#Fae without a Way (Mina)

[ancient-pokehistorian]

Mina, if you had to delete one color from existence, which one would you choose?

Mina sat there for a long time, seemingly stumped. What color could she even erase? What color didn't she use on a regular basis? Every one of them was important. Finally, she decided.

"Hex code #206793. I dunno what color it is, but it's so specific that there's gotta be enough colors similar to it."

[ancient-pokehistorian]

"...do ya need a nap? There's a room fer that."

@ancient-pokehistorian: Mina vc: can we agree ta share the bed if it's unoccupied 'fore we both get in it ('cause they got up ta discuss with me)?

... he's gonna need a minute to think about this

[whatswrongwithblue]

The Fire in the Sin

Chapter 11 - Stitches

Word count: 8,912. Read on AO3. Series Masterlist. <- Previous Chapter.

Summary: Mina and Alastor FINALLY talk . . . sort of. And then fuck. TWs: canon typical violence and language, recreational drug use, mentions of a past abortion, panic attack, brief self harm, p & v sex, creampie, very brief use of tentacles. Smutty, but still pretty vanilla fluffy lovey dovey sex.

This lovely artwork was done by @ver0xinart and used here with permission. Please follow them for really unique and wonderful Alastor fanart!

Series Summary:

In the 1950's, Alastor met the woman he would eventually marry but unfortunately his Radio Demon persona went for her soul rather than her hand. He has to learn what it means to love, and cherish, without possessing and he does. Their relationship is beautiful, strong, unbreakable . . . but he carries a dark secret through their marriage for decades until eventually he has to face the consequences of that secret and leave her, without warning, for seven years. He returns, finding her at the Hazbin Hotel, and has to convince her to forgive him, while being literally bound to secrecy, unable to tell her any of things he now is desperate to explain to her.

(This is a duel timeline fic, timestamps will be a the top of every chapter.)

Chapter 11 - Stitches

Present Day

Mina’s friend had been waiting for her.

Fae was much younger than her and, in most ways, the complete opposite of Mina. Fae had died in the 1980’s, spent her entire life in New York City, was extroverted, loved being around people and partying, posted everything on social media, dressed in brightly colored scandalous clothes, and went through lovers as often as she changed her hair color, which was near weekly.

Despite these differences, they had gotten along well when they had first met. When Mina confessed to Fae that she was struggling with the symptoms of her heat cycles without Alastor around to help her through them, Fae had introduced her to the variety of dance clubs Pentagram City had to offer.

Mina had been skeptical at first and made it clear that any sex themed danced clubs were not an option – her husband was missing but not dead and she still considered herself monogamously married. Besides, large crowds gyrating around to loud emotionless sound that passed for “music” had never been the kind of thing Mina approved of. But once she had tried it, it quickly became one of her favorite ways to release the energy that was pent up inside her.

It wasn’t just sex her body craved when she was in heat. She was always so wound tight, irritable, and overstimulated by everything. And the music in the clubs overpowered all of that. She could feel it reverberating through her, pounding in her chest, pushing out all thought, and guiding her to move in mindless, energetic ways. It was addicting.

And if other dancers dared to try and touch her, it was just an excuse for her to be violent, which helped sate her needs even more. They’d leave without a hand, or an entire limb, depending on how aggressive they had been and how much bloodlust she was feeling. One time someone with a few extra hands managed to grab both her and Fae’s ass at the same time, and they had danced under his dripping, decapitated head.

After all, it wasn’t just their job descriptions that gave Abaddon’s demons their reputation for brutality. And Mina had to remind people that although the Radio Demon wasn’t around anymore, it was still in everyone’s best interest to leave her the hell alone.

That night, Fae listened as Mina filled her in on what had transpired that day, and the awful argument she and Alastor had just had. Then Fae took her to a dance club they hadn’t gone to in a while, one they were less likely to be recognized at, and therefore more likely to catfish some demons into harassing them. So they danced, and maimed, and danced some more.

Hours later, they played innocent as they left the club, allowing themselves to be followed. Fae was even better bait than Mina, with her shorter stature, purple afro dyed to match her wings, pink skin, and lime green sequined dress. Only her sharp teeth and jet-black eyes looked remotely demonic, otherwise you might think she was a harmless little wood nymph straight out of a fairy tale.

She and Mina tore their would-be rapists apart and didn’t make quick work of it.

At the end of the evening, with dawn approaching, the two blood splattered women shared a joint on a rooftop ledge, letting their bare feet dangle over the sides, their shoes discarded behind them.

“You know what the most insulting part is?” Mina asked as she passed the joint back, “it really was the sex that was keeping me quiet. The minute I go into heat - and he’s not around – I figure it out. And he knew that was going to happen, that’s why he’s been on top of me so much lately.”

“That just sounds like a guy,” Fae choked out a smoke-filled laugh. “I mean . . . you said you were sure he wasn’t having an affair, so it was seven years for him, too.”

“Alastor’s different,” Mina said, not defensively. It was just the truth.

“Please girl, everyone woman says that about her man.”

“No, he . . . I don’t know. It’s hard to explain. Sex is just . . . not important to him.”

“Come again?”

Mina sighed. It really was hard to explain.

“I mean, it is and it isn’t. The . . . mood has to be just right for him. If he’s mad, or even agitated, or if I even remotely hint that I might not be enthusiastically ready myself, he is just . . . not interested. I’m sorry,” Mina said, hanging her head and laughing a little. “I think I’m too stoned to be explaining this.”

“But didn’t you just say he was giving it to you like . . . all the time lately?” Fae asked. “What, did you guys not have sex before?”

“Of course we did!”

Fae raised an eyebrow, obviously confused.

“He . . . I mean, we-“ Mina let out an exasperated breath, “Okay, I didn’t have sex for a long time after I died. But that’s because honestly, it was never all that good and after you’ve had to kill all of your exes, it kind of puts you off men. But I still wanted it. But Alastor had two short-lived relationships when he was young and then spent the last ten years of his life a bachelor and when he came to Hell, it was like he had never even considered romance until well after he met me. The man just doesn’t think about sex like the rest of us do. He likes it. And he’s really good at it, believe me. But it’s not a priority for him. So when I say, it was out of character for him to be wanting it almost every day, I really mean that.”

Fae blinked at her for a moment, considering.

“Is he ace?” she asked.

“What?” Mina asked in return, thinking she misheard her.

Fae busted out laughing.

“Oh my God, are you telling me the great Radio Demon is acespec?! Man looks like a walking freak in the sheets!”

Mina just stared at her, not understanding half the terminology she was saying.

“He’s ace!” Fae cackled again.

“Repeating it is not going to help me understand you any better,” Mina responded, annoyed.

“Asexual. Graysexual. Demisexual. None of those words mean anything to you?”

“Fae . . . what the hell are you talking about?”

“Girl, you old as fuck. Okay,” Fae sucked in a breath, controlling her laughter. “You should really Google it but, Alastor doesn’t want sex unless he feels a super strong emotional connection, is that what you’re saying? And even with you, he has to be like . . . really happy and feeling it,” she said, with a saucy role of her shoulders that made Mina blush.

“Yes . . .” Mina answered, a little upset that Fae described him better than Mina had been able to.

“And after an initial rough couple of weeks, you two were getting along better - once you stopped having to secretly run off to go to work and pissing him off – and you stopped picking arguments as much - and then suddenly he’s all mister love machine?”

“Yes . . .” Mina repeated.

“You dumb bitch!” Fae smacked her in the arm. “He wasn’t ‘manipulating’ you, he was just happy. You,” she said, stabbing her with a pointed finger where she had smacked her, “were making him happy. After seven years apart, you really think he didn’t miss you as much as you missed him?”

Mina scowled and looked down at the street below them. She hated how much Fae was making sense, even without her friend knowing a lot more intimate details about her husband that she was purposefully leaving out of the conversation.

“Asexual,” she said, trying out the word. “I thought he was just a psychopath.”

“Oh, he’s also that, for sure.” 

She knew he was a rare breed of serial killer, one guided by a dark and strange moral compass, rather than a deviant sexual appetite. It would never have occurred to her that there were others out there that shared this label with him. Now she felt awful for not having figured this out herself after a lifetime of marriage when Fae grasped the concept immediately.

Of course Alastor hadn’t been using sex against her, that had never been his style. He would have been appalled if he knew she had thought that of him. Mina really had let her thoughts spiral completely out of control that morning.

Regardless, she was not the one with the most blame on her shoulders.

“He still sold his soul,” she mumbled.

“Okay, well honestly, only you are surprised at that one.”

“Excuse me?”

“Like, be pissed that he kept it a secret. You can murder the man for up and dumping your ass for seven years and walking back into your life like ‘hey honey, I’m home’ but the deal making? You married a deal maker. You either gotta own that or leave his ass, but don’t act surprised about it.”

Mina yanked the joint from Fae’s hand and took a long drag.

“He’s the deal maker. He takes peoples souls, that’s why he’s an Overlord.”

“Oh come on, even you’ve had to have heard the rumors about why he’s so powerful.”

“They’re just stupid rumors,” Mina huffed.

Of course she had heard them. Whispers that he had sold his soul while he was still alive. Whispers that he was just the instrument of something much more powerful. There were even more ridiculous ones. He’s a fallen angel. He’s half-Eldritch. He’s an entirely unknown entity all together. She’d heard it all and knew it was all bullshit.

“Obviously not,” Fae countered. “You know now he’s got a chain around him same as most sorry bastards down here do. What you don’t know is who’s on the other end of that chain and how long they’ve had hold of it.”

“He was supposed to be better than this,” Mina said, feeling her eyes begin to burn. She took another drag, breathing in until she felt the threat of tears dissipating.

“You’ve been looking at him with rose colored glasses on for too long, babe.”

Mina rolled her eyes. “I know exactly how awful he can be.”

“No, you don’t,” Fae said firmly. “You think you see Alastor and The Radio Demon as one and the same, but you really don’t. You see ‘Alastor’, your devoted, loving husband. And he is that. But when he’s all big and scary and doing his evil shit, you’re into it! And hey, not blaming you. The man is a walking thirst trap. What you aren’t seeing, is what the rest of Hell sees. A cold and calculating son of bitch who wants power, and attention for that power, above all else. And he is incredibly arrogant. It makes a whole lotta sense that he made a deal a long time ago – maybe even more than one - in order to get the kind of power he has and he’s just recently started to face the repercussions of that deal. And he honestly never even considered that it would jeopardize your relationship. He might love you, but he’s a narcissist. It’s going to take a whole lot more than a bit of anger from you for him to get the idea that you’ll never get over this. He’s so overly confident in how much you love him, he’s sure he can get away with anything with you, if he just gives you enough time to get over it.”

Mina was shaking her head. “I’ve loved him for 70 years. I know him better than anyone, you think I don’t know all the worst parts of him? I know how self-absorbed he can be and I know all the gory details of the awful things he’s done to others. I’ve helped him do some of it! I still never saw this coming.”

Fae stood up, exasperated now. “You are too close to him to see it. Mina, I love you girl, but we just killed like five guys tonight. And it was awesome. I was having some girl time with my bestie. I look at you like you’re this sweet, bookish, kind-of-awkward nerd who’s got some man issues and needs to blow off steam. The rest of Hell sees you as a stone-cold murderess bitch who hides in whatever fortress you’ve chosen for the decade and only comes out when you feel like eating someone.”

“How many times are you going to call me a bitch tonight?”

Fae clapped her hands together in front of Mina’s face. “You are both those things. Doesn’t mean you are two faced or faking it or whatever. It means you’re fucked up, but it also just means that your perception of people changes when you get closer to them because sometimes, you’re too close to see the whole picture. You get me?”

She did. But it didn’t make her feel any better about the state of things, it just made her feel worse. It didn’t change the fact that Alastor was still keeping her in the dark about everything.

“So, you’re saying I should just forgive him? Because I’m not sure I can do that.”

“Hell no!” Fae said. “You need to tell him in no uncertain terms that he’s gotta come clean to you about everything. Deal or no deal, you deserve to know. The only thing I’m saying is, if he does that, then you gotta really be prepared to forgive him.”

Was she?

She would still be angry. She would still feel betrayed. And the sting of seven years alone wouldn’t go away overnight. But she would certainly be a lot more willing to keep trying.

“And if he still doesn’t tell me anything?” Mina asked.

Fae handed her the joint, now just a stub, and waited for her to take the last drag.

“That’s for you to ask yourself, babes. I can’t answer that for you.”

Mina flicked away the joint and watched it tumble through the air, then she stood up, and put on her shoes.

“I have to know. Even worst-case scenario, I have to know. And I’ll promise him, that no matter how awful the truth is, I’ll stay and try to work through it. But if he doesn’t . . . then I’ll leave him,” Mina said.

She had lived for decades in Hell and done well for herself before him. And even when she was completely shattered and driven nearly insane by his disappearance, she got through it. It would hurt to learn how to live without him again. . . but she could do it. He had already forced her to face that challenge and she had come out the other side.

“Can you do it?” Fae asked, as if she could read Mina’s thoughts.

Mina recalled the last time she had made an impossible decision.

She remembered the sickness and the cramping that came hours after drinking the poison, and then the horrible gory mess of blood and tissue that came from her body weeks later. Alone, on the floor of her room on the ship to America, everyone assuming she was just seasick and leaving her be, as her body finally expelled her aborted child from her. The tiny, shapeless, barely formed infant she had held in her hands and sobbed over, before wrapping the whole mess up in her bed sheets and tossing it all overboard.

Mina shook off the memories and looked at Fae, trying every bit to be the “stone-cold bitch” she was apparently viewed as.

“I’ve had to hurt myself worse than this to survive before. I can do it again.”

____

It was daylight by the time Mina returned to the hotel and rather than raise any more suspicions with the other staff and residents, she forwent her ability to portal and chose to simply walk through the front doors. She would already have to come clean to Alastor about her job after she had used a portal in front of him, but it was still best not to let Charlie in on her secret just yet.

She glanced up at the radio tower as she approached the hotel. Alastor was up there, watching her; she was sure of it. And he would be furious.

Mina braced herself, not quite ready for the storm she was walking into, and lied to herself that she would not let him get under her skin and ruin the calm and determined emotional control she had built up on her journey home.

Seconds after she walked through the door, she was accosted by a taller blonde woman.

“Mina!” Charlie yelled as she threw herself around her, wrapping her in a tight hug. “You came back!”

Mina sighed and returned the hug. It was . . . nice, having someone just be relieved she was okay. Charlie could be annoying at times, but her genuine sweet nature was charming.

“Of course I did,” she said, and then wriggled free from the embrace. “What did Alastor tell you?”

She looked around the room. Everyone was already up and about. It looked like Mina had walked into another bonding activity and there were pages full of handwritten scribbles scattered all around the coffee table and bar.

“Honestly, not very much. He was up in his tower all night. What happened to you?” Charlie gasped, taking in the blood splatters that had dried in her hair and across her clothes.

“Not a drop of it is mine,” Mina said with an assuring wink. “It may not count for redemption, but I might have traumatized a few Sinners into behaving better.”

“Oh . . . well,” Charlie said, searching for the words. “That’s good . . . I guess? Anyway! We’re discussing boundaries this morning and I have a lot of apologies to make so if you would have a seat-“

“No, love. I need a shower, and a nap, and then I need to talk to Alastor. Perhaps later,” Mina said and began to walk away.

Charlie grabbed her hand and tried to pull her towards the group.

“But we already lost all of yesterday! Please, Mina, this is really important!”

Mina yanked her hand free, then took a breath, trying to remain calm. Charlie did not deserve her anger.

“Listen, dearest, I am here to help you in whatever way I can. Really. But I am not here for redemption for myself and I need . . . what is the term used these days? . . . A ‘mental health day.’ So please, excuse me.”

Mina went to turn around but stopped short as Alastor materialized on the other side of Charlie.

“If Charlie is hosting an activity on apologies, my dear, then I think it prudent that you of all people attend the day’s festivities,” he said, his hands placed atop his microphone, and his brilliant, lying smile dominating his features.

“Don’t you start,” Mina warned. “You are at the bottom of the itinerary I just listed and believe me, you want to stay there.”

Alastor couldn’t hide the scowl that narrowed his eyes.

“Or what, darling? You’ll act like a child not getting what they want and take off again?”

“You have no room to talk!” Mina shouted.

“Okay, so this is a great start, but I think we should lower our voices-“ Charlie started but Vaggie took her hand and pulled her out from between the two arguing spouses.

“Not right now, babe,” Vaggie said quietly.

The other residents stayed still as statues, caught between fear and enjoying the drama.

“Two wrongs don’t make a right,” Alastor said in a sing-song voice. “Maybe that could be the focus of Charlie’s next activity!”

“Do not stand there and pretend like you have any kind of moral pedestal to stand on! You walked out on me-“

He rolled his eyes.

“-pushed me aside when I was no longer convenient for you-“

His smile dropped just a little.

“-lied to me, kept secrets from me, betrayed me-“

Light itself seemed to flee from him as his eyes took on the red glow that always came to them when he was close to becoming unhinged.

“-you won’t even tell me what was so much more important than me, after six decades of me giving you everything. Who had something better to offer you? Or was it just new and exciting? What about me wasn’t good enough for you to even bother saying goodbye?!”

“THAT’S ENOUGH!”

He towered over her, his body and shadow seeming to envelope the whole room, and everything went blurry. Every light went out and strange flashes of red symbols appeared on the walls, and the large matching menacing smiles on Alastor’s face and his shadow’s glowed brighter, looming above all of them.

In a second, the room had returned to its normal appearance, only without Mina or Alastor.

The other six people in the room looked around, but still, no one dared utter a sound.

After a moment of peace and quiet, there was the sound of a door slamming shut upstairs, followed by an electric surge that brightened all the lights in the lobby. A few of them burst, and the ones that didn’t began to erratically flicker.

“Should we uh . . . should we do something?” Charlie asked, looking up at the ceiling.

“Nah, best to stay out of it,” Husk said.

Niffty giggled as all of the light bulbs were exchanged for rushes of green flames momentarily, and then shifted back to their normal states.

“He’s not going to hurt her, is he?” Vaggie asked.

“I’m more worried about what she’s going to do to him,” Angel said.

“Not a chance,” Husk said. “They’ll yell and carry on like this for a while, but they’d never lay a hand on each other.”

More light bulbs burst into flame and this time stayed that way, and a crack ran up the bar room wall.

“Are you ssssure about that?” Sir Pentious asked, looking nervously at the damage.

“Yeah, yeah. But uh . . .” Husk said, and the lights went out for good, leaving them all in darkness. The dim red morning light that was just able to come through the painted glass of the front doors was the only source of illumination for the entire lobby. “Maybe we should get out of here for a little while.”

“Okay, great. Let’s all go out for breakfast this morning!” Charlie said and ushered everyone out.

As everyone quickly gathered their stuff and headed out, Charlie darted back towards the lounge and grabbed Niffty by the arm, who was still standing there, giggling and staring up towards the floor above.

____

Despite the display seen down below, once they were alone in their room together, Alastor had returned to his normal appearance, but his shadow still moved from wall to wall, agitated and larger than usual. His expression was wild; eyes wide and frantic, his smile full and strained. He looked insane but no more demonic than usual.

Even if Alastor had unleashed his more terrifying forms on her, Mina wouldn’t have backed down. She was too angry and too hurt to have rational thoughts about her safety.

“You are such a fucking arse!” she screamed at him.

“You should have listened to me,” he said, deadly quiet.

“Listened to you?! I can’t listen to you if you don’t tell me a damn thing! I can’t listen to you if you aren’t here!”

“I told you to be patient. And before I left, I told you not to go back to work for that angel. I told you to stay far away from the Morningstars. And I come back to find you doing the exact opposite.”

“Abaddon is my family, Alastor. And they were here. They’ve never left me, they have always been there for me. Just because you aren’t man enough to do the same, doesn’t mean you get to be bitter that someone else treated me better than you did. Of course I went back to work for them. You left me with no one else.”

He was visibly shaking now. His fists were balled so tightly Mina was certain his claws had to be digging into the palms of his hands. Good. She hoped he bled.

“You should have trusted me,” he said.

“Why?” she asked, making her voice as calm and cold as his.

He wasn’t expecting that, and his lack of response spurred her on.

“You lost the right to my trust, Alastor. You lost the right to everything when you tossed me aside like I was nothing.”

“That is not what happened!” He was raising his voice now and that was even better. It meant he was losing.

“Then tell me what did happen, because that’s all I see. How am I supposed to trust you and listen to you when all you continue to do is hurt and humiliate me?”

“Because you are stronger than this!” he shouted. He was breathing hard now, the static crackling with nearly every inhale. When he continued, he spoke in a lower tone, but his voice was still warped. “Is seven years really so much? Compared to seventy? Compared to the infinite amount of time we have ahead of us now? Are your feelings for me really that weak?”

She gaped at him, feeling his words like a dagger at her throat.

“Fuck you,” she whispered, struggling to get the words out as her chest tightened. “You don’t get to break my heart and then judge me for how it shattered.”

Something in his features softened then but she didn’t want to see it. She didn’t want his pity, she just wanted answers.

“You weren’t even looking for me when you came here!” she cried out, forcing her outrage to build up again. “How much longer would it have been if I wasn’t already at the hotel? How am I supposed to live with someone who treats me like an afterthought?”

He shook his head. “If you had listened to me . . .  I had a plan. I was going to come find you, when I could tell you everything. And now we’re here and look what a mess you’ve made of things. If you had just stayed out of it-“

“You want me to leave then?” she interrupted; her jaw set tight.

“Well not now,” he said, with a dismissive tone.

“No, that’s just fine with me,” Mina said. “I’ll leave right now.”

“Don’t be dramatic, dear,” he sighed, clearly thinking she was bluffing.

“Alastor,” she said. “Tell me who you made a deal with.”

She watched him grit his teeth, his smile reduced to a thin line.

“I. Can’t.”

“When did you make it?”

“For fuck’s sake, Mina-“

“Why did you do it?” she continued, ignoring him.

“I can’t tell you!”

Her next few breaths shook in her chest, but she managed not to cry this time.

“I can’t do this anymore,” she said quietly. Sadly. “I love you so much, but I just can’t. Answer my questions and I’ll stay . . . or this is it. I’ll leave.”

He looked at her in shock and she knew then Fae had been right. No part of Alastor really believed he had pushed her so far away. Mina watched as the panic grew in his face and she tried to close herself off from how much it pained her to see it.

“I swear, Mina. I swear. I have told you everything I can,” he said in a rush.

She sighed and closed her eyes in defeat, trying to block him out.

“I have been trying,” he grabbed her shoulders, begging her. “I want you to know everything. I do. I just . . . I can’t.”

“I’m not listening to this anymore,” she said.

His hands dropped from her shoulders. Defeated, he turned his back on her, shaking his head.

“Mina, please,” he begged, still turned away from her, his voice low and raspy. “I am trying to find the words.”

“Just spit it out!” she snapped and he turned on her.

“I CAN’T!”

It was like a bomb went off.

All the power he had shoved off into the far corners of the hotel rushed back into the room. The floorboards and ceiling glowed and pulsed green, the lights exploded, the windows and doors rattled in their holdings, the floor beneath them rumbled, and the walls groaned.

Despite the chaos, Mina’s whole world narrowed to Alastor’s face as she saw them for the first time; the green, luminescent stitches laced through his mouth. Forcing his smile into place.

Forcing him into silence.

And the faintest outline of a chain, transparent but the same shade of green, flickered for just a second around his neck, the links behind him trailing upwards before fading into nothing.

Mina blinked twice, trying to process, when suddenly the room returned to normal.

Alastor was seated on the edge of their bed, clutching at his hair and audibly hyperventilating.

Everything switched for Mina in those few seconds after she saw the very real, very tangible magic that was controlling him.

He hadn’t lied, not about a single thing. He had been trying to tell her everything since he got back and literally could not.

That changed everything for her.

She went to him, placing her hands over his fists that were threatening to tear out his hair. For a moment, she was confused by the way the static was affecting his harsh and rapid breathing until she realized he wasn’t just having a panic attack, he was crying. Sobbing.

Alastor was having a complete breakdown and she had pushed him to it.

“Alastor?” she said, trying to wrap her fingers around his. “My love. My heart . . .”

He was still so tall, even sitting on the edge of the bed and bent over, that his head was level with her belly. She cradled him to her, keeping her hands over his own.

“You need to let go, love,” she said softy. “You’re hurting yourself.”

He let his grip loosen from his hair but then he was just pressing his palms to his temple, still looking down at his feet.

Mina ran her fingers through his hair, feeling the shallow scratches in his scalp his claws had made, before she let her hands fall lower, caressing his cheek and cupping his jaw. She tried to get him to sit up and look at her, but he was so stiff she couldn’t budge him, so she just held him instead.

She had never seen him cry, not in all their years together. He had, on a rare occasion or two, become choked up and silent, but she had never seen him like this. Never felt his tears gather on her skin as she held his face, never heard his ragged breathing as his chest heaved with sobs.

She had done this to him. Her, and whoever had control over his soul.

Mina was no longer angry at him. She was angry for him.

“I’m sorry,” she said, using one hand to stroke the back of his head as she held him to her stomach. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know but I do now, okay? And I need you to calm down. I’m not going anywhere, I promise, so just breath for me, my love.”

“I just,” he gasped out, “want to stop smiling. For one  . . . God damn . . . minute.”

Mina looked over at his shadow, which was hovering anxiously over the bed. That thing was always hard to read, even for her, but she swore she could see concern in its demonic gaze. It looked from Alastor to her, making hard eye contact with her for a moment, before seemingly deciding on something, and trailed across the wall to the door and faded through it.

Mina was sure it was standing guard outside, ensuring their privacy wouldn’t be interrupted.

“Give me your hands,” she said, reaching for them again to try and pull them away from his face. He complied finally, and she guided them until they were wrapped around her hips. Though he was still far from calm, at least she could keep him from harming himself.

“Alastor, if you can’t calm down, I’m going to sing for you. Would that be alright?” she asked. Mina was almost to the point of not waiting for a response. He could be upset with her later for using her power on him against his will, but she had to get his breathing under control now.

But after a few seconds, she heard his strained response.

“Please,” he whispered.

It had taken her some time to perfect the use of her power for pleasant things. Mina had initially only used it to harm or control others. It wasn’t until Alastor that she realized she could simply influence the emotions of others, though it had been tricky business at first. He had helped her hone that skill and now she put every ounce of her love for him behind her words as she sung.

“Why should thy cheek be pale,

Shaded with sorrow’s veil?

Why should’st thou grieve me?

I will never, never leave thee.

‘Mid my deepest sadness,

‘Mid by gayest gladness,

I am thine, believe me;

I will never, never leave thee.”

Mina felt him relax within the first line and by halfway through, he had quieted completely. She rubbed his shoulders and back, stroked his ears, and then ran her fingers gently through his hair, checking on the bloody scratches he had etched into his scalp already beginning to heal. By the end of the first verse, he was completely asleep in her arms, but she continued to hold onto him, bracing his weight against her until she felt his self-inflicted wounds fully close and her own heart began to heal as well.

___

Eventually, Mina pulled herself free of him and gently guided his unconscious form down until he was laying on the bed. She took his shoes off, placed his microphone so that it was propped against the nightstand, put his monocle on the nightstand, and pressed a kiss to his forehead. Then she switched off the lights and closed the curtains to keep the daylight out, leaving only the soft glow from the bayou to illuminate the room.

She took a quick shower, just to wash the dried blood from her hair and skin, trying to keep her mind blank. Once clean, she used her blow dryer on low, trying to make as little noise as possible, running it over her hair, ears, and tail, until just the longest parts of her hair were damp.

Alastor’s shadow slipped between the door and wall and briefly came up to her side before exiting, leaving Mina to wonder if it was checking on her of its own accord or if Alastor had woken and sent it in.

She threw on her black bathrobe and went back into the bedroom to see.

Indeed, she found Alastor awake again, sitting in a recliner he must have just manifested, placed in the middle of the bayou. He was smoking a pipe that smoldered with a dim green glow, his jacket off, his bowtie undone and hanging limp around his neck, and one socked foot was resting atop the opposite knee, as he stared into the distance of the swamp he had created.

He looked at her as she stepped into the low light of the bedroom and held out his free hand to her.

“Join me, mon cher?” he asked.

Mina’s bare feet carried her over carpet to moss in a few strides, and as she took the hand he offered, he adjusted his seat and gently pulled her into his lap. She rested her body between his spread legs, her feet dangling over the edge of one of his knees and tucked her head under his chin.

He tossed his pipe to the ground, and it burst into green flame, leaving no trace of it but a small, lingering trail of smoke. With both hands now free, he cradled her to him, one hand stroking her thigh over her robe while the other traced lazy circles at the base of her neck.

“When you left,” she began carefully, speaking softy, “I was so alone. I needed my family.”

“I know,” he said quietly.

“Abaddon didn’t take me back as a torturer. They promoted me. Offered me the chance to go to the mortal world and look for you, if I worked as a bounty hunter instead. Even Rosie thought it was a good idea. She’s the only other one who knew.”

She felt him stiffen a little beneath her, but he stayed silent, allowing her to continue.

“I didn’t know what else to do. I had nothing left. So, I took the job. And when they told me about Charlie’s idea . . . there were these rumors. And you probably can’t tell me if they are just rumors, can you?”

She felt the slight shake of his head above hers.

“No, I’m afraid it doesn’t seem to work that way. You could be dead wrong about something but as long as you’re making guesses, I can’t even try to lead you in the right direction. It’s . . . maddening.”

“Okay,” she said. At least she understood the rules now. She could work with that. “Well, there were rumors that somehow Heaven was involved. That it had something to do with exterminations. Or Lillith and why she left, too. That’s why I came here. If anyone could get a key to that place, it’s Charlie. There must be something to all that because this is the first place you showed up, right?”

She sat up a bit to look at him, to try and read anything in his face, but he just looked at her with a sad smile. Mina sighed and rested her head against his shoulder again.

“I would have told you all of this sooner. I don’t know if I would have quit once you got back because honestly . . . I really enjoyed it. But I thought you were purposefully keeping things from me. So, I kept my own secrets from you and I continued to work, just out of spite, because I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright,” he said.

“There’s something else.” She paused, still nervous to tell him the next part. “I’ve been let go. At least for now. I’m not sure what I’ll do if I get asked to come back. Abaddon took the fire from me. I can still use the portals, but I can’t wield any flame. That last night that I disappeared, things went really badly. I wasn’t just shot . . . I . . .”

Mina stopped, taking a deep breath. She closed her eyes, and pressed her face deeper into the side of Alastor’s neck as she recalled the sight of Ro falling dead from the sky.

“Someone had a gun with Carmine steel bullets. I almost died. My partner, Roena, she did die. And Abaddon blames me, at least partly. I wanted to tell you, I really did, I was just too mad. I almost wanted you to find out from someone else, just so you would know how I felt every day that you were gone. How much it hurt not knowing if you were okay, or hurting, or happy . . . without me.”

The hand on her thigh ghosted up her side until he reached her shoulder, then he slipped it under her robe and palmed the smooth, scarless skin on her shoulder.

“I was okay,” he said after a beat, “because I knew you were okay. But I wasn’t happy. I hated that you weren’t with me. If I had come back from that, just to lose you forever-“

His voice cracked and not just from the radio effect.

Mina knew he wasn’t just talking about her brush with death. It was the combination of that, and her threat to leave him, that still had him so shaken.

She sat up enough to look at him again.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she said with conviction. “Whatever happens, whatever your deal is, whatever it makes you do, I refuse to let it break us. You were right. We’re stronger than that. And I swear, I will burn everything around us to the ground if anyone tries to take you from me again.”

His smile shifted into what she knew to be his genuine smile.

“That’s the most romantic thing I think you’ve ever said to me.”

Mina didn’t return his smile.

“I said such horrid things to you,” she said, cupping his face. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean any of it. I love you. I need you to know that, okay? I love you more than anything.”

“Je t’aime aussi,” he said, and pulled her robe down from her shoulder to kiss where his hand had been.

I love you, too

“Je t’aime chaque jour davantage,” he said, and kissed her throat.

I love you more each day.

“Je t’aime pour toujours,” he said, and kissed her mouth.

I love you forever.

Mina kissed him back, trying not to let her thoughts wander to the stitches she had seen on his lips earlier. Trying not to wonder if they were there now and if they were, how many times had she kissed him like this, not knowing they were there. She still knew almost nothing about why he had left, but she knew one thing for sure.

She ran her fingers through his hair, grasping at the back of his head, intensifying the kiss.

He was hers.

Alastor matched her fervor, parting her lips and meeting her tongue with his own. His hand slipped lower under her robe and caressed her breast, playfully pinching a nipple until it stood taught and hard beneath his fingertips.

She was his.

Mina forced his head back and kissed the exposed skin at the top of his high collared shirt, growling as she bit the soft flesh there just hard enough to mark it.

There was no room for anyone else in their relationship. Whoever bargained with him for control over his soul clearly hadn’t counted on Mina being in the picture. But she was, damn it, and she was not about to back down from a fight.

Alastor’s hand left her chest and found her thigh again, slipping under the robe there and following the path up the back of her leg to her ass, and finding only disappointment with how her legs were pressed tightly together due to the position she was in on his lap.

“Are you still in heat?” he asked, digging his claws into the supple flesh cupped in his hand.

Mina didn’t know how he had found out because she was certain she hadn’t told him, but it didn’t really matter then anyway.

“No, I don’t think so,” she said honestly. Not that she needed to be with the way things were going.

“Pity,” he said, and lightly spanked her. “Stand up.”

She did as she was told and he undid the loosely tied sash of her robe and Mina dutifully helped him get the rest of it off of her. It was tossed onto the mossy ground somewhere behind her and immediately forgotten.

He scooted to the edge of the recliner and pulled her naked body flush against him, kissing her at the bottom of her sternum and slipping a hand between her legs.

Mina shifted her weight, parting her legs to better accommodate the width of his hand, and he began expertly moving a finger between her slick folds.

She kept one hand on his head while the other groped at his shoulder, squeezing tightly as she held on.

In seconds she was gasping and moaning as he worked her up, her legs going weak at the knees, and she had to lean into him more for balance.

“I think you are still in heat,” he said, nipping at the bottom side of her breast. “You’re positively dripping right now.”

“Hmmm,” she whined, rocking her hips a little as he curled a finger inside. “This is all your doing.”

He took a nipple in his mouth and sucked, letting his teeth graze and tease the pale skin around it until it turned bright red as his attention. Then he slipped a second finger inside, careful not to let her feel his claws, and pressed the heal of his hand against her clit.

Alastor must have been right, and the last remnants of her heat cycle were still affecting her because Mina came hard, crying out his name. But it was over too quickly, and she was still aching desperately for him now that he had turned her on.

She shoved him back and he laughed as his back hit the recliner. Then she was kneeling between his knees, undoing his pants and impatiently yanking on them until he obliged and lifted his hips enough for her to pull them down to his thighs.

Mina purred as she buried her face in his crotch, breathing in the musky smell of him and she took his length in one hand and began to stroke. She felt another rush of wetness between her legs and fantasized regretfully about what an amazing day they would have had in bed together if this is how strongly she was desiring him now, in the final hours of her heat.

She bit hard into the flesh of his inner thigh, earning her an appreciative yank on her hair, before she took his shaft into her mouth and began moving up and down, sucking and working her tongue along the bottom vein, feeling him twitch with arousal. His head fell back as she gave his tip special attention, swirling her tongue in small circles around its opening, while pumping her hand at his base. If she knew him well, he wouldn’t let her go down on him for long, so she had to make the most of it while she could.

As expected, it wasn’t long before he was saying her name and grabbing her again by the hair, guiding her back up and on top of him.

Normally she would try to protest a little, but she knew then that they would both prefer for him to cum inside her. Especially with her hormones flooding her brain, she really wanted to feel him fill her up.

She rested her knees on either side of his hips, impaling herself on his length. She was so wet that her slick coated the inside of both her thighs, and his cock slid easily inside. It allowed her to waste no time adjusting before she was rocking her hips against his.

Mina grasped at his shirt, frustrated at the lack of skin-on-skin contact, but the teasing that the barrier between them created helped build up her arousal even further. She rode him just like that, with him nearly completely dressed while she was fully nude.

Alastor stayed leaning back deep in the recliner, enjoying the view of her pleasuring herself on him, and with enough space between them to adjust his arm at the right angle, pressed the pad of his thumb against her clit, so that she rocked against it with every forward motion.

His other hand roamed her body, scratching up her thigh, stroking the end of her tail, massaging her breast; touching her everywhere that it could reach.

After a few minutes, Mina was arching her back and crying out, so he pressed his thumb harder into her clit, working her with fast little circles until her walls were clenching around him once more. He had just barely refrained from cumming himself as he watched her reach the peak of her pleasure and he was glad for it as she caught her breath. Alastor could always tell when she was really sated or not and the needy look on her face told him she needed one more.

He wrapped his arms around her torso as he sat up, letting them both fall into shadow, and reappear naked together on the bed.

They spent a minute just kissing and caressing each other, letting Mina’s desire rebuild and his own retreat just enough to help him last another few minutes. Then he flipped her so that she was on her knees facing away from him, and he grasped his cock, using it to tease and rub against her soaking wet core, until she was crying his name again, her tail raised and held up to the side, giving his eyes a full view of her needy sex. He braced his tip at her entrance and pushed in with a single hard thrust, earning a satisfied moan from his lover, as she arched her back deeper and let him pound into her harder.

He fucked her hard and fast, just the way he knew she liked it when her body desired to be bred. But after several minutes had gone by, he could feel his balls beginning to tighten, his antlers growing large and heavy, and knew he wouldn’t last much longer at that pace. She was right at the edge of her third orgasm but Alastor knew she was overstimulated and needed something to push her over. From experience, he knew the angle wasn’t right for him to stimulate her clit with his hand. He couldn’t reach her there, not with how much she had her thighs pressed against her body.

But his shadows could.

He sent two tentacles to wrap around her, one to caress and pinch at her breasts, while the other went between her legs and began stroking her clit. With his hands free, he dug his nails into the flesh of her thighs and hips, and she pressed herself harder against him in response, begging for him to mark her until she bled.

They came together, her screaming into the bed sheets as he silently gripped the curves of her hips, feeling the blood gather at his fingertips, his rocking becoming slower as her body relaxed beneath his and he finally began to soften inside her.

Then he pulled out and fell into bed beside her, his shadowy tentacles dissipating into nothingness, as she flipped onto her side and spread herself across his chest. Both bitten, scratched, and bleeding from purposeful, territorial marks, and finally fully sated.

She languidly ran her fingers up and down his chest, over the permanent scars that she had memorized over the years. He rubbed circles around the base of her ears, letting the sounds of her purring relax him further.

Eventually, their love marks healed, leaving only traces of blood that would be washed away later. It didn’t matter. They only served as temporary reminders as to what they were. Even the rings they each wore were simply symbolic. What mattered most was each other.

He was hers. And she was his.

And now he was certain that no force would ever be able to take her from him again.

They crawled under the blankets together, uncaring about the late hour of the morning, or the rest of the hotel, and fell asleep wrapped up in each other.

___

They were both startled awake by the sound of the bedroom door flying open and slamming against the wall.

“It stinks in here!” Niffty cried out and frantically began rummaging around the room.

She grabbed at Alastor’s jacket and then quickly darted over to Mina’s robe, tossing them into the laundry bin.

“Why are you two so messy?! Don’t you know where dirty clothes belong? Who raised you? You don’t have to make my job harder, you know.”

Mina and Alastor sat up, watching the tiny woman as she worked her way around their room. Mina cautiously kept the comforter held tightly to her naked chest.

“Are you kidding me?!” Niffty said as she flung the bathroom door open and looked inside. “Mina, you left black fur everywhere in here!!”

“That can’t be sanitary!” she said, pointing at the bayou sitting nestled into the far wall. “How many fireflies having infested the hotel because of that?!”

She scurried over to the end of the bed and began yanking on the blankets.

“Blood? Really? Do you know how hard blood is to get out of silk sheets?!”

“Niffty!” Alastor shouted, grabbing hold of his edge of the sheets before they were pulled any lower down.

Niffty froze and blinked up at her boss, looking shocked that he had raised his voice at her.

“Give us an hour,” he said sharply, then lowered his tone. “Please.”

She looked abashed for a second but then rolled her one large eye at him.

“Fine. But don’t complain to me when your bed isn’t made in time.”

Niffty slammed the door on her way out.

Alastor and Mina looked at each other.

“Didn’t we lock that door?” she asked.

Next Chapter ->

@inuhalfdemon @saccharine-nectarine

Author's Note:

I make it very clear in this chapter that Alastor is depicted as demisexual, and hinted at being demiromantic. Asexuality and aromanticism are spectrums and can vary from person to person, so rather than try and write him in a way that everyone under those labels can relate to, which would be impossible, I've chosen to write him experiencing sexual attraction and love in the same way I do as a demi person. Write what you know, as they say.

Being aroace-spec is part of the reason why reader inserts are something I struggle to write, even if they are more popular. Although I am a cis woman, I relate strongly with Alastor's character, and Mina is based off my own wife rather than myself.

The conversation with Fae was important to write out as a statement of respect towards Alastor's canon asexuality, but also for Mina to understand him better going forward in this story.

That all being said, there will be a lot more smut in this story going forward, including kinks that I would never be interested in real life, but are very fun to explore in the world of fiction. So, if an ace person having a lot of explicit sex is going to bother you, you have been warned. And if you are a smut skimmer and just here for the cartoon dick, please stick around.

[lookingseeing]

Fics Masterpost

Ello! Here's the things i've written so far! It's way past time to make a pinned post hehe... These are all rated T-M, none get explicit, they all have dark sinister themes. I put the archivist in a jar and i shake him.

Note that my ao3 username is Agentaace. That's also the name of my main blog! This is my magnus blog for organizational purposes.

Over Your Head: Jonelias, s2, canon divergent, 30k

Elias decides to help with Jon's paranoia by keeping him at Elias's house semi-unwillingly. Now they're kind of dating? Fucked up dynamics, victim blaming, happy-ish ending with some Jonmartin thrown in

You Can Be Mine Like That: Jonelias, s2 finale, canon compliant, 2.7k

Stand-alone sequel/epilogue for Over Your Head. Jon doesn't know what to do after finding the body of Jurgen Leitner, so he goes to his favorite evil employer for comfort, even though he definitely did the murder. Fluff

It's Our Secret: Jonelias, jonmartin, Dracula AU, 2.1k

Part one of Dracula AU, featuring Jon as both Lucy Westenra and Jonathan Harker, and Elias as the evil vampire tormenting him without anyone else knowing.

What a Fine Meal You Make: Jonelias, jonmartin, Dracula AU, 2.9k

Part two of Dracula AU, based on the part of the book where Dracula attacks Jonathan (Jon) and Mina (Martin), and he bites Martin with the intention of turning him into a vampire as well.

Not Quite What I Expected: Jonelias, Regency AU, post-canon, 3.1k

One-shot, Jon wakes up in Jonah Magnus's bed in 1826, and learns that they are married. Fucked up if true.

Dreams and Nightmares: Jonelias, Fae/fantasy AU, 7.7k, in progress

Elias the Dark Sorcerer purchases a marriage contract with a little moth fairy that he names Jon. Elias POV

[vanoefucks]

book recommendation tag game!

rules: recommend as many books as you like. please include genre and some basic information on it (either your words or a copy+paste synopsis). feel free to include cover art, a personal review, trigger warnings, and anything else! just don’t spoil the book!

Tagged by @dekarios <33 ty!!

BITTERTHORN : Kat Dunn

Genre: Gothic Fantasy Romance (sapphic) (adult)

Blumwald is a town overshadowed by an ancient curse: in a sinister castle in the depths of the wild wood lives a monstrous Witch. Once a generation, she comes to claim a companion to return with her – never to be seen again. Now that time is drawing near once more... Mina, daughter of the duke, is grieving and lonely. She has lost all hope of any future for herself in Blumwald. So when the Witch demands her next companion, Mina offers herself up.

I adore this book and although it took me a while to warm up to the prose (it had been a while since I’d read anything other than ya) it drew me in and I finished it over the course of 2 train rides. It’s beautiful and made me cry but it’s so??? Comforting in the strangest way.

ALL THESE BODIES : Kendara Blake

Genre: Mystery & Horror (ya)

Summer 1958. A gruesome killer plagues the Midwest, leaving behind a trail of bodies completely drained of blood. Michael Jensen, an aspiring journalist whose father happens to be the town sheriff, never imagined that the Bloodless Murders would come to his backyard. Not until the night the Carlson family was found murdered in their home. Marie Catherine Hale, a diminutive fifteen-year-old, was discovered at the scene—covered in blood. She is the sole suspect in custody. Michael didn’t think that he would be part of the investigation, but he is pulled in when Marie decides that he is the only one she will confess to.

I love a small town vibe & saw this at the charity shop with its shiny! Cover so obviously I picked it up. I read it slowly but only because I didn’t want it to end. It was so cool to read it from the point of view of Michael and the details get pretty fucked up so warning with that. Heavy discussions of murder and gory details.

PRINCE OF THE SORROWS : Kellen Graves

Genre: Fantasy Romance (lgbt) (adult)

the book gives you a list of tws at the start worth looking at

Without an academic endorsement to make him valuable to the high fey, Saffron will be sent back through the veil to the human world. When mistaken identity leads to Saffron learning the true name of brooding, self-centered, high fey Prince Cylvan, what begins as a risk of losing his life (or his tongue) becomes an opportunity to earn the future he wants. But as other human servants soon fall victim to a beast known only as “the wolf”, Saffron realizes he has embroiled himself in a manipulative reach for power like he never anticipated. Between the wolf, uncovering forbidden magic, and his growing feelings for the prince, Saffron will have to decide which is most important to him

Now this series is literally what made me buy a kindle in the end. I love the rowan blood books even if the second one after this had me tearing my hair out. It’s the first and only fae book series I’ve read and I don’t think any will ever hold up to this. The characters are to die for and the author does so well with having you root for saffron. I love it so dearly.

Bonus: the Spider-Man and & Deadpool comic run LMAO

Ok so!! I’ll do 3 for now ^^ thank you again for the tag <3 i love reading even though I’ve slowed down due to work :[ & I'll take any chance to share some of my faves.

Tagging @leonbastralle @landgraabbed @ambrozians & @gallusneve (no pressure whatsoever as always <3)

[sharonisthebettercarter]

How about a Dracula!Miguel X Villager!Peter au? Peter's aunt May is gravely ill and the only way for Peter to get the money she needs for her medical bills is to agree to become the vampire lord's thrall and resident blood bag (or in this case bride).

YES~!! YESSSSSSS~<3<3<3!!

you shot this up WRITE~<3 up my alley and i LOOOOOOOVE this and i'm postin' it now cause HAPPY HALLOW'S EVE~<3! yes fuck THANK YOU<3 (i queued the others with some other stuffs~<3 you'll see them soon enough lol)

i love this.

absofuckinglutely~<3 especially, ESPECIALLY.

if miguel is that same kinda means well horribly constipated bastard who like legit wants to help but social ineptitude~<3 especially bein' a vampire.

or

he expects peter to be *terrified* and peter's just... he's just not. and an absolute shit that handles every fuckin' thing like a goddamn PRO, or is even getting on the vampire's nerves and eating a TON of garlic to try and get the vampire to dump him because he's such a terrible bride.

maybe BOTH~<3! ;)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

MAYBE~<3 aunt may's the REAL mastermind who know's dracula miguel's actual nature and talked to him first asking him to take care of her crackhead boi peter who she expects will not survive without her.

hell, miguel could even be the doctor treating her and peter could be suspicious of him, maybe he's just supposed to 'marry the handsome 'doctor' to pay them debts<3' as hwas the old hways~<3 miguel could be keeping his vampiness a secret~ that peter is on the verge of discoverin' while miguel only really accepted because of a cultural thingy~ (other villagers expecting him not to treat aunt may/being salty if he does without the money/being buttheads about it/rich white dickholes throwing their aristocrat daughters at him CONSTANTLY and peter~ is his easy escape from that bullshit<3)

lmao, this could go so dark and i just went full crackhead on it i'm sorry but i'm also not cause leik THE OPPORTUNITY~<3!!

could still def have dark elements for sure~<3 but i love the kinda crack that comes with peter boo and the spoodermans~<3

let's talk about vampirism tho~<3 one trope i love~<3 is the *sensations* that can come from *feedings* tho<3 they can be painful... or~<3<3<3 ;)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

maybe that's something peter didn't *quite* expect but really really very much enjoys~<3

but miguel, just... y'know, he won't actually bone him. so peter has to change tactics to ;))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

wear the vampire down let's say.

even better. even better cause y'know the mpreg is comin' like it always does...

peter's a 'bride', and that could mean a number of things. always game for a/b/o<3 maybe peter is a little wolf~<3 and doesn't know it ;))))))))))))), maybe peter has diluted but somewhat special blood that made him particularly attractive to the vampire~<3 (i believe in dracula's case, something of scent was involved with his obsession with mina)

fae, witch, wolf, mutation (as an origin for vamps i love exploring mutation, maybe peter is a new born vampire in the making like miguel was and the *perfect* mate for him because always yes for me<3)

or~

maybe vampires are just freaky freaks who can impregnate other dudes and that's why miguel doesn't quite wanna bone peter who definitely wants to be boned but also kinda does wanna bone him and is trying so hard to resist but leik peeeeteeeeerrrrrrrrr~<3<3<3

bottom line... mayday. gabriella. any other vampy babies~<3 imminent<3<3<3

... maybe peter *was* just supposed to be a blood bag and he fucks it all up to high hell by getting miguel to fuck him--

;))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

not gonna lie, kinda wanna write this one but i STILL have work to be done and at least wanna do just ONE butchlander fic~! (and now i'm on a half sterek kick fuck mah life--)

IDEAS FREE TO USE~<3<3<3!!!

[boombox-fuckboy]

Hey. Could you rec any podcasts with sapphic couples as their mains? Or a sapphic story. And so on. I only really know about where the stars fell and Alice isn't dead.

You're off to a strong start. Here's 20, there's more out there, but I tried to pick a variety. I'm going to put a ★ next to the ones I think will fit best, but they're all good.

Arden: (Fictional "True Crime", Investigative, Comedy). On the 25th of December, 2007, heiress and young actress Julie Capsom crashed her car into a tree and fled into a nearby forest clearing, leaving a trail that seemingly vanished into thin air, and a dismembered torso in the trunk. A decade later, Bea, the first reporter on the scene, and Brenda, a detective on the case, are hosting a true crime podcast about it, and neither is remotely impressed with what the other has to say. Arden is also a retelling of various Shakespeare plays.

The Author's Anathema: (Horror) Looking for some extra cash, and with some help from her girlfriend Eleanor, college student Natalie takes a small job to narrate an audiobook for a reclusive anonymous author. The book being a horror wouldn't be such a bother, but the stories within are... Familiar. Too familar.

The Beacon: (Urban Fantasy) Bee is a perpetually anxious university student who discovers she has the ability to create fire, and decides to start a podcast to find others like herself. She quickly discovers she's not alone, but a series of bizzare animal attacks suggest superpowered freshers are far from the only strange thing on campus.

The Department of Variance of Somewhere, Ohio: (Weird Fiction, Horror, Sci-Fi) On day one of a new job at the Department of Variance, in the middle of her workplace orientation, Jasmine's new workplace goes into lockdown. Guided via walkie-talkie by Scarlet, an experienced security officer, Jasmine must make her way down 20-odd shifting floors of strange entities and experiments. Ideally without becoming one of them. As a disclaimer, this one is the only addition to this list that isn't actively romantic yet, however there are canonically sapphic characters, and I am fairly confident it's headed that way.

★ Elixir: (Urban Fantasy, Romance) Set in a fantasy world's equivalent of the american prohibition, lawmakers daughter Elsie approaches someone unexpected in search of her missing sister: Vera, an alchemist and propriator of the local now-elicit hush bar.

The Far Meridian: (Magical Realism) An agorophobic young woman wakes up to discover her lighthouse home has moved overnight. It quickly becomes clear this isn't a once-off, and she decides to use this as an opportunity to search for her missing brother, having some strange encounters along the way.

Interference: (Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Romance) Jacq is a D&D podcaster. Geneva is an orc scientist studying ancient human ruins the next world over. What happens when these women from different realities begin picking up each other's broadcasts?

Khôra Podcast: (Sci-Fi) Somewhere between adapted from and inspired by various greek myths, Khôra follows four women who deserved better (Atalanta, Echo, Medea, and Medusa) on a grand space adventure to find the golden fleece while keeping out of the reach of the olympians who own and run the galaxy.

★ Mabel: (Mystery, Supernatural, Horror, Romance). The live-in carer of a dying elderly woman attempts to contact her granddaughter, with little success. The contents of voicemails only get stranger, and what starts as a subtley creepy mystery-horror develops to poetic lesbian fae body-horror.

★ Midnight Radio: (Light Supernatural, Romance). Sybil McIntyre, host of the ever-popular 1950's nightly radio hour, begins exchanging letters with an old fan who has reluctantly returned to visit Sybil's beloved town.

Mina's Story: (Sci-Fi, Romance Elements) Still dealing with a major loss in her family, a young woman volunteers for a long-term cryonics project. The episodes are her audio logs after waking up each time, always the same place but centuries after she went to sleep. A story about grief, change, and the intersection of past and future.

Mirrors: (Sci-fi, Mystery, Supernatural). The audio journal of three women from different periods (past, present, and future) who seem to share little in common bar the strange inhuman, ghostly figures they have started seeing.

Night Life: (Supernatural, Noir) Utterly wacky one-episode story (more of a short audio movie) about an ex-vampire hunter turned private eye who finds herself dealing with the shenanigans of mafia and vampires in the wake of an upcoming mayoral election. Find it on the feed for The Lightning Bottler.

The Night Post: (Supernatural, Mystery). The conscripted couriers of Gilt City are both respected and shunned, integral to the city's function, but inexplicably tied to the supernatural. It's not something they like to talk about. When his husband goes missing on the job, Milo is called to take over. Clementine took over from her father a long time ago, yet recently someone else with her face has been delivering her own unsent letters. Val's not going to discuss how she ended up there, but she will absolutely open people's mail (filled with their own supernatural tales) to read aloud.

Palimpsest, Season 2: (Horror, Romance, Fantasy Elements). Set in the 1800s, a young woman becomes the maid to a supposed fairy noblewoman, who is being kept as one of many "denizens", living curiousities, in a large house. Each season is a different story, this is Season 2.

★ The Pasithea Powder: (Sci-Fi, Thriller?) The last major interplanetary war was full of atrocities, but none more infamous then the creation of Pasithea Powder, a memory altering drug which was used to horrible effect and landed it's entire team of creators in prison. So when decorated war hero Captain Sophie Green sees one of them wandering free, worlds away from his prison, she gets in touch with a very old, estranged friend: one Dr. Jane Gonzalez, who's behind bars for the very same reason.

Starship Q Star: (Sci-Fi, Comedy) The small crew of a tone-deaf space agency's attempt at a PR mission wake up at Mars to discover that they - and the one botanist abandoned on Mars base - are now the last surviving members of humanity. Co-captains and ex-girlfriends Aurelia and Sim must now dedicate themselves to protecting their crew and finding a new home, but they're rarely on the same page about how best to do it.

★ The Strange Case of Starship Iris: (Sci-Fi) When the shuttle carrying the crew of scientific research ship Iris explodes, Violet Liu finds herself stranded in space, the last survivor with no way out. Until her emergency broadcast is picked up by a passing ship. But the crew aren't who they seem to be, there's more going on here than anyone knows yet, and Violet must decide who she can really trust.

Unwell: (Supernatural). Lily Harper revisits her supposedly haunted childhood home to help take care of her aging mother. The house is weird, sure, but there's something far stranger haunting the town of Mount Absolm than simply ghosts.

Weaver: (Supernatural, Romance Elements). The musings of the entity within the old house about the girl she fell in love with (the only thing she can remember), and her two new coinhabitants, who do not yet know she exists.

[ancient-pokehistorian]

smacks #6 (angst angst angst) for the wishlist bc ofc i would >:')

WISHLISTS! (Still accepting) 6: something angsty

((Yes, of course you would.

Hm. Angst.

I mean, immediately my brain goes to LTH Falk bc that's such an angst-fest sometimes. The stripping of humanity. Torture. Cruelty. Ect.. I always like a good LTH thread, especially an antagonistic one.

Mina also has a lot of pent-up emotions she doesn't address, and I especially haven't addressed with her since I started rping again. She doesn't talk much about the thoughts in her head, and acts very independently, so putting her in a situation where she's more helpless would be interesting.))

[screechfoxes]

5, 10, and 12 for the book asks!

5. where do you buy books?

generally bookshop.org! a good way of supporting indie bookshops (gay's the word, in my case) without having to wait for indie bookshops to have specific books in stock, if they ever do

sometimes i look at the portal bookshop in York, though, since they tend to sell queer SFF

10. do you have a guilty fav?

so i haven't read them in a long while, but The Lunar Chronicles truly are better than any YA breathtakingly-het fairytale retellings ought to be, plot-wise (if not orientalism-wise, jfc)

on a similar note, i enjoyed the first three books of... whatever the series is called with Wicked Lovely (sinister fae romance). i'll revisit them some day and actually finish the series

12. did you enjoy any compulsory high school readings?

i was going to say Jane Eyre, but that was middle school 😔

Frankenstein was fine, although lessened significantly by the fact we were expected to have it all memorised, and oh boy, they do go on in that book. Pigeon English was very compelling to me, although it might not be on a revisit. poetry-wise, Exposure by Wilfred Owen stuck with me, as did Ozymandias

we also got a Dracula extract as part of our revision for an exam where you'd get an extract you hadn't seen before, and i wrote lucy/mina fanfiction where lucy bit mina iirc. no clue what my english teacher thought of that!

[amchara]

Road to Hell (Wait for Me, I’m Coming) Part Two - Kit / Ty Hadestown AU

(Part One)

Ty rubbed his face tiredly, as he stared at another chicken-scratch parchment in the Unseelie Court’s library. He looked up and saw that Dru was fast asleep, gently snoring into her crossed arms, while Anush was dazedly flipping through pages of a huge leatherbound book. Mark had left a while ago, muttering something about getting some food for them but he hadn’t returned yet.

Ty looked down at his research, the collected notes he had written over the last day and a half and suddenly it seemed pitiful, compared to the task ahead. Ty could feel the panic rising, his chest tight and he concentrated on the feel of the rough paper underneath his fingertips. He had to get Kit out of Hell and he was taking notes, like he was back in the Scholomance and this was an assignment, instead of… instead of the most important fucking thing in the world.

He hadn’t told Kit how he felt yet. They had only just re-entered each other’s lives over the past two months and were still doing a wary dance as they relearned each other’s steps after three years apart.

There had been a hesitant scene in the L.A. Institute’s atrium when Kit had strolled in, almost as if he had never left, all sunshine gold hair, eyes the colour of a clear autumn sky, and a husky voice with just the slightest hint of an English accent.

There had been the angry, sparse time when Helen had sent them on a patrol together and they had strode along in miserable silence until Kit had finally stopped him and asked where Livvy was- and Ty had snapped back at him, the wound still raw, that he was trying to make amends for everything he’d done but he’d had to do it alone and he wasn’t ready to talk about it. The fragile moment when Kit’s face had crumpled briefly and he told Ty he was sorry he had left and that Ty had had to do it alone. And the appearance of the Raum demons a minute later, interrupting them- but then the glimpse of how it could be, as Kit had stopped him after the attack and insisted on drawing the iratze on Ty’s forearm, his face a study of concentration as they sat in the car before driving back to the Institute.

There had been fleeting, glorious moments in the training room when they had sparred, the pretence of combat a freeing sensation for Ty, as he felt able to finally touch Kit and the look Kit had given him, his breath an uneven whisper on Ty’s collarbone after he pinned him to the floor, almost helping Ty make his decision. But it hadn’t been enough - and the agonising choice of whether to knock - and still being a coward and walking away, almost too quickly, from Kit’s door.

And then that moment in the clearing. When Kit had done the stupid, honourable Herondale thing and sacrificed himself for the rest of them. Ty didn’t think he’d do the same if the situation was reversed - but then again, he was a Blackthorn.

From far away, he could hear a tearing, ripping sound and he came back to himself, noting the confetti of yellow parchment floating down to the ground around him, as he paced back and forth, paper strewn around him and his hands moving almost mechanically as he shredded his carefully taken notes.

Anush looked over at him, finally noticing Ty’s pacing and his eyes widened. And just then, Mark re-appeared in the doorway, carrying a large tray. He let out a curse as he saw Ty, almost knocking over the tray in his hurry to put it down. He crossed the room quickly to stand in front of Ty, gentle as he placed his hands over his brother’s as he clasped them a firm grip. This time, Ty let him in and he drew in a few deep, shuddering breaths as he let the small remains of paper drop.

“It’s all right,” he told Mark. “I have them all memorised.”

Mark nodded. “It’s wise to not leave the notes to Hade unguarded,” he said. He paused. “Although perhaps a bit unkind to the brownie cleaners - but no matter, I’ll arrange to speak to them.”

There was a stretch of silence. “I’m leaving tomorrow morning,” Ty said. “I can’t wait too long- we don’t know if time moves differently in Hades compared to the rest of Faerie and I can’t risk it.”

Mark’s eyes searched Ty’s face - not seeking eye contact but a different kind of reassurance. He seemed to find it, and he dropped Ty’s hands. “Then we’ll prepare to go together - you’re not going alone,” he said. A chorus joined in - a rousing if slightly terrified response from Anush, and a sleepy affirmation from Dru, who appeared to have just woken up.

Ty felt a brief moment of terror that he was bringing more people into what his research told him was likely a suicide mission… but the ice cold shiver of memories and Livvy’s pleading, drained face swam into view and he swallowed his protests. He didn’t think he could go through it alone again.

—

The ivory keys of the grand piano were always immaculately polished and Kit wondered whose job it was to clean them. His job was to play the music and he thanked - well, it wasn’t God and it wasn’t the Angel Raziel - but he thanked his lucky stars that he had picked up some basic songs from Jace the previous summer when he had visited the New York Institute, and that Jem had considered learning to read music by sight an essential part of a well-rounded education, alongside Kit’s Shadowhunter training and mundane school.

In contrast to the bright electric fluorescence that lit the warren of overly warm machinery-filled rooms that Kit had started to refer to as Hadestown, Persephone’s conservatory was different, with its faded white, latticed walls and high glass ceilings letting in the smallest fraction of outside light.

It reminded him of where he had lived with Jem, Tessa and Mina - in… C- In Cir- Kit’s mind stuttered. He didn’t know how long he had been here - the days were starting to blur together and he was worried he was starting to forget more than just the little things.

He stared down at the piano keys as the large ornamental clock on the wall struck eleven. Like clockwork precision, Persephone waltzed in, her movements sultry but sulky as always. She threw some new music books at Kit and he caught them awkwardly, balancing them on his lap.

“These ones - I don’t care which one you play first today,” she said, sitting down on the long fainting couch across from him, her black hair spilling over the white satin fabric as she rested her head. Kit tried not to stare at her deep decolletage, which was prominently framed by the tight red dress she was wearing. She noticed as he turned away and her gaze was hungry as she looked at him.

Kit looked down as he chose a music book and blindly opened it to a first page he saw. He started playing, a crooning jazz number singing out underneath his fingers. He didn’t know if it was because he was in Faerie or the spell he could feel he was under but he was a much better musician here than in the mundane world. The tight, lost look on Persephone’s face began to relax as the melody echoed in the conservatory.

As he finished the first song and began another, his movements almost automatic, Kit allowed himself to think again, of escape - of returning to the land of the living - to his family, to the Shadowhunter institutions he was slowly becoming accustomed to again, to… Ty. To what might be between them, although he had almost strangled that hope, locked it away tight and deep inside his heart. What they had resurrected - if that word could be used - given previous circumstances was almost a miracle, Kit thought, hard fought for and one that he hadn’t been about to throw away on foolish too-soon declarations of love. Even so, when he had seen that faerie arrow aimed straight at Ty’s heart, he hadn’t hesitated. He might not be ever able to tell Ty how he felt but at least he had been able to show it in his actions, he mused.

And he wasn’t about to give up on leaving this hellhole, although each unrelenting day in this dull, dark and depressing place of dust and hollow-eyed workers pulled at that hope. But he clung to his memories - to the now-dimly lit memories of the outside world. Of his love for a black-haired, grey-eyed boy with his sharp intellect and fierce love of his family, who saw the world in a different light than most, and was - had been willing - and maybe, might be willing again to share it with Kit.

The last note rang out as he finished the song and he drew his hands back, muscles aching. He had been playing for nearly an hour. In the sudden silence, Persephone let out a ragged sigh.

“Who is the love that you play for, boy?” she said, her voice ancient and rough. She rose from the couch and crossed the floor, her dress swishing across the smooth marble. “I have heard many love songs in my years… but yours is one that I haven’t heard in an eon. Tell me their name.” Her green eyes glistened with unshed tears.

But Kit remained silent. He knew instinctively if he said Ty’s name, he would lose it. He shook his head, his lips pressed together.

Persephone narrowed her eyes, and she reached out, as if to stroke his brow. Kit evaded her and stood up. He had been coming to play for her for several times now, and he had started to learn her ways. He needed a distraction. “I saw that crack in the wall- is that new, Persephone?” Kit lowered his voice as he gestured across the room. “I know you’re a captive as much as I am. Let me help you- we can escape together and then I will tell you.”

Persephone’s laugh was as dry as a winter’s wind as she sized him up. “Oh, that’s adorable, my sweet-” she said. “But I made my choice long ago and it’s--” her eyes suddenly moved past him. “It’s the love I deserve,” her voice suddenly was filled with honey and springtime.

Kit knew that Hades had arrived, and he tried to quell the fear rising in him as he turned around.

The man - fae - god or whatever he was - was standing in the doorway, casually watching them.

“Leave him,” he said in his deep voice. “I desire your company.”

Persephone swept past Kit without another word and draped herself across Hades. “Of course my darling- I am here. What shall we do?”

Hades took a moment to whisper into her ear and Persephone looked uncomfortable but let out a deep, throaty chuckle. “Of course.”

Hades smiled, with a devilish twist and he pulled her away, starting down the hall.

But then he stopped and looked back at Kit. “Your shift here has ended - get back on the assembly line.”

Kit looked down at his rough worker’s uniform, smeared with rust and dust and he forced himself to nod evenly - he knew from past experience that it was unwise to argue with Hades.

Hades’ firelit eyes swept over him. “And once that is over - come see me in my office.”

And at that, Kit knew that he was in trouble. Hades had summoned him twice since his arrival to his office, after the initial contract signing. Each time afterwards Kit had found himself weak and gasping on the floor outside, his mind blank and unsure of what had passed behind the walls of the office. Nothing good, he thought grimly - and that was likely the cause of his increasingly fuzzy memory recall.

He needed to escape and soon. He nodded again and Hades left with Persephone. Kit started to make his way to the factory floor. On his way out of the conservatory, he bumped into a small, bird-framed girl with a luminous beauty and whose too-large eyes must have been lively once but were now faded and glazed over with the thousand yard stare that all Hades’ workers had. That he might soon have. “What’s your name?” Kit asked the girl, trying not to sound desperate.

She looked up at him. “I- Eu- I…” she looked puzzled and sad. “I don’t know.” she said.

Kit felt a stab of despair.

Tag list: (let me know if you want to be added / removed!)

@jesse-is-spiraling @dontmindmyshadowhunting @sandersgrey @thechangeling

[intotherumiverse]

Chapter 2

ᴀᴜᴛʜᴏʀ'ꜱ ɴᴏᴛᴇ: I’m still on my fae bull shit so yee have fun with this  ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢꜱ: blood, violence, pov changes ᴘᴇᴏᴘʟᴇ ᴍᴇɴᴛɪᴏɴᴇᴅ: @lilsparkyswife​, a brief mention of @katsumiiii​ ᴡᴏʀᴅ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴛ: 1.9k 

Yvonne’s Pov

The Summer Court was known for a lot of things. Yes, we did the dirty work for people who didn’t want to be seen doing it. We lied for liars, stole for stealers, and cheated cheaters. But we were big on loyalty. I mean if we couldn’t trust one of our own, who could we trust? But driving back home, knowing what we had to tell Bakugou….

Maybe it was better if we lied.

We found him training. Sweat dripped down his face as more and more holograms blur around him. His muscles tighten in frustration as the holograms look like they are about to win.  Power training was something I always hated. We were already fast and strong, why work yourself to the bone to gain some other ability. But some people did it, Like (Y/n), but others have tried every day to improve themselves to no avail. All of us has given up at some point, Bakugou was just a matter of time.

The hologram knocked his sword out o his hand, and he glances at it as if something miraculous was going to happen. When he realizes nothing is happening, he lets out a grunt of anger.

“He’s rarely happy anymore,” I think to myself. “ Well, it wasn’t unusual, well for Bakugou at least, but his obsession was going a bit too far”

“Good luck with him,” Mina says while Mira walks away.

“If you live we’ll see you in the meeting room. You know where, so don’t die.”

“Gee, Such wonderful friends,” I say back.

. Turning back towards the entrance of the training room, I walk, cleared my throat, and spoke up

“Bakugou?”

All I get is another grunt as a reply, knowing he was somewhat listening. He continued his workout, concentrating on summoning a weapon in his hand.

“Bakubitch!”

He gives me a glare. Well, that got his attention.

“Whatdoyouwant?”

I hated when he was like this, not wanting to listen to anyone else even his friends. Steeling myself, I spit out the ugly truth to him

“(Y/n)gotkidnappedanditwasn’tourfault.”

“What? You said that too fast for me to even hear.”

“(Y/n) got kidnapped-”

“HUH?? HOW’D YOU IDIOTS LET THAT-”

“Will you shut up and let me explain?”

Rolling my eyes I wanted until Bakugou was calm, well calm enough, to begin.

“We had a mission. One assigned to us by the King. Someone from Spring Court wanted someone from Autumn off their back and they had enough money to pay for it. Shit went sideways and long story short, (Y/n) got taken… by Izuku Midoriya.”

I barely had time to doge before the knife was embedded into the target behind me. Such primal behavior, attacking me without warning.

“So you’re telling me… Izuku Midoriya took (Y/n) and you and the rest of the team, just fucking stood there?”

Another knife dodged. He’s making it harder and harder for me not to hit him

“Will you stop using me as target practice long enough so we can get her back?”

“It’s the Autumn Court. Who knows where they took her? She could be halfway to the gates of hell and back before we figure it out.”

Walking over to the target and prying the daggers off of it, I threw them back in rapid succession. He dodged the first one, but the second one scratched his face, leaving a thin line of blood in its wake.

“Next time you throw a knife at me make sure it hit its intended mark”

And with that, I leave the training room.

(Y/n)‘s POV

Being interrogated by the Autumn Court was… It’s an experience, let's just say. They had a lot of ways of making you talk, and once you open your mouth there is no stopping them.

Due to their power, vocals are the thing that they focus heavily on. It’s easy to fall into their trap but easy to evade it if you know what you’re doing. Just don’t say anything. I’ve been doing that for three hours now.

Granted it was hard. They tried everything short of laying hands on me. Ripping my dress, threatening my family and friends, you know the usual. But they couldn’t get me to talk. Then they called the motherfucking prince, who also happens to be the person I wanted dead.

“Just answer the question, doll, and you can go home.” Stupid motherfucker, staring down at me with that condescending smile I think.  The haze of his power swirling around me, deep and smoky. Izuku was powerful, yes. But against me, he was nothing.

Smiling at him, I think to myself ‘You’ll get me to talk when I’m dead and gone’

Tracing his hand on my jawline slowly, like I was glass, brittle and ready to break. He stares deep into my eyes and for a moment, a hint of a second, I see the pain in his eyes. Something indescribable, intangible, but somehow there. And the moment is over. Harshly grabbing my chin, the pain is covered with feral, oddly flat green eyes.

“Tell me. Or else we’ll have to resort to… uglier methods of gaining information from you. And trust me, darling, you won’t like those methods.”

I took the saliva from my own mouth, aimed carefully, and spit on him. It landed directly on his eye.

“You fucking cunt!” He recoils in disgust, wiping his eye fervently. I smile in pride, knowing I got under his skin.

He backs up away from the cell I was in, taking one more look at my triumphant face, before saying to the guards, “Make sure she doesn’t escape.”

I heard his angry footsteps echo, and finally, the silence came.

The guards snicker at the recent events, before one of them saying,

“You’re going to regret that, you know? No one messes with Prince Midoriya and lives to tell the tale.”

“Guess I’ll be the first,” I replied back.

And then I broke the chains.

Izuku’s Pov

Fuck I missed her. She was the part of me that I never knew I needed. She was my blood, my bones, framing me into what I am now. And seeing her now, it made my bones ache, my blood sing. An agonizing, beautiful song. Placing my head into my hands, I bite the insole of my palms.

‘Where did it all go wrong?’ I thought to myself.

Sorting myself out, I walk through the quiet corridors of the Autumnal Palace. The sun shining through the high glass windows, mocking me with its beauty. It seems fit, having such a wonderful day go on outside as I suffer internally. With hastened pace, I make my way towards my personal team.

Stopping in front of the common room, I fix myself, running my hairs through my hair before walking in.

“Oh hey man,” Sero was the first one who saw me, giving a toothy smile “How’d the interrogation go…” he trails off, seeing the scowl on my face.

“So not well” One of Shoji’s many arms pops up and says.

Choosing my words carefully I say “It didn’t go as expected. (Y/n)’s a difficult one.”

Difficult wasn’t even the basis to cover it. She was infuriating, complex, and every time I see her it spurs my heart on erratically. But how could I say that in words?

My team was a good one, personally trained by myself, but sometimes they were a little too bit much.

Ochako pipes up from where she was sitting “Izu, don’t worry. We finally caught (Y/n)! After two and half years no less. All your hard work won’t be for nothing.”

“Yeah, man! This is cause for celebration! We finally caught (Y/n), Summer Court’s deadliest assassin. It’s time to kick back and celebrate-” At that moment, Ojirio storms in, face in pain as blood soaks his normally white clothes. The look on his face said that something was clearly wrong.

“(Y/n) escaped)”

Cocking my eyebrow I stare at Sero.

“Celebration huh?”

(Y/n)’s Pov

I hated being chased. Everyone talks about the exhilarating feeling of almost not making it but does anyway, but all I feel is annoyed. Turning another corner I hear in the distance. Luckily the guards tattered the ends of my dress, so it was easier to run in it

“Don’t let her escape! We need her alive!”

‘Autumn Court’ I thought to myself ‘One person escapes and they go bat shit crazy. Well, it is me.”

I look around looking for a place to hide out until the guards’ pass. Then looking up I spot...

“A vent. Perfect.” I whisper to myself. Working quickly, I made my way into the ventilation system. I keep myself there, holding my breath until I hear footsteps. It was two of the workers there.

“It’s such a shame,” one says to another. “King Toshinori has never done anything helpful since the Prince had been announced.” The other one shakes their head shamefully.

“I know right? Even since Izuku became prince, he’s nowhere to be seen or heard. It’s like he just placed all the burden on Prince Izuku and moved on with his life.”

Oh? Izuku’s being packed with the burden. I guess Von will find that information useful. Waiting until I couldn’t hear the voices of anyone, I get down from the vents.

“Easy as pie.” I smile at my genius.

“Spread out and find her! She couldn’t have gone far!” I see one the second in command, Ochako Uraraka yells. My smile turns into a grimace at her figure. I’ve never liked her but after the incident three years ago…

I didn’t let myself think of it, rather waited until I couldn’t hear footsteps anymore before dropping out of the vent.

Corridor after corridor, I run the palace. The orange-gold of the palace becoming a blur as I see the doors towards my freedom.

“THERE SHE IS. AFTER HER!” Fuck they found me. I was almost there, just a little more… Then I feel a large object knock into my back.

Giving a little as I went down, I turn quickly. Seeing the familiar hair of…

“(Y/n) don’t do this,” His soft voice rings out, power laced in it even now. “Just come back and we can get you home safely” Gritting my teeth at Izuku, I clench my fist and throw a punch. All the while my other hand summons a small dagger before dipping it in some poison and stabbing Izuku in the thigh.

How dare he. How dare he pretend that he cares, after all, he did to me, to my Court.

“Fuck!” Izuku screams.

Pulling him up by his collar I spit it out.

“Rot in hell.”

In the back, the rest of his team runs, seeing their leader hurt.

Not sticking around, I take off running, getting the doors of the front of the castle.

The night was dark as I fumbled slightly down the stairs of the castle.

‘Shit, shit, shit. I need a place to hide’ I think.

Running towards the car area of the courtyard, I see a black party bus sitting fairly near the gates. Sneaking into the back doors, I sit in the darkness.

“She couldn’t have gone far, split up and search.” I hear the voices agree before splitting off in different directions.

“Well, Well, WELL.” I’m suddenly knocked off my feet, and without another chance to regain my balance, my chin is grabbed. Sharp nails meet my flesh, threatening to make me bleed.

“What should we do with her Dabi?” a feminine voice reaches my ears.

“Drug ‘er. We’ll deal with her when the others come back. Shiggy will know what to do with ‘er”

“Sure.” Something stabbed into my neck and everything goes dark.

onto the next chapter? | the last chapter 

Taglist: @xetou @kunikida-kun @asaincy @ryuvanaka @katsumiiii @lilsparkyswife @katsumox @silkylious @inkwicke @myhoodacademia @mypimpademia @readergurl20 @angiebug101  @artof-apollo @namjoonswifeyy @moonlit-xio

Crossed out means I couldn’t tag you ; Send an ask to be added >:D

[evebrennan]

Fae Disco

TIMING: circa the Meteorpocalypse LOCATION: Mina/Bex/Morgan/Dierdre’s place PARTIES: @drowningisinevitable & @evebrennan with a guest rescue by @inbextween SUMMARY: Mina and Caoimhe discover the rocks are a very big, very bright problem. CONTAINS: Disco

Caoimhe checked the address twice, hastily scribbled on a piece of scrap paper as it was. Her feet shuffled on the pavement and she allowed herself a moment to think why. Why follow directions from a perfect stranger, to touch a rock that could potentially give her a rash of unknown nature, for science. She wasn’t a science professor, she was a music professor! She avoided STEM like the plague; there was merit to the scientific method, but she never cared much to think about it overly much. And the scientific method would implore her to conduct experiments safely.

So in the interest of safety, she checked the address twice to make sure she was approaching the right door.

She knocked five times sharply against the door before curling her fingers into her palm and swallowing hard past something. Whatever that excited oh no feeling was that had been building in her chest since the skies had shifted. Her mind always seemed to circle back to that stupid meteorite. “It’s Caoimhe, I’m here. For...Science.”

Mina had been waiting by the door for longer than she’d cared to admit. She took turns pacing and sitting, though her leg bounced rapidly as she sat. So she mostly paced. She had invited a stranger to Morgan and Deirdre’s home without even thinking about it. She would have even put their address up online if she hadn’t been more careful. She was just frustrated. That’s what she kept telling herself; she was overwhelmingly frustrated with the glowing. Sparkling. Glittering. Whatever it was called. An annoyance was what it was, and she couldn’t be the only person suffering through it. She had to know. Which meant that she was testing it out on internet strangers. For science.

At least this stranger seemed nice.

Wearing gloves and long sleeves, Mina jumped up at the knocking on the door. “Hi! Hi, one moment, please.” She pulled one of the fragments of rock out of her pocket and just stared at it for a moment, at the way it glimmered, at how it created its own light that refracted itself off of Mina’s skin. It really was lovely. So pretty. It was hard for Mina to tear her eyes away. “For science, right.” Mina looked out the window by the door and saw the woman standing there. Then she felt it. Not just a woman, a Fae. She was another Fae. “Just-- Just a moment.” Another Fae. She wasn’t expecting another Fae. Why was it always another Fae? She opened the door a crack, gloved hand clutching the rock. “Alright… You can touch the rock.”

Caoimhe wasn’t sure she could handle one moment. Mina’s voice traveled through the closed door, confirmation that she was at the right place, and it was everything Caoimhe could do not to just open it and walk in. It was a concern in and of itself. There were things she’d needed over the years. Many of them were strung up in a line behind her, following with glazed, imploring eyes. This was something entirely unexpected. This was the kind of thing she’d write home about. This was the kind of thing that had her screaming help in the back of her mind before drowning it out with a firm it’s fine, it’s just a rock. “No, no it’s fine, just take your time, I’ll just be out here–”

Then said rock was held out the front door, suspended in one, gloved hand, by another Fae no less. The information registered for only a moment before Caoimhe was reaching out. Nothing else mattered. Forty years worth of ‘nothing is normal’ told her to proceed with caution, but something else had her wrapping her fingers around it.

Forty more years and she’d maintain it was worth it. Something settled, as though she had room to think about something, anything else, even if only for a moment. Unfortunately, that something, anything else just so happened to be the way her fingers itched at warm and started to glow. Like Edward fucking Cullen, shirtless in the woods. It crawled up her arm and she let go; though, letting go meant she had two problems. She wasn’t holding the rock, and she was glowing.

“Shit. Shit, wait, this isn’t a rash. This isn’t a rash!” She tugged her at her sleeves and spent more than a moment flailing before folding her arms across her chest and tucking her hands away the best she could. Her eyes squeezed shut and she pulled in a breath, releasing it slowly. “Uh...problem. One, I feel as though some information was omitted here, we should talk about that. Two...can I come in? I’m a beacon.”

Mina could only watch as the woman took the rock from her hand, could only observe the look in her eyes that reminded Mina so much of how she probably looked when she’d seen the rock for the first time. She’d been drawn to it, so stupidly drawn to it, like it was one of the most interesting things that she’d ever seen. She couldn’t help but touch it. She couldn’t help but keep touching it, even though she knew what it did because it was stupid and frustrating, and she hated it.

“I said it was a rash of sorts,” Mina said, opening the door wider and reaching down to snatch up the rock as it fell. “Right, right, get in. We have neighbors.” Mina had pretty much confined herself to the house and the backyard unless it was early morning or late evening. Then she went out on her runs. Less chance to run into nosy people who took one look at a glowing girl and start wondering just what the hell she actually was. Mina ushered Caoimhe inside, putting the rock down and taking the gloves off of her own glittering hands before she ran one of them through her hair. 

Mina looked at the other woman, then down at herself, then burst out laughing. “Sorry. Sorry. This is really quite serious, but I’ve been a bit stressed lately, and you have no idea how relieving it is that this isn’t just a me problem. It’s a-- Well, I think it’s a Fae problem.” Which would make sense. Because why wouldn’t it? Obviously, if a rock that attracts Fae crashes from space into one of the most iron infested parts of town, then it would clearly reward any Fae that managed to touch it by turning them into walking discoballs. Of course it would. “I… did omit some information, yes. But you understand why, right? This-- this isn’t something that can be discussed over the internet with strangers.”

For one (not very) blessed moment, Caoimhe wasn’t concerned about the meteorite. All she could see was the glow crawling up her arms as she darted through the door, rolling up her sleeves and biting back either a laugh or another admonition, she couldn’t pick. The laugh won out, something a little manic around the edges, but genuine nonetheless. It could be so much worse. There had to be something wrong with the rock she’d suddenly found herself obsessed with; there was at least some relief in the simple fact it wasn’t deadly.

She curled her fingers into her palms and looked up at Mina, “Misery loves company, right?” She huffed a sigh and looked around for the first time since she’d rushed in. “It’s just...now you’re kind of stuck with it.”

At least until Caoimhe could figure out a way home. Or until they’d miraculously discovered a cure. It didn’t seem as though the latter was likely, considering Mina had invited her over in the first place. Her eyes found the rock Mina had set down, and she made a point to take a step back. It wasn’t nearly as easy as she would’ve liked it to be. “That’s a problem.” She didn’t want it to be a problem. “That’s a big fae problem. Have you been able to stop thinking about it? Because I can’t–”

She’d glow for the rock. It wouldn’t be so bad, really. Her life had been a series of bouncing from one town to the next, anyway. There were no roots to protect; although a coffee shop and a music room and a staff meeting came to mind. Correction, it wasn’t as though she wasn’t well-accustomed to tearing up roots when needed. She could have the rock, glow, and uproot herself. “Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, being a walking disco ball. There’s already the glamour and the f–” She bit her tongue, “Okay, it would be awful.”

“I can’t lie,” Mina joked, “it beats glowing in the dark alone.” And it was nice, for a moment, to know that she wasn’t the only one affected by this stupid, stupid, so very pretty but stupid rock. “Come on, we can-- I mean, we can at least get comfortable while we, ah, are miserable together. My--” she tried to think of the right word to describe the group of women that she lived with-- “my family’s not really around right now, and I apologize if I’m not the best host, what with making you touch the rock and everything.”

She picked up the rock again (why not? She was already glowing so much) and led them to the living room, spacious and homey and so very Morgan and Deirdre. And it was somehow home to Mina, and she couldn’t help but be comfortable. She sat down on the couch, put the rock on the coffee table, and did her best not to just stare at it. “It’s quite a problem, yes. I, well, I don’t always think about it, but, sometimes, it seems like I stop glowing a little, and then I’m not even thinking, and then I’m glowing again because I touched the damn thing.” She looked at it hatefully, but the look didn’t last long before it faded away to fascination. It was so pretty. It was such a pretty rock.

“I mean, it’d be a little noticeable,” Mina said hesitantly. Then, curiously, she added, “Do you think that a glamor could cover something like this up? I’ve never really used a glamor.” She didn’t even really know how. It wasn’t a glamor, her human skin, but just… skin. It was as much a part of her as the scales, though one did feel more natural than the other. “It don’t think it’d be enjoyable to try and maintain it all the time, though, no. I--” she felt fidgety, too many hours staying still. ”Would you like some tea?”

“Suppose that’s true.” Caoimhe tried to picture the space filled with people. It looked comfortably lived in, like someone had taken it and made an honest home out of it. Furniture in places that made sense, small personal touches here and there. It was such a stark departure from Caoimhe’s own apartment, with totes still filled with what few personal items she kept, no pictures or decorations. There was a couch she’d bought cheap at a second hand store that smelled a little like an attic, and a small coffee table already littered with papers. She could imagine being alone in Mina’s house wouldn’t be fun, but she thought perhaps she wouldn’t mind it as much. “It’s a nice place, though.”

She sat on the other side of the coffee table, legs folded underneath and making no effort not to stare at the rock. Mina’s musings faded for a moment and Caoimhe considered her options. She really was being a gracious host, despite the circumstances, and Caoimhe hardly wanted to take advantage. But the rock was so close, she could just grab it and–

And glow, apparently. She huffed a sigh and forced her eyes up to Mina. “I don’t think not thinking about it is going to be an easy solution, but...I’ve never really known solutions to be easy.” Maybe out of sight, out of mind was going to be their best option. They needed someone to take it, and hide it, and possibly distract them from doing everything they could to find it again. “And glamor, it’s–”

Caoimhe looked down at her hands, spreading them out on the table top. She thought about how enjoyable maintaining a different appearance at all times decidedly wasn’t, and it only had so much to do with the energy it expended. It was an energy she didn’t have at that moment, an uncomfortable reminder of all the things she was putting off in favor of enjoying a new town for just a little longer. “It might be possible, but I’m not...exactly at my best for trying to step it up right now.” She shrugged, briefly wondered at a fae who didn’t have to use a glamor. “It’s not that bad, you know. Kind of annoying, kind of unnatural, but you get use to it.”

“Oh, well, I didn’t-- I didn’t pick out the decor,” Mina said, ducking her head a bit. That was all Deirdre and Morgan, there mix of dark tones and florals and, honestly, a type of wealth that Mina had never experienced before. Money was for weapons, not plush, comfortable furniture. Money was for travel, not homes. Homes weren’t permanent; they weren’t even real. They were just a concept. At least, that’s what Mina had always thought. Things were different now, though. “It is a rather nice place though, yes.”

Mina kept glancing between Caoimhe and the rock, back and forth multiple times, even if she knew that the rock wasn’t going anywhere, even if she knew that there were more pieces of it elsewhere in the house. It was just so pretty, sometimes, that she couldn’t help but look at it. It was so fascinating. Less so when it made her skin glow, but still. The moments leading up to touching it were filled with an almost obsessive desire to reach out and hold it. Once it was in her hands, it was still fascinating, but it wasn’t consuming her every thought. Probably because most of her thoughts became, ‘Oh, fuck, I’m glowing.’

“It’s certainly not a quick fix. It takes a long time for the glowing to even minutely start fading. And it doesn’t just stop when you’re not in light.” Mina sighed, looking away from the rock to the other woman then to her hands. “I’m a bloody nightlight,” she muttered. She looked at Caoimhe’s hands spread out on the coffee table and hesitantly mimicked the gesture, listening raptly as the other Fae described glamour. Briefly, she allowed scales to form on her hands, each one shimmering just as her skin had for only a moment before she let them fade away. “I’ve never had to glamour before,” she added quietly. “Do you have to constantly be thinking about it? To keep it up?”

“We’re a night light.” Caoimhe offered with a smile, like it was something to celebrate. At least they had the rock.

She watched the skin of Mina’s hands shift for just a moment; the glow almost seemed more natural that way. Caoimhe had spent a good deal of time telling Bex about how malleable the term ‘normal’ could be, but in the end everyone conformed to some semblance of it. Caoimhe was sitting across from Mina as the same person she’d present to the man who took her coffee orders.

“I think about it, but…” Caoimhe tried to remember a time when she hadn’t had to think about it. For a moment, she wasn’t thinking about the rock at all. She was thinking about Ireland, with her mother. There were late nights and bonfires and her mother’s latest catch playing fiddle to the tap of too many feet, barely audible over laughter. There was a hand tugging at the collar of her shirt from behind as she peered over a windowsill, cautious because someone might see. Caoimhe had her apartment, but so much of her life had been spent hiding the parts of her that might kill someone, she’d stopped thinking beyond what it took to maintain it.

“Have you ever seen My Fair Lady? Or seen those stereotypical ‘transformation’ movies, or had your parents tell you not to slouch? You naturally want to slouch, but after getting corrected enough times, you stop slouching. You still think about it, but it becomes subconscious.” Caoimhe always had to think about it, on some level. “It’s not bad, but...it must be nice, not having to worry about it so much.”

It wasn’t necessarily that Mina thought Caoimhe’s words were funny, but the relief of them made her laugh. “Yes, yes, we are a nightlight.” And maybe it wasn’t very Fae of her, but there was something about the shared traumatic experience of glowing because of a bloody rock that bonded people together, in her opinion, far more than species. 

She nodded slowly, piecing together what the other Fae was saying, thinking on her words. “I like My Fair Lady, yes,” she said, recalling the musical from a performance when she was about twelve or so. And that made sense, sort of self-consciously thinking about these things. The thought of them being there but not quite, just below the surface instead. She wrung her hands together, rubbing at her knuckles as if that’d make them stop glowing. It didn’t, of course. Nothing did.

“I-- I don’t know if I’d say that I don’t worry about it much. I mean, I’ve spent a lot of time not having the best control, and it gets rather patchy, sometimes, if I’m stressed or tired or if I haven’t been in the water a lot,” Mina explained, trying her best. It wasn’t like a glamour, like some all or nothing type thing. “But I-- I think it might be easier than trying to maintain an entire glamour. I don’t know if I could do that.” She’d give anything to be able to now, though, one powerful enough to cover up her glowing skin. Wouldn’t that make things easier? She thought so. She hoped so. It wasn’t like it mattered, though. “So it gets easier?”

“It sounds like they both have their own set of challenges.” There were limitations to what Caoimhe could do, and how long she could maintain it. There was no easy way around hiding who you were from the rest of the world, even if that hard was purely internal. “It takes practice, right? A given amount of focus. I have to– it’s harder to maintain, if I haven’t eaten. Did you know there are three-hundred calories in one McDonald’s cheeseburger?”

The two facts were entirely unrelated, but she couldn’t exactly determine how many days John Doe Who Loved the Piano would last. Even if she could, she wouldn’t. It was easier to dance around the facts, bury them in different, related but ultimately meaningless facts. There were less questions she had to find creative ways to talk around, that way.

“Either way, we’re using some measure of energy to hide what we are.” She rubbed at the back of her hands, looking first to Mina’s hands, then the seemingly harmless rock. She wasn’t sure hiding was exactly a conversation line she wanted to follow. There were much better, easier things to think about. Like meteorites. “Okay, hear me out. Gloves and hoods and we can share rock custody.” Even as she said it, she rejected the idea. “No, we can’t share custody. Do you have more meteorites, or just the one?”

Mina hummed in agreement. “I think you’re right. I have to be– It’s better when I’m calm. Easier to look less… scaly when I feel more comfortable with myself.” And she didn’t mention to Caoimhe just how long it took her to feel comfortable. She didn’t think she needed to. Mina rarely looked comfortable in her own skin, even when she wasn’t glowing.

Trying not to look too perplexed, Mina bemused, “I’ve never had a McDonald’s cheeseburger.” She didn’t know why she’d need to know that. Did Caoimhe eat cheeseburgers? Could she eat cheeseburgers? Not many Fae ate red meat; not many Fae could eat red meat. “I didn’t know it had that many calories.”

“This… isn’t the only piece, no,” she said, looking between the rock and Caoimhe and biting her lip, wondering what she should do. They wouldn’t be able to share custody, no. That would lead to more of Mina touching the rock, and she needed to stop touching the rock so that she could stop touching so she needed to stop touching the rock. “I can– I think… Hm.” She didn’t want to give up the rock. She had more, though. It didn’t matter. She had more. “You can have this one.”

Caoimhe wondered at how long it had been since she’d been surrounded by people like her, and she landed on Ireland. The thought twisted somewhere in her chest, had her twisting her fingers together. Mina spoke of comfort, of the control that seemed to come along with it, and Caoimhe thought perhaps it was much harder than any glamour ever would be.

“I’ve never had one, either, I–” Caoimhe worked her way around how to explain a habit. There was more than just glamour, or Mina feeling comfortable enough with herself to find a shape that fit. Caoimhe could remember nights spent in common rooms on campus, surrounded by humans with shared experiences to which she could never quite relate. She’d learned early how to ask questions on top of questions until the conclusion was a lie. But Mina was fae, and Caoimhe didn’t have to mince her words. She didn’t have to ask questions, she could simply answer them. “Do you ever ask a question tangentially related to something someone else has asked you, so you don’t lie, but you don’t necessarily tell the truth, either? I don’t eat cheeseburgers, but it’s better if people believe I do.”

Despite her predisposition to honesty, it felt like the most truthful she’d been in a long time. She rubbed a palm over her eyes and laughed lightly and “Kinda means I know too many random cheeseburger facts, who am I?”

She blew out a breath and looked down to the rock, palm dropping into her lap. It had turned into far more trouble than it was worth (it was worth a lot, it was worth it, it was–). But then, for the first time in a long time she’d been able to truly enjoy the company of another fae, so perhaps it wasn’t a trouble at all. But her skin glowed in the dim light, matching Mina’s across from her, and trouble took too many different shapes. “That’s incredibly kind of you.” It had to be hard, Caoimhe could imagine. “Neither of us should have it, though. Maybe we should hide them. No, have someone else hide them.”

“Oh. Yes, I do that. Yes,” Mina said. Because that’s what made sense, right? What else was there to do? When lying made you feel sick and telling the truth all the time wasn’t practical, what else was there to do? Silence was damning, so it was best to just talk about what she could if lying would cause her to be too sick. “It’s– I mean, sometimes it works. It works with people that I’m not close to. But I think everyone I know is starting to catch on.” It was annoying, really, that people were able to figure her out so easily. It was nice, too, though, Mina thought. To be known. To be understood. Even if it meant that she couldn’t get away with things.

Mina managed a smile. “If it makes you feel any better, sometimes I start talking about conditional probability or Yiruma, and people usually don’t want to talk about those things, so they stop listening. Not quite the same as cheeseburgers, though.”

“We should– Yes. We should hide them. We should get someone else to– I know someone we can give them to,” Mina said, thinking about Bex. She’d gotten the rocks for Mina, after all, and Mina was sure she wouldn’t mind making sure they were safe and hidden and okay. Mina trusted her to do that. Bex knew how self-conscious Mina was about the glowing, even if Mina liked the rock itself. “My– the person that got me the rocks, I’d trust her to hide them, keep them safe?”

Caoimhe bit off her ‘that doesn’t happen, if you don’t get too close.’ There was nothing inherently wrong with getting close to anyone. There was nothing wrong with having a home and family pictures and people who brought you rocks simply because they cared. Caoimhe had spent her fair share of time picturing it, and it’s not as though her life had been completely devoid of it. There were the people who knocked on her single room in the dorms, her family back in Ireland. She imagined there was still a room for her, still strung in pale pinks with pictures of friends she didn’t know anymore stuck to cork boards.

Instead she nodded and offered a grin over anything entirely honest. “That’s when you skip town, start over. They can’t figure you out, if you don’t stick around long enough.” It was a joke. Mostly.

“Okay, okay so we have your person hide it.” It suddenly seemed so final. It didn’t matter that they’d be safe, only that they’d be out of sight, and Caoimhe wasn’t entirely sure she’d be able to manage it. Then she caught another, shimmering glance of her hands out of the corner of her eye, and realized she didn’t have much of a choice. She couldn’t very well stand in front of her class glowing. “Just–” She reached out, poked it one more time for good measure. “I’d talk my way around ‘I hate this,’ but I hate this.”

“It takes a lot to skip town and start over,” Mina said quietly. “I’m used to moving, but I like it here. It’s nice here, sometimes.” And maybe that wasn’t quite true. It was so very easy to move, to start over, to find another existence. But she didn’t want to. God, she didn’t want to. Mina just wanted to exist somewhere for once, and if that meant that people got to know her, somehow care for her, then that was okay. 

“We get my person to hide it, and then we’ll stop glowing,” Mina confirmed, before deflating a little. “Eventually.” Because it wasn’t an immediate fix. It took the glowing hours to start fading and days to fade completely, and, by that point, the rocks had always compelled Mina to reach out and touch them again. It was so frustrating, and there was no one to be upset with more than herself. “No, no, I hate it. It’s stupid. I hate it.” But they couldn’t spend the rest of their lives glowing, and, as pretty as the rocks were, they weren’t worth that. Right? No. They weren’t worth that. 

Mina pulled out her phone and texted Bex. Hey, are you home? I’m in the living room with someone. Could you come and hide the rocks?

Bex was, in fact, home. Her phone buzzed next to her and she looked down from her textbook and homework, seeing Mina’s name pop up on the screen. Eagerly, knowing Mina was in the house and wondering why she’d texted her instead of simply coming upstairs to her room to get her, Bex slid the phone on and looked at the message. The rocks? With someone? It took her a moment to realize what Mina meant, what was going on. She remembered seeing her talking to someone online. Who had it been? Hadn’t Bex also been talking to them? Oh! It was Professor Brennan! Excitedly, Bex threw her phone back down on the bed and raced down the stairs two at a time, before trotting into the living room-- and to two rather forlorn looking women who were both glowing. 

Bex did her best not to snort and hide the smile that was trying to pop up on her face. “Sorry, am I interrupting? Are you two, like, cosplaying the Cullens?” She’d been teasing Mina about it all week and she couldn't help it. Maybe it wasn’t the mood, but whatever she’d walked into, she didn’t want to make it worse. So, jokes. “Alright,” she held out her hands, “gimme the rocks.”

“No.” Caoimhe wasn’t sure if she was responding to the Cullens, the fact that it was Bex who walked into the living room, or that she was there to take the rocks. Some combination of all three, she suspected. “I mean–”

She looked back to the rock sitting between her and Mina. The things she should be concerned about, like Bex putting the pieces of the glowing fae puzzle together, didn’t matter as much in the face of losing it. Some part of her had thought there would at least be another hour with it. A last goodbye, a moment of peace before the oncoming tragedy. Her fingers twitched as she fought the urge to snatch it and run, glowing consequences be damned, but she tucked them under the table, instead.

“I mean yes.” Yes, take the rock. No, I will not give you the rock. Caoimhe would not be the one to elaborate.

The look that Mina gave Bex was belied just how unamused she was with the teasing, even if her lips twitched a little. This wasn’t funny; she was kind of miserable, and now she’d added Caoimhe into that misery as well. It loved company, Mina had heard somewhere. It was only right that she brought someone else in to share it with.

Mina also stared at the rock, unsure what to do. She didn’t want to pick it up again. She maybe wanted to pick it up too much. Just a little too much. If she touched it now, she knew it would take her awhile to want to give it back. She had a feeling that Caoimhe felt the same. “I think that you should just come take it,” she muttered, looking at Bex and then the rock and pleading at the other girl to just make sure that it was gone, please. Preferably somewhere that she couldn’t find it so that she wouldn’t keep glowing.

She looked back at Caoimhe and sighed. “Ah, sorry. For, you know, not telling you about the glowing.”

Bex looked between the two and saw the strained look on both their faces. She remembered how possessive Mina had become that first day, over the rock, insisting Bex needed to take it away from her because she was glowing, but refusing to hand it over until Bex had wrestled it from her hands and hid it under the mattress. Sighing, she shook her head. “Fine, I’ll take it,” she agreed, heading over to the table and looking between the two, wondering if they might lunge for it or try and stop her, before she picked it up and stuffed it in her coat pocket. “There, all gone! No more rock. It’s like it never existed, so now you can just forget about it and eventually the glowing will go away.” 

She looked at Professor Brennan, and then to Mina, and wondered what information they knew that she didn’t, but she pretended to be worried, rather than just curious. She didn’t altogether think glowing was that bad of a side effect-- but then again, she wasn’t the one glowing. “Mina stopped glowing after about a week after the first time,” she reassured the professor with a small smile, “it only lasted so long because someone--” she cast a glance back at Mina-- “kept finding it and holding it more.” 

She motioned for the door. “But, uh, I’ll let you guys settle that last part. It was nice to see you, Professor, even, uh-- if you are a disco ball right now.” 

“A disco ball?! I...well, yeah, okay, that’s fair.” Caoimhe deflated. She was a disco ball. She was a disco ball who was stuck as a disco ball for the foreseeable future. Her only consolation was the rock disappearing into Bex’s coat pocket; although, it hardly felt like a consolation. Rather, it felt like she’d just given up a limb. She rubbed a thumb against the palm of her hand to ensure everything was in the right place. “I’m a disco ball.”

She looked from Bex’s pocket to Mina. If there was one positive, she knew she wasn’t entirely alone. The thought struck. It was so much more than just a rock and an unfortunate disco condition. It was glamour and fitting in and finding someone who understood what it felt like to try. Caoimhe didn’t like to think of people like connections (connections turned into strings turned into skeletons she couldn’t get away from), but she liked to think there were people who came close.

“It’s okay. This...this isn’t awful. Meeting you, I mean. Not the glowing. The glowing is awful, but it sounds like we’ll get better.” After a time. In the meantime, “You’re kinda stuck with me for a bit, though.” She grinned, “If we spin slowly in your living room and play the Bee Gees we could make a disco party of it.”

[grxceblqckthxrn]

TDA characters as types of tiktokers

y’all KNOW i’m bored when i’m doing this shit lmao 

i’ll get around to doing the other TSC characters eventually TDA was just the first to come to mind also if you’re not actively on tiktok some of what i say might not make sense ahaha

also i named some tiktokers who yall can use for reference for some of them and from what i’ve seen they’re all fairly unproblematic so you should check them out!!

EMMA CARSTAIRS

okay so she’s DEFINITELY super popular and she uses her platform for good

she’s really funny and a lot of her audios go viral posts videos of her dancing saying that she cant dance but she’s actually really good at it

6M followers and growing fast 

 hypes up her boyfriend’s account ALL the time

calls out misogynistic/racist tiktokers through duets and KEEPS THEIR TAG IN THE CAPTION  

 she is not afraid of starting drama lmao

occasionally hops on POV and transition trends but its usually satire 

emma can’t act for shit lmao 

super active on tiktok and has a spam account

people are always asking her to drop the skin care routine but she doesn’t have one?? 

*pushes Zara down* “and no one’s gonna help her?? WOW some world we live in”

JULIAN BLACKTHORN

there’s no way he doesnt  have an art account lmao

a lot of his paintings go viral but 90% of his comments are 14 year old girls thirsting over him

yall know that pottery guy on tiktok?? the cute one?? (i searched up his account just for this post he’s @/daxnewman769) that’s the best way to describe him

literally all the famous tiktokers commission him

probably has like 4M followers lmao

will occasionally make about how respecting women doesn’t make you a “simp”

doesn’t get into tiktok drama tho

posts candid videos of emma and all his jealous 14 year old fans get so pressed but he shuts down anyone who says anything bad about her

sometimes does painting or drawing tutorials and he’s really good at teaching stuff lmao

CRISTINA ROSALES

omg okay so like yall know those really pretty girls on tiktok who are literal models and are always dropping tips on how to frame your face for pictures and best clothes and poses and whatever  ( @/ameliezilber is the first person that came to mind as an example)

thats her

alot of her content is just for the aesthetic

BLING EFFECT

GRWM’s all the time

10 step skin care routine 

GOOD VIBES

has a pretty decent following?? like at least 2 million

has a spam but it’s exactly the same as her main lol

also calls out problematic tiktokers but not by name

her entire account is full of body positivity and does a bunch of stuff on loving yourself

sometimes does POVs and all the comments are like “@ netflix hire her rn”

sometimes posts crack videos with emma and cute vids with mark and kieran

MARK BLACKTHORN

does a lot of reaction videos and duets

a lot of his videos go viral but he doesn’t have a huge following like maybe 800k

 everyone still knows him

gets at least twenty “are you wearing only one contact” comment about his eyes every post

he’s really funny without even realizing it 

sometimes goes inactive for weeks at a time and just forgets that tiktok exists lmao

shows off kieran and cristina ALL THE MF TIME AND EVERYONE IS SO JEALOUS LIKE HOW ARE ALL OF THEM HOT

KIERAN 

doesnt have a tiktok lmao sorry

but shows up so much on mark’s and cristina’s that a lot of people know who he is

DIANA WRAYBURN

unironically does POVs but is actually good at them??

lots of videos talking about the struggles of minorities like LGBTQ+ and POC and women

posts a lot of those vidoes that are like “what to do if you ever get kidnapped” “red flags in relationships” “most powerful parts of the body” etc

probably has like 500k followers 

at the end of the day she doesn’t really use tiktok that much tho ahaha

LIVVY BLACKTHORN:

does a little bit of everything??

posts dance videos sometimes 

omg her transitions are SO good

everyone is in love with her and she has to remind them that she’s a minor (i’m just a kid plays aggressively in the background)

posts videos that are just vibes?? like her skating at night, dancing in traffic with dru/her friends, walking through the city at night etc

lots of lip syncing videos to whatever sounds are popular and all her comments are like “i wish i looked like this” “guess im not eating today” and she gets so upset :((

she wants everyone to know that they’re perfect the way they are!!

also posts POVs sometimes and she’s not that bad at them ahaha 

probably has like 1 million followers 

doesn’t even need a spam just posts everything on her main 

shouts out her sibilings accounts all the time

overall just great energy

TY BLACKTHORN

never posts his face on his main but he does on his spam

yall know those accounts that post fun facts or psychology facts?? his is like that except he talks to explain them and everyone finds his voice SO calming 

he posts a lot of content of animals and everyone is in AWE with how good he is with them

his username is probably theanimalwhisperer or something djkfskjd

every single time he posts Kit on his account all the comments are like “OOH ICU” and “SHIP” and “ASK HIM OUT ALREADY”

he gives 0 shits about popularity on tiktok he’s just posting for fun because he likes teaching people about his interests

so he has like maybe 500k followers

lots of philosophical questions that has everyone questioning their existence

ugh i love him

KIT HERONDALE

be honest this is what y’all were waiting for 

yall know those unproblematic ppl that everyone refers to as the “king(s) of tiktok”???

yeah thats him

SO FUNNY

LIKE HIS CONTENT IS GENUINELY HILARIOUS

lots of sarcasm and satire

think @/adamkindacool  ?? (one of my favourite tiktokers lmao)

does reaction videos for those “pov: im the annoying hot cheeto girl sitting next to you in math class” videos

dark humor (not like rude humor but actual dark humor)

like “i put the baby in the oven and the pizza in the bed” type of jokes back when those were a thing

has like 4M followers but almost every single one of his posts go viral so he’s gaining fast

lots of pranks

starts a bunch of trends

any video he posts of Mina goes viral

sometimes he posts some really weird stuff that has everyone laughing so hard irl (@/benoftheweek)

he NEVER thirst traps but still gets a lot of those weird sexual fairy comments on his posts (iykyk)

TO BE CLEAR I MEAN THE FAIRY EMOJI ONES NOTHING TO DO WITH HIM BEING FAE 

reacts to the comments with a video of him just staring at the screen with the “oh to see without my eyes” or “im just sixteen” audio going on in the background which only encourages them to make more weird comments

anyways everyone loves him

any of his povs are pure jokes meant to make fun of pov’ers

posts maybe one serious tiktok every 5 months that talks about being respectful and using your platform for good

“i miss old tiktok”

posts a lot of random videos of Ty where, again, all the comments are shipping them except even more so on his account because everyone can see his heart eyes for Ty

collabs with Dru a lot and does a bunch of duets of her videos

everyone loves him bye

DRU BLACKTHORN

SO many memes

she deletes any hate in her comments bc she honestly doesnt care to respond to them and doesn’t need that kind of negativity in her life

but one time she got a “the f in women stands for funny” comment and she WENT OFF

does really dark povs sometimes that are really interesting

CLOWN MAKEUP + SCARY CLOWN TIKTOKS ( think @/avani ‘s clown make up posts

REALLY good at makeup and sometimes gets julian to do scary makeup on her for tiktoks and povs (like those ones with stitches over the mouth or skin peeling off)

huge ally!! posts a lot about minorities struggles and white privilege, and acknowledges hers

does movie reviews and stuff sometimes

“types of” videos

pulls a lot of pranks on her sibilings with livvy and sometimes with Kit

lots of body positivity + self love

calls out back-handed compliments

also has a lot of content like Livvy’s of just vibing in LA

julian and emma and mark go off at anyone who sexualize her in the comments

probably has like 650k followers

posts a couple of times a week

BONUS: 

JAIME ROSALES

lots of skateboarding videos idk he just gives me that vibe

doesn’t post that often but is super popular

like maybe 1.5M followers

really passionate about systematic racism

HATES all those privileged white boys using the “this is america” audio to pretend they’re oppressed ( this is a may 2020 thing so it probably wont make sense to anyone who sees this after lmao)

POSTS A LOT OF THIRST TRAPS LMAO 

also posts lots of videos that’s just him yelling about stuff but they’re really entertaining to watch ( like that guy sebastian @/sauceyogranny)

everyone thinks he’s super hot he always shows up in those “hottest boys on tiktok” videos except sometimes he’s just the token POC boy and it makes him mad :( 

DIEGO ROSALES

HIS ACCOUNT IS SO PRACTICAL LMAO

lots of tips 

“what to do if you’re trapped in the desert” “what to do if you’re kidnapped and stuck in the trunk”

doesnt reply to comments EVER unless it’s to clarify a point he made in the video or answer a question

has like 200k

okay thats it lmao im done bye this took me like an hour to make

i’ll get to all the other characters from the other series’ eventually 

also if yall are wondering abt the lack of f*ckbois in this post they’re coming dw

TMI CHARACTERS AS TYPES OF TIKTOKERS

TID CHARACTERS AS TYPES OF TIKTOKERS 

TLH CHARACTERS AS TYPES OF TIKTOKERS

[mor-beck-more-problems]

A Taste of Fae and Croquet || Morgan & Deirdre

TIMING: the recent past

PARTIES: @deathduty & @mor-beck-more-problems

SUMMARY: An innocent game in the yard is crashed by a Stymphalian bird. The world cannot always be kind.

CONTAINS: animal death, soft gays

“The last croquet game I remember seeing was in Alice in Wonderland. And I felt so bad for the flamingos, with their heads bashed into the balls every turn, all those cartoon stars over their heads and how much they fought Alice because they didn’t want to play. I never wanted to look into the real thing because it looked so mean. But this is nice!” Morgan beamed at Deirdre across the lawn. She poised her foot over her ball, nestled adorably next to Deirdre’s, and took a big swing. Deirdre’s ball flew, bounced off the fence, and rolled somewhere back to one of the starting arches. With the extra swings she’d earned, Morgan got her ball into one more wicket and in good position to take the last two later. Smug, she skipped over to her girlfriend and gave her the requisite kiss Deirdre had insisted was customary when fae played the game.

“You aren’t making up the rules to go easy on me, are you?” She purred. “Because you should know by now, I like it when you give me a hard time just as much as I like to make you squirm.”

Deirdre laughed, both into the kiss and after, head tilted to the sky. “I am trying to give you a hard time, my love.” She grinned, staring at her purple ball in the grass. When she played the game with Maeve, she’d always won. And when she played with humans, she was more concerned about trying to hit the balls into as many of their heads as she could than she was with winning. Though Deirdre enjoyed winning as much as she did breathing, she was having fun with her loss now. It must have been something to do with the kisses, which she insisted occurred every time a ball passed through a wicket, or the fact that it was Morgan. “Besides, I don’t think there’s much else to the rules than ‘hit the ball through the wicket’ and then something else about bonus shots.”

She waved a hand in the air, uncaring for the propriety of croquet. There must have been a rule or something about making sure the ball stayed on the ground, but it was far more fun to send it sailing through the air, which she did. “Mind your head!” It went up and away and crashing into the wicket closest to Morgan. Deirdre jogged up to survey her work. “That counts, right?” she pointed at the wicket, bent out of shape and ripped from the ground, “I make the rules and I say that counts for two billion points, actually. Oh, and also—“ She leaned across, pressing her lips to Morgan’s. “—I just remembered actually you’re supposed to give these every time you hit a ball. Very important; can’t play the game without it.” She looked back down at their make-shift croquet field. “Oh, my love, you’re at the turning point now. You’re supposed to do something with that stake there...hit it, I suppose? And then start going back.” Deirdre took a look at her own ball, and her own standing in the game; she couldn’t remember what wickets she went through, and which she still needed to, and what order it was she was supposed to follow. Deirdre slung her purple mallet over her shoulder, maybe croquet just wasn’t the game for her.

Morgan jumped back to duck the flying ball. She wasn’t sure how Deirdre did it, and wondered if there was something innate in fae that made them do things as chaotically as possible. Clumsy with happiness, Morgan took a swing at the stake with her mallet, leaving her ball right in the choice place where it was. “You mean like this?” She teased. “And that means you kiss me again, right? I feel like  there was something you said earlier about having to give affection for other swings.” Deirdre had said no such thing, but with balls flying and wickets getting crushed, Morgan could tell that naming a winner wasn’t going to be a very important part of the day. She pulled her girlfriend close and kissed her neck, teasing her in the places that usually made her squeal. Then, flexing her body to its best advantage, she took her swing and guided her ball perfectly on course.

She backed away to steer clear of her girlfriend’s next shot when a shadow flew overhead. She shielded her eyes from the glare of the sun and pointed. “Is that a gull? Aren’t they supposed to migrate?”

Deirdre hummed, delighted under the feeling of Morgan’s lips against her skin. A sound which quickly bubbled into laughter. “You’re distracting me from winning!” Not that she was winning, of course, but that was the joke. Deirdre sighed, pleased, and readied herself for her swing. “No, that’s a heron, my love. It’s got the long neck thing going on, and it’s far too big to be a gull,” she commented casually, sparing only a short glance up. She had a game to lose, and birds were of no concern to her. As the shadow grew larger and larger, Deirdre in turn became more irritated. It was hard to align her shot in the dark, and she grumbled as she adjusted herself. “You know those things are almost as tall as you.” She wound back, mallet swung far behind her. “On account of your being short and all. There were a couple of them in Ireland, but I’ve never met one that didn’t want to—” She swung her mallet forward, waiting for the collision of wood to plastic. When it never came, she stumbled back, staring wide-eyed at a mallet missing its head. At the end of the handle now was a steaming goop, falling off the wood in thick droplets, leaving nothing in its wake. She stared at the ground, steaming holes where perfect grass once reigned.

“—eat me.” Deirdre blinked, throwing the mallet aside. For all her lack of concern for birds, she didn’t notice that the heron had landed or that it had spread its wings wide. Nor that it had flapped its wings, setting free a volley of feathers, whistling through the air. If she’d cared a little more about birds, she might have remembered something about iron. Instead she stood there, waiting for her brain to catch up with her environment.

Morgan couldn’t stop staring at the mallet. There was supposed to be a hammer head at the end of it. A few seconds ago, it had been there. She’d seen it. It was the purple stripe one because it almost looked like Deirdre’s favorite shade of plum and purple went first. But the head was gone. Not broken, just gone. Something Morgan didn’t know the words for was dripping from the ends and this wasn’t part of the game, this wasn’t part of anything that made sense. Dimly, she heard Deirdre say something that sounded an awful lot like eat me, but Morgan couldn’t find the words to the question she wanted to ask about it. Her eyes had finally caught sight of the heron, red and bronze and so much bigger than any bird had a right to be. It opened its beak to squawk, bright and sharp. Was it yelling at them? Was this just how giant scary birds said hello?

The heron flapped its wings and rose over their heads, squawking again. Its feathers spread and then they were flying, red and purple and shining. Morgan raised her arms to shield her face and whimpered at the pattering sound they made as they went through her skin. The heron swooped down to peck them both and flew up again, circling with menace. And then, Morgan finally found her voice. “What the fuck? What do you mean eat you?”

Deirdre hissed in pain, erupting in quivering gasps just a moment later. Feathers stained red with Deirdre’s blood stuck out of the ground, leaving bubbling slashes where they’d hit her. She’d done what she could to protect her face and neck, but the only thing she could think to use was the rest of her body. She trembled, faltering, moving just in time to evade another feather. Her body was on fire. Deirdre opened her mouth to explain before she was caught by another whimper of pain. “This!” She hissed, gesturing to her red, blistering body, “this is what I mean!” Trembling, she could do nothing but wobble where she stood, finding a measure of fear in looking up and risking a feather finding her throat. And of all the fae to try and eat, Deirdre knew there was some amount of pride in knowing she was the worst kind, and some peace knowing Mina wasn’t around. “T-th-they–“ Deirdre watched as her hands dripped blood to the ground, pieces of her robe hanging loose around her. For a moment, she lifted her head up and let free a small shriek, just enough to send the heron tumbling to the ground. The rest, she wasn’t sure she could manage between the spasms of disorienting pain. “Y-you–“ Her footing slipped and she bumped into Morgan’s side. “They eat–they–” An explanation refused to find a home on Deirdre’s trembling voice. Her mother had trained her to withstand the sting of iron, but not so much at once, not in so many places, not while she was happy. “M-Morgan,” she pleaded, though for what, she wasn’t sure. “Morgan.”

The heron righted itself, angrier and hungrier than it had even been. Deirdre was panting at Morgan’s side, head lowered. If only she could have a second, if only she could have a moment. The cuts on Morgan, marked by where they tore into her sweater, were healed already. Deirdre smiled warmly at them. “Don’t...let it get your head…” She glanced at the heron; at best, the fall had injured its wing, at worst, it’d only served to make it more determined. She didn’t have the time to figure out what both of those things might mean.

“Deirdre!” Morgan caught her banshee in her arms, gaping at the blood and burns that streaked down her body. “I’ve got you. But, what do we do? How do we distract it or stop it or--fuck!” Her words curled off in a shriek as the heron dove for its prey again. Morgan threw them to the ground, covering Deirdre’s body and curling around her, but that didn’t stop the bird from releasing another rain of feathers and snapping at Morgan’s back in frustration.  “Me! What about you? I’m just in the way, it doesn’t want--!” This time when the bird dove, it pulled at her hair, trying to pry her off Deirdre. Morgan gasped, trying to keep still, but it was trying again, pulling and pecking at her scalp and neck. Her head snapped up and for one awful, dizzying second she could see the bird’s talons, the iron glinting in the feathers, the single-minded determination in its dark eyes.

Morgan panicked, this time into action. She shoved Deirdre the last few feet across the lawn and into the pool. Then she flattened herself on the ground and covered her head, praying she’d find a way to dive in too before she was bashed into fertilizer.

The burning ceased, by miracle, it seemed. Her body was submerged in cold where it belonged. Deirdre opened her mouth to share the good news with her girlfriend, but the burning shifted suddenly to her lungs. Where there should have been air, there was water. She floundered, panicked, trapped in memories of her mother’s hand on the back of her neck. She kicked up and gasped when she reached the surface. Deirdre shook her head, wiping water away from her face. “Morgan!” She called out, surveying the scene. “Morg–“ Deirdre laid her hands on the pool’s edge, determined to climb out and help, but wherever she found hold, her grip quickly slipped. There was something to be said about water in freezing temperatures. “Morgan!” She tried again, slashing her hand on the cement. “My love–“ The bird turned to her, another volley of feathers for her pleasure alone. Deirdre sucked in breath and dove down, watching feathers cut harmlessly through the water. When she re-emerged, a plan became far more clear to her. “Morgan! Morgan, I can scream! I just need–“ She dove again, kicking back to the surface. “I just need it to not be–I can’t aim like this! Morgan–“ She dove again, this time swimming around in quick laps. It occurred to her then that heron weren’t birds that were shy of water, in fact, they excelled in it. What seemed like a good plan, might have served to make her a much more delightful target. Deirdre refused fear. Morgan was more than capable. Morgan would figure it out. The heron wouldn’t be a match for a woman that had come back from death.

Morgan would have rather the bird peck her down to stumps than sting Deirdre with another feather. That wasn’t good, or helpful, but in the awful silence when the heron stopped pecking and snapping at her body and swooped over the water for Deirdre, it was the only thing she knew. Not her. Anything but her.

“No!” She croaked, scrambling forwards to the pool. She tried to get her love’s hands, to make out the words and process anything but the one useless thought circling her head. Not her, anything but her, anything but her…

Scream. Right. She just needed to buy Deirdre time without being in brain liquifying distance. Morgan searched the ground nearby. Not much, but she hadn’t known that today would entail fighting for their lives. The heron swooped down to the water again, its beak skating the surface, searching for the right place to take aim.

“Hey!” Morgan shouted. The heron took no notice. She scrambled to the other side of the pool and lifted one of the rocks they’d put in to make the pool feel like more of a lake for Mina. She hefted it in her arms and threw it as hard as she could at the bird. The heron squaked and flapped into the air, dodging the blow. Now recognizing a persistent obstacle, it narrowed its eyes and shot out for her. But Morgan had already reached for her second weapon, her croquet mallet, and when the heron was close enough, she swung.

There was no mistaking the thunk of wood against bird-flesh, but the bird didn’t act phased. Instead it turned, plumes flared furious, and went again. Morgan swung and gasped as the bronze beak burned across her vision as it splintered the mallet in its grip. “Shit.” The heron flew back, circled, and there was nothing else at hand. She ran feet first into the pool and let herself sink as it came for her. They had seconds, at most, before it would start fishing the water for them. Morgan would think of something clever, a way to stay just out of reach of the sound, a way to put her panicked thoughts to good use. Sooner or later it would come to her. It had to.

As far as screaming went, it was a hard thing to do when flailing in the water. Deirdre laughed when she thought of how her mother hadn’t prepared her for this circumstance; the woman seemed to have thought of everything and yet, she’d never once been stoned by a mob of humans but she was in a pool trying to scream. When her wounds had become a manageable burn, she swung her arms over the pool’s edge, trying to get her angle. The heron flew wildly as it tried to fight Morgan, and as skilled as Deirdre knew she was, she couldn't manage a clean shot. There was the delay to account for, for one thing, and the worry of Morgan, for another. When she thought she had it, Morgan was running towards the pool, and before Deirdre could ask, she was jumping in. “Nice hit with the mallet,” she smiled, water splashing into her face. “Very good form. Have you done this before?” Concern did not exist in Deirdre’s features; a by-product of personality or upbringing or desire to soothe Morgan, perhaps. All that mattered to Deirdre now was the presence of her love beside her, and that the heron was over there. Deirdre swam up to Morgan, grinning even as the heron pecked at the edge of the water. “Do you come here often or…?”

The heron squawked, a deep gurgle of a sound; large wings spread wide and angry. It squawked again, pecking viciously where Morgan and Deirdre were just out of a beak’s range. And perhaps it was the fae in her, all along, that gave her such delight to see the creature struggle where she knew its life was over. And to prolong its death was just a treat, for her. It lifted one long, thin and spindly webbed foot into the air, squawked one last time, and released a final assault of feathers. Deirdre dove in time, pulling Morgan down with her, and in the blue water tainted by plumes of her red blood, surrounded by iron feathers leaving bubbles in their trails, she mouthed ‘you did good’ and ‘thank you’ and ‘I love you’ and then she winked. Deirdre kicked up and screamed, finally, watching the heron fall over like a lawn ornament in the wind, as though it had never been yelling and fighting. As though it had never lived at all, and certainly not as though it had once tried to kill them. The creature lay unconscious, not dead, and perhaps it was the fae in her that delighted in the promise of something more to be done.

Or, perhaps rather, despite her grinning and winking, her body burned even in the cool water, and rejected being pushed to scream any harder. Or, in spite of her calm appearance, her heart thrummed loud against her chest, and her mind swirled with terror for what screaming in water did to a zombie’s brain. The creature lay unconscious, not dead, because Deirdre feared to do more. She turned to Morgan, weathered and body-heavy; in truth, she might’ve liked to just sleep and let the pool carry her like a leaf in a river to a place that didn’t know the cycles of predator and prey. Perhaps it was the woman in her, the person, that closed her eyes and imagined just that.

Morgan could only stare wildly at her girlfriend as she mouthed her affection, grinning with wicked delight as only she could. Morgan couldn’t remember being more in awe of her, or more frightened of the loss of her. The only words in her head were no, be careful, and don’t go. What if the bird was faster? What if it took her neck in its beak? What if--but Morgan knew better than to say these things, or to imagine anything at all. She clung to the lilly reeds to keep herself down to keep herself from pulling Deirdre back and waited.

She didn’t have to wait for long.

The sound shook the water and struck through the depths, keening in fury, in pride. Distorted as it was by the water, the scream still shook something inside Morgan. When it was done, she rose slowly, half dazed, half frightened. “Deirdre?” She called. Her love was floating off into the cattails. The heron was on the ground, suspiciously in one piece.

“Hey--” She swam with her into the shallows and cupped her cheek. “Are you okay? Did it get you again?” She couldn’t tell one set of burns apart from another, and there were so many all over her. “I’m sorry I couldn’t come up with anything better. I kind of panicked. But we can get you dried off and inside, and I’ll get the burn salve and take care of everything…”

Later, when the memory of this day broke past her defenses and replayed itself in her mind, Morgan would not be able to tell if she trailed off because she heard the heron’s wheezing breath, or if her own innate sense of having come up short signaled that something was amiss, or if she simply ran out of things to say, and finally had enough quiet to hear. It trembled through the air, unmistakable, and Morgan stared at the bird’s chest with each shallow, rattling sound.

It was still alive.

“It’s going to wake up eventually, isn’t it?” She whispered, already knowing the answer. Of course it was. And when it did, it would release more feathers, or it would fly away to eat another fae. And what if it found Mina on campus? What if it found Jared on his farm? Morgan stared at the bird, trying to peek into another world where suffering only existed in nightmares, where life thrived in peace. Some place where no creature was put forth to be a menace, to be something that could only take or be taken. But if that place existed, she could not see it; it was not here. And what kind of an idiot was she to think otherwise? Who knew better about the turn of the wheel of life than a cursed witch? Who knew more about the grip of death than a zombie?

“You should get out of the pool before any of the feathers touch you,” she said, climbing up the steps.

She crossed over to the croquet set and picked up one of the mallets from the stand and dragged it over to the heron’s body. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “I can’t let you hurt my friends and I’m sorry.” It felt like a long time before she could summon the will to swing the mallet, but when she did, fissures lightninged up the handle and the heron’s skull cracked beneath its poisoned feathers. Morgan swung again.

It was a lake; shielded by thick forest, surrounded by ribbons of wildflowers. The stalks of cattails brushed Deirdre’s skin, balm to the burning that claimed her flesh. It must have been the countryside, the house in her head. It must have existed somewhere where the world would not touch them without permission. It was a lake, and when she opened her eyes, it was Morgan’s glistening face under the light of morning, where the fog that claimed the water had just begun to lift. There must have been a picnic set about in the grass; a book for them to come back to. And a house, cozy but not tiny; she liked to imagine it with red brick. “Did it get you again?” Deirdre blinked; nothing could get them here, didn’t Morgan know? She reached to brush wet strands of Morgan’s hair aside. That would puff out when it dried, surely. In their swampy lake, away from the world. Morgan apologized and Deirdre shook her head, smiling gently as the sun rose behind her. “You’re perfect.” It was a lake. Then it was a pool in the afternoon; their picnic was a croquet game, ruined. Their house was a clean white, and bigger than either of them knew what to do with. Her body was on fire. There was a Stymphalian bird.

Deirdre moved slowly, half in pain and half in mourning for a dream spurred by the fervor of pain. She hadn’t noticed the feathers at all until it occurred to her that the strange tickling cattails were too low to the water, and didn’t tickle so much as they burned--which only felt like tickling against the rest of the burning. Their lake--pool--was covered by an array of them, all having floated to the surface. She rose out of the water, picking a few out of her flesh; there was no imagining them as the hooked burs of her dream wildflowers now. Deirdre dripped blood and water where she moved. It was Morgan’s swinging that woke her up, just as it insured that the bird would never.

“Morgan--” Deirdre rushed to her side, hands on her shoulders; hands at her arms; hands clutching hers, mallet held still and fractured. By the time she got there, the bird was paste on the ground, like roadkill without the road. “You could have ate that.” She said, looking at it. Well, it wasn’t so soiled, maybe it was more like tenderized meat now, and Morgan did enjoy those gummy textures. “Hey,” her voice softened as she pulled the cracked mallet from Morgan’s grip. “It’s okay, my love. It’s okay. What are you thinking?”      

Morgan’s thoughts didn’t come in words, at first. Looking down at the bird, beautifully colored but lean in the chest, maybe malnourished, she could only see the unfairness. When her dad had explained that the universe wasn’t all one thing or another, it sounded like there was something soft or gentle in everything. The wasps that frightened her helped the flowers to grow, the lightning that reminded her of her mother’s yelling improved the atmosphere, the people who were cruel to her sometimes turned kind. She had put that thought away sometimes, when it made her stomach clench with guilt, but she had wanted to believe in it. But looking at this dead, beaten heron, she felt as though there were threads in the universe that were just cruel and when you tripped on them, you had no recourse but to touch some of that cruelty too.

“It only knew how to hurt people,” Morgan whispered. “Hurt fae. Even if I tied it in a sheet and dumped it at the town border, it was just going to eat another fae. And if it came back and hurt you…” She didn’t dare finish the thought and trusted her love to hold the missing piece. “I can take it to my studio to get the rest of the feathers out, so we can do something with the rest, so it doesn’t go to waste. And I’ll...c-clean the pool, before Mina gets back. I don’t want her to…” Morgan’s voice choked on the sorrow she was trying to drown with reason. “I’ve got this. I can take care of the rest.” Her throat filled with water and a sob cracked through her lips. “I just hate this world sometimes. I hate how we can’t just leave each other alone. I hate some of these choices…” She searched for Deirdre’s hand and gripped it tight. Hate them as she might, she didn’t regret any choice that protected Deirdre. She didn’t know if that was best of all or worst, but she  knew it was true.

“Oh, my love,” Deirdre held Morgan close, pulling her tight against her body. The truths of her world were known to her since birth, tales of the food chain were her mother’s idea of a bedtime story. “It’s just an animal, my love. It doesn’t know malice, or prejudice. It doesn’t hurt fae, it doesn’t know what a ‘fae’ is. There’s food and not-food and it can’t help what it was made to eat. Just as you know that it must…” Deirdre trailed off, remembering covers pulled up to her nose, questions she knew better than to voice as her mother held firm in her stories. The little bird ate the grasshopper, the snake ate the bird, an owl swooped down. Life was cyclical, and none immune to death. Deirdre shook her head, and laughed softly at herself. How many times had she heard and parroted the sentiment, how many times had she lived shackled by it? She didn’t care much for things and their places; she wanted Morgan and a lake, in the place where life could be more than its cycles. Deirdre pressed her lips to Morgan’s cheek once, then twice and a third as she held her head to her chest. “Thank you,” she said finally, “for keeping me and my people safe, even though it was hard. Thank you.”

She pressed another kiss to Morgan as she leaned down, using her blood for some good to write a message on the stone. ‘DON’T GO IN THE POOL’. Mina would recognize the bird and know better anyway, whenever she came home. Deirdre rose and kissed Morgan again, and again, trailing to her lips, where she lingered. “Just leave it now, it’s not going anywhere,” she said against them, breath tickling cold flesh. “Don’t you want to come inside with me now? Into our good world? You did what you had to, and that’s okay, come inside with me now. Rest.” She smiled, “and we can handle the rest later. Doesn’t that sound better?” Deirdre pressed closer, determined in her coaxing. “The world is unfair, isn’t it? It’s terrible and chaotic and filled with horrible, complicated choices.” She leaned in. “But it’s also the most wonderful thing, when I get to hold you. When we’re together.” She kissed her, firm and steady. “Let’s go in, my love,” Deirdre breathed, “tell me all about how much you hate the world, sometimes. How much it hurts to make the necessary choices. And love me, let me love you, and let us feel how good the world is too. How good these choices are. Come--” She pulled back, taking Morgan’s hands in hers. “We can experience the world as it is, bad and good; terrible present and hopeful future. And whatever it is you need to do, you can do later, when it all starts to feel a little easier to carry. Come inside, my love. Come with me.”

The heron’s ignorance didn’t make anything better, Morgan wanted to say. That only made the creature innocent and unteachable. It hadn’t been doing anything wrong. And how often did Morgan insist that you shouldn’t judge the way someone was made, the way they needed to survive? The heron’s mistake was flying over Morgan’s yard, in trying to devour Deirdre in front of her. If animals were worth screaming for, that moment must have sealed its fate. How could she do anything less to protect her love? How could she pass on that pain to another fae, knowing what they meant to each other, knowing the grief that would follow?

Morgan shut her eyes and squeezed out the tears that had gathered beneath her lashes. She wrapped her arms around Deirdre and pressed her face as hard as she could into her chest, not minding how it made her feet stumble on the grass and the porch steps. Like this, pressed close with her face mashed in, she could capture the softest whiff of Deirdre’s scent, sweet fruit and musky trees. Like this, the wood and tile beneath her feet transformed into the soft, giving earth of a dream, the sounds of distant cars became the song of a tide that burbled with good memories and longing wishes.

She burrowed into that place they’d first imagined in their letters between wet kisses and long silences. She had thought it abandoned, since she had almost no reason to think about it these days, but under a blanket, cradling herself against her love, she found her way to that shore as if summoned. She saw fear slip through their fingers like silt and sorrow drip away in the lake. Death had no sting and love and love alone colored their sky. Outside, in the true world, the sun sank, the snow melted, and the dead heron’s feathers flitted up and scattered like autumn leaves. But Morgan held fast to her love and stayed in their painless world as long as she could.

[yikesimonfire]

Howdy Neighbor || Alfie & Bex

Timing: Before the events of Promise to Bind. Location: Hallway of Alfie’s apartment complex. Parties: @inbextween​ & @yikesimonfire​ Summary: Bex drops by Eddie’s apartment with a gift; Alfie isn’t sure what he thinks of her. Content: internalized homophobia tw

It wasn’t necessary, but Bex liked doing nice things for her friends, and so she’d made Eddie a bone crown while she’d hyperfocused on making things yesterday. She’d had so much energy the past few days, due mostly in part to Mina, and well-- the stuff that had happened between them. Sometimes, she couldn’t stop smiling about it. Sometimes, it made her face hurt. The crown was littered with dried, pressed flowers that were sealed with preserve to keep them from crumbling apart, and she’d dusted off some of the small antlers Morgan had in the workshop-- way too small to even be baby deer antlers, so Bex really had to wonder what they might be from. They looked almost rabbit size-- and arranged them in a fashion she thought might suit Eddie. The coyote jaw bones really brought the piece together, as well. She hoped he’d appreciate the celebration of death in it. She figured he might, considering he saw ghosts and lived his life with them. But when she knocked, no one answered. Hmm, maybe she should’ve messaged him first. That probably would’ve been the smart idea, but she’d sort of wanted to surprise him. She wondered where he might be, as she peered into the front window. All the lights were off, which meant no one was home, probably. She pulled out her phone to text him when she noticed someone outside the apartment next to Eddie’s. “Oh, um hello!” she called out, waving. She didn’t recognize them, but then again, Bex didn’t know a lot of people around town. “I was just dropping something off! Do you know Eddie?”

It wasn’t uncommon that Alfie saw people he didn’t know lingering around the apartment complex. In fact, he didn’t know many people that lived there — even fewer by name. So when he got upstairs, mail in hand, he didn’t think anything of the young woman standing outside of Eddie’s door. As he reached for his keys, he ducked his head to avoid any unnecessary eye-contact. Soon enough, he’d have the door unlocked and he’d be safe. But then, in an unusually friendly voice, she called out to him. The sound of her voice made him involuntarily jerk (and almost drop his keys), but he managed a glance in her direction with a polite, but thin-lipped smile. “Hi,” he curtly replied. The question that followed, however, caused his brow to raise. 

“Eddie? Uh — yeah. Yeah, I know Eddie.” Knew him better than most, or at least that’s what Alfie liked to believe. But that was neither here nor there. “I think he’s out, actually. Can’t exactly say when he’ll be back.” Obviously he was out, it probably didn’t take Alfie’s saying so for the stranger to figure that out. She wouldn’t have been standing outside if Eddie were home. Still, while Alfie fiddled with his key, edging it closer to the lock, he figured his friend would probably appreciate him being courteous. “Didyouneedanything?” The words sputtered out in an incoherent mess. “Or, uh… Is there anything I can do to help? He — he’ll probably be back soon.” He figured the polite thing to do was at least offer to wait with her (Eddie would like that, right?) but thought it inappropriate to mention.

Bex didn’t really notice the anxious behavior as she fussed with the phone and the crown in her hands, trying not to drop either one of them. At least her clumsiness had never extended to her hands. She managed to type out a text before the other boy mumbled something so quickly she didn’t quite understand it. “Oh! Oh, that’s-- kind of you to offer,” she said, looking down at her phone as it buzzed. An immediate answer, of course. He wasn’t going to be home for a bit, and she had stuff to do. Mina was expecting her back in a bit, as well. “Um, actually, yeah,” she said, pocketing her phone and looking back over at the other boy. He was quite a bit taller than her, even in her heels, and it wasn’t often she met someone who achieved that. She glanced back at Eddie’s door, before turning back to the other boy. “Would you mind giving this to him when he gets back? I would stay, but I have to be somewhere, and, well, I don’t really trust just leaving it on the doorstep, you know? I made it for him myself and I’d really like it if he actually, you know, got it.” She paused. “Not that I think anyone would steal it or anything! Or, well, I guess I sort of do, otherwise I’d be okay leaving it, but I’m more worried about it getting broken.” As nervous as Bex could be, she was used to talking to strangers and asking things of them. At least her parents had taught her one useful thing. 

She made it for him herself? Alfie stood there, dumbfounded for a moment before giving her a small nod. “Yeah, yeah. ‘Course I can!” The hand holding his keys dropped to his side as he shifted towards her, his arm prematurely extended for a swift transfer. In the process, he noticed his shoulders were slouched and straightened up his back a bit — careful not to stand too tall and risk intimidating her. “Trust me, I get it. It’s a sketchy place. There’s no telling what might happen to it before Ed — Eddie gets back. ‘Sides, we wouldn’t want it falling into the wrong hands.” A forced chuckle followed which Alfie immediately regretted. “That… sounds like I’m saying it’s dangerous or something. I just mean, y’know… Things happen around here and, who knows — it’d probably be fine, but better safe than sorry.” His lips pursed together as he studied her face, trying to remember if he’d seen her anywhere; in any pictures Eddie had shown him, or even just from around town. Nothing. Was this just a thing now? Eddie having people over to bring him handmade gifts? “Will he be expecting it, or should I mention who it’s from?” he wondered. He figured that Eddie would be expecting it if she considered leaving it, but he also hoped that putting a name to her face might jog his memory.

“Oh, thank-- I appreciate that!” Bex said, catching herself quickly. It was still such an easy habit to fall into, saying thank you, without knowing what someone was. She thought of all the times she’d said thank you to Professor Campbell and hoped he wasn’t a fae. “Oh, yeah, yes! Better safe than sorry! I mean, this place doesn’t look too sketchy, and when I was over helping him edit some videos the other day, it seemed like a nice place! I think there’s definitely much sketchier places in White Crest,” she rambled. Oh, she was rambling again. She always did that when she was nervous. She smiled to cut herself off and held out the crown for him. “Do you know Eddie well?” she asked, when she noticed the slip in name. If he called him Ed, they were probably good friends, right? Usually people who were close gave each other nicknames. “Uh, no, I don’t think he’s expecting it. I just-- decided to make one and thought of him while I was doing it, so,” the sentence cut short as she shrugged. She wasn’t really sure why she’d made it for him, only that she wanted to do something nice for him, after everything he’d done for her. “You can tell him it’s from Bex,” she tacked on finally, looking back at the other boy with a half smile.

Helping him edit videos? Alfie never helped Eddie edit videos. Granted, that was probably because he never showed any interest in helping him. “Oh, yeah,” Alfie forced another laugh. “He keeps it surprisingly free of dog hair, considering.” He wasn’t sure what to say to that. Hell, he wasn’t even sure how he felt about that. Eddie was allowed to have other friends; it shouldn’t have bothered him. So why did it? “We’re pretty close, yeah.” At this point, Alfie didn’t even know if that was true. No — that was ridiculous. Of course they were close. Eddie was his best friend, after all. 

As soon as the stranger introduced herself, things started making a little more sense. “Oh, Bex! From the — the exorcismyay,” Alfie’s voice dropped to a near whisper when he said “exorcism”. He remembered Eddie mentioning her now; how a filming adventure went awry. As it seemed, these excursions of his were just as dangerous as ever. “I realize now that’s still the same word in Pig Latin,” he tittered, a genuine smile crinkling at the corners of his eyes. The nagging in the pit of his stomach was quickly dissipating. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Bex, and it’s sweet that you wanted Eddie to have this. I’m sure he’ll love it. I’m Alfie, by the way. Alfie Ramirez.” Why did he just tell her his full name? Should he shake her hand now? Was that the right thing to do? Without thinking, Alfie dropped his keys to offer Bex his other hand. “I’d hate to keep you,” he added as an afterthought. “I know you’ve got somewhere to be.”

“Hey, well, Bucket is a queen and she deserves the world. I wouldn’t mind dog hair all over me if it was hers,” Bex chuckled, giving Alfie a better smile this time. He was a nice guy, and, so far, Bex really liked him. Especially if he was friends with Eddie. She didn’t think Eddie would be friends with anyone that wasn’t at least a little like him. “Oh, have you known him long, then? He said he grew up here, and he’s one of those people who seems to love this town. I think it’s cute, don’t you? How much he seems to like this place. It’s...refreshing.” She wasn’t sure why she’d said all that, but she supposed it was the truth, so what did it matter? And if this was Eddie’s friend, then, maybe she wanted to connect with him, too. Maybe she wanted to show Eddie that she had a genuine interest in his life. He made her feel welcome, after all. And safe. She had broken down in front of him and made him see her horrific nightmare and he’d still offered to drive her home and then also be her friend. He deserved a lot more than a bone crown and a date rejection. 

“Oh! Yes! That! That was fun! I was so excited he asked me to come with him. I’ve never seen a ghost before. Or, well, I still technically haven’t, but I’ve seen what they can do! And stuff like that! And it was-- kind of amazing? Did you know there’s different kinds?” She straightened up, laughing a little. “Sorry, I um-- kind of get carried away when i get excited. It’s nice to meet you, Alfie!” she stuck out her hand and took his, watching his keys drop to the ground. “Oh! You’re not keeping me! I mean, I do have someplace to be in a bit, but not right away! Eddie just said he wouldn’t be home for a while--” she shook her phone at him in a gesture of ‘he texted me’ before dropping it, “--so I just don’t have time to wait for him to come back.”

There was a dull throb in Alfie’s chest the moment Bex referred to Eddie as “cute”. For years now, he’d been telling himself not to think like that — and for years, he’d failed. His friend and neighbor would forever be unattainable. It was fine; Alfie accepted that Eddie would only ever be his friend. But that didn’t mean that it wasn’t difficult every now and then. How could he pretend that his feelings were strictly platonic when Eddie’s laugh made his heat soar? Or when he stood there, one hand on his hip, and the other forcing his mess of hair in every which way? Eddie was cute — painfully so — but hearing that someone else thought it too seemed… unfair? Almost. With any luck, Bex said that sort of thing about all of her friends; it couldn’t be exclusive to Eddie, could it? 

“Uh, kind of, yeah,” Alfie croaked. “I’ve known him since high school, but we didn’t talk much.” That was a lie. Sure, they went to school together, but implying that they interacted at all was inaccurate. “That changed when Eddie moved in nextdoor, though. We’ve been friends ever since… The rest is ancient history, and all that jazz.” Alfie knew he needed to stop embellishing the truth. One quick chat with Eddie and Bex would know the truth. Hell, he apparently didn’t make it a point to mention him to her yet. The ache in Alfie’s chest permeated his entire body. His cheeks flushed and his heart raced. He was being ridiculous, he told himself. It shouldn’t matter that Bex didn’t know about him. It shouldn’t matter that Eddie was making new friends. And having them over to his house. Introducing them to Bucket. Watching movies and cuddling on the couch. 

Stop it! His mind screamed at him over the sound of Bex’s voice. What was the last thing she said? “Different kinds?” Alfie parroted, trying to remember the words that came before it. Ghosts, right. His ears were still ringing. She shook his hand and he laughed, returning the gesture long enough to be socially acceptable before withdrawing, completely disregarding his keys on the ground. “No, no — you’re fine! I know a bit about ghosts, but I’ve definitely never had an encounter like that before. It sounds—” terrifying, “— fun!”  For what it was worth, Alfie didn’t exactly want to shoo Bex away, not even when his heart was drumming in his chest. Maybe if he changed the subject? “Ah, that’s understandable,” he agreed. “Have you been here long? In White Crest, I mean — not here, here. I can’t say I’ve ever seen you around.” 

If the other boy was distracted by thoughts, Bex didn’t notice. She was caught up in her own, thinking about Eddie, and how much fun she’d had with him, and what was wrong with her? She had Mina, she had slept with Mina, more than once, and maybe she wanted more than to just be friends with Mina, so why did she keep thinking about what Eddie had said? Why had he asked her out? Why hadn’t she just told him the truth? Everything was so confusing yet so clear right now. She blinked, and readjusted, because Alfie was talking again and she needed to pay attention. Pay attention. “OH, you went to highschool together? That’s cool! I assume you went to the school here? Yeah, I mean, that’s fair. I always feel like people are very different in highschool than after.”

She looked down at his keys on the floor and wondered if he knew. Should she point them out? “Um, you dropped your keys, by the way.” He was being oddly quiet between bouts of words, and she wondered if he was somehow off put by her. She was being awfully nosy, after all. She couldn’t help it. Eddie was still kind of a mystery to her, aside from his ghost stuff. She wanted to know more about him. She’d have to ask him. Maybe bothering his neighbor was a bad idea. “Oh, me? I mean, technically, yes? I was born here. I live-- lived-- out on Harmony Island. I’m in East End now, but I didn’t go to school in town. I went to a private school up in Augusta, so that’s probably why you haven’t seen me around.” Lately, a lot of locals had been saying that to her. Did everyone just know everyone here? She supposed the whole six degrees of separation was more like two degrees in a tiny town like this. “What about you? Did you grow up here? I mean, obviously you went to school here, but, you know, did you move here or were you always here?”

“Yeah, kinda,” Alfie absentmindedly agreed, not bothering to get into the smaller details. In high school, the boys didn’t have much to do with each other. He saw Eddie around campus and onstage in theater productions, but that was about it. Whoever Eddie was in high school, he doubted they would have gotten along back then. 

When Bex mentioned that he’d dropped his keys, Alfie looked almost startled. His eyes shot to his feet where, lo and behold, his keychain limply lied. “Oh, huh, I— yeah, I guess I did,” he grumbled before crouching down and plucking them up. How was he managing to make this much of a fool out of himself? He worried what Bex must have thought of him; more importantly, what Eddie would think if he knew. Would she tell him? ‘Hey, I met your neighbor, Alfie. You know, the one you never mentioned? What a weirdo!’ His thoughts swarmed with what they’d potentially say about him. No doubt laughing as they huddled around Eddie’s computer and bonded over a shared interest. 

“Harmony Island, huh? Sounds fancy.” Alfie chewed nervously on the inside of his cheek as he tried to purge the negative thoughts from his mind. Honestly, he didn’t know much about the island. His reaction was purely based on the fact that it was, well, an island. There were probably a lot of fancy houses there, right? As per the natural progression of conversation, the question was now turned on him. “Yeah, I grew up here,” he answered as he shifted his weight, standing somewhat smaller than he had before. “I’ve never left the greater White Crest area, actually. My family— they, uh… own the library. Or, run it, I guess? It’s probably a lot less cool than it sounds unless you really love books.” Bex probably didn’t care about what his family did for a living, but it was better than hearing how great friends she was with Eddie. “I haven’t worked there in a while, though. I’m actually a software developer. Freelance. I could never work a nine-to-five.”

Bex took a small step back as Alfie bent to pick up his keys. He didn’t seem very talkative, and she wondered if it was because of her. Was she making him uncomfortable? Was it weird that she’d come to Eddie’s place without asking before hand? Was he wary of her? Did he not like her? She shook the thoughts from her head and tried to focus back in on what Alfie was saying. “Oh, uh, yeah! My family is actually kind of uh, well known around town,” she said, rubbing the back of her head before hands came together to wring each other out. She looked back over her shoulder, as if maybe she would turn and see Eddie coming down the hallway, but there was nothing. “My parents are pretty well off.” But I don’t speak to them much anymore. Or at all. She shivered at the thought. 

“You’re-- family owns the library? The public one? Do-- do you have a sister? I think I might’ve talked to her online! Is her name Leah?” She was somehow grateful for the change of subject, perking back up for a moment. IF she could make friends with Eddie’s friends, then that was only a good thing, right? That had to be a good thing. “Software developer? Woah, that’s so cool! How’d you learn to do that? Did you teach yourself or did you go to school for it? Either way, that’s, like, super impressive.”

Alfie gave a series of small nods as Bex talked about her own family. He wondered if he should know who they were, but thought better of it. He was still a stranger, after all. They knew each other's names and that they shared a mutual friend. That was it. Alfie was never any good at making friends. Sure, there was also Nell, but their friendship started out of sheer luck — and family ties. Small talk was also not within Alfie’s usual realm of comfort. He hated it, in fact. That’s probably why he didn’t have many friends. That and the fact that that he never felt he needed any. Maybe, with any luck, he’d manage to befriend Bex too. “That makes sense; with private school and everything,” he agreed. 

A light laugh surfaced from the depths of his chest. “Yeah, that’s the one,” Alfie confirmed after clearing his throat. “Leah, yeah. She’s, uh— she’s great, really.” He never knew what to say when it came to his family. His parents were strict when he was growing up. They still were, actually. Not that he had much to do with them these days. Leah was — beyond a shadow of a doubt — the golden child. Compared to her and their other siblings, Alfie was the black sheep. That wasn’t the sort of information people usually offered to someone they just met. Instead, Alfie kept quiet; at least until Bex showed an interest in his job. All of a sudden, his face lit up. It was cool! “I’m mostly self-taught, actually! I mean, I took some classes for it in high school, but that’s about it. It’s just always been something I’ve enjoyed doing — fiddling around with computers and whatnot.” Alfie grinned sheepishly at Bex. As much as he enjoyed talking about it, he didn’t want to bore her. “What about you, though? Do you work, or…?” 

“She is! She was super nice and agreed to let me borrow some books! Which...it’s a library so of course she did, but I mean, like--” Bex lowered her voice a bit and leaned in, “--special books, if you catch my drift.” Supernatural books. Magic books. She smiled again as she leaned back and gave a short chuckle. “Sorry. I just get really excited about books, and when I actually happen to know people. I don't know too many people around town, so it’s nice knowing this place is actually smaller than it seems, you know? Like, who woulda thought that Eddie’s neighbor, who I met coincidentally, was related to the nice librarian lady I talked to online, who also knows my mo-- er, my current guardian, and is friends with her! Isn’t that wild?” She tried to recuperate fast enough to hope Alfie hadn’t caught her stumble. Not that he knew about her situation, but the slip had even her surprised. Morgan wasn’t her mom. Morgan probably didn’t want the responsibility of that, either. Plus, Bex was an adult, mostly. She didn’t need someone to be that for her. She was doing fine, really.

“But, oh, wow! That’s so cool! And so impressive that you learned most of it all on your own! Do you make a lot of money doing it? What kinds of things do you design? I mean, software, obviously, but is it like, firewalls, programs, mods? There’s so much. Me? Oh, well-- I used to intern at my parents’ law firm, but I, uh-- have recently had a change of heart for what I wanna major in. So, currently jobless, just uh, focusing on school! And, well-- I guess ghost hunting, now. Does that count as a job if I’m not getting paid? It feels like more than a hobby, though, you know?”

“Special books — right, totally getcha. Like, say… her personal copy of ‘Interview with the Vampire’,” Alfie nodded. It wasn’t surprising that someone jumping into the ghost hunting scene would be interested in perusing the restricted section of the library. On the contrary, Leah wasn’t known to lend out books (as far as Alfie was aware) and he couldn’t help but wonder if there was more to it than just Bex’s excursions with Eddie. “Sorry, that was lame. But, yes, I caught your drift.” As Bex apologized, Alfie shook his head with a gentle smile. He was no stranger to talking a bit more than he should about things that made him excited. The library might not have been one of his go-to hangouts these days, but if Bex wanted to gush over it, he’d be happy to listen. “No need to apologize! And actually — now that you mention it — White Crest may be a relatively small town, but you’d be surprised how many people I don’t know. I guess it is pretty cool to realize who knows who and whatnot.”

The broad grin never wavered from Alfie’s face. It was easy to push aside his reservations towards Bex when his craft was in question. He was very quickly warming up to this new acquaintance. “A handful of different things, actually! I’ve cast a pretty wide net. I’ve recently been really into programming a personal database. It’s, uh… a work in progress.” Maybe he shouldn’t have said that. In the event that it got back to Leah, his sister might start asking questions that Alfie wasn’t prepared to answer. “But, yeah. You pretty much hit the nail on the head with all of those. The pay’s decent enough, though I haven’t had any big projects lately — takes care of the bills at least.” Did it matter that some of these projects were morally questionable? Alfie was merely the brains behind them; what the clients used them for were out of his control. He objected not to voice this, considering her parents were in law. “Hey, take it from someone who didn’t go to college: you’re allowed to change your mind about that sort of thing. ‘Specially since you’re the one earning the degree. Have you picked a new major, or…? If you don’t mind me asking, that is.”

“Yeah, but less Interview With A Vampire and more--” Bex started, then stopped. She’d been reminded time and time again that telling people she didn’t know that she was a spellcaster was a bad idea. But Alfie was friends with Eddie and he was Leah’s little brother, so he could be trusted, right? She wanted to trust him. “More, Practical Magic.” Oh, that was a blatant reference, wasn’t it? Well, no hiding it now, she supposed. She gave him a sheepish smile and waved it off. “Not lame! Definitely not lame. If it was lame then so was mine.” She chuckled lightly, hoping to move past the notion quickly, nodding eagerly when he amended his statement about White Crest. “Yeah, totally! I’ve definitely noticed that. I mean, I grew up kinda closed off, so I never really knew people around town, but once I started actually meeting people, it was like everyone knew everyone! Or knew of them, at least. Wild, huh? Six degrees of separation who?” Oh, now she was just embarrassing herself. She cleared her throat. “It’s just interesting to see. When I moved away to Penn State briefly, it was so different. Everything was so impersonal.” She’d sort of liked that, though, blending in easily. The dream of that life was so long gone,though.

“Woah, you’re making a whole database all from scratch?? That’s incredible!” Bex exclaimed, perhaps a little too loudly, but she couldn’t help it-- people being excited made her excited and her cheeks bubbled with it. She needed to find every reason to be excited, anyway. Every reason to be happy. “But, you know, pays the bills is good! Especially if it’s something you enjoy! Isn’t that what they say? Find something you love and you’ll never work a day in your life?” She remembered one of her professors telling her that. She didn’t know if it was true. “Oh! Uh, yeah, I have. Um-- Anthropology. I’ll probably focus on uh, Archaeology. It’s what interests me the most. But, really, anything about history interests me. I could probably go to school for the rest of my life getting different history degrees. I won’t, though! But I could.” She rubbed the back of her head. “I’m what they call a History nerd. Or buff. History buff. Anything you wanna know about history, I probably know something about!”

Practical magic? That came as a surprise. The only spellcasters Alfie knew in White Crest were the Vurals. He always figured there were more, but never bothered to find out for himself. A wave of anxiety crashed over him at the thought of Bex having something to do with his curse; a worry that quickly subsided at the realization that no beginner magic-user could be involved in a plot spanning across what was likely centuries. Unless… 

“Not lame,” Alfie reiterated with a meek smile. “Although, I can’t exactly say I’ve read it myself.” He wondered if it would be appropriate to ask her more about it — if only to subdue his concern. Maybe it was best to leave it be for the time being. 

It was interesting to hear about Bex’s fondness for White Crest. The reasons she seemed to adore the small town were on Alfie’s list of why he wanted to leave it. “That sounds ideal to me,” he said playfully, electing not to elaborate. Explaining that he longed for a bigger city where he could easily hide away would only dampen the mood. Not to mention that it could potentially get back to Eddie who would undoubtedly be upset by it. If anyone could make Alfie stay, it would be him — another thing on his ever-growing list that Alfie wasn’t prepared to get into with Bex. 

“More or less,” he chuckled. “The original code is pretty much public domain, but I’ve made my own enhancements.” These ‘enhancements’ being private journals that he so eagerly nicked from the family’s secret collection, though that was neither here nor there. He’d return them… eventually. “I mean, that’s awesome, though! There’s still so much to discover through artifacts from the past.” In a sense, Alfie was doing the same; unearthing his own past through vague remnants of it. “Good on you for chasing your dreams.”

Alfie thoughtfully pursed his lips. He wondered if Bex had anything in her bank of knowledge pertaining to his own circumstances. “Actually, now that you mention it… You don’t happen to have any recommendations on, say, the history of White Crest, do you? More specifically pre-dating European colonization?” It was a long shot, but he couldn’t exactly ask Leah. 

“Oh!” Bex perked a bit, “it’s actually a really good book! If you like reading about that kinda stuff, I’d totally suggest it.” She beamed for a moment. She loved talking about books and sharing other people’s interests and, well, it was always nice when people shared hers, too, wasn’t it? She wondered if Alfie knew about all the things that went on in the shadows of White Crest, all the things the world tried to hide from people-- probably, considering he was friends with Eddie, and Eddie didn’t seem like the kinda guy to hoard that type of information. In fact, he was the opposite. She shook the thoughts away.

“What? Oh! Yeah,” she blinked back to the present moment and away from her thoughts and nodded. “I don’t mind living in a small town. I know it’s not everyone’s thing, but I dunno-- it’s not so bad, for me.” It was harder to disappear, but maybe that wasn’t what she wanted anymore. Maybe she did want to be known, after being hidden for so long.

“Enhancements? Well, I mean, still! That’s amazing. I’m sure you made it infinitely better. And, well, yeah, thanks! I just kinda figured, what’s the point of life if you’re just living someone else’s, you know?” She gave pause at his last question. She did, in fact, have recommendations on all that. But they were Morgan’s family notebooks and the ones she’d dug up at the record hall and “borrowed” permanently. No one knew they were missing, not when she’d replaced them with fakes. She chewed her lip. “Uh, I mean, you could check town hall, if you wanted to. They might have some old newspapers or records that could tell you about that stuff. Does your family not have any books on that stuff in the library?” And little did she know, her own parents had records of that time. They’d been in White Crest longer than the town had a name, after all. She shrugged. “Sorry I can’t be more help there.” Her phone buzzed and she glanced down at it. “Oh, uh-- I-- I should probably get going, actually. I-- thanks again, you know, for talking to me and for holding onto that for Eddie for me.”

“I’m not exactly, uh — how do I put this? — affluent in that sort of thing, if I’m being honest,” Alfie chuckled. The hand holding his keys darted behind him to rub the back of his neck. Growing up, Nell tried her best to explain it to him, but the only thing Alfie could relate it to was his lessons on temperature control — and his innate ability to burst into flame. Aside from that, magic simply didn’t make sense to him. He always assumed it was something some were simply born with. These new-age witches and wiccans most likely accomplished nothing more than what any ordinary human was already capable of. Then again, what did he know? He figured it would be impolite to ask Bex whether or not she had any real powers. It wasn’t his business. 

Alfie nodded along as Bex spoke, failing to come up with anything valuable to add. Living in White Crest was a curse (at least for him), but he didn’t expect others to share that opinion. He wasn’t sure how far back his history with premature death went. All Alfie knew for certain was that the records he did have access to were set in the unusual town; none of which explained the source for his self-proclaimed “curse”. What he needed to find was something with the answer in bold print — a pissed off spellcaster rebuking one phoenix in particular. Or perhaps an astrological phenomenon occurring around the time of his birth or death. Not that Alfie knew the precise dates. 

“Yeah, I mean, the library definitely has some stuff,” he said sheepishly. “But, uh, thanks. I’ll have to give town hall a shot.” At that moment, Bex’s phone buzzed. Alfie hadn’t noticed the tension in his shoulders until then. “Oh, of course! Sorry, I didn’t mean to keep you.” He felt a little guilty for being relieved that Bex was leaving. He hated small talk. “It was great to finally meet you, Bex. I’ll make sure Eddie gets it as soon as he’s home. And, uh… be safe out there.”

[specterchasing-a]

Brainberry Picking || Morgan & Eddie

TIMING: Current-ish

LOCATION: Jericho Hill Cemetery

PARTIES: @mor-beck-more-problems​ & @specterchasing​

SUMMARY: A zombie and a medium meet in a graveyard, one of them might have a foot fetish.

CONTENT: Aside from the foot fetish, all is well.

“I just don’t see how you can have a whole existence that relies on human systems and communities--well people systems and communities and not give a crap just because you’ve been doing it for a long time,” Morgan complained, swilling her chopsticks around her brains and rice. “Aren’t we responsible for each other even if we’re three hundred and some baby normie is twenty? How can apathy be a good thing?” 

It was her off day from work, and rather than worry her family by spending the day cooped up inside, she opted to spend as much time outside as possible, even if being in hunting range made her nervous. But Jericho Hill was more ghostly than anything else, and the trusted the soldier to signal if he saw anything dangerous looking, even if he did talk a big game about being specater in the game of humanity, and the effects of longevity. He’d saved her and Erin. He had more of a heart than he wanted to admit, even for a centuries-old kid.

The colonial soldier shrugged and said that she should wait and see until she was older. 

“Okay, teen grandpa,” Morgan deadpanned.

The colonial soldier changed the subject by way of nodding toward her foot. Did she require assistance or was she really just that bad at noticing grievous injuries?

Morgan looked down at the chunks of broken bottle protruding from her toes. “Fucking--” She hissed and propped up her foot, starting to yank out the pieces one by one and wipe the black blood on her skirt so there wouldn’t be anything for hunters to find when they prowled at night. Her wounds would close up soon enough. As much as she wanted to sport as much extra strength as possible, she hadn’t figured out how to negotiate her fear of being caught off guard by some junior college murderer and the fear of not being herself. 

In the distance, stone scattered across the tall grass. Morgan stopped, mid tug, and looked around. “Hello?”

Jericho Hill, one of Eddie’s most beloved places to visit. The other cemeteries in town had their charm, but meandering among the derelict headstones of White Crest’s oldest burial ground came second to none. As per usual, he arrived with a camera—just in case. 

Eddie minded the graves as he wandered, making sure not to intrude on anyone’s final resting place. Midway through the graveyard, he spotted two figures with their backs to him in the midst of conversation. Considering Jericho Hill was open to the public, that would’ve been a perfectly ordinary occurrence, except one of the figures happened to be a colonial soldier far beyond his expiration date. Eddie’s heart skipped a beat at the possibility of encountering another medium but, as he grew closer, he noticed the potential medium doing something with her foot.

Raising his camera, Eddie slowed his pace and zoomed in on the woman’s feet for a better look. “Oh, what the fu—” He stumbled over a semi-interred rock, nearly losing his balance and dislodging the rock in one fell swoop.

“Hello?” said the woman. 

Eddie froze in place as if staying perfectly still made him invisible. Realizing she likely had very little in common with Spielbergian dinosaurs, he cleared his throat and waved sheepishly. “Beautiful day, huh? Hey—is your foot okay?”

Morgan stiffened at the sound of a voice nearby. She ran a dozen or so scenarios Mina had drilled into her. She was better at defense on account of nine more months of practice, but that didn’t mean she relished the thought of having to throw anyone to the ground or break any bones. 

But it was just some kid, looking like a peeping tom who’d been found out. 

“Is it a beautiful day?” She challenged. “Because being spied on doesn’t usually fall under my ‘beautiful day’ umbrella.” At the mention of her foot, she put hers back down and yanked as many pieces out under the cover of the grass as she could. “I’m fine. Why are you looking at my feet in the first place?”

“Hold on, don’t do that,” Eddie said with a shake of his head. “Don’t make me sound like some kind of graveyard-foot-pervert. Look at it.” He gestured towards the foot in question. “That’s not natural and neither is talking to ghosts—hey, by the way, nice to see you again, Terry.” The second half of his statement was directed at the colonial soldier and paired with another short wave.

“Hi, Eddie,” the ghost responded.

 “Y’know, I was just excited to meet someone else who could see them, but the whole black goo thing kind of threw me off my game.” Eddie’s attention reverted back to the woman currently picking at her foot. “Also, who eats in cemeteries? I’m just saying, let he who is not being super weird in public cast the first stone.”

Morgan didn’t know what to process first, having her injuries spotted by a Gen-Z wunderkind with a camera, the “not natural” thing, him seeing the ghost, or-- 

“Terry? Really? You tell him your name, but not me?” Morgan reached over and elbowed the soldier through his arm.

“A man has to keep some mystery with a pretty lady,” he replied, smirking through the gash in his face.

 “Now you’re just trying to clean it up. Did you see him coming too?” She turned back to the kid, Eddie apparently, and  tucked her feet under her skirt. “Whatever you are, you aren’t the only kind of person who can make friends with ghosts,” she said, miffed but starting to deflate. He had said he was excited. Excited people usually didn’t try to lop off your head. “And for your information, cemetery picnics have been a time honored tradition for centuries. The Victorians designed some of their cemeteries to be enjoyed like parks. And there’s a lot less---” Kids. Couples picnicking. Burger wrappers and empty slushie cups. Life. “Crowds, in a cemetery. I like the quiet. And the company. Sometimes.” She side-eyed Terry, who clutched his chest like he was wounded.

The conversation unfolding before Eddie left him feeling like a child seeing their parents get into an argument. He casually averted his gaze in an attempt to give them some semblance of privacy while they worked through their dispute. Before he knew it, the irate woman’s attention was back on him and he found himself wishing their argument would have gone on longer.

“That’s… actually very cool,” Eddie admitted, his brows raising in approval. “But, um, circling back to what you said about seeing ghosts—I’m a medium, I thought we were only ones with that specific privilege.” He couldn’t help feeling inadequate as he confessed his ignorance. Eddie dedicated his life to knowing about the supernatural, but he barely knew anything for certain. “Who else made the cut? Obviously, you don’t have to, like, tell me what you are, or anything. Not unless you want to, which would be stellar, but… I feel like I should know that kind of thing.”

 “Medium, huh?” Morgan said, sizing the kid up again. “I’ve met a few of you. Exorcists, mostly, but still. But, since you asked so nicely, all of the undead I’m aware of and some fae can see and hear ghosts. It seems to be a proximity to death sort of thing, but I don’t know how the metaphysics works.” She set her lunch aside and dropped her hand under her foot to finish picking out the glass, away from view. She was mostly sure he didn’t actually have some voyeuristic foot fetish, but that didn’t do much for her self-consciousness. It was one thing to patch herself up at home, or with dead people who didn’t care, but with strangers, she felt the wrongness of her body. It wasn’t neutral, it was batshit. “You must be some kind of death enthusiast too, though. Coming out here by yourself in the middle of the day? It’s not exactly the nicest cemetery in town. I hardly see anyone alive out here on my visits. Shouldn’t you be hustling or studying or having fun somewhere?”

Eddie’s eyes glistened with rabid enthusiasm at the mention of the undead and fae. He’d only recently learned about the existence of zombies, and his fae-knowledge severely lacked depth. And here this woman was, sounding like she knew a great deal about both.

“Hustling?” he repeated the word with bashful incredulity. “I mean, this is fun for me. Not to sound edgy, but I love the dead. The living are cool too, but… they’ve never felt like home, y’know? All my life, I’ve been surrounded by dead people that either needed my help, or who helped me. I like spending as much time with them as I can.” He tried not to watch as she covertly plucked at her foot. Curious as he was, he could do without further insinuation that he harbored some sort of affinity for feet. “Is that how you are?”

With the last of the glass picked out, Morgan went still and regarded Eddie more carefully. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d met a human who spoke so affectionately about the dead, and she wasn’t sure whether to be thrilled or concerned. “You talk about the living like you aren’t one of them,” she said. “I don’t meet too many humans that apathetic about who they are. But your ghosts--they were good to you? You weren’t ever scared?” But one revelation deserved a little something in return, and anyone that fond of the dead probably wouldn’t sell her out. Morgan pursed her lips as she thought her answer over. “I am recently un-humaned, yes,” she said. “A little over a year now. You could say making friends with death saved my un-life, but I had lots of other help too. Living-people-help.”

The stranger had a point—Eddie never felt like he belonged among the living—but never had the dissonance he felt been stated so bluntly. “I guess, yeah. The living are assholes, for the most part.” There were, of course, exceptions to that rule, but they were few and far between. “Most have been good to me, except…” Eddie shook his head gently. “They’re individuals too, can’t expect them to all be winners.” As she admitted to being undead, he looked at her with enraptured awe. “That’s… wow. I mean, first of all, I’m sorry for your loss. You’ve probably got a handle on things by now, but I’m sure that’s a pretty wild transition. And, I’m glad you had people to help you adjust, support systems are so important.” Eddie took a moment to center himself. “What’s the, uh, preferred terminology for your… condition? Also, wow, I should probably ask your name, huh? Like Terry said, I’m Eddie. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” He bowed his head slightly to punctuate his sentence.

“The living are individuals too, Eddie,” Morgan said. “And if you didn’t know about undead and fae seeing ghosts, I’m guessing you haven’t met many of the other living species of people out there. It doesn’t seem like a good idea to dismiss all of them out of hand. Or especially kind. Your ghosts were living once too, you know.” But Eddie’s vagueness piqued a troubling sense of familiarity in Morgan. Children didn’t tend to rely on ghosts if they had live people to take good care of them. “Those must have been some pretty shitty assholes to make you give up on everyone alive, human or not. I’m sorry for that, Eddie. Whatever happened to you, whoever was that cruel--I know how it can feel safer to just pull away and not risk yourself again, when you’ve suffered enough in a certain way. And I’m sorry.” She sighed and held out her hand to the kid, smiling sadly for both of them. “I’m Morgan Beck. You can refer to my ‘condition’ as zombie. But that’s classified. I don’t really enjoy having to fight for my existence. Not that a slayer won’t already know what I am on sight, but I’d rather they not get any extra help you know?” Her smile curled bitterly and she turned her eyes to the rest of the cemetery. “Are you really out here because it’s fun, Eddie…?” She asked quietly. “Or is it something else, too?”

When Eddie set out for Jericho Hill earlier in the day, he hadn’t expected a lecture. “Death changes a person,” he said softly after she reminded him that ghosts weren’t always memories. It didn’t take him long to realize the issue with his statement. “Preacher, choir.” He gestured first to himself, then Morgan as he assigned the labels. “You probably have a point.”

Eddie found himself nodding along with her condemnation of ‘shitty assholes’ initially, but he stilled when he heard her apology. His expression fell into unsure neutrality; he didn’t know how to respond. Strangers weren’t usually that kind, and they never read him like a book. It took him a moment to register her outstretched hand before he grasped it with his.

“Pleasure to meet you, Morgan Beck,” Eddie said, mirroring her sad smile. “Your secret’s safe with me. People like you shouldn’t be hunted, anyway.” Her question took some mulling over. Eddie didn’t particularly like being open and honest on that front. “Well, I mean, it is fun, but…” He trailed off with a sigh before shrugging. “Actually, that’s kind of bullshit. I can’t remember the last time I had fun—maybe with Bex or Alfie, but that’s different. Having fun with friends is easy but, when I’m alone…” Eddie shook his head and let out a terse sigh. “Are you, like, a psychiatrist or something? Analyzing brains by day, eating them by night.”

“What? Death changes you? No kidding,” Morgan deadpanned. “You can consider me an expert on both sides of the curtain,” she added more kindly. “Thank you. For your...Human-Plus allyship?” She wasn’t sure what to call it. She confided in so few humans these days. She had enough on her plate with her family as it was. 

She kept looking at Eddie, his battered hollowness and his resilient vitality. There was more than one way to be alive and dead, she supposed. “I’m an adjunct professor in the English department at the university,” she said. “But I spent my alive-time on earth literally cursed with suffering, and consequently spent a lot of time desperately wanting to get to know people and being afraid of getting too close, in case they got sucked into my magic bullshit. So I’m good at noticing things and I understand a lot. Like that feeling where you can be mostly okay when you’re with people, especially the ones you care about, but when it’s just you that feeling you’re running from is still there and it settles in. But we don’t have to talk about that, if it makes you uncomfortable. Also, I resent the suggestion that I eat people. I’m actually trying to hurt as few people as possible right now for reasons that have nothing to do with my appetite, which I monitor and manage very carefully. So I’d appreciate it if you didn’t do that again. You can tell me about how you know Bex, if you really want a change of subject.” Beaming at Eddie, she brought up her knees and let her head fall to rest on them and settled in. She’d given him a lot, but if he was friends with Bex, it was probably best he got used to the ride.

Eddie deserved her snark, even he could admit that. Despite his theorizing, fantasizing, and romanticizing—he didn’t know what it meant to be dead. Against better judgement, he envied Morgan and the way she straddled the line between life and death. It sounded ideal, at least on paper. “I strive to be a friend of the dead,” he said with a mild shrug. “Clearly, that doesn’t absolve me of insensitivity though, sorry about that.”

As she caught him up to speed on the source of her empathy, he listened with enraptured fascination. Eddie didn’t know the first thing about curses, but he liked to think he understood the loneliness she alluded to. “Sounds like you got saddled with a spectator role, that sucks. Most people aren’t built for that.” He hoped he wasn’t projecting, but he wouldn’t be surprised if that turned out to be the case.

“Shit—thanks for correcting me. I shouldn’t have made an assumption like that,” he admitted timidly when she kindly scolded him for his comment about brain-eating. His face lit up at the mention of Bex. “You know ‘er?” he asked, taking a seat in front of Morgan. Knowing she was familiar with someone like Bex instantly eased whatever lingering uncertainty he still felt. “We met pretty recently, I guess, but she’s the kind of person I feel like I’ve known a lot longer than I actually have, y’know?” 

Eddie wondered how much information was safe to bring-up, ultimately deciding to play it safe. “It was after… well, she’d just gone through something pretty awful, and I think I made things a little harder on her. Not on purpose, of course, I didn’t know, but… she was really kind to me, anyway. I think that goes to show how special she is.” He neglected to mention the magical mishap; maybe Morgan didn’t know that side of Bex. “How do you know her? If that’s alright to ask, I mean.”

“You weren’t built to be a spectator in your life either, Eddie,” Morgan said. “No one is. We are here to learn, to connect, to experience. What’s the point of being stuck in a body if not to feel? What’s the point of being surrounded by so much mess and beauty if not to learn as much as you can from it? It’s cruel to take it for granted. And it’s cruel to hurt someone in a way that they cut themself off from anything good they might find in their tiny little existence.” 

She fingered the tall, young grass as she spoke. She could never settle on a memory to give its strange, invisible touch more substance. When she was a child in Houston and her mother would send her into the yard to practice her alchemy, the grass was thick and sharp. It prickled her feet so badly she’d check her heels to see if they had cut her. They never did. So maybe the grass was like dull needles, or like tiptoeing around the rules, since she would often do her exercises slowly or skip steps on purpose so she could do them over again and make her time out last longer. Long enough to see the stars appear, but before the mosquitoes ate her up.

“But yes, I was really bad at keeping my distance,” she went on. “Which made for a lot of good experiences and a lot of hurt. Honestly, I wish I’d taken more risks, made more kinds of alive-memories to hold onto.”

She couldn’t help but beam at hearing the boy talk about Bex. Nothing he said was news to her, but it was nice to see her kindness reflected in someone else’s eyes. “Bex is staying with me right now. Has been for a while. Well, me and my girlfriend. We care for her as if she was ours, as best as we know how, anyway. So I know,” she grinned. “You’re not breaking supernatural club rules if you want to talk about her.”

Eddie wanted to agree with Morgan, to say that life was something precious and cherishable, but he couldn’t bring himself to lie. Death looked a lot more appealing to him whether or not he made a triumphant return as something a little less human. “Cruel or not, people do it anyway,” he said with a shrug. “I’m coping with it the only way I know how.” Granted, his coping looked a lot more like sabotaging. 

Eddie didn’t think much of the grass, it was just grass; everywhere and unextraordinary. All it had to offer him were stains, the thought of which made him shift uncomfortably. He felt that way about a lot of everyday life’s mundanities. They didn’t exist unless they caused a problem. Morgan had a point when she warned him against taking things for granted, but Eddie didn’t realize it. How could he?

“I bet that’s weird,” he said. “Everything changing, but also not. I don’t know much about zombies, obviously, but I know coming back is rough for a lot of ghosts. I’d tell you that there’s still time to take those risks, but I get the sense you didn’t come to Jericho Hill looking for silver linings. At least, not ones given to you by some random guy with a foot fetish.” He ended on a joke in the hopes that it might lighten the mood, praying she didn’t think he was serious.

A sigh of relief passed Eddie’s lips. “Beamed a heaping helping of trauma right into my head,” he explained. “She didn’t mean to, of course, and I’m not exactly mad about it, anyway. Knowing her is worth a little muss and fuss. That said, I learned my lesson. No more alleyways for Bex.”

“Eddie, and I mean this kindly, with the kind of empathy that comes from experience--” Morgan prefaced her words softly, giving Eddie a look that pitied and understood too well. “Putting all your attention on other people’s problems so you don’t have to look at your own doesn’t make them go away, or get smaller. A lot of the time it just makes them grow heavier and sink their roots deeper into you.” 

She reached out and gently flicked some of his long hair out of his eyes. “Worrying about me isn’t coping. What’s so bad about turning all this nice attention on yourself? I know people haven’t been kind, but whatever they said or did, they weren’t right about you. You deserve kindness. And love. Being here is hard enough without being cruel to yourself too. But--” She grinned wryly. “You didn’t come to Jericho Hill for a pep talk from a walking dead lady.” 

She picked up her Pyrex and ate the last bit of lunch and dusted herself off. “I’m going to go home and prep some raccoon bones for my next art project, if you want to come. Bex has some really great pieces she’s made too. But we know each other now, so I hope you won’t try and disappear just because I know what song you’re playing.”

Eddie listened as Morgan spoke. Meanwhile, his stomach twisted into anxious knots. He didn’t want to hear that putting others first wasn’t the answer. Tackling his problems head-on hurt too much, especially considering he rarely had help. “Yeah, so I’ve noticed.” His gaze fell to the ground. Eddie couldn’t bring himself to say more, it might inspire her to confront him with even more difficult truths. It was nice feeling like she cared, he didn’t expect that from someone he just met, but it was also heavy. 

Eddie let out a soft huff of laughter when she flicked a strand of his hair. Such a simple gesture, but the familiarity of it inspired a gush of affection. “Maybe not, but I’m glad that didn’t stop her from giving it to me anyway.”

“Are you kidding?” Eddie asked in disbelief, rising to his feet. “You’re a bone-art making, pep talk giving zombie with a weirdly comforting southern accent. Good luck getting rid of me, you’ll need it.”