#why am i panicking over this. every day my brain conceives of a new and dumber way to torment me

[mrsmarlasinger]

Chest tight and I'm sick to my stomach thinking about how OTHER PEOPLE do THEIR laundry

[bitchfitch]

Aleistar and Haze with grey to multi-coloured? :O (i am just really fond of the grey to multi-colored for some reason)

this one was just Sweet, Tooth Rotting, just Absolutely Delectable and it has Killed me.

zjsnnsnsns thank you for the prompt!

A Blue Armchair

There was a blue armchair in Aleistar's living room. It was his chair, more sonthan any of the others in his home. It was where he had gone to relax and read or to watch the city far below from his window for almost a decade now. A home within a home.

It was a blue armchair, but he only knew it was blue because the clerk at the furniture store had assured him it was blue when he bought it.

Aleistar had never really bemoaned the lack of color in his life. As far as he was concerned color didn't matter. Simply put, he'd never once in his 56 years of life seen color, so he couldn't exactly miss it. Couldn't morn it, or really notice that it wasnt there. He knew he was lacking color, of course he did, he saw it in the art works made to only be viewable by those who had found their soul mates, and he saw it in, as he got older, how everyone around him would look at him with some passive pitty. How his friends stopped inviting him out so that he might meet someone who would show him color, and how people had begun to whisper about him when they thought he wasn't listening.

Of course there were millions of people who never saw color, who's soulmates died before they met, or who died before they could bring color to their own soulmate, or who just never had one. 

For a while he had fancied himself one of the last types. He wasn’t a warm and caring man and he'd never felt the draw to find his other half that everyone described. But those types always said they felt complete as they were, that even without a soulmate they were truly happy. 

Aleistar thought he was one of them until he broke down, drunk and crying against his best friends shoulder. He didn’t remember much, of what he said the next day, just that now that he'd accidentally picked open this wound it was seeping constantly. 

///

Leonard had handed him the book as a joke. 

It was old and bound in a musty smelling leather but its pages were pristine. Leo said it's title translated something like "Desperation and Victory" but Aleistar couldn't make it out on the books front. The lettering was the same value as the leather it was printed on, and something about that felt like it was meant to be an insult.

///

He almost made it a week before he read the book for the first time. 

He sat in his old armchair that the clerk at the furniture shop had told him was blue, and put his feet up on his coffee table which was a deep brown according to Leo, and flicked through the pages that he suspected would be yellow if they weren't just as grey as everything else. 

///

The book had made it sound so effortless to trade his soul for the chance to have everything he could ever want. It listed wealth and riches and beauty or talent as examples of what someone might ask for, but all he wanted was to meet his soulmate. 

A fancy circle here and a few drops of blood there, and boom he'd have a demon who could find them for him. 

Was it worth it though? Was giving up his soul to meet someone he was already fated to meet worth it?

///

A month passed. he was 57 now.

Fifty-seven. 

That number hurt to think about. He wasn’t old old yet, but he had three years until his planned retirement, and an average of maybe eighteen more to follow, if he was lucky.

///

He spent a lot of nights crying in the armnchair he was told was blue with the book he thought of as yellow in his lap. He still remembered how badly he had wanted a family when he was young. Two kids. He'd always wanted two because it felt right to him. If they were both conceived today he was likely to be dead before they would be old enough to share a drink together at his favorite bar. 

Had he truly wasted his life? Had he let himself become so comfortable with the grey that he let a lifetime of color pass him by? 

He was 57. His college classmates were all probably starting to welcome grandchildren now. 

He was 57 and hed already been invited to so many funerals.

He dreaded that he might have already missed his soulmate's.

///

Aleistar habitually took notes at work, always had, but now they were more summoning circles than to-do lists.

///

He was 57, and he didn't care about having a soul anymore, because he desperately needed to find his soulmate and knew he would do whatever he needed to do to make that happen. 

///

The flash of the circle igniting all at once almost made him regret this decision. 

For a moment all that his senses could take in was the stark white light followed by a blurred buzzing of sensation as he struggled back onto his feet after having been thrown by the force of the demon entering his home. 

He was older, and his joints creaked under him as he finally got eyes on the hell beast who would own his soul in a scant few minutes.

He met the demon's eyes across the boundaries line of his summoning circle, his body going tight and rigid as the demon stared right back at him.

The demon's eyes were black and round and open wide. His lips were also black, and his teeth a sharp white where they showed in the slight gape mouthed expression the demon wore. The grey scale that Aleistar knew so well, that he had been so comfortable with for all these years, could hold only the demon's eyes and lips and teeth within itself.

Aleistar had heard that when someone finally found their soul mate they would be able to name one or two colors wothout being told what they were.

Maybe thats why he knew the demon's hair was blue. Deep dark blue. Like the sky at midnight if all the stars blinked out of existence. The ring around the demon's neck, along with its counter parts around his horns, and upper arms, and thighs had to be gold. True pure gold that could buy out everything he had ever owned and still be only a tiny fraction of the way through it's value.

Blue and gold were the colors he could name, Blue for the demons hair and lashes, gold for his markings, But the paled so much next to the color of the demon's skin. Warm and strange and beyond inhuman. Decadent, and bold and rare. and so... magic. So very magical. The color of this demon's skin would be his favorite from now on, and nothing would ever manage to compare to it again.

Nothing would ever again manage to compare to the demon who was slowly standing from where he had been knelt. The corners of his lips were up turned in a way that was almost a smile, more disbelieving than joyous but well on its way towards that destination.

"Hello-" the demon tried to speak, his voice smooth and low as he blurred at the edges, like a fog cloud barely forced into the shape of a man, but his voice cought in his throat as he swirled around the circle, to just look at everything, "Did… Did everything just get very… colorful for you?" the demon asked with a weak but hopeful smile as he pressed his hands up against the invisible boundry between them.

Aleistar thought he'd be scared to approach a demon, that this part would make his stomach turn. But he took the demon's hands in his own without hesitation and without flinching at the feeling of his soft and hell hot skin burning his own just that little bit.

Oh the demon was beautiful, not just his colors that felt so unearthly after of a lifetime of grey, but his fine and delicate features that buzzed around the edges like he might vanish if Aleistar stopped looking at him. 

Aleistar wanted to speak, wanted to say Something to the demon, but he was still struck dumb by the boiling joy and wonder in his own chest that bubbled over everything he met the demon's eyes again.

Some faint part of Aleistar's brain told him he should be panicked about how just holding this demon's hands made all the colors that much more intoxicatingly vibrant. That he shouldn't be on the verge of tears or laughter in this moment because all these colors could mean only one thing

"The silent type huh? Are you broody too?" the demon tried to joke before he caught himself even as his delicat fingers held onto Aleistar's a little tighter, "Oh, uh, the contract. You summoned me because you want me to find you your soulmate right? Uhm," the demon smiled and Aleistar knew he was grinning too. 

Finally, Aleistar understood all those people hed seen collide in the middle of the walkway. Desperate to just touch and hold their other half after far too long separated from them.

"Wow, ok, so I knew I was exceptionally good at my job, but this is a new record for me," The demon babbled on, "Uhm, I- You see the colors too right? I'm not just going crazy, and this is real, right?"

"It is, I- It really is isnt it?" Aleistar was laughing softly and he didn't know why, but the demon was laughing too now and pulling him closer and past the edge of the circle.

The book had been very specific about never being in the circle with an un named demon, said that the demon could use all sort of tricks against you if you made that mistake, but this one seemed perfectly content to just press up against him while burrying his face in the fabric of Aleistar's shirt. Still holding his hands and still chucking something that was almost a hiccups as he sought out his soulmate's touch.

Aleistar wrapped his arms around the demon, around his soulmate just to hold him close for the moment it took them both to stop giggling like school boys. There was something impossibly grounding about holding the demon, something that made him determined to never let his soulmate go

The demon's cute little horns bumped up against his chin every time either of them moved and there was something just immensely endearing about that to Aleistar, so he pressed a kiss to one, marveling at how his skin buzzed from such a little touch before doing it again and again until he was peppering his soulmate's face with kisses that carried all the emotions he couldn't put into words.

"I still need to make a contract with you," his soulmate said after Aleistar tried to kiss him properly for the first time, "I- I've already found you your soulmate, so you're going have to ask for something else… Something that will take very long for me to deliver on so I dont have to leave you," He looked up from where he was still pressed against Aleistar's chest, those coal black eyes so hopeful.

"Be mine," Aleistar said without thinking, "Stay with me and just- Just be mine," smiling this much was starting to hurt, "Please," he cupped either side of the demon's face in his hands to tilt him up just that little bit more, "Please," he repeated again, his breath tight and nervous in his chest like he was just a school boy confessing to his crush under the slide, light and nervwracking and desperate for things he didn't fully understand yet.

The demon grinned and nodded, "Give me a name and it will be done," his hands braced against Aleistar's chest, his fingers tangling in the fabric as he tried to ground himself there. 

Aleistar nodded and took a breath just to steady himself enough to not stutter. He remembered all the ways you could name a demon that the book had listed, all the ways you could bind one to yourself and all the ways those ways could fail, but there was only one he had any interest in trying in that moment.

"Haze," he said, a single syllable to describe his soulmate completely, it was all he needed. If the fervor with which Haze kissed him the moment the his new name was spoken was anything to go off of, then Aleistar felt confident in assuming he'd chosen correctly.

When they finally slowed to let Aleistar catch his breath after minutes of heavy petting and being too needy to let the other more than an inch or two away, they were sat in an armchair that Aleistar didn't need to be told was blue anymore.

[blackfemmecharacterdependency]

15. The Rise of the True King

Word Count: 3478 Trigger Warnings: Institutionalization, abortion, potential stand your ground related trauma + References to warnings of previous chapter

Previous

“Everyone was terrified of her. You can ask anyone who went to the academy. She was a terrorist. She would lure you with her sweet-as-honey routine, and then she’d just flip and become this monster. Everyone who’s come out about her, I think, it’s much braver than me. Because even though I was close to her, I had a little bit of leeway for a while. As long as I did what she wanted me to do, I was safe. But when I no longer wanted to do what she wanted me to do… we became enemies.”

“I think it’s very brave of you to speak out, as well.”

“I just couldn’t live with myself if I let her get away with everything that she’s done. All of the violence, the bullying and oppression. She is literally a beast. A monster. Luckily, I was able to see her for what she was before it ruined my entire life��”

Grace cried, watching the interview in which Simon was saying these things about her.

Her mom walked in and asked, “What are you watching?” she saw Simon and ordered, “Turn it off.”

“Do you think that he really believes this or is he just an excellent liar?”

Her mother turned the TV off and took the remote from her, “Doesn’t matter whether he believes it or not. All that matters is that he’s saying it and everyone is hearing him. What matters is that you brought him into our life and now he’s soiling our good name all over television and the internet and in books and whatever else his voice can reach.”

“We were best friends…”

“Yeah, you told us that one before. Funny, he doesn’t seem to remember that. Maybe it never was. Gee, I wonder if anyone at all tried to warn you to stay away from this boy. If ONLY someone would have told you that he wasn’t right for you and that he didn’t love you…”

The past few months had been horrific. It began when Grace tried to get online and check to see if anything had been said about her video or her outburst at school. She panicked whenever she saw news about a video of her trending. She was temporarily relieved when she saw that it was her and Simon out on the terrace, then panicked again, because it had just occurred to her why he was moving so calmly… Because on video, it looked like he was gently speaking with her and trying to console her when she punched him in the face and started whaling on him. 

Grace Monroe is Over, Grace is Cancelled, Void Grace Monroe, and The Void were all connected to every post about her. “She’s an abuser! Poor Simon. I just want to give him a hug and brush his hair.” “I knew something wasn’t right about her. The sweet act seemed fake and manipulative and the Apex underneath her was rabid and vicious.” “Yoooo… I met her and she was so nice. This is bugging me out. WHY GRACE?” “This is precisely what I mean when I say abuse goes both ways. Girls can be abusive to boys too. I hope Simon has a good support system.”

She would have laughed if she could find some emotion other than hurt… She didn’t even know that she could hurt more after the fight, but somehow, she did. But, this wasn’t right. She had gone silent for days, but it wasn’t right that they got to spin things this way. MAYBE, she WAS a little violent, sometimes. But, she had NEVER hurt Simon, and certainly didn’t abuse him! And… she had been doing so much better. She had been checking her temper and her attacks. She had been less of a bully. It wasn’t that she wanted a cookie, but it hurt that she tried so hard to get herself away from her bad child routine, only to have her partner in crime let her be crucified this way. 

She threw on some clothes, knee pads, a mask and she snuck out of her fire escape. She just wanted to talk. Maybe the paparazzi caught this on tape and went running wild with it. Maybe… her Simon was in there somewhere. She took a car and left the gates, headed for Simon’s place.

Whenever she got there, she saw that the garage was open, but it had been cleaned out a lot. It didn’t look like a workroom anymore. She didn’t know if that meant that Mr. Laurent had finally gotten closure, or was moving to a different space. But, he was there. She didn’t know how much he knew. Usually, he didn’t acknowledge much that Simon did, but who knew WHAT Simon was doing or saying at this time. “Mr. Laurent?” she said as she approached. He turned suddenly then reached for a gun. ‘WHOA!” She put her hands up. “I’m sorry. I am gonna go…”

“You came into my sacred space, destroyed the memorial for my little girl, turned my son into a monster, and you just waltz up here without a care in the world?”

“I destroyed what? Hope’s memorial. I would never do something like…”

“Never say her name again. We have a restraining order on you. Now, I suggest you leave, before I have to stand my ground.”

“I didn’t do that,” she whispered as she got back into the car. “I would never do that…” She couldn’t believe that Simon would either. She was almost ready to pray to something or someone. That must’ve been what Simon had been talking about whenever they got into that fight a couple of weeks before. He let her take the fall for that, too? Was THAT story also circulating the Internet? Her phone rang and she answered it on the Bluetooth.

“My dad called the cops on you. You really should head back home.”

“Why did you do this to me? We couldn’t just… talk it out? I know that you’re hurting. I understand that…”

“You don’t understand anything. You’ve been spoiled from the moment you were conceived. You were given everything. You never had to work for any of it. You rose to the top, and it wasn’t enough for you. You needed everybody to like you. Didn’t care whether or not I did anymore. You didn’t even notice when I started to hate you.”

“I noticed… I just thought my brain was being mean to me. You know how our brains can do that, Simon? Maybe your brain was being really mean to you to make you think that I didn’t care, because I’ve always cared about you. I came over to talk because I love you.”

“Lies.” She heard a slight waiver in his voice. Maybe she imagined it. She sniffled. “Even if I had been wrong about you, I’ve made certain that you could never look at me the same way again. I’ve done everything necessary to stop you. Nobody could still love someone after everything that I’ve done.”

“That’s not true. I can love you through anything. I always have.” She heard a sniffle on his end, then he let out a chuckle. She envisioned him dotting his finger at the corner of his eye to catch his single man tear. “Simon… let’s just meet up and talk. I’m upset, but we can still change.”

“Why would I ever want to change when I’m always right?” He asked, hypothetically. She knew that it wasn’t something that he truly believed, or at least… she didn’t think he did. It was something that she used to say to him whenever he was worried about something. She was always just saying stuff to him to make him feel better, and maybe that was his point in throwing this back in her face. 

“Simon, why are you always worried about stuff when you’re always right?” she’d asked, and now she couldn’t remember the context of that question, but maybe he had a point. Maybe she was a liar, even to him. But… she didn’t mean any harm. She meant to help him. Everybody had always been so bad to him. She was sensitive. She couldn’t stand to see the boy she loved be in pain. She unfortunately had just stood there, in denial while that boy died. “I’m sorry, Simon,” she whimpered.

“Don’t be. I’ve already handled the problem myself, Void.” He hung up on her. 

When she pulled back into the gates that night, the police were there. 

It went from her sneaking out to “stalk and harass” Simon, to them wanting to search her room for items that they believed would tie her to various crimes. Her parents were livid, fussing at the police and calling lawyers. The police were insisting that they would wait for a judge to give them a warrant if they had to. 

“Young Lady, if you have a Hope Chest with criminal souvenirs in it, the best thing to do is to cooperate with us, and maybe the judge will go easy on you.”

“I have a Hope Chest with criminal souvenirs in it,” she said. At this point, fuck it. Her life was over. She might as well go to prison too, or wherever Simon was sending her. “Simon gave me things, and that’s where I kept them. Kids always gave me things, but I’ve kept Simon’s in my chest…”

“Stop talking to them, Grace! We’re on the phone with the lawyer,” her father said and to the officer said, “We TOLD you that we were contacting our lawyer and that you were not allowed to speak to her. She is a minor and you didn’t read her any rights. Nothing that you just coerced her to say matters.”

“Am I going to jail?” Grace asked the police officer. “I’m trying to cooperate…”

The woman officer looked sad for her. The man was simply annoyed by her parents making things harder.

At the end of the night, they were able to convince the Monroes to drive Grace to the precinct to make her statement, and they were given a search warrant and Grace gave them the hope chest in question. After everything, she couldn’t believe how painful it was to let go of this. But, it was understandable too. This was years of tokens of Simon’s friendship and love (and maybe even worship). Simon had taken back everything he’d ever given her from his heart. She would have thought that would have been her breaking point.

The lawyers would have to battle to prove that all of these things were given to her and that she wasn’t associated with the crimes in question, but Simon, being the little shit he was had what was tantamount to a ledger of crimes and the souvenirs that were taken from them. Some of them Grace was present for, some she wasn’t. Simon was giving the information up, so that made him look less guilty, like she had somehow maneuvered all of it. She would admit that she was responsible for a few. But, more often than not, Simon’s temper brought on a lot of these crimes. She simply had been so fond of him that she liked that about him. They were young. It was them against the world.

But, with this new narrative of her being a juvenile delinquent and puppet master, Simon had to look even more sympathetic. How, you ask? Releasing his “journals.” Simon had notebooks full of his obsession with Grace and the things that he would do for her. While her lawyers insisted that if anything, they should prove that SIMON was responsible for these things, there were going to be doubts. Grace had been the one to establish their presence at the Academy. People hadn’t touched him because they knew that she was powerful enough to shield him. She had bent fingers back. She had uppercut Shana. She had punched Simon repeatedly on her terrace, for simply talking to her.

Her parents insisted that she tell them what they could use against him, starting with why she had attacked him on the terrace. They were getting desperate to clean this matter up. She couldn’t do it, and she knew that Simon knew that she wouldn’t. She knew that Simon knew that there was no way that her mouth would ever admit to her parents that Simon made a sex tape of her and spread it around the school. If they were going to find that out, it couldn’t be from her.

And now, still going through settlements, trying to keep her record clean, and a very emotionally disturbing trip to the gynecologist, there she was, watching him on TV, speaking about her this way. Her mother, who couldn’t even be bothered to hold her hand as she cried about having to have an abortion at the edge of 17, standing there judging her and giving her “I told you so’s.” This boy was ruining every fabric of her. He knew her from the inside out and he was ripping everything to shreds and making everybody witness it…

"We loved each other, once. The things we did for each other, with each other…”

“It is an embarrassment to our reputation and to your father and I, personally. We thought we raised you better than this. We even accepted it when you brought that common rodent into our home, into our lives, and we treated him like he was worthy of respect because you asked personally. We should have known not to listen to you. You make bad choices. You’re not very smart. You’re difficult to love. It was such a wonder that you even had a friend, that we accepted him. Even though he was nothing more than vermin… and he proved that we’ve been right not to associate with the likes of common folk. You played with your pet rat, then left him outside of his cage. And now he’s covered our name in filth. Best friend… he clearly never thought you were worth anything. The moment he found a route to success without you, he took it. Left you criminalized, brokenhearted and pregnant. We taught you better than this.”

“You didn’t teach me a goddamn thing!” 

Mrs. Monroe slapped Grace in the face at that declaration. She had never been so bold before to do this. She’d usually cut Grace down with words, maybe a little force of hand. But just to slap her in the face? Never before. Then again, Grace had been infuriating for months. Not cooperating with the people trying to save her from this Simon mess, making them look bad, making terrible decisions… PREGNANT? She came crying, in the midst of a massive media scandal and a dive from high society to add to her growing criminal accusations that she spent an entire weekend letting that scarecrow impregnate her? Her mother had had it. On top of all this, she dares to curse at her and raise her voice? 

But, when she slapped her in the face, Mrs. Monroe immediately regretted it. Maybe there was some truth to Grace’s accusation. Because, how else could she have fucked up this royally with such a substandard child as Simon Laurent? These were things that she thought about all in a moment’s time. Because when she parted her lips to apologize, for once for losing her temper so badly and slapping her only daughter in the face, she didn’t get the chance to speak it out loud. Instead, she met the Grace that the kids were allegedly afraid of. She had to admit, that was terrifying.

Grace roared and attacked, at this point, angry at her mother, angry at Simon, angry at herself… Mostly herself. She had lost her only friend. She wasn’t perfect. She failed him, her parents, herself… and she didn’t even have a career anymore. She didn’t even have his tokens anymore. She didn’t have… a baby… that she would have been hard pressed NOT to love with all of her heart, even coming from him. But, she knew that with all of this, there was no way that she could add, “teenage mother” and that kid probably would have been taken away from her like everything else.

Next thing she knew, she was at the mental facility. She heard them promising to take care of her. She heard them ask her parents about scheduling visits. she heard her father sternly say, "We will not be back unless you contact us to tell us you’ve fixed her.” she cried. So, now they believed in getting her help? When she was so far gone that she couldn’t think straight? or… was this just goodbye? She caused them so much distress they decided that they’d rather shut her away than ever have to deal with her failures again? She began to pace, crying profusely. She had never been this alone before… and her only comfort now was a needle that forced her to sleep.

Simon received a barrage of tags and he opened the story to see multiple publications covering Grace being dragged from her home, kicking and screaming and being brought into a mental institution. His heart stopped. His first impulse was to cry. He felt the tears creeping up, but he cleared them away fast. It wasn’t his fault she turned him against her. This was what she got for misleading him. He smirked and reposted her screaming like a demon while they tried to get her into the vehicle, with the caption, “Stop sending me this shit.”

He was closing a book deal about all of this. There had been reports of seeing Grace be concealed and sneaking to a facility where it was speculated that teenage elites go to “get rid of certain problems.” A few Apex girls admitted that it was THE go to place for a rich girl to have a quiet abortion. That was the main thing that they went there for, though a few said that it was also to confirm pregnancies before sending them off (for the more religioso types) and to “hide an attack or abuse” for the straight up monsters raising teen girls. The point was that everyone seemed to agree that there was no way that Grace was going there for anything other than handling a pregnancy however the Monroes saw fit.

On the one hand, he couldn’t imagine ever having a family with anyone else, at one point. On the other, he was rising to his true form. 17 now, and famous without her. Every publisher wanted his book. Every personality wanted an interview. Every student wanted to stay in his good graces. Colleges were looking at his situation as a survivor and a scholar, helping him transition from the break up between himself and the Monroes, and he had taken the Apex over. Grace was voided. He had won. The true king had risen, with a new vision for his future. Over time, he knew that the old dreams would fade. Her face, her laugh, her eyes, the scent of her hair, the feel of her warmth when she held him close and cupped his face, the shivers it sent through him when she lied and said that she cared, that she loved him, that she was his…

He couldn’t get close to anyone else. It just wasn’t possible. Even if he thought he could trust someone. All they had to do to make him think about her was enter his personal space, and he couldn’t have that. He dreamed about her, still. About their good times. He even sometimes thought that when they gave themselves to each other that she was sincere, that this access to her body wasn’t just another weapon that she was using to make him her slave. Because, she almost had him that weekend. He was ready to give up everything he planned to do to take her out. He was ready to submit to her again and settle for whatever warped notion of love she expected him to take. 

Then, he’d remembered his vision of the void that had taken her away from him. He remembered the impending loneliness of her being the one with the power to leave him. He pushed the feeling of her body and their fake union from his mind long enough to do what needed to be done. After that, everything started falling into place. 

By the time he watched the videos and some with remixes of her own songs (his favorite being one about being “Taken Away” (by love) as she was dragged off… he realized that all of his fondness of them was basically dried up. Without that attachment holding him back, his mind couldn’t even fathom how far he could go.

Next

[mymotherwasright]

THE TELL-TALE UTERUS

TRUE!—nervous—very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am hysterical? My hormones had sharpened my senses—not destroyed—not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in the lower part of my own torso. How, then, am I hysterical? Hearken! and observe how healthily—how rationally I can tell you the whole story.

It was not long I had sat up google-ing fertility statistics when I first encountered it. We had always lived in the same body, the uterus and I, sharing polite nods once a month. I do not know when the strange notion first came upon me, but I was suddenly seized by the desire to cease those monthly visits. Since the uterus gave no sign of stopping, it was up to me to take action. I was in my twenties then, and my life seemed an infinite thread, the world no worse for missed menstruation.

I went about it methodically and scientifically, gathering what I needed for the event itself. First, I visited a doctor in a medical building next to a freeway. Unlike the officious sterility of most medical offices, the OBGYN welcomed me warmly. After a quick exam and chat about my medical history, I presented my strange request, expecting the doctor to recoil in horror. Instead, she explained the procedure was quite routine. She seemed almost cheerful when she recommended a copper device to shut down the operation. Both heartened and appalled by her eager compliance, I departed with a plan in place.

I returned for the insertion the following week, the outpatient procedure taking but a sliver of my morning. Afterwards, an acute pain and some blood, but as the metal took ahold of my progesterone I found myself oddly detached—gleeful, even. Soon, the monthly reminders of my uterus slowed, and eventually stopped completely. It was as if it wasn’t even there. I felt no remorse—it had been shut down, deep inside my body—buried within my own flesh and blood. An entombed womb. 

As the hormones took their due course, and I doubled down on my investment in my career. Without the constant tick I found myself more productive than ever. I was promoted to head office. I had duped nature itself, and my uterus was relegated to the dusty attic of my memory, keeping company with my gallbladder and spleen.

It was some after these events that the invitation arrived in the mail. Opening the envelope, I expected the usual save-the-date but this one was different—a stork had replaced the familiar doves. I was barely—barely able to read the words over a garish clip-art infant. Deep within my torso I heard a soft, faint tick—like a turn signal, lingering. 

In the weeks leading up to the shower, small tokens entered into my consciousness which triggered the sound—strollers whipping past me on the sidewalk, targeted ads adorning my beloved web pages, suggestive calls from my mother. The day of the party came and went—I spent it locked in my room, kept company by the tick which had now become as loud as the clock on my wall.

It increased in volume every night and upon waking its unceasing noise reversed every stride I had made at my place of business. I became both exhausted and, envying the joyful oblivion of the men that surrounded me, unaffected by my ticking. 

At last I could take it no longer—one morning, at daybreak, I ran back to the doctor, begging her to take out the wretched device. She calmly complied. I wept tears of relief, and went home eager to for my first night of blessed uninterrupted sleep. 

I settled quickly with an imperfect match, conceived with no more than the usual difficulty, and gave birth to a infant, much more lively than the clipart version that had begun my panicked machinations. As soon as my partner and I settled in at home with our new addition, the babe began to cry. And somewhere, below or above the screams of its small lungs, it began again. I turned to my partner, asked if he could hear the noise, but he laughed pleasantly, suggesting that perhaps the birth had split my brain as well as my body. 

But there it was—a small, slow, and steady tick in the heart of my reproductive organs. And in that tick I heard the unending cacophony of existence, the dark fear that in choosing one path the other was forever closed, making its unfulfilled presence known through constant, small reminders. But I could not sit and think, for the babe was crying and needed to be fed and the laundry was in a pile and needed to be washed and the floor was dirty and needed to be swept and the--

[quietpagan]

TH Written in Stone, 1

Summary: That awkward moment when you didn’t know you were a Changeling and now everyone in Trollmarket hates you and you have to figure out how to tell your mother that her original son is trapped in some underground hell filled with carnivorous trolls while simultaneously trying to be the Trollhunter for a bunch of trolls who want you dead. Canon divergence after S1E7, To Catch a Changeling. Warning for violence and language.

Blinky supposed that in retrospect, it could have gone worse.

The screaming, however, was getting to him.

Changelings in Arcadia was something that Blinky hoped beyond all else was a false assumption, but he could not deny what Jim and Tobias saw, or what they thought they saw. With Bular’s presence it made sense, as did a few odd moments and conversations that he recalled from Kanjigar’s Trollhunting days.

A Changeling in Arcadia was a monumental disaster. Changelings were master spies, patient and clever, able to take on new roles without a moment’s hesitation. Adept mimics, they excelled at blending in with whatever environment or crowd they had been assigned, and their collective ambition often put them in roles of power. Never absolute power, mind; that came with too much danger and suspicion. But an advisor here, a trusted companion there, and they had the ears of those who they could manipulate into their nefarious schemes. A Changeling among humans was a horrible misfortune.

A Changeling in Trollmarket itself? Nothing else but a catastrophe.

The eye of Rot peered curiously at Jim and Toby when Blinky mentioned they were suspicious of Changelings, and it hit Blinky that he had never suspected either of the boys to be one. It simply was unfathomable. Changelings had not been seen or heard of for centuries, and even he – as mired in conspiracies as he was – had not considered that frightful option.

It seemed highly unlikely, given the boys’ ages, but Blinky supposed that they would find out for sure in a minute or two anyway.

RotGut’s emporium, thankfully, held the appropriate totem with which to unveil a Changeling, and Blinky was quite glad when the arguing trolls saw fit to give them their totem. The gaggletack rocketed out of the drawer in RotGut’s door and smacked Tobias in the forehead, felling the poor boy like a sack of rocks.

“It hurts!” Jim bent to pick it up –

“It’s a…”

- and the gaggletack flashed with blue, sparkling violently with a crack of magic.

Blinky would later recount that he handled the situation with calm and poise, despite the bruises on his back that he obtained from leaping backwards with a yelp and falling against RotGut’s door.

And the little blue troll in Jim’s place, still crouching to pick up the gaggletack, screamed.

Actually, everybody screamed, but the Jim-troll screamed loudest and longest. Blinky watched with utter shock as he scrambled with his arms and legs, feeling the horns upon his head and the teeth protruding from his lip, screaming all the while.

AAARRRGGHH picked up the whelp and pressed a hand against his face before the screams could even evolve into actual words, and he carried the struggling troll back out into the market, heading for his personal quarters.

Tobias and Blinky were left behind, both still on the ground in various states of shock.

“We must go after them,” Blinky muttered, rising to his feet and pulling Toby up with one arm.

“Ohmygosh, ohmygosh, ohmygosh,” the boy was mumbling, tripping after Blinky with a despairing moan.

“I did not know he could do that! Did you know he could do that? Does this mean Jim’s a Changeling? What happened to the real Jim?!” “That is precisely what I mean to find out! Now hurry up!” Blinky lead Toby down an empty corridor, past rooms meant for storage and utilities. AAARRRGGHH’s personal quarters were in an uninhabited sector, a choice he had made upon arriving in Heartstone Trollmarket. Even centuries later, when his temperament had evened and his fear of accidentally hurting someone in a rage had lessened, he still kept his solitary quarters, though they were rarely used.

They met no one on the way, and when they arrived the large boulder that AAARRRGGHH used as a door had been shifted aside. Panicked gasping could be heard from within the room.

Blinky and Tobias entered to find the Jim-troll pacing wildly around the room, his head in his hands. There were only four fingers, Blinky noticed.

“Ahem, er. Master Jim?” “What the fuck?!” Jim yelled, throwing his arms in the air. “What, what did that thing do to me? Is it permanent? Is-is this going to stick, because I can’t go home to my mom like this, she’ll freak! Why did the horseshoe turn me into a troll?! I can’t be a troll, I can barely make it to class as it is! You can fix this, right? It’ll wear off, like the Furgulator thing, right?”

Blinky was at a loss. Tobias seemed perfectly content to pounce on Jim and poke at his every feature, but Blinky could not shake the enormous feeling of dread.

Jim was a Changeling.

Jim was a Changeling, and he was the Trollhunter.

The Trollhunter was a Changeling.

The Trollhunter, who was Jim, was a Changeling who, by his own admission, had had no idea of his true nature.

There was no conceivable way for Blinky to explain this.

AAARRRGGHH’s bright eyes glimmered in a corner. Stalking over to him, Blinky accepted the warm arm across his shoulders and watched as Jim proceeded to have a fit. Everything he noticed deepened his alarm; the grey-blue tint of his skin, the broader expansion of his chest, the curved horns on either side of his skull.

Toby was shoving his hands into Jim’s mouth, examining his enlarged teeth, when Blinky noticed the boy getting ready to have a panic attack. Honestly, Blinky rather felt like having one himself, but…

…even with the fangs and the skin and the horns…

…it was clear that the little troll was still Jim, and Jim was worth putting aside his feelings for.

Blinky walked away from the corner and pulled the boy into a hug, feeling with all four arms how hard the boy was tremoring. Whether Jim had known about this change or not, the poor child was terrified, and Blinky could no more ignore it than stab himself in the eye.

“We will figure this out, Master Jim,” he murmured, softly patting the boy on the back. “If you can change one way, you can change the other. We will get you back to your usual form.” Jim buried his face in his shoulder; Blinky only realized then how much his height had changed. Poor Tobias, who was patting Jim’s arm, looked even more miniscule than normal.

“C’mon, Jimbo, it’s okay,” he said. “You know, even if you are a Changeling, we’re still besties! This doesn’t have to change anything, Jim!” Blinky begged to differ – this changed everything – but Jim was sobbing into his shoulder now and bringing up the repercussions of being a Changeling among trolls would not be the most comforting idea.

The room rumbled slightly as AAARRRGGHH trudged over to them. He sniffed at Jim’s limp hand, nudged his face between him and Blinky, nearly lifting the teen off of the ground. His face turned into a frown as he deliberated.

“Mmm. Changeling,” he growled. That settled the matter. Blinky, through all his scholarly pursuits, had not nearly the experience with Changelings that AAARRRGGHH did, and if his companion recognized Jim’s scent as such then that was the end of the matter.

Blinky pressed on Jim’s shoulders until he sank down on AAARRRGGHH’s nest of blankets and skins, Tobias joining him at his side.

“Think of it this way, Jim-my-man,” he said, his voice tenuously light and cheerful. “Now you don’t have to complain about reaching the top shelves anymore.”

To Blinky’s gratefulness Jim smiled and gave a watery laugh.

“Oh, god,” he whispered, staring into his hands. “What am I going to tell my mom?”

  A/N: I’m so strapped at work that I can’t even take lunch all month, two of my coworkers are out, I’ve got another neonatal kitten, and I can’t seem to figure out how to eat/sleep/rest in a way that actually makes me feel less like a decomposing raccoon, so I thought I’d dive into another AU and try my best to actually churn out some work on it. Because one can never be too busy.

This happened a bit before season 3 took off and I was daydreaming about finding out about being a Changeling and how horrible it would be to have to tell my mother that I had accidentally taken over her original child. I’m going to love exploring Jim and Barbara’s talk in the next few chapters. If anybody reading this was adopted, I would love to hear your perspective on this.

Jim is a weeper. Jim cries every other episode. Jim cried when he’s alone, when he’s with others, when he’s in the shower, probably – Jim cries so fucking much and I love it, you never see male characters cry, ever. It’s healthy.

Changeling!Jim looks pretty much like Season 3 troll!Jim, but a little more trollish in the face and body.

Sorry that this chapter is so short but I haven’t slept and my brain is muy gooey.

Also found on AO3 here