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Devil of the past by weihao wei.  

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😂

“Y’know, when you’re dead, you’ve gotta take comfort in the little things. Like the fact that pretty much everyone also fucking hated Toby Archbolt. Just-- everything about him is terrible. He’s an asshole, he’s a creep, he can’t dress himself, he could never keep his desk clean for shit-- I used to think he was messing it up on purpose, but no, he just couldn’t keep it straight even if he wanted to.”

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@expyy

“Hey. Sullivan.”

Hayes is sprawled out on the floor of her studio. The remains of her latest attempt sits in a lump on the work table, smooshed down in a fit of disappointment.

“You know they wrote books about you, right? Like, true crime books. Character analyses. Biographies. There’s a documentary. Some of the older Wish House kids got interviewed for it.”

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“Yer not shit.”

She crumples down into a crouch, hugging her knees to her chest.

“-- Yer kind of shit. We both are. I didn’t need to say that.”

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@toast-to-lonely-souls

The argument has gotten to the point of shouting.

“You’re right!” Inez shouts, throwing her hands in the air in exasperation. “I should have gotten out-- not you.”

She regrets saying it as soon as it’s out there. She’s always going to believe it, but it never needed to be said out loud.

“I’m sorry.” Her voice cracks on the last syllable. “I just-- I didn’t wanna die, Gideon. All I could think about for six months was how much I didn’t wanna die.”

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He blinks and looks down at his shirt, noticing the spots for the first time.

“Oh. Uh.”

He clears his throat and nods, rubbing self-consciously at one of the flecks with his thumb.

“Yes, Father.”

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@thewhitesaint

“Father Stone says it’s done.”

He’s one of Stone’s men, and looks every bit like the others. Big, bald, somewhat blank behind the eyes. Knuckles are bruised up, on his left hand more than his right.

Hard to tell if the dark flecks on the collar of his shirt are dirt or blood.

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“Seems kinda risky, huh?”

She’s not the best at eye-contact either, to be fair. Especially not like this.

“Asking you to help me sleep, I mean. Might wind up sleeping, y’know. Permanently. I don’t think I wanna die yet. Seems like kind of a dick move. My mom worked pretty hard to get me even kind of functional. Be pretty sad, for all her hard work to just go out the window like that.”

Still, her posture stays relaxed. She’s too tired, too removed from everything to really panic.

“At least let me make some really good art first. Some stuff for the price to skyrocket on after my mysterious demise. Some kinda-- I dunno, legacy. Something like that.”

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🔞

Inez is bitey.

There were multiple occasions when she misjudged how much skin Asa’s clothes covered, and he had to come up with explanations for the bite marks. Oh yeah it’s uh. A rash. Some kind of allergic reaction to the soap or something. Weird.

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She knows this sort of thing happens. Of course it does. When she was three, her father didn’t come home one night. It happens all the time.

Doesn’t stop her stomach from lurching, or the dull roar that builds in her ears.

Still, she swallows hard and nods, turns to go find Father Stone.

Funny how things make so much sense in hindsight.

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Jane Dillinger’s having a spot of trouble at home.

Rosten listens sympathetically, murmuring all the right things and pushing a cup of steaming tea into her hands. He brushes her hair back, strokes her shoulder, intones a prayer for her husband’s soul.

As a teary-eyed Jane slumps from the chapel, her smile vague, Rosten turns to Inez.

“Give James the word. Will Dillinger brought in alive at Vespers. Bound hand and foot.”

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Think you and Gideon and Ellen would’ve been as petite if you’d grown up with three square meals? They robbed you of a lot.

“I’d probably be pretty short regardless-- runs in the family-- but you’re probably right. They didn’t exactly hand out multivitamins.”

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What was sex ed like in the Order?

“Holy shit. Everything was a metaphor. Men have a ‘serpent’ and it wants to go into a woman’s ‘field...’ Look, it wasn’t not there, it was just. Weird.”

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You know how Rendell got his cute little fiddle and his scholarship? He shut his mouth and played along and kissed some ass. You could’ve done the same. But you just had to be right. You were too damn stubborn.

“We can’t all be not-so-secret bastards of a priest. Like Father A. would let his son spend his life scrubbing floors and watching orphans.”

She doesn’t like the twinge of jealousy there. Not something to be jealous of.

“I shot myself in the foot early on. I was a teenager. Wasn’t thinking long-term.”

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You’ve got to learn to play the game. Sell out pretty Rendell like he’d sell you out. Run to the Fathers with any scrap of gossip. You could be where he is.

“You mean I could be on a leash, instead of in a kennel.”

Her smile is bitter. She’s thought about it already-- more than she’d care to admit.

“No, they’d never let me be where he is. Even if I snitched. I’m either a problem child or a lackey. Maybe it’d be a little easier-- I could rise up in the ranks a little, get some minions of my own. But they know I’ll bolt the first chance I get. Maybe I could gild the cage a little, but they know better than to give me the kind of freedom Rendell has.”

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You’re brighter than him. Brighter and harder-working. Yet he’s got that pretty violin in his hands and you’ve got a load of laundry.

“I know.”

Sometimes, she’s so jealous it hurts.

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“Yeah, I know.” She yanks her wrist away, mouth twisted into a frown. “I never saw you. You’re probably out on an errand or something, right?”

She glances back over her shoulder.

“He’s high on-- something. Again. Not sure how long it’ll take him to come down off of it.”

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Good. Okay. Good.

“I’ll-- go look for him.”

She all but bolts from the room. Maybe if she takes long enough, Archbolt will forget why he was angry, lapse into one of his friendlier moods. Maybe he’ll find the stupid glasses on his own.

“O-okay. Okay.”

She ducks past him, fighting the urge to sprint out the door. “Brother Rendell?” She calls down the hall, swallowing the crack in her voice. “You seen Father Archbolt’s glasses?”

Please pick up on what’s going on. Please don’t answer, give me an excuse to come find you.