nameless people on the walls of Etruscan tombs, dancing after their death.

[pattonsfam-ily]

“Princess Peach could step on me and i would thank her”

“hey Ro do you take constructive criticism”

“nope”

“you should. Peach is overrated. Princess Daisy is superior”

“okay you also need to shut up”

“i will not be silenced”

yeah so my boyfriends aren’t allowed to speak anymore -virgil

[totsux]

some unpopular, as well as popular, sanders sides opinions

virgil

• kinda overrated

• 100% a top. you can’t change my mind

• not a soft uwu emo bean. like, no more of that please. it changes his personality so much.

• actually really tall (heightened anxiety)

• can be really awful sometimes. i know he’s your favorite, but you can’t just ignore his rudeness.

roman

• he is definitely a bottom

• he deserves way more love

• he is not ok. like, get this boy some help

• isn’t usually in the wrong, contrary to popular belief

• striving to be perfect

• should to make up with janus and talk about his moral conflict about the court case

logan

• deserves more love

• obviously isn’t good at reading emotions, resulting in others feelings being hurt

• mom.

patton

• is really manipulative sometimes

• shouldn’t be treated as though he’s never done bad

• yes he might be a good person, but we shouldn’t overlook his flaws

• responsible for most conflict in SvS

janus

• needs to talk and apologize to roman (and probably remus too)

• isn’t a bad guy, and was mostly in the right

• manipulated roman, which is wrong, but he had good intentions

• loves jazz. i don’t know why, he just does

remus

• he needs to work things out with roman

• listen to him. intrusive ≠ bad

• shouldn’t have knocked out roman

• talks to himself all the time

• does crazy things like eating deodorant to get more attention

• isn’t actually that different from roman (which isn’t a bad thing for either of them)

[mold-ridden-heart]

I gotchu boo

Mistake Number Two

TWs: none! Simply a cute lil fic :3

Logan never wanted to admit it.

He couldn’t.

Logan was the perfectionist, the side that did basically EVERYTHING right— except for the misuse of infinitesimal. This would be mistake number two on his part, and he HATED that the mistakes were starting to pile.

But, he knew one thing for sure— nobody else could or would EVER find out. He could hide it this time.

So, ever since day one, he had pretended to know how to tie a tie. It sounds stupid really, but it was ��important” to him. It was a “flaw”, and he wanted to cover it up the best he could.

But one day, it changed.

All the light sides in their respective corners of the living room, discussing whatever the fuck they were discussing.

But then Patton pointed something out. And that’s when the problem first started. “Hey— did you guys notice the fact that Virgil isn’t…” he put his hand out, gesturing to his jacket— that was the same it was from before the switch.

“Hey yeah!!” Roman agreed.

“Could it be-“

“No. It couldn’t. He’s been acting like himself this whole time.” Logan corrected, “I say if we’re truly suspicious was ask him something he’d only know.”

Patton quickly came up with one, “Uhm… what’s your favorite song?”

“Welcome to the black parade.” Virgil hesitated, but said it rather quickly.

“I know my son. He thinks that song is overrated! Janus!”

And he revealed himself, shifting to his true identity.

“Nice going, Logan. Blew my cover.” Janus reached over to tug on Logan’s tie for dramatic effect, but as he did so, the tie fell off the clip. Logan panicked for a second before fiddling around and put it back on.

Nobody bothered to poke fun at it— mainly because Roman couldn’t come up with a quick enough insult.

But the episode quickly wrapped up afterwards, and Logan sinked out. He couldn’t believe it. So quickly— another mistake to the pile. In actuality, it wasn’t a big deal. But to him it was.

He sat down on his bed, his body sinking into it a bit, before grabbing his book and starting to read. But his reading was quickly interrupted by a familiar side popping up in his room. Morality. Or, Patton. The “father” of the group.

“Logan!! How are ya, bud?”

He sighed and closed his book, “I’m just fine.”

“Are you sure? Because you looked pretty upset after Janus broke your tie.”

He didn’t want to admit it. So he just looked down at the cover of his book.

“Are you ashamed of it? Because if so, I can teach you how to tie one!!” The offer seemed not real at first, a shocker. A way to get rid of the mistake.

“Sure, Patton. I’m not opposed to it.” He stood up. Patton pulled a tie out from behind his back like he had came to his room to teach him— like he’d planned it.

“So you start out with putting it like this—“ he wrapped it around his neck. He started to tie it, slowly going over the steps. (I’m not gonna describe every single thing because tbh I can’t tie a tie irl LMAO)

Once he had finished, Logan had a small spark of happiness inside of him. Not a big one, but it was there. “Thank you, Patton. I appreciate it.”

“No worries!” He ruffled his hair. “Just looking out for ya! See you later!!” He sinked out.

Logan was left with a feeling of accomplishment, a small smile on his face. He sat back down and went back to reading, but made sure to keep the tie on. It was sure he wasn’t going to take it off for a long while.

I hope you enjoyed!! If you want to see more fics of mine, they’re all on my blog. If you have a request, don’t feel afraid to ask!! Bye-bye, loves!

Someone told me that they thought logans tie looked like a clip on (they haven't seen the show).

I mentioned this to a friend who has watched sanders sides with me and knows logan well, and they suggested a fic idea where it actually is a clip on because logan doesn't know how to tie a tie at all or he struggles to do it properly, and patton finds out and, being the dad that he is, teaches him how to do it.

This honestly sounds very cute and sweet and i kind of want to do something with this because the mental image I got from it was just too much for my fragile heart.