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death-himself · 2 days ago

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Smoke and Butterflies — Chapter 4

Let Our Bones Lie in But a Single Urn

"Draw closer to me, let us once more throw our arms around one another, and find sad comfort in the sharing of our sorrows."

Word Count: 2,409

Warnings: Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, Suicide, Minor Child Abuse

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They had met on the first day of freshman year, when they sat next to each other in their homeroom class. Patton, with curly black hair and dark, warm eyes that he could get lost in. It felt as though Archie and Patton were tied together by the strings of fate; they felt as though they had known each other not just their whole lives, but all their lives before then and all their lives that would come after.

As they pushed through their first year of high school, they needed no one else. They would spend each day at one or the other’s house, playing video games, reading about mythology, or doing homework, but there was always a tension in the air that neither of them would dare to mention. Mentioning it would make it real.

Starting in their sophomore year, they began hanging out in the woods not too far from Patton’s home. They found two dead trees propping each other up, keeping each other from falling, took some rope, and hung a large blanket over them to create a shelter, a hideaway that only they would know about.

As the chill of night began to creep in, they built a small fire at the entrance to their shelter. Having built it a bit too far inside, half of the smoke would creep through the air, pooling under the blanket and seeping into everything. A cold breeze swept into their shelter, and Patton shivered and huddled closer to Archie. Archie leaned in closer to Patton. He could smell nothing but Patton and smoke, their scents blending into one, sweet and irresistible, and slowly suffocating them as they refused to leave their shelter, even as it filled with the light fog that choked out the oxygen in the air and burned at their eyes.

Archie felt Patton’s soft cheek pressed into his shoulder, and for a moment he didn’t care if he died right then, so long as he got to die with Patton by his side.

But then he looked out at the distant lights of their town, the pinprick of Patton’s porchlight flicking on, and imagined their parents leaving their houses to look for them. What they would do if they found them like this, choked to death by the smoke that they made and stewed in.

He pulled away, pulling his jacket tighter around him as he stood up. “I should probably get home.” Archie said. Patton looked up at him, and an understanding passed between them as it had many times before. Patton stood up and nodded. “I should get home too.” The two of them stomped down the fire and embers until smoke no longer rose out of them.

They never went to their shelter together again.

In the middle of sophomore year, Patton had decided to dye his hair a dark green. They lived in a rather small town, where only one or two girls in their entire school had dyed hair, so his choice caused a bit of a stir. Archie tried to talk him out of it, reminding Patton of what others might think, what both of their parents might think. He never said what it was, but they both knew very well what he meant. Patton would simply respond, “Well we’re not. I’m not. So it’s fine,” along with some variation of an excuse, such as, “I mean it looks kind of cool, doesn’t it?” or, “Women love men with dyed hair nowadays.” After this, Patton would always look at Archie with a grin that he couldn’t argue with.

Archie had quickly gained a reputation as a bit of a troubled kid, constantly arguing with classmates and teachers alike, and being known as the one person at school that could win any fight, no matter who was the one to start it, and no matter how many people he was fighting. He walked with Patton like a celebrity and their bodyguard, glaring at anyone who even dared to open their mouth around him.

When he inevitably got suspended and his parents caught wind of his behavior, they laughed. They drove Archie home as he stared down at the blood and bruises on his knuckles. Someone had yelled a word at Patton, and Archie had seen red. Before he knew it, his fist was connecting with the guy’s face, breaking his nose with one quick motion. His father cracked jokes about how a tiny word could rile him up so much. It wasn’t just a word to Archie, though. That tension between him and Patton followed them around like a smokecloud, slowly, quietly suffocating them. And people around them were starting to smell the smoke.

Patton would come by every day while he was suspended. In a quick act of defiance, Archie told Patton that he would dye his hair as well. The next day, while his parents were both out at work, Patton came to his house with plastic gloves and bottles of bleach and hair dye.

Patton’s hands ran through Archie’s hair gently and thoroughly. The bathroom was filled with smoke, which poured out into the hallway, clouding their vision as they moved into the living room while waiting for the dye to set. Archie turned on the TV, but neither of them could really see it through the hazy cloud.

Patton turned to look at Archie, jabbing him in the arm with a finger. “I think the purple really suits you.” Archie groaned, leaning his head back into the couch, before jolting upright again to keep his hair from leaving a purple splotch.

“It’s kind of girly. Why’d you have to choose purple?”

“Why’d you let me choose purple?” Archie grinned, looking into Patton’s eyes.

“I dunno, I guess I just trusted your judgement.”

“Do you always trust my judgement?”

“Always.” Archie spoke without realizing. The two had leaned in closer, the smoke suffocating. Before Archie could think, his lips pressed gently against Patton’s, the smoke being cleared away by his scent. Patton placed a hand on the back of his neck, and Archie did the same to him, desperate and terrified for him to pull away. If this stopped, they would have to talk about it. Talking about it would make it real.

In his stupor, Archie heard the faint sound of a car pulling up to the driveway, keys at the front door, a doorknob turning and heavy boots walking in. He shoved Patton away from him, hard enough for him to stumble and fall to the floor in front of the couch, but the damage was already done. Archie’s father stared at them as if they were a two-headed hydra, looking back and forth between the two as if wondering which to slice off first.

Archie could barely hear him when he started yelling. Blood pulsed in his eardrums in rhythm with his pounding heart as he watched Patton scramble up from the ground and run out the door. Archie’s father grabbed him and pulled him up by his shirt, but even with him inches away from his face he couldn’t understand a word that was being said. Soon he was pushed into his room, left to wash out the dye in his hair later on his own.

Patton didn’t come by again after that. When Archie’s suspension was over, he went back to school to find that Patton was absent. Another day passed, and his parents told him that Patton’s parents had reported him missing. They sounded almost happy, as if this would make what had happened not matter anymore.

Another day passed, and Patton was still gone. He overheard other kids in his class talking, following a story one of Patton’s neighbors had told them. Patton had come out to his parents. He disappeared shortly after that.

Archie knew where Patton was. He pulled a duffel bag from his closet, shoving in some clothes and food, then made his way to the woods near Patton’s home.

They would talk. They had been denying it since they met, but they both knew how they felt. It was real, and it was time to accept reality. Archie repeated this to himself as he walked up the path to their shelter. They could run away, find somewhere that lived in the same reality they did. They would be together through it all. He would go wherever Patton went, and at that moment, Patton was at the shelter they had made for themselves.

Archie walked up to their shelter to find it deconstructed. The dead trees had likely collapsed against themselves months ago, now the home to dozens of bugs and small animals. The blanket was torn off, moldy from rain and covered in dirt and moss. And the rope.

Archie turned his gaze upwards to find Patton, hanging from a tree branch above their shelter. His face was serene; Archie had never seen him so at peace.

He searched the area, but found no suicide note. He folded up the blanket and tore apart the dead trees in a fit of anger and pain, but found nothing. He screamed and kicked at one of the dead trees with his foot, and pain shot through his ankle as he collapsed to the forest floor, trying and failing to blink back tears as his breaths came out ragged.

He couldn’t get himself to stand up, though he wasn’t sure if it was because of the pain in his ankle or not. He stared into the sky, at Patton’s body hovering above him, looking as angelic in death as he did in life, the light of the setting sun illuminating his body in a holy glow. Archie closed his eyes, and went to sleep there in the forest. Only in the morning could he get himself to stand up and walk to Patton’s house to tell his family where he was.

The funeral was the week after, and Archie’s parents refused to let him go. Patton’s parents hadn’t even invited him. He could see them all trying their best to pretend that what had happened between their sons hadn’t existed at all. While Archie wanted to be mad, a part of him couldn’t blame them. This happened because of them, because what they had was real. Archie mulled over every way things could have gone differently, and this was the conclusion he came to: if they had never met, Patton would still be alive. If he hadn’t kissed Patton that day, none of this would’ve happened.

Still, he fought to attend the funeral, he needed to be there. He yelled at his parents, they yelled back. His father called him a word, Archie punched him. His father then grabbed him by the back of his jacket and shoved him out the door, hastily throwing his duffel bag, still full of food and clothes that was meant to be shared with Patton, out with him.

Archie didn’t know if his parents truly meant to kick him out for good, he didn’t care if they did, and he would never find out. He simply shouldered his duffel bag and started walking to the cemetery.

The funeral was over and cleaned up by the time he got there, the last few chairs being brought in and the last few mourners on their way out. Archie sat in front of Patton’s grave, and felt as though smoke was emanating from the dirt.

Anger bubbled up inside him, yet he had nowhere to direct it. Nowhere but in. It was the smoke that killed Patton, he decided. The smoke had choked out the life of his...friend. His only friend. His Patton.

He remembered the last time he had seen Patton alive, terrified and running out the door as Archie’s father yelled at him. If he hadn’t kissed him that day, would he still be alive?

He didn’t want to think about it. He didn’t want to think about Patton, what could’ve been, what he might have had or might have ruined. His duffel bag weighed heavy on his shoulder. His ankle still ached from when he kicked at the dead tree in the forest.

He opened up his bag and took inventory. He had enough food for maybe two weeks if he pushed it, and the small bit of money he had saved up could get him a bus ride to a town a couple miles away, just far enough to get away from anyone that knew him.

Archie nodded to himself, shouldering his bag again and standing up. He took one last look at Patton’s grave, then turned and left the cemetery.

He had no time to think about Patton. Now he just needed to survive.

~~~

Washing the hair dye out of his hair in the eerie silence of an empty bathroom felt familiar to Archie in a way that he hated. Now that his mind was settling into the idea of living in the dorm with the other heroes longterm, he began to leave survival mode, causing his memories of Patton to come swirling back into his brain.

He thought about Achilles and Patroclus, how he and Patton had always felt so connected to them. Patroclus was killed, and Achilles’s grief wrote the rest of his story.

Because Achilles had loved him, and his life had ended with Patroclus’s death. And Archie was still here.

Archie dried off his hair, running a hand through the newly vibrant purple. It wasn’t a color he was necessarily a fan of, and he didn’t think he would ever actively choose to dye his hair if it wasn’t for Patton. But he imagined the way Patton would’ve complimented it had he gotten the chance to, and smiled.

No one would have to know about Patton, or how the smoke and Archie killed him.

The next morning, he met up with the others on the roof, talking to Atlanta as butterflies rose in his chest. With the sunlight in her hair and a gleam in her eyes, she looked absolutely breathtaking. Different, but just as beautiful as Patton had been handsome, and without the smoke choking them both to death.

He engaged with the others happily, talking with them as easily as he would if he had known them his whole lives. But in his jacket pocket, he held his pocket knife loosely in his hand, just in case they began to notice the smoke.

~~~A/N~~~

Chapter title and the quote under it are both from the Iliad. I really liked that second quote but had no idea where to put it, but I really wanted to include it somewhere so there you go :p

Final notes about my choices for Archie: 1) Yes I gave him a gay lover and implied that Patton might have been a descendant of Patroclus. 2) Looking at Archie's character, the thought of him choosing to dye his hair purple of all colors both does and doesn't feel like it fits. I feel like you could spin it either way, so I decided to make it a thing he did with Patton for plot reasons.

thanks for reading <3

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death-himself · 3 days ago

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Smoke and Butterflies — Chapter 3

Reality.

Word Count: 2,621

Warnings: None

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While Archie had wanted to simply leave and hitchhike to the next town over, the allure of food and comfort was too much for him to ignore. Before he knew it, he was walking to the apartment and putting the key Ares had given him into the lock.

He opened the door a crack, listening intently to check if anyone else was inside. Seeing that the lights were off, he crept in and locked the door behind him. He didn’t dare turn on the lights himself, instead opting to squint through the darkness as he made his way to the kitchen.

He was just going to get some food, take a shower, maybe steal some stuff from one of the bedrooms, and leave. He zipped open his duffel bag, shoving some clothes aside as he quickly parsed through the cupboards. He found someone’s stash of snacks and glanced over his shoulder at the door for a moment, before guiltily grabbing some candy bars and a bag of chips and shoving them into his bag as well.

After this, he peeked into the bedrooms, finding three clearly already occupied. He let himself into one of the unoccupied rooms, finding a bed with a soft mattress and even softer pillows, a desk that looked almost identical to the desk he had back at his parents’ house, and a dresser with what looked like a gift basket sitting on top of it, with soft towels and small bottles of shampoo and soap, not unlike what a hotel would give out.

Archie put his duffel bag down for a moment, falling onto the bed and allowing himself to sink into the blankets. He’d almost forgotten how nice it felt to sleep on an actual bed, and even then he didn’t think his bed at his parents’ house was even half as nice as this one. He let out a content sigh, his eyes sliding closed for a moment.

But then he remembered his objective. He couldn’t get distracted, he had no way of knowing when the others would get back. Taking much longer than he’d ever admit, he pulled himself off of the bed, going over his options for a moment before pulling some clothes and an old towel from his bag, then hiding it under the bed.

Taking the provided shampoo and soap, he got into the shower, washing himself off more thoroughly than he’d ever been able to in public restrooms, feeling grateful to have something other than hand soap to clean himself for once. The water became warm much quicker than he had expected, and he couldn’t help but stand there for a few moments and allow the warmth to soak into his bones. Archie closed his eyes, his shoulders drooping a bit. The warm water felt like a hug, like his hug. He felt the water on his shoulders and neck as it seemed to wrap around him, and then constrict his throat with its warmth.

Archie snapped his eyes open with a gasp, bringing his hand up to his throat, only to find nothing there. He shut off the water, drying himself off quickly and throwing some clothes on.

This place was too comfortable, he needed to leave while he still could. He shoved his old clothes into his duffel bag, zipping it closed and practically running out the bedroom door. As he heard the front door creak open and the chatter of Jay speaking to someone he didn’t recognize the voice of, he slipped out the backdoor and into a nearby alleyway.

Archie began wandering around New Olympia, halfheartedly looking out for places he could camp for the night. For once his ankles weren’t bothering him too bad, and he supposed he had Hephaestus’s brace to thank for that. Hephaestus in myth always seemed to be disabled in some way, so he supposed if anyone could make a good ankle brace it would be him. That is, if he were actually a god and actually Hephaestus, which Archie knew that he wasn’t.

He found himself fiddling with the pendant in his hand as he walked, unable to take his mind off of the gods and their supposed prophecy. Before he knew it, he realized he had walked in a circle and found himself back at the alleyway near the apartment. He put his bag down with a huff, sitting down and leaning back against the wall, looking down at the pendant as he turned it over in his hands.

This whole thing was insane. Greek gods being real, a prophecy about a bunch of teenagers taking on the father of the first Olympians, Archie being part of that prophecy. Archie even being related to Achilles was insane, even if he had been real and had just been a normal human. But the Achilles of myth was related to the gods, the great-grandson of Zeus on his dad’s side, great-grandson of Gaia and the son of a sea nymph on his mother’s; it was part of why he was as strong and as great of a warrior as he was.

Archie hadn’t done anything noteworthy in his life. He wasn’t good in school, he’d never been good at making friends, and he had given up on sports in any sort of professional field not long after his ankles began to fail him. The thought of him being related to one of the greatest heroes in mythology was laughable.

As the sun set fully over the skyline, Archie decided to simply sleep in the alleyway for the night. Tucking the pendant under his shirt, he pushed his duffel bag behind a dumpster, deciding to leave it there while he checked the area.

The alleyway and the back porch of the apartment were dimly lit by the glow of lights shining through windows as Archie paced the area. It seemed this was a small segment of the city that was unmonitored by the police, but also empty of homeless people, making Archie feel safe, but also deeply unwelcome.

As Archie turned to head back to his duffel bag, he accidentally bumped into an empty trash can, creating a loud metallic clash that made him grimace and prepare to flee. And then he heard whispers coming from the back porch. He froze in place as his mind immediately went on alert, listening intently to try and understand what those whispers were saying.

“Now!” He heard one of them say, right before two people jumped him. His body went into autopilot, shoving one to the ground and grabbing the other out of the air and throwing her. He stepped forward, ready to continue the fight, his mind buzzing, when he glanced at his first attacker, recognizing her red hair and green eyes, shining in the dim light and piercing into his soul.

“Archie?” Atlanta nearly yelled, picking herself up off the ground. The other girl, one of the other “heroes,” he assumed, looked back and forth between the two, panting and still ready to fight.

“You know this guy?”

“He’s supposed to be one of us,” she replied, before turning to look at him, eyebrows scrunched together. “I thought you were leaving, why are you sneaking around?”

“I was checking the perimeter, making sure it’s safe,” he spoke truthfully before he could bite his tongue. Something about Atlanta made him almost scared to lie to her, as if he knew she would be able to sniff out the truth no matter how believable his lie was. He waited with baited breath for Atlanta to recognize how strange his response was, and for her confusion to get him kicked out of the alleyway.

But before she could respond, everything went dark, the only light coming from the full moon above them. Archie looked up at the windows all around them, finding each one black and empty.

Soon after, Jay came outside to check on them, and Atlanta was dragging him along back to the school. Archie wanted to protest, but with three people around him wanting him to come with them, he had trouble finding the words.

Soon he was back in the godly wing of the school, watching on the steps as the others picked out weapons, glancing back at Odie every once in a while as he typed away on his laptop, mumbling under his breath about power outages and electricity.

He found himself struggling to take his eyes off of Atlanta. He watched as she twirled a pair of steel bolas, biting back a laugh as she took the nose off of one of Ares’s statues and got promptly chewed out for it. When she smiled, he shoved away the butterflies trying to float into his stomach and up his throat. The air smelled clearer and suddenly he started to feel safe, like he had just pulled himself out of a firepit.

Theresa sat next to him and engaged him in a short conversation, and Archie found himself able to wipe the scowl off of his face for a moment, his shoulders loosening up for a moment as they talked. Odie told them that he had found where all the power was being transferred to, and the five of them began making their way back to the apartment to grab Herry’s truck to begin driving to the power station.

Archie hung behind the five others for a moment, watching them leave cautiously. Atlanta glanced back at him, before stopping, rolling her eyes, and walking back to him. “So are you coming or what?” Archie mentally prepared for an argument, looking her up and down for a moment, before feeling his blood begin rushing to his face and looking away.

“You really believe in this stuff? A fire breathing monster at the power station? A god took out the power in the city to fuel...whatever he’s got over there?”

“I’ve seen it. And you’ll see it too if you come with us.” He could almost feel Atlanta sizing him up, like a hunter trying to decide the most efficient way to take down their prey. “Come on, Archie. You’ve already seen some of this weird stuff! Hermes probably brought you here on one of his gryphons, you probably saw some giants, that stuff was real, right?”

Atlanta smiled at him, and those butterflies threatened to fly up his throat and out his mouth. There was something about her that made him feel strangely safe, and as she smiled right at him, he realized what it was.

He couldn’t smell the smoke when she was around. Or rather, the butterflies in his stomach seemed to clear away the smoke from his mind and soul. With her spawning butterflies with her presence in his life, Archie could settle down without suffocating, and no one would have to know about what Archie carried with him.

“Just come on and join us. You’ll see how real this whole thing is soon enough.” Atlanta broke him out of his thoughts. She nodded her head at the other four heroes, beckoning Archie to join them. Archie thought for a moment, before saying, “I’ll think about it,” and continuing to follow a few steps behind.

~~~

The rest of the night passed by in a flash of thoughts and actions. Archie had grabbed his duffel bag from behind the dumpster and thrown it into one of the bedrooms, before catching up with the others and joining them in Herry’s truck. They had driven to the spot Odie had pointed out, and had split up not long before a giant ball of fire was thrown directly at him.

And that’s when he saw the Typhoeus. A giant red monster with a bright orange mane and glowing green eyes, bat-like wings at least a thousand feet wide, with two writhing snakes for legs, each hissing angrily as they looked between Archie, Jay, and Theresa, as if deciding which one to eat first.

Archie’s survival instincts seemed to throw him into the backseat as he tried his best to fight back against the monster. But his mind was racing as everything seemed to come crashing down around him. He couldn’t pretend something wasn’t real when it was giant and terrifying and had three heads that were each individually trying to kill him. It was real, all of it was real.

And as the Typhoeus flung him into the river, he couldn’t help but think about the prophecy. Cronus was real, and they were meant to stop him. The seven of them (or he supposed, six at the moment) were the only true line of defence between a god and humanity.

And Archie was the descendant of Achilles. They were all real. Archie thought about his brief talk with Jay, who had told him that the scrawny, nerdy-looking Odie was apparently the descendant of Odysseus, one of the greatest heroes in mythology alongside Achilles. He had sounded so sure of it, as if it wasn’t insane to believe that someone like Odie was even remotely related to anyone as powerful as Odysseus had been.

But Archie supposed, if Odie could be related to Odysseus, he may as well be related to Achilles. It made the pain in his ankles feel a bit more pointed, and for the first time in years, he thought back to his father’s sharp comment about the universe having it out for him with how many times he sprained his ankles.

The six of them returned to the apartment that night feeling uneasy, constantly looking up at the rings Cronus had created around the planet using a passing asteroid. Archie lied down in his new bedroom, allowing himself to sink into the mattress again. He looked over at his duffel bag, dropped onto his desk and only zipped up halfway.

Looking around the room for a moment, he took a deep breath, before standing up and beginning to pull out clothes, fold them up properly, and put them away in the drawers. He came across the snacks and other food he had stolen, and peeked out into the dark hallway before creeping out and putting it all back in the kitchen where he found them.

He then began sorting through his various trinkets and torn wrappers that had collected at the bottom of the bag. As he pulled out broken lighters and twigs, he also pulled out a bottle about the size of his hand, with a label that had become rather torn up and worn down after a year of him forgetting it existed.

It was a bottle of bright purple hair dye; Archie didn’t know the exact shade, he hadn’t been the one to buy it. He went to the bathroom and took a good look at his hair. The purple hadn’t faded as much as he would’ve expected, but that was probably only because he rarely got the chance to wash it properly on the streets. He reached into his duffel bag again, finding a few crumpled up pairs of plastic gloves.

His insides felt hollow as he began washing and drying his hair, squirting the hair dye into his gloved hand and smearing it across his scalp. At first he forced himself to think about Atlanta while he did it, but he was soon filled with guilt and shame.

He locked eyes with himself in the mirror. With Atlanta around, no one would be able to smell the smoke coming off his skin. He would be safe thinking about him for a few minutes. As Archie ran the dye through his hair, for the first time since the day of the funeral, he allowed himself to drift back into his memories of his years with Patton.

~~~A/N~~~

writing this has made me think about how weird some of the stuff in the show is and have to try and figure out ways that it would happen. Like why does Archie leave with his duffel bag after his talk with Jay and Atlanta only to show up at the apartment later, why did he go with them to grab their weapons when he seemed so cagey the last time they talked, why did he follow them back to the apartment to get Herry's truck (because it's shown parked in front of their apartment, not at Olympus High) only to act awkward when asking if he could join them in the truck. There's so much that would've happened off-screen for any of that to make sense, which is also why I added that extra lil talk with Atlanta between them leaving Olympus High and getting Herry's truck

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death-himself · 4 days ago

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Smoke and Butterflies — Chapter 2

Reality?

Word Count: 2,361

Warnings: None

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A few days passed without anything unusual. Archie walked along the highway to the next town over, hung out in their library, ate at their homeless shelter when he could, and slept in a tunnel connecting to the sewer system when he had to. It was nothing out of the ordinary, but the pendant under his shirt made Archie feel more on-edge. Now he had something he was scared of losing.

A week passed before anything changed. He had found an alleyway behind a restaurant, where the heat from their ovens could be felt through the wall and occasionally safe food could be found in their dumpsters. He had hunkered down against the warm wall with a cardboard box barely hiding him from the employees, who would graciously pretend they didn’t see him while taking out the trash. That’s when he heard the thump of heavy footsteps.

He pretended to ignore it at first, his head ducked down between his knees and his hoodie covering his face. Usually if he didn’t move, strangers would hardly notice him at all, or at least not see him as someone worth bothering.

The thumping footsteps began to approach, and he heard an almost inhuman chuckle of excitement, coming from way too far up to be normal. Archie’s grip tightened on his pocket knife, and he peeked out at the giant.

It was at least ten feet tall, with greyish blue skin and a necklace made out of sharp teeth, wearing an evil grin on its face. Archie leaped out of his spot against the wall as it reached toward him, drawing his pocket knife and gripping it tightly to keep his hands from shaking.

He brandished his weapon at the giant, but what had once made him feel safe and protected when he held it in the most dangerous neighborhoods he slept in, now suddenly felt small and useless as he stared at the inhuman creature in front of him. It grabbed at him again, and he dodged, leaning a bit too heavily on his more injured ankle and stumbling a few steps.

He gritted his teeth, running over his options for a moment, before pushing forward with his less injured leg and slashing at the giant, cutting a large gash across its thigh. It howled in pain, and Archie took that opportunity to run, sprinting as fast as he could out of the alleyway.

He didn’t stop running until his ankles forced him to, tripping over his own feet and falling face-first into the snow. His legs burned angrily; Archie couldn’t even think, simply bringing his knee up to his face as he blinked back tears and rubbed the skin of his ankle.

As the burning slowly subsided to a less scorching pain, Archie realized with a start that his duffel bag was gone. He sifted anxiously through the snow as if expecting it to appear next to him, but he had forgotten to grab it before the giant attacked. He felt his breathing hitch; everything he had was in that bag. He had at least a few blankets and matches in there that he wouldn’t be able to survive the winter without.

Even knowing logically that his bag wasn’t there, he still continued to search the snow around him, desperate that maybe he had in fact picked it up. The pendant hung loosely from his neck, dangling out of his shirt in front of him as his hands turned numb from the cold.

“Looking for this?” A voice spoke from up high. Archie turned to see a man sitting atop some sort of gryphon, wearing an aviator helmet and some sort of tunic. Slung over his shoulder was Archie’s duffle bag.

Archie stared at the gryphon, which stared back at him with hungry eyes, then glared up at the man. “That’s mine. Give it back.” The man simply smiled down at him, climbing off the gryphon and walking over to Archie, who instinctively gripped his pocket knife tighter.

“And good to meet you too. I have to say, you are one tough kid to find! I mean, I thought I found you back in Frankfort, and then I thought you were over in Ludington, I checked three different towns before this one, but hey, I found you now!” The man handed his duffel bag over to him, and Archie only vaguely listened to what he was saying as he rummaged through it, making sure nothing was stolen. He then paused, his mind running over what the man had said.

“You’ve been looking for me?” The man nodded, climbing back up onto his gryphon and offering Archie a hand.

“It’d be better if I explained on the way. Best hurry, that giant didn’t seem all too happy when I swooped in and grabbed your bag.”

As if on cue, a loud roar erupted in the distance, the giant rounding the corner and charging at them. Archie pushed himself out of the snow, took a look between the approaching giant, the hungry-looking gryphon, and the man with a slightly manic look in his eyes, and groaned, taking the man’s hand and climbing up onto the gryphon behind him. With a flap of the gryphon’s massive wings, they took off into the sky, leaving the normal world behind them in a flurry of feathers.

~~~

The man’s explanations didn’t help Archie in the slightest. According to him, he was the Greek god Hermes, and Archie was a descendant of the Greek hero Achilles, both of whom Archie was pretty sure weren’t real. Archie had been raised with a light amount of religion, but had stopped believing in God at about the same time he stopped believing in Santa Claus. The existence of the Greek gods seemed even less believable than that, especially considering that one of these so-called gods was currently a scrawny man in an aviator helmet that seemed just slightly too big for his head who would pause his explanations every so often to go off on completely unrelated tangents.

But the giant was real. And the gryphon was real. And he was currently soaring through the sky, just barely below the clouds, watching as the ground passed far below them. And as Hermes explained what the pendant around his neck was, and Archie’s supposed “destiny,” for just a moment, everything felt real.

He felt his shoulders slump for what felt like the first time in a year. He looked down at the ground below, feeling suddenly untouchable, and secure, and safe up in the sky. He allowed his mind to drift, and his thoughts went to a head of curly dark green hair, and an angel with warm eyes that had been cold the last time he saw them.

The cold of those eyes washed over him suddenly, and he felt his body tense again. No, he didn’t want this to be real. None of it. He didn’t want the gods to be real, or Achilles, or Patroclus, or anyone from the Iliad whose names he recognized and had memorized as if they were people he knew.

The gryphon landed in the soccer field of a high school, Olympus High according to Hermes. Archie followed him through the halls, unlocking the janitor’s closet with his pendant, and stepping through the swirling blue portal into the godly wing of the school.

None of it was real if he didn’t think about it. He’d do whatever they wanted him to, he'd get a good meal and maybe some rest out of them, and then he’d leave and forget that this ever happened.

It would be for the best.

~~~

Hermes took him to a woman who claimed to be Hera, who took him to a man that claimed to be Ares, who had prepared a test for him. Finding an opportunity to escape, Archie complained about his ankle. It was how he had gotten out of gym classes when he didn’t find the game of the day to be very fun, but it seemed not to work as well with the supposed god of war. He had simply sent him to the man that claimed to be Hephaestus, who threw together a golden brace for him that, even in his annoyed state, Archie had to admit looked more cool and more expensive than all of his old braces combined.

Next thing he knew, he was running through Ares’s test, dodging lasers and beating up training dummies. At one point he had noticed two people up on the top floor watching him, though he tried his best to ignore them, letting his mind be swept away by the exhilaration of fighting. As he landed in front of Ares, a part of him expected, and maybe even hoped, for a bit of praise; fighting had been the only thing he had ever really been good at, after all.

Ares looked down at his stopwatch. “I’ve seen better.” He spoke bluntly. Archie immediately began to argue, ignoring Ares’s reminder of his supposed ancestor as he pushed past him, biting back as best he could with his words.

“You know, as a young man, Achilles often let himself be ruled by his anger and mistrust. He later regretted it.” Ares glanced over his shoulder at Archie, his eyes seeming to pierce through his skin into his soul. “Don’t make the same mistake, Archie.”

Archie realized with a start that he hadn’t heard anyone call him by name since he had been kicked out. He usually used fake names whenever he needed to on the streets, and had rarely ever been close enough to anyone to give them his real name.

He then grew silent, actually thinking about Ares’s words. He knew about Achilles’s anger and stubborn pride, he knew what it had led to. He watched Ares carefully, wondering for a moment if he had known Patroclus as well. He wondered how Ares felt when Achilles desecrated Hector’s body in the name of his...close friend. Achilles’s regret and grief wrote the rest of his story, something that had always made Archie deeply uncomfortable.

Ares gave him a whip to use as a weapon, and smacked him on the back as he tried it out, clearing those thoughts out of Archie’s mind. He looked up at Ares and saw just a normal-looking man, not a god of any sort. No, there was no way this man knew Achilles or Patroclus, even if those heroes had been real. He was just some normal guy pretending to be a god, because none of this was real.

Still, Archie pocketed his whip and followed Ares out of the room, a strange feeling bubbling up in his chest as his back still tingled and stung from where Ares had touched him.

Soon after his test was completed, Ares explained the living situation to him. They had an apartment for their supposed “seven heroes of the prophecy” to live in, complete with separate rooms for each “hero,” three bathrooms, and a kitchen where the goddess Athena would be cooking for them. All Archie could think was: heating, air conditioning, beds, free food, privacy, security. Safety. The apartment was meant to keep them safe.

Archie had longed for a place like this. He missed having a bedroom, he missed the promise of hot meals three times a day, the promise of a roof over his head every night, and companionship where he didn’t have to keep a firm grip on his pocket knife in case they tried to turn on him.

But the voice in the back of his head nagged at him, the same thoughts that had kept him moving for the past year. The scent of smoke followed him like a disease he could never wash off. He would never be clean of it, and if he ever dared to relax, it wouldn’t be long until the other “heroes” started to smell it. He would have companions less likely to kill him physically, but would still have to talk to them with his hand gripping his knife.

Ares sent him off to check out the apartment, giving him a final gruff, yet surprisingly comforting, welcome that lit up that bubbling feeling in his chest again. Archie had the sudden desperate desire to make Ares proud of him, which he quickly shoved aside and chose not to analyze.

As Archie left the training room, his duffel bag feeling heavier than usual on his shoulder, he heard someone call out to him. Turning around, he saw the two people that had been watching him earlier. They were his age, one a boy named Jay with light brown hair and the other a girl named Atlanta with bright red hair and green eyes that seemed to pierce into Archie’s soul and read him for all the filth he was.

Archie realized that he hadn’t talked to anyone his age since a week before he got kicked out, but his body still instinctively tensed up even more than it already had been. While he didn’t allow himself to think about his freshman or sophomore years, he remembered the mocking, the word that was thrown around like it meant both nothing and everything, and cruel laughter that would punch into him just as painfully as their fists as he bloodied and bruised his knuckles defending him and himself.

He couldn’t stay here. The brief moment of excitement and joy he had felt during his test was quickly swept away by his mistrust, and he quickly reconstructed his walls with a scowl as the two tried to talk to him.

“Just ‘cause they think I’m a descendant of Achilles doesn’t make it so.” He spoke bluntly, glaring at them whenever he could get himself to meet their eyes.

“Doesn’t that mean anything to you?” Jay spoke, “He was a great hero.” And he wasn’t real.

“Look at this place! Look at what you can do. How can you not believe?” It wasn’t real if he didn’t think about it. He brushed past Atlanta’s words and left, scared to talk to them any longer in case they convinced him to stay.

~~~A/N~~~

trying to use bits from Chaos 102 as sparingly as possible because I've never been too big a fan of fanfics that use parts of the source material, but it felt necessary for this fic.

Also wanted to add little things about Archie that I inferred from the show, so I decided to make him vaguely from the midwest because in S1E9 he shows off a scar he got from a timber wolf (which I also added into the last chapter btw) and timber wolves are from that general Great Lakes/Southeast Canada region. Could've made him Canadian but my american ass is a tiny bit more familiar with what the midwest is like than Canada sooo Archie my midwest princess

#random reblogs

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death-himself · 4 days ago

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Honestly your art makes me wanna post my writing in public. I like theorizing about characters and their personalities and development so much cause it adds depth to a character and brings more edge when bringing in real life factors

go for it and start posting :) posting theories and headcanons is part of what keeps fandoms alive, and for a show like cott where the characters aren't super fleshed out in-universe I think adding any kind of depth to them is really fun

#also i feel like smaller/dead fandoms are usually less toxic so posting theories about characters feels less scary lmao

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death-himself · 5 days ago

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Smoke and Butterflies — Chapter 1

Fireworks on a Winter Night

Summary: Why is Archie the mistrusting, angry person that he is? Why do his eyes always scan for danger, his hands gripping his weapons as he stays permanently prepared for a fight? How does someone become like that?

(aka me overanalyzing everything this man has said and done and creating a backstory for him because why do none of these characters have even a smidge of a canon backstory)

Word Count: 1,730

Warnings: minor ableism, minor emotional child abuse, homelessness

next (AO3 Link)

Ever since Archie’s third sprained ankle, he hadn’t felt safe at home. The first time he sprained his ankle, he was ten years old, playing soccer during recess, when he slipped and fell, his right ankle twisting and creating a searing pain unlike any he had felt before. His parents brought him home that day without a word said about it. It wasn’t anything serious.

The second time was a month later, playing soccer, where he sprained his right ankle again as he slipped on some mud caused by the storm the night before. His parents brought him home again, no words of comfort to be said.

Another month passed, and he sprained his ankle again, this time his left rather than his right. On the ride home, his father made a joke about how the universe seemed to have it out for him, though his words sounded sharp and cutting. He looked back at Archie with a dubious glare. “Are you just doing this to get out of school?” He asked coldly. Archie said he wasn’t; while he had never been a good student and had always made it clear he didn’t like school, the throbbing, burning pain in his leg had him fighting back tears. His father didn’t reply, and when they parked in their home’s driveway, he left Archie alone to make his own way up to his room. After a few moments of struggling, his mother helped, but her touch felt cold and unwelcoming to him.

He would sprain his ankles three more times after this, twice more on his right and once more on his left. After his fifth sprain, he started noticing that he couldn’t walk in a straight line anymore. His ankles constantly ached with a dull pain, and by the age of twelve he went from being the best soccer player on his team to the worst. His parents took him to the doctor, and he was soon diagnosed with chronic ankle instability and chronic ankle pain.

Things got better once he began wearing ankle braces. His parents continued to believe he was faking his injuries and pain, but still paid for his trips to the doctor and bought him the cheapest braces they could find. Everything was fine for years.

And then high school came around. Archie didn’t remember much of his freshman and sophomore years. Thinking back on those times made him feel like he had been cast into freefall over the void, doomed to eventually crash and die.

He remembered smoke. And yelling. And a funeral he couldn’t attend. His last memories of his sophomore year were intentionally fuzzy. He had gotten into an argument with his parents, which ended in him punching his father in the face and getting thrown out with a duffel bag full of food and clothes as a response. He didn’t know if his parents had meant to kick him out for good, and he had stopped caring about the answer a long time ago.

Things blurred again after that. His memories were clear again after he walked out of the cemetery with the single train of thought that had led him for the past year. Where am I going to sleep tonight? Do I have money to spare for a motel room? Can I afford to get this? Can I risk stealing that?

He took a bus to a town a couple miles away from his parents’ house, far enough away for no one to recognize him. After a few nights sleeping in back alleys, he walked along the highway to the next town. He had to keep moving, he felt like he’d die if he didn’t.

His ankles burned more than ever before. The cheap polyester and spandex of his braces created blisters on his legs, and after a week they had become even more drenched in sweat and dirt than Archie himself was. With no soap or water to spare, his blisters turned an infected yellow hue often.

Libraries became his safehouses; so long as he stuck to a corner away from other people, pulled a book off of the shelves, and at least pretended to read it every hour or so, the librarians would generally leave him alone.

He had never been much of a bookworm, but the ancient Greek stories of the Iliad and the Odyssey brought back fond, but safe memories of a time he had blocked out of his mind. So at each library he went to, he would settle himself in the classics or mythology sections, fill up his water bottle at the water fountains, clean himself as best he could in the bathrooms, and give his legs some time to rest.

Before becoming homeless, he had preferred the Iliad over the Odyssey. He had loved the character of Achilles, but now the further into the story he got, the more disoriented and queasy he would feel, like staring into a funhouse mirror. And each time he picked it up in the library, he found himself unable to flip to the next page once he finished Book 15. He knew what would happen in the next section, and sometimes it felt as if he and Achilles’s pain was linked, though he didn’t understand why at the time.

Archie would always spend his first day in a new town walking around, looking for places to camp. So whenever the librarians had to kick him out to close for the night, he would know where he could go. His favorite spots were in the woods, on the rare occasions that the library was close enough to some. He would find a spot where fallen tree branches arched just over his head, hang his blanket over them, and sleep there. Sleeping in the woods put him at risk of being attacked by wolves, though, and one time he had in fact been attacked in his sleep, to which he ran out of the woods at the dead of night with a bleeding gash in his left thigh and a clump of wolf fur clutched in his hand as a trophy.

A part of him enjoyed the thrill of it, a different kind of fighting for survival that seemed to come easier for him, and one that broke up the monotony of resting in libraries and shoplifting food at corner stores. He picked the lock of a gas station bathroom, washed his injury, then took his pocket knife and cut a strip off of his blanket, tying it tightly around his wound.

He found it a miracle that he never seemed to get sick throughout his time being homeless. Sometimes his injuries would turn yellow and begin leaking pus, but even then nothing worse seemed to come out of it. Sometimes he would get a good night’s rest and wake up to all of his injuries healed, though the scars would still remain. It didn’t make sense, but Archie chose not to think too hard about it. The pain in his ankles would always remain, and that was the most debilitating injury he had.

He eventually had to abandon his old braces; they had simply become too filthy and worn down to help him anymore. He had risked stealing some ace bandages from a drugstore, and wrapped them tightly around his right ankle. His left had always felt much better than his right, so he chose to preserve the remaining bandage in case he would need to re-wrap his more damaged ankle.

Archie had trouble keeping track of how long he was on the streets. He could tell when holidays passed based on decorations in stores, and sometimes libraries would have a calendar set out somewhere at the front. Christmas and New Years had passed not long after he had left his parents’ house, and as snow began to fall again, he could tell it had been about a year.

When the new year came around, he had expected it to be the same as the last. He had set up camp at the edge of Lake Michigan and watched the fireworks from afar. When the time hit midnight, or at least he assumed it hit midnight, the fireworks shot into the sky, producing a beautiful array of color that scattered across the black, combining with the stars blinking above. But as Archie watched, it felt like he was seeing some sort of glitch in reality. For just a moment, the fireworks froze. The stars behind them stopped sparkling. Then the fireworks seemed to move backwards in time. Archie counted the seconds; no more than a minute passed before things went back to normal. He heard the distant cheers and music of people celebrating the dawn of a new year, as if he was the only one to see what had happened.

Archie found himself unable to sleep that night. When morning came, he packed up his belongings. As he began walking out of the woods, a glint caught his eye. Hanging from a tree branch was a gold pendant. It looked somewhat like a sundial, with a small lightning bolt at the top and a pattern around the edges. Archie took it gingerly in his hand and turned it over, finding an intricately carved “A” on the back.

The metal felt warm in his hands, as if it had come right out of the fire it was forged in and was hand-delivered to him. It didn’t feel like the magical item Archie would soon learn that it was, but he knew it was important, and he knew it was meant for him and him alone.

“I could probably get so much money if I sold this thing,” he mumbled to himself, but the moment the words left his mouth he knew he would never even try it. Even still, he didn’t want to think about what it meant, and if it was related at all to what he saw the night before. Archie wasn’t important enough to be involved in anything like that, even if magic did exist and even if what he saw the night before had actually happened and wasn’t just a trick of the mind.

So Archie tucked the pendant under his shirt, gripped the strap of his duffel bag tighter, and walked to the library, trying to ignore the metal practically humming against his chest.

#random reblogs

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death-himself · 6 days ago

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Ahhh the way you wrote the for shadow of Archie’s love for Patton and the crush he’s forming on Atlanta. How smoke is bad cause it’s deadly while the butterfly is lively. I think Atlanta was a lot like Patton that’s why Archie gets pulled to easily at the idea of her

yesss I think Atlanta does a lot that reminds Archie of Patton, and Patton acts a lot like her, but she's also different enough from him in a bunch of different ways for Archie to feel safe being attracted to her. At least that's how I probably would've written it if I had spent more time in the last chapter expanding on his character, so hopefully that came through enough in the bits of characterization I did give him lol

off-topic, but I headcanon that Atlanta dyes her hair too (she's a redhead but she likes to dye it to make it more vibrant lol) so them dying their hair together would be cute, and would probably be the thing that would get Archie to open up to her about his past :)

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death-himself · 6 days ago

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Smoke and Butterflies — Chapter 4

Let Our Bones Lie in But a Single Urn

"Draw closer to me, let us once more throw our arms around one another, and find sad comfort in the sharing of our sorrows."

Word Count: 2,409

Warnings: Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, Suicide, Minor Child Abuse

previous (AO3 Link)

Archie felt Patton’s soft cheek pressed into his shoulder, and for a moment he didn’t care if he died right then, so long as he got to die with Patton by his side.

They never went to their shelter together again.

“It’s kind of girly. Why’d you have to choose purple?”

“Why’d you let me choose purple?” Archie grinned, looking into Patton’s eyes.

“I dunno, I guess I just trusted your judgement.”

“Do you always trust my judgement?”

Archie knew where Patton was. He pulled a duffel bag from his closet, shoving in some clothes and food, then made his way to the woods near Patton’s home.

Archie turned his gaze upwards to find Patton, hanging from a tree branch above their shelter. His face was serene; Archie had never seen him so at peace.

He remembered the last time he had seen Patton alive, terrified and running out the door as Archie’s father yelled at him. If he hadn’t kissed him that day, would he still be alive?

Archie nodded to himself, shouldering his bag again and standing up. He took one last look at Patton’s grave, then turned and left the cemetery.

He had no time to think about Patton. Now he just needed to survive.

~~~

He thought about Achilles and Patroclus, how he and Patton had always felt so connected to them. Patroclus was killed, and Achilles’s grief wrote the rest of his story.

Because Achilles had loved him, and his life had ended with Patroclus’s death. And Archie was still here.

No one would have to know about Patton, or how the smoke and Archie killed him.

~~~A/N~~~

Chapter title and the quote under it are both from the Iliad. I really liked that second quote but had no idea where to put it, but I really wanted to include it somewhere so there you go :p

thanks for reading <3

#random reblogs

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death-himself · 7 days ago

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Smoke and Butterflies — Chapter 4

Let Our Bones Lie in But a Single Urn

"Draw closer to me, let us once more throw our arms around one another, and find sad comfort in the sharing of our sorrows."

Word Count: 2,409

Warnings: Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, Suicide, Minor Child Abuse

previous (AO3 Link)

Archie felt Patton’s soft cheek pressed into his shoulder, and for a moment he didn’t care if he died right then, so long as he got to die with Patton by his side.

They never went to their shelter together again.

“It’s kind of girly. Why’d you have to choose purple?”

“Why’d you let me choose purple?” Archie grinned, looking into Patton’s eyes.

“I dunno, I guess I just trusted your judgement.”

“Do you always trust my judgement?”

Archie knew where Patton was. He pulled a duffel bag from his closet, shoving in some clothes and food, then made his way to the woods near Patton’s home.

Archie turned his gaze upwards to find Patton, hanging from a tree branch above their shelter. His face was serene; Archie had never seen him so at peace.

He remembered the last time he had seen Patton alive, terrified and running out the door as Archie’s father yelled at him. If he hadn’t kissed him that day, would he still be alive?

Archie nodded to himself, shouldering his bag again and standing up. He took one last look at Patton’s grave, then turned and left the cemetery.

He had no time to think about Patton. Now he just needed to survive.

~~~

He thought about Achilles and Patroclus, how he and Patton had always felt so connected to them. Patroclus was killed, and Achilles’s grief wrote the rest of his story.

Because Achilles had loved him, and his life had ended with Patroclus’s death. And Archie was still here.

No one would have to know about Patton, or how the smoke and Archie killed him.

~~~A/N~~~

Chapter title and the quote under it are both from the Iliad. I really liked that second quote but had no idea where to put it, but I really wanted to include it somewhere so there you go :p

thanks for reading <3

#i'd love to see ppl pick this thing apart lol i feel like i just threw every metaphor i could into this and i'm so proud of that #class of the titans #cott #cott archie #smoke and butterflies #my writing #tw suicide #suicide tw #tw homophobia #homophobia tw

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death-himself · 7 days ago

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Smoke and Butterflies — Chapter 3

Reality.

Word Count: 2,621

Warnings: None

previous next (AO3 Link)

Archie snapped his eyes open with a gasp, bringing his hand up to his throat, only to find nothing there. He shut off the water, drying himself off quickly and throwing some clothes on.

“You know this guy?”

“He’s supposed to be one of us,” she replied, before turning to look at him, eyebrows scrunched together. “I thought you were leaving, why are you sneaking around?”

But before she could respond, everything went dark, the only light coming from the full moon above them. Archie looked up at the windows all around them, finding each one black and empty.

“You really believe in this stuff? A fire breathing monster at the power station? A god took out the power in the city to fuel...whatever he’s got over there?”

~~~

~~~A/N~~~

#random reblogs

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death-himself · 7 days ago

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‼️TRYPOPHOBIA WARNING‼️ // Animatic of the week, Y/N x Eyeless (x Toby) , Also slenderman (tags #fanart #creepypasta #animatic ) .

As always y'all get everything a lil early:3

#slendy’s so creepy he looks so cool #i luv new depictions of slendy <3

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death-himself · 7 days ago

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— a still sea, shadowed night, and cold moonlight bleeding over the water…

tinged with blood🩸

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death-himself · 8 days ago

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Omg dude you don’t realize how hard it is to fine a well written fic for an underrated fandom. Your Archie fic is so good ahh fell in love with the writing

thank you! I’m glad you like it, it was a lot of fun picking apart the show and figuring out how to write for him :)

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death-himself · 8 days ago

Text

Smoke and Butterflies — Chapter 3

Reality.

Word Count: 2,621

Warnings: None

previous next (AO3 Link)

Archie snapped his eyes open with a gasp, bringing his hand up to his throat, only to find nothing there. He shut off the water, drying himself off quickly and throwing some clothes on.

“You know this guy?”

“He’s supposed to be one of us,” she replied, before turning to look at him, eyebrows scrunched together. “I thought you were leaving, why are you sneaking around?”

But before she could respond, everything went dark, the only light coming from the full moon above them. Archie looked up at the windows all around them, finding each one black and empty.

“You really believe in this stuff? A fire breathing monster at the power station? A god took out the power in the city to fuel...whatever he’s got over there?”

~~~

~~~A/N~~~

#class of the titans #cott #cott archie #smoke and butterflies #my writing

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death-himself · 8 days ago

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Smoke and Butterflies — Chapter 2

Reality?

Word Count: 2,361

Warnings: None

previous next (AO3 Link)

“You’ve been looking for me?” The man nodded, climbing back up onto his gryphon and offering Archie a hand.

“It’d be better if I explained on the way. Best hurry, that giant didn’t seem all too happy when I swooped in and grabbed your bag.”

~~~

It would be for the best.

~~~

Still, Archie pocketed his whip and followed Ares out of the room, a strange feeling bubbling up in his chest as his back still tingled and stung from where Ares had touched him.

“Just ‘cause they think I’m a descendant of Achilles doesn’t make it so.” He spoke bluntly, glaring at them whenever he could get himself to meet their eyes.

“Doesn’t that mean anything to you?” Jay spoke, “He was a great hero.” And he wasn’t real.

~~~A/N~~~

trying to use bits from Chaos 102 as sparingly as possible because I've never been too big a fan of fanfics that use parts of the source material, but it felt necessary for this fic.

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