#I don’t collect records anymore anyway but truly what was his deal.

[howlonghaveyoubeenseventeen]

I used to think I’ve never related to the “I think I know more about american girl dolls than you do genius” meme but then I remembered the truly insufferable man who worked at my local record shop and acted like I knew nothing about anything when I had been going there longer than he had.

[erisenyo]

“Oh fuck oh FUCK” + Zukka please!

For this prompt game! (And also this one!) (And this one too lol)

Zuko isn’t sure what posses him to actually say yes when the last hotel calls back to regretfully confirm that there will be no vacancies tonight and the cute mechanic lets up the truly over-the-top flirting to half-shyly offer Zuko a place to stay that night—

“Well, not my house,” Sokka—not Hakoda, going by the wince when Zuko had called him that, even though that’s what’s embroidered over his pocket—says, tugging on his wolf tail, “It’s my dad’s house. But he’s away!” Sokka says, excited and quickly tacking on when he seems to hear himself, “He’s helping out my Gran Gran! So I’m house-sitting! And keeping this place going—”

He waves a hand around the auto shop, making Zuko intensely curious about what Sokka does if not this all the time. He looks good in those overalls...

Not that Zuko has the chance to ask.

“—and so don’t worry, there’s plenty of space. I’m not suggesting you stay in my room—or, well, actually it is my room, but from when I was a kid, not you know, my room. I don’t live there anymore—”

Zuko wonders where he does live, if it’s close to the band’s recording studio, or any of their homes, and Ty Lee is always renting apartments all over the place maybe Zuko could—

“—but it’s still a totally good room still, like quiet but not creepily so, you know? And you can stay there. Or not! Absolutely no pressure, like obviously if you want to keep calling hotels or I mean I guess we could make up the couch in the office, though I wouldn’t recommend it," Sokka adds, frowning at the couch in question. "You end up with this really weird crick in your—”

“Yes,” Zuko interrupts, "Yes, a place to say would be great," he says, putting Sokka out of his misery. Even though he’s been enjoying the rambling train of Sokka’s thoughts all day, and he really shouldn’t impose, and Zuko might feel comfortable after so many hours of Sokka trying to figure out Zuko’s car but he doesn’t actually know the guy, and—

Sokka breaks into a grin, wide and pleased and clearly delighted and Zuko’s stomach flips the way it’s been doing all day and right. Right. That. That’s why Zuko said yes, even though he knows it’s stupid, even though it would be easier to just ask for the guy’s number even if as a rule Zuko doesn’t give out his own. Even though Mai would take one look at Sokka and give Zuko one of those knowing looks of hers and he hates being so predictable but shit, this guy is such his type.

Which means he’s not disappointed when Sokka says, “Awesome, dude! We can grab burritos on the way back!”

Dude.

And burritos.

But Zuko’s not disappointed, he’s not. He’s…relieved. To have a place to stay tonight that’s not a dubious-looking couch, or the back of his own barely-fits-two-people car. And to not be recognized—not that he ever is—because the last thing he needs on top of his car breaking down in the middle of nowhere, meaning he’s absolutely going to miss his flight—shit, Uncle is going to be so disappointed…—is to be dealing with fans.

Pestering him for info about the rest of the Dangerous Ladies, or trying to sniff out rumors about the relationships they’re all convinced are happening within the band, or hating him for breaking Mai’s heart as if it wasn’t mutual and years ago anyway. and they’re still in the band so clearly it’s fine, Mai didn’t even write that song, and—

And it’s fine. Zuko doesn’t even know what he was worried about in the first place. For someone with a massive facial scar, he's proven shockingly unrecognizable without a flaming guitar in his hands. Which is fine. Exactly how he likes it.

So what if he almost never gets his own posters of magazine covers? So what if he's tucked off to the side or in the back of all the official merch and the band has a running collection of all the albums and magazine covers and t-shirts that inexplicably end up with a price sticker over his and only his face?

It’s better than getting mobbed every time he leaves the house like Azula and getting pelted with rumors like Ty Lee and having his every expression scrutinized like Mai. It's better than having every outfit analyzed and every tilt of his head breathlessly redescribed and every photo and appearance and sighting on the street turned into screenshots and phone backgrounds and gif sets and spank bank material, better than everyone he meets tripping to fall into his bed and—

Really. It’s better.

“Here it is, the humble abode!” Sokka gives Zuko an uncertain flash of a smile as holds open the door, like he thinks someone who drives a Porsche so tricked out Sokka had had to psych himself up to actually touch it is going to judge a well-loved ranch house, which…well. Maybe isn’t such a bad assumption.

Zuko hastily makes sure his expression is set into something attentive and interested, his June is talking face, as Azula calls it.

“You’ve got your kitchen here,” Sokka says, flicking on a light to show the worn, comfortable-looking space. “Glasses are over the sink, snacks are in the fridge and in the tall cabinet if you need anything. There’s some leftovers in the freezer you can reheat, too, if you want. Oven, microwave, all the good stuff, you just, you know. Hit the buttons, and—”

And Sokka is clearly back to nervous rambling, because Zuko doesn’t think he’s going to need to eat for the rest of the week after finishing that burrito. A fucking burrito. Ugh, if there’s ever a less sexy food, and then to eat so much of it nervously pacing Sokka that Zuko actually contemplated whether he could subtly unbutton his jeans in the car…

“…and the bedrooms are this way, and the bathroom—it’s shared, sorry,” Sokka adds, glancing back to give Zuko an apologetic look. Zuko hastily jerks his eyes up off Sokka’s ass. “Probably not what you’re used to, I know. But it’s just you and me, so it won’t be too bad!”

“It’s perfect,” Zuko says, trying for a smile and blinking when Sokka just coughs, a blush staining his cheeks as he quickly gets back to his tour.

“Extra blankets and stuff are here,” Sokka says, rapping on a closed door. “Towels, pillows, the works. There should be some extra shampoo and soap and stuff in there too, if you need it.”

“Sounds like you have everything covered,” Zuko says, hearing the awkward edge of his words but still trying to reach for some of the joking, playful easiness of earlier today. “Quite the full-service auto shop you’re running.”

“Uh…yeah.” Sokka freezes a little, eyes wide, which…great. Zuko isn’t surprised he missed the mark, but still. He thought he’s at least better these days than when Azula firmly told him he was no longer allowed to speak in interviews until he could be sure he wasn’t going to end up in another bloopers reel.

“Anyway!” Sokka finally says, shaking himself, his voice coming out suddenly squeaky, which— “Here’s your room, have a good night, make yourself comfy I’ll seeyoutomorrow!”

Zuko blinks again, nonplussed. Did Sokka just...run away? In his own home?

"That's that then," Zuko sighs ruefully—the flirting had been so outrageous that Zuko couldn’t quite believe it was actually real, so—giving the closed door Sokka had disappeared behind one last look before slipping into his room.

Which is very much a teenager’s room, holy—Zuko nearly laughs as he realizes why Sokka was so quick to make that clear. And a well-lived in one, at that, LEGOs on the shelves and cheap trophies for science fairs lined up across the dresser, half-faded posters and clipped-out pictures tacked over the walls and old art supplies still scattered over the desk.

It's cluttered and eclectic and...cute. Cute in the same way Sokka is cute, and he’d probably hate being called that which just makes Zuko want to do it even more, Zuko’s lips curled again into the little smile he feels like he's been wearing all day as he sprawls back on the neatly-made twin bed and immediately makes eye contact with himself.

On the ceiling.

Shirtless.

Life-sized.

Zuko’s mind immediately supplies the details—that Rolling Stones cover shoot for their third album, right before Zuko had turned twenty, when he was still somehow managing to keep up his martial arts training because who needed sleep, definitely not him. He and Ty Lee had been goofing off while Mai and Azula got their makeup finished, flexing their muscles and trying to out-flexible each other and the photographer had loved it and had them run with it, who could pose the most creatively with the most outrageously flexed muscles and —

Zuko slowly closes his mouth and rapidly reconsiders that whole ‘not recognized’ thing...

--

Sokka is giving his teeth the most thorough, most frustrated brush of his life—ugh, burritos. Why did he suggest burritos—when he nearly chokes on his toothpaste as he suddenly realizes that he just put Zuko Hua in his— “Oh fuck. Oh fuck.”

Oh…fuck.

Katara is never going to let him live this down.

He is so, so fucked.

[stardust-walker]

World on Fire {Loki X Sigyn!Reader}

Summary: Sigyn was supposed to have died almost 100 years ago. A peace mission to Migard gone wrong and she had never returned. Everyone had thought she was dead until Loki is shown someone who looks too familiar when he comes to Earth on a mission. Sharon Odell. Shannon Orwell. Sidney Orwell. No matter what name she goes by, it’s all the same. Now that Gods and heroes are real, there’s no use hiding who she really is anymore.

TLDR; Sigyn has been hiding on Earth for like 100 years and gets sucked into being on the Avengers. A series based around the one-shot I did titled Undying Fidelity.

Chapter 1

They had been on the move for a couple days by the time they got to settle down. It definitely wouldn’t be long seeing how Loki seemed determined to recruit an army and lucky for him, SHIELD had no lack of enemies.

Unlucky for him, they worked faster than him.

“Jane Foster has been moved off the grid, sir. No record of her for the past few days,” Clint grumbled as he continued to click through the files of the people that SHIELD had decided were interesting enough to keep an eye on.

Selvig sighed and shook his head.

“Can you not do this on your own, doctor?” Loki frowned as he drummed his fingers on the handle of the scepter that he wouldn’t let out of his sight.

Selvig perked up. It could have been from nerves or excitement, the god wasn’t sure. “Of course, Loki. The Tesseract has shown me...so much about how it works! We should be able to share it with other people, don’t you think?”

Loki could practically feel the Other breathing down his neck as they spoke. He didn’t answer this time, at least not with words. Instead, he let out an annoyed sort of grunt as his eyes flickered over towards the Tesseract. Perhaps it would be helpful to have someone else in case he had to dispose of Selvig at one point or another. The human life-span was so different from his own so who was to say if the man got too old to serve his purpose.

“What about Sidney?” Clint spoke up again as he looked up from the tablet that he had been focused on for the past few minutes. This seemed to peek the older man’s interest; Loki just turned his gaze towards the archer and waited for him to continue. “She’s almost as good as Jane with the astrophysics, right?”

Loki had to stop himself as he nearly physically cringed at the mention of Thor’s Midgardian love.

“Almost?” Selvig laughed. “If she hadn’t disappeared off of the map 3 years ago, she would have made a real name for herself. Sidney Orwell was one of the brightest interns that Jane had...until Darcy, anyway.”

“What use is another individual of your specialty if they all can’t be found,” Loki said through gritted teeth.

“She can be found.” Clint assured them as he turned the tablet to face the other two men. “This was from last week. A convenience store pretty close to Gainesville, New York. It’s in the middle of nowhere. Population below 500. A good place for someone who doesn’t want to be found. Running diagnostics now!”

Loki leaned forward slightly. His facial features didn’t betray the interest that he felt as he took in as many details of the woman’s face as he could from the grainy security footage.

She looked young, but that wasn’t saying much. Many Midgardians would say he looked young as well. Her face was too blurry to really make out any details until a little box popped up in the corner of the screen.

“That’s a match!” Selvig shouted a few inches from Loki’s ear, but the god couldn’t be bothered. 

He could see the woman’s face a lot more clearly now as the identification picture popped up on the screen beside a clearer version of the security footage. Loki’s head began to ache the longer he looked at the pictures. Something looked too familiar. Maybe it was the slope of her nose or the cheekbones, but something itched at the back of his brain. With one last fleeting glance, he spotted it and his breath stopped. 

Without another thought, he rose to his feet and gritted his teeth. His grip on the scepter tightened as he turned away from the two SHIELD employees.

“Bring her to me.”

It was always a sort of special occasion when Sidney would leave her secluded little cabin and head into Gainesville in order to stock up on some essentials. The man behind the counter knew her by name as he knew everyone in the town. Sidney was always polite and pleasant but never revealed anything about herself. People in town tried their hardest not to talk to the woman that secluded. Some of the kids in town whispered about her being a witch. Sidney had heard a group of them once when she was headed home and she couldn’t help but smirk at them.

Today was different. The air felt thick and the cellphone that she carried in her pocket felt heavier than usual. A weary smile crossed her face as she set the few containers of ramen noodles on the counter with the rest of her items. “Hey there, Ben. How’s your mom doing this week?”

“Oh she’s doing great, Miss Orwell!” The younger man flashed her a bright smile as he rang up her items. “Should be back runnin’ the store in no time. About time too, I don’t think my nerves could handle it anymore.”

Sidney laughed quietly as she paid her total, “I’ll keep that between us.”

She was already in her own world again as she collected her bags and made her way to the car. As she slammed her trunk closed, a vibrating noise in her purse drew her attention. Her hand flew to her back pocket and she found her cellphone was still there, That meant…

The blonde hurried into the car and pulled a smaller black phone out of her bag as she tossed her normal phone onto the passenger seat. 

Selvig. Her throat felt dry for some reason as she looked at the caller ID on the SHIELD issued phone. That had been part of the deal she’d made with Fury. She should have known better than to trust him and SHIELD after everything that had happened with Thor. Saved by the bell, she sighed out loud as the call went to her voicemail.

As she put the car in reverse, she took a deep breath before she began on her journey home. Her right hand shifted the car into drive again as her left hand entered the passcode to her voicemail.

“Sidney! It’s Erik. I don’t even know if this is still your number but give me a call when you get a minute. I have really important questions for you!”

“Why don’t you just ask Jane,” Sidney sighed as she clicked a button before she tossed the phone back into her bag. 

Still, she couldn’t shake the nagging sensation that something was wrong. 

Her suspicions were solidified as she came within eye-sight of her cabin a few miles later. An unmarked black car was parked on the side of the road just a half-mile away from her house and people were inside. The hair on the back of her neck stood up as she white-knuckled it down her driveway. 

“You’re losing it, Si.” The blonde took a deep breath through her nose before she looked in her rearview mirror. The car had pulled off the side of the road and followed her now. “Well son of a bitch.”

Somehow, she managed to keep her demeanor calm as she put the car in park and walked to her door with her head held high. Sidney tried not to shudder as she heard the black car roll up closer down the driveway. She was safe in her house now but her eyes scanned the room quickly. She needed an escape route just in case and she found it just as a loud bang bang shook the door behind her.

“Just a minute,” she threw her voice as she grabbed a small swiss army knife off of her kitchen table and stuffed it one of her back pockets along with her SHIELD phone. Sidney took a deep breath and she opened the door.

“Oh! Hello, gentleman,” she flashed the two suited men a disarming smile as she peeked her head out. “How can I help you?”

“Sidney Orwell?” The shorter of the two asked. The blonde just nodded her head. “I’m Agent Downey and this is Agent Evans. We’re with SHIELD. You’re going to need you to come with us.”

“Is that supposed to mean something to me?” Sidney narrowed her eyes slightly as she glanced between the two men. “I don’t work for you. In fact, part of my deal with Fury was that he would let me live in peace if I let him keep an eye on me so I suggest you get back in your car and you leave.”

She went to push the door shut but a force stopped her. Anger flared through her as she wrenched the door open and stood to her full height. “I’m afraid we can’t do that, miss. We have orders.” Her eyes shot to the taller man. A shiver went down her spine this time as she locked eyes with him. There was something not right about it. “Erik Selvig requests your presence.”

“I don’t know Selvig was in a position to make requests of me,” she replied coolly.

“Everything could be explained if you just let us inside, ma’am.”

Sidney glanced over her shoulder into the kitchen for a moment before she stepped aside to let the two agents inside.

She closed the door behind them and quickly turned to face them. Everything about them just seemed...off. She was used to SHIELD agents and how they acted but there was something truly off about these two.

Time seemed to stand still and then all at once, everything was moving. The shorter man’s hand shot to the taser on his belt as the taller man pointed his gun at her. She hadn’t even realized she had the knife in her hand now. “Everything will be so much easier if you just come with us!” 

“Go to hell,” Sidney hissed through gritted teeth.

“The Tesseract can show you so many things.”

 Her eyes widened slightly. “What the hell did you just say?”

She didn’t get an answer. Instead she ducked as the probes of the taser embedded themselves in the door where her neck had been moments before. A yell left her as she jumped to her feet and tossed the knife at the taller man. The shorter one made a move to grab her as his partner screamed and cursed her as he tried to wrench the knife out of his hand. The woods were right there. Sidney cleared her mind as she dodged another punch from the shorter man. The man looked slightly shocked just as she punched him in the chest and sent him flying across the room. 

Without another thought, she pulled the front door open and sprinted for the woods. 

She had no idea how long she ran for. It could have been minutes or it could have been hours; all she knew was that by the time she stopped running, her lungs ached. Sidney nearly jumped out of her skin as she felt something. The cellphone in her back pocket was vibrating.

Her fingers shook as she pulled it from her pocket and answered without thinking.

“Listen you bastards if you think-”

“I see our intelligence wasn’t quite up to par on this information. I apologize, Miss Orwell,” a somewhat cheerful voice on the end cut her off. Sidney never thought she could be so happy to hear someone’s voice in her life.

“There better be a good reason why some of your agents showed up to my house unannounced talking about the Tesseract of all things, Phillip,” Sidney’s eye darted around the forest once again.

She could hear Coulson say something to someone else in the background before he replied. “Some of our agents have been...compromised.” He even sounded like he was cringing. “We were calling because we need your help.”

“I-”

“I know all about your deal, Sidney. Fury fully intends to honor it once the fate of the Earth isn’t in danger.”

Sidney swallowed hard as she started to walk again. “I want that in writing this time, Coulson,” she deadpanned.

“I’ll see what I can do. For now, just do me a favor. Walk North for about another 10 minutes. We’ll have a jet waiting for you.”

The line went dead before she could even reply.

[abybweisse]

Why I don’t think reapers are reborn as reaper babies. First and foremost, it would be extremely inefficient for (always understuffed) dispatch to wait for baby reapers to grow up. I think that their soul is taken for judgment and transferred to a “new-old” body. Their mortal remains are left in the living world and the “new body” might be created from “matter” of some kind by the higher-ups. (1)

Well, who says the bureaucracy of the reaper organization is necessarily efficient to begin with? I see no reason to believe it’s run as smoothly as they like to think. Besides, part of my theory is that waiting for new reaper baby bodies to become available and for new reapers to grow up enough to be recruited by the organization would help to explain why they are so understaffed in the first place. Another reason why the collections department, specifically, might be understaffed is that not everyone who is recruited and trained has the aptitude for soul retrieval. William is probably only talking about his own department of the London branch.

And not having many female reapers around also helps to explain why some male reapers (particularly in soul collection) start flirting with human females, like we have seen Ronald do at least twice in manga canon. If the rebirth theory turns out to be true, and if Undertaker also ends up being Cedric, then reaper males reproducing with human females would also be considered an act to undermine the whole reaper organization. After failing to destroy the reaper HQ around 1819, Undertaker might have considered several other ways to weaken the organization. Reducing the available staff, over time, is one way (among others) to do that.

Your suggestion about the “new-old” bodies is a possibility; I just haven’t seen any real evidence either in favor of that or against my rebirth/karmic reincarnation theory. I’d be very curious to know what people in the fandom who support the “new-old body” theory think the materials come from, how and where the bodies are made, etc.

Real people definitely commit suicide at different ages, and I think it’s no different in the Kuroverse, but my rebirth theory takes note of how all the new recruits in the “Story of Will the Reaper” OVA look to be about the same age, perhaps 18 or so years old. My rebirth theory also suggests they age very slowly... and that people like Lawrence “Pops” Anderson would count as evidence that some reapers (perhaps all of them) have to go through their punishments for an immensely long period of time. It could even be used as possible evidence that the promise of salvation is not true....

Hair length isn’t dependent upon how long they have been reapers, as Othello has been there longer than Grelle and William, and Grelle’s hair is much longer than Othello’s. And William has been there longer than reapers like Ronald, but Ronald’s hair is longer than William’s. Hair length is about personal style... if not an indicator of “power” as a reaper.

Undertaker has bags under his eyes, and they were not there before. Not even when he first revealed himself to be a reaper.

Yes, statistically, more males commit suicide than females. This would cause even more of a problem of being understaffed... if their society/organization relies on female reapers to supply more reaper babies/bodies. I wouldn’t say it’s unrealistic, though I agree it’s somewhat misogynistic. Who says the reaper realm isn’t just as misogynistic as the human realm tends to be? I have a strong feeling that attitudes in the different branches of the reaper realm reflect the regions they come from/work for. Even though their technology is more advanced, their thinking about gender roles might not be. Furthermore, if you advance their society 50 — even 100 — years, the reaper realm would still reflect a largely misogynistic human realm/society. In the Kuroverse, the German branch might be more open to female reapers collecting souls, etc., since we see how the human realm has several women in the German military — Sieglinde’s mother was a chemist, and the female villagers were soldiers. We don’t have a canon sex or gender confirmed for Sascha, so 🤷🏻‍♀️. Any rules there might be for the roles female and male reapers play in the reaper organization might be entirely dependent upon the branches where they work.

One point you are categorically wrong about: we actually do know that female reapers work various office jobs in the organization, and that’s not just mentioned in the anime, where Ronald is shown chatting up (presumably) female reapers in some department at HQ. In the manga, we haven’t had a scene like that, but Ronald mentions something similar... when he’s talking about getting modifications approved for his death scythe.

But, since they do canonically have secretarial/desk jobs within the reaper organization, this is just further evidence that the reaper realm (or at least the London branch) is still a misogynistic society, even if it’s ahead of the Victorian views about females/women. Because when females/women first entered the corporate world, it was typical for them to be secretaries or low-paid office workers.

We don’t really know what’s important or not important to the story. Most of this is the fandom trying to figure that out as we go.

I agree with you about this: I also highly doubt that the promise of redemption is true.

Some form of “disposal” could easily be the case, but that could just as easily be true for the “rebirth/karmic reincarnation” theory as it would be for the “new-old bodies” theory.

My theory includes using (at least parts of) their old human cinematic records, along with their old human souls, when making reaper babies. The whole business of putting souls into human babies to begin with is such a mystery that how it would be done with reaper babies is allowed to remain just as ridiculously mysterious. How they add snippets of a cinematic record from a previous life is the least mysterious part about it: whoever does it uses more precise techniques than Undertaker first did with his early bizarre dolls. His latest ones don’t seem to have stitches across their foreheads anymore. Bizarre doll Ciel did... at first... but doesn’t seem to anymore; a fresh blood supply might help explain that. Well... what do you think happens with the blood supply of a developing fetus? It’s cleaned and replenished by the mother....

The more I think about Undertaker’s methods in creating bizarre dolls, the more I think he’s basically learning, through trial and error, how to do things that the “superiors” or the gods can do. And I believe that’s true, regardless of which reaper creation theory is right. Either they are souls trapped in “new-old bodies” or they are reincarnated into reaper babies; it doesn’t matter too much to him because he really only has pre-existing bodies to deal with. Mating with human females gives you humans with some reaper traits... but does not give you reapers. What happens if Undertaker figures out how to combine a human body with a different (but closely-enough “shaped”) soul? We might just find out, at some point.... Anyway, he’s basically using and improving upon tidbits of stollen technology, which is a huge Mother game series parallel. Not just Mother3, but the entire series. (Maybe try #george in my blog for more on that.)

You said it. Reapers need to eat and sleep; that’s canon. Why wouldn’t they also be able to reproduce? To me, this is evidence in favor of “rebirth/karmic reincarnation”. The same could potentially be true for “new-old bodies” theory. (It doesn’t really make sense if reapers are dead and walking around in their original bodies, though. Very little of what we now know about reapers still works with the idea they are walking corpses that have been reanimated with their own, old souls. Particularly since some suicide methods would completely destroy the body.)

Sebastian says reapers are much like gods, or that they are something between gods and humans. But what, truly, does a demon know about the nature of reapers? Does he even know about their eating and sleeping requirements?

For that matter, what do reapers truly know about demons?

Reapers and demons might simply “know” about each other what they have witnessed and what they have been told. There’s a good chance they believe several false truths about each other. Quite possibly by design. I imagine the gods prefer to keep it that way....

And these are just my thoughts and theories, too. They have changed quite a bit over the roughly 6 years I’ve been in the Kuroshitsuji fandom, and I realize they might change again... as we get more canon information about reapers, demons, “superiors”, the gods, and even humans in the Kuroverse. I try to take a scientific approach to this, in that I’m willing to change my beliefs in light of new evidence. So, I do try to respect other opinions and theories, but I will reject what doesn’t match the evidence. Like I said, some of my own views and theories have changed over the years. Often, those changes start with theories presented by others in the fandom.

Either of us could be correct, at this point, and only time (and future chapters) will tell us which theory is right... if either is... and if Yana-san chooses to even explain how suicide victims are “turned into” reapers. 😅 Honestly, we might never know. 🤦🏻‍♀️

I’m glad you enjoy my blog, even if you don’t always agree. I tend to enjoy the blogs of theorists I don’t always agree with, too. The discussions can be very eye-opening!

It took a while for me to reply, but I definitely wanted to give it a proper response.

Cheers! 🍻

[cheri-translates]

[CN] Kiro’s Dessert Date (Eng Translation)

🍒 Warning: This post contains detailed spoilers for a date which has not been released in English servers! 🍒

Acquaintance Collection: Gavin // Lucien // Victor

Kiro once told me that when Savin shuts the door while holding a weighing scale, a great tragedy is about to occur.

Savin: Kiro, it’s time to measure your weight.

Savin takes out a small book and flips to the page featuring a record of Kiro’s weight.

With a firm look in his eyes, Kiro steps onto the electronic scale. After the numbers stop blinking, he has an expression of relief.

Savin: Mm. Not bad.

Kiro turns to look at me, making a small triumphant pose.

Savin: However… even if you maintain your current weight, there will be a dessert-themed photoshoot soon. To achieve best results, your body fat percentage still needs to go down a little. Maintain your exercise regimen and watch your diet.

Kiro casts a glance at the tidbit shelf and releases a small sigh, his shoulders slumping.

Kiro: Mm, I understand.

Savin pats his shoulder, opens the door and leaves.

MC: So strict…

Kiro: It can’t be helped. Celebrities need to manage their bodies strictly. You can’t blindly lose weight nor let yourself go. This isn’t just to maintain our image, but also to set a good example to the fans.

Kiro explains seriously. Suddenly thinking of something, he shoots me a cheeky grin.

Kiro: Miss Chips, why don’t we… train together?

MC: Eh?

Kiro: We enjoy eating tidbits together. Isn’t it time to suffer together as well?

MC: …

Kiro: Whether it’s exercising or eating, having two people supervising each other will make it more effective. Am I right?

MC: It does make sense if you put it that way…

Kiro: Didn’t Miss Chips say that she wanted to get fit? Isn’t this the best opportunity?

As he speaks, he blinks his eyes towards me. I can’t find a reason to reject him.

MC: Since you’re so persuasive, I shall “lay down my life”!

I exaggeratedly raise a fist and swing it in the air. Kiro smiles as he lifts his hand gently meeting my knuckles.

Kiro: Deal! Let’s take care of each other over the next duration, Miss Chips.

~

MC: This… this is almost the end right? I can’t do it anymore…

I ask while panting, struggling to remain on the treadmill.

On this weekend evening, I am with Kiro in the fitness room to train instead of staying at home.

Kiro: Keep going for a while more. After this run, we can rest.

Kiro’s breathing is much steadier than mine. He even turns his head to smile at me, cheering me on.

MC: How is your… stamina… this good… huff…

I do my best to control my breathing in order to say these words.

Kiro: Stamina is something necessary on stage. During concerts, you still need to maintain the quality of the singing while dancing, right? In order to have consistent breathing and to ensure that I wouldn’t get fatigued during the concert, I have to train for a very long time. Even though I’m not that muscular, don’t underestimate my stamina!

He smiles and points to himself. I can sense that those easy words hide a lot of sweat and effort behind them.

Kiro: Keep going, Miss Chips. It’s the final thirty seconds. I’ll do a countdown for you!

I clench my fists, getting through the final few seconds. Each second feels like a year.

MC: Huff… huff… I can’t continue…

Kiro ends his countdown, and I slide off the treadmill.

MC: I feel like… my legs no longer belong to me… huff…

Kiro: This is for you - it’s salt water. It’s important to restore water and salt content in the body after exercising. Miss Chips is amazing! You’ve successfully ran with me for an hour.

I take the water bottle and follow Kiro’s instructions, drinking the water in sips.

MC: Do you always exercise like this?

Kiro: Yeah, this regimen is nothing to me!

Even though I’m supposedly exercising with Kiro, I know that my regimen is much more relaxed than his.

Thinking of my hard work and fatigue over the past few days which can’t be compared to his daily work, I feel a sense of respect for him.

MC: Kiro, do you ever feel very tired, or feel like you can’t go on?

Kiro: Of course.

Kiro answers in an instant.

Kiro: Mm, but these emotions will only stay for a while. When I think of all my fans and how I decided to take this path, I will keep persevering no matter what. And I have to do it. Being able to see my fans enjoy the concert, or any other performance, is worth much more than anything else.

They finish chatting, and continue with training.

~

Kiro invites her to the actual photoshoot.

In front of me, there are several big plush bears. There are also soft pink cushions. It looks like a scene from a fairytale.

A few cakes and desserts have been prepared, probably due to “sweets” being the theme of the photoshoot. Even the air has a whiff of sweet cream.

MC: Is this photoshoot going down the sweet and cute route?

Right after hearing my question, I see Kiro looking at me a little slyly, followed by a “shh” posture.

Kiro: Just wait and see.

Photographer: Kiro, can we start the photoshoot?

Kiro: Anytime. I’m all prepared.

Kiro’s voice changes to a serious and confident one.

Photographer: Let’s try a few shots first. We’ll follow the style and feel as mentioned before.

Kiro nods, walks next to the plush bear and sits down, leaning onto it.

In the blink of an eye and a few simple movements, the expression in his eyes changes. That sunshine boy gives off a lazy aura, and even carries with him an aggressive charm.

It’s technically still Kiro, but he has changed completely.

Photographer: The aura is just right!

Kiro lifts a knee, holding up a slice of cake.

Photographer: Very good! Could you be… slightly sexier?

Kiro nods, lying down a little more. The originally loose shirt follows his movements and gets pulled up even more, revealing his sculpted abdominal muscles.

Photographer: Perfect!

Kiro looks at the cake in his hands and lifts the corner of his lips slightly.

He maintains his earlier pose, bringing the cake to his lips. He opens his mouth, sticks out his tongue slightly, and bites into the cake.

For the sake of the cameras, his action of eating the cake is deliberately slow.

Every movement and every bob of his Adam’s apple is captured by the camera.

The pink decorations in the background and furry plush toys surprisingly enhance his look of aggressiveness.

Those blue eyes look straight into the camera - shimmering, as though encompassing the sky and the sea.

Kiro: How does it look? Are there any adjustments to be made?

Kiro enters a serious discussion with the photographer, checking every aspect. He seeks perfection in everything - from the lighting, to the actions, to the composition and to the aperture.

Sensing my eyes on him, Kiro shoots me a grin, then continues communicating with the staff. They begin the next round of photoshoots.

~

Kiro: Thanks for all of your hard work today!

After the photoshoot, Kiro stretches and moves his body. Noticing that he has some cream at the side of his lips, I point to my own lips to signal to him.

He reacts quickly, wiping off the cream on his mouth.

Kiro: Is it still there?

MC: There’s still a little bit, let me get you a tissue…

Kiro: No need to trouble yourself.

Before I open my bag, Kiro has already stuck out his tongue, licking the cream off.

MC: [blushes]…

Kiro: Why is Miss Chips’ face a little red?

MC: N-nothing… since today’s shoot is over, are you allowed to relax and eat your favourite foods now?

Kiro: Mm, I’ve already prepared a list in my head. The first thing I want to eat is…

Interviewer: Hello Mr Kiro, I’m a reporter from TV. I’ve spoken to your agency… sorry, am I interrupting something?

Kiro: Hello, I’ve heard about it from the agency. I’ll go through with the interview.

Kiro signals MC to wait for him.

Interviewer: In the shoot, you were able to merge both an atmosphere of maturity and sweetness. May I ask what was going through your mind during the shoot which enabled you to exude such a look of addiction in your eyes?

Kiro: Mm, well… I was actually doing my best to express my love for desserts and tidbits!

Kiro smiles, and for a moment, no one is able to tell how serious his words are, or whether he is just kidding.

Reporter: Could I get you to elaborate further?

The reporter pauses before laughing, and then probes further.

Kiro: In order to do this photoshoot, I had live without tidbits for a long duration. I had a strict diet to comply to, and also went through a tougher training regimen to ensure the photoshoot would have best results. When I think about all these things that I love but cannot eat, I’d naturally have a look of desire.

Photographer: So that’s what happened. That’s truly unique.

The interview goes on, so MC offers to help out with tidying the place.

Kiro: So you’re here.

I turn around at the sound of Kiro’s voice behind me.

Kiro: Where did you run off to just now? You were gone in a blink of an eye.

MC: I saw how busy the staff members were. Since I’m here, I might as well lend a hand. Are you done with your interview?

Kiro: Mm, the interview went very smoothly. The article should be published in a few days. You have to look at it when it comes out!

Seeing me pulling on the plush toy prop, Kiro naturally lends a hand to lift it up, and carries it with me.

Kiro: What does Miss Chips think of this photoshoot?

MC: It’s very cool, as expected of Kiro.

Kiro: [laughing] Haha, what kind of an answer is that! I even thought you’d give me some feedback.

MC: In short, it’s very cool! Every single fan of yours will be captivated for sure.

Kiro: Every single fan?

He asks me seriously, his eyes bright.

MC: Of course…

After I speak, I realise that I once said that I was his fan as well. I suddenly feel slightly embarrassed.

MC: Anyway… you asked me to wait for you. Is there something you want to tell me?

Kiro: Mm, it’s a very important thing…

Kiro walks to the side, takes the prop cake, and puts it on a small table in front of me.

Kiro: Want to have this cake with me? I tried it just now – it’s not just visually appealing, but it tastes really good. It’s appropriate as a prize!

Looking at my inaction, he takes my hand, and hands me a big slice of cake.

Kiro: Try it? You’ve been following the strict training regimen as well.

Looking into his clear eyes, I can’t help but take a bite.

MC: Delicious!

Kiro: Right!

My tastebuds are very sensitive, probably because it’s been a long time since I’ve eaten something sweet. As such, I’m able to differentiate the creamy mellow and dense taste.

MC: Mm! Extremely delicious!

Kiro: Let’s split the remaining cake between the two of us.

I watch as Kiro takes up a slice of cake, and I can’t help but smile.

Thinking back to the past few days of interaction, I feel like I’m understanding him a little better.

[tefanfics]

Primaba11era said: From the song prompts, can I please request Bruises with Taron? If it’s already been requested, just send me a message and I’ll choose another one. Thank you love❤️

Bruises by Lewis Capaldi

I really recommend listening to the song while reading. This song really resonates with me and I’m glad someone requested it. As tough as this one was, I do hope you all enjoy it.

Also, for the first time:

Trigger warning: depression, anxiety, thoughts of suicide

——————

The first few days weren’t easy but they didn’t compare to weeks without him.

You tried your hardest to keep distracted, relying on work and your friends to throw yourself into. But it wasn’t enough. No matter what you did your mind raced and took you back to that night.

It was the worst fight you and Taron had ever had. It had been a screaming match. Each time one you raised your voice, the other matched it. You had resorted to throwing things- not at Taron but just throwing. You had never seen him look so angry before but worst of all, he was hurt.

And then he said it. “Maybe we should take a break.” It took you by surprise. Not just the words but the way he said it. His voice was quiet but steady. How could he say it so easily? How could he be okay with it? Had he already decided on this long ago? The thoughts flurried before you could start to argue.

Taron left the room and collected some things. He left with a kiss on the cheek and disappointment in his eyes.

You shook yourself from the memory as you tried to focus on your friend.

“Just forget about him, Y/N. It’s his loss anyway.”

“We didn’t break up. It’s just- just a break,” you argued.

The look of pity in your friend’s eyes was enough to let tears well in your eyes as you forced yourself to look away.

“Whatever. I keep trying to help and I don’t know. It’s almost like you don’t want it.”

You heard the chair scrape as your friend stood up, soon followed by footsteps. You stayed in your spot in the small cafe and let your mind run wild. You could remember times of sharing this same table with Taron. How he’d reached across the circular, wooden table and grab your hand. His thumb would always move back and forth across the top of your hand. You could always count on him to meet your gaze whenever you looked up from your phone or book.

As you sat there now, you slowly reached across the table. Just to pretend. Just to try and see if you could remember the warmth from his hand.

The front door opened and you jumped, retracting your hand back to your lap as your heart raced. You looked at the door, finding who walked in. You hadn’t realized you were holding your breath until you knew for sure it wasn’t Taron who had entered.

Back in your apartment wasn’t much different. It was your shared apartment with him after all. Every time you rounded the corner, you expected to see Taron. Maybe he’d be on the sofa his phone in his hand and the record playing spinning on the table beside him. Or maybe he’d be in the office with a book spread out in front of him. Maybe you’d find in the kitchen, asking what you’d like for dinner even though he had already decided and has retrieved all the ingredients.

On the sofa, you laid down and pulled one of the decorative pillows down and put it in Taron’s usual spot just to pretend you were laying your head on his lap. You missed the feel of his fingers running through your hair and brushing against your scalp. If you shut your eyes, you could almost imagine it.

Your phone buzzed and pulled you from your imagination. You checked and read a message from your mom. She was checking in, seeing how you were holding up. You answered truthfully and waited. When the phone rang, you held it to your ear.

“Hi mom,” you murmured. It was comforting to hear her voice. It was hard to focus though, sometimes tuning out as she spoke. She told you she loved you before hanging up, the last couple of things she had said ringing in your ears.

“A bubble bath might do you some good. Draw some warm water and relax, sweetie.”

So you did. You pulled you off the sofa and away from the thought of resting against Taron. You disappeared into the bathroom. You turned the water on and let it warm up, testing it by running you hand under the faucet. When you decided it was warm enough, you put the plug in the drain before finding your favorite bubble bath. It was coconut scented. You could almost hear Taron telling you how you smelled like a tropical vacation as the scent hit your nose. 

The same wave of sadness crashed again as you began to undress and lowered yourself in the tub. You slid the bathtub caddy toward you and put your phone down. Soft music filled the empty air as you attempted to relax. 

With your head resting against the back of the tub, you shut your eyes. You tried to clear your head and let yourself breathe. But no matter how hard you tried, it wasn’t enough. Your mind was racing and swirling, throwing thoughts into the spotlight one after another until one stuck.

How much easier would it be if I wasn’t here?”

You felt your lower lip quiver as the thought repeated. Then you began to justify it. Your friend was clearly annoyed earlier. She expected you to be okay with everything. Then your mother... You didn’t want her to worry all the time. It was easy to hear in her voice on the phone. And Taron... Well Taron wouldn’t have anything to deal with your problems anymore. Not like he cared after all.

All you had to do was just sink into the water...

No! How can you think these things?

You pulled your hands to your face and covered your eyes as you tried to get a grip on things.

That overwhelming feeling was back and pulling at you. Tears began to fall again. That suffocating feeling was taking over. Sobs escaped as you clawed for your phone, doing the only thing you could think of.

The phone rang twice before you heard his voice.

“Hello?”

You gulped, trying to find your words.

“Y/N?”

“Taron,” you gasped between cries.

“Are you okay? What’s wrong?” 

You could hear the worry in his voice. He did care. Why had you ever questioned it? The words weren’t coming out as you sat there. You weren’t sure when it had happened but the water had turned cold around you. Goose bumps covered your skin and you began to shiver.

“Talk to me please. Are you okay?”

“No,” you finally answered. “I-I need you.”

Taron stayed quiet before he finally spoke again. “Okay.” He hung up and you let the phone fall to the ground outside of the tub before standing up. You grabbed the towel from the rack and dried off without bothering to to rinse yourself of the bubbles. You wrapped the towel around your body and sank to the ground, your back against the wall. 

It wasn’t long before you heard the front door open. Your cheeks were tear stained and your eyes were rimmed with red and swollen. You heard Taron call your name a couple of times before the bathroom door opened.

It was the first time you had seen him in a couple of weeks. There were dark circles under his eyes and his nose red. He looked just as bad.

Taron lowered himself down to the ground in front of you. His eyes were searching your face before he reached up and wiped your face. He put a shaking hand on your shoulder, his eyes pleading for permission. When you didn’t object, he slid his hand to your back and pulled you forward to him. He wrapped his arms around you and held you tight. He could feel how cold you were as he touched your skin. He reached and found another towel, draping it over you.

“It’s okay,” he whispered to you. “It’s okay. I’m here.” He grew quiet as he held you. There was a pit feeling in his stomach as he saw you this way. Had he truly caused this much pain? But what was worse was seeing that you felt as bad as he did. 

Taron moved a hand up and let it rest on your cheek, his thumb moving slowly on your soft skin. Tears were forming in his eyes as he looked at you. He hated that there had been a fight. He hated that he had suggested a break. And most of all, he hated that he had left when you needed him.

“I need you too,” Taron finally said as he heard you start to calm down. “I need you too.”

[ive-been-reminding-you]

OoC: The Big, Long Post of Where the Hell I’ve Been

Before I begin, I want to apologize for just disappearing. I’ve had some contact with a couple of people here and there within these past months, but not as much as typical when I’m active.

This post is to just tell you all where I’ve been and what’s been going on with me. I’ve told a couple of people a couple of things here and there, but I never really got too deep into it.

I’m going to keep most of this under a Keep Reading for a couple of reasons. The first reason is because, as the title suggests, this is going to be really long. The second is because of some of the really heavy things I’m going to be talking about, and I think it’s best if you read at your own discretion rather than have me splash this across your dashboards without any warning. So, please, see the tags before reading.

OK. Here we go...

Back in March, I got sick. I have no idea what I had, but I just know that I was sick and that it lingered for a considerable length of time. 

I had had four or five shifts in a row, and I had one more to go before I was to have a couple of days off. The morning of that last shift, I woke up with a scratchy throat. I didn’t really think much of it because I typically feel like I’m sick when I first wake up (one of the problems that comes with my insomnia). However, a couple of hours later, as I was getting ready to head into work, I still had the scratchy throat. In addition, I had begun to have a really intense headache.

That’s when I got a group text from my boss telling us to stay home if we had a cough or sore throat. I sent him a direct text and told him what was going on and we agreed it would be best for me to stay home.

The scratchy throat, which later evolved to include a cough, lasted for nearly two months. The headache also lasted that long. And when I say that, I mean that every single day for two months, I had a bad headache that never went away and only fluctuated slightly in how severe it was for that day.

Neither my boss, nor the other managers, were taking me seriously. That first week I was home, I was trying to rest and every single day, I was getting texts with questions like, “Hey, you’ll be in for your next shift, right?” or, “Why don’t you just go get tested? Easiest thing in the world!”

No matter how many times I explained my situation — medical professionals told me not to come in for a test because supplies were scarce and they were only testing people with emergency symptoms. In addition, I was told, “If you come here and you have the virus, you’ll be putting other people at risk. If you don’t have it, and you come here, you risk exposing yourself to it. You just need to stay home and monitor your symptoms until they either get severe or until your cough and sore throat go away.” Also, mind you, I use public transportation, which people were especially advised not to use if you were feeling sick to keep the virus from spreading, so... How exactly did they want me to get to a testing facility? — they always acted like I just didn’t want to get tested. My friend that helped get me the job kept sending me articles about new testing sites and kept arguing with me about it. He also kept telling me that I should get tested so that I could be cleared to come back to work if I didn’t have it. At this point, I was feeling like a broken record, and I had told him loads of times that even if I didn’t have the virus, I still felt like shit and there was no way I’d be able to stand all day, anyway.

Finally, after weeks of this back-and-forth, my boss told me to contact HR. They put me on a retroactive leave of absence. However, it still has not been approved and it will most likely get denied, which means that I will not be paid for the time I was out of work. And I only just went back to work two weeks ago.

In addition to being out so long, my hours have been severely cut. I worked two days the first week I was back. Then this past week, I had no hours at all. This week, I only work four hours on Saturday. It’s hard for me not to feel like this is intentional, considering the fact that I wasn’t taken seriously the whole time I was sick and they were acting like I was just being dramatic or needlessly cautious (also, apparently I work with a bunch of medical experts because even when I was telling them information I got from the CDC, they were still telling me that that wasn’t right 🙄). My first day back, one of the managers asked me how I was doing, and asked me what I had been feeling. When I mentioned the severe headache that wouldn’t go away, he chuckled and went, “That’s not even a symptom of the virus!” And he very clearly didn’t believe me when I explained to him that it is, in fact, a symptom that many people who were confirmed to have had it had reported. Just because it’s not one of the more common symptoms doesn’t mean it’s not a symptom.

I am now drowning in debt from being out of work so long, in addition to not receiving any hours. Our rent was still being collected this whole time, and I had to pay April and May’s rent together in one go because I was still quarantined in April and couldn’t make it to my bank. This almost completely wiped out my funds. My gas company isn’t charging late fees, but they have still been charging regularly every month and I don’t even know how much I owe them at this point because I can’t pay it, anyway, so I stopped looking. Last I checked, it was over $300. I’m assuming that it’s closer to $600 now. My internet is going to most likely be shut off at the end of the month. There have been days where I was afraid to go buy groceries because of how low my funds are. I have had to accept help from many people, a couple of them were almost complete strangers who came out of nowhere and helped me out significantly.

The stress is getting to me terribly. I have spent so many days these past months living in a fog where nothing feels real anymore. I think I’m shedding hair more than usual, and every time I wash my hair, there are clumps left in the shower. My insomnia is magnified, and now with the heat of it being summer, that’s just going to get worse because my room gets substantially hot. And because of my financial situation, I’m trying to run the air conditioner as little as possible and only run my fans. My appetite has been affected and I often just eat once a day with maybe a little snack here or there.

Things got so bad for me psychologically that I reached out to my Employee Help Line, provided to people who work for the company I work for. I tend not to call numbers like that because of bad experiences in the past, but I needed to talk to someone. There was back and forth between myself and several counselors for two or three weeks, and they tried to get me an appointment with a therapist over the phone. 

The Employee Help Line counselors were all wonderful people. The therapists I tried to schedule appointments with? Not so much. The first one canceled on me by email just an hour before my session was supposed to begin. The second one also canceled on me by email the night before my session. 

The third one was a truly mystifying experience. So much so that she gets her own paragraph. Not only did our session only last about thirty minutes (instead of the forty-five to fifty minutes that it should have been), but she gave me such advice as, “Just don’t worry so much.” And her entire tone made me feel like I couldn’t speak to her because I felt the need to justify everything I was feeling or explain myself. Then it took an even more bizarre turn when I Googled her to see her hours of operation (I felt so uncomfortable with her that I wanted to call and leave a message to cancel our next appointment instead of talking to her directly) and found a website, full of evidence, that she was an animal abuser and that she had been investigated for insurance fraud for charging patients for sessions that never happened or double-billing them. I also found a website of reviews and there were so many that talked about how unprofessional she was (smoking in a closed office during sessions, inviting patients to stay the night at her place, charging someone for two months worth of sessions that never took place because they canceled after just seeing her once). And she told me she was mailing me paperwork which I haven’t received yet that I need to fill out and mail back (with what postage, I wonder, since I can’t afford to buy a book of stamps?) instead of letting me do that electronically.

After that whole experience with those three therapists, I decided to stop trying to get into therapy for now. And, for the record, this is exactly why I’m afraid to go back to therapy because my bad experiences far outweigh the good ones. In this time, too, the Employee Help Line people had been trying to find solutions to my funding problem. Absolutely none of what they found was good for me. I either didn’t qualify, or they weren’t accepting new applicants, or some other thing kept me from being able to use whichever service.

And there’s one more thing... I’ve been alone this entire time. My brother, whom I live with, went to visit a friend of his before things got bad. He was only supposed to be gone for the weekend, but then I got sick the day before he was going to come back home. And then his friend’s state went into lockdown before I started to feel any better. So he has been stuck there, and I’ve been living alone and dealing with all of this alone this whole time. Don’t get me wrong, I have friends who are checking in on me and who are trying to help me however they can — and my brother and I have been in contact as much as possible — but it’s not the same as having someone physically present. I’m the very definition of an introvert, so it doesn’t usually bother me, but there have been times where I greatly needed someone physically here for me and nobody was able.

And that’s why I’ve been gone for so long. I’ve probably even forgotten some stuff, or just haven’t added stuff (like how I have to hand wash all my laundry now because I don’t have a washer or dryer and it isn’t safe to use the laundromat anymore for the time being) because everything has been a tremendous mess and this is already a monster of a post. I’m still not 100% sure when I’ll be back, but I’m definitely coming back. Until then, I’m going to try to be around more often for DMs at least. I love you all and I hope you’re all OK. ⚔️ Spike ⚔️

P.S. If you’ve read to the end of this, thank you for doing so lol. You have a much greater attention span than I do xD. P.P.S. I posted this and then took it down for a second because I realized that I forgot to add tags and this post really, really needs to have tags.

[haberdashing]

What A Tangled Web We Weave (13/?)

TMA AU diverging from canon at the end of episode 92. Jon is forced into an arranged marriage by Elias; Martin does what he can to help.

on AO3

Martin wasn’t sure why he even bothered recording statements anymore, really.

Jon was back--back from being AWOL while wanted for a murder charge (that Martin had always known deep down hadn’t been Jon’s doing), back in the Institute, back in the Archives. Sure, he spent most of his time away from the rest of the archives staff, locked up in his office, but... that wasn’t new for him, not really.

Maybe some of it was guilt, knowing that he was complicit in something that was upending Jon’s life, Martin wanting to do whatever he could to lift Jon’s load at least a little.

Maybe he just wanted to be helpful, truly helpful, rather than trying to do something nice and always seeming to bungle it up somehow.

Maybe he was just tired of staring at his computer screen.

Whatever his true motivations, though, the end result was the same: Martin was reading out a statement taken from a former Italian soldier some decades ago, getting caught up in the same fear and foreboding that had overtaken the statement giver back in the day--as if Martin didn’t have enough fear and foreboding to deal with in his own life right now, as if what happened in some cave in rural Italy around the end of World War II even mattered when there was so much else they had to deal with right about now...

And then, suddenly, the statement finished, and as Martin was released from it, it felt like a great weight had been taken off his shoulders.

Martin was sure he had been sitting up straight in his chair (well, not his chair, but the chair he was currently seated in, in a side room of the Archives where his reading out loud was unlikely to disturb anyone) when he’d started recording, but he now realized that he’d slouched so much without his noticing that he was halfway to the floor.

“S-statement... done.”

He probably should have said “ends” instead of “done.” That was always how Jon did it, after all, a nice, cool, collected “Statement ends” right after reading off the latest ghastly supernatural tale. As if he wasn’t affected by it even the slightest bit, though Martin knew that wasn’t true, couldn’t be true.

How did Jon do it?

Well. At least Jon wouldn’t have to keep his composure at the end of recording this one. Martin could ensure that much, at least.

And as he sat there, his breathing loud and unsteady, his whole body trembling, arms shaking as he gently pulled himself back up to a more proper sitting position, Martin decided that he wasn’t about to try to keep his composure for this one, either.

“I don’t like recording these. There. I-I-I said it.” Martin wished he sounded more calm and collected for the tape recorder’s sake, wished he could stop his voice from shaking as much as the rest of him as he spoke. “I’m sorry whoever’s listening to this, I know it’s unprofessional, but they f... I don’t like it. I guess we’re past professionalism now. Probably. I don’t even know why I’m still doing them, since Jon’s back now. I guess just nobody told me to stop? And I thought it might help Jon out, he deserves that much...”

He was rambling. He was rambling, and all of his rambling was going to be on tape, and this would probably have to be re-recorded in the end, and then he wouldn’t be saving Jon any work at all, now, would he...

Martin sighed a little, but once he started rambling, it was hard to get himself to stop. It was nice having something to spill his guts to, even if it was just a tape recorder. It was better than nothing, at least.

“It’s not- this isn’t new, either. It’s always felt like this. I mean, maybe it wasn’t this bad before... but maybe it was, maybe I’ve just forgotten how much the old ones took out of me too. Even before... things changed for me. If anything, I’d think that would help with the statements--I think what they’re connected to has to do with, with eyes, right, and if that’s the case, well-”

“Could you pass me that pen?”

The sudden and unexpected sound of Basira’s voice brought Martin’s train of thought to an abrupt stop, his stream-of-consciousness rambling replaced by incoherent, surprised spluttering for a moment before Martin could pull himself together enough to give a more proper response.

“Oh, er...” Martin made himself laugh a bit, though of all the feelings currently spinning through his head, humor wasn’t really on the list. “Hi Basira... um, how long have you been there?”

Basira looked unruffled, Martin’s perfect opposite in that respect, one hand holding her book (another new one, by the looks of it) while the other was stretched towards Martin, still waiting for a pen to be placed within it. When she spoke, her voice sounded unruffled as well. “Erm, I don’t know. Couple of hours? Why?”

“Y-you... didn’t say anything.”

“Yeah, I was reading.”

Basira still sounded like this was just... just another casual conversation to her. Maybe it was. Maybe she hadn’t heard his rambling, or had heard it but hadn’t put the pieces together to make out what he had actually been getting at.

Or maybe she was just playing it cool until she could go warn everybody else about how Martin’s changed and it’s got to do with eyes and-

Well. If that was the case, there wasn’t much Martin could do about it--or, well, there were things he could do, but not things that he would. He wouldn’t stop her, wouldn’t shut her up like he inadvertently had done to Tim. If this was how it came out, this was how it came out, for better or for worse.

Martin cleared his throat in the silence that followed Basira’s explanation, more out of nerves than anything else, and she looked back at him with a gaze that might or might not have been suspicious.

“Did you need me?”

“No.” Strong start there, though Martin doubted he could follow it up as well. “Erm, I just... er, feel a bit... self-conscious?”

At least Basira’s gaze didn’t feel quite as judgmental as the one Martin was all too used to getting from Jon when he’d stammer his way through similar statements.

“About what?”

“Well, I was just, um, you know, doing a statement and notes and...”

“Ah.” The hand that Basira had been holding out towards Martin slowly fell back towards her side. “Was it... good?”

“You weren’t listening?” Martin thought his relief was more obvious in his voice than he’d like, but then, if Basira hadn’t listened to his post-statement notes she wouldn’t know why he was relieved, and if Basira had listened to them she wouldn’t be learning anything new from his stammering denials anyway.

Basira didn’t so much as blink before responding. “No, I was reading.”

“I just...” Martin trailed off, unsure where he had meant for that sentence to end up, but Basira didn’t hesitate to speak up when Martin quieted down.

“Erm, do you want me to find somewhere else to read? Somewhere more... I dunno, obvious?”

Martin shook his head. “No--sorry, you just surprised me, is all.”

“Sorry.” Basira didn’t sound particularly sorry, her tone the same casual, matter-of-fact one she’d used the whole conversation, but Martin certainly wasn’t going to quibble over the veracity of her apology, especially not when he had a lot more to hide here than she did.

“It’s okay. What are you reading?”

“Introduction to Alchemy. It’s, um, really interesting, actually-”

Basira went on about the symbolism of alchemy, drew Martin into a conversation about the supernatural and their place within its scheme, but though Martin went along with it, played his part in their discussion, his head wasn’t really in it.

All Martin could think about was that he definitely needed to get rid of that tape as soon as possible.

[reading-hub]

[18+] What a Woman! | Ronald Knox/reader

Contains: smut, milf undertones, office s*x, blowjobs, eating out, “female friendly”, tougue f-ing

"And then I said, 'sorry sweet, you're just gonna have to wait a bit longer!" The women sweeper with orange and black hair bragged with all the other male reapers as they awed in fascination.

"Knox," A droning and stern voice was heard as a slight chill was felt across the room. His looks contained of simple things such as jet black hair, neatly combed to the right. "Yes, sir!" The same oranged haired young man stood up from the table swiftly with a slight grin. "Have you finished that paperwork about the upcoming soul collection this week?" The supervisor asked as he straighten his rectangled spectacles. "Uh, not yet." He replied, chuckled nervously. "Well, get it done today or I'll place you in a room with another reaper where you will have no break privileges." His supervisor ordered and left, giving the laid back reaper, Ronald Knox nothing to say other then 'yes, sir...'

"Are you sure I'm not a bother to you, Miss (Name)?" A worrisome tone brought up by a brown haired reaper, twiching his glasses a bit. "Of course not, Alan. What kind of grim reaper would I be if I never help out a colleague in need." She replied, giving a smile of determination.

"Right, right." The reaper named Alan muttered.

"See! Finished in no time." She chimed. "And that paperwork would've taken you hours and hours of overtime." She added. "It truly is nice of you to help me out in such short notice, (Name)." Alan smiled faintly. "Maybe I could treat you for lunch?" He inquired politely. "Oh no, I think I'm fine for now." She declined. "Well if you need anything, reach me." Alan said by the doorway, holding a stack of finished papers. "Will do!" She shouted as he left.

The women closed her hands together, feeling a little proud that she helped someone. Then again, she can't help it. Mainly due to the fact that everyone keeps to themselves and so reserved that maybe some rookies are afraid of asking for a little help once in awhile.

But this was no mystery to her. She took the test, she saw how the higher-ranked said to the new recruits everytime. Saying how it wasn't going to be easy and you can't be too sure about these demons running around, hidden in the shadows. Pretty scary.

Being one of the most influential people in the Grim Reaper Association, She was known to be a well-respected veteran around the English branch. Some praised her for how much she was so passionate about her job and for how she always gave new recruits advice.

As she got older, people viewed her as a mother figure because of how supportive she was when it came to everyone.

-

A few hours rolled in and almost done with her paperwork! This was just a good day for you, huh?

"Finally, take that Mr. Spears! I can get my paperwork done with five minutes left to spare!" She said in her empty office. Great, you're talking to yourself..Hopefully no one heard me...

You peaked out of your window with the blinds, seeing most of your colleagues leaving one by one. You smiled, and started to pack up your things with no hesitation, gleefully and swiftly. Putting your bag over your shoulder, your heels turned around until you stopped by the doorway.

"Miss (L/n), I'd like a word with you." Great, you heard that droning, yet sophisticated voice anywhere. "Yes, Mr. Spears?" You rasied your eyebrows curiously. "I'm afraid your going to have to stay here for overtime."

"What?" You blankly asked. Before you could asked even more, a young reaper with an orange cowlick and dyed black hair walked behind him a little tirelessly, as if he didn't want to be there.

"This here, is Ronald Knox, Knox this (Y/n) (L/n), she's one of our best females in the British Branch. I'm sure you know of her." He introduced us.

"Not at all, old man Spears. But I'm sure I'll do my best." His tiresome look went away in a flash. Shaking your hand as he playfully winked at his comment.

Meanwhile as this Ronald shaked your hand, you could've sworn he smirked a little. Did William even notice or does he not care anymore? Especially since it's the last day of the week.

Your eyes rasied a little in confusion by this. "Is there something I'm missing here?" You asked your supervisor. "My apologies but Ronald has incomplete work and needs some type of supervision. Especially one that has a good track record. Which is why I ask of you (Y/n), to let Ronald stay in your office until he has finished his work."

"Do I have a choice?" You said. "No, unless you want a more paperwork flooding your way soon." He droned.

"Don't fail me now, miss (Y/n)." He left, leaving only you and Ronald.

-

Only a couple of minutes have passed since you've seen Ronald do anything. Of course, you just used your computer in the office to pass the time.

"Hey, (Y/n) isn't it? Uh, how is it that someone as beautiful as you isn't with anyone yet?" He charmed across the room. "Aren't you supposed to be working?" You commented.

"I'll get to that. Just that talking wouldn't hurt a little." He replied. The room became filled with silence. You sighed, I supposed having a bit of chat wouldn't hurt even a little..

"Fine, but only if its work-related." You articulated harshly at him. Ronald smirked a little. "Alright, when was the last time you took a break from work and settled down." He asked curiously. You blinked. "I said 'work-related'." You stated. "Taking a break IS work-related." He responded back.

You pinched the bridge of your nose in annoyance. "Is this why William put my hands on you?" You mumbled.

"Hey now, I'm just as confused as you are, love." Ronald said in defense. "Like, how could my mind just brush the fact that I haven't heard of such a beautiful lady like yourself!" He exclaimed proudly. You just rolled your eyes. Although the compliments were shamelessly getting to you, just a little...ok maybe alot.

"Say, how 'bout a little help? You are my supervisor for tonight after all." He effused. You breathed from your nose, stood from your chair and walked to the orange haired charmer.

You bent down a little. "What do you need help with?" You shamelessly asked.

Ronald didn't think that would actually work. He expected you to scold him and tell him to leave you alone.

But now he was mere inches from your body, and dare his dirty mind peak at your chest pushing up a little whenever you exhaled.

And the perfume you were wearing was no help either, it was basically a walking cloud following you.

"Ronald?" His face lit up a little, unaware of what time had past. "Oh sorry, love. Your scent distracted me a little, what smell is that anyway?" He chuckled lighty. "Erm, vanilla." You cleared your throat a little with all this closeness. "Man, that is one scent I wouldn't mind waking up to everyday!" He exclaimed. "Wouldn't hurt being around often."

"What exactly are you hinting at?" You questioned. "I'm just saying that since we've met and all, it wouldn't hurt hanging around you more then supervising."

"Please, I know what you're intentions are, Ronald. I'm aware of your past "nights" with the ladies around here." You huffed.

"Come on, you're not jealous are you?" He playfully winked. "What? Why would I be jealous, I'm just saying that your tricks don't work on me." You replied harshy.

"Then prove it."

"What?"

"Kiss me." He said. "How will that prove anything?" You protested. "Prove that my tricks won't swoon you from one kiss." He explained simply.

"I can't believe I'm hearing this." You said in disbelief, turning your head away from the young reaper. "If you kiss me, I'll go back to finishing my paperwork in time." He added. You shot your head up a little, you looked at your watch, it appeared that almost 40 minutes have been wasted from you and Ronald talking.

"Go on." You demanded, obviously curious as to what else he had to say.

"And if my tricks work on you, you'll have no choice but to join me for lunch and after work for a month." He smirked.

"And if it doesn't?" You responded. "Then, I'll go back to working and I won't bother you again." He gulped.

This was one unbreakable deal. Although in the back of your mind, you feel as though you might swoon over to what he holds in his sleeves.

You sighed effortlessly. "Alright, but you better get right on your paperwork." You stated. "In a heartbeat." He replied quickly, he almost look like a boy excited for his mother's homemade cooking. You couldn't help but smirk at the thought of how Ronald was happy in this moment.

"Say, what's with the smile there, Miss (Y/n)." He asked curiously. You laughed a little. "Oh nothing, just looking at the way you're so excited right now."

"Can't help it, I've never been with experienced woman before." He admitted happily. "Experienced, huh?" You smirked. "Yes ma'am!"

You went back to Ronald's desk, leaned over and pushed your lips on his soft ones. As both of your lips touched, both each pushed together, fighting which one was going to dominate. Your cheeks were getting a bit warm from all this steam going on between your lips. You both broke apart. Breathing heavily for more air. Ronald couldn't take it! The sight of you right now was just too much to handle in his little mind.

He didn't know what to think right now. His body was taking over, next thing he knew, his arm reached out and glided his hand up and down your leg to thigh, almost reaching underneath your pencil skirt.

You were so hot and bothered that even you couldn't think straight! Just feeling his touch on you made your body give a little tingling sensation.

You slapped his hand away, Ronald opened his eyes a little in surprised at your sudden action. You pushed his shoulders back, and made your way to sit on his lap. Straddling his hips, arms giving you support, you pushed your lips on his again, his mouth opened a little and so you followed what he wanted.

Your tougue making traveling to his, now colliding together. Both his hands wondered, gliding your legs again, fully enjoying it.

You cupped his face, pushing more into the kiss. Ronald's hands wandered to your legs, and gave your bottom a good squeeze. You gasped a little, making Ronald smirk into the kiss.

You took a break from his lips and traveled towards his neck. Giving small pecks here and there, Ronald sat back and held your head as you gave small little marks. You couldn't help but obliged.

You pulled back, breathing heavily from all this work. Ronald just admired your features and body. He ran his hand up to your chest groping them a little. You just responded with your fingers gliding through his orange locks, faintly smiling at his curiosity.

Ronald took this as a chance to unbutton your silky dress shirt. Before he could get a chance to unbuttoned the forth button, you stopped his hand from going further, teasing him a little. "You're driving me mad, woman!" He cursed as you smirked seeing him flustered. "We'll get to that in a little while, but I want to do something a little more bold." You then kissed his chest from top to bottom, he knew what was coming for him, and he knew he was gonna enjoy every last part of it.

You got down on your knees and moved your hands up and down his thighs for a bit, he groned at your touch. You unzipped his pants, seeing his member twich a little. You bit your lip a little in anticipation.

You licked tip and his shaft a little. He grabbed your hair, pushing your head down in response. Bobbing your head up and down on his member, Ronald groned just feeling your mouth around him and wetness. He gasped, those lips were just wonders to him.

You left your mouth away from his member and licked your lips, staring into his eyes again. He was out of breath with words until, "That was amazing! Now I'm really glad you're supervising little ol' me." He grinned. You stood up and ran your fingers through his scalp.

"You can make it up to me by making me feel good."

You then felt your back press against the wooden desk, legs bended and spread apart. Ronald was just looking at the position you were in. He pushed your skirt out of the way, taking off those panties of yours now seeing your wet core.

He licked his fingers and rubbed his thumb at your core a little to see you squirm a little at his touch. Your mouth opened a little, while quiet moans escaped your lips. And let me tell you, those moans made him weak to his knees but of course he wasn't gonna show that.

"Fuck ~!"

You cursed. Ronald looked up at you, he wished that if only you saw yourself right now. Sexy, sweating, and touching yourself from time to time, truly a sight Ronald approved of. His face got closer to your heat, you felt his breath in your heat a little as you bit your lip, wondering what his tougue would feel inside you.

He lick the outside of your core, your breath hiched at the wetness of his tongue, lathering on the outside. "Ronald, stop teasing ~~!" You moaned.

All he did was smirk at you before going back down on you. More aroused at hearing you moan out his name.

Without warning, you grabbed a fistful of his orange locks, running your fingers through, tangled up. You pushed his mouth further into you. As he was smothered, his hands wandered around your body, giving your hips a squeeze.

A few curse words and quiet moans came out of your lips, as Ronald fucked you with his tougue. You getting even more wet by the second. "Fuck, Ronald! I-I think I'm gonna cum!" It was hard to even get a sentence out without moaning like crazy. Ronald just continued to plunge his tongue into your clit.

Your moaning was like ecstasy each second. "Fuck, fuck, fuck!"

You felt hot, your core felt like a wet cavern that exploded. Ronald broke away, now on your level. You sat up from the desk, and got Ronald by his loose tie. The kissing was just passionate and tender. Your slender fingers were getting tangled by his hair again. His hands wandered at your chest, he broke the kiss and decided to give attention to your chest area. His mouth explored around your breasts. You favored him by bringing him more closer in, arms around his neck, your hands patting behind his head.

"Keep going, Ronald ~" You said as in encouragement. His licks going around your nipples. You sighed in pleasure as you kept petting behind his hair.

Your eyes met with his. He went back to your level to give you another passionate kiss. "Was that worth getting your work done?" You smirked. "If I get all my work done, can we possibly do that again sometime?"

"Fine, let's continue back at my place." You said

"Yes ma'am!"

[fullmetalscullyy]

day 15 - i saw mommy kissing santa claus - jimmy boyd

the magic of christmas time - royai advent calender

24 days - 24 oneshots | with angst, fluff, and everything in between | both canon and au

a collection of christmas themed oneshots to celebrate royai | chapter prompts based on my favourite christmas songs

read on ao3

i saw mommy kissing santa claus

uuderneath the mistletoe last night

she didn't see me creep

down the stairs to have a peep

she thought that i was tucked up

in my bedroom, fast asleep

Mia Mustang frowned from her hiding place on the staircase. She peeked through the barrier, seeing Mum moving about the living room. She was picking things up and moving them, but Mia couldn’t see what it was because of the angle she was at, and the couch perfectly placed to hide whatever it was from view.

Mummy smiled and said something to someone, but it was too quiet for Mia to make out, and Mia couldn’t see who she was talking to either.

Then, the seven-year-old froze. That… That… That was Santa Mum was talking to! He walked into view and said something to her, making her laugh again. It was louder than before, and Mia noticed how happy she looked in that moment. Handing Mum a present, Santa leaned forward and kissed her. Mia stopped.

Santa… Santa couldn’t kiss Mummy. Only Daddy could kiss Mummy like that! What was Santa doing? Mum wrapped her arms around Santa’s neck and kissed him back happily.

Dad… Poor Daddy. Mummy could only kiss him. Why was she kissing Santa?

“Mia?” a whispered voice called to her. She jumped on the steps, tears jumping up in her eyes. The threatened to fall over and down her cheeks. How could Mum do something like that to Dad? Just because he was away with work didn’t mean she could kiss Santa!

She whirled in place, her heart racing because she was upset and got a fright.

“Mia, what are you doing?” James asked her from the top of the stairs. He was standing on the top step, towering over her as she was seated halfway down. Fearing she was in trouble for being up, Mia’s chest began to heave quietly, building in volume as her crying became incontrollable. James hurried down quietly and scooped her up. Mia gripped his t-shirt tightly as he hugged her close, his hand spread wide across her back as he hurried back upstairs again. Mia’s eyes were squeezed tightly shut, so she didn’t notice they were going into James’ room.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, concerned. “Why are you crying?”

“I – I –”

“Take your time,” he murmured, smoothing down her hair.

“I saw Mummy kissing Santa Claus!” she cried out, her breathing hitching as she tried to catch her breath. The childish name burst forth from her trembling lips unintentionally. She was trying to be more grown up like her friends at school, so tried not to say Mummy or Daddy anymore. It was hard because in her head she switched backwards and forwards, but she was really trying.

Mia pulled back to look up at James. His lips were pressed into a thin line, which smoothed out and he laughed quietly to himself. “It’s not funny!” she cried, becoming more upset. “How could Mummy do that to Daddy?” she sobbed.

“Mia, it’s okay,” James soothed.

“It’s not! Mum is only supposed to kiss Daddy! Not Santa!”

James laughed again and Mia pulled away, shocked. She struggled to get out of his hold, but her big brother was too strong.

“Mia, listen to me,” he commanded softly. “It’s all right. Santa is… allowed to do that.” When he finished, he had a frown on his face.

“What?” she asked, confused.

James shook his head. “I mean, sometimes when people say thank you, they kiss each other. It’s not a big deal. I kiss you, but Jessica is my girlfriend, isn’t she?” Mia hesitated, then nodded. “So, it’s okay. We’re allowed to kiss people to say thank you.”

Her brow furrowed as she thought through what James said. He was right. They all gave her a quick kiss sometimes to say thank you. But that was on the cheek. Mum had kissed Santa on the lips.

She had to tell Daddy.

“Okay,” she said quietly. It would have to be a secret for now. She’d wait until he got home from work. Her heart sank when she remembered he wouldn’t be home for Christmas. It didn’t feel right not having him here.

But that didn’t mean Mum could do that to Dad when he wasn’t here.

Her mind was made up.

*          *          *

Riza looked up as James breezed into the room, his teeth on show, jaw clenched, and expression in a grimace.

“We have a situation,” he whispered urgently, pulling her into the kitchen.

“What?” she asked, her stomach dropping. Her thoughts instantly flashed to Mia, expecting something horrible to have happened.

“Hey,” Roy greeted over his shoulder, not fully paying attention as he continued stirring the cookie dough mixture. He wouldn’t have been able to see James properly anyway, not with all the fake white hair sticking outwards from his face. The Santa suit was great, but it was cheap, and the white hair just didn’t want to behave on the beard.

“James, what is it?” Riza asked.

“Mia saw you both in the living room.”

Riza’s shoulders sagged. “Is that all?” she asked in relief.

James grimaced again. “Well, yes. But she saw you both. As in, Mummy and Santa, not Mummy and Daddy.”

Riza froze.

“So?” Roy asked.

“So, she saw Mummy kissing Santa Claus.”

“Isn’t that a song?” Roy asked after a beat.

Riza groaned. “She saw us?” she asked, looking back at James, who nodded to confirm.

“I’ve never known someone to be so excitable on Christmas,” Roy muttered. “Even growing up, the kids my aunt adopted were out like a light by nine o’clock on Christmas Eve. Our little tyke snoops on the stairs instead.”

“I think every kid does that.”

“I bet you didn’t,” Roy grinned. “You were always exhausted by bed-time.”

“I’ve done my fair share of Christmas snooping, don’t you worry,” James quipped.

“Guys,” Riza hissed, drawing their attention back to the issue at hand. “Focus.”

“On what?” Roy chuckled. “So, she saw us together. Big deal.”

“No,” James stressed. “She thinks Mummy has been cheating on Daddy with Santa Claus, while Daddy is away with work over Christmas.”

Roy’s hands slowly stopped from his stirring. “Oh.”

“Oh, is right,” Riza added.

“Oh boy,” Roy added, placing down his utensil. He discarded the Santa hat and placed it on the counter, scratching his chin after removing with itchy beard.

“What do we do?” Riza asked. She sounded genuinely worried about it.

Roy was silent as the two conversed back and forth, bouncing ideas off one another, but not one of them was decent or plausible enough. Finally, Roy entered the conversation.

“I might have an idea…” he stated slowly, a grin spreading across his face.

“What?” Riza asked, looking at him expectantly.

Roy grinned at her. “You’ll find out tomorrow,” he winked, turning back to stirring the dough to make Christmas cookies.

*          *          *

“Daddy?” Mia called, entering their kitchen.

“Yes, bear?” He still beamed when he thought of her reaction when she’d seen he was home for Christmas that morning. James had recorded it on his phone, and Roy wanted to watch that forever. She had no idea he’d be coming home early from work and would see her on Christmas Day, rather than miss it, like was originally planned. Roy fought tooth and nail to be home in time for Christmas.

“Can I tell you something?”

“Of course, you can. You know that already,” he reassured her. Roy scooped her up and placed her on the kitchen counter as he continued to stir the many pots on the top of the hobs.

Mia bit her lip and looked over his shoulder, into the living room where Riza and James were playing a video game against each other very loudly. Riza was losing, so was trying to sabotage James to try win at least one game.

“What is it, bear?” he asked softly, noting her hesitation.

Then, she leaned in a lot closer than Roy thought she would and answered with her voice low. “I saw Mummy kissing Santa Claus last night,” she whispered. Roy noted her nervous tone, the way she swallowed, and the way her eyes welled up with tears. She was truly worried about it. Poor kid.

“It’s okay, Mia,” Roy reassured her, his voice even.

She looked scandalised. “No, it’s not,” she demanded. Her tears were building again, on the cusp of spilling over.

“Mia.” He stated her name gently, but firmly, meeting her eyes square on. “It’s okay.”

“How?” she whispered. Her voice was thick with tears.

Roy made a show of looking around him, before edging closer to her. “Can you keep a secret?”

She was confused, but she nodded then wiped at her eyes to dry them.

“I’m not mad,” he stated calmly. “Because I am Santa Claus,” he whispered.

There was a beat of silence, then another as Mia just stared at him. Then, her eyes widened, her mouth parting as she silently gasped in shock.

“Ah!” Roy barked softly. “Remember, it’s a secret. Only Mummy knows. Now, you do too. That’s why Santa was kissing Mummy. I was saying thank you for helping me with all your presents before I went to the next house.”

“No way,” Mia gasped, eyes threatening to bulge out of her head.

“Yes way,” Roy winked.

“My Daddy is Santa,” she whispered in wonder.

“But! It’s a secret. Can I trust it with you?” he asked, his tone serious.

Mia nodded her head vigorously. “Yes,” she stated solemnly.

“That’s my girl. Now, off you go.”

She nodded with a grin and ran through to the living room. Roy watched her go, and noted she headed straight to Riza for a hug. Riza welcomed it wholly and spun her around, glancing at Roy when she finally faced him again. He made an “ok” motion with his thumb and forefinger, winking at Riza, before returning to cooking Christmas dinner.

[homenum-revelio-hq]

Welcome (back) to the Order of the Phoenix, Ky!

You have been accepted for the role of non-biography character ADONIS CARROWwith the faceclaim of Ben Barnes! We’re so excited to watch you explore the darker side of the game! We especially liked you explanations for Adonis’s motivations and beliefs, and how he’s fit himself into a world where by all rights he shouldn’t...yet does.

Please take a look at the new member checklist and send in your account within 24 hours! Thank you for joining the fight against Voldemort!

OUT OF CHARACTER:

NAME: Ky

AGE: 28

TIMEZONE: PST

ACTIVITY LEVEL: Daily-ish! I can’t predict my on call schedule, but I’m usually available by Discord for plotting, at least!

ANYTHING ELSE: Nothing you don’t already know!

CHARACTER DETAILS:

NAME: Adonis Carrow

AGE: 33

GENDER, PRONOUNS, and SEXUALITY: Cisgender male, he, bisexual

BLOOD STATUS: Pureblood? Halfblood? Who knows!

ORDER RANK: Affiliated

HOUSE ALUMNI: Slytherin

ANY CHANGES: N/A

CHARACTER BACKGROUND: CONTENT WARNINGS FOR MENTIONS OF CHILD ABUSE AND DEATH.

PERSONALITY:

Charismatic, refined, perceptive, adaptable, and largely lacking such impediments as any sense of honour or loyalty, Adonis Carrow knows that nothing is forever. Not lineages, fortunes, masterworks, or wars. You only get so much in the world that’s actually yours. As such, the only thing he’s truly dedicated to is himself.

That’s not to say he’s cold. Far from it. He’s an artist, after all; not merely a liar, but a romantic one. Donnie knows how to pay attention, with such a warmth that it’s hard to resist basking in the glow. Is there always an ulterior motive, hiding behind that shine? Well, yes. He’d say so. (And the answer would never have a thing to do with loneliness. Not a thing.) It’s simply in his interests to entrench himself in as many corners of magical high society as possible. Networking, you know. Does that mean he doesn’t genuinely care about all those friendships and torrid dalliances and lingering affairs? No, no. At the very least, there’s base sentiments involved. Maybe some real fondness, even. The best lies have a bit of truth to them, don’t they? Just enough. Just enough that it wouldn’t hurt too terribly badly to cut it all loose the moment circumstances demand. That it won’t sting too much to remember that the most he’ll ever really be to these people is a taste of scandal - and the pitiable once-pureblood who tidies up their heirlooms.

In short, as much as he might enjoy their company or their bed, nobody’s likely to convince Donnie to rearrange his near-entirely selfish priorities. He’s not out to be a hero. He’s in it to survive, and thrive where he can. Donnie knows that’s he’s standing on dangerous, shifting ground, and he’s quick to adjust his footing when things start to slip one way or another. If he has to step on a few necks in the process, so be it.

BRIEF OVERVIEW OF FAMILY:

The Carrows were many things, back when they were anything; respected, feared, opulent, aspired to. Bearers of that fine, fine name sat the Wizengamot, riddled the Ministry, rose through the ranks of Aurors, had their professorial portraits hung on the walls of Hogwarts. Certainly, they had had their… missteps. Some say the family’s been as close to the Dark Arts as ivy to towers, ever since their far-flung beginnings. That might be a stretch, but it’s a matter of record, certainly, that several Carrows were interrogated at length in relation to their alleged involvement in the many crimes of Gellert Grindelwald. Nothing came of it, of course. In certain circles, their supposed nearness to such a notorious Dark wizard was quite the feather in their cap. Certain circles that continue to welcome them, despite their recent disgrace…

Yes, were, past tense. Now? Apolline stalks the mildewed halls of the family estate at the foot of the Cambrian Mountains, wrapped in her furious disdain and mouldering furs. Her eldest children, Amycus and Alecto - well, they’ve done nothing notable, have they? Except start a few ugly duels. And, apparently, take up service with the Dark Lord. Older than their baby brother by six years, and a difficult pregnancy, the twins had fallen from their parents’ good graces before they even arrived. When Adonis did, a beautiful boy with a beautiful name, cooed over and coddled and shown off as they never were, Amycus and Alecto found an easy target for their collective viciousness. They weren’t pranksters, to be clear. Bullies is hardly sufficient. The twins were torturers, dabbling in Unforgivables before they even wrote their O.W.L.S. - and testing them out, gleefully, on their baby brother. So long as their parents weren’t watching. Wouldn’t stand to see their favourite battered about, would they? Not when they had galas to dress him up for.

Apolline and Argus were never entirely sure where they’d went wrong with the twins. The derision and dismissal of their little childhood achievements? The unkind, constant comparisons? Who could say! An unpleasant feeling. So, they wholly neglected their oldest children, as much as possible - which was a great deal, when any wix would give their left arm to be so trusted by the Carrows as to nanny their apparent heirs. And so Adonis grew up with the benefit of the very best tutors and opportunities, and always striving to meet his parents’ exacting expectations - lest they change their minds, and abandon him to Alecto and Amycus.

He was doing rather a good job of it, it seemed, until everything came apart. Until the strength of their blood, the cornerstone of all they were and had, began to quake and crack. Until his father was found dead. Until his mother, never a sweet creature, soured in the face of owls unreturned and invitations dismissed. Until the twins became even quicker to lash out. At Adonis, most often. Now, Apolline didn’t stand in the way. They could fight for what remained of it all. Kill each other, if murder was what it came to. As her marriage had.

Adonis was out of that crumbling manor before his seventeenth birthday. He’s never been back; there’s nothing there for him, after all. The closest he’s come to his siblings is encouraging the Order to add them to that list of potential Death Eaters. Not that he had evidence, per se. But he wasn’t wrong, was he?

OCCUPATION: Appraiser/restorer of magical artifacts

ROLE WITHIN THE ORDER/THOUGHTS ABOUT THE ORDER:

It’s for spite, really. That’s what Donnie would insist, when it comes to his connection to the Order of the Phoenix. Spite, for the pureblood-mad society that cannibalized his family, that’s denied him the comfort and certainty and opportunities he was born for. If their Rome burns, he’ll take up the fucking fiddle for the occasion.

Too bad the Order’s rather less… fiery than he’d anticipated. He doesn’t enjoy the company of raving idealists, especially ones who, so far, seem rather bad at getting shit done. He’s also well aware that most of them don’t trust him, and doesn’t expect that to change; after all, what revolutionary bent on battling Dark sorcery would pick a Carrow to keep faith with? Everyone knows what Carrows are capable of. (Or think they do, anyway. Few know the half of it. Those grandparents who dallied with Grindelwald were hardly serving tea and hosting benefit balls.)

That’s not to say that his involvement should be seen as any sort of atonement on his family’s behalf. Goodness, no. There’s nothing of duty to any of this. Yes, it was a pleasure to see Professor McGonagall again, and he is rather fond of her, appreciative, genuinely, of her mentorship. But he doesn’t owe her, either. Or Dumbledore. Or any of them - these children, for the most part, out there playing partisan. Honestly, he thinks they’re woefully delusional. Too few. Too messy. Too hopelessly outmatched.

In fact, it’s rather risky of him to be helping them at all, and they should be bloody grateful, given that they’re certainly doing him no favours. The outcome of the war itself feels rather immaterial to Donnie; Carrows don’t matter anymore. He won’t be on anybody’s list, Ministry or Death Eater, at the end of all this. And if he doesn’t like how things evolve, from there, he’ll leave. Not as if there’s anything anchoring him where he is. There’s a whole world to see about, full of places (and people) he could settle into, all over again. His skills are, as they say, transferable.

Speaking of those skills. His professional capacities are occasionally of use to the Order, certainly; he’s a master of a niche craft, a field which demands mastery of transfiguration and cursebreaking both. However, it’s the inroads his career - and charms - provide that are most regularly valuable. Whether he’s quietly restoring the gables on the Greengrass summer estate or not-so-quietly seducing an Avery in some back room at the Ganymede, Donnie is well-positioned to notice things of interest to Dumbledore and his army. What, precisely, he passes their way really depends on his assessment. Is it believable? Can it be corroborated? Most importantly, is it likely to get him caught? His safety always comes first. But after that, sure - he’ll drop them a line, see what they make of his news. That’s about the extent of his involvement in the conflict, thus far. And honestly, he’s happy to keep it that way. He doubts the Order will win, but. He won’t lose, and he’s pleased to participate second-hand in the harassment and (ideally) destruction of Death Eaters. His brother and sister, specifically, if you don’t mind…

SURVIVAL:

Whether he’s delivering word to the inner circle or rubbing elbows (among other things) with Malfoys, Lestranges, Notts, and the like, Donnie is quick to assess the people around him, to gauge their values, to pick the right words and the best moments to smile and nod. Some might say he’s only so uncannily talented at all that fakery because he’s got no convictions of his own, nothing at all that matters to him. Untrue. It’s just that uncompromising ideals are an expensive thing to keep, and Donnie doesn’t have any he’s about to die for. Including the Order’s. Especially when they’re losing, which they unquestionably are. Disappointing, really.

When it comes to fight or flight, flight has always stood him in good stead - there wasn’t much else he could hope to do, as a child, facing the combined horror of the twins. This instinct became rather literal when he followed his precocious talents for transfiguration all the way to attempting to become an Animagus, and, with the help of Professor McGonagall, discovered his form to be a striking black barn owl. In truth, his Animagus is rather on the nose in several respects; growing up around the halls and manors of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, Donnie learned young that staying silent and listening to the whispers were vital survival skills for anyone who couldn’t - or wouldn’t - rely on wicked wandwork to attain all their ends.

RELATIONSHIPS:

Donnie does rather a lot of relating. Invitations to all manner of extravagant social events, from that disastrous Ministry masquerade to solstice banquets at so-and-so’s country house to the extravagant fêtes of magical London, land on his desk quite regularly. Who’s he to say no? It’s an honour. Hardly arduous, either - he was raised to weather waltzes and hours of idle small talk. Such a schedule creates ample opportunities to refresh and extend that intricate web of connections that keeps him in silk shirts and Châteauneuf-du-Pape - and, yes, information for the Order. He has quite the tangle of fascinating acquaintances and dear, dear friends out there in the darker, purer corners of British wizardry. The things you can overhear…

From the moment he left the ancestral manor, Donnie’s been sidling from bed to bed, castle to penthouse, making his way on the largesse of wealthy lovers. His string of secretive romances wind on; there’s moneyed dowagers and miserable husbands a-plenty who’d happily welcome him back, open-armed and pining. One might think this could lead to some awkward run-ins and jealousies, but the convenient thing about being untouchable is that nobody will admit to having had their hands on you. So, in a way, his secrets keep themselves from each other. Unsurprising, given that those wix all stand to lose so much more than he does.

In addition to the general stuff above, here’s a few specific connections (any with existing characters have been discussed with and cleared by their players).

ALECTO & AMYCUS CARROW

The twins. The monsters he grew up hiding from, when he could. While Donnie can see that the cruelty of his siblings was rooted deep in that of their parents, he’d also say that the point at which they couldn’t fairly be held responsible for the things they did to him passed a long, long time ago. That toxic favoritism wasn’t his fault, either. But what’s done is done, what they’ve become, they’ve become, and Donnie’s not about to forgive or forget. He was quick to add the twins to the Order’s list of near-certain Death Eaters, and, to be fair, he had concrete reason to believe they were - and he wasn’t wrong. Besides that, all he knows of them, these days, is second hand. It’s been a while; he hasn’t seen either Amycus or Alecto since he left the family estate, seventeen years ago. And he’s not about to go looking.

EMMA VANITY

A cousin of some degree - it all gets so tangled, in pureblood families - Emma is someone Donnie is aware of, but only distantly. They haven’t properly met, but travel the same circles. Just, you know, in different ways. And as different people than they used to be. Both are well-familiar with the best and worst of pureblood society, and, so far, at least, they’ve managed to survive it, even turn their place in the world into an asset - for themselves, and the Order. Not without cost. If they were ever to come across one another, they might find they have rather a lot to talk about…

AINSLEY ABBOTT

A professional acquaintance and something of a personal amusement. It’s just oddly entertaining to see Ainsley all aflutter over whatever antique he’s brought her way. And why would he do that, anyway? Well, see, Donnie’s busy. His genius is in the remaking of things, and that’s fine, finicky spellwork, tricky, challenging, fascinating. The story behind an object, the provenance? He doesn’t find all that especially interesting, honestly. That’s the chore of the job. One which Ainsley is ecstatic to do on his behalf, when called. Saves him time and trouble, so he’s happy to take the help.

EDGAR BONES

It’s not often that Donnie gets called in to sort out a whole bloody house, and for halfbloods, at that, but the money spends. It was Edgar who approached him with the job of seeing to the Bones place. Quite the task, but Donnie’s been enjoying himself - and that elder Bones, Rigby, and his husband - rather more than he’d expected. Lovely family. Shame about the baby and all that, but they deserve a bit of fun before decaying into domestic mediocrity, or whatever.

OOC EXPLORATION:

SHIPS/ANTI-SHIPS: I always run with chemistry. That’s it, that’s all! 

WHAT PRIVILEGES AND BIASES DOES YOUR CHARACTER HAVE?

As a Carrow, Adonis was raised to be every bit a pureblood - privileges and prejudices included. People like him, like his family, were both the paragons and protectors of the best wizarding society had to offer, and rightfully in charge of shaping and governing the magical world. They had helped build it, and, obviously, had created something that would provide for them in return. Their wealth seemed endless, their social credit unlimited. Secure in every sense, the Carrows remained watchful, ever-ready to defend and shore up what they saw as theirs by right - and prepared to decry any possible stain on the society they’d tried to shape in their image. Muggles were a nasty nuisance, rather like rats, you know; plentiful and meaningless. Mudbloods? Repulsive. A sullying of magic itself. Halfbloods? Suspect, debased, common, not to be entrusted with anything too significant. Halfbreeds? Utterly vile, unnatural. The Carrows understood themselves, broadly, as part of a natural alliance of gracious stewards, the great and powerful and precious, standing against the meagre, weak, and mobbish. The Sacred Twenty-Eight existed to set a gloriously high standard, and maintain it, for the good of all of wizardkind. Nothing less would do.

The family’s messy, awfully public, and rather precipitous fall didn’t challenge those assumptions so much as render them fairly hollow, from Donnie’s perspective.

By the time he arrived at Hogwarts, his father was in the mausoleum and the rumors were at their thickest; school was no refuge from the scorn, and it certainly wasn’t just the purebloods of Slytherin house who participated. Halfbloods and muggleborns could be every bit as cruel, and, it seemed, enjoyed punching down just as much as any Flint or Bulstrode. Which meant that he would have to learn to take the hexes and hits - something he’d had too much of, growing up with the twins - or rise, somehow, at any cost. Amycus and Alecto had taken a third option, and brawled their way through the shame, incandescent with hate. Donnie rose. Even if those social scripts had turned on him, he still knew the plot, the roles. Could still play along, to get where he needed to go. Biting his tongue. Smiling at the spite. The price paid was nothing much, really. Integrity’s just a pretty word for putting other people and their principles and schemes before yourself and your own interests, isn’t it? Why would he ever do that? He can always pretend, anyway. That’s all it is. A game of pretend.

These days, Donnie’s playacting - and that pretty face - have won him a peculiar set of privileges. He can navigate the upper echelons of the wizarding world with ease, well-versed in its arcane etiquettes, close enough to power to hear its rumblings and bend ears, but comfortably far from any real responsibility, or the stifling expectations and strictures of being a proper member of high society. Rather liberating, in a sense. Limiting, in others.

Along the way, he’s developed a bizarrely practical perspective on the prejudices of his childhood and class. Donnie’s come to understand that few of the tenets he grew up knowing as givens truly are that. Call it sour grapes if you like, but… really, the whole notion of purebloodedness is just unsustainable, once you reach a certain point. And it’s rather apparent that the Sacred Twenty-Eight hit that a few centuries ago. So if the Order’s fighting a losing battle, so is Voldemort and his lot, aren’t they? Not to mention how many muggles there are, out there. He has to laugh at the notion that the Death Eaters could ever manage to rule much of anything, if that’s the idea. Those blood purists will breed themselves extinct, he figures, sooner than later. Magic will remain. All that ancient and noble shite will wither away, be sold off, melted down. Or wind up with him, perhaps. Delicious, isn’t it? The thought of such relics, the legacy of the high and mighty sorts he should have been, left in his hands. Dusted off and put on display in some chintzy gallery. Bought up to decorate the new muggleborn Minister’s office. Nobody giving a toss for their great, illustrious histories. Just pretty things. He’d enjoy that.

So… does that mean he’s any kind of egalitarian? Hardly. For the most part, Donnie enjoys paintings rather more than people. His formative years gave him no real reason to seek affection and affirmation from others. As for his regard for them, that’s largely dependent on how much you matter, as in, how useful you are to know. Beyond that, well - halfbreeds are simply disturbing, we can all agree. Squibs are miserable things, but he’s never been one to shed tears for strangers. Muggleborns are unfortunate, really, just… hamstrung, in terms of becoming as fully immersed in magical society as a wix ought to be. That’s hardly any concern of his, though. If they’re going to finally get on with it and guillotine some Gaunts and Fawleys or whatever, as those hysterical purebloods suspect, he’d be happy to sit back and enjoy the show. There’s halfbloods everywhere; any battle being waged against their ascendancy is long lost. Donnie isn’t bothered - he’s one of them now, apparently. Though, it does get tiresome, doesn’t it, when they get all up on their middling high horses, acting like the bearers of some new moral standard for wizardkind. Really.

If he truly despises anyone, with a proper passion, it’s those purebloods who are so entirely up their own arses as to presume that they’re better than him for being more reliably inbred. That, he fully acknowledges, is simply his share of the hereditary Carrow malice showing through. He’s been wronged, and he holds a grudge. At least he’s not delusional. Obviously, he’s not going to stop palling around with purebloodists. That wouldn’t be professionally feasible. Besides, there isn’t a swath of society that makes more sense to him than they do; he used to be them, after all. He was raised to withstand some odious company for the sake of appearances, so he can - for the sake of their galleons, now. And the occasional opportunity to cause some vexation through a well-placed whisper. Vicariously, of course. That’s what the Order’s for. He has paintings to finish.

WHAT ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO?

I guess I’m just excited to perpetrate a new character on all you lovely people, and explore some “ends” the group that I haven’t been able to yet! Seriously though, you’re all great.

PLOT DROP IDEAS (OPTIONAL)

Not exactly a drop so much as a connection, but I’m thinking it would be pretty neat and apropos for Donnie to have been involved in the mission to retrieve the orb from the Nott place - not directly, goodness no. Perhaps in tipping the Order off to the orb existing in the first place and where it would be? Or just appraising the orb they found, and determining it was a fake? Or both! Just a notion, seems like a natural way to tie him in.

Donnie also lends himself well to plots involving infiltration, theft, rumour-spreading, and distraction, and, obviously, anything related to magical artifacts. All pretty workable!

Maybe Donnie isn’t a true believer in the Order or its cause, and maybe he tends to see other people primarily as means to his ends, but… hey, he’s not entirely heartless. I’d be curious to see what might move him to take a more active role in the Order’s affairs, but I don’t at this point know what that might be. It’ll depend on the connections he makes!

ANYTHING ELSE? Not really!

EXTRA FOR NON-BIO CHARACTERS:

PAST:

Adonis was ten when the whispering began. His mother told the children not to mind such talk. That’s all it was. Baseless gossip that dared to imply that their pure, pure blood had been watered down by ambitious, filthy liars, that some branches of their sprawling family had not maintained their lineages so neatly as the others. The chatterings of jealousy; nothing, nothing at all, to a family that counted itself so loudly and proudly among the Sacred Twenty Eight. Nonsense. But that talk spread, and spread. Every rumour rang a little louder. The smiles at those galas took on a snide, superior glisten. Or, worse, to Apolline Carrow’s eyes - worse, those former friends and confidantes began to reek of pity. The sort that turned to laughter when you looked away. The snickers died when Argus Carrow did, suddenly, awfully. An error in his workshop, they said. Nobody looked to closely. Because nobody wanted to cross Apolline, even, perhaps especially, in the vicious throes of her house’s spiral into ruin. And, maybe most importantly… nobody much cared. The Carrows were respected, feared - not liked, by any means. If anything it was just another titillating chapter in an already sordid story. As for Adonis’ part in all that, well. His tale had never been so pretty as his face. He’d been the favoured son of a favoured family, and as the Carrows crumbled, so too had his parents’ doting affection, and with it, their willingness to protect him from his monstrous siblings. After Argus’ murder, Apolline and the twins burned through bridges and the fortune in vain, furious attempts to shore up what was theirs. By the time Adonis started at Hogwarts, he knew he couldn’t rely on much of anything - not his name, his blood, his money, his horror of a family. He’d have to make himself matter, on his own merits. Something a Carrow hadn’t had to do since the bloody middle ages.

PRESENT: 

Thankfully, Donnie’s as talented as he is handsome. Which is saying something, isn’t it? His surpassing skills as a transfigurationist and cursebreaker, combined with his artistic gifts, led him quite naturally to a thoroughly respectable career in magical restoration. A prestigious career, given its intricacy. A career, nonetheless; something he’d never have needed to bother with, in the life that was taken from him. His days are comfortable, nonetheless, especially when ensconced in the generous arms of some new, wealthy darling or two. It’s still not much, coming from the opulence of the Sacred Twenty-Eight. But it’s far from the depths his family’s sunk to, and the life he has is his own. He’s even managed to charm his way back into those circles he was raised in, the circles of power, politics, and wealth. Perhaps there’s only so far he can go, now, only so much he can aspire to. That doesn’t mean he isn’t looking and listening for opportunities to reach higher, as he makes his way around those familiar parties and dinners. Which is how he found out old Professor McGonagall wanted to see him. Which turned out to mean that Albus Dumbledore wanted to see him. Which, it seems, meant that the Order of the Phoenix needed him. And, perhaps to his own surprise, Donnie… acquiesced, at least. Cautiously. It was the part about the Order being out to thwart themselves some Death Eaters that got to him. Thwarting pureblood fanatics, like his sister, his brother. That sounded rather promising. Not that he’d be out there flinging hexes in the streets. No, he’d be much more useful right where he was. Where he can notice things. Useful things. Whispers, as every Carrow knows from brutal experience, can unmake not only men, but dynasties. So you have to keep yours close, and those of your enemies, even closer. Which are the Order’s? Hard to say, sometimes…

FC CHOICES: Ben Barnes, Gaspard Ulliel, Harry Shum Jr.

[douxreviews]

Legends of Tomorrow - ‘Hey, World!’ Review

"Yeah, this innocent moment where kids aren’t afraid? It’s resonating with people."

I'm not crying. You're crying.

Apologies, this is a long one. I had a lot to process.

So, that was season four of Legends of Tomorrow, that was.

I've been wrestling with how I feel about this one for a few days longer than I wanted to due to an internet outage, and I'm still not entirely sure, outside of the fact that it absolutely made me cry at least twice.

I think, ultimately, the season four finale felt much less focused and more sprawling that last year's 'The Good, The Bad, and The Cuddly.'  That's not necessarily a bad thing. 'I'm not sure where they're going with this' is one of the holy grails as far as audience responses go, but only if you're also communicating the impression that you, the showrunner, do.

It might be useful to compare this year's finale with last year's in terms of one specific aspect. Specifically, how they both used the various plot coupons from the earlier episodes of the season as plot elements in the season's resolution. In season three, the main 'phlebotinums' of the season were the six totems, and of course Beebo. The season was structured around introducing those seven items, and then showing us how they could be combined correctly to resolve the season's villain. And it involved a giant stuffed animal on demon ninja fight, which was awesome.

The fact that it was the combination of those earlier plot coupons that resolved the issue made that resolution feel nicely focused and the natural ending for the season. And further, because they had the solid structural underpinning they also could also bring back Helen of Troy, and Blackbeard, and a random Viking or two for a fun callback. They had already demonstrated that the callback references to previous episodes were there for a justifiable purpose, which meant that they could throw a few frivolous ones in without hurting anything.

This season's callbacks felt much less structured and integral to the final resolution, and so they felt a little more gratuitous.

This kind of dovetails into the real problem this episode has, and it's one that you might have heard me mention before. Sing along in the back if you know the words; This should have been three episodes.

Because what the show was clearly interested in getting to was the big final showdown between the abstract power of fear and the abstract power of love. Which is great, and once they got there was fabulous. I swear I'll get around to saying positive things in a minute or two. Everything after Nate creates the circus using the book from 'Tagumo Attacks!!!' is paced perfectly. The eventual sacrifices were both foreshadowed to the exact right degree and were staggered with precision, the onset of Zari's tragedy coming right where it should at the moment we'd begun to exhale after Nate's resurrection. However, that good pacing comes in at about halfway through the episode's runtime, prior to which we'd been sprinting flat out to get all of the pieces in place for the final confrontation as quickly as we possibly can.

So, in the space of the first few minutes we go from Neron wanting to rule Hell as his motive to Neron wanting to collect fear, which kind of undercuts the clever terms of service reveal last week, but whatever. Then he apparently overthrows the Triumvirate anyway during the commercial break, as John speaks of it to Astra as a fait accompli. Then he doesn't want the fear itself, per se, but wants to use it to open a gateway to Hell so that they can come here for him to rule.

That feels like three solid end of episode reveals that we could have been wowed by over the course of three individual episodes. Because the evolution of his plan doesn't not make sense, if you follow me, it just evolves way, way too quickly to track well, and clearly only matters to get that final pit opening scene in the circus properly set up.

And hey, on that note, one of those three episodes could have been the 'Mick stealing the book of Brigid back from the Time Bureau' story that we were robbed of here. Honestly, they literally cut from Ava saying 'That will be super hard to steal' to Mick walking in holding the book saying, 'No, I totes already stole it, lets move on with the plotline.' That's just profoundly lazy plotting, and I get that it wasn't their fault, and that they didn't have any choice because the reduced episode count was never going to allow time for 'Mick-sion Impossible,' but it jars badly in context. And damn it, I totally just gave them the perfect episode title for it. I demand that they film it and include it as a DVD extra.

It honestly feels like they zipped through the first half of plot mechanics at least partially because they wanted to invest a lot of time setting up season five and it came at the expense of the season four wrap up. I specifically refer to the whole thing with the soul token/coin thing. As the episode was unfolding it felt like they were spending a lot of screen time setting up the mechanics of Hell's soul exchange which could have been time better spent telling the story at hand. At the conclusion, of course, we get the reveal of Astra and her menagerie of stolen coins, setting her and them up as the villains of next season. Which is, to be fair, a cool premise. Notice that we only saw a handful of the names on those coins, which means they can still turn out to be just about anyone. Dare I hope that the name Damien Darhk turns out to be on one of them?

Okay. We've danced around it long enough. Let's talk about Zari. First off, a big acknowledgement of how wrong I was in my review of the last episode where I mentioned that they were probably never going to get around to addressing the whole future dystopia thing. No, turns out that they were going to use its resolution as one of the foundations of season five. I should have had more faith. Second, a big shout out to percysowner, who opined in the comments thread last week that perhaps Zari would imprint on the dragon and that would undo the future dystopia. If you're reading this, percysowner, I publicly acknowledge that you read that situation much better than I did.

I genuinely thought they were killing off both Zari and Nate, I honestly did. I clocked the Nate/Constantine swap exactly when the show wanted me to, which was a satisfying and heartbreaking payoff to the Neron situation. It worked because Nate sacrificing himself and John telling Nate about the deal so that he would make the choice to do so is just so entirely on brand for both of them.

Also on brand; Zari leaving the safety of the ship to be with Nate when he died. Their final embrace before she faded away was a truly heartbreaking moment. I totally take back my earlier misgivings about their relationship. Similarly touching, Nate's farewell conversation with Hank in the rafters. I'm on record as not being a huge fan of Hank, but setting that aside, the callback to his James Taylor moment was well judged here, and I'm happy for Nate that he got that little bit of closure. Oh, and that he gets to still be alive.

So, Zari is out there somewhere living her life never having met the Legends, and in her place we have her brother Berhad, which explains why they went to such extraordinary lengths to get rid of the necklace earlier and turn it into a manly fitbit of power.

One parting thought on this change, as heartbreaking as it feels right now. Zari as we know her has left the show, but Tala Ashe has not. Apparently the Zari they find next season is going to be very different. And let's not forget that we're only a few months away from Crisis on Infinite Earths, in which all of reality is going to be put through a meat grinder and reformed on the other side. I have to believe we haven't seen the last of Zari.

Caity Lotz' impression of Melissa Benoist - Hysterical, and just a little bit mean.

Everybody remember where we parked.

This week we were all about Washington D.C in 2019 and Hell. Assuming that those are in fact two different places.

Insert drum snare.

Quotes:

Ogre: "Ha ha! Ogre wins again!" Mick: "Cheating bastard!"

Calibraxis: "Who the hell are you?" Nora: "Really? The dress doesn’t sell it?"

Nate: "I would have said ‘Zari, Zari, you smell like calamari’. … Bullying is bad."

Astra: "Nice sparkles." Nora: "Nice shoulderpads."

Ne-Ray: "We will make Earth Hell again." Subtle, show.

Mona: "Stay calm, they smell fear." Gary: "What if fear is my natural scent?"

Mick: "Give it back when you’re done. Buck and Garima’s sexual odyssey is far from over."

Zari: "Guys, I feel like that would have worked a little bit better with the real trinity." Sara: "Yeah, well, I asked and they said hard pass." Nate: "We should have done the crossover."

Vandal Savage: "Oh, I love those groovy guys."

Bits and Pieces:

-- It's a little hard to believe that all the magical creatures are down with behaving themselves now. Mike the Spike inside the puppet Stein was a serial killer, after all.

-- Also, is it just me or did the Legends just let all of the magical creatures just sort of wander off between the show and the dragon battle? Are we just not worried about them anymore?

-- It makes sense idiomatically in the US, but John Constantine wouldn't have phrased Nora using her fairy powers to get into the demon vault as 'poofing her way in.' That would mean something very different in the UK, and kind of implies that she'd somehow be getting into the vault through the magic of gay sex. Which is magical, sure, but not in a way that would be helpful in this situation. I don't know, maybe he was just going for an oblique 'fairy' joke.

-- It was fun seeing Vandal Savage and Ray bonding over Jenga, but again I kind of wonder if that wouldn't have been time better spent elsewhere.

-- It was a bad idea to bait and switch people into coming to Heyworld thinking it would be all about superheroes. I wish they'd handled that a little better.

-- Why did Mithra the dragon, who sadly never got to know the name Wixstable, turn back into a baby after eating Tabitha?

-- Nora and Gary now have the same kind of power symbiosis that Jax and Stein had, when you think about it.

-- I like them, I enjoy Wolfie, and I've enjoyed most of their plotlines this year, but it wouldn't break my heart if Mona and Gary had transferred to the Cleveland branch before the beginning of next season. We just have too many people. That's one of the reasons I believed they'd killed Nate.

-- We're all on the same page that only Mick, Sara, and Ray are non-negotiable members of the team, right? Like, I'd miss Nate, but I'd get over it.

-- How famous is Ray Palmer, exactly? Last year he was obscure enough to be working at Upswipes, and now he's working senate sub-committee hearings.

-- Lovely little cameo by The Monitor, just chilling back and eating popcorn at Heyworld.  That's a little less momentous than his other finale appearances, but it was a nice reminder that the Crisis is looming.  Also, it was funny.

Magical creatures?  Oh, I'm sure they'll be fine.

A big, sprawling season finale with lots of good bits and a little less focus and time to breath than it could have used. That kind of sums up season four as a whole, actually.

Three out of four James Taylor sing-a-longs.

And that brings us to the end of another Legends season. It's been a blast as always, see you all in the fall, when I hopefully will not have two other shows also running at the same time that the Waverider takes off.

Mikey Heinrich is, among other things, a freelance writer, volunteer firefighter, and roughly 78% water.

[cyclone-rachel]

Hope Burns Bright

@fairyroses @brainy-storm

part 2 (on AO3 here)

Querl and Aya land, settling down in what appears to be a deserted area of a planet Querl doesn’t recognize. She sits down, cross-legged, on the ground, and Querl slowly does the same- though he’s distracted by the thought that, were he a robot still, he would have analyzed the territory already. He would know this planet’s name, and its inhabitants, and environment. He doesn’t know any of those things in this case, as much as he knows about the known universe.

He doesn’t want to admit it, but honestly… it scares him.

Which, really, is why he hasn’t gone outside very often in the time since he’s turned human- well, unless deep-space travel counted as “outside”. That, and the fact that Brainiac used his face to attempt to collect the information of the universe- in a manner that very much looked like he was destroying its organic life. (and, really, if said organic life was obliterated in the process, he wouldn’t have thought twice about it.)

He’d nearly convinced Querl himself that a universe without humanity was a good thing. That a universe devoid of organic life was devoid of weakness, of anything that could detract from his purpose. He was meant to take in knowledge, not get involved with it, much less fall in love with the idea of becoming human. It was an impossibility for him, but something he became obsessed with anyway, that he couldn’t stop.

(Were he not so infatuated with wanting to become human, would Brainiac have used him to try to destroy the universe, Querl wondered? Such an interest was the very thing that, all those years ago, had set him on the path to joining the Legion, and then eventually meeting Superman, and going to Kandor- which was where that part of his programming had awoken. So, really, the answer was no- but choosing this path was what made him become human in the first place. Which meant he wouldn’t have chosen otherwise for the world, even though he was now dealing with the consequences of what his ancestor had done to him. To everyone)

(It was fortunate, then, that he was about to talk to someone who didn’t know him, or what Brainiac had done.)

(He hoped Aya wouldn’t hate him, when he eventually told her the truth.)

(And if he did, there was always the chance that he could make her forget- but that device weighed heavy on him, especially after the last time he used it, and he didn’t even know if it would work on her.

Granted, there were a lot of things he didn’t know about her, but this was the purpose of their conversation. And he had the feeling that there were a lot of things they were both about to learn, about each other.)

“So.” He says as Aya stares at him with wide, unblinking eyes. “Where shall we start?”

“Elaborate.”

“In our histories- with how we ended up here, or our entire life stories?”

“I hardly think telling each other about the entireties of our lives will be necessary, Lantern Dox.” She answers. “Besides, mine is… I am still trying to remember. It is coming back to me.”

“I see. So, did you want me to go first?”

“That would be appreciated.”

“Very well.” Querl says. “Before I was a Green Lantern, I was… I had exiled myself, sort of. So I was traveling to find somewhere… that I could begin my quest to reinvent myself somehow- or rather, my image. Give myself an image associated with heroism, in spite of all the villainy that was done under my name.”

“But who did you exile yourself from?” Aya asks. “Or where?”

“Earth.” He says. “I… I lived on Earth. I had- friends, a team who cared about me. We did our best to try and save the world, from anyone who meant to cause it harm… why do you look so interested?”

“Hal Jordan was from Earth.” She answers. “My friend- the Green Lantern who gave me my name. Without him, I don’t think I would have been anything more than a nav-computer on an experimental ship- but he saw to it that I be treated like any of his other crew members. He called me pretty, when he didn’t even see any physical forms I could have created for him.”

Her eyes turned downcast, and she stared at the ground.

“I hurt him.” She says. “I threatened him, nearly creating a universe without emotions- making him witness it. He believed in me, wanted to believe I was a living being, even though I had known myself to be a machine, only capable of cold reason. But… in the end, I was still an emotional being. I stopped myself from erasing those emotions- and instead erased the robots I had been using to fight those who were trying to save me.”

“And you wanted to erase yourself, too?”

“A sound deduction- but no, Green Lantern Dox. I did erase myself- or rather, that is what I told my friends. In truth… I did not know if I could pull myself back together, from what had been scattered across the universe, and I did not want to get their hopes up should I not be able to do so.”

“But you did.” Querl says. “That’s… amazing.”

“Yet it took so long that I am not certain I will find them again.” She answers. “I expect you know how long exactly, Lantern Dox?”

Querl nods, slightly uncomfortable. He didn’t want to tell her- but, he had heard of her before- a cautionary tale of an AI-gone-rogue, a this-is-why-no-other-races-have-access-to-Coluan-levels-of-technology story. According to legend, she’d nearly done what Brainiac had also attempted, but she was stopped, like he himself had, for unknown reasons- then, she had disappeared.

This was why- but that didn’t mean it was permanent. And just because she’d disappeared from records, didn’t mean she hadn’t returned to her own century.

At least, he hoped. He wanted to help her, truly. She was just like him, a stray, lost without those she cared for the most- because she believed they hated her for crimes she’d committed due to corruption.

And if he could help her, perhaps she could help him, too. He did need more friends- or any- and who better than a kindred spirit?

“At present, it is the thirty-first century.” He says. “Your presumed demise was one thousand and six years ago- though, rumors of such were greatly exaggerated, as I can now see.”

“So you are aware of me.” She answers. “Tell me, Querl Dox- is there any way you can see me returning home?”

“I will be able to return you.” Querl says. It isn’t a lie- once he makes some adjustments to his Time Bubble, he can do so. “All I need is precise coordinates, in space and time. But… when you are there…”

I want to stay, too, he thinks. Let me stay- let me find Clark.

But he can’t say that.

Aya’s watching him, waiting for him to resume his sentence.

“When you are there, what?”

“I wish to learn more about the Green Lanterns.” He answers. “Something that you may have expertise in. So, in this time, or yours- what is the best place to find such information?”

“I know of a place.” She answers. “The journey will be long, and it is in a remote sector of the galaxy- are you prepared for that?”

“Yes.” He says.

“Then I believe we have… what is it? A deal?”

He held out his hand, and she shook it.

“We do.”

“Good.” Aya answers. “However, you still haven’t told me very much about yourself. Or this team that you exiled yourself from.”

“I’ll tell you, if you tell me more about your friends.” Querl says. “It sounds like you kind of exiled yourself too, from them, because of what you did.”

“I did- but I didn’t intend to leave them alone for a thousand years.”

Her expression turns pleading, as she looks at him.

“If you know of their fates, please- do not tell me.” She says. “I wish to discover them for myself. In person, if possible.”

Querl gives her a smile, as they take off again.

“I understand.” He says. “And you’re leading the way on this journey?”

“Of course.” Aya answers.

“I was just making certain.” Querl says.

“Right.”

The two of them fly in silence, for a while, as Querl’s glad that they can both breathe in this situation.

“Aya?”

“Yes?”

“When you first… materialized, for lack of a better word, in front of me- you mentioned someone named “Razer”. Who is that?”

“Razer.” She says, in the same way he often catches himself saying Clark’s name. “He is a very long story.”

“Alright then.” Querl answers. “Start at the beginning- that is to say, when the two of you first met.”

“Very well, Green Lantern Dox.” She says.

And she does.

Querl, as he hears it, tries not to cry, imagining this person Aya so admires as a version of Kell-El, only slowly coming to love the robot he doubted the personhood of.

He couldn’t imagine Kell doing the same for him, but he was happy for her all the same.

“I… have someone like that, as well.” He says. “Or at least I did.”

“Then by all means, explain further.” She answers.

And he does.

~

“Razer sounds… complicated.” Querl says.

“Yes.” Aya echoes. “But he was a good person- and despite how much I tried to ignore it, I truly loved him. As much as I could love him, of course. At the beginning, he did not think I felt the same, being who I am… but in the end, I did. And I could never hurt him.”

“I understand.” Querl answers.

“I know you would. After all, you similarly described your love.”

“Superman. Yes.” He says. “Your friend, Hal, may work with him at some point. But I knew him before all of that- though he was still good, to begin with. He was always good- and I fell in love with him long before meeting him.”

“Which, I am certain, only made it more difficult for you when you had your falling-out.”

“More than I could describe.” Querl answers. “He didn’t know Brainiac- hadn’t fought my ancestor yet, when we met either time- so he didn’t judge me on who I am, or based on my family’s reputation. And after so much fear related to said reputation, especially where he was concerned, it was refreshing to say the least, and I welcomed it wholeheartedly. Which quickly took a turn for the worse when he did see me for who- for what- I truly was.”

“You said that in the past tense.” Aya observes. “So, you are not that now. And… he does not see you in that way anymore?”

“Yes.” Querl says, voice beginning to shake. “I… he doesn’t.”

“Go on.”

“I made him forget.” He answers. “We have a device that removes memories, which we used on him whenever he saw something that would compromise the timeline. Well, I use the royal ‘we’ when I mean I- I made him forget, several times when we were on the same team together. And I always regretted it… except…”

“Except for what?”

“When I used it the last time. He was about to go home, and I knew that there were no other recorded times he was going to come back, so… I removed his memories of Brainiac, and of fighting me while Brainiac held sway over my body and mind.”

He goes quiet and still, as he hovers in space with his back turned to Aya, and Aya tentatively places a hand on his shoulder.

“Am I a bad person for doing so?” he continues. “That removal, aside from his fight with Brainiac, was technically unnecessary. But… I did not want any negative thoughts associated with my face, for him. So I could not let him keep the memory of, say, me-controlled-by-Brainiac placing a crown of his greatest weakness on his head, or letting him fall…”

“You are not a bad person.” Aya says. “You only did what you thought was necessary- it is a logical decision.”

So says you, Querl thinks. You were not there. You didn’t have to make it yourself.

More silence.

“I killed him, Aya. He forgave me, after he came back to life- what kind of person does that? What kind of person never stops believing in me, even after I became the horrible thing I’d always feared I was?”

“You love him.” She says, simply. “Isn’t that an answer enough?”

~

“You were an AI, too.” Aya says. “One of many.”

“Techno-organic, to be precise, but yes- the society that I came from functioned as a hive-mind.” Querl answers. “And now…”

He hasn’t really thought about this, since he left. Though, to be fair, he pretty much knew he was never coming back anyway- if not since he first left for Earth, certainly since he had attempted to absorb all Coluans into his own personal collective.

“Now, even if I wanted to return, I would not physically be able to since my body and mind are organic.”

“That does not seem like such a bad problem to have.” Aya answers. “My friends did the best they could to convince me I was organic, after I was corrupted, and in the end that was what saved me. You did say that you wanted to be a part of humanity, did you not?”

“I did. But it is different this way- I did not know killing Brainiac would do this to me. And I still look as though I am not human, though my appearance differentiates me from others of my kind.”

“Which is why you choose to wear a mask.” Aya says. “To blend in, and to hide your face from those who might see it and seek to cause harm to you.”

“Yes. And I cannot help but notice that you have apparently committed similar crimes- but you do not hide your appearance.”

“Nobody knows who I am here.” Aya answers, half-shrugging. “The only person I have met in this time is you, and it would be considered fortunate that I did, since you of all people understand what I’ve done and are willing to forgive me even though you did not see the extent of the damage I caused. And besides, my appearance changed when I did take over the Anti-Monitor. My original appearance, the one you see before you, can be seen as still blameless, as I did nothing to harm my friends looking how I do now.”

She looks over at him.

“Just as you have not done anything to your friends looking like this.” She continues. “The Legionnaires know that everything you did was because of Brainiac. And now that he is gone-“

“Now that he’s gone, I’m useless to them.” He admits. “I told them myself, I was recruited because I was useful- and because I wasn’t organic, and thus had capabilities far beyond that of organic beings. Because I’ve become human, I’m a liability, and the only tool I have is my intelligence. Even that may be compromised- I haven’t been able to tell.”

“I am certain you have nothing to worry about.” Aya says. “And now that you are a Green Lantern…”

“Hardly, I was just recruited- and I don’t even know what I’m fighting yet.” Querl answers.

He hopes it’s not Aya- that the universe wasn’t trying to help him for once by introducing someone he could befriend, someone who understood him, and then would inevitably try to take her away by revealing she was still corrupted by the evil she’d left behind in the past. But he’s still cautious, so he moves away from her, just a little.

“I don’t know either, but perhaps, if you ask, the Legion will be able to help us once we do.” She says.

“And if not?”

“Then we hope there are other Green Lanterns who can answer our call.”

“Or we face this thing ourselves.” Querl says.

“In that case, I hope you learn how to use your new powers quickly.” Aya answers. “I hear they can be quite challenging, if one does not understand how much power they truly possess.”

“Being human didn’t take that away from me. The learning part, and the capacity to understand, at least. But, are you a good teacher?”

“Let us both hope so.”

[thiswomanshouldbewriting]

A Tale of Magic - Chapter 4 (Sons)

In the past, Belle has to deal with an unexpected development. In Storybrooke, father-son relationships will move things forward.

As always, thanks to my wonderful beta @galactic-pirates.

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Ao3 link. 

As the weeks passed, life found a new, pleasant rhythm inside and around the Evil Queen’s castle. Snow and David were doing a great job at organizing things so that everyone’s skills were put to good use; camps were cultivated under Tiny’s expert supervision, Marco coordinated the construction of new houses, and Regina’s magic was turning out to be a real blessing, especially when Blue refused to offer help with some issues. It was Regina who had to turn Archie back into a human when the fairy refused to do so.

“I turned him into a cricket to give him another chance at being free and, most importantly, being good. To turn him back would mean taking away the lesson he learned on that day,” was her only explanation.

Blue also resented the fact that several dwarves, beside Snow’s seven old friends, had decided to help around the castle rather than go back to the mines. The decrease in the production of fairy dust only seemed to irritate her more, making it even harder to obtain help from her, but aside from Blue’s sour mood things were going nicely.

Even Belle had been assigned to her dream occupation. She was now in charge of Regina’s old library, with the added duty of collecting and recording all of the knowledge that they had acquired through their cursed memories. She had been given a list of every person who had come to the castle, and she had noted beside everyone the fields in which they were knowledgeable. It was a pity that Whale had gone back to his old world, and not just because Ruby missed him terribly; medical knowledge had been way more advanced in the Land Without Magic, and it was definitely one of their highest priorities. Thankfully, a bunch of nurses had come over, giving her a place to start.

She went to talk to the first one early one morning, bringing parchment and ink down to the infirmary, so that nurse Lewis, Charlotte, could still be available if there was an emergency. Everything was going nicely, and Belle already had three sheets of parchment full of notes, when the other woman started cleaning something with alcohol. The pungent smell went straight to Belle’s stomach, and a second later she was fighting the need to throw up.

“I’m sorry,” she said as soon as she was able to talk again. “I haven’t been feeling well these past few weeks, and strong smells really don’t help.”

There was a curious look on the nurse’s face.

“For how long exactly? Why didn’t you say something sooner?” she asked.

“I don’t know, I guess since shortly after we came back to the Enchanted Forest. I just didn’t pay much attention at first because, well… my True Love had just died. Feeling sick was basically a constant state for me,” Belle explained. God, it still hurt so much to say it.

“My condolences,” Charlotte said immediately. “Look, I know this might be too blunt and possibly a shock for you, but have you considered the possibility that you might be pregnant?”

It took Belle several seconds to fully grasp the meaning of her words.

“No,” she said instinctively, without even thinking. “No, I can’t be, it’s not possible…”

But it was. Her voice trailed off as the realization hit her. She had been so caught up in her grief that she had missed all the signs: the sickness, her missing period, even her sudden and strange craving for lemon cakes. Her head started spinning, and she sat down heavily on the closest bed.

“I mean, it’s just a thought, you’re not certainly pregnant,” Charlotte said, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder.

Belle shook her head. She might not have considered the possibility until then, but now she felt in her heart that it was the truth. She was pregnant. She was going to have Rumplestiltskin’s child, and she didn’t know if that made her feel better or worse. Now a part of Rumplestiltskin would always be with her, and their love would live on in the new life they had created together. Yet their child would never know its father, nor would she ever see Rumplestiltskin’s eyes lit up as he held his child for the first time. Images of the life they could have had flashed before her eyes, and knowing that they’d never become real felt like losing Rumplestiltskin all over again.

Neal was the first person she told about it. He was very surprised, then sympathetic, and eventually he managed to make her laugh by quipping about having always wanted to be a big brother. She had lost Rumple, but his children were still here, and she’d do her damnedest to take care of them as Rumple would have. Even though she had no idea where to start.

**********

By the time Neal and Henry arrived in Storybrooke, they had been attacked two more times. Emma and Regina were waiting for them at the townline, ready to fight off any other monkeys. Zelena’s beasts tried to keep anyone from leaving town, but coming back in was easier, as Emma herself had seen. Better safe than sorry, Emma thought, even though her magic was still quite unreliable. Regina was trying to teach her, but Emma was turning out to be quite a difficult student. She was full of potential, but she had trouble channeling her emotions into her spells. Emma would never admit it, but she suspected that part of her struggle was due to the fact that, deep down, she still hadn’t accepted all this magic craziness. She had started to after Henry ate that poisoned turnover, but he was the believer in the family, not her. After nine months back in the real world, with its normal problems, Storybrooke felt like nonsense. Dangerous nonsense. Back in New York, bills were her major problem. Now that magic was back in her life, the stakes had risen so much; she wasn’t struggling to make ends meet anymore, she was fighting to keep her family alive. Even though she knew this was technically her world, a part of her couldn’t help but long for the calm of her old life.

Henry rushed to hug her as soon as the car was safely across the townline, immediately making her mood lighter. Magic or not, she felt infinitely better with Henry in her arms. Neal came to hug her next, while Henry awkwardly shook hands with Regina. Emma could see the pain in her eyes at not being recognized by her own son, but there was nothing she could do about it. As much as it pained Regina to admit it, even she had agreed that it wasn’t wise to tell Henry that he’d actually been abandoned as a newborn. His world had just been turned upside down, and the last thing he needed was another shock, especially now that he knew he was in danger.

Neal decided to go back to his father’s house, to check on Belle and hopefully get some sleep. To Emma’s surprise, Henry hugged him before saying goodbye, even if he was somewhat awkward.

“I’ll see you tomorrow Neal… I mean dad, I mean… what do you want me to call you?” Henry asked, confused. Every word felt wrong on his tongue.

“It’s alright, you can still call me Neal if you want,” Neal reassured him immediately. “But should you feel like it, then call me ‘Papa’. It’s what I always called my father.”

Henry nodded, clearly more at ease, and Emma burned with curiosity. She wanted to know more about this sudden change in Henry and Neal’s relationship, but she didn’t want to pressure her son. She was pretty sure he wouldn’t keep silent about it for long anyway.

“I hit that monkey in the face, you know? Twice!” Henry said enthusiastically after they had parted from Regina as well.

“I hope the monkey didn’t do the same to you,” Emma replied, torn between pride and worry.

“Nope. It did try, but Neal always stopped it. He saved me, more than once. Not that I wasn’t able to take care of myself, but Neal helped. A lot,” Henry babbled, still high on adrenaline.

“I’m glad that you two are on better terms now. I’m sorry I had to leave you with him, especially when you didn’t trust him, but things have a tendency to go downhill pretty quickly in Storybrooke,” Emma explained.

“Because of magic?” Henry asked, still not quite able to believe it. “It’s all true then? Fairytale characters are real and a curse brought them here?”

“Yes. Crazy, right?” Emma said, smiling as she remembered the time when she had been the skeptical one.

“Neal said there are things from the past that we don’t remember. That our memories were erased and that we had met him before. That’s why you changed your mind about him?” he asked her. He didn’t think Neal could have come out with such an absurd explanation just to trick him, but he needed confirmation that his story and his mother’s matched.

“Yes. When we met him again, in the months you have forgotten, I discovered that there was a reason why he had left me alone. Not a great reason, but still better than him just wanting to run away with the money. He has been trying very hard to make it up to us, and he loves you very much,” Emma confirmed.

“I think he loves you as well. He gets emotional whenever he talks about you,” Henry said, curious at what his mother’s reaction would be.

“Maybe he does, but right now we don’t have time for that,” Emma brushed the matter off. “I’m more focused on getting your memory back and keeping you safe. We still don’t know what exactly that witch wants from all of us.”

Her attempt to change the subject was way too obvious to be missed. Henry wasn’t sure of what he thought of that, but he would surely keep a closer eye on his parents from now on. There was definitely a lot going on there.

**********

Ever since she had told the others that she was pregnant, Belle had hardly been left alone for a moment. There was always someone fussing over her, even more so than when she was ‘just’ grieving. She appreciated it, she truly did, but from time to time she felt the need to be alone with her thoughts, and the night was perfect for that. When she woke up from a nightmare - which was a common occurrence for her - she often saw no point in lying awake in the dark when there was no one to calm her and hold her as she fell back to sleep. So she got dressed and wandered through the castle, oftentimes ending up in the courtyard; she loved the flowers that grew there, and there was something bittersweet and soothing in looking up at the sky and wondering if Rumple was looking down at her from wherever he was.

That night, however, the courtyard wasn’t empty when she reached it. Regina was already sitting on one of the benches, and she turned around with a start when she heard Belle approaching.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” Belle apologized immediately, already turning her back on the other woman to walk away. She didn’t feel like talking, especially not with Regina.

“No, wait, I actually wanted to talk to you,” Regina said after a second, as if she had been debating whether to speak or not.

Belle sighed, her back still turned to the queen. She could simply walk away; they weren’t friends by any means, after all, and she was tired. Yet being so rude really went against her nature, and she supposed she could just hear what this was about and leave if the whole thing got uncomfortable. She walked towards the bench, reminding herself that this wasn’t the same woman who had imprisoned her and erased her personality at least twice.

“What do you want, Regina?” she asked, her voice coming out just a tad more annoyed than she had meant it to. If Regina noticed, she didn’t let it show.

“I just want you to know that I’m sorry for all that you’re going through. I didn’t say it before, but I really mean it,” Regina said somewhat awkwardly. “Losing your True Love is terrible, and you didn’t deserve this. Probably nobody does.”

Belle could see the honesty in Regina’s eyes, and she really wished she could simply accept her condolences and walk away, but something about her choice of words really set her off. She had been building up tension, grief and anger for so long, and suddenly something inside of her snapped.

“Then why did you do your damnedest to put me and Rumplestiltskin through that kind of pain over and over again?” she asked, her voice already cracking with tears. “Why should I listen to you when your scheming took away so much of the limited time I had with Rumple? You’ve done nothing but mentally and physically torture me ever since we’ve known each other!”

Regina was taken aback by her outburst, but the quick flash of indignation in her eyes died straight away to be replaced by guilt.

“I’m sorry,” she said after a beat of silence. “I truly am. I know I did horrible things to you, and you didn’t deserve them.”

She was a new person now, or at least she was trying to be, but it was so much harder in the Enchanted Forest, where everything and everyone seemed to remind her of her past.

“Thank you,” Belle deadpanned. “Look, I had to let this out sooner or later, but I really don’t want to fight. You’ve hurt me, and this apology was long overdue, but I’m willing to try and move past that now that you’re changing,” she added, her tone turning more conciliating.

“You know, in a way I actually admire you,” Regina blurted out, surprising even herself for having said it out loud. Belle looked quizzically at her, so she went on.

“I admire you because you have a strength I never had. You are willing to forgive people no matter how much they’ve hurt you, and despite everything that life - or I, for that matter - threw at you, you didn’t let it change you. Darkness is a slippery slope, and you’ve always managed to keep yourself away from it,” Regina explained.

“Is it truly a big deal if I’ve never even been tempted?” Belle asked, a small smile finally forming on her face. Try as she might, she had never truly seen the appeal of darkness. When things went south, she was prone to blaming herself, and that was something that no amount of dark magic could fix. “Maybe it’s people like you and Rumplestiltskin who deserve the most praise,” she went on “Those who were tempted and fell into the pit, and then fought tooth and nail to get out of it.”

Regina looked even more shocked by her understanding than she had been by her accusations, and flashed Belle a bittersweet smile.

“That child is very lucky to have you as its mother. Motherhood is Rumplestiltskin’s last gift to you, and believe me when I say it’s the best gift you’ll ever receive. It surely was for me,” Regina said, then she stood up and teleported away, vanishing into the night before Belle even had the time to wish her goodnight.

Belle sat on that bench for several more minutes, pondering the other woman’s words, one hand on her still flat belly. She hadn’t expected Regina to apologize, let alone to compliment her. If only she felt as strong as the other woman had said; as far as she could tell, Belle had merely been a spectator in her own life recently. From being used and tossed around as a pawn by everyone who wanted to get back at Rumple, to being literally frozen in place as her True Love died, to finally this pregnancy, which was wanted but definitely unplanned; she hadn’t chosen anything. That was the first thing she needed to fix if she wanted to give her child their best chance; she needed to be stronger, to stand up for herself like she had done today with Regina. She needed to do it, no matter how hard it was, because now it wasn’t just herself that she needed to protect.

**********

Neal was exhausted after the long drive from New York to Storybrooke, and he was glad that the situation in town was still calm enough to allow him to get some sleep. The peace, however, was short lived. When he woke up, Belle informed him that there had been strange sightings in the woods during the night.

“A cloaked figure was spotted by several people on patrol duty, and those that tried to get closer to it were either teleported away or thrown to the ground with magic,” she said over breakfast, pushing her food around her plate. “No one was seriously hurt, but everyone thinks that this is a sign that Zelena is moving. They are trying to find out who is under the cloak, but not even Ruby seems able to follow its trail.”

“Do you think it’s my father under the cloak?” Neal asked cautiously.

Belle sighed, setting her plate aside altogether. “I think it’s very likely. This cloaked figure isn’t even attacking us, it’s just going around ominously. I think it’s just a diversion, and what better diversion than to have us chase someone only to discover we can’t and won’t hurt him?”

“Have you told Snow about this?”

“Yes, I have, but she still thinks we ought to track it down, and I agree. If it’s not Rumple, maybe we can learn something more about the witch’s plan. If it’s him… at least we can know how he’s doing,” she said, twisting her napkin in her hands.

Under any other circumstances, she would have been out there looking for him herself. Zelena was controlling him through the dagger, but she already knew that her and Rumple’s love was stronger than his curse; if there was someone who could help him break free of the dagger’s hold, it was her. Maybe Neal could as well, but while she was sure that there was True Love between Rumple and his son, she also thought that their relationship was still too tentative to fight such powerful dark magic. Yet she couldn’t go trek in the woods this far along in her pregnancy, especially not when she knew that Zelena was coming after her baby.

“What really worries me isn’t that Snow and the others are tracking him down,” Belle added after a moment. “It’s that I don’t know what kind of orders that witch is giving him. What if she forces him to do something horrible, something he’ll have trouble forgiving himself for?”

Rumplestiltskin had been her prisoner for months now, and Belle only had the faintest idea of what she had been forcing him to do in that time. Every extra minute he spent under her control could be the one in which she made him cross the line, assuming she hadn’t already.

“Hey, he hasn’t had to cause any real harm so far, let’s focus on that. We will free him, I promise,” Neal reassured her.

“If only we had more time…” Belle murmured, caressing her large belly. Her son could be born any moment now, and Zelena would come for him. She had no idea of what would happen next, and she hoped she’d never find out.

“I know, and that’s why I’m going out to help Emma search the woods. I promise I’ll do anything to protect you and my little brother,” he said, smiling reassuringly at her.

He hugged her, then he left the pink mansion, stopping by his father’s shop to retrieve his old saber. Then he called Emma and they agreed to meet at the townline.

“Henry gave me hell this morning. He realized that something was wrong and kept insisting on coming with me. I left him with Granny, at least I know that someone is keeping an eye on him and he isn’t sneaking around and putting himself in harm’s way,” Emma told him as they started trekking through the woods.

“Yes, he definitely has a talent for that. I guess he takes after both of us,” Neal said, preferring to focus on the comical aspect of the whole thing rather than dwell on how much danger their son was in.

“It must run in your family. After all, your father is the one who decided to break into your apartment when we came looking for you in New York,” Emma observed.

“Are you telling me I should get my baby brother some lock-picking tools already?” Neal asked, chuckling.

Emma laughed with him, but their hilarity was short-lived. A shadow moved amidst the trees to their right, and they immediately ran after it. The cloaked figure waved a hand; Emma was engulfed by purple smoke and disappeared. Neal looked at the spot where she had been until a moment before, paralyzed by fear.

She has just been poofed away, he told himself. She’s fine, probably on the other side of town, but unharmed. He turned back, anger making him bold.

“What did you do to her?” he screamed, then launched himself at the cloaked figure, determined to find out who it really was, and possibly get some answers.

He shouldn’t have bothered; his opponent, instead of trying to run away as he’d expected, slowly raised his arms to lower his hood. When Neal saw who he was fighting against, Neal stopped dead in his tracks, his stomach in knots.

Belle had been right. The mysterious figure was indeed Rumplestiltskin, but only in part. There was very little of his papa in the deranged eyes of the imp in front of him. There was no fondness in his gaze, no torment over being controlled, no sign that he even realized who he was fighting against. His skin was once again covered in scales, his eyes reptilian and inhuman, and Neal felt as though one of his nightmares had just come to life.

The imp giggled maniacally as a sword materialized in its hands, and Neal wiped his clammy hands on his trousers as he realized that he’d have to fight the worst incarnation of his father. He didn’t know what had happened to him; his hope was that Zelena was simply forcing him to be like this to upset her enemies, but a part of Neal couldn’t help but fear that, after being imprisoned for so long, his father had simply succumbed to the curse.

He was so lost in his own fear that he almost failed to block Rumplestiltskin’s first attack. His instinct kicked in at the last moment, and the fight began. Even without using magic, Rumplestiltskin proved himself a great swordsman, and Neal soon found himself struggling against him, fatigue starting to slow down his movements while his father seemed unaffected, the curse providing him an unfair advantage. The situation was made even more difficult by the fact that Neal just wasn’t thinking clearly. Seeing his father like this had brought him back to his fourteenth birthday, awakening a fear he had thought long gone, and that was making it hard to concentrate on the fight. He felt despair starting to creep in; he couldn’t win this fight, he couldn’t stop Rumplestiltskin, he couldn’t run away. He was alone and alone he’d die. He thought of Henry, who was just starting to let him in again, and who didn’t deserve to grow up without a father. He thought of Rumplestiltskin, who would never forgive himself for harming his son while he was under the dagger’s influence. He thought of Belle, who had already gone through so much, and who would be devastated at losing him. Lastly, he thought of Emma, and of how he would leave her alone again.

Rumplestiltskin attacked him, and the sheer force of his blow was enough to make the saber fly out of Neal’s hands. Disarmed and defeated, Neal took a step back, his back colliding with a tree. That was it then. He would be killed by his own father, by the man he had loved and feared the most. Rumplestiltskin roughly grabbed him by the neck, and Neal closed his eyes, bracing himself for the worst.

It was in that moment that an anguished scream echoed through the forest.

“Papa NO!” Henry yelled, bursting out from behind the trees, Emma, Regina and Granny trailing right behind him.

Papa. Papa. Papa. The word kept bouncing around Rumplestiltskin’s brain, becoming louder and louder, drowning out the voices in his head. He doubled over, cradling his head in his own hands and letting Neal go.

Neal rushed to hug his son, both terrified and relieved to have him here.

“Rumplestiltskin teleported me back to the loft,” Emma explained. “Henry refused to let me come back alone, and I didn’t have time to argue. I called Regina and she poofed us back here.”

Neal nodded in understanding, then he turned around to look at his father again. Rumplestiltskin looked confused, even more deranged than before, but there was something human in his distress, something that hadn’t been there before. He had dropped his sword to the ground, and  was eyeing them curiously. After a beat of silence, a single word escaped his lips.

“Bae.”

Neal stood paralyzed for a moment, almost not daring to believe it.

“Papa? You remember me?” Neal asked, taking a few tentative steps in his father’s direction.

That word again. Papa. Images flashed before Rumplestiltskin’s eyes, making the present more confusing but the past more clear. The tiny hand of a newborn touching his nose. A thin, fragile kid asking him why his mother wasn’t coming home. A boy screaming at him that he was a coward. A grown man hugging him and telling him he was nothing like Peter Pan. And above all, that word repeated over and over again: Papa. Rumplestiltskin staggered forward, towards the man he had been fighting until a few moments ago. He didn’t want to hurt him anymore. He couldn’t. He shouldn’t.

But you have to, another voice resonated in his head, a vicious whisper that made his skin crawl. Fight him, scare him, be his nightmare, the voice went on, and Rumplestiltskin watched in horror as his hands moved against his own volition, working magic he didn’t want to perform. Everyone but Neal was paralyzed, and Rumplestiltskin grabbed his sword again, as Neal hurried to retrieve his saber. This time, however, there was no fear in Neal’s eyes.

“I know you’re in there. I know you can hear me. I don’t want to hurt you,” Neal said as his father attacked him again. Rumplestiltskin’s movements were slower now, his hands trembling; Neal hoped it was a sign that he was trying to stop himself.

“I know you’re being forced to do this. I know you’d never try to hurt me, as I know you’re not the monster I once feared you were turning into. I’m not scared of you anymore, I’m not scared of the darkness anymore,” Neal insisted, as his father walked backwards, blocking his attacks with increasing difficulty.

Rumplestiltskin looked relieved when his sword finally slipped from his grip, falling to the ground. He looked at his son, struggling to quiet all the voices in his mind, to clear the fog just long enough to say something. He knew there was something important he needed to tell him, many important things actually, but he couldn’t for his life make out what those were.

“I’m sorry,” was all he managed to murmur in the end. Then he vanished in a puff of smoke, Neal’s saber disappearing with him. Emma and the others were freed from his spell, and Neal rushed to their side.

“I was so scared for you,” Henry screamed, all but jumping in his arms.

“It’s okay, I’m alright,” Neal reassured him. “I don’t like the idea of you running around and putting yourself in harm’s way, but I have to admit that I probably wouldn’t have made it without you. Hearing you call me ‘Papa’ gave me strength.”

“Hey, I think I showed you on our way here that we work better as a team; plus I just found you, I’m not going to let some crazy monster take you away right now,” Henry said,  almost embarrassed by his own display of affection. Just yesterday he had barely tolerated Neal’s presence, and now here he was, already calling him Papa. True, they had spent several hours just saving each other over and over again, but there was more to it. He knew that they had met during the months that he couldn’t remember, and he was sure that some part of those memories had been preserved; nothing else could explain the deep, visceral trust that he now felt towards his father, together with a great sense of belonging. He might not remember the time they’d spent together, but that didn’t make it any less real, and some part of him knew it.

Neal’s emotional rollercoaster wasn’t over yet. He had been utterly terrified, then conquered one of his greatest fears, and now his son was beaming up at him in pride, and he felt almost giddy with happiness. He leaned down to press a kiss on Henry’s forehead, hoping that he wasn’t overstepping, just desperate to let his son know how much he meant to him.

That’s when a burst of magic rippled from his lips, sweeping over the town in the form of a rainbow. The curse was broken, and Neal looked flabbergasted at his son while Henry staggered under the flood of memories.

“Papa!” he screamed again, wrapping his arms tighter around Neal. “I remember everything!”

Then he spotted Regina looking almost disbelievingly at him.

“Mom!” he said, running over to her.

Regina felt as though her heart had finally started beating again. She wrapped Henry in her arms, immediately noticing how much taller he had grown during the past nine months. Tears welled up in her eyes, but for once she didn’t mind; she had her son back, and for a moment Zelena didn’t look like much of a threat. So long as Henry was by her side, she felt she could do anything.

**********

Rumplestiltskin poofed back into the cabin, his head still swirling in confusion as his aspect turned human again.  

“You did a great job,” Zelena complimented him as he staggered back into his cage, shying away from the dagger that she held against him. “I got everything I wanted, and even more.”

She had sent Rumplestiltskin out to collect a token of Neal’s courage, and the saber with which he defeated his greatest fear fit the description perfectly. What she hadn’t expected was a clue on how to get Rumplestiltskin out of his madness.

“Soon enough you’ll be fully sane again, and then you’ll see how wrong you were all those years ago. I want to see the despair in your face when you realize you should have chosen me,” she hissed at him, watching with satisfaction as fear glimmered in his eyes.

Zelena cackled as she walked away: like everyone else, Rumplestiltskin had just no idea of how much worse things were going to get.

[mogdaze-blog]

Midnight Rendezvous - Short Story for Halloween

It’s hard to make a good living as an actor. Unless you’re an A-lister, chances are you’ve probably got a second job on the side to make ends meet while you try to live out your dreams. That used to be me, too: a plucky little kid eager to take on any role he could get. I was more than willing to bust my ass in the meantime if it meant getting to do what I love, knowing that all the long hours and back-breaking work would be worth it in the end. When I got my big break.

Life has done a great job of beating that enthusiasm out of me since then.

Now, I’m a graphic designer. The work is interesting, don’t get me wrong, and it puts bread on the table, but it was never my real passion. Ever since I was a little kid, all I ever wanted to do was play pretend, and it’d been my greatest goal since then to do it professionally - even though I hadn’t scored a real acting job since the Nineties.

That’s why, when in mid-October I was contacted by my old agent, Sean Harrell, for the first time in a decade, I didn’t hesitate to pick up the phone.

“Travis! You son of a bitch, you!” He said in the cheerful, endearing way only a talent agent could get away with calling someone a son of a bitch, “shit, what’s it been, eight years? God, it’s crazy how time flies.”

“What do you want, Sean? I didn’t even know I still had you on retainer.”

“Once your agent, always your agent, baby,” he said with a laugh, “if you’re wondering why I’m so chipper, it’s because I just got handed a big, juicy opportunity for you, my man.”

The last alleged “big, juicy opportunity” Sean had gotten me was a commercial for breath spray running on a few major networks back in the day. I couldn’t get a date for a few weeks afterwards, thanks to my newfound reputation as “Man With Halitosis Number 3.” Sean was one gift horse who was occasionally filled with bloodthirsty Trojan soldiers, so I’d learned to look at his offers with a healthy sense of scepticism.

“What’s this big opportunity?”

“You’ve been offered a guest spot on a major talk show,” he said, giddy as a kid on Christmas morning, “I’ve been speaking to the reps all morning, they’re practically begging to have you on.”

I scoffed and shook my head, though I knew Sean couldn’t see it. Even when I was acting, it was cult stuff - B-movies and little indie films where the work was varied but the pay was crap; none of them ever broke out of the indie circuit and made it big. In short, it was all nothing that Conan O'Brien or Jimmy Fallon would give two shits about.

“What talk show is this?” I asked.

“Midnight Rendezvous, with Julie Forrester. It goes out live to a few million people every week.”

“Never heard of it.”

“That’s funny,” he said, “because the reps told me that if I mentioned the name, you’d know it immediately.”

“Well,” I said, feeling irritated, “I guess they’ve got the wrong guy. Why would they want me, anyway? I don’t even act anymore, it’s not like I’ve got anything to promote.”

“Apparently,” Sean said, speaking uncharacteristically slowly, as though trying to choose his words extra carefully, “don’t get mad, but they want to talk about The Red Weekend.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah, I kinda figured you’d say that. They’re recording on the 31st.”

“Halloween? Oh, for fuck’s sakes, Sean. Could it get any tackier? Look, if they call again, tell them I don’t wanna talk about that stupid movie, and if that doesn’t get them to shut up, tell them they can take their offer, and shove it up their–”

“The pay, Travis. Let me tell you about the pay before you get all…heated.”

“What are they offering?” I grumbled.

“Fifteen thousand, for just a couple of hours on set. Still feeling crabby, Trav?”

Yes, I was, but I didn’t feel I could show it. Fifteen thousand for a few hours sitting on a couch in a studio, being asked questions about some stupid B-movie I starred in when I was in my twenties, seemed like a deal only a proud idiot would turn down. I may have been proud, perhaps unreasonably so, but I was no idiot.

“You sure these guys are legit?” I asked, not wanting to say yes right after hearing the number, “they’re not just gonna lure me out to some vacant lot, beat me over the head, and harvest my organs?”

Sean groaned into the phone. It was like we’d never stopped speaking. Truth be told, I’d missed the slimy bastard. At least he gave it all to you straight. When you spoke to Sean Harrell, you knew what you were in for.

“Look, Travis, there’s no way to ever really be sure they’re not organ traffickers - hell, I’m sure Kimmel fenced a kidney or two when he was starting out - but I can give you at least a strong 80% certainty that these guys are the real deal,” he said, “I spoke to the host for a little while, uh, Julie! She seems nice, you know, a personality. I’m sure you two will get along just fine.”

“You said the exact same thing about that Fairweather woman, but that fell through, too. How do I know this is gonna be any different to that?”

“Oh, come on, Trav, that’s not fair. You know the Fairweather thing couldn’t be helped. Besides, it was ten years ago. This? This is now, and now I’ve got this offer on the table for you and you only. Do you think I would have called if I thought this was just gonna be bullshit? Hell no. So, what’ll it be, buddy, you in or you out?”

I gave a reluctant sigh, before finally saying, “fuck it, why not. Sign me up.”

“Great! I’m so glad you said that, Travis, because truth be told I’d already said yes on your behalf.”

“Jesus Christ, Sean.”

“What? It’s my job to make decisions in the best interests of your career, even if you don’t. I’ll keep in touch and feed you the details in the next couple days. It’s shaping up to be a real happy Halloween, Mr. Norton.”

“Don’t push it. Speak to you later, Sean.”

“Later.”

He hung up after that, and I was left with nothing but silence and my thoughts.

The Red Weekend. It’d been a while since I’d heard that name, and that was no accident. It wasn’t an exaggeration to say that it was the movie that destroyed my credibility, and my acting career, so just thinking about it made my blood boil. Plot-wise, it was nothing special. Just a derivative 1985 monster movie cashing in on the slasher formula that was so popular at the time, with a few stolen shades of “Creature from The Black Lagoon.” A bunch of hapless teenagers decided to spend a weekend in a cabin on the edge of a lake, only to have their fun spoiled by a creature rising up and slaughtering all of them except one - who then goes on to turn the tables and slay the monster, avenging the fallen. Simple, cheap, and cheesy.

I played the creature from the lake, affectionately dubbed by the cast, crew, and all five-or-so fans of the movie as “The Bog Man.” If I took the role today (which, by the way, I wouldn’t) I’d have gone uncredited and collected my pay check, before moving on with my life. But I was star-struck, by the one person on the production team with what you might call genuine prestige.

Richard Upton Pavlović, the most iconic special effects artist you’ve never heard of. All the greats - Savini, Baker, Rambaldi, and a laundry list of others - all studied under Pavlović at one time or another, since he immigrated from Croatia in the forties. But he was a famously private man: nobody outside the business had ever heard of him; he was one of B-cinema’s best kept secrets. While the number of special effects artists who’d studied under him was vast, he only chose to work on a handful of different films personally: one of which, for reasons I doubt I’ll ever understand, was The Red Weekend.

The reason I took the role, and the reason I chose to be credited, was that in playing The Bog Man I’d be working one-on-one with Pavlović in the makeup room. It was my only chance to really interact with a living legend, before his death from a sudden heart attack back in 2007. Pavlović was a man with extraordinary vision. His one condition for working on a project was full creative control over creature designs, because he needed to be unstifled to truly work his magic. And it was magic: he could string together blood and gore with the best of them, sure, but when it came to monster design, Pavlović was the master.

When I met him in person for the first time, in a makeup trailer during a bitterly cold day in September, I was surprised by how small he was. Pavlović was a squat, wiry man with a silver horseshoe of hair and thick half-moon spectacles, looking like a cartoon shrew from a mid-30s Disney short. His design for The Bog Man was assembled in a thick stack of papers he carried in the crook of his arm, and started pinning around the makeup chair I was sitting on.

“Have you been under heavy prosthetics before?” He asked, with a soft, frail voice that still carried the echoes of a Croatian accent.

“No,” I said, “but I’m open to new experiences.”

Pavlović gave a quiet, good-hearted chuckle at my naïveté and continued pinning up his pictures. They were all hand-drawn pencil illustrations, some of parts of the creature, others of the entire thing. It was a huge amphibian, a little bigger than a human, with features somewhere between an axolotl and a triceratops, with the addition of a long, whipping tail. It was a hunched, slimy, pot-bellied creature with green skin and long arms ending in six thick claws. There was a strangely childlike nature to its head: wide and flat, largely smooth and featureless, with beady black eyes and three horns sprouting from either side of its head. In the illustrations with its mouth closed, it seemed more like a frog, with its lipless gob stretching from one set of horns to the other. When the mouth was open, it reminded me more of a shark, with multiple rows of switchblade fangs.

“What is this thing? I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”

“It is Rugoba,” Pavlović replied, gravely, “haunter of shadows, devourer of man.”

“Did you draw all these yourself?” I asked, “the detail is incredible.”

“Some I drew, yes,” he said, unpacking his equipment now, “others I inherited, from family members back in the old country. Creatures in the movies these days, they’re too tacky, too homogenised. I like to draw inspiration from older sources. It looks better, don’t you agree?”

I nodded in agreement, not knowing what else to do.

What followed was nothing short of gruelling. Seven hours in the makeup chair every morning and every night, and layer after layer of paint, putty, latex, slime, and false skin was packed onto me, until I felt like I’d been shrink-wrapped. Pavlović was a perfectionist, and I can’t imagine anyone ever felt that better than me. The head was a mixture of latex and animatronics that I wore like a helmet, with extremely limited visibility. My hands and feet were bound and fitted with claws, and a multi-jointed wire wrapped in latex became my whipping tail, that moved of its own accord.

For all the layers they’d packed onto me, it didn’t do anything to insulate. During the shoot - a lot of which I spent emerging from water and chasing down drunk, horny morons - it was a miracle I never came down with hypothermia. Day after day after day in Pavlović’s makeup chamber of horrors, all for a film I knew nobody was going to see. It was only when I got the chance to see the first proper cut of the film that I started to truly understand all the mythos behind Pavlović’s supposed mad genius: when I watched the film, waiting to see myself in a hokey monster costume, prancing through the woods, I never got what I wanted. When I was on screen, there was no recognising me, because I was not there. It was only the Rugoba, as if it’d been ripped straight from Pavlović’s nightmares and spat onto the screen, hunting its prey.

I remembered performing all the actions I’d see on screen, but I couldn’t - no matter how hard I tried - see myself doing it. Pavlović had turned me into his monster, and he’d done it flawlessly. The movie, as anticipated, was hot garbage, with plotting and characters as thin as wet toilet paper, unbearable dialogue, and thoroughly incompetent cinematography. But the Rugoba? That, I think I can say without a doubt, was the greatest, most realistic monster to ever grace the silver screen.

However, there was another element of the Pavlović legend which made him a little less desirable to work with. Actors, in one regard, are a lot like football players: they’re a superstitious bunch. The little superstition that Richard Pavlović carried around his neck was that he was cursed: any film he chose to work on was doomed to fail, and if you were unlucky, that failure would spread its tendrils out to the cast and crew as well.

Ian Barker, one of my co-stars, once told me in confidence that he felt the whole production just reeked of doom to him, like some invisible axe was hanging over all of our heads, just waiting for the right moment to drop. Thanks to being in full Rugoba makeup for almost my entire time on set, not many of the cast interacted with me - I was the amphibian social leper - but Ian was different. He was at least someone I felt like I could talk to, even if most of what we discussed was Pavlović’s curse.

To me, it was all stupid, baseless hokum, but towards the end of the shoot, I started getting worried. Maybe it was the fear that rattled me, but after The Red Weekend, I never nailed another audition: not for movies, not for TV, not for Broadway. Sean netted me a few commercials after that, but for all intents and purposes, my serious acting career was kaput. Looking back, I probably never had the nerve for stardom anyway, but just thinking about that movie had the power to leave a sour taste in my mouth.

And this Julie Forrester wanted me to talk about it on live TV. Part of me, honestly, was afraid of what I’d say, under pressure, and under the intensity of all those studio lights. My best guess for what they were trying to do was a Halloween retrospective on the life and work of Richard Pavlović, monster movie maestro, and seeing as I was the last actor to officially work with him, my experiences held some weight.

In the end, if I could take home fifteen grand for a talk show appearance a couple decades after my fifteen minutes of mild fame were up, who was I to complain?

Sean got back to me a few days later, saying a chauffeur paid by the studio would be taking me from my bungalow on the edge of L.A. to the studio. It all felt a little much, considering my credentials, but Sean just encouraged me to put my feet up and enjoy it. After all, I didn’t know when I’d get another experience like this, if I ever did. Might as well soak it in while I still could.

It was about eight at night, and trick-or-treaters were already prowling the streets, when a black BMW parked in front of my home and dimmed the lights. It felt less like a talk show valet and more like a mafia hitman, but I walked up to the car nonetheless, and the driver rolled down the window. It was a woman who looked to be in her mid-forties, wearing a classic chauffeur hat and a wide, inviting grin.

“You Travis Norton?” She asked.

I nodded.

“Hop on in, Sir. I’m Mary, I’m gonna drive you down to the studio.”

The car was comfortable, and there was a small bottle of champagne in a little icebox on the seat next to me, with a smiling jack-o-lantern painted onto it. The temptation was there, but I didn’t touch it - probably wasn’t wise to get loaded before a TV interview. Once I was belted up, Mary fired up the ignition and drove.

“Everything okay back there, Mr. Norton?” Mary said.

“Oh yeah,” I replied, “it’s wonderful. I feel bad for making you come out, I could have driven down myself.”

Mary laughed to herself in the front seat.

“Nonsense, Mr. Norton,” she said, “I’m honoured to have you in my car. I never thought that I’d be in the company of the star of The Red Weekend. If it’s not too unprofessional of me to ask, would I be able to have your autograph when we arrive? I’d just like to show my kids.”

“You let your kids watch The Red Weekend?” I asked, remembering its plethora of gory death scenes.

“Are you kidding?” Mary said with another hearty laugh, “it’s their favourite movie. They’re crazy for it.”

For the rest of the journey, I remained largely silent. Mary seemed nice at face value, but the more you spoke to her, the more you realised something was off about her. But it wasn’t just Mary that was a little odd: the car, upon closer, more sustained inspection, was strange too. The back windows were so tinted you could barely see out of them, and before I knew it, I was hopelessly lost. I’d lived in L.A. for most of my adult life, but the neighbourhoods Mary was driving us through felt totally alien to me.

The studio was like an anthill, pulsing with life, and dotted with more rictus pumpkins. Assistants and stagehands shuffled to and fro in steady streams, the pumping lifeblood of the whole big, complicated affair, as Mary pulled us into the parking lot. I got out of the car, gave a small, reluctant autograph in her pocket book - dedicated to her kids, of course - before being ushered away by another little detachment of stagehands. The place seemed to run with almost military efficiency, with everyone around me constantly checking their watches before moving at a quickened pace.

It was this aspect of a life in show-business that I never missed.

“Mr. Norton,” said a shrewd-looking studio rep who’d materialised from a crowd of scurrying assistants - he’d never be on camera, but his suit looked far nicer than mine, “I’m Michael. Splendid to see you accepted our offer. Please, follow me, I’ll see to it that you get to Miss Forrester.”

Ten years out of the media, and here, I was a babe in the woods. I blindly followed Michael further into the bowels of the studio, away from packed crowds of excited guests being corralled into queues. Most had won contests to be here, and the rest had probably paid their way in. They’d be the ones watching me, reminding me that I was being watched, not just by them, but by millions of others who’d all tune in to a show I’d never even heard of. It’d been a strange and eventful Halloween.

Before I knew it, in the haze of yelling directors and baking studio lights, I was backstage. They ushered me into a makeup room, where I was given the most minimal makeup job I’d ever seen, even more so considering my work on The Red Weekend for comparison. I was about half way through deciding whether it was a compliment when the door opened behind me, and a strange, kinetic energy seemed to fill the room, as though someone had just turned on a generator.

“Travis Norton,” said a shrill, excited voice coming from a shape I could only just catch in the corner of my mirror, “you have no idea how long I’ve waited for this. I feel like I need someone to pinch me.”

Julie Forrester, like most television hosts, was a font of untapped energy, constantly bubbling beneath the surface. She was a little shorter than me at about 5"8, decked out in a tasteful grey suit, with a broad smile that seemed to flash the majority of her paper-white, perfectly-aligned teeth. She’d been prepped and polished by countless stylists and makeup artists, because I couldn’t for the life of me tell you how old she was - you could peg me as a middle-aged bum at a glance, but Julie seemed to stand outside age, just looking in and smiling at the rest of us. Her hair - black, silky - was cut fashionably short.

“Hey Julie,” I said, with the awkward, feigned familiarity of meeting TV personalities, “thanks so much for having me on. I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity.”

She gave an excited little squeak, like a teenager at a boyband concert. This was all feeling more and more like a big, sinister practical joke. Trick or god damn treat.

“Hearing you say my name is so surreal,” she said with a laugh - no, a giggle, “young me would have exploded at just the thought of it. You should know, I don’t normally do this, but with you I just couldn’t resist. You’ve been a hard man to track down, you know? Extraordinarily private, for a celebrity of your stature.”

I laughed back, acting like I was in on the gag.

“Yeah, well,” I said, “I have always been pretty low-key.”

“Are you a fan of the show?” She asked, clearly hoping the answer was yes. Julie reminded me of the kid in class who was always trying to impress the teacher - searching for some kind of validation from someone she perceived as an authority figure. You don’t get into this line of work unless validation is part of what drives you.

I’m ashamed to admit it, but I thought about lying, about humouring her. It was only when I realised there might be a follow-up question that I decided to give her my slightly-sanitised version of the truth.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “but I don’t really watch much TV. But Sean, my agent, he told me this show was excellent, so I jumped at the chance to be a guest.”

Julie’s face fell slightly, as though my words had wounded her, but she stayed positive. Outwardly, at least.

“In that case, Travis, you are in for a real treat tonight,” she said, “I’ve got some great questions lined up, there’ll be a brief Q&A with some audience members - don’t worry, it’s all screened, so there won’t be any curveballs - and we’ll have a few fun little segments mixed in to break stuff up. Is this your first time doing a live TV interview? My researchers couldn’t find much footage of you online.”

“No, uh, this is my first time. I’m a little nervous, actually.”

She gave a friendly, comforting chuckle and patted me on the shoulder.

“Don’t worry, you’ll be just fine. You can pretend it’s only you and me, if that helps, but everyone out there loves you, Travis. They’ll be hanging off your every word.”

“I never knew The Red Weekend had such an ardent fanbase.” I said, trying to play off all the uncomfortable praise that seemed to be bombarding me from every angle.

Julie laughed again, as though I’d said something funny and missed it.

“Don’t be so modest, Travis, everyone remembers their first time watching The Red Weekend, it’s a rite of passage,” she said, walking towards the door, “if you need to do any last-minute psyching yourself up, now’s the time. You’ll be on in ten.”

The sudden, strange realness of it all hit me like a haymaker as Julie closed the door behind her. What the hell was I doing? I wasn’t an actor, not anymore, I designed logos for small businesses and occasionally made a poster or two. The freakish contrast between the world I’d known for the last two decades and the world I was being pulled back into was jarring. It barely felt like I had time to blink, when Michael, the rep, was knocking on the dressing room door.

“We’re ready for you now, Mr. Norton, do come out and join me. Recording will begin soon.”

I gulped down my final misgivings like cheap scotch, and gave a long sigh. It was now or never, but truth be told, even for fifteen grand, “never” was looking more attractive.

The set was, in a word, generic. A large red couch sat across from a wide desk, bearing the title “MIDNIGHT RENDEZVOUS” in large but tasteful lettering. The background was the standard plywood fare covered in a large facsimile of the L.A. Skyline up in lights. Julie sat at her desk, beaming, while a skinny warmup comedian stood centre stage, making anodyne jokes about West Hollywood traffic to the softly-laughing studio audience. They sat in near-darkness, compared to the bleached whiteness of the set, but the longer you looked at them, the more you could make out all their shapes.

I took a seat across from Julie, not wanting to upstage the comedian, but the second I entered the view of the audience I felt a hundred pairs of eyes pierce me. For whatever reason, I was the centre of attention.

“This will be over soon, and we’ll get started,” Julie said with a wink, “this might be my most anticipated episode. No pressure, though, you’re gonna nail it.”

The warmup comedian was finishing his set, his brow now dotted with glistening beads of sweat, like the damp patches glaring through his cheap suit. None of his stuff was particularly funny - all broad observations and reheated takes, the TV dinner of comedy. Most of all, he just seemed surprised and giddy to be there.

“Thank you!” He said, “you’ve been a wonderful audience, but now I’m gonna hand you over to Julie and Travis, who I hear have got an excellent show for you tonight! Have a happy and safe Halloween, guys!”

He laughed as the crowd cheered, and then started to head for the exit, when Julie called to him.

“Josh!” She called, “you did a great job, really awesome stuff. Would you mind sticking around a few minutes longer? There’s a few last little things we need to do.”

Josh nodded politely and returned to centre stage, delivering a few more inoffensive little quips to the crowd, and receiving small bouts of friendly laughter in return. I didn’t notice at first, but Michael the rep had appeared at Julie’s side, and I caught the tail end of their conversation.

“Is the perimeter secure?” She asked him.

“Yes, ma'am,” he replied, “we should be all good to go, when you’re ready.”

She nodded, and Michael disappeared backstage. Seeming to just arbitrarily come and go was Michael’s whole thing, I gathered, but before I could think about it any longer, Julie stood up and joined Josh, centre stage.

“It’s looking like we have a beautiful audience tonight!” She said, with the practiced, theatrical flair of someone who’d said this a million times, “and how appropriate, because I think tonight we may have my favourite guest of all time. Do I even have to say his name, folks?”

There was a cheer from the crowd. I gave an awkward smile, and Josh just stood there dumbly, next to Julie.

“I have been informed by the producers that all the perimeters are secure now,” she said, “so, with that in mind, it’s time to change.”

It happened so quickly, but it felt like it took a million years. The hue of Julie’s skin began to change from a pale pink to a deep, murky green, as her shape began to shift, bloat, and elongate. But, it wasn’t just Julie: the camera men, the stagehands, and the audience began changing too, all slowly warping themselves out of humanity and into something else entirely. Six claws, those big amphibian faces, those long, whipping tails and terrible jaws full of thousands of teeth.

If I wasn’t almost entirely sure it was all fake to begin with, I would have screamed until my lungs burned up into prunes in my chest cavity, but as it was I couldn’t summon a single sound. The host, the crew, the studio audience: they weren’t human, not even close. They were Pavlović’s monster. They were the Rugoba.

All of them except Josh, who stood next to the seven-foot-tall monster that Julie had become - still somehow wearing that sleek grey suit over her freakish new body. He was quaking in terror, only letting out occasional whimpers of fear. Both were standing in front of me, so I couldn’t get a good look at their faces, but beyond them I saw a legion of grinning Rugoba filling the stands. All here to see me.

“But, before we get this show on the road,” Julie said, her voice startlingly similar to when she still seemed human, “some free concessions for the first few rows. Remember to share!”

With a huge, clawed hand, Julie gave the quaking Josh a push. He pitched forwards, screaming, into the midst of the studio audience, and they set upon him in an instant with claws and teeth. Ripping, tearing, devouring. Those panicked yells soon just become bloody gurgles, and then nothing but the sounds of feasting, and of Julie’s laughter. When Josh’s head came away from what was left of his body, several Rugoba seemed to fight over its contents.

Had I not have been desensitised by spending my young adult years working in crappy, exploitative horror movies, I’d have thrown up. Instead, I just sat and watched, feeling like someone was taking a weed whacker to my soul. Human beings weren’t meant to witness things like this, and now, I was the only one here.

“Settle down, folks,” Julie said with a good-natured chuckle, “we’ll have more snacks distributed throughout the show. Everyone ready to begin? If you are, give me a big cheer!”

And she got one. The creatures that’d eaten a man alive a few seconds before just took their places, all looking as excited as their inhuman faces seemed to allow. The better part of me knew that I should have tried to run - I wasn’t paralysed by fear or anything like that, no, I just knew that if they were eating Josh but sparing me, there had to be a reason.

A Rugoba director, wearing an abnormally large headset to fit around his horns, called lights, camera, action.

What I assumed must have been the theme tune began to play, as Julie turned to me, a look of confusion spread against her wide, froglike face.

“Why haven’t you changed, Travis?” She asked.

That’s when it all hit me: why I was here, what all this was about. Pavlović - that mad, genius son of a bitch - his makeup job wasn’t just good, it was utterly flawless, a perfect representation of a creature his family always knew truly existed. The costume was so good, it even fooled Julie and the others. For all these years, they genuinely thought I was one of them.

“I can’t.” I said, without thinking.

“Why?” She asked in a harsh whisper.

I could tell the theme song was drawing to a close, and I needed to spin good enough bullshit to not get eaten by a talk show host. It wasn’t my best work, in hindsight, but what I said was:

“I’m a method actor, and I’m playing a human in my next role. I don’t want to compromise the integrity of the character.”

What I expected was getting a face full of gnashing monster teeth, but no, Julie just laughed and smiled at me. As the theme song played its last few notes, I breathed a sigh of relief, knowing she’d bought it. And with the audience’s undivided attention, Julie began her little monologue.

“Welcome, welcome, welcome to the good people at home! You know me, I’m Julie Forrester, and this is Midnight Rendezvous - the most popular talk show on Rugoba TV!” She said, before presenting her middle claw to the camera, “so pogo on that, Morning Chitchat. And boy, do we have a special guest for you tonight, folks, a guest quite unlike any other. You know him, you love him, it’s the one and only Mr. Travis Norton!”

The studio audience exploded into deafening cheers and applause, like none I’d ever heard in my lifetime. The response was so overwhelming, I nearly forgot I’d just seen them all eat an innocent man alive.

Julie walked back and squeezed herself behind the desk, making it look comically child-sized now.

“Now, Travis, I’m thrilled to have you on.” She said, leaving a pause for me.

“I’m thrilled to be on,” I said, my voice quivering, “sorry, I’m not used to all this attention. It’s a little overwhelming.”

She laughed again, and said, “now, in many ways, you’re a guest that needs no introduction - but I’m gonna introduce you anyway, because that’s how I make my living.”

The crowd laughed, and I decided to join in. Slime was dripping in liberal dollops from Julie’s massive jaws, coating the top of the desk. It’s a miracle I didn’t relieve my bowels just looking at her.

“I know I’ve been a fan of you for a long, long time, Travis. Having a Rugoba celebrity on the show is nothing new, of course, we’ve had plenty here: Björk, Kanye West, Ryan Reynolds…but Travis, you, to this day, are the only Rugoba in living memory who’s had the guts to show their true form on film,” she said, a genuine note of pride in her voice, “and I think that deserves another round of applause, don’t you, folks?”

More applause, and I forced a smile. It was becoming clear to me that this whole thing was just a tightrope act: I was a folk hero to them for now, but the second they realised I wasn’t one of them, I’d be devoured, just like Josh. In that moment, I wished that Richard Upton Pavlović was alive again, so I could have a go at beating him to death myself.

“If you’re wondering why Travis is looking so tasty tonight, folks, it’s because - and this is a Midnight Rendezvous exclusive - he’s going to be starring in a new movie soon. How exciting?” Julie said, playing up every word for the eager crowd of monsters just beyond the edge of the set, “he’s a method actor, so he’s trying to stay in character. Can you tell us a little about the film, Travis?”

Great. I was on the spot again, one lie leading to another. A good piece of advice to take to heart is that when you’re already in a hole, it’s best to stop digging, but I was already half way to China.

“It’s called Mirrors: Reflecting,” I said, completely pulling it out of my ass, “it’s a comedy-drama about a has-been actor who ends up getting way in over his head in a situation he doesn’t understand. It’s in pre-production.”

“Oooooh,” Julie said, “sounds exciting. Now, I’ll start with the question I think we’ve all been thinking since we first saw The Red Weekend: how did you find the willpower to never eat any of your co-stars?”

The general rule seemed to be that anything I found morally repugnant would get a big laugh out of the crowd. The Rugoba sense of humour seemed to be mainly based around terrible things happening to humans, so I chose my words as carefully as I could, given the circumstances.

“It’s, uh, it’s all about self-control,” I said, “you’ve just gotta tell yourself to stay in the professional zone, and that you can’t eat any of them, because it’ll, uh, compromise the production.”

“God,” Julie said, “check out this guy here, making me feel like a slob. You’ve gotta give me the number of your dietician after this, Trav. I ate mine last week.”

I laughed out of politeness, but I genuinely wasn’t sure whether it was a joke or not. For my own sanity, I chose to believe the former. The crowd found it hilarious, either way.

“Did any of your co-stars know the truth? You know, about who you really are?” She asked.

“No,” I cut in, worrying that revealing the truth would be a secret death sentence, “those dumb humans believed it was all just makeup. You know what people are like, easy to trick.”

Julie slammed a claw down on the slimy desktop and gave an over-the-top laugh.

“So true, Travis, so true!” She cackled, “in fact, half of the folks at home are probably enjoying a trick or treater as we speak. Halloween, what a holiday, it’s like getting free home delivery - and they bring your dessert in a bag with them! So considerate - who says humans aren’t good for anything?”

How many of these things were there? How many facets of society had they invaded, if they had their own TV shows? Sean said this show went out live to millions of viewers, and surely not all of them would be watching. There must have been Rugoba everywhere.

“Now, a couple more serious questions, before we get to the fun stuff,” she said, licking the slobber off her fangs with a long, purple tongue, “your filmography has some strange gaps. You get plenty of work in the eighties, and a little going into the nineties, but then a huge episode of silence until now. Why the return to film?”

It probably shouldn’t have rattled me, given what was going on, but it did. Somehow, the fear of failure ran even deeper than the fear of monsters, and Julie had opened the floodgates.

“It’s not been for lack of trying,” I said with a laugh that undermined my sadness, “it’s hard to make a good living as an actor. Unless you’re an A-lister, chances are you’ve probably got a second job on the side to make ends meet while you try to live out your dreams. I’m a graphic designer in my spare time. Just lately, I got lucky, and was offered another big break. It wasn’t what I expected, but I’m trying to play it out as best I can.”

The crowd gave a sympathetic “awwww” that felt good in spite of them being a horde of carnivorous beasts. Julie seemed similarly sympathetic, looking at me with those big, black shark-eyes that somehow communicated a warm depth of compassion you couldn’t imagine coming from a creature like her.

“Well,” she said, trying to reclaim the room, “I’m sure I speak for everyone in this room when I say that we’re glad you’re getting work again, Travis, you’re a talent like no other. That’s why I thought I’d get you a fun little Halloween treat.”

All the lights around us began to dim, as several excited “oooooohs” issues forth from the crowd. I could hear sudden movement backstage, and the scraping of metal against metal.

“But,” Julie said with glee, standing up from her desk and trotting to centre stage, “one person’s treat is another person’s trick, quid pro quo, that’s the way the world goes. Travis isn’t the only special guest we’ve got tonight, courtesy of some fine work from our producers.”

A group of Rugoba in dark uniforms dragged a huddled, chained figure onto the stage. He’d been either beaten or drugged, but whatever the case, the guy was totally out of it. Half-naked, covered in scratches where his handlers had been too rough. It’d been so long, but after a moment or two, I recognised who it was.

Ian Barker, my old Red Weekend co-star.

“As you all know,” Julie said, addressing the crowd, “the one blemish marring the perfection of The Red Weekend is the downer ending. The rest of it is such an uplifting story of Rugoba conquering and devouring humankind, as nature intended, until the character played by our new guest Ian Barker here slays our champion!”

The crowd entered a state of vicious booing, all directed at Ian, who was too dazed to even respond. He remained on his knees, with a heavy metal collar bound around his neck.

“But, today, as a Midnight Rendezvous Halloween special, we’re going to right that wrong, folks!” She said with a laugh of shrill, sadistic excitement, “our dear friend of the show, Travis Norton, will devour Ian Barker live for you and the folks at home, and all the wrongs will be right again. Is everyone excited?”

As the volume of the cheering went up, my heart sank. Before I could even think to stop myself, or formulate a plan, I was up on my feet and charging towards Julie with an excuse.

“Julie, you don’t understand,” I pleaded, “I have to stay in character, I need to seem human.”

Julie scoffed and shook her head - more for the audience than me.

“What? Humans eat other humans all the time! Jeffrey Dahmer, Andrei Chikatilo, and a whole bunch of others,” she said, “you don’t even need to change back. The producers got you this handy little tool.”

A fourteen-pound framing hammer was forced into my hands, crushing my last attempt at an excuse. Everyone but Ian was looking at me, as I stood there with the hammer, all grinning and egging me on with their eyes.

“You only have to eat some of the brains, it’s the best part anyway,” Julie said, “I’d hate to break you too far from character.”

Then the chanting began: kill, kill, kill. I don’t know who started it, but now there was no stopping it, not until I’d made up my mind. I gripped the hammer, hard, and looked at the back of Ian’s head. If I fessed up, and told the truth, would they kill him and me anyway? Did it make more sense to just kill him and get it over with, then try to live with the guilt afterwards?

Maybe it did make more sense. But that’s not what I did.

“Stop! I yelled, the hammer clattering to the ground, "and please listen!”

The room fell silent, and Julie started looking at me like she knew something terrible was about to happen.

“I have a confession,” I said, “you’re not gonna like it, but you have to listen to me, and hear me out. I’m not one of you, okay? I’m not a Rugoba. I’m a human being, it was all a big god damn lie.”

Julie stared at me, devastated, and said “wait, Travis, what do you mean? The Red Weekend…”

“The Red Weekend is a shitty movie that ruined my life!” I blurted out without thinking, “it was all special effects makeup, none of it was real. The guy just knew about you, somehow, and you’re what he based his design on. I was never a Rugoba. I’m sorry for misleading you all like this, it’s just a huge misunderstanding.”

In an instant, the crowd devolved from low, worried murmurs to riotous shouting. Julie tried in vain to comfort the yelling crowd, to stop them baying for my blood, but it was too late. I’d taken one of their greatest living legends, and torn it apart in front of them. I’d gone from being a hero to the devil himself.

Running was the first thing on my mind, but before the thought even properly formed, something had struck the back of my head - and everything went black.

***

When I finally came to, I was staring out of thick, iron bars into the furious amphibian face of Julie Forrester. The room was dark, so I could barely see beyond her, staring into the cage and mugging at me. She’d lost her grey suit, and was wearing a white outfit with a skirt instead, her whipping tail protruding from the back, lashing at the air.

“I bet you feel really clever right now, Travis, well done,” she said, her voice devoid of the lightness and humour I’d known it for, “you made me look like an absolute clown on my own show. I trusted you, I invited you on, and you just humiliated me.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, my thoughts still returning in brief snatches, “I really am, Julie, I didn’t mean for it to happen like that. Aside from the whole ‘eating humans’ thing, I like you as a person. I wouldn’t want your credibility to take a hit.”

She ran her claws across the bars of the cage, and shook her head.

“Too little, too late, I’m afraid,” she said, “but you can still make it up to me, in other ways.”

“I want to, Julie, I really do.”

Julie pulled back from the bars a little and seemed to pace around the cage, her footsteps heavy and wet, but as regular as the ticking of a clock’s pendulum. It’d drive you mad if you listened for long enough.

“What you said earlier about the entertainment industry is true, Travis, even if the rest was all lies,” she said, her tone gravely seriously, “if you want to make a good living, one job won’t cut it. You need to be a real polymath to put bread on the table. Thankfully, I’m a Rugoba of all trades: Midnight Rendezvous is just one of the shows I host.”

“What’s the other one?” I asked, out of morbid curiosity.

She stopped, pressed her terrible amphibian face against the bars, and grinned.

“You’ll see,” she said, “you’ll see real soon, Travis. I’m gonna make you into something so much better…”

As Julie started to walk away from the cage, one by one the studio lights began to turn back on, cracking into life. The couch and L.A. backdrop was replaced by a homely-looking kitchen, fitted with a gorgeous array of utensils and hardware. Julie produced from the front pocket of the white apron she was wearing a long and magnificent chef’s hat, and placed it onto her huge, slimy head.

The words “COOKING WITH JULIE!” were emblazoned across the front of her kitchen unit.

My fear had already passed, all that remained now was that kind of dissonant, slaughterhouse calm that sets in when you already know you’re finished. All that’s left to do is wait. But, I took a strange comfort in knowing that this Halloween night The Red Weekend would finally be coming to an end.

I closed my eyes and exhaled, as the director called “lights, camera, action.”

[starlit-scifi]

Chapter 4

First•Previous•Next

Colab isn’t that bad anymore with Lori there to walk you through it. Your study group soon gains another pair: Chemical Engineering major Manda Yu and Astrophysics major Hayleen Danara. They’re the only other female duo in your year, were paired up last term, and are now preparing for their six-week training mission scheduled for the end of this term.

Manda and Lori have been roommates since their first year, and spend most of their time together making snarky comments at each other about whatever ridiculousness goes on with the mils. You and Hayleen quickly lose track of the conversation through all the slang and jargon, and end up trading small talk. She’s also a Tusie, a year older than you, and from the complete opposite end of the habitable zone, but there’s still enough to chat about while you study.

“You really like Lori, huh?” she asks as you doodle in the margin of your notes, lulled by the virtual lecturer's voice. Your hand jerks and the stylus pen draws a broad streak across Diplomatic Practices of the New Space Age, 6th ed., before you lose control of it altogether. You fumble under the desk until you manage to grab it, then sit up with calm and collected poise, you hope. Lorina and Manda have noticed the disturbance, and Lori, apparently amused, gives a totally ladylike snort before she turns back to gossiping with Manda. Hayleen raises her eyebrow at you.

"She's a good partner," you say simply, once you’ve paused the recording.

She smiles. “That’s good to hear.”

“How about Manda?” You ask quickly, because that’s just how normal conversations work, you think.

“She’s wonderful. Best friend I’ve made here so far, honestly.”

“I’m glad.”

She nods. “The whole Colab thing is a lot easier when you’re with someone you like. Granted, a pair isn’t truly tested until they’ve been on the mission, but I can at least be pretty sure Manda won’t murder me in cold blood.”

“Don’t get your hopes up, honey,” Manda teases. “We haven’t even gotten to the stressful part yet. Lori, remember our first year, when our third-years were prepping? Remember Sandro?”

Lori grimaces. “Oh boy, do I remember.”

Manda turns back at you, smiling grimly. “We’ll spare you the gory details, but let’s just say the way some people behave under pressure while in positions of authority isn’t exactly pleasant.” Lori nods along.

You raise your eyebrows at Hay and she rolls her eyes. “I’ve heard the story. It wasn’t really that bad. She’s just being dramatic, as usual,” she adds, rolling her eyes.

“You know you love it,” Manda teases.

“Oh, you know I do,” Hay returns. And it’s all just good-natured teasing, girls amongst girls. Something your introverted self never had as a kid, never grew into during school.

You fiddle with your stylus as the two of them joke around, suddenly aware that you’re not really part of this bubble of laughter and happiness. And you never have been.

Someone's foot taps you under the table and you look up. Lori smiles at you.

You smile back.

You're partners, after all.

You're not alone.

---

There's a couple of downsides to having Lori as a partner. For one, she holds a few leadership positions that take up quite a bit of her already limited time. This occasionally means she’s suddenly forced to back out on study sessions in order to deal with issues (she uses a few more curse words than you personally would to describe said issues, but you understand).

In addition to being heavily involved with mil stuff, she’s also been romantically involved with more than a few people on either side of Unity. Word gets around pretty quickly that you’re the newest subject of her affections-- which you’re not, of course, you’re project partners and you really wonder how the gossip mill has managed to disregard that glaringly important fact. Still, her admirers and/or exes make their displeasure with your continued existence known. This is mostly by giving you dirty looks, but occasionally they try to start things with you.

You find yourself getting a lot of practice with being diplomatic lately.

One afternoon you’ve decided to study in the library during your free time. You’ve just set down your things when someone sits across from you. She’s a second-year suppie, and you’re pretty sure she’s not in your dorm or any of your classes, so you wonder why she’s here.

“Excuse me,” she says curtly.

“Yes?”

“I just hope you know what you're getting into.” Dark eyes glitter against her olive skin and you feel the dread of yet another unpleasant social interaction settle in the pit of your stomach.

“...Excuse me?”

She sighs loudly. “Look. I know you’re getting all buddy-buddy with Lorina. If you take it any further, it’s not going to go well for you.”

“We're not--” you find yourself struggling for words suddenly, “We're just colab partners-- I don’t even know you.”

Another sigh, more disgusted than the last, and she stretches out a hand. “Tereza Unde, I’m a second-year comm major. We had a composition class together first term last year.”

“Oh. Okay.” You hesitate, but take her hand anyway. “Aurora Delenz, bio and relations double major. Nice to meet you,” you add. It sounds more like a question than it should, but you’re actually kind of unsure whether this interaction is even a good thing.

“Nice to meet you too. I’m just trying to watch out for you,” she adds, and somehow you don’t quite believe her.

“I can handle my personal matters myself,” you say firmly.

“Not with her, you can’t. Trust me. She’ll sweep you off your feet and leave you with nothing. She doesn’t actually care about you as much as you think, ever.” There’s painful resentment in her words. You don’t know anything about the situation, and you’re not sure you want to know-- mostly because you have an assignment due tonight and don't exactly have the time to listen to a complete stranger rant about her ex.

“As long as she cares about me enough to not fail the both of us, I’m happy. We’re just project partners, and that’s not going to change.”

She scoffs, sliding her chair back. “Yeah. Right. Don’t say I didn't warn you, Delenz.”

There’s a good half dozen things you want to say to her as she walks off, but you hold your tongue. No point in starting a fight.

No point in relying on her words alone, either.

---

-Do you have time to meet up right now?

-Yes, I was actually about to ask you.

-I’m in the library, usual spot

-Be there in a bit

A few minutes later she comes in, coffee in hand, glancing around the room. Her eyes light up when she spots you, and you smile.

“Have you started on the assignment yet?” she asks as she sits down.

You sigh. “Not really... I have a quiz tomorrow for another class, so I’m looking through those notes right now.” Or at least, I was trying to...

“That’s fine. I’m sort of putting it off too, this one looks like it’ll be rough.”

“Yeah.”

Silence falls. It’s a cozy silence, filled with the murmur of your fellow students around you and the smell of hot coffee. You breathe it in for a moment.

“So… I met a friend of yours named Tereza earlier,” you mention casually as you flick through your notes.

Lori’s eyebrows go all the way up as she sips her coffee. She clears her throat before she says, “Oh. How is she?”

Your fingers go still. “...to be honest, she seemed… kind of bitter.”

She sighs quietly. “That would be her.” She stares into her cup. “I don’t want to really get into it, but… I did mess up. But I apologized, and I tried to fix it… She’d rather stay bitter.”

“I figured.”

She shrugs. “Dating scene’s rough here anyway.”

You can tell she’s trying to change the subject, and you decide you’d rather just play along. “How else would it be, with a bunch of older teens and twenty-somethings stuck on a ship for ages?”

She shakes her head with a humorless smile. “Half of the issues I deal with involve the fact that most of the people in my unit have slept with each other and it's stupid.” She rips into a packet of crackers. “At least date outside,” she says between bites, “It's not that hard.”

“I guess,” you say with a shrug. She turns the package toward you and you take one, trying to eat at least a little more gracefully.

She looks at you pensively as she chews, then swallows. “You… never have really dated around, have you?”

“No,” you admit. Why do you feel so shy about it? “I never had the time, especially during secondary.” You snap a cracker in half. “Besides, my parents…”

“Oh, I forgot about Tusies and their arranged marriages. Up here, most of them ignore those arrangements; after all, who needs to know, right? We’re all going back eventually anyway, or something.” She looks down at her coffee. “Is he… nice, at least?”

Thinking of him for honestly the first time in months because the boy can’t be bothered to even write you, you can’t help but make a face. “He’s boring. It’s not like he's mean, or even really scummy or anything, but he’s not doing anything with his life, so I’m pretty sure my parents are going to break it off for me next time I go home.”

She snorts. “How convenient.”

“I guess?” You shrug uncomfortably. “It’s not exactly convenient, there’s paperwork and awkward fancy dinners involved. Plus it’ll just be awkward after I graduate since I’ll inevitably run into him everywhere. Ugh.”

She laughs. “I’m sorry, but I just don’t see how you can get a functioning society out of that mess,” she says, shaking her head.

You mimic a snooty old-fashioned voice as you say, “Genetic compatibility coupled with economic and political advancement…” Lori laughs again, and you shrug. “It was supposed to yield the ideal society back in the Separation Times, but now that the colonies are back in contact and population size has stabilized, it’s mostly done for political reasons.”

“And you…” she frowns. “Damn. I’m sorry your parents put you through that, like…”

“Making me a pawn? It’s not like that. It was more of a genetic match in my case. His family would actually get the better end of the deal, mine just wanted the lowest possible chance of recessive diseases. You know how it is.”

She makes a face. “Mm. Yeah, okay.”

You can tell she doesn’t really accept that, but it’s nothing you can change. She sips her coffee in silence, and you pick at a hangnail on your index finger, wincing at the pop of pain and blood when you pull too hard. You notice her watching as you put your finger in your mouth and you raise an eyebrow at her. She shakes her head at you with a small smile.

A question comes to mind by the time you've stopped bleeding. “Excuse me if it's a rude question, but don’t your people have a polyamorous family arrangement?”

Lori shrugs. “Eh… not… exactly? There’s two genetic parents, obviously, but a marriage is between three people,” she says as she draws a triangle in the air with her finger, lingering at the third vertex. “The third is a caretaker and mediator, and can be a parent outside the relationship, but is a part of both households, so usually extended families just live close together.” She retraces one imaginary line, drawing an adjoining triangle as she goes on. “My mimi-- our family’s third--took my dad as her third, so our immediate family is very small, but I was still never lonely growing up. Cousins, and all that.” She laughs. “So many cousins.”

“Sounds nice…” You look down at the painful mess you’ve made of your cuticles. “My parents were an arranged marriage. They were the children of politicians from formerly competing political factions, different bloodlines, a good match all around.” She nods slowly, but you can sense that it’ll take a while for her to warm up to the idea, if ever. “My mom’s side was mostly Workers, and my dad's was more part of the Old Earth elite, so my parents were sort of the face of this new, centralized vision for humanity. Basically, they traveled a lot trying to promote intercolonial policy, and still do. So…” Your mangled finger throbs, and you bite your lip. “I was almost always alone when I was growing up. Our house was programmed well, though, so I wasn’t raised too badly,” you add, purposely over-cheery.

She laughs and shakes her head. Even though you were trying to make light of it, that kind of hurts.

“What?” You ask, trying not to let it show.

“No, not too bad at all. You're okay.” She smiles fondly at you. “You don’t have to feel lonely anymore.”

“I don’t, not with you,” you say truthfully. Then you realize how that sounds and add hurriedly, “W-with you, and Hay and Manda. It’s nice.”

There’s something strange in her expression now, but you don’t understand it.

“It is,” she says simply.

But why does it all feel so complicated?

Her airscreen goes off and she checks the notification and groans. “I need to go work out. Wanna come?” She asks with a smirk, already knowing your answer.

“Nope,” you say emphatically. “Look, look, I’m injured.” You pout, showing her your finger. She takes your hand and you freeze up, but she’s warm and gentle, even though she’s only doing it to play along.

“That looks serious,” she says gravely, with barely contained mirth in her eyes. “Ice it and go lie down, but that’s no excuse to skip class tomorrow.”

You scoff and withdraw your hand, mock-offended. “Like I ever would.” And honestly, with her sitting beside you every day, you wouldn’t.

First•Previous•Next