#P: Chatzy

[gossipsnake]

TIMING: Early October 2023 LOCATION: Midnight Drive-In PARTIES: Anita (@gossipsnake) and Xóchitl (@vanishingreyes) SUMMARY: Two women hanging out at a drive-in theater. What are they gonna do? Kiss? CONTENT WARNINGS: N/A

There were people who thought they knew Anita, and then there were people who actually knew Anita. The former was a fairly large category of people consisting of former professors, colleagues, some students, bartenders she saw on the regular, a handful of friends, and no doubt a few (dozen?) women who psychoanalyzed her inability to commit. The second group was much smaller - essentially just her family. And Metzli. But with each passing year, Anita worried that her own family was beginning to shift into the first category. The longer she was in America, living among humans with a regularity and familiarity they did not understand, the more she felt isolated and misunderstood. 

Maybe that was why it struck her so distinctly when she came across Xóchitl also scouring the Mexican food section of the local grocery store a few weeks back. Anita had no need to consume human food and she certainly did not have to eat with the same level of frequency that they did, but there was something about enjoying a taste of home that brought her comfort. Usually had she come across a woman that insanely stunning she would have tried to take her home but instead she ended up letting the woman have her mom send some Mexican treats up to Wicked’s Rest for her. 

The gesture was wonderful but brought her some pause. She didn’t have relationships with people that were like this. That were… simply nice? Anita had ultimately ended up at the conclusion that the woman was too comforting for her to be human. So she decided it was worthwhile to get to know her a bit better and figure out exactly what she was. Could she be a fellow lamia, perhaps? 

That was why she invited her to go see a movie instead of immediately suggesting they go over to her place. Anita wanted to see how she interacted with the rest of the world. 

She didn’t remember there being nearly as many latine people in town when she’d been growing up. Of course, Xóchitl’s perception of the town when she was growing up was missing more than a few pieces, but that didn’t negate the immense feeling of comfort that came along with finding someone else looking for Mexican foods in the grocery store. 

Certainly, Anita was beautiful - one of the most beautiful people she’d come across since returning to town, but the near-immediate kinship that she’d felt with the woman felt even nicer than perhaps a night spent together would’ve. Of course, that didn’t mean that Xóchitl didn’t discount a night together sometime in the future, but having someone who she felt good around was more important, right now.

So of course she’d asked her mother to send her snacks for herself and her new… acquaintance. Friend. Whatever Anita was, though the idea of friends was still weird and not something that sat all too comfortably with Xóchitl. Namely due to the fact that having friends meant you could lose them in the most terrible of ways, and she wasn’t going to let herself go through that again. It was why her friendships since Mackenzie had been surface-level, for the most part. Even if she’d found herself fonder of some than she would have liked to be, she’d always done her best to keep it surface-y. Which, of course, made a lot of things lonely, a lot of the time.

So maybe she could decide to be friends with Anita. At least, they could go to a movie together. So maybe it felt nice that the other woman wanted to pick her up, and so maybe Xóchitl had dressed up somewhere between casual and hot night out. So maybe she’d packed some more snacks. She heard a knock at her door and opened the door, offering Anita a bright smile, switching immediately into Spanish. “Nice to see you. I’m ready to go if you are.”

As soon as Xóchitl opened the door and flashed her that near perfect smile followed by the sweet sound of her native language, Anita felt encapsulated by the same warmth she felt when they had run into each other at the grocery store. She didn’t have words for it and she didn’t think she cared to learn any, substantiating those feelings felt a kind of foreign that made her uneasy and she wanted to bask in the warmth for the time being. 

“A pleasure to see you again, too.” Her eyes danced down the other woman, taking in how ridiculously stunning she looked before returning her gaze to match Xóchitl’s and grinning. “Absolutely. Let’s go.” Anita quickly realized that she hadn’t really thought this plan through. Sure, she wanted to learn more about Xóchitl, but she also didn’t know how she’d get through the night without suggesting they bail and go back to her place. 

Determined to at least make it through the movie first, Anita turned her thoughts to less salacious things. “You’re place is really lovely. How long did you say you’ve been in town, again?” Anita had taken the lead walking back from the front door to her car. On her approach she briefly considered going to open the passenger door for Xóchitl before deciding that was far too chivalrous for her, even in these circumstances. 

Anita was unfairly beautiful.

Though, if she were honest, Xóchitl was aware that she herself certainly wasn’t lacking in the beauty department.

Which was probably self-centered of her or something, but she didn’t have too much effort to care about that right now. Not when she had a chance at excellent company, a good movie, and possibly more, after it was all done. “Just since March.” Spanish again. “I can continue in Spanish, or switch back to English, whatever you’d prefer. Anything for beautiful women.” 

Locking the door, she followed Anita back to the car and got in, immediately turning to her friend once she’d entered the car too. “I forget, sorry, have you seen this movie before?” Xóchitl grinned, “and I hope you’ll forgive me if I’m making a fool of myself. I did bring snacks, though. If we wanted. Though I’m content to just watch.”

It was like Xóchitl had taken a page out of Anita’s own playbook, casually dropping a compliment at the end of her sentence. It was good, but not enough to make her veer away from her mission for the night. Not yet, anyway.  “I prefer Spanish when I can, which is not as often as I would like, but thankfully often enough.” When Anita had first moved to the US she had such a difficult time switching between English and Spanish, often answering in Spanish even to questions posed in English. These days, especially in this town, she found it was sometimes the other way around. 

“Oh, yes,” Anita responded with a slight laugh, “I don’t know if I could tell you how many times I’ve watched this movie, actually. Frida has always spoken to me - I adore the strange way that she saw the world. Add Salma Hayek into the mix… I mean, that’s a recipe for success.” 

Normally Anita liked to save her appetite for her big meals but if there was one thing she couldn't resist it was snacks that reminded her of home. “Well you certainly came prepared, huh? What’d you bring?” While tempted to make some comment about Xóchitl herself being quite the snack, Anita resisted. Though she was sure that the way her eyes glanced over at her in the passenger seat gave her thoughts away. So she turned her gaze back towards the road as they made their way towards the drive-in. “What about you, have you seen this movie before?” 

“Thankfully indeed, though I imagine more is always better, hm?” She didn’t need to look at Anita for that answer – if the two of them were at all similar (and she knew that they were), then the answer would be a resounding yes, absolutely. Xóchitl was grateful for all the Spanish speakers she’d run into since coming back – it wasn’t perfect at all, and didn’t make the town ideal in any way, but it did make her feel at least a bit more at home than she’d expected to feel.

“Glad to be watching with an expert, then,” Xóchitl nodded along to Anita’s words, “oh I agree with you on all that, I’m just apparently woefully uneducated,” she pouted, though her eyes betrayed any actual appearance of sadness or shame.

She shrugged, “just some chips, mostly. Some dried fruit too. All stuff my mamá sent me, so it’s legit.” Xóchitl couldn’t help but smile at the way Anita’s eyes made their way over her body, “I like to be prepared, you know – just thinking ahead, I like to make anyone who I’m with feel satisfied.” The eyebrow raise would give away some of her own thoughts, “and no, I haven’t. I’m uneducated,” her lips pouting again, “but I promise I’m a quick learner.”

Anita found that having a playful back and forth with someone else was almost always a surefire sign of compatibility. It was the type of banter that just came easily and felt natural. It wasn't often that she came across people that felt familiar, and it wasn't just the shared heritage with Xóchitl that Anita found compelling. ”Well, luckily for you, I am quite an exceptional teacher. We'll have you properly educated in no time.“ 

”Chips and fruit. Got a bit of salty, a bit of sweet. Some soft, some crunch. Sounds like you've got all the main categories covered.“ It was the next comment that made Anita realize her platonic plans for the evening might be very much in danger. Hell, it was not unlike certain lines she'd used on other women and it caused all sorts of intoxicating thoughts to slither around in her mind. ”Well, sounds like another thing we've got in common there then...,” intentionally trailing off she let the implications speak for her. “I love that you're so eager to learn. I think we'll have quite an informative evening.” 

The rest of the trip to the drive-in wasn't very long at all and by the time the large outdoor screen came into view Anita had already decided to ignore her previous plan of simply getting to know Xóchitl and decided to just give in and see where the night took them. Pulling in,  Anita intentionally decided to park a bit away from the other cars already there for the movie. Nothing wrong with a bit of privacy just in case. “Well, here we are. The most glorious drive-in in all of Maine,” the comment was made in obvious jest. There wasn't anything wrong with the outdoor theater but it wasn't anything special either. “Ever been out here before?“

“I look forward to an informative evening,” Xóchitl bit her lip, because why the heck should she not lean into any flirting that might be going on? Surely, she valued her growing friendship with Anita, but Anita was also gorgeous, and she wasn’t about to turn down any sort of opportunities that presented themselves. That would just be a waste, and she’d never want to be any sort of a wasteful person. “I can bet you’re one of the best teachers around.”

She nodded, “I like to have all my bases covered, where possible.” That much might have been delivered in a somewhat flirtatious manner, but it was also true. Thinking of every way something could go made it less likely that something truly terrible would happen. It didn’t eliminate the possibility, but any sort of lessening of that was good. Any sort of control was good. At least, in her daily life. Where things went outside of that, she didn’t mind so much.

Anita’s choice to park a bit away from the crowd was one that Xóchitl respected and admired, and though she would’ve been fine with continuing to just get to know Anita, she also wasn’t the least bit opposed to having the night take them in a different direction. “Well, the company’s glorious at least,” she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I think once, maybe, when I was little, with my parents. Not recently, though, no. How about you?”

It was sometimes amusing to Anita how impactful language could be. Like the comment about her being the best teacher round. She knew it was just flattery for flattery's sake but despite that knowledge it brought a warmth to her cheeks and a smile to her face. “Well, a teacher is only as good as their students. So if I end up being a great teacher tonight... must be because you're an exceptional student.“ None of that was true, but it sounded good, so Anita said it. 

The drive-in wasn't particularly packed, but there were a good deal of cars around. Anita unbuckled herself now that the car was fully parked and shifted in her seat so that she was facing Xóchitl smirking as she met the other woman's gaze, “You're certainly correct about that.” The soft glow that the large movie screen was casting down upon them created such a soft glow around her face and it had Anita mesmerized. “I've been a handful of times. Always looking for ways to stay busy in this town.“ 

”Not sure how you feel about the cold, but I can't seem to get used to it,” she moved herself so that she was kneeling on her seat and she carefully reached between the two front seats and pulled out an oversized flannel blanket from the back seat. As Anita moved back down, her arm grazed against Xóchitl’s. The action unexpectedly caused soft shivers to spread across her skin in the most pleasant way. “Guess we both like to cover all our bases.” 

“I like to think of myself as a good student, so we’ll see if that’s proven true tonight.” Xóchitl didn’t too often feel the need to be shy about her opinion of herself, and there was something about the way that Anita carried herself that caused her to lean into it all the more. It was so fun and felt so familiar and so comfortable all in one. Which was a good feeling. One she found herself craving, even if she didn’t admit it out loud all too often.

Anita was matching Xóchitl’s own facial expression, and that only served to bolster her confidence for the evening. The night was perfect, the night was beautiful, and she couldn’t help but let her gaze be pulled by her friend, the curve of her jaw and her lips and the way her hair fell over her shoulders. “Makes sense, it’s good to try and find things to do, and movies aren’t a bad thing at all.” Again, so long as they weren’t fantasy ones, filled with creatures that weren’t real, and creatures who helped, when Xóchitl’s interaction with moving rocks had been awful.

“Yeah, I mean, I try to, but I much prefer the warmth.” She felt Anita’s arm against her own and Xóchitl had to shake her head to readjust her thoughts. “Guess we do. Mind if I share? You know, also hating the cold and all.”

“Yes, exactly - life is just so monotonous without trying new things.” Anita never quite understood those people who just stood by and let life happen to them. If she had done that she would still be back in Tabasco sitting around like her sisters and their Tias before them, passively living. She wouldn’t have seen all the things she had or experienced the bliss of individual victory. And most certainly, she wouldn’t be there in the car with Xóchitl. 

“Well of course, can’t let a pretty girl get cold,” Anita purred as she settled back into the driver seat, adjusting the seat further back now that reaching the pedals wasn’t a necessity. Unfolding the blanket she passed the one corner over to Xóchitl, this time intentionally allowing her arm to brush against hers as she did so. 

They were early enough for the movie, allowing a bit of time for Anita to try and figure out her passenger a bit more. It was easier to figure out insects than people, even humans (if that was what she was). Their behavior gave them away, either being the type to swarm in a colony or being a solitary predator. People, on the other hand, could use their behavior to deceive. Anita should know. “Close your eyes,” she instructed gently. “Imagine you’re outside, there’s warm sun on your skin, a soft melody playing in the distance, and you feel safe.” Pausing long enough to give her some time to consider, and partly to see if she would get into the prompt or brush it off, Anita continued looking over in anticipation, “Okay, you can open your eyes. Where were you?” 

“It makes for a very boring existence,” Xóchitl mused, before flashing another grin over at Anita. There had been a great deal of wanting to just sit and let life happen to her, for a time, from when she was about twelve until just before she turned fourteen. Of thinking that if she hadn’t solved her grief by then, then trying any more was, in fact, fruitless and pointless. Which it hadn’t been, and wasn’t, but it was easy to just want to lie in her bed and not think about much of anything. She’d done almost a complete one-eighty and threw herself into life after that, though. Which had been its own sort of detrimental, but she’d elected not to care too much at all.

“Well, I don’t want you to get cold, either – you know, because you’re quite a pretty girl yourself.” Anita’s voice nearly instantly relaxed her – not that Xóchitl had been unrelaxed before, but there was something about the lilt of the other woman’s voice that drew her in inexplicably. The brushing of their arms was a nice addition, too.

Xóchitl followed Anita’s words without question, settling against the seat, letting her eyes flutter closed. She took a careful breath, doing exactly as she was told, settling into a memory that hadn’t ever happened. Her and Mackenzie, on a Los Angeles beach, though that was quickly replaced with a trip she’d taken with her moms, when she was ten. “I was on a beach in Haiti. I visited a few times with my parents, manman is from there, but it’s – I haven’t been back in years, but it was warm and safe, and I could feel the sun on my skin, and how clear the air smells.”

There was always an inherent curiosity Anita felt when she met people who seemed to be kindred spirits. She always found herself lingering on questions of why. When insects display similar behavioral patterns you can’t simply ask them why - you have to observe and form a hypothesis that can then be tested. People, however, can be asked. Over the years she had learned that some women take her genuine curiosity as something more than it is; as some indication that her desire to learn about them is rooted in romanticism. So she has tried to adapt, learn what questions to ask outright and which to resign to observation. 

Xóchitl felt so familiar that Anita wanted to ask a million questions about her, but opted instead for the less involved approach as she usually did. “Good thing this blanket’s big enough for both of us, then.” 

Her eyes remained fixed on the soft caramel skin of the other woman as she followed Anita’s instructions. She wanted to see how she reacted, not just in her answer to the ultimate question but also in any involuntary responses the prompt might elicit. There seemed to be some peace in whatever she was thinking of. A smile spread across her face as she listened to the description of the scene that had played in Xóchitl’s head. “I’ve never been to Haiti, but I’ve been on my fair share of beaches that felt like that. Who’s manman?” As she asked the question, the projector of the theater flickered on indicating that they were gearing up to start the film. 

“Good thing is right,” Anita felt eerily familiar, almost so much so to the point that Xóchitl wanted to pinch herself. A kindred soul, or something, her parents would’ve said, probably. Mackenzie might’ve said something like that, too, or asked what their star signs were, because for some reason there was a deep part of her that figured Mackenzie would’ve wound up loving astrology, loving finding new sorts of ways to explain the universe. “Though I’m sure we would’ve found a way to make it work regardless.”

“Haiti is very worth it – though I like some of the beaches in Mexico, too. Oh – manman is one of my mothers,” Xóchitl lowered her voice, eyes trained to the screen, though only partially, as she was still incredibly drawn towards Anita. “That’s mom in Haitian Creole, so it just made sense to call her that, since I think my parents thought mom and mom, or even mama and mama, wouldn’t work as well. Besides, even if I’m not Haitian, it’s still a part of my family, so…” she picked at her nailbeds for a moment, but Anita was so familiar that she figured it had to be alright to share.

“Well, I speak that – as well as Spanish. Those were my first two languages, and I’ll admit that I like the advantages that being trilingual gets me. It impresses people, at the very least.” Xóchitl focused back on the screen. “Also one of the many benefits that my mouth can give others.” 

“Of course we would have. I’m exceptional at problem solving.” There was such a lightness in the energy between the two women. Anita had been in her fair share of parked cars with beautiful women but this time had a natural ease that wrapped around her like the blanket had. The undeniable benefit to seeing a drive-in movie was the fact that you could continue your conversation once the film had begun. Anita may be a lot of things but she wasn’t the type to talk in a public theater. The added privacy of tinted car windows was, certainly, another added bonus. 

“That’s really awesome,” Anita thought about reciprocating the exchange of personal backstory. She thought about talking about her aunts, who she grew up jokingly calling Tia Mama because of how involved she was with bringing Anita and her sisters up. But for as comfortable as she felt around Xóchitl, she was still a stranger. She knew all too well that giving a small breadcrumb of information could lead down a path of questions that she didn��t want to get into. “I’m only bilingual and even that impresses people to no end sometimes. Which, granted, is fairly impressive.” 

The next comment brought a smirk to Anita’s face and she turned to look at the other woman just as her attention returned to the movie screen. She couldn’t quite tell if Xóchitl was being intentionally suggestive or if that was just how it came off but Anita intended to find out. “Oh yeah? And what other benefits can your mouth give people?” She paused for a second, not wanting to push her luck too much, “I’ve heard that there’s a correlation between knowing multiple languages and having strong tongue muscles.” 

As the movie continued on, the physical distance between the women decreased at a steady rate. Near the half-way point, Anita had moved so that her arm was touching Xóchitl’s. Shortly after that, she reached down and held her hand. By the time the movie was nearly over, Anita was hardly paying it any attention. She was far too distracted by Xóchitl. All her curiosities, all of her intention of trying to figure out if this woman was human, had gone flying out the window. It was all replaced by a burning desire to get to know her in a very different way. She moved slightly, so her face was closer to the other woman, and even though there was no need to whisper, she still did, “You wanna come over for a drink when this is over?” A smirk spread across Anita’s face when the brunette responded with a yes. The night was truly just beginning.

[tareloin]

ToS_fandom_history_talk.txt

[multeasers]

✧. get to know the author !

got kinda long so under the cut lol

Tagged by : @sentinaels , thank you :D !

Tagging : @goatedespada @coffinseas @sovereignreigned @battleguqin @hanabiira @starrkc and anyone else who would like to do this, feel free to say i tagged ya !

name : zag :0 pronouns : he / they ! preference of communication : i prefer tumblr ( though it doesn't prefer me ) so i'll give out my discord if needed ! most active muse( s ) : a-qing ; she was the muse i started with for a reason ! and though i do need to work with all of the others more in actual practice, i'd say wrh and toji are close seconds when it comes to ideas on how to use them / using them elsewhere experience / how many years : i started around 9 yrs old so,, almost 14 yrs accordin to the calculator :v best experience : idk how familiar anyone is with chatzy here, but there was a set number of people that could be in a room at any given point, and the specific room i was in was set to like . 30 i think . anyhow, one day we'd exceeded the 30 limit but several of us were trying to get outside friends in to do some massive thing i can't recall . so everyone involved already in the room is trying to leave and hit their back arrow ( because we could get more people in and still come back in ourselves, we'd figured out several days before ) while also waiting a few seconds so these people can get in, and i think just the chaos and the fun we were having in those moments of trying to get everyone we wanted in the room was one of the best and most fun moments i've ever had while in an rp space rp pet peeves : probably when there's not the same show of effort ? it isn't an issue here, but a big issue on chatzy was when folks would do one liners when i had whole ass paragraphs ( especially after they would AGREE to longer plots ) . feel free to not match my length, but that sorta thing is just pushing it . shit drove me bonkers . also criticism that isn't constructive,,, if you feel i could be doin better then i'd love to hear, but i hate crit for the sake of crit . again, more of a chatzy issue ( and mfs were BOLD there when it came to this ) but the incidents of this still bother me to this day plots or memes : plots by and large but i get nervous even just thinkin of dming ppl and i know others feel the same, so i'm trying to get used to memes too !! receiving and sending them i mean are you like your muse( s ) : nothing is like, 1 : 1 but i do think i share some similarities between them . there's at least one thing i share with them all in some way :p

[stickseascns]

tell us more about your past experience

idk where to even start . i've been rping for way too damn long but it's at least 15+ years ? on MULTIPLE platforms like where my chatzy gang at............ oh but bebo is where i began i'm p sure.. (twilight rp. don't ask). then bebo shut down so i moved onto tumblr for a loooong time before twitter rp became a thing and the rest is history :3

[themidnightfarmer]

Location: The National Park

Tagging: @riseofmurphy​

Description: Jared runs into a situation and there are many misunderstandings to be had with Murphy.

Triggers: Blood tw, Gore tw, Choking tw?

The national park had always been a soothing place for Jared to be, he might have been gone those last six months, but the life of the forest was ever present and ever alive with the creatures he loved. The paths he trekked were not the same as those traversed by the human population of the town as well, so it was curious when he could see steps veering into the brush in the wrong direction. Moving with significant speed. 

The nymph reached out tentatively to any charge of his nearby and the returning feedback bloomed in him, lighting up in a sort of cold aching fear. Jared found himself quickly following the footsteps of another at a rapid pace, registering disturbance to the peace almost belatedly, and eventually wrapping his head around the emotion and having the headspace to hope that what he’d find at the end of this makeshift path was something he could combat without any equipment. He hadn’t brought his shotgun and he regretted it more and more as the  remnants of a chase showed one of the participants to be shedding blood. The splatters on the foliage gave way to chunks of flesh the faster and further he moved. Guttural sounds starting to echo around the trees as he finally found the source of the discontent. The scene was...gruesome to say the least and he was standing on the outskirts frozen in place. A wolf. Of course. He could only look on the scene as silently as he could, she wasn’t finished just yet.

 Murphy had not intended to come to the national forest to hunt the prey which she was currently stalking. A deer would have been enough to sate her appetite, perhaps a large elk. That was until she noticed the park ranger, eyes watching as they had swaggered through the forest. Instinctively she shifted down, despite having intended to do so further into the hunt. This was her hunt now, the wolf within howled its pleasure as she crouched low to the ground, the fur of her belly scraping the surface of the leaves. Lupine senses advised her of the ranger’s path, no doubt looking for some poor lost soul who had wandered too deep into these woods, never to be seen again. Initially Murphy’s intention had only been to stalk, to watch them blunder through the woods, killing a ranger would have been too risky, drawn too much attention to her hunting grounds. Her mind changed in an instant as she watched the ranger shoot at a deer for sport. 

Without warning the wolf took over, powerful jaws locked around the neck of the ranger, the bones crushed in a satisfying way as blood flowed into her mouth. They were dead before they hit the ground, but Murphy was far from finished. With a vicious snarl she tore an arm from their body and shook it between her jaws until it had flown into the expanse of trees. It would need to be cleaned up later, but all that mattered now was her kill. Gutteral growls emenated from her chest, unable to control the sounds as she fed, which drowned out the tearing of flesh from bone as she feasted. It was not until she was almost done with her kill, when the haze of blood had receeded, that she noticed another presence. 

She acted on pure instinct, lips pulled back from glistening canines, body crouched low over her meal. The warning could not have been clearer: stay back. With a wary eye kept on the stranger, Murphy finished her meal. By the time she was done there was little more left than carrion for the various scavangers who romed the forest. With her stomach full and mind cleared, she shifted back to her second skin, unabashed by her bareness. Her eyes studied the man’s intently, and she instantly knew he was different, but what exactly he was she could not quite place. “Why were you following me?”

 He watched her devour her meal, completely entranced. Jared didn’t move a single muscle as he did so, not wanting to provoke an attack and hoping that she would have eaten enough to spare an altercation with him. He stayed silent as the squelch of tearing flesh died down with only scraps left behind on bone. Arms at his sides he finally moved only to hunch his back a little to appear smaller, a response born of living with viscous animals all his life. If he looked smaller perhaps he would be a far less appetizing meal. Although he had encountered werewolves before, and knew even natural instinct sometimes could be overshadowed by the need to remove dangerous outside onlookers from a situation such as this.

Fur smoothed out into skin and he averted his eyes respectfully from the shifter, his body half turning in what he hoped was a submissive enough stance that this conversation wouldn’t instantly take a violent turn. 

“The commotion startled the creatures in the trees, they were unsettled.” Jared responded simply, eyes focused to the right of the top of her head. “I wanted to see if there was any danger to them.” He admits. With this comment he finally makes eye contact with her. “Is there…? Are you a danger to them, or have you caught what you were looking for?”

  Her stance relaxed as she took in his submissive posture, Murphy’s dominant side appreciated the obvious display. Still, she knew it was easy to play tricks and merely moving one's body a certain way did not remove the threat entirely. Rather, it just made it less obvious. Her head tilted to the side as she pondered his question. “Only if I’m hungry,” a smirk twirled up blood stained lips, “Or they pose a threat.” 

She shrugged, an indication that the creatures in the trees were of little concern to her. “Now this one here,” a foot digs into what’s left of the skeletal remains, a few ribs knocked aside in the process. “They weren’t my intended target, but they were unintelligent enough to kill a deer in my presence.” There was a bark of laughter. “A pity. Now that poor unfortunate soul wandering these woods will forever be lost.”  

No sorrow was detected in her voice, if anything, Murphy was glad. They might still be wandering around a night from now, an easy meal, one that would not be missed. That thought brought her attention back to the skeleton at her feet. “You’re so concerned with the creatures of this forest.., Nymph?” The tail of her words rose in a question, a lone eyebrow lifted. “Tell me where I might find someplace to dispose of this creaton,” an angry venom seeped into the word, “And I might decide I don’t want a snack.” Not that he would be aware, but she didn’t truly intend him harm, not when he appeared to be no threat. But Murphy figured she might as well use the situation to her advantage.

  He eyed the remnants of the obviously human body at her feet and then artificially blue eyes flickered up to meet hers once again. “A ranger… getting into things they shouldn’t as always.” Jared surmised. If he were who he’d been before he’d left town months previously he might have picked up where the ranger had left off and attempted to find the misguided traveller. But he couldn’t quite muster the care he’d had back then for humans who’d foolishly bitten off more than they could chew. His expression stayed stable as he simply nodded along with the information she was giving him. Making no moves to do anything about it.

“Nymph.” Jared echoed back to her in confirmation. “Of vicious creatures.” He allowed his hair to shift and show the 4 curled goat horns on his head as proof before covering them over once again in glamour.

He raised placating hands into the air as her tone shifted abruptly from conversational to more aggravated. He lowered his gaze from hers as one might to for an angered bies in order to avoid it’s third eye. “It depends, are you talking about the bones at your feet or the hiker in the woods. Both have pretty different demands. Bones versus flesh you know.” He offered to her in response. “Might I ha- Might I know your name as well?” Maybe it was a dumb move to ask things of a stranger when they were so clearly threatening to maim you and/or something you cared for, but not many would call Jared a smart man. His eyes lose focus on the bones at her feet as he sends soft signals down the connection he had to the nearby Bonedoggle pack, signalling them to move just in case she took a turn.

 Her head nodded as she watched the appearance of his horns. “If the woods and the natural creatures are your element, why are you hiding,” a smirk, “scared of  things that go bump in the dark?” This was one of the few times Murphy had seen any part of a nymph without their glamour, and despite the situation she felt a strange urge to reach out and touch them. She quickly tamped it down, focused more on the situation at hand than any wandering fantasy. 

Murphy’s lip curled up in a sneer at the ridiculous or the question. “What do you think?” Despite the roll of her eyes that followed, she kicked the head of the skeleton and sent it rolling to come to a rest at his feet. “I have a long day tomorrow. I’ll take care of the human myself when it’s over.” There was no effort made to hide her intentions. Why should she? It was what she was, and in these woods at least, she had no intention of hiding. “Unless of course you’re one of those fun little beings who likes to pretend they care for the foul creatures?” Green tinted hues narrowed to alert him that the question was a challenge. Let him find out what would happen if he stood in the way of her next meal.

“You can call me Crimson. At least until I decide what I want to do about you.” Her senses, though dulled enough the early lunar phase that she couldn’t tell what was moving, picked up on a faint rustling. “I’ll kill them if you make me. You’ve been warned.”

“I’m more likely to be shot at if I look anything like myself.” Jared responded quickly. Shifting uncomfortably for the first time since this conversation had begun, thinking about the reactions he’d gotten in the past. “Wouldn’t get very far being scared of the dark either, not in a town like this one. There’s far too much going on once the sun goes down.” There was no hesitation however as his hand reached down to scoop the skull of the ranger into his grasp. “Well I can just take the bones out of your sight.” The nymph admits freely. 

Spinning the skull slowly in his fingers he wipes a thumb over the surface. “I only care about the humans I know well. I tend to just not get involved in anything that doesn’t concern me.” He’d learnt the hard way that it was best to only hold onto those that mattered. Especially when it comes to humans that may have put themselves in harm's way. “If you don’t get to them, something else will. It’s the natural order.” An order he supports wholeheartedly. 

He was a mild man, chipper and kind when spoken to. He liked to class himself as friendly even. But threats were difficult to take, especially such direct threats. It was not the threat to himself that raised his head, but the threat to the pack had his spine uncurling. No longer was he in a submissive stance. He towered as he looked at her. “And I supposed you think you’re the biggest baddest thing in the national park right now?” She may be able to take the doggles, but there were FAR nastier creatures in the depths. “Do you threaten people often?”

  Murphy snorted with derision. “And you expect me to believe you wouldn’t be able to sense someone with a shotgun? No. You’re hiding something.” She called how quickly he had hidden away his horns. “Even if it is from yourself.” There was nothing that bothered her more than a creature unable to express their natural being. Though he wasn’t a wolf, the simple thought that the man was hiding from his nature was painful for her. It was one of many reasons she utterly detested humans, and the bone’s beneath her feet bore witness to a surge of ill-suppressed anger. 

“I could do that. I want them gone.” Irritation was begging to crawl against her skin. “Why bother? Caring about the humans? If they knew what you truly were they would be the first to attack. Or maybe that’s why you choose to surround yourself with them? To give yourself an excuse to cower from what you were born to be?” Her nostrils flared. She might have felt something akin to pity for him, but she was not about to take a threat from someone so cowardly. In a few brusk steps she had crossed the distance between them and one hand reached up to wrap around his throat. 

“I might not be the biggest bad in these woods, but I’m bad enough to end you.” Murphy allowed her sharp human nails to dig into the skin of his neck, quite literally pressing the point into him. “Only when challenged.” She let go and rocked back onto her heels, green orbs bored into his in a refusal to drop his gaze. “But I’ll point out; that wasn’t a threat, it was a fact. If you make me I will kill them. So I suggest you don’t make me.” 

 “You jump to a lot of conclusions, we met all but ten minutes ago you know.” She could decide his character based on anything she liked, Jared was fairly certain nothing he could say would change whatever image she was already forming in her mind after all. Not that he would try very hard even if he did tell her more. Given her not so subtle negative stance on humans he wouldn’t be sharing anything more about his human family, lest it set a worse tone than this conversation was already taking.

“You want them unfound. There’s a difference. If I take them, they won’t be found and they’ll have a use. But whatever you’d like,” Jared paused and shrugged, becoming increasingly uncomfortable with how this encounter was going. He should have thought it through more clearly before running into the area, but he’d been concerned for his doggles. “You’re ignoring the humans who do know what I am and are fine with it. You might have not encountered any but that doesn’t mean you can rule them out completely.” He doesn’t move, lest she interpret his movement as inciting a fight and instead placidly allows her hand to wrap around his throat, it wasn’t like he’d never been choked before. He speaks again anyway, gasping on the limited air he can gasp for to add “You seem to know more about what I’m born to be doing than I do, the way you talk.”

“Okay.” Jared said mildly in a low tone, fighting the pressure on his windpipe. “I wasn’t talking about myself anyway.” When she let go, he does take a solid step backwards and away from her, a hand coming up to smooth over the imprints of her nails in his skin. “I wasn’t making you do anything. I was asking if you were threatening my kids. You are. You are threatening them, but only if I do something you don’t like will you actually do it. So… what exactly am I not to do in order to safeguard them? Secrets in this town are already a given among the more interesting people. So what is it I'm trying to avoid exactly?”

  “And why should I trust you?” One sculpted brow rose, a clear challenge to his statement. Murphy knew nothing about him other than that he was a nymph who chose to hide. Which begged the question, what else could he be hiding? “Oh, my mistake.” Her voice took on a mocking cruelty. “I hadn’t realized you’d shared with them what you look like outside of a glamour.” A cruel laugh parted from her lips. “In that case I take back what I said. They must truly accept you.” The sarcasm was apparent as it dripped from each and every word. “I’ve spent enough time around humans to know that what they don’t understand, they kill. How many of your creatures will have to die before you realize that?” It was a simple truth. Murphy had heard many a tale of humans stumbling upon some unsuspecting beastie, and, terrified of the unknown, they had slaughtered something that would have posed no threat, like the ranger tonight with the deer. Everytime she watched it it sickened her and ignited and anger that was only sated by blood. 

Murphy’s eyes widened incredulously. Had they really not understood? “Since you seem to be confused, allow me to spell it out for you.” Her arms folded across her chest. “It’s hardly a secret. As long as you don’t have them attack me, as I had a funny suspicion you were calling them to do, they’ll be fine.” She huffed. “I’ve no desire to harm those creatures that pose me no threat.” It was true, she embraced the forest and everything within as her natural habitat, and other, non magic creatures would more than suffice when the need for a snack arose. A tooth grin was flashed in his direction, half sinister, half benign. “But at least you think I’m interesting.”

 “You were the one to ask me where to put them…” This conversation was getting a little bit confusing to Jared. He was a little bit lost and trying his best not to show it. “I mean you don’t have to trust me, trust comes with time that I’m not sure we have tonight… but I could really use these bones for something good...although I guess that does depend on what you consider ‘good’.” Her changes in tone and general mocking demeanour drew out a disgruntled expression from the nymph. He didn’t understand her. He couldn’t understand her. They came from such different states of mind that her pure anger and hatred for humans was unrivalled in any other single person he’d met before. And he’d known Lydia. “I won’t hate a species simply because a few are dangerous and cruel. That is the real danger to my creatures. That is what kills them most.” 

This is when their disconnect reached its peak. He blinked at her, his face falling into understanding and then he frowned. “I wasn’t calling anything to attack you. I was asking them to move further away in case you wanted to attack them. The pack has moved east from us now, in the opposite direction.” Jared clarified quickly. “I have no reason for them to attack you. I have no reason to involve them at all. If you were to kill me at least they’d be unharmed. The smell of death scared them because they currently have pups. So I came to check on it. That's the only reason I’m here.” His eyes meet hers once again and he shrugs. “Everyone in this place is interesting, Crimson. In one way or another.”

  Murphy felt her teeth grind in frustration, her mind having wandered back. Had all the nymph’s she’d come across been so scattered? Or was he merely an exception? She shook her head. “It matters, because if they were to reappear somewhere, questions would be asked. Hunters might start poking around where they don’t belong. And no one wants that.” A sigh parted as her tongue darted out to clean some of the dried blood from her lips. “If you show me what you’re doing with them, you can have them.” It was the closest to a compromise that the two were likely to come to. “No, you misunderstand.” There was a pause as she sought the words to explain what she needed to say. “I don’t hate them. I don’t care enough to hate them. They’re a food source, a natural part of life. As natural as the tree that grows from the acorn. Most of them are tolerable, just like those doggles of yours are tolerable. I kill to feed, or when they offend.” She supposed it would be difficult to understand her view of humans, when so many others thought of them as worth getting to know. “Some of them can be useful, if they’re disposed to magic. Those are the only ones worth getting to know, of keeping around.” Of course to be truthful she did hate some humans. “I only outrightly hate the ones who seek us harm. And those who take needlessly from nature. The rest are free to maneuver through their lives like the cattle that they are.” 

“You have my word that I wish them no harm. Your creatures, I mean.” Murphy gestured to the bones at her feet. “So can you help me or not?”

 “They won’t reappear. Not in any way that could link back to you.” He assured her mildly, his own face scrunching up at the mere mention of hunters seconds later. Jared considered her compromise and studied her face for more malice. As much as she couldn’t trust him, he was in the same boat with her. She hadn’t given him her real name, never mind the fact she’d had her fingers wrapped around his throat moments before. But it was like a secret password had been spoken. Her sentiments about doing what she did for sustenance, that she was acting on her nature. Reservations dimmed as he looked upon her in a newer light. Of course she could be telling him what he wanted to hear, but she spoke without hesitation that made the nymph want to believe. 

He tried his luck then. “Promise me. That you mean no harm to my doggles… it’s to them that the bones would be going. If I call them back you won’t touch them. I want a promise.” It was the first time he’d ever done this on purpose. Fae promises were not broken. It was not done. And if she could do this for him in this instance perhaps he could trust her further. “Bonedoggle pups get their first set of bones usually through carcusses their mother hunts. But the mother has been injured. I’ve been collecting bones, but it’s a litter of eleven, there’s only so much I can do.” He entrusts this information to her knowing that the pack was far enough that he’d be able to send them to safety should this woman decide she was more bloodthirsty than she was assuring him.

 Murphy contemplated, one head cocked to the side as she thought over the potential consequences that might come from the choice to make a promise with a fae. This one seemed to be a straightforward enough request. With a solemn grace she bowed her head in acquiescence. “I promise.” The words seemed to echo almost all eerily through the forest with their weight. She shifted on her feet, a small swell of concern creasing her brow. “Can you not heal her?” 

Despite her promise, Murphy could still sense the hesitation that emanated from him. It was understandable, he had just watched her consume the flesh of a person down to their very marrow. “I assure you I’m quite full.” Her ears were now trained to listen for the approach of the creatures. She knew of them and had stumbled upon one on occasion but had yet to see a full pack of them up close, and it intrigued her. Murphy found fascination from anything to do with nature and this was no exception. “Perhaps I might be able to take a look at the mother? I have training when it comes to healing, human healing to be sure, from my studies at college. Would you allow me to take a look?” 

 A shiver passed down his spine as the promise took effect. It was such an odd sensation to Jared that he took a moment to recover. He’d only ever really trapped himself in promises to others before now, but he supposed turning over a new leaf after coming back to town had changed more than a few things. 

Full or not. He was pleased that she was bound to her promise. The nymph reached out through his connection to the pack and beckoned them back in their direction once again. “None of my animals are tamed. It’s not up to me if she allows you near her.” He shrugged lightly. “I did the most I could for her I could manage. I might not be much of a healer, but I have done my best for a long while now. Thank you for your concern, showing care like that for creatures like mine is rare.” A small smile finds its way onto his face as the sounds of many bodies moving through the brush become clearer. One by one, skeletal faces emerge partially into the area, 3 adult doggles with sharp eyes looking at both Jared and Murphy calculatingly. Jared sank to his knees in the next moment and a mass of small pups tumble into view marching to him in greeting. “Doggle pups gets their first bones at two months old.” He informs the werewolf woman. A hand gently smoothing over the formed skull of the mother.

 Murphy nods, she can understand the reluctance of the creatures to be touched by human hands. Especially since she herself was not so fond of the two-legged meatsacs. Still, she watched as Jared interacted with them. She felt secure enough in her surroundings to lower herself to the ground to sit cross-legged and an unbidden smile stretched up the corners of her mouth. Nature had a way of soothing her in a way that little else could. Tentatively, she stretched out her hand toward the matriarch of the small group. When it was close enough for the doggle to take a sniff, her body froze in place with an unnatural stillness, careful to not upset the creature. Only when she saw the doggle shift did her hand stretch the rest of the way as it came to rest atop the creature's head. The texture of the bone was smooth under her hand, worn down from its constant exposure to the elements. With a careful motion the hand atop the head began to move further down as it felt for any indescrepencies. Halfway through it’s path of exploration it reached a chink in the bone armor. A small space of skin was exposed that oozed slightly. Murphy took all the care she could not to frighten the animal as she probed the wound. Luckily it only appeared to be a small, healing scab, simply secreating the oils it needed to heal. 

In her focus she had almost completely forgotten the nymph’s presence, as by that point she had adjusted to his smell in the air. It was only his movement that snapped her back into reality. Murphy looked up at him, posture still slightly stiff from the slight shock. “She should be fine.The wound isn’t deep and it’s healing nicely. Hopefully soon she will be able to replace the destroyed section of armor.” 

  The mother doggle left his side and meandered wearily over to the werewolf, and the nymph was pleased when the woman expressed that the wound was nothing to be concerned over. It definitely had not been, not so many days before then either. So he took the words as a compliment to his efforts. Quietly smiling to himself he smoothed his hands over the pups as they spotted the bones sitting around the small clearing and started to fight over them. Jared watched the mother growl in warning at her probing fingers for a moment longer before making her way to break up a fight amongst her pups.

The nymph stood then, hesitating a moment before extending his hand towards Murphy to help her to her feet. “I should escort them back to their den.” He eyed the werewolf for a moment longer before finally providing his own name. “I’m Jared. I appreciate you accepting the promise so easily...I’ll see you around.” And with that, and with the doggle pups each with a few bones in their mouths, the nymph and the creatures vanished quickly into the gloom of the setting sun.

[thiswanderinghope]

Snapshots of a Summertime Sadness || Taylor & Hope

@taylorvoxx

It wasn't said aloud, but it was heavily implied that Hopes new foster sibling was less than fond of the idea of taking Hope with her to the carnival that had rolled into town. In circumstances like these Hope usually tried her best to keep the peace with the family she was staying with, she would usually claim to not want to go, or to feel sick just to lessen the stress on her new foster family. But on this instance she'd already been with them a week and she knew the strain was already there. The family was struggling with new broken appliances already and Hope knew this was only the beginning. So to get out of the house was for the best. Take herself and her bad luck elsewhere. Not only that, but she wanted to go to the carnival. Even if this feeling was an afterthought. It wasn't long before her foster sister got a text and was more than ready to ditch her. And ditch her she did. A little bit of money was stuffed into her hand to amuse herself and not snitch to their guardians before Tori was off between attractions and into the arms of her new boyfriend. Hope left in her wake, upset for herself but not able to hold onto that feeling as nausea from someone getting off a nearby ride overtook her. Curling up to let the feeling pass she didn't realize she'd stopped dead in front of another person. Potentially toppling them over. 

Taylor relished in her Dad’s trust in her, and his trust that this small town was safe. It meant she was granted with freedoms a lot of kids her age wouldn’t dream of. She had a couple friends that still had babysitters at age 15, or at least always had to go somewhere with another friend, but here Taylor was, off on her own to the annual town carnival, driving a truck she technically wasn’t licensed to drive to get there. She liked being off on her own. It meant she wasn’t being forced out onto the boat with her Dad at least. Or getting educated about the fishing business like that was all that ever passed through the man’s mind. Even surrounded by people, she could be at peace being alone among others. If it just meant getting away. Munching on her corn dog slathered in mustard, Taylor wasn’t watching where she was going, and a mistimed step sent her right into the back of someone in front of her. She was able to keep her balance though, and at the cost of her corn dog hitting the hay-strewn ground, she reached out to catch the girl she’d ran into as well. “Shit! I’m sorry. You okay?”

Hope stumbled when a body collided with hers, arms flying out to catch herself if she fell. Luckily for her the person who'd bumped into her had caught her and they both steadied each other. The first thing Hope noticed with the corn on the ground and she almost reached for it before thinking better of it. Whoever it was would definitely not be eating any more of that off the ground. Especially with all that straw sticking to the sauce. "I'm sorry!" Hope says turning around to apologise properly. "Felt sick for a second, didn't think stopping would be so wasteful!" She looks down at the corn and then back up to the person she'd denied food. "I can get you another?" She tries a smile.

When the girl turned around to apologize, any ill will Taylor might have had for the accident drained from her body. She looked uncomfortable and she was being so polite and kind anyway. Taylor took her hands off the girl once she was steady, glancing at the corn dog but mostly focusing on the girl’s smile. “What? Oh, no, don’t worry about it. It was like my third one today I probably didn’t need it,” she joked, shrugging her shoulders, the flannel shirt she wore over a tee-shirt blowing back in the light breeze, her ponytail joining suit. “I hope you’re feeling better?” Taylor asked. “Was it something you ate? Or you think you need to eat something?” Her instincts took over. She’d always been a nurturing person, even to strangers. “I’m Taylor, by the way. You here with anybody?” She didn’t know why that suddenly felt like such a weighted question.

Hope wasn't one to argue, so she simply smiled a little bigger at the other in thanks for being understanding. She really had to get better at crowds, she'd forgotten that out and about could be just as overwhelming as home with the stress that something else might go wrong. "Still a shame, I really am sorry." Hope intoned still. Given that the boy with the nausea had moved well out of her way Hope had no trouble perking up trying to show the other that she was perfectly fine, nothing to worry about. "Oh, yes. I feel much better I just needed to stop moving for a minute I think." she fibbed easily. "I'm Hope. I was here with someone but-" she laughed then, trying to show that it was okay. "She ditched me for her boyfriend. It's okay though, we don't know each other all that well so I understand. I'm not holding you up from going somewhere am I?"

“Hope. That’s cute,” Taylor commented with a smile. “Most people around here have those God fearin’ Christian names,” she added, emphasizing with an exaggerated southern accent, before ditching it just as quickly. “I know like five Marys and four Matthews and that’s just in my class.” She smiled again, suddenly feeling awkward about what she’d just said. “But I like Hope.” She cleared her throat then, kicking at the ground with her boot. “Uh, no! I was just walking around checking out what all they got this year. Ferris wheel is new. Didn’t have the budget for it til now I think. Had a bad bout of fishing last year and that’s basically what runs the town. Live for die by the ocean currents, ya know?” Was she rambling? She felt like she was rambling. “You want some company?” Taylor asked. She’d come out here to be alone but the question had slipped out before she could stop herself.

Hope wasn't from anywhere near here. But she'd bounced around so many of the available foster homes that the closest open spot had been out of state. So it was funny to hear a local perspective, in a just as fun put on accent. Hope laughed a little and beamed. "Well I'm not really from Rhode Island so maybe that's why I'm not another Mary." Taylor was rambling a little, and definitely about a topic Hope knew absolutely nothing about as well. Small town like this she might pick up a few things about the ins and outs, but it was unlikely she'd be here that long. All she could do was smile vaguely at Taylor and nod when she felt it was the right moment. "I'd love some!" Hope answered as soon as the words left Taylors lips. This was a person she had a shot with, someone who didn't know her from before, didn't live with her, and was maybe a little closer in age than her foster sister Tori. "I mean if you don't mind? I just really like having people around." Taylors presence was calming, Hope herself not yet sure why, but would later reflect that maybe it was the dulled emotions, and her open attitude.

One month later

She bounced into the bathroom and hopped up on the counter with an excited grin. Taylor had agreed to help her bleach her hair and she couldn't have been more excited. They'd bought dye, they had toner and she was more than ready to get this show on the road. Hope didn't quite know what her foster parents would think, but she wasn't really worrying about that, she was far more concerned at the time with Taylor walking into the room as well. "Do you think it'll be okay? I mean even if it turns straw yellow that's okay right? Schools not in for ages yet, so it'll have time to not be so mad."

Ever since that night at the carnival, Taylor and Hope had been inseparable. They'd had an instant connection. Two loners out looking for someone to understand and support them. Lift them up. It was a no brainer. Taylor loved spending time with Hope, and she'd stayed at Taylor's house already that summer more often than she was with her foster family. Taylor didn't mind. She felt like she'd never get tired of the girl. And Taylor's Dad was out fishing more often than not, so the girls had the house to themselves. Domestic bliss in their early teens. It was...really nice. That Saturday evening, Hope had commented on Taylor's currently bright blue hair (she was constantly dying it different colors), saying she wanted a cool color too. And now here they were in the bathroom, Hope up on the counter and Taylor's hands shaking as she approached, not really sure why. "It'll be fine, don't worry. I'm an expert, remember?" she joked, mixing the bleach powder up with the developer in a small bowl. She looked up and flashed Hope a crooked smile. "If it's straw yellow we'll just add a little color to it and say we wanted pastel all along. Easy peasy."

Hope kicked her feet with nervous energy, but there was no going back now. She'd spent what little allowance she had from a previous foster home on the developer and she definitely wanted to see what she'd look like with anything other than black hair for once. Feeling a tingle down her spine Hope tenses and her eyes catch sight of the shower curtain fluttering slightly. Her chill was back, goosebumps erupting on her arms as Taylor mixed dye. Hopes eyes followed the movement of the curtain and then hopped down off the counter to put herself between the chill and Taylor. Hoping to deflect any intent it had. Smiling like nothing was wrong as the light flickered a little. "My shirt is white, that'll be fine right? We won't have to throw it away or anything?" she said casually.

It was cute how nervous Hope was, kicking her feet as she sat on the counter. The medicine cabinet behind Hope was open, hiding the mirror because, well, Taylor didn't like to look at herself. And by herself, she meant the weird monster she always saw in her reflection. She was used to it by now, but avoided it when she could. Taylor felt a chill in the air as Hope hopped down off the counter, but just chalked it up to the nervous energy in the room. "Oh, uh, I have a couple towels I used specifically when I'm dying my hair, but you might want to take your shirt off just in case." The moment she said it, Taylor felt a lump form in her throat, and she did her best to swallow it down. "It's, uh, all mixed up! Come sit down when you're ready," Taylor said, clearing her throat and gesturing to the folding chair she'd brought into the bathroom, a towel already thrown over the back of it. She set the bowl of dye down and pulled on some gloves, biting her lip to stamp down her nervous energy.

The suggestion didn't strike Hope as anything to be worried over. She was more focused on what her foster family would think if she had ruined a shirt doing something that she already likely wasn't allowed to be doing. This family were stricter than most, but not about anything Hope felt was important. She had been spending so much time just out of sight and out of mind, staying at Taylors house when her dad was gone. But she was confident that a ruined shirt would go down like a ton of bricks. The chill rose up her back and then it was gone. The light stopped flickering and Hope instantly set about continuing on as if nothing happened. She pulled her t-shirt over her head and sat down in the chair quickly. Hope drew her knees up and she crossed them where she was seated in the dining chair. "When did you dye your hair the first time? What colour did you go?"

Taylor felt a very soft gasp escape her as Hope removed her shirt. It wasn't like they hadn't seen each other change in all the time they'd spent together. She'd even seen this bra before, the one with the red stars on it. They were girls, after all. Nothing weird about changing in front of each other, right? But something about this situation just struck a chord. A beautiful one, allowed to ring out and echo around the small tiled room. As Hope sat down, Taylor picked up the towel and draped it over Hope's shoulders. It was an ugly shade of brown and spotted with orange bleach stains and lots of splatters of color. Like a tapestry telling a story of Taylor's rebellion and insecurity. She picked up the bowl and the brush and started at Hope's roots, slathering the bleach on as she spoke. "Two years ago, when I was thirteen. It was my birthday and my Dad was feeling guilty because he had to go out on the water, so he told me I could 'break one rule' and I chose to dye my hair purple." She shrugged as she continued to work. "I was getting teased a lot then. Shitty friends from elementary school decided to turn on me for no reason. It felt like a shield. Like a helmet to keep all the negativity away." She bit her lip, chuckling awkwardly. "It's...stupid. I know."

Her knees bounced as they talked, her eyes on the bottles in the medicine cabinet just for something to look at while Taylor set about putting the bleach on her hair. Hope bit her lip when the first brush stroke cemented what was to be done and then relaxed back into the chair after that. It was too late to go back now. A whole head of blonde would surely be better than a panicked one singular stripe of orange if she were ti back down now. "It's not dumb I like it. I think coloured hair is so cool, I've just never had the opportunity to do it before. Never stayed anywhere with friends who had hair coloured like yours." she admitted. Though it was no secret that Hope had bounced around, her non accent and obvious lack of personal belongings showed that just fine on it's own. "School is really terrible for mean people." Hope then adds. "I've been to loads of schools, and there are always people who just complain and moan." She might be a bit of a gossip herself, but she tried not to be malicious with it. She just liked to know things mainly. To know things was a nice safe way to be. She lived her life in an avalanche of uncertainty after all. "Well I'm 13 now, so it's my turn." Hope beamed at the wall, not moving her head so that she didn't bother Taylor who was busy.

Taylor instantly felt bad complaining. Hope had it so much worse than her, and here she was complaining about some mean ex-friends when Hope didn't even have a permanent home. She knew it wasn't a contest on who's life was worse or anything, but still. At least Taylor still had her Dad... "Wait, you're younger than me? I wouldn't have guessed that," Taylor admitted, surprised this hadn't come up until now. "You're so mature." Probably because she had to be. "I...really admire you. Like, a lot. Even with all the bullshit you're still so positive and bubbly and full of like, joy and good vibes and shit. It's fascinating to me." She started working the bleach out into the strands of hair now that she was done with the roots, already seeing it lightening before her eyes. "Your hair is gonna match the ball of pretty sunshine I see you as..." God, that was stupid. "I mean...I don't know what I mean. Ignore me." Why had she said that?

They'd spent the first half of summer together constantly, and yet Hope still felt a small little paranoid pit of dread sink into her stomach when she heard Taylor point out that she was younger with surprise. She felt she knew the other girls so well, and still a little part of her braced for the worst. The speech her foster sister had given not yesterday about not wanting to hang around with 'children' so much younger than herself. What followed was far from her fears however and her face broke out in a smile once again. "I don't know. I do get sad sometimes, but you're so much fun. It's hard to be upset when I'm having such a good time." Hope admitted, taking a moment to shift her head just sightly to the side so that she could look at Taylor out of the corner of her eye. "You think I'm pretty?"

The silence rang in the room like microphone feedback, almost throbbing in her ears as she tried to just focus on getting the rest of Hope's hair covered in bleach and stacked up on her head. When Hope finally did speak, Taylor couldn't help but smile to herself. "It's okay to be sad," she said quickly. "You can be sad around me to, if you need to be." She worked her gloved fingertips into Hope's scalp. There was something weirdly intimate about the whole ordeal now. "But I'm glad you're happy around me. That like, means a lot..." When Hope turned a bit to look at her, Taylor retracted her hands, thinking she might have pulled her hair or done something wrong. But the question Hope asked made Taylor's throat go dry. She'd told lots of people in the past they were pretty. It was like, a thing people did to boost each other's egos, right? Why did this feel so different? "Uh, yeah, I do. You're beautiful, Hope," she practically whispered. "Your bright soul shines in your eyes every time you smile." What the fuck was that? She needed to abort mission and fast. "Oh, your hair is done. We need to let it sit for a bit though.”

Maybe Hope was a little too absorbed in how that made her feel that she missed the expression on Taylors face as she said it. Her heart felt light at the admission. She'd never really gotten a compliment like that before. Usually you'd hear things like that from your family when you were young, with no one to really say as much she was rather taken in that moment with the words. Hope slides to sit sideways on the chair beaming up at Taylor. "You're beautiful too." she responds. "Really cool. You're my favourite thing about this town, about this state actually. I hope I get to stay a long time here with you." she admitted not realizing how upsetting that might sound to the other girl. It implied that she would be going at some point. but to Hope that was just an inevitability. Distracted easily by her hair being done, Hope hops to her feet and swings the mirror of the medicine cabinet around so that she could see, but what she saw behind her caught her attention much more than her hair. Her heart races and she freezes in place. Was this a manifestation of her chill? She didn't know. But that wasn't Taylor behind her, or at least it didn't look like it.

Taylor's stomach knotted up as Hope called her beautiful, and she reached back to rub the back of her neck with a crooked, sheepish smile. "Heh, thanks. Not many interesting things in this town though. I don't have a lot of competition," she joked, trying to defuse the weird tension mounting in the room. She had caught the bit about leaving one day, but was just trying not to think about it. "No, wait--!" But it was too late, Hope had already swung the mirror back and she'd definitely saw Taylor's reflection. Until now, she thought she'd been the only one to see it. Her Dad had never mentioned it, and he'd seen her in the mirror plenty of times. She ducked down, out of sight of the mirror, hitting the floor and falling backwards into the shelf behind her, extra bottles of shampoo and body wash crashing to the floor. "Shit," she spat as the tops flew off a couple of the bottles and they started to leak onto the tile floor.

Hope's mounting fear over this being what had been haunting her since birth fell apart when Taylor reacted like she could see it too, like she knew it was coming. It couldn't be her ghosts, no one ever believe her about her ghosts. But Taylors reaction brought about a new nervousness. She continued staring in the mirror just to make sure the image wasn't lingering with Taylor ducking out of the way, but there was no other way about it. That had been Taylor. A little bubble of fear took hold of Hope but she stayed put. Unsure what to say or do next. Her best friend. The girl dying her hair, letting her sleep over every week. Was there something to fear? She was frozen, battling with herself. Hands gripped to the sink Hope felt herself pale. "What..?"

Hope's reaction had been exactly what Taylor had feared. Well, not exactly. She'd expected a bit more screaming and freaking out. But Hope was frozen in fear, and Taylor didn't know if that was worse. "You saw it too, didn't you?" Taylor pulled herself to her feet, the monster appearing behind Hope again in the reflection. And when Taylor's spoke, its lips moved as well. "This isn't what it looks like. Actually, I don't...I don't know what it is at all," she admitted, moving to sit on the edge of the tub, out of sight of the mirror altogether. "Please don't be scared of me. I'm already scared enough for the two of us," she said, tears threatening her eyes, but she tried her damndest to hold them back. "As long as I can remember, my reflection has been that...thing. That monster. I don't know what it means. What it makes me...especially now that I know it's not just all in my head." She held her head in her hands, covering her face. Right next to her ear, the timer she'd set on her watch started to go off, and it made her jump before she quickly pressed the button to silence it. "You, uh, you need to rinse your hair."

Hope stared into the mirror as 'Taylor' reappeared in it. The second glance wasn't any less terrifying as the first, but at least this time she was expecting it. She stared with wide eyes as it spoke, in exact timing with Taylor and then ducked back out of sight. She didn't understand. She didn't know what to do. But she felt Taylors sadness, it was muffled as per usual, but it was still there. She was incredibly upset. She didn't feel like she was lying, like she had malicious intent. Maybe this was why her usually so clear indications of what someone was feeling was so blissfully dull around the other girl. She was something else entirely. Loosening her hold on the sink she glances over to see just normal Taylor sitting on the edge of the bath. Normal. Regular. With a freaky reflection Taylor. "You don't know why?" she echoed tentatively. Her hair was the last thing she wanted to worry about. "I uh......right." she said unmoving.

"I always thought it was just in my head. Like an imaginary friend that just wouldn't take a hint once I grew up," she said quietly. There was no point in hiding any of it now. "But you can see it, which means it's really. It's out there, in the world, whatever it is. Whatever I am? Fucking hell..." She held her face in her hands again, letting the tears leak out now, wiping them away as quickly as they fell. "No. I just know I'm a fucking freak..."

Their stories were so similar yet so far apart. Both of them had something they couldn't explain, both of them hoping that one day whatever it was would just go away. Both of them still living with it. Both just as terrifying admissions. Hope sees the tears, and feels a fraction of the sorror from the older girl and she was unable to do anything but approach her. Hope moved towards Taylor and reaches out tentatively to admit with a shaking breath of her own. "I'm haunted. I'm not...... completely normal either."

As Hope approached her, Taylor flinched just a little, not really sure what to expect. But a gentle hand rested on her and she quickly and quite greedily took it in her own. She needed the contact. The reassurance she was still touchable. Lovable. Worth having around. "Haunted?" she asked, confused as she looked up at Hope finally. "You mean like, metaphorically with all the shit you've been through or like...legit ghosts?" She tried her best not to sound judgy or anything. Now wasn't the time for her usual sarcasm. Her eyes flicked up to Hope's hair, still piled on top of her head as the bleach was starting to crust. "You really need to rinse that out, dude," she said with a little nervous chuckle.

Hope didn't quite know how to answer so she decided to save her hair before they really got into it. She shook her head a little and gestures for the sink. "Help me wash this out?" it was a tentative ask. Taylor looked like she could break down, she felt like she was on the verge as well. But Hope's confidence in her grew in that moment. She still felt the same, she still felt -even if it was a little blurry- like she wouldn't do her any harm. She was willing to trust her gut as she leaned over the sink and turned on the tap to start washing her long hair out. It felt like such a bad moment to be doing something so trivial but there she was.

Taylor took notice of the lack of answer, but she simply nodded as Hope asked for help, getting to her feet and opening the cabinet again so she wouldn't catch her reflection. She ran her hands through Hope's hair, feeling shivers up her arms as she did so. Being trusted to touch her again, after what she'd just seen, it meant more to Taylor than Hope would ever know. Once it was all rinsed out, Taylor handed her a towel and moved to sit back on the tub out of sight, swinging the mirror back in place for Hope to see herself. "It looks great," Taylor complimented. "Even without the toner."

She didn't even glance at her own reflection for a moment, smoothing her hand over her head and wiped the water out of her eyes to look back at Taylor, as if to make sure she was still the same. Although she was still a pre-teen girl, so she did spare a glance when she was complimented. She'd forgotten she was nervous at all, but she was glad that it did actually look good on her. She'd rather have the toner, but she was relieved to find it worked out well. Hope ignored herself again and wraped her hair up in the towel to dry and bites her lip looking at Taylor again. She opened her mouth to start out by saying that she wasn't crazy, but stopped herself when she remembered what she'd just seen would also constitute as crazy in anyone elses eyes. "I'm haunted...like..........ghost haunted I think."

Taylor had never believed in ghosts. It seemed to far fetched, even with her weird monster friend in the mirror. But something about Hope made her believe, even if only a little. It was hard not to, seeing the distress on her face, feeling it coming off her in waves almost. "I believe you," she said softly, reaching out to take her hands. "That's what friends are for, right?"

Yet another month.

It was coming up for the end of summer when Hope finally found out. She'd had an inkling, but something about Taylor had lead her to dream bigger than her life usually was. She'd been gearing up for a new school, maybe even a school she'd manage to stay in for the whole year. But on a Sunday morning, with no warning from her foster family, her social worker appeared at the door with a sad smile and a soft hand. But this wasn't like the other times she'd been sent away from a family, she'd noticed her ghost activity had really picked up since her and Taylor had dyed her hair but she'd really been hopeful that this time it'd be different for the better, not what she was getting now. Hope started to panic and upset herself, her social worker thought she'd been told a week ago when the arrangements were made, and so as not to stir the pot Hope didn't correct him. Instead she let the tears fill her eyes and wandered upstairs to 'collect her things'. In actuality, Hope swung a leg out the window and was off like a shot towards Taylors house. She frantically knocked and as soon as she saw her friends face she started to speak, making no sense. "PROMISE YOU'LL WRITE TO ME."

Taylor herself had been preparing for the school year. The thought of starting high school was scary, but it was nice to know that she’d have a friend to fall back on in Hope, even if she was at a different school. Friends before now had always been hit or miss with Taylor. She had a couple, but she always felt like an afterthought. Not with Hope though. Hope was always on Taylor’s mind, and she could only imagine Hope felt somewhat the same, especially after what they’d admitted to each other. The knock on the door was so frantic it scared Taylor a little. Per usual, her Dad was on the water, and he’d asked her to come with him but she’d refused. Fishing with him had less and less appeal as she got older. Hoping up from the sofa, she tugged the door open to see Hope peering back at her, eyes wet and voice desperate. “What? What’s the matter?” Taylor asked, confused, as she ushered Hope inside.

Hope rushed in and wrapped her arms around Taylor. Her arms wrapped around the other and she starts to explain. Her voice hurried as if she was being chased and had to get it all out before it was too late. Which was sort of true, back in her foster familys home they'd discovered her missing, they were searching the house. Her social worker very concerned as she'd never done this before. "They're taking me away. The Davidsons didn't say a word but it was all finalised last week that I'm to be going back to Maine to a new family. They didn't even tell me, and I'm supposed to be packing right now but I climbed out the window and I'm going to be in so much trouble but I needed to know if you'd write to me, please say you'll write to me!"

Taylor instinctively wrapped her arms around Hope, holding her tight. Why did this feel like it had such a finality to it. And then Hope spilled the beans and Taylor felt tears springing to her eyes. “You’re leaving?” she asked dumbly, backing up to get a good look at Hope’s face. She wished it was some sick joke, but she could feel in her bones it was true. “Of course I’ll write to you!” she assured her, pulling her back into a hug, burying her face in Hope’s shoulder as she sniffles back the sorrow that had pierced through her like an arrow to the heart. “I’ll write so much you’ll get tired of me.” Taylor mentally noted she’d be giving the Davidsons a piece of her mind later, one way or another. But right now her focus was on Hope. “Fuck, I’m gonna miss you. I knew this would happen, but not so damn soon...” and before she could have another thought, before she could even think about hesitating, she pulled back and then leaned in, pressing her lips against Hope’s, doing the only thing that felt natural, because she probably wouldn’t get another chance.

It was a lovely sentiment, and it eased a little of Hopes anxieties about having to move to yet another town, yet another family, yet another school. To know Taylor was going to stay in contact meant everything. Hope clung to the other girl tightly, as they spoke her foster family were already directing her social worker towards Taylors house. She'd been there so often it was unlikely she'd be anywhere else after all. So they didn't have a lot of time. "I'm gonna miss you too." Hope responded, although her teary eyes widened in shock as Taylor presses their lips together. She's flabbergasted when the older girl pulls away. Shocked and unsure how to respond. That had been her first kiss, and amongst all the stress she felt that moment she was dazed and confused. "Wha-?"

Taylor pulled back quickly, her mind finally catching up with her actions and slapping her in the face with them. “I—I’m sorry, I—“ But words were lost in her throat, barely able to squeeze past the lump forming there. “I just, I thought—fuck...” Just then there was a knock at the door, a hard rap that startled the both of them. That sort of angry patience that was somehow scarier than pure anger. The social worker called to Hope through the door, and they knew their time was up.

In that moment Hope didn't have time to process the moment, she only had time to give Taylor another hug. Arms wrapped around the other girl again tightly, no time to address the kiss as she feels the anxious energy of her social worker, probably worried and hoping beyond anything that he'd find Hope there. "Please write me, I'll send the first one i know you're address but I don't know what mine will be." She mumbled into Taylor shoulder. But then she had to go. She turns and opens the door to face the music.

[natusvincere]

Chasing The Sun, pt. 2 || Solo

When, Where, and What: 1500s Sweden, before Vic was turned.  A glimpse back in time. Contains:  Brief allusions to emotional abuse

Victoria hated dinner time.

Too many eyes, too many curious questions that she didn’t have the answers to, particularly from his parents.

“Did your mother enjoy flowers as much as you do?”

“You’ve got quite a talent, why didn’t your father indulge in your painting more?” 

“How did she pass, again?”

As disrupting and unanswerable they felt, none of the questions came from a sinister, passive aggressive place,  not like the questions her father asked. His questions weren’t the type that required answers at all.

Why must you stomp so loudly when you walk into a room, as if people care you’ve arrived?

When will you grow up and do away with those ridiculous hobbies of yours?

How do you expect to find a husband when you make yourself so unappealing?

She swallowed hard, though she’d yet to take a bite of food, and adjusted in her seat awkwardly.  Victoria wished they’d switch to doting on their children, like they usually did. Both of them were used to it- that strange, bubbly feeling of being perceived and loved. It was why they were both so spoiled, she mused. Only one of them rotten.

“Where is she?”, the body next to her whined in his usual whiny tone.  Victoria had never met a man who sulked so much, nor someone who found reasons to complain about the most ridiculous things. Of course she’d end up betrothed to someone so miserable.  Perhaps it was payback for her own disposition as of late.

Her back sat stiff and strong, barely touching the chair she sat on, and she  ignored his complaints. It seemed that most people elected to do the same. She shot her in-laws a strained smile, ready to offer them a polite answer that might satisfy them when Lyra suddenly waltzed in, dancing to music only she could hear.

She was too smitten to notice if the other’s faces brightened at her arrival as much as hers did, and perhaps Lyra was too. They locked eyes and shared a knowing look immediately, and Victoria had to look down at her plate to stop herself from smiling any wider, or even from laughing out loud, as if she were some kind of feral child. The air felt lighter. Their trysts at night had gotten longer and more bold, and it was clear to everyone that they were becoming closer. Maybe it wasn’t clear exactly how close, but it was so deliciously glorious to share a secret together. 

“Late again, Darling. Do you enjoy making your family wait for their dinner?” Her fiancé’s father was trying to sound stern, but even he couldn’t stop from grinning when Lyra was near. 

Gentle fingers brushed along her back as Lyra flitted by, and a tingle ran down her spine. Tension seemed to seem from her shoulders at even the lightest touch. Could Lyra see that too?

Lyra didn’t offer an explanation or apology- but then, she never did. She sat down in her seat across from Victoria, and all at once they were surrounded by food and drink, and more people doting on them.  There were small conversations here and there, but their eyes kept finding each others in between.

The more that happened around them, the more the world seemed to melt away until she could have been sure it was just the two of them.  Time slowed down and sped up all at once, and suddenly, Victoria realized she didn’t hate dinner time so much after all.

[professorbcampbell]

A Bid for Power || Bea & Ben

Location: Illusions of Grandeur

Timing: July 13th, 2021

Tagging: @beatrice-blaze​ & @professorbcampbell​

Description: Ben takes a trip to check out Bea’s venue. A very normal conversation occurs.

Warnings: None!

Shutting off the engine of his car, Ben straightened his neatly pressed shirt as he took in the venue. Illusions of Grandeur. Ever since his rather intriguing run in with the woman-- Bea Vural, as he’d found out later-- at Coffee Plus, he’d found himself thinking more and more about her. There was something about her that had struck a chord. It wasn’t just the interest in Ovid nor was it her perspective on antiquity, though neither of those hurt. No, it was the analytical eye. The guarded nature. The way they seemed to be going through the same, practiced movements of waiting, watching, and responding. His dive into her personal page on the White Crest message boards hadn’t yielded much, other than the fact she was owner and performer at Illusions of Grandeur and that she curated a very… eye-catching Instagram. She clearly took care of herself, and her appearances. But, there had to be more to this woman than just carnival magic tricks.

Walking around the building, he glanced at the hours. Closed. Which made sense. It was a venue, it wouldn’t be open until later. But, there were other cars around which meant-- “Hey there. Can I help you?” Ben looked up and saw a rather unassuming man peeking out from the front doors, a curious expression on his face.

“Ah! Sorry to intrude, I was hoping to speak to Beatrice Vural, the proprietor?” He said with a nod. The man blinked for a moment before nodding. 

“Yeah, Bea’s in the back. Is she expecting you?” The man asked.

Ben let out a laugh, tinged with faux-awkwardness and self-conscious airs. “No, I don’t think she is. I met her the other day and was hoping to speak with her again.”

“Uh huh.” The man said, unimpressed before glancing at his watch. “We have a few hours before show time, so hey. No worries. Come on in.” And with that, Ben followed the man inside, his intrigue growing with every step he took.

A week of not paying attention to the paperwork was coming to bite Bea in the ass. It was worth not stressing over it, but now the math in front of her was swimming across the page and her brain was twenty seconds away from exploding. She closed the books and leant back in her chair, she’d have to ask John to look over all the numbers for her. He had basically run the place for a year and to hand the reins back to him after only a month felt like failing. John didn’t care, she knew that, he didn’t want to be the owner and was happy with where he was, it still felt like she hadn’t planned the right way. 

Bea stood from her desk, determined to make herself a coffee and debating if it was too early to add whiskey. She swung open her office door and made her way to the kitchen. A glorious god (most likely John) had cleaned the espresso maker and she made quick work of making herself a drink. Leaving the kitchen, she nearly knocked into someone with her drink. A small, half laugh left her, “That’s the second time I’ve almost poured coffee on you.” Why was Ben here? “What brought you to my theater?”

Following after John, Ben took in the back of house trappings that filled the space before he was led into the business section of the venue. It was a very run of the mill office set up, with the smell of hot coffee floating in the air and-- Ben hopped back out of the way when he noticed the woman in his periphery. He glanced down at his shirt, relieved to see nothing had spilled on it, before letting out a laugh of his own, “Second time lucky, I’d say. In that I haven’t gotten splashed either time.” He said with a nod and a smile. At her question, Ben reached for the answer that he had been prepared ahead of time. “I was curious about the theater after you mentioned it the first time we met, so I thought I’d look into it. Magic acts have always intrigued me and I must say, I was surprised to hear that you were the one running the show.”

“We have perfect reflexes between the two of us,” Bea teased. “Otherwise, we’d both be covered in coffee every time we saw each other.” Honestly, though it was surprising to see him, she wasn’t upset at all. He was interesting, like a puzzle, and she wanted to figure him out. “You were surprised?” She asked amused, “I must have not been dramatic enough the first time we met.” She took a sip of her coffee, “Would you like to join me in a coffee and a tour? The coffee can be Irish, if you’re up for it,” She said lightly, a mischievous look in her eye. 

“So it would seem,” Ben agreed with an obligating chuckle. At her question, he offered a shrug. “You didn’t strike me as an entertainer-- though, perhaps I’m just out of touch with the rest of society. I don’t often interact with people who aren’t either colleagues or students.” He replied. The real reason he was surprised was because he had heard things about Illusions of Grandeur too. About how the acts here had been so intricate, so incredible, so show stopping. And then, the shows had stopped. He’d read as much in the archives of the White Crest Press website. Smiling at her joke, he shook his head, “I must have been projecting. You deal with enough academics and suddenly you forget that not everyone is involved in education.” At her offer, Ben nodded. “I’d be delighted for both, but I think I’ll pass on the extra shot. I’m not much of a drinker.” He said with a sheepish expression on his face. 

“I really must have been off my game when we first met,” Bea replied with fake modesty. She hadn’t been. There just happened to be places and times for being as extroverted as a performer and Coffee Plus was not one of them. She smiled at him  warmly as she went back into the kitchen to make him a coffee, “I suppose the book I was reading didn’t help you with your assumption. We do educational events here, but I fear that doesn’t make me an educator.” Nor did she want to be an educator, she didn’t have enough patience for that. She didn’t like the sheepish expression on him, as convincing as it was, she had an eye for acting and something about it didn’t sit right with her. “I usually only have wine with dinner, but after the week I had,” She shrugged with a practiced smile. “Did John show you anything as he brought you up?”

Following the woman into the small break room, Ben glanced around at the space. Nothing out of the ordinary, just what he would expect from a small business’ break room. “That it did not. And the conversation we had, though quite refreshing, didn’t do much to change the assumption either. But, I ought to leave my preconceived notions at the door. Something to work on.” He said as he leaned against the wall, watching her fix him a mug. Raising an eyebrow at her words, he gave an apologetic wince. “That bad, huh? Well, I can’t begrudge you a little something extra to take the edge off in that case.” Ben said with an understanding nod. “No, he didn’t actually. I think I may have caught him in the middle of something?” He shrugged. He didn’t care about the random man, he wasn’t the reason why Ben was here. 

“I’m quite flattered that you thought highly of our conversation then. It’s always good to have a self reflective goal to work towards.” It certainly was something to work on, Bea thought. There were too many people in this world who thought that value and intelligence came from a stupid piece of paper. Her and her sisters were just as smart as anyone else and they certainly had not gone to school to find that out. She handed him his coffee and took a sip of her own, busying herself instead of replying to his empathy. She waved a dismissive hand, “If you had caught John in the middle of something important he would have ignored you. Which points to your luck again, that you didn’t.” John was the one Bea tended to send out when too many questions were asked, he was not afraid of confrontation, if it had a good cause. “I see two path ahead of us, Ben, we can enjoy our coffee and conversation or we can get the show on the road and I can start the tour.”

With a nod, Ben accepted the cup with a nod and took a sip, watching her over the rim of the mug. It seemed as though there was something she wasn’t saying, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what. “What is life if not the opportunity to grow and change?” He asked with a smile before holding his cup in front of him. His lips curled slightly at the wave she cast in his direction, amused by her confidence. She was certainly a woman who knew herself and the people around her, it seemed. “Well, seems like I’m quite fortunate indeed.” He said before nodding. And she liked to take charge. A trait that made sense for a woman in her position, a business owner, a performer. And one that Ben would entertain, for now. “Yes, the tour-- please, lead the way.” He smiled.

Bea kept her face straight, though she struggled with the question. Life was complex, harsh, and beautiful. It was too many things all at once. Pain had forced growth in her, but she knew others who dug in their heels and never changed. “Life is what we make of it,” She finally decided. “There are plenty of people who don’t want to life to be that.” She thought of her mother, a woman she had seen as someone with infinite wisdom as a child, and how as an adult that illusion had shattered. She thought of herself, just a year ago, and how steadfast she had been in the way she handled things. “Welcome to Illusions of Grandeur. Here we have our state of the art kitchen,” She said with a soft tease. “On this floor, it’s mainly offices, mine and John’s, and a place for our performers to relax. Downstairs you’ll find the dressing rooms and props area.”

Ben kept a watchful eye on the woman’s expression, privately amused. She was mulling over the question far longer than most would, but didn’t appear to be troubled by it. Was she? Had he struck a nerve? He had no way of knowing, which delighted him. What a fascinating woman, this Beatrice Vural. “True. Life is a series of choices and we, blessed with free will, can do with it what we will. I’m of the opinion that we owe it to ourselves to grow and better ourselves. But,” He said with a laugh and wave of his hand, “I’m philosophizing. You can put the professor on summer break, but his heart remains in the classroom.” He said. Nodding, he smiled at her joke. “Oh, top of the line.” He said. “I must admit-- I’ve always been intrigued by stage magic. Would I be able to see the prop room? Or are those trade secrets?”

“I suppose you can look at it that way,” Bea replied, “But I’m not sure we owe anyone, even ourselves, anything at the start. We can certainly live to owe people, and ourselves. You don’t owe anything until you ask for something.” She let out a soft laugh, “Though that could just stem from my distaste for organized religion. Maybe I’m getting lost in the details.” She had never really understood original sin, it seemed wildly unfair to give babies sins. She knew that wasn’t at all what Ben had meant, but that certainly didn’t stop her from voicing her thoughts. “Not a bad thing to be focused on learning, I’m not the type to do well in the classroom, but I enjoy our discussions.” She eyed him for a moment, a practiced smirk taking over her face. She had had plenty of people curious about the elements that they had seen on stage. “I’ll show you some of my performer’s secrets, but none of my own. That you have to earn.”

Her answer posed more questions than it answered, Ben thought to himself. What a curious woman. “The idea of owing something to another and indebtedness is certainly prevalent in most religions.” He agreed, “But-- you said we don’t owe something until we ask for it. What’s life without the asking, the wanting? We all have our own desires, those things we want more than anything else. Isn’t that part of the human experience?” Ben asked. Oh, how he knew about the wanting. The hunger. The desire for more. And he knew all about the owing too. “Well, I’m glad to hear I’m not a total bore.” He said before meeting her confident gaze. The smirk at the corner of her lips amused him. A strong willed woman. “And how might I earn those?” He asked with a tilt of his head.

“Everyone ends up owing someone something,” Bea shrugged. She supposed she had many people she owed, but it hadn’t come inherently, she had put herself in that position. Many people had put themselves in that position with her. “I suppose what really matters is how we react to owing or being owed. Even more so, how much we have to go through with a person until the scales are tipped the other direction.” She had owed her mother so much, but finally, the scales were tipping. Beatrice and Nisa were getting closer to balance, slowly. Soon, Bea wouldn’t owe her. Maybe, one day, Nisa would look to her eldest for something. She started to lead him to the props area, “Well, what has the same value as a secret, Ben? If you can give me that, then you’ve earned something in return.”

Everyone ends up owing someone something. Now, if Bea only knew how true that statement was. Ben had seen his father carry the burdens of his grandfather, carry his debt and forge a path of blood and sacrifice to a brighter future. The future he had dreamed of. And Ben, he didn’t owe, not yet. But he needed to prove himself worthy of His Lord before that which he craved could be his. And then, then he would owe much. And he’d have the power to pay it back in full. “I’ve always been far more comfortable owing than being owed.” Ben said, though it couldn’t be farther from the truth. The leverage, the power, the ability to apply just the slightest amount of pressure on someone because they were indebted to him… he relished the feeling. But no one would admit to such a thing. “That said, I don’t make a habit of owing people things. Level playing fields are my preferred territory.” He sad. Another lie, but she had no reason to know that. Looking around at the props, the gaudy costumes, the sparkling, glittering decor that served to distract the audience, Ben smiled, “Depends on the secret, I’d suppose.” He sipped the last of his coffee contemplatively before replying, “For the price of a secret that your livelihood rests on… I’d say that might be a bit steep for me.”

Bea didn’t believe that for a moment, no one liked that. How could anyone be comfortable in that sort of situation? Perhaps if the person owed was a trusted someone, it wouldn’t be as terrible. She wouldn’t pick it for herself though. “I’m not,” She said nonchalantly. It was an honest answer. This truth might not be comfortable, but she didn’t think it was horrible. “I have owed people in the past and the scramble to bring it back to center is not an experience I’d like to have all that often after. I’d rather hold the power, though that sounds terribly selfish,” She let out a soft laugh. She wore her selfishness as a shield, knowing that her fatal flaw was the loyalty she held for those she loved. Better people think she would pick herself over others than knowing what it would truly move her. “Well, not all of my secrets here will ruin my show in the wrong hands,” She said amused. “Maybe start with one of those.”

Ben raised his eyebrows in an expression of casual surprise, but he couldn’t help but be startled by how open she was about that. People tended to play the humble card, to downplay how uncomfortable they were in situations that tested them. Or, at the very least, they would take the easy route and present themselves as some kind of magnanimous person who didn’t mind owing others because debts could be so easily repaid. How intriguing. What had this woman owed? And to who? “I don’t think that’s selfish. I think it’s quite honest.” He said earnestly. “And even if it was, there’s something to be said about being selfish. So few people are these days. It’s refreshing.” He said, folding his arms across his chest to think for a moment. “Let’s see… I’ve always wanted to know how to pull a rabbit from a hat. What might that run me?”

The cool mask Bea kept on hid the pleasure she had at his approval. It would be a lie to say that some of her self worth didn’t come from the opinions other’s held about her. Nisa had taught her the power of other people’s thoughts and Bea was in no rush to challenge that. That piece of growth could wait until she was better fitted to deal with the pain it would bring. She tilted her head at his words, a shy smile sent his way. “I’m glad you think so. Not many people are open to ugly honesty, it scares them.” Ugliness ran deeply through each of them, it was just a game of seeing who could hide it the best. Or mold it into the sharpest weapon. She made a show of pondering, biting her lip and furrowing her brow quite threatically. “For something like that, I suppose I could take a piece of information you would share in an icebreaker exercise. Nothing terribly personal, but interesting enough to make me remember you,” She teased. 

This woman was full of all kinds of unexpected truths. Ugly honesty indeed. He was no stranger to that, not at all. But, Ben hid the truth well, covered it in velvety words and smoothed it away until it seemed harmless. Until he seemed harmless. “I think it’s less the honesty that scares people and more the act of being honest. Because if someone else has the courage to voice their unpleasant truths then, well… what are they hiding for, hm?” He mused. “The crowd has never liked those who are braver or stronger than them. Admired, feared, but never liked.” As Bea mulled over his question, Ben leaned against the wall, his stance relaxed and casual. Something from an icebreaker. If that was the price of a simple illusion, what might admitting he served a demonic lord might gain him? Nothing of value-- or at least, nothing more valuable than His Lord. “That seems a small enough price. Hi. I’m Ben Campbell. When I was fourteen, I broke my arm jumping off the roof onto the trampoline at a friend’s house.” He said, providing the work friendly lie of how he had broken his arm. In reality, he’d broken it in a scuffle with his brother’s sacrifice at the time, an overgrown sophomore at the White Crest High. 

Bea smiled, knowing all too well why people hid their own truths. For as honest as she came off, she had enough secrets that she kept close to her chest. Her honesty was an old trick, showing a false depth in the hopes no one dug deeper. Those who did were often surprised with what they found, that, at least, was satisfying. A bit like the rabbit trick itself. “Which brings up the age-old question, do we strive to be liked or admired?” Or feared? She believed herself closer to admired, feared when people saw the abilities she possessed. It hadn’t done her too bad at this point, though being liked had its own set of pluses. She smiled at his icebreaker answer, “The perfect thing to say. Now everyone who goes after you will think of their own injuries and have something to relate to you with.” There was a part of her that almost told him about her ankle, the allure of being relatable ringing loudly in her ears. That wasn’t the deal however, it was a secret for a secret, but it wasn’t her own she would be sharing. She pulled over a hat and a scarf, “For the purposes of the demonstration, the scarf will be the rabbit.” She showed him the false bottom and then delivered the trick with flair. 

“Now that is indeed an age-old question. I should watch out, otherwise there might be a new ancient philosophy and ethics professor at UMWC.” Ben teased. The answer was clear to him, as it always had been. Liked, admired… even feared-- the combination of the three was how one conquered the world. False compassion to ensure the tide of public opinion was on your side, benevolent actions with ulterior motives for admiration, and the violent, deadly truth for fear. They were the three cards that he played, one after the other, to unsurprising success. But no one liked to think about that. No one liked to think how easily they could be manipulated. “I suppose it varies from person to person, and from time to time-- goodness knows I don’t want to be admired the same way I did when I was in high school. I find myself wanting to be admired in an inspirational fashion. If I can help guide my students towards their callings and I’m admired for that, I consider that worthwhile.” He nodded. A safe answer. An expected answer.

“I suppose you’re right about that.” Ben laughed, a sheepish sound. “I never thought of it that way.” Lies. Of course he had. He crafted every aspect of his life at the university to be approachable, to be relatable. Ben focused on the trick watching intently as she demonstrated how it worked. Simple deception and trickery, a trick of the light. An illusion. “Ah… That’s far more simple than I thought it would be. But, if it works, it works.”

Bea let out a soft, surprised laugh. She hadn’t expected that sort of praise, no matter how interested he seemed in her conversation. She had always thought of herself as intelligent, though she didn’t think many people shared that opinion. Her vanity often changed the way she was perceived by others, intelligence overlooked for appearance. She didn’t necessarily mind it, it gave her something to use as a tool, but to be seen in this manner by a near stranger felt good. “I think I’d need to go to college before I truly became a threat to your livelihood.” She had never truly seen the appeal to that institution, her worth was nothing something that could be evaluated through a numeric system created by old white men. Her sisters and her were doing quite fine without that in their lives. “And where does the fear fit into that equation?” She asked. She under understood it in some manner though. Her performers were meant to look to her as a source of inspiration, a mentor when they needed one. The fear she held was not to intimidate her performers, but rather those who look too closely at them. It was a method of protection, for her and them. 

“When I first did workshops, I always tried to find an answer that made people relate to me. It made it easier to pull those with more connections than me. Maybe you’re doing that subconsciously.” Or maybe he was like her and planned his answers to these things, even if he claimed not to. She nodded, “It’s so simple that it’s almost disappointing. I try to avoid tricks like that now, if it takes someone longer to figure it out, the longer they think of my show.” The challenge of finding a trick like that was great fun for her too.

At the news that Bea had never been to college, Ben resisted the impulse to stare at her in shock. She’d never been to college? Never even taken a college course? How could that possibly be? She was an entertainer, yes, but her interests and the insights she held-- they were beyond that of what he’d expect from someone with just a high school diploma. Or, Lord forbid, a GED. Incredible. Unbelievable. But, he kept his expression calm and smiled instead. “Well, I suppose that means my job is safe for the time being.” He joked before shrugging at her question. “Fear seems a bit too Machiavellian for me, personally.”

“That could be it.” Ben agreed though her answer, once again, only made him wonder more. She actively tried to make connections, actively tried to be relatable. He could understand why she would do such things, but it still intrigued him. What else lay below the surface of this woman, who seemed just as observant and calculating as himself? “Really? Well. Could you show me one that interests you a bit more?” He asked, eyes bright as a small grin slid across his face. To her it would seem he was eager at the prospect of seeing another trick-- in reality, it was nothing more than a ploy to stoke her ego.

“Maybe I’ll have to look into it now, just for the pleasure of that,” Bea teased. Classrooms were not where she learnt best. She had always been a tactical learner, someone who had to do to get the best experience. Her interest in reading had developed later in life, after high school, when she felt free to explore her interests. The push to learn chemistry, math, and history had been bland while she was a student. Her grades had reflected her feelings on school very well. It was the one place she was allowed to do poorly. “A bit of Machiavellianism isn’t always a bad thing. Being able to use the tools one has to their advantage shouldn’t be considered deceitful or wrong. If fear is a method of keeping the playing field even, why not use it.” The Vurals, Bea found, could be considered ruthless at times, but maybe that’s what had kept them where they were.

The showman in Bea egged her on and with a small smirk, she nodded. “I won’t show you anything I’m using in my current show, but I can show you one of my old favorites.” There was temptation to pull out all the stops, awe him in a manner he had yet to be awe. She held back. This was a trick that required none of her own magic, but wonderful sleight of hand and a bit of trick fire. “Why don’t I show you first and then you can try to figure it out?” That was always a fun game and it would show her how his mind worked. What details he picked up on and what were lost in the end. She was quite excited to see how his observant eye would do. 

“Well, I’ll be able to provide recommendations of classes if you ever decide to pursue a degree.” Ben said with an easy nod. If she ever did do such a thing, and Ben got the distinct impression that she had no such interest. No matter. “Spoken like the diplomat himself. I must say, I don’t entirely disagree that one must use all tools at their disposal. But, I try my best to leave fear as a last resort. And never with students. It’s just not good practice to strike fear in the people you’re teaching.” He replied.

“By all means.” Ben said with a smile and a wave of his hand. He had an eye for detail, but prestidigitation was hardly his strong suit. No matter, he was curious to see what she had in store.

“I’m far too busy right now to consider it, I fear,” Bea said easily. She had never considered, not even as her friends were searching for colleges. Perhaps there would be skills that she could obtain from some instruction, but she was fine with her books for most subjects. “Maybe I’ll sit in on one of your classes one day,” She teased. That was an interesting idea at least, then she could see how he taught his students. How different would he be in the classroom? When she felt a lesson needed to be taught, to anyone, she had a firm hand, though she did attempt to be kind. “Students are different, aren’t they? There’s a power imbalance there already, fear doesn’t need to be added. With adults, though, we have to remind them of the power.” Remind them of who they were dealing with. 

It took a few moments to set up, but once she was ready, she held a deck of cards in her hand. She pulled out a sharpie, “Sign a few random cards for me.” A few fancy shuffling passes and the trick began in earnest. With a flash of fire, her deck vanished, her sleeveless dress giving no indication that it could have slipped somewhere that other people used. It was a simple trick by design, but no less fun to watch. “I wonder where the deck went,” She smiled. 

“I suppose I have that to look forward to.” Ben said, matching her lightly teasing tone. At Bea’s words, Ben resisted the urge to smile-- not the saccharine smile of the doting professor or the wry grin bashful intellectual. He held back the smile of one who understood the power of fear and the joy of that came with using that particular tactic. It was a smile he rarely used outside of those nights in the wood, when he was offering sacrifice to his Lord. “Perhaps, perhaps.” He said, shrugging with a nonchalant air. “The iron hand in a velvet glove technique has its place. But, I prefer to avoid such things, when at all possible.”

He signed the cards as asked and watched as Bea flashed the cards in front of him, intrigued. Ben blinked as a sudden burst of flame illuminated both their faces. Flash paper, to draw attention away from the real trick. He’d seen her hands move, watched her closely, and yet… “Don’t tell me the cards are in my pocket.”  Ben joked, patting his hands against his jeans.

There was something about Ben that tickled Bea, he pulled at her curiosity. He was magnetic to her, but, she imagined, not in the way he was to others. She wanted to take him apart until she found out what his goal was, why he was like her. She wanted to see if he truly believed some of the things he said. “I suppose that would make you the good cop and me the bad cop then,” She smiled. Did he have the potential to be as ruthless as she was? Maybe he could be worse. He was interesting enough for her to want him as a friend, but she couldn’t allow that title to go to anyone she didn’t understand. 

“No, it’s not.” She smirked at him, “If I was going to put my hand in your pocket, I’d want you to know about it.” Her smirk widened as she snapped her fingers and cards began to rain around them. His signature seen as the cards fluttered down around them. 

Ben couldn’t help but grin at her words. He wasn’t surprised by them-- he honestly couldn’t keep track of all the people who made a pass at him. But, this presented an interesting opportunity, one where he could pick Bea’s mind without needing ulterior motives. Watching as the cards fell from the sky, he spotted the cards he’d signed. Ben grabbed it from the air and glanced at it. The Queen of Spades. “That’s quite the trick, I can see why you used it in shows. I wonder how your new ones compare. ” He said, flipping the card between his fingers before handing it back to Bea. “Would dinner and drinks this weekend be payment enough to find out how you managed that?” Ben asked, his eyes bright. The mystery of the woman that was Beatrice Vural was one that intended to crack. One way or another. 

At his grin, Bea smiled back, that wasn’t a smile she had gotten out of him yet. To be able to pull something like that from him pleased her. “You’ll have to see the show to know.” She never passed up the opportunity to get someone into her doors, even after hitting on them. She was a business woman at the end of the day. “Yes, I say it would, but I’ll need to check in with my partner to make sure he’s comfortable with it first.” Her relationship with Felix was based on trust and honesty, and while she was sure he would tell her to go off and have fun, confirming with him was important. “We’ll see how many secrets we can collect over drinks, hm?”

[divineluce]

And from the Ashes || Leah, Luce, Morgan, Nell, & Rio

Timing: Late at Night May 26th, 2021

Location: A burnt out clearing in the Outskirts

Tagging: @phoenixleah, @divineluce, @mor-beck-more-problems, @nelllraiser, @3starsquinn, and featuring Bernard Burnie the Phoenix

Description: The time has come to try and save the phoenix.

Running a hand through her hair, Luce looked at the clearing that she’d led the others to. It was a wide-open space, already charred and covered in ash- she’d first spotted the burnt-out area when she and Adam had posted up in the burnt out shell of a building on Scorch Street. She’d ventured out here on her own a few days before, dragging as many branches she could manage into the center of the neat circle of blackened soil. They needed a pyre, a central place for the magic to be channeled, to catch the energy they poured into the spell. They. That assumed that she’d be able to do something, that she’d be able to… summon the flames.

Luce dropped the gas can she’d hauled into the woods with a heavy, sloshing thud. There were already a few cans lying at the edge of the clearing, a contingency plan courtesy of Adam. He’d been game to help with the setup, loaning her what equipment he had to help. Nell knew how to pick ‘em. Even if he was some kinda doomsday prepper. “Here we go. Rio, you’ve been looking at the wards, right?” She said, gesturing to the area around them. “I’m not sure how big we need to go… Would you know anything about the scope?” Luce asked, glancing over at Morgan with a tentative gaze. The scratches that ran along her body were still scabbed over and angry to the touch, even with the help of Nell’s poultices. “Nell, do you want to get started with the herbs? Leah should be out looking for the phoenix, hopefully we have some time before she radios us that they’re on the move.” Luce said as she unzipped her backpack and began to pull out the various ingredients the ritual required. A silver mortar and pestle, courtesy of Bea, the Bloodroot, the jar of corrupted resurrection dirt, another glass with the phoenix’s still smoldering ashes, and bundles upon bundles of sage and lavender. Pulling the last vial from her pocket, Luce stared at the small bottle of phoenix tears. This had to work. It had to work.

Leah Ramirez was not an improviser. Not by any means. For an event like the one they were attempting to go as smoothly as possible, it was incredibly important to plan out every detail down to the second, and then establish a plan B, C, D… all the way to ZZ in case things didn’t go as planned. It was admirable how determined Luce was to save this poor soul. Leah always knew she had a huge heart, but for whatever reason, she wasn’t always a big fan of showing it. This needed to go well- if not for the phoenix, for Luce. For her to know it was okay to openly care about something and to ask for help.

Her job was simple enough. Find the corrupted phoenix, entice him to chase her, run to the clearing, help with the ritual. It wasn’t hard to find him, either. He’d been leaving a path of destruction for weeks now, and she followed the path of ash and char that he left behind until she found an area that was still very much on fire. The flames didn’t scare Leah- they couldn’t hurt her. And she hoped if what she’d heard about corrupted phoenixes was true, he’d get frustrated at the lack of damage he was doing to her and chase after her. If not, there was always plan ZZ. But when she finally laid eyes on him, it felt like a punch to her gut. She’d seen plenty of phoenixes in their flame state before, but her family was always so careful to be controlled and calm in their flame presentation. They had the privilege of years of training, not to mention the ability to change back if it all became too much. The corrupted phoenix, on the other hand, was raging, stuck in an eternal flame state with no way of connecting with anyone or anything. Of course he was destroying the world- it was the only way he could get its attention. She radio’d the group from her safe distance, watching the phoenix to see if he’d noticed her. “Found him. Let me know when you’re ready.”

Orion had stayed up half the night drawing the runes that Luce had sent him. He wasn’t sure how much the group would need, so he figured he should do as many as he possibly could. He kept his bag full of them, weighing on his back as he followed the group to the clearing Luce had prepared. From the looks of it, Luce had been hard at work to get things ready for the spell. While the rest of the group was probably used to stuff like this, Rio hadn’t taken part in many spells. He was equal parts excited and nervous. Something like this was an entirely new experience to learn about. It was every scribe’s dream. On the other hand, Luce had already warned him how much energy this would take. This wasn’t going to be a simple spell, one thing gone wrong could screw everything up. Rio just wanted to make sure he wasn’t the cause of any mess ups.

Once they were together in the clearing, Rio dropped his back and pulled the stack of paper with the wards drawn on them. “Yeah, I’ve got a bunch. Just tell me what to do with them. I’ll follow everyone else’s lead. I think I’m the newbie here.”

Morgan double checked the notes she’d made on her phone. “Bigger might be safer,” she said. “Wider net, easier catch.” But not too big, or else the energy needed to power the space might increase to dangerous proportions. She came over to Rio and showed him the diagram she’d made. “If we give ourselves a twenty foot diameter, you should be able to put down the runes in intervals of two feet. Move clockwise and make sure they’re all oriented the right way, okay?”

That done she went over to Luce, who was looking a little uneasy. “Hey. This’ll work if you let it, okay? You can help him.”

Nell was tired. But that seemed to be the beginning of every thought she has of late. It was getting to the point of being exhausted from the constant state of emotional tiredness, which often left her feeling either drained, irritable, or both. As she bent over her densely packed sticks of herbs, she did her best to banish the sensation of lethargy seeping into her bones, shaking herself out of its grabby hands to gather the strength she’d need for the coming ceremony. If there was one thing that could spark her massive reservoirs of determination, it was a sister in need— and as Nell let her gaze wash over Luce, and all the physical as well as emotional cuts and scrapes it’d taken her to get here, it was obvious Luce was certainly in need.

She didn’t have fire like her sisters, so when she lit the herbs to cleanse and purify it was with the lighter from her pocket. Blowing softly over the end of it, she let the flame peter out until a steady trail of smoke was rising from the end of the bundle before handing it off to Rio. “Take this with you, too.” Did he have enough hands for it? MAybe he could stick it in his pocket or something. Or- “I can walk with you if you need it.” Then she was on to lighting the next stick of herbs, keeping this one for herself.

Rummaging around in her pockets, Luce pulled out the shitty little Zippo lighter she kept on her. She’d never had to actually use it, but now might be the time. If her flames didn’t come, she’d find a way to make sure that this worked. One way or another, she’d get fire to burn and to hopefully, hopefully put an end to this person’s nightmare. After all this time, the weeks of work trying to gather the ingredients she needed for the ritual, she hadn’t paused to think about how they must be feeling in the middle of all this. Were they still in there? Or were they lost to the fire, like she had been? The walkie talkie on her belt buzzed and she heard Leah’s staticky confirmation. “Sounds good. We need a bit more time, but I’ll give you the signal when we’re ready.”

“Bigger is better, I’ll take your word on that. Thanks for drawing those up, Rio.” Luce said, looking closely at the runes he’d drawn. Damn. For a Scribe who claimed like he didn’t know what he was doing, they looked damn good. Like, really fucking good. And Morgan knew what she was doing, she could guide him as they set the perimeter of the ritual site. Sucking in a deep breath, she cast Nell a tense grimace of a smile before staring at the silver mortar in front of her. The ingredients were all here. She just had to… tap into the magic. Flexing her hands, she unstoppered the bottles and began to mix them together “The corrupted earth with tears to mend,” She muttered quietly to herself, trying to reach for the magic that lived within her. Fear gripped at her heart as she tried to feel the connection and found… nothing.

Leah couldn’t have taken her eyes off the corrupted phoenix if she tried. The way he moved and raged through the forest, his path clear but his goal unsolidified, it fascinated her. She wanted to take it all in, write it down and warn family members about the dangers of changing their ways. She took another step forward toward him, and suddenly, he whipped around to stare at her, flames angry and dark. For a while, there seemed to be nothing else, just two phoenixes, born of very different circumstances, staring at each other and waiting for the other to make a move. Could he sense what she was? Was he confused by her lack of fear? She took another step forward, right into the charred remnants of a tree that were still on fire. We’re the same, she was trying to tell him. We can be the same. In her time observing him, this was the first time she’d seen the phoenix still.  “We want to help you”, she said, quietly. Would he hear her? Could he understand? But as quickly as it had seemed to pause, his rage picked up again, and soon, he was barreling toward her. The radio secured at her shoulder buzzed, with Luce indicating they weren’t ready. Shit. As he ran toward her, she thought quickly, switching into her flame state.

Now they were really the same.

With the two phoenixes both engulfed by their flames, there was no solid body for the corrupted one to ram into, no destruction he could cause.  He whipped around again to look at her, and for another moment, as if there were a second of clarity. But again, it didn’t last. Leah switched back, and began running toward where the phoenix had come from, into the fiery destruction he’d been wallowing in. “We want to help you” she cried as she heard him begin to run after her.

Morgan watched Nell and Rio get to work laying the circle and burning their bundles. There was another one for her, but she hesitated to reach for it. This wasn’t an afternoon in her studio or a hopeful exercise for her peace of mind. Someone’s life was hanging in the balance. All of theirs, really, if you factored in the risks of this going sideways. What good was the energy of a dead woman with no direction? And yet. She felt useless, just standing there. Sure, she’d helped Luce work out the magic maths for the circle and organize a delegated plan, but that was theory, that was cozy. She wanted to help, if only to prove that she still could. That she hadn’t given up yet. So she picked up the last bundle and lit it up. She could smell none of the smoke that rose from the black and orange crackling ends, but she remembered her own rituals in the woods when she was trying to learn blood magic. She remembered her fear of being shut down by the universe, of being turned away by her friends, and the way her hope trembled as the smoke cleansed the hurt from her space. As she did the last thing, the only thing she could, she prayed to the earth below them that this phoenix would have his hurt wiped away too.

“I think that’s about it. Everyone ready?”

Orion had a stack of papers in his mouth, hanging on by the corner of the paper as he moved along the path, more paper in one hand and the burning herbs that Nell had passed to him in the other. He had assured Nell that he was fine, but one misstep and he would tumble. He followed Morgan’s directions, placing the runes around in a large circle and watching the other group carefully. Everyone looked incredibly focused. Just another hint that this was serious. Stuff like this must be second nature to them, yet there was a lot of care and detail put into every single step. It made sense, from what Rio knew about spells, the devil was in the details. Sometimes literally he supposed. But the smallest inaccuracy could cause horrible side effects. His chest tightened at the thought of what backlash could come if something go wrong, but he shook it off quickly. He had been injured trying to help others. It had never changed his mind before, he wasn’t about to let today freak him out.

Once the circle was complete he gave a thumbs up towards the group just in time for Morgan to ask if they were ready. Honestly, Rio had no idea if they things were ready, but he eyed the gas cans around the circle. He figured those would come into play once the spell started. “All set” Rio confirmed, moving in the circle to join with the others.

None of them were wholly fireproof anymore despite having taken their own footsteps through the flames of their existence, and Nell was no exception. Each one of those present had all weathered their own firestorms, walking straight into infernos that had every right to have felled them where they stood. But still they persisted, like the embers of a life refusing to be snuffed out despite all the gusts buffeting them from sometimes all sides. Fire was life and death, as cyclical as anything else in the magic. That’s what Nisa had tried to teach her daughters while they’d grown amongst the trees of the forest. It could steal life in a moment, burning a person out of existence until they were no more than ash on the wind, but as was the way with everything in the world it had the other face of its coin. Warmth, cauterizing, cleansing. In and of itself fire was the most alive of the elements, flickering with a spirit and will of its own. And yet that same life was so good at snuffing out others.

Nell didn’t have the fire her sisters had once wielded, so she’d thought the lessons didn’t apply to her. But she had her own flame living in her chest, the same heat that had told her to kill Montgomery and to make it hurt. The searing anger that had her digging a knife into Frank’s side, and poised to smother his own fire. Maybe they all had flames living within them, dangerous if left unchecked. Luce had left her flames to themselves since nearly a year ago to the day, or maybe it had been even longer. Nell had too. But she was watching in real time as her sister tried to reign them in, reignite them in a way that didn’t end with screams and acrid stench of burning flesh. It was enough to make Nell wonder what the peace on the other side might be like, whether she might one day give up the things fueling her flames to try her own hand at seizing it. Today wasn’t about her, though. That much she knew as she came out of the circle she’d walked to slip her hand into Luce’s for a squeeze. “We’ll make this work.” Luce wasn’t alone, and she’d be sure to remind her sister of that. Gathering her magic, she searched the corners of herself to pick up every scrap of it, knowing this spell was no small feat. She and Luce would be lucky if they didn’t pass out, let alone leave with skinned arms and a heart attack later. “You’re ready?”

Luce couldn’t help the way angry tears prickled at the corner of her eyes, helpless, unable to feel the flames that lived within her. This had to work, it had to fucking work. She needed it to work, she needed to save this person but… The words Adam had told her, when they’d posted up in the burnt out husk of a building on Scorch Street, they echoed in the back of her mind. Either I accept the dude in the mirror or I keep doing stuff that hurts everybody I care about. One of the most dude-bro things she’d heard from him, but it was true. She’d been mulling over their conversation for days now, trying to reconcile what he’d told her with the things she felt. And she’d thought… She’d thought she had this. She thought she could do this. But what if she was wrong? What if she couldn’t? What if he was wrong, what if Rio and Nell and Morgan—who had given her this second chance to change—had misplaced their faith? Her hands trembled slightly as she uncorked the bottle of ash, muttering a quiet Turkish chant over the still smoldering remains as she mixed it in. The Bloodroot followed and she mixed it all together with the pestle, the mixture crackling and sparking as she did her best to guide the magical properties of the ingredients into what she wanted, what she needed it to be. A cure. A way to end the nightmare. Redemption. Though her flames lay stubbornly still within her, Luce poured intention into the mixture until the chalice was full of a thick, smoking liquid.

Swallowing, Luce glanced up to see that Morgan and Rio had already drawn the wards, laid out the runes in their prescribed spaces around the large pyre. The bundles of herbs were smoking, filling the air with a heady scent, and all of them were waiting on… her. Luce felt Nell slip her hand into her own and she offered a nod. She wasn’t ready but she had to do this. She had to see this through. “Whatever it takes.” She said quietly as she stood up in the circle. Holding tightly onto her sister’s hand, the silver cup on the ground before them, Luce brought the walkie talkie to her mouth with her free hand. “Send him our way. We’re ready.” Now or never.

Leah ran and ran, waiting for the fuzzy confirmation that she could bring the phoenix to the clearing. She didn’t know how long they played cat and mouse, Leah switching back and forth between flame state to keep him occupied. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep this up. As she ran, exhaustion began to over take every part of her- her bones, her heart, her lungs- but she had to keep going. They had to help. And suddenly, when it felt that maybe she couldn’t go anymore, she heard the telltale buzz from Luce that they were ready, and without warning, she switched her path and began to run toward the clearing. The phoenix, in his effort to catch up with her, seemed to leave less of a trail of destruction than he had been in the last week or so, and she had to breath a sigh of relief at that.

It seemed like it took forever, but she finally broke through the clearing with the group of her friends, all ready and expectant to start the ritual that could end this. The phoenix seemed to pay them no mind. As they reached the center, she turned around and watched him stop and finally take in his surroundings. At least, that’s what she assumed he was doing- if he was even aware of what was going on. Regardless, with him distracted, Leah switched back into her flame state one last time, wrapping herself around the corrupted phoenix and engulfing him with her own flames. “We’re the same”, she whispered, hushed and smoky. “You’re not alone.”

Nell’s first reaction upon seeing Leah and the corrupted phoenix was one of ‘fight’, muscles tensing as she prepared to dodge a fireball that may or may not be coming her way, and dive in headlong to try and subdue the phoenix. But that’s not why they were here. They weren’t fighting today, they were cleansing, purifying— and violence could never truly grant either of those. Killing a problem wasn’t the same as healing from it, and wasn’t that obvious in the way her past choices seemed to never let her be? Maybe Luce should have asked Bea to help with the phoenix. Bea could be warm in the way the flip side of fire was meant to be, she’d know how to burn out the bad without incinerating the whole. Sure— Nell knew her plants and practical magic, but what good were those when she was home to an unsteady heart? If her intentions wavered, if she didn’t focus on the right things...would the phoenix simply rise to an even bigger and angrier inferno than it was now?

Thankfully Nell’s sister by her side, and Leah’s embrace of the other phoenix served as a reminder that she wasn’t all sharp edges and bloody hands. She had a family. And even though a bulk of it had left in the form of the coven, friends that had needed to find their own way beyond the town lines of White Crest, and even Bex who had fled in a fear Nell was still struggling to process— she could see her family reflected in the faces present. Luce by blood, Morgan by choice, Leah by upbringing, even Rio at times with the way he was ready and willing to help anyone who so much as glanced in his direction. Surely anyone who had a family was worth something? To have people who loved you was no easy feat. Did the phoenix have people that had loved him before? Leah loved him even now as he tried to burn the world to ash, caught in between her arms. Maybe there was another choice that could be made. As cliche as it may be, love was a cleanser, a healer, a purifier. And Nell knew how to do that even if she wasn’t always adept at it. That would be her focus point for the spell.

With a smattering of her own Turkish words Nell fueled the wards to life, letting her magic blaze through them so that the area was safely contained. Nowadays, she most often used Latin for her spellcasting, skipping the extra step of translation when she could. But if this were to be a spell of love she’d used the tongue her sister had used, the one her father had told stories in. Taking Luce’s other hand in her own, she placed their joined hands on the outside of the chalice, folding her palms over Luce’s while they cradled the silver between them. Leah had said it best, and she borrowed the words from the phoenix to lend to Luce, the soft Tukish private between them while she let her magic and intentions flow. “We’re the same.” They’d both been lost. Both desperately trying to claw their way out of the prisons they’d made for themselves out of their past deeds. But maybe with this, with the cleansing of the phoenix- at least Luce could be found. It was hard to remember that there were hands waiting on the other side of one’s self-made bars, people simply waiting for you to reach out and hold on tight. Nell wasn’t sure which of them was raising the other from perdition anymore, but she knew it was as one. “You’re not alone.”

The phoenix looked even worse than the first time Luce and Adam had seen them. Him, she realized. The phoenix was a man wreathed in brilliant, unnatural flames that seemed to flare around him in a malevolent glow. He stared at the clearing-- perhaps a moment of recognition for a place he’d already brought ruin upon, perhaps trying to puzzle out what the ritual space was for. Either way, Leah took advantage of the distraction and, cloaked in her own flames, she held onto him tightly. Her brilliant flames clashed against the ominous vermillion fire that surrounded the other phoenix. Luce felt Nell’s fingers tighten around her own and together they picked up the chalice, the magic coursing between them.

Luce could feel the wards glow, the paper Rio had drawn them on smoldering away to nothing until the burning runes were etched into the earth. And as Nell’s magic funneled into the chalice, Luce nearly let out a gasp as… the embers within her began to stir. The flames were weak, nonexistent. But the connection, the magic, it was there. For the first time in six months, she could feel the magic that had forsaken her. She reached for it cautiously, her spirit fanning the flame as carefully as she could to try and coax the spark back to life. “We’re the same.” Luce echoed as she stared at the phoenix held by Leah’s flames. She could see the fear in his eyes, the fear that was seared into his soul. As he strained against Leah, she knew she had been right. He wasn’t afraid of them, but of himself.

“You’re not alone.” Luce said, her voice rising as she let the magic flow through her fingertips into the chalice. The mixture continued to smoke and smolder and she knew that fire should be burning from the cup. But the flames wouldn’t come. No matter how hard she tried. “You’re not alone! We just want to help. Please, let us help you!” She called to the phoenix. Take our help, let me help, do what I never did, please.

Pain ran through Bernard’s body as the flames that weren’t his own burned around him-- frustration, rage, fear, they mixed together within him, the only thing he’d known for the past… how long? How long had he been like this? Days? Weeks? Months? He didn’t know. He didn’t know anything. He remembered erupting from the earth, tearing away from that cursed echoing place as fast as he could. It was a blur of fire and flames and pain and blood. And the voice, the voice, it followed him everywhere he ran. Whispering sometimes, shouting at others. All it wanted was for the world to burn. And he was powerless to it. People, animals, all who were caught in his path, they… crumbled to nothing. And all he could do was shriek in agony as his own cursed flames continued to burn. He couldn’t stop them, was powerless to the darkness that ran rampant within his body. The voice that wasn’t his own rang in his mind through all hours of the day, screaming at him to burn this place to the ground. It was the voice he’d fled from when he’d first awoken in this new body, the voice that still chased him.

And even now, it was shrieking at him. Burn the girl, burn them all, cast their bones to ash, let the flames consume this town. Let all become fire, let all become ruin.

But, a different voice-- the first voice he’d heard that wasn’t a strangled scream-- it made its way to his ear. “We’re the same.” A soft voice, whispering, pleading, “You’re not alone.” Fighting every instinct in his body, Bernard was able to tilt his head in the barest of nods. He did his best to regain control over the fire that raged around his body, to fight the voice within him. “Help me, help me.” He whispered to the woman whose arms were wrapped around him, “End-- end this.”

As the man struggled and strained against Leah’s hold, it began to feel hopeless. Already exhausted from their run through the forest, she knew she couldn’t hold onto him for much longer. And with no one else there able to withstand the flames, she wondered, briefly, if it had been a mistake for Luce to ask her for help, at least with this part. She was never strong- always swift and agile and smart. Perhaps Alfie would have been better for something like this. But then, he seemed to respond. A hint of a nod was all it took for Leah to gain her confidence back. This was working, and they were going to fix this. Together. She was not alone.  Carefully, she unwrapped her arms around his body, instead, choosing to hold his forearms for guidance. Gently, she guided him onto the pyre. Though he still seemed to struggle, it was a lot easier to guide him up than it had been to hold him in place. She wondered if he was fighting too, now. Somewhere deep inside. She noticed the chalice shared between Nell and Luce, smoking and smoldering and beckoning to help. “I know it’s hard”, she said again, more firm this time. “But we think this will fix it. You have to try and drink this, okay? Drinking it will help. We’re going to help you get better, but first you have to drink it.” She continued to whisper these affirmations in his ear, willing him to continue to fight through the flames. “We’re all here to help you.”

Nell could feel the moment her sister’s magic sputtered into existence. She’d be able to recognize her sister’s magic anywhere. Such was the bond of countless spells done as one in their youth, and the few they’d done together in the last year and a half. It felt like someone waving her home from the front porch, far more comforting than something as tangible as physical touch could ever achieve. This was the two of them truly coming together as one for the sake of another. For the sake of her sister. For the sake of the phoenix in Leah’s arms. “We’re gonna make it,” Nell told Luce, giving her the words she too needed to hear the most. There was an end, and they’d found it. They were so close. So close to that win. So close to doing something good. Just let the past die, and then Luce could be free.

Luce watched as the phoenix allowed himself to be brought towards the pyre she’d built in the center of the glowing runes. His flames licked at the wood, straining to ignite the wooden structure. She could feel the heat of it from here-- she couldn’t let Nell get any closer, not when the flames were this hot. Nell didn’t have the same resilience she did. “We’re gonna do this. But I’m not letting you get hurt.” Luce said. “Step back, Nellie, please.I wouldn’t have been able to do this without you-- without any of you,” She said looking to Rio, to Morgan, even to Leah. “But I’ve gotta do this.” With that, she pulled the chalice gently from Nell’s hands, and followed Leah and the phoenix up the pyre. And as the phoenix’s cursed flames began to consume the wood, Luce took a deep breath and followed.

“Leah, you should back up. I don’t know what the wards might do if there are two phoenixes here.” Luce said as she held the chalice up, hands shaking slightly. The silver cup was still smoking, but she could feel the energy thrumming inside her. She could feel her magic lying in wait, but for what? She was trying so hard, the need to draw upon the magic was almost overwhelming. The flames were searing, painful in a way that fire had never felt for her. Not since she was a child, before she’d fully gained control of her magic. Luce swallowed as she stood next to the phoenix and, as she lifted the silver cup to his mouth, she saw him for the first time. Dark black eyes stared at her in desperation, the irises ringed in glowing red flames like the sun during an eclipse. Those eyes stared at her, consumed by fear and anguish and then-- a flicker, something dark flashed over his face. A tongue of flame shot from the phoenix’s body and curled around her left arm and Luce let out a scream of pain as the fire sizzled against her flesh. Agony shot up through her and her grip on the chalice loosened as she stumbled backwards, the flame retreating back to the phoenix’s body.

“We’re going to help you.” Luce panted, her fingers wrapping around the cup once more. “You’re not alone. This isn’t you and this,” She gasped in pain, the searing sensation still present within her, “This isn’t the end. You’re not alone.” Luce said. As she spoke, the burning heat grew within her. And that was when it hit her. The warmth was familiar. “Benim alevlerim.” She breathed and watched as the chalice blossomed with blue flames. “Drink. Please, drink.” Luce said and pressed the cup against the phoenix’s lips, tipping it back before staggering down the burning pyre. She retreated to where the others stood safely at the edge of the wards to wait and to watch.

Bernard drank. And for a moment, nothing changed. These people they’d tried, they’d failed. And he would be-- his eyes flicked open as the pain mounted to new, unimaginable heights. It felt as though he’d swallowed the sun, that the light was burning him from the inside out. The voice that had shouted at him, it was screaming again. But now, it screamed in pain, agony, as the sun continued to burn. His mouth opened to scream but all that escaped was a plume of blue flame. Instinctively, he shut his mouth and curled in on himself, hugging his burning body. Meanwhile, the blue flames crawling over his skin, over the pyre, overwhelming the cursed red flames. For a long moment, pain was all that filled Bernard’s mind. And then, there was nothing at all.

Things seemed to be going to plan. At least, Orion hoped that they were. None of the actual spell experts seemed to be freaking out, so Rio had mostly taken that as a good sign and held back. He silently observed, a worried line drawn across his face. The concern only grew as the Leah showed up with the Phoenix. Up until now, everything that Rio had witnessed had just been preparation. With the phoenix here, the true spell began. He stood just on the edge of the wards they had constructed, nervously fiddling with his fingers to keep himself still. But he couldn’t take his eyes off of Luce and the phoenix. Even from back here, Rio could feel the rise in temperature associated with the phoenixes flames. He pressed against his skin, warning of the heat. How could Luce handle being that close to it? His entire body tensed as the flame surged towards Luce. He almost jolted forward, but stopped himself at the last second. She was trying to get away. He needed to trust that Luce knew better for this than he did and let her do what needed to be done.Flames seemed to be consuming him, a bright, glowing red that made Rio clench at his heart. It looked so incredibly painful. “Oh my god.” He muttered, mostly to himself. If tears poured down Rio’s face he did nothing to stop them, he could only stare at the scene as the man screamed, only for blue flames to erupt. That blue soon took over the red, covering every inch of the man and becoming too bright for Rio to stare at any longer. He covered his eyes, glancing away from the scene in fear that he would go blind completely.

Luce was right, and Leah stepped out of the circle, toward Rio and Morgan. She switched out of her flame state in the process, and found a safe space behind her friends while still holding a good view of the action at the pyre. She couldn’t take her eyes off of everything that was going on, not even if she tried. She could see the pain inside the phoenix, almost as if she were sensing it within her heart. His flames, red and unnatural, looked like an illness that needed to be cured. How she wished she could run back in and hold him again. The flames seemed never ending but not at all stable; all encompassing but not all warm. And with the eruption of more and more of them, Leah was worried if too much damage had already been done. She couldn’t look away, but her heart was begging her to.

For a while, it seemed as though the fire would never end. It looked as though the flames would continue to spiral and battle against one another, locked in a continuous battle until the pyre that fueled the blaze crumpled to ash. But, Luce watched as her blue flames over took the phoenix’s own iridescent fire and then… She let out a gasp as the man sank to his knees and then crumpled to the ground. The fire continued to rage around him, consuming the wooden pyre. Meanwhile, the runes that formed the wards continued to glow, the lines brilliant and blue. Just the same shade as her flames. And then, almost as quickly as it had started-- the flames burnt out. In their place was nothing but a pile of ash.

Blinking in the sudden darkness, Luce held up her uninjured hand and reached tentatively for the magic. But her fears were unfounded, as vibrant blue flame jumped to the palm of her hand. “Is he… Do you think he’s alright?” She asked the others, voice hoarse from the smoke she’d inhaled.

There was little Nell could do as she watched her sister dive into the flames along with the phoenix, and she couldn’t help the protective step she made towards the center of the circle while the fire sizzled around Luce’s arm. It wasn’t unheard of for the Vurals to throw themselves into the center of an inferno for their sisters, but the more rational voice in her head quelled the emotional response, reminding her that she wouldn’t so much as get within a few feet of Luce before burning to a crisp. And what help would that be? Nell would be incinerated, the wards would fall, and Luce and the phoenix would be worse off than when this had started. Nell filled her now empty hand with Leah’s no longer flaming one, the familiar warmth of a fire being granting her another form of comfort.

The wards stayed strong as Nell kept the flow of her magic constant, using her worry of Luce to fuel the glowing runes. After all, that stemmed from love as well, and thus it would rightly serve the spell. Finally the flames subsided, and Nell was free to move forwards after watching the phoenix fall to ash on the ground. Just as any phoenix would at the end of their lifecycle. It had killed him? This was the cleansing that he’d needed? Death? Surely there were less permanent ways to purify? But death was anything but permanent for a phoenix. Or at least...it was meant to be. They hadn’t actually killed him, had they? “I…” This couldn’t be the result of all their efforts— all of Luce’s efforts. She’d needed to do something good, something that helped the phoenix, not end its cycle. “Wait- I think- is it moving?” Or had it only been her hopeful eye that thought she spotted a sign of life beneath the gray?

While the explosion of bright blue and radioactive red flames was all encompassing, the silence and emptiness that followed their burnout was even more-so. Leah looked between her friends, first to Nell, who’s hand she gave a tight squeeze back, then to Rio and Morgan, and finally to Luce. Luce, who had worked so hard to save the phoenix- ...she didn’t want to disappoint her. But in Leah’s experience, a pile of ash only meant one thing. She looked down at what was left of the phoenix, his ashes still and unmoving. Perhaps this was what was meant to happen all along. The ritual was meant to get rid of the illness- did it presume that the only way to rid one of corruption was through… death? It seemed too morbid. Too unfair. Tears filled her eyes as she looked back to Luce, ready to break the news to her. It wouldn’t be fair to get her hopes up if there was none to have. “I think...he might be d-”, but she stopped, interrupted by Nell’s observation. Her eyes shot back to the pile of ashes, sensing the tiniest pile of movement for herself. “Wait, -what?”

The scent of ash filled Bernard’s lungs as he shifted among the dust and debris. His fingers curled around the fine grains of dust and he began to crawl out from under the pile, his head emerging. He was covered in soot, his body ached, and he felt so, so cold. But, the world was blissfully, wonderfully silent. His mind was silent. The voice that had echoed in his head had been burned clean and now… Now he was whole again. Exhaustion and relief washed over him in equal measure and Bernard was able to lift his head up for a brief moment to take in the small cluster of people staring at him. He offered a weak smile before his eyes rolled back up into his head and he collapsed, unconscious once more. 

Morgan had watched the proceedings in petrified silence. She understood how badly Luce needed this and as she huddled closer between Leah and Rio, she started to accept that she might need this too. There was so much suffering on this miserable rock of a planet and so much that couldn’t be helped no matter how much money or good vibes you threw out there. But maybe this could be different. Maybe this one witch and this one broken bird could do better for a little while. She stared at the clump of ash on the ground, bracing herself for the worst. “Leah, don’t…” she whispered. If this was another cosmic fuck you, Luce wouldn’t need to be told. And then he moved.

“Shit, Nell’s right. He’s moving, she’s right!” She grabbed Leah, squeezing tight and looked at Luce. Whatever she was holding against the witch didn’t matter just then. There was only relief and understanding. “Guess you’re better than you thought after all,” she said. “So, who’s helping to carry Mr. Firebird? I don’t think he’ll like his feet dragging on the ground if I lift him by myself.”

Seeing the shift in the pile of ashes finally let Orion take a breath of relief that seemed to be shared by everyone in the group. This hasn’t been in vain. It had been dangerous, and exhausting and at times even seemed a bit hopeless. But when the pile of ashes shifted and everyone’s gone shifted from solemn to overwhelming relief, it all seemed worth it. “Holy crap.” Rio breathed, too giddy to stay still. He bounced on his feet, still a bit apprehensive to move anywhere in case the spell wasn’t completely finished. But Morgan spoke first, suggesting they carry the man away from the spell site and back towards civilization. If she was confirming it, then that meant that it was done. “We really did it.” Rio spoke again aloud, not trying to hide the surprise. “You really did it.” He repeated, directed towards Luce this time. Maybe it had been a time effort, but she had gotten the ball rolling. And from the looks of it, she had paid a price. “I’ll help carry him. Someone should help Luce too.”

Time seemed to slow as Luce stared at the pile of ash, unblinking. Waiting. Had she killed someone else? Had all of her effort and time and energy and intention meant nothing? Had she taken another life, an innocent life? An eternity stretched on as she stared at the pile. And then. Relief. Luce felt her legs buckle as the man lifted his head from the ashes and stared at them, his face illuminated in the glowing flames that rose from her hand. Normal eyes, no longer ringed in fire. Her blue flames sputtered and went out as Luce sank to the ground next to Nell, her hand still clutched in her sisters. She let out a shaking, shuddering breath as she sat on the ground. They’d done it. The ritual had worked. He was okay. And somehow, in the midst of it all, her magic was back.

“Holy shit. We did it.” She breathed as she glanced up at the others. “Thank you… All of you guys. This wouldn’t… None of it could have happened without you. Thank you.” She murmured. Her entire body ached, she felt absolutely drained, and her arm was filled with a burning pain she hadn’t felt since she was a little girl, but none of it mattered right now. She’d done it. They’d done it. 

[ruairimcallisterx]

Alone Again

Chatzy thread with @lance-a-lark

Ruairi: As much as Ruairi wished that he didn't dwell on things, he did. Often. It probably wasn't the best trait to have in his profession but he just assumed it happened because he was such an empathetic person. He would dwell on his own problems and others. Currently, what was on his mind was Lark's sister breaking into his apartment and having the "sibling to significant other" talk. Ruairi hadn't actually experienced one before and honestly, he didn't like it. He understood it, however.

Showing up at Lark's apartment after his shift from work, like he often did, Ruairi knocked on the door a few times times before he opened it up, just to be polite. He had a key to his place but he still hated just barging in, "Hey, love." He called out as he took off his jacket and shoes, "You alright?" Ruairi quickly followed up, moving through the apartment to find Lark.

Lark: Moving around was still hard and Lark was always tired these days. The insomnia had at least abated since the incident, seeing as he simply could not keep himself awake sometimes. He was just coming out of a, nap when he heard the front door open and Ruairi call out to him.

“In here, Rue! Just waking up,” he called from the bed. Seeing Ruairi turn into the room, he smiled, but then noticed the expression on his face. Lark could always tell when Ruairi had something on his mind, struggling to hide a furrowed brow. “I’m alright, luv. Are you?” He gave Ruairi a knowing look and held out an arm for his boyfriend to join him, “Come here, what is it?”

Ruairi:A wave of relief washed over Ruairi when he heard Lark. Ever since Halloween, he was essentially on edge about everything. He would never admit it out loud, but he was consistently worried for his lover. Not that it was hard to hide. Ruairi wore everything on his face. It was easy to tell just about everything just by looking at him.

He approached the bedroom and smiled softly at the sight of Lark, immediately moving towards the bed when the other motioned for him. Ruairi crawled into the bed from the foot of it and soon found himself cuddling up next to Lark, pulling the other close to him instantly. Once again, his face wore his emotions. He sighed lightly and spoke up, "Your sister paid me a visit today." He said with a chuckle, "I didn't even know you had t'is sister. Ainsley?"

Lark: Ruairi settled beside him and Lark curled into him, content in the cozy comfort. It was almost enough to make him want to take a nap again, until Ruairi sighed and spoke up about a visit from a sister.

For a moment he thought Ruairi was talking about Hayden. After all, Hayden was there on Halloween, that might make sense. And then he said Ainsley and that, unfortunately, made more sense for all the wrong reasons. Lark let out an exasperated sigh mixed with an all too familiar laugh, “Oh god, Ains… Did she break in? Let me guess, she gave you ‘the talk’? She wasn’t too mean was she? I swear that girl needs to learn boundaries.”

Ruairi: He was starting to think the Decker's were innumerable at this point. Ruairi thought he knew of or met most of them and then in came Ainsley, knife wielding and all. He was still confused by it, to be totally honest. Firstly, how did she find his apartment? Did she climb up the fire escape? Why break in? Why not just find him at work! It was so perplexing.

He laughed quietly and nodded his head, "She did break in, yeah, and had t'e talk." Ruairi repeated, his lips pursing for a moment, "She was pretty mean...in my opinion." He laughed, "She said I was boring so she has not'ing to worry about." Ruairi shrugged a bit, "I'm sorry if I'm t'e most boring person you know. I'll try to spice it up a bit." He joked.

Lark: Lark sighed, pulling Ruairi closer, if that was even possible, and giving him a kiss on the forehead. “Ainsley is a… rough sort and very protective. All my sisters are, but Ains is just more of a loose canon about it. I’m sorry she was mean, I’m sure she’ll warm up to you.”

He turned and pressed his head against Ruairi’s, cupping his face in his hands, “I know you’re joking, but still… there’s a difference between being boring and being kind. You know how much I love spice, but I’m not looking for the kind of thing Ainsley considers exciting. And I know she doesn’t want that for me either. That’s how I’ve always gotten hurt.” As Lark’s said this he had the terrifying thought that maybe he was the dangerous one here. He tried to push it back, but his anxiety wouldn’t let that happen so easily and he could feel his body begin to tense up.

Ruairi: Feeling Lark trying to pull him closer, he scooted as much as he could but there wasn't much more he could move. He was happy for the closeness however. He smiled softly from the kiss and he listened as Lark spoke, nodding his head, "Yeah, she might." He said, half believing his own words. And even if she didn't, well, they'd just have to deal with one another at family gatherings.

Feeling Lark move, Ruairi shifted a bit as well and his eyes fell upon the other as he cupped his face. Ruairi's hands met Lark's and he cupped them softly as he nodded slightly in understanding. Really, it didn't matter what Ainsley thought about Ruairi (too much). As long as Lark was happy with him, that's all that matters. "We don't want you getting hurt." He told Lark with a soft smile. But it quickly waived when he felt Lark's hands tense up and his head tilted a bit, "Lark? What is it? You okay?" He asked, his hands moving from his and down to his back, rubbing it.

Lark: Lark stared off into space, all of his fears flooding before his eyes in a montage of horrors. An image of a withered Irish Eyebright flashed in his mind. Ruairi’s home broken into again, next time by foe, not friend. His lover going missing or worse. They’re all anxieties, but all so realistically plausible. How could he be so selfish to keep someone close to his heart like this?

“No,” he replied simply, “No, I’m not okay, Rue. I don’t know if I ever will be. As long as I’m alive my step father will do everything in his power to find and hurt me.” God, it has never been this hard for him to say what he meant. Pressing his forehead against Ruairi’s, he stared at their hands because it was easier than looking him in the eye, “I don’t know what I would do if you ever got caught in the crossfire. Do you understand?”

Ruairi: Although he could tell that Lark wasn't okay, it still surprised him that the other actually admitted he wasn't. Ruairi's hands tightened a bit, clutching onto Lark just a bit. He listened, his brows furrowing. He wasn't sure what brought all this onto Lark but Ruairi wished he had caught it sooner. How long had his love been feeling like this? Since Halloween? Ruairi truly hoped not. Living with these thoughts since then had to be so hard...

He sighed softly as Lark pressed their foreheads together, noting how he wasn't looking him in the eye. That was unlike Lark. Ruairi nodded a bit, "I do...but Lark, we don't have to worry about t'at. Not right now. Whatever happens, happens. We'll get t'rough it. We have once. We'll do it again." Sure, seeing Lark hurt and almost dead was one of the most despairing moments of his life but they got through it. And now Lark is alive and essentially well. "What is bringing all t'is up, love?"

Lark: Lark made the mistake of looking Ruairi in the eye. Knowing where this was going, what he had to do, it nearly broke him. He immediately looked back down at their hands, gripping Ruairi's tighter, knowing it very well might be the last time.

He shook his head at Ruairi's words, "No, Rue. You don't understand. We got lucky once and I still barely made it out. My life will never be safe or normal as long as my step-father is after me. The closer you are to me, the more danger you're in. That's never going to change and it's not just something we can muddle through. It's just going to keep getting harder until..." It would be unfair to continue without looking his partner in the eye. Slowly his blue eyes locked with Ruairi's mossy hazel, like the ocean meeting shore. So natural together and yet... "I can't do this, Rue. I can't keep knowingly putting you at risk, just because I love you. It's selfish and I--I can't."

Ruairi: Maybe Ruairi didn't understand. The more Lark spoke, the more confused he got. Sure, the words coming out of his mouth made sense but they still didn't. Why would the thought of being alone in the situation he faces even cross his mind? But Lark wouldn't even be alone. He still had his sisters. They weren't going anywhere. So what? Was it just Ruairi? Was he just a liability? Did Lark just not want the guilt or something if something did happen? Ruairi just couldn't figure it out.

For the first time in a while, his partner looked him in the eye and Ruairi's heart broke. His words were enough but the look in eyes spoke far more, "So...what? You're breaking up with me?" He asked, his words sounded almost incredulous. Ruairi had never actually experienced a break up but this sure sounded like one, "Lark...please." He sniffled quietly as his hands clung onto his lover's, "T'is isn't fair." He said simply. It wasn't what Ruairi wanted at all.

Lark: He couldn't take Ruairi's pleading, or the decision he knew he had to make. The look in Ruairi's eyes showed a heartbreak he felt reflected in his own chest. "Don't you think I know that? I know it's not fair. I don't want this anymore than you do."

He took Ruairi's face in his hands, tears cascading from his eyes, "I love you, Rue. More than I've loved anyone in a long while. That's why I can't be with you. I can't lose you and I can't be so selfish to let you get anymore attached just to watch me fight a losing battle. You deserve better than that."

Ruairi: "T'en don't do it!" Ruairi stated, with an exaggerated shrug. It was as simple as that. If neither one of them wanted to split up, why do it? The risk shouldn't matter. They could make it through whatever Lark's step father could throw at them.

His gaze stayed upon Lark's, his own tears trekking down his cheeks. His hand clutched onto the others as he held his face, "I don't believe you. I don't t'ink it's being selfish, it's my decision to be with you too." He paused for a moment, "I love you. But what you're doing now is selfish." Ruairi sniffled again and pulled Lark's hand from his cheek, "Because I don't get a say in t'is. You've already made up your mind." Pressing a long kiss to the back of Lark's hand, he pushed himself to the edge of the bed and stood up, "I'm going to go."

Ruairi couldn't be there anymore. He walked through Lark's apartment and grabbed his Irish Eyebright before he threw on his coat and shoes, leaving.

Lark: It already felt like he'd made the biggest mistake of his life, but his decision had been made. Still it stung to hear Ruairi say he was being selfish in this. If that was true, why did it feel like his heart was caving in on itself? Why did he feel like he was being torn apart from the inside all over again? Why did it feel so much worse than Halloween? How could this be selfish when it felt like he'd just lost everything?

Ruairi kissed the back of his hand and he wanted to hang on tight, beg him to stay just one last night. "Rue, please, I'm sorry. Please..." ...don't go. But he couldn't say anymore. He let him go and the world turned grey. The moment he heard the door shut behind Ruairi, he broke down, heaving pained sobs, feeling more lost and confused than he'd ever felt in his life. He already wanted to run after him, say he'd made a mistake, but deep down he truly believed he'd saved his love from a far worse fate. And perhaps that hurt the most of all.

Lark went out into the living room, somehow wishing by some miracle that Ruairi would still be there. Of course it was empty. And when he looked to the windowsill where the dryad's Irish Eyebright had been, it was gone. He ran to the window and watched as the man fade into the distance. That's when it hit him that Ruairi was really, truly gone. Lark collapsed against the wall and let the sobs shake his body like an earthquake that would never end.

Ruairi: It took every ounce of will power in Ruairi's body not to turn around. He wanted to so desperately. He didn't want to be without Lark. It hurt him just to think about not being able to wake up beside him or being able to visit him at work. Not being able to just be there with him. But Lark made the decision. Ruairi was going to try and respect it no matter how wrong it was. Even though his opinion on it didn't matter.

His feet carried him to his apartment and the moment he was inside, he locked his doors and threw his Irish Eyebright onto the kitchen counter haphazardly. He didn't look back at it. Why should he? Nothing really mattered. Ruairi took his shoes and coat off, just leaving them in the middle of the hallway before he crawled into bed. At first, he just laid there, blankly staring ahead at nothing in particular, feeling just so numb. But the longer he laid there, the sadder he felt. He felt a deep pain and hurt that he hadn't felt in years. Not since Charlotte had passed. Sobs racked through him for who knows how long until he eventually just fell asleep. It was better than being awake, anyway.

End.

[darkh0wl]

Where is your body? || Kyle, Mina, Morgan, and Nell (ft. Bex)

TIMING: Current PARTIES: @drowningisinevitable, @mor-beck-more-problems, @nelllraiser, @darkh0wl, @inbextween SUMMARY: They say waking up is the hardest part. Kyle faces the consequences of his actions. Bex faces the reality that is the supernatural world. CONTENT: PTSD mentions, sibling death mention, parental death mention

Instead of staying around to fret over Bex while Nell Vural did… whatever it was that Nell Vural did (because apparently she could heal people from debilitating injuries), Mina opted to wait in the basement with Morgan and Kyle the werewolf who seemed to enjoy maiming young girls in back alleys. She didn’t find him all that impressive, personally, nothing like the three-legged wolf, nothing like the creatures that she’d watched her dad face down. He’d faded back to nothing more than a boy, an injured boy, a boy that Mina could put a knife or a crossbow bolt through his throat and let bleed out on the basement floor. She sat cross-legged near him, a silver knife resting in her lap, and she tried not to shrink against Morgan’s judgement. “It’s just in case he decides to wolf out again,” she muttered. She wasn’t actually going to stab him. Probably. She kept looking to the stairs, to the knife, to the wolf, to Morgan, to the stairs. “Do you think-- I mean, Nell would tell us if-- He didn’t-- She’s okay, right? Right?” Because Mina was a little worried. She was worried that she hadn’t stitched Bex up right, and she was worried that they hadn’t arrived in time, and she was worried that there would be nothing Nell could do. She was worried. She was so worried.

“He’s not going to wolf out again,” Morgan said, taking a sip of four-shot espresso to tame the urge to roll her eyes at the girl. “He can barely do anything. And if he did, what’s he gonna do, bite me back to life?” She rotated on her toes and started pacing again. She’d spent a few hours in bed with Deirdre, but with Bex and Nell down the hall and Mina and Kyle below, she couldn’t keep still no matter what she tried. So, basement pacing it was. “Nell would tell us. If she thought she wasn’t up to it, she’d say, and we’d be dragging some other spellcaster over here to help. Bex is like family to her. And nothing matters more to Nell Vural than her family.” Another gulp of espresso. The more she took into her mouth, the longer she held it burning on her tongue, the more she got to taste. Morgan swallowed. “So until we hear otherwise, Bex is fine and is going to make a full recovery. She might be walking around the house by later tonight.  And Teen Wolf over there isn’t a threat until we get a good reason out of him. Bex wants him to have a chance, so he gets one. And if it turns out he’s done something incredibly stupid…” She would what, exactly? Morgan slowed her pace until she stopped near the far wall and pressed her back against it. “We’ll find some wolves to turn him over to. Or a bus to throw him on.”

“They’re still dangerous even when injured,” Mina said, but her heart wasn’t particularly in it. She’d had time to kill the wolf if she’d really put her mind to it. She’d been too busy pacing and watching and not sleeping, and she almost asked Morgan if she could have some of her coffee, but that wouldn’t do anything more than make her even more jittery, so she just stayed seated, fingers drumming against her knees. “Right, okay, right.” And of course Nell Vural was a spellcaster. Mina was always so surprised when she was proven wrong, even though it kept happening. In her defense, though, Nell sounded like a hunter. At least, more than most people that Mina talked to. She didn’t expect spellcasters to go out and hunt down bounties. She narrowed her eyes. “Saying that he’s not a threat is both reckless and untrue, Morgan. Even if she’s fine, he still hurt her, and she almost--” Mina wrung her hands. “I don’t understand. He almost killed her.” Mina looked over to the sleeping wolf, just an unintimidating creature. “What would a bunch of other werewolves do? Slap him on the back? Tell him congratulations?” That wasn’t fair. She knew that wasn’t fair. There were good werewolves. That boy in the mushroom ring had just been a little naive, and Ari was good. Mina didn’t understand why she was so upset about this. It was irrational.

Nell remembered teaching Bex how to harness the emotions that threatened to overtake her as she worked on the younger witch, trying to remind herself how important it was to make sure she heeded her own words at a time like this as she closed Bex’s wounds. But the emotions were like a restless sea inside her gut, anger mixed with a sickening worry that reminded her far too much of another time she’d desperately tried to heal a part of her family, her hands and powers useless when there hadn’t even been a head to be spoken for back then. She hadn’t wanted this for Bex. White Crest had a nasty way of sinking its claws into anything bright, anything good that dared to peek its head above the ground. The sleeping coma had been bad enough, sending Bex into a spiral or worry and fear. But this was different, this was something that could be touched, and touch Bex in return. That much was obvious by the now scabbed over claw marks running down Bex’s body. Nearly a year from Bea’s death, and Nell still couldn’t preemptively protect those she cared most for. “I’m sorry,” she managed to breathe between gritted teeth, trying not to lose herself in the images of the decapitated sister parading itself through her mind’s eye, sometimes taking it upon itself to replace the body with Bex’s frame. Forcing herself to stand, she took a moment to stretch out her legs, stiff from disuse after kneeling next to Bex for the long healing session. She hadn’t been able to protect Bex from her attacker before, but she could certainly make the effort to do it now.

The walk to where Kyle was being kept wasn’t lengthy, and along it she let the sorrow of her student’s injuries shift into anger, almost bleeding seamlessly into one another as she drew one of the silver knives she’d brought along. Her gaze was hard once more as she entered the room with Morgan and Mina, and the still unconscious wolf. “He’s not awake, yet?” she confirmed, taking a few steps towards the slumbering young man.

Gently twitching in his sleep, not unlike a sleeping dog, Kyle lay on the floor of the basement and dreamed. It was a bad dream that he couldn’t seem to wake up from. He watched in third person as he attacked Bex. He watched himself kill her right there beside the bar. He watched her die in Morgan’s arms. It wasn’t unlike dreams he used to have after his first shift. No, not dreams. Nightmares. In his nightmare, Kyle could hear voices off in the distance talking about how dangerous he was. He could hear them discussing if Bex was okay or not. He roused slightly, realizing that he’d heard those voices before; Morgan and Mina. But if they were talking, where was… Bex.

Almost immediately following Nell’s question, Kyle started trying to sit up. He was only half awake as he struggled to push himself into an upright position. He patted the ground, searching, and mumbled to himself, “Gotta— Bex, is she— is she—,” before he sank back down fully, panting. All that movement hadn’t been a wise move, because now his body felt awful. He groaned and curled in on himself, hugging his side.

“Gotta find— I didn’t mean to. I didn’t mean—.” That wasn’t true, though, was it? At one point, Kyle had every intention of killing Bex. He would never lay a hand on her, or any one else, while human. But that didn’t matter, because he wasn’t human and he had. As he saw it, Bex was dead. The last thing he could remember was seeing Bex limp in Morgan’s arms, and the scent of her blood filling the car. Kyle had killed someone, and whatever happened to him now was well deserved. He closed his eyes again, breathing growing shaky. He wasn’t a wolf, he was a monster.

Morgan eyed Nell when she came in, trying to divine Bex’s condition from her face alone. But the girl just looked tired and shaken. “Is Bex…?” She asked quietly. She was breathing, she reminded herself. The last time she’d seen her, she was breathing, and she was fine, and this wasn’t like anything either of them had suffered. It wasn’t. It wasn’t.

Before Nell could answer, Kyle stirred and knocked himself around the floor. Heaving a deep breath, Morgan took the medkit out from the corner and the water bottle that was supposed to have been for Mina and knelt in front of him. “Slow down,” she said. “The only thing you have to do right now is sit up and sit still. All your dressings are coming undone now that you’re not a wild fucking animal.” That came out harsher than she’d thought it would. Morgan winced and tried to check her temper so she could at least try to give him the kind of care she’d want someone to give to Ari if something had gone this wrong for her. At least he looked guilty enough to know how reckless he’d been. She passed him the water bottle. “Drink this.” Then, as she started peeling away the loose bandages, she said, “It’s Kyle, right? You wouldn’t happen to remember what you and Bex were doing out at night on Amity Row, would you, Kyle? She almost bled out to death in that alley. It would really help if we knew what happened.”

Seeing Nell walk in forced Mina to her feet, the knife still on the floor beside her. It was fine, she figured. Truthfully, she wouldn’t need it to put her claws in Kyle’s throat and drag him out to the pool if she needed to do something, just hold him under and watch him struggle like the other wolf had, except she wouldn’t let this one go. She didn’t think she’d let this one go. Mina looked between Morgan and Nell, wondering if she even needed to say anything or if she should just wait. The look on Nell’s face didn’t scream that something was horribly, horribly wrong, so that had to count for something, right? That had to count for something, and that something had to mean that Bex was fine, and she was going to live, and this was going to be okay, and she didn’t need to worry about it, but she was probably going to keep worrying about it anyway, just for posterity’s sake, just in case.

And then Kyle was waking up, and then Morgan was talking to him in her soothing Morgan way, and then Mina was rolling her eyes because of course. Of course Morgan was going to… Morgan the situation. Mina looked at the boy with cold eyes, even if she felt something akin to sympathy for him. He genuinely seemed sorry. Sorry just wasn’t good enough, though. Not for this. “What she’s asking is if you remember why the hell you were in a back alley and somehow ended up carving into a human girl like she was a bloody piece of meat. Because that’s pretty important.”

“She’s alright,” Nell breathed in a way that spoke both of the relief she felt, and the weight she was simultaneously lifting from the shoulders of Morgan and Mina. The witch was nothing even remotely close to a healer apart from her ability to scab over injuries and stop blood loss, but she’s seen enough fatal wounds to be able to tell that Bex would make it. “Or as alright as she can be.” The witch’s jaw tightened to match her eyes as Morgan took a tone that was much gentler than Nell would have thought possible in a time such as this, and her anger simmered healthily below the tautness of her skin, her hand tightening around the knife in her hand as she spun it once. The light caught the blade in a flash as she stepped closer to Kyle, finding herself more in agreement with Mina’s words over Morgan’s. “It’s Kyle,” she confirmed for the older woman, knowing his face well from seeing it amongst the halls of her highschool. Kyle the kid who had spent far too much of his time flipping Yu-Gi-Oh cards in those very same halls, and Kyle the wolf who had seen fit to rip the witch’s student and friend to ribbons. “But yeah I’m pretty fucking curious about why you decided to nearly murder Bex.” Another step closer and Nell was taking a second knife from a hiding place somewhere within the folds of her shirt, letting it playfully join the other as she twirled them between her fingers. “So do you usually try and kill people in alleyways? You’re lucky you didn’t bite her.” Nell couldn’t remember how many times she’d carefully looked over Bex, combing for a bite that wasn’t there. “Otherwise you’d probably already be dead.”

Kyle gratefully accepted the water from Morgan, taking big gulps that left him coughing. Once he regained himself, he closed his eyes and breathed for a moment. Bex was alive. She was going to live. The weight that that announcement had taken off his shoulders was unbelievable. And yet, it removed absolutely none of the guilt that coiled in Kyle’s chest and settled deep in the pit of his stomach. Maybe he hadn’t killed Bex this time. But he had come damn close to it.

Now he was being questioned from three sides. What had they been doing? Kyle had been at work and then… “I work at the Bloody Stake,” he said. His voice was smaller than he anticipated. “I was at work. I— we— Bex and I have been in each other’s heads? I don’t know, I guess Bex is like— like a witch? Or something? You probably knew that already.” He looked to Nell for confirmation. He hadn’t completely known Nell was a spellcaster either. He figured if she had healed Bex, Nell was probably in on Bex’s abilities, then. He tried not to look at the knives she was holding. If Nell decided to do something with the knives, he wouldn’t even blame her, but the thought of what it would feel like being stabbed made his head spin.

“I didn’t. We— it’s been hard. It’s not easy when your head is always...full.” Kyle turned his gaze directly to Mina, locking eyes with her. “Bex is always thinking.” He grimaced as he pushed himself up into a seated position and pulled the blanket around himself tighter. Fuck, he was naked in a stranger’s basement, being interrogated for a probable attempted murder. Cool.

“She was panicking over something. A school assignment I think? I— it was a lot. I’m not usually, uh, out of control? It— I didn’t mean to— I— we were both panicking and I-I just needed to get out of the bar and I didn’t expect Bex to show up. That was so stupid, but I don’t even think she knew, you know? I don’t think she thought I was serious.” Kyle shook his head, losing his words for a moment. He couldn’t have told Bex he was a werewolf. But what if he had? Would she have still come for him? Would he be waking up in the forest somewhere? Or would he have simply killed someone else? He shook his head again, brows pulling together. He had to get that thought out of his head. Now wasn’t the time.

“I thought I had more control than that. It’s never happened— not like this.” He paused briefly to take a deep breath. It had happened before, but never because of a goddamn shared mind link. If they hadn’t been in each other’s heads, if they hadn’t been panicking, maybe it would’ve been different! His jaw clenched and Kyle closed his eyes. “I’ve been a wolf for five years and I’ve been learning it all on my own. I thought I was doing okay. I didn’t want this to happen.”

Morgan gave out a long sigh and sat back on her knees. Now not only could she not blame Kyle for everything, but she was mad at both of them. The antibiotic cream was still in her hand. She should get on that, and get some ice for all those bruises, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to lift her arms and keep helping, keep working like everything was fine in the wake of this supid, ridiculous, fucking mess. When she spoke again, her voice was low and sharp “You’re telling me--that you and Bex accidentally’d your way into a mental connection, and you knew she had spellcasting magic, and you didn’t think it was relevant to tell her you’re a werewolf? A lone, unguided, and unsupported werewolf!” Kyle needed more medical attention. From the looks of his bruising, he wasn’t going to be able to do much on his own. She unclenched her fists and let everything fall, flexed her fingers, and tried to find the willpower to pick them up again. “You didn’t think that might be useful in making informed decisions, like running after your ass into Amity Row? You didn’t think knowing something as vulnerable as her power might entitle her to knowing you sometimes turn into an animal with lethal capacities? Who could cut her off from her power forever and give her a whole new set of problems she didn’t ask for with one bite! Not once during however long this mind meld bullshit has been going on?” Her voice rose steadily with each question until she was yelling loud enough to hear herself bouncing off the walls.

Morgan grimaced and covered her mouth. She couldn’t be this kind of person. Not right now. Not ever. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying her hardest to strangle her anger into submission. “I’m sorry,” she said thickly. “I appreciate your situation. But I need you to realize just how many levels of reckless the two of you were being. You, especially. You’re lucky you’re not both dead.” She didn’t yell, but her last words still carried a bite. At least she could move her hands calmly again and slap the rest of the antibiotic stuff on his injuries.

There wasn’t really enough time for Mina to be grateful to Nell before she was listening to Kyle explain the situation. Which… was more perplexing than it was anything else. What did he mean that they’d been in each other’s heads? How did that happen? When did that happen? What did that mean? Why was he looking at her like that? She narrowed her eyes and looked away. “No, you’re right,” she told Morgan. “Five years? How the hell have you-- How did you find out about her spellcasting if she didn’t find out about your lycanthropy? Wouldn’t you think that would be a fair exchange of information?” Though, really, could Mina judge him for not giving up all his secrets? It’s not like she’d given up hers. She was getting a headache. She crossed her arms, almost wishing she’d picked up her knife but also glad she’d refrained. This boy was a child, even if he claimed to have five years of experience. He was scared and a child. “Clearly, you thought wrong.”

Nell didn’t bother granting Kyle the confirmation he sought from her, jaw hardened into a tight not as she stubbornly refused to give him anything so soon after the violence he’s caused. “You should have told us,” the witch hissed harshly, still having little empathy for the werewolf in front of her while Bex was in pieces. “You thought you had more control than that?” Again her knives spun dangerously in a movement not unlike an angry cat flicking its tail too and fro, ready to pounce. “And why should I believe you when you say it hasn’t happened before? We’re not stupid. We know what it's like for young wolves who were bitten and not born.” To think that Kyle hadn’t made any similar mistakes, especially with a lack of any sort of contact or instruction by other werewolves was...highly unusual for a species as volatile for a wolf. “I want you to tell me the truth,” she began, moving closer to Kyle to crouch beside him, and holding one of her silver blades close enough to the skin of his neck that it became uncomfortably toasty. “Is this a problem or not?” If it was...she knew what the correct course to take was with wolves that caused more harm than good.

“I didn’t know!” Kyle yelled, louder than he had expected. He couldn’t stop clenching and unclenching his jaw and swallowing thickly. He was willing himself not to cry right now. He wasn’t the center of attention--not really. This was about Bex and what he had done to her. He didn’t want, or need their sympathy. “I didn’t know,” he repeated, softer this time. “We were mind melding, or whatever, and--and Bex said she was going to ask Nell to help. I didn’t actually know Bex was a spellcaster. Bex told me magic isn’t real. I--I didn’t know what to believe. Am I going crazy?” Breathe, Kyle. He took a deep shaky breath, steadying himself.

“I should’ve told her outright. I thought--Well, she was in my head and I didn’t exactly hide it. I’m not ashamed of being a wolf. I’m--it means a lot to me. I thought she would just figure it out, but she didn’t believe me. She didn’t really think I was serious, I guess, until--until--” Kyle closed his eyes when he could feel them welling with tears. It was a losing battle, but he just couldn’t cry in front of these women. They had every right to want to kill him, but recognizing that as fact did nothing to quell the desperate urge to shift again. His body didn’t have the strength or the energy to do so, but the anxiety Kyle felt wouldn’t take the option off the table.

When he opened his eyes again, it was because he could feel something hot against his neck. He didn’t have to look to know it was one of the knives Nell had been twirling. He tensed and tried not to move an inch, lest the blade touch his skin. It was silver. He didn’t have to ask. He knew Nell would’ve come prepared. “I--I’ve been doing my best. I’ve been--been trying to stay safe. I’ve only ever hurt two people, Bex included. The other time, it was--it was--” Kyle’s chest heaved with a silent sob he couldn’t contain, and a tear finally spilled over his cheek.

“My first full moon. I didn’t even know I was a wolf. My parents, they’re human. They didn’t know. How would they? They were going through a divorce and--and I didn’t know what was happening until it was happening.” He closed his eyes again and sniffled. He could almost laugh. Who would’ve thought that he was going to end up spilling out his traumas at knifepoint? He didn’t laugh. His voice came quieter, shakier, when he spoke again. “My mom got hurt. I didn’t kill her. But she got hurt. And I’ve been focusing...so. hard. on not doing that again. I don’t--the stress, and the--the noise, and the not sleeping. My--my grip slipped. Or maybe it wasn’t there to begin with. Maybe I’m just stupid and--and--and lucky.” Kyle stared at a point on the wall, not meeting any of their eyes. The tears fell freely, dripping off his jaw onto the blade.

“If that’s what you needed from me to justify it, go ahead and--”

There was a weight on Bex’s chest. She saw teeth, claws. Anger. Panic. It swelled in her head. Was it her? Was it his? Did they share it? The wolf lunged. Bex screamed. Her back hit the ground--

Bex sat upright in bed so fast her vision blotted. It was only a few seconds until she felt the burning in her chest and she cried out, looking down. Bandages had been placed on her chest, a lot of them. She put her head in her hands. She couldn’t remember everything that had happened. Her head felt so empty. Empty. Kyle! Eyes shot open and she swiveled her head to look around. Bedroom. Her bedroom, she was in her bedroom at Morgan’s. At the end of her bed was a large black cat with flaming eyes. Taki. Why was Taki here? Was Nell here? Why was Nell here? The pain in her chest made her sputter again and she pressed her hands against it, as if begging the pain to go away.

She remembered running. Kyle was panicking. Something about a change. A wolf. A werewolf. The memories flooded back into her head and she leapt up from the bed, clawing around for a shirt. Kyle. She had to find Kyle. What happened to him? Was he okay? Was he still a wolf? Had he hurt someone? Had he killed someone? Her legs gave out underneath her. Her back hurt, her head hurt. Taki made a disgruntled noise and came over to her. “Where…” she croaked, but it wasn’t like he could answer. So she stopped. She remembered something else.

Morgan, in her living room. Mina, coming down the stairs. The alleyway. It was so dark, she felt so cold. Bex shivered. She had begged them to help him. They had to have helped him. She pushed herself back up to her feet, shaking as she pulled on a shirt. Wincing with each small movement that tugged on the scabbed over cuts on her chest. How had they scabbed so fast? She reached back around her head to feel the throbbing. Stitches. It must’ve been bad. They were going to be so angry. What if they hurt Kyle? What if he hadn’t made it out alive?

Bex stumbled to the stairs and wrapped her arms around the railing as she lowered herself down each step painstakingly. Taki was behind her making angry, shrill meows, as if to tell her no. But she had to know, she had to see. She had to tell them it wasn’t Kyle’s fault.

She made it to the first floor and sank to her knees. Where were they? Voices. Down the hall. The basement. Bex took a moment to catch her breath before she pulled herself up once more and made her way to the basement stairs. The voices were getting clearer now, but her ears were rushing with blood. She couldn’t tell any of  them apart. Taki ran down first and snuck into the room, meowing loudly. Finally, Bex made it there, and she stumbled into the doorway. Her eyes narrowed in on the figure on the floor, slumped, crying, covered in a blanket. “Kyle!” she exclaimed, voice raw, and took off for the boy. Overjoyed he was alive. He was alive. He was alive.

Something stopped her before she even got three steps into the room. Someone. Bex squinted through her blurry vision. Brunette hair, soft eyes. Except...they looked sharp. Worried. Angry. Bex drew her face in confusion, sinking to the floor with Mina. “Why are-- what’s going on?”

“I appreciate the rationale, Kyle, but your passive ‘oh well I didn’t not tell her, I just didn’t actually tell her’ bullshit still got Bex under your claws,” Morgan said, holding her voice steady through clenched teeth. “And yes, she was absurdly stupid to not to explain her baby magic did this, but that doesn’t absolve you of your choices and what they did to someone who is supposed to be your friend.” Nell and Mina also had plenty to say, and she was able to crack an ice pack to some of Kyle’s bruises with the rest of her held in tension. She did not want this anger, did not want to be the person it made her into. She prayed for the earth to take it from her as she finished up with the salve and the bandaids on the smaller scrapes. By the time she had unfurled new bandages, she had enough wherewithal to cover Nell’s blade with her fist.

“That is not the solution,” she said carefully. “Not today.”

Another breath. With everything she could, she tried to surrender her rage through her grip and down to the ground. Her voice was softer, but still tense when she spoke again. “I’m sorry about your mother, Kyle. And you’re not stupid, you’re just making reckless, selfish, short-sighted choices and---”

A wave of very angry Taki wails cut her off. Morgan let go and turned, Nell put away her knife, and the door opened, showing Bex, bruised and drained and just barely, amazingly alive. “Bex, what are you doing here? You shouldn’t be out of bed, you need--” Morgan’s voice tapered off as she gaped at her with open relief. She forgot about Kyle completely until the bandage roll tumped to the floor again. Right. Time to hurry up. “Hold still, I’m almost done,” she grumbled, pinning him in place with one hand.

Actually, Mina would argue that this boy was stupid. Stupid as well as reckless and selfish and short-sighted. But she couldn’t help but pity him just a bit. This was why she never made a hunter of any kind. She was kind of a sucker when the sob stories came out. She was still beyond furious, and a part of her thought that they were letting this fool off a bit too easy, and an even bigger part of her might enjoy sitting back and watching the Nell approach as opposed to the Morgan one, but she didn’t have anything to say.

Mina didn’t understand why the cat had burst into the room so loudly until Bex followed after. She stopped the younger girl from moving too far, hands wrapped gently around Bex’s arms. “Hey, he’s fine. He’s okay. You need to sit down.” She moved them both to sit down. “Morgan’s tending to him. We’re all just talking.” It was even a rather productive talk. No one had been stabbed, and everyone was just in various states of sadness and anger. Really, Mina was sure this was how the most productive interrogations-- conversations went. She checked Bex over, relief and worry fighting each other. She glanced at Nell. “Should she be up right now?”

The moment Bex was on the move, Nell knew it, feeling the information reverberate across her familiar bond with Taki. As the younger witch neared the door, Nell withdrew her knife. She’d shot Morgan a look trimmed with her natural desire to fight against anyone who tried to sway her from a choice she was seemingly making. But it had also been meant as a wordless message between the two of them, one that said the true intent to kill wasn’t on Nell’s mind...yet. Her knife had mostly been meant as an enforcer to begin with, as a means of coercing anything Kyle might be hiding out into the open. Apparently it had worked with the admission of his mother, and for the first time since she’d arrived Nell felt a sprig of pity trying to worm it’s way through her anger. Unfortunately she wasn’t interested in feeling all that much empathy at the moment when Bex had been attacked, but it didn’t matter when Taki burst into the room, angrily meowing his alarm that Bex had arrived.

Following Mina’s lead, Nell abandoned Kyle where he lay- having little interest in him now that she had what knowledge she wanted, and when it was quite obvious he didn’t pose any immediate threat. “She should not be up.” In the span of a few moments Nell’s tone had shifted to the other side of the spectrum, her voice lightening from a vaguely tortuous interrogation to a forceful concern. “You lost a lot of blood, Bex. You need to sit down or you could pass out. How are you feeling? What do you remember?”

The sight of Bex alive was enough to silence Kyle for a moment. She looked bad. Well, she looked good for having been attacked by a werewolf, but she still looked bad. “Bex,” he mumbled, barely above a whisper. It was a relief to see her alive, but the guilt that washed over him threatened to swallow him whole. That didn’t happen, and Kyle dumbly stared at Bex, tears still falling.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, a little louder now. “I didn’t mean for this—I didn’t want—I’m so sorry.”  Bex didn’t need to forgive him; she shouldn’t forgive him. If she took the knife from Nell and stabbed him, Kyle would see that as getting off too easy.

He looked down at the hand that held him in place, trying to ignore the pain of the bandaging Morgan was doing. She was stronger than anticipated, so Kyle didn’t act on his urge to run to Bex’s side and hug her. Not that he should act on that urge anyway; some part of Kyle had already decided that he was going to leave as soon as he could. The brutal reminder of what he’d done to his own mother just cemented the idea further in his head.  He needed to get out of here. It wasn’t for his own safety, but the safety of everyone in the house. They were right. He didn’t have as good a grip as he had thought and that made him dangerous. As soon as Bex was asleep, as soon as no one else was looking, Kyle had to go.

“No, no,” Bex said, already getting weary again. The world was turning dark and her head lolled for a moment until someone said her name and she sat up straight. Winced in pain, grabbing her chest as she doubled over. Everyone was telling her what to do again. They didn’t understand. This was her fault. She braced a hand against the floor, the other clinging to Mina. “You have to know, it was me,” she sputtered out. She looked across the room to Kyle, tried her best to meet his eyes, even as her world began to fade. Color seeping from the walls, draining from her face. Breathing laboured. The journey downstairs had taken nearly everything out of her but she needed to say it, even as she remembered sharp eyes and sharper claws, and a snarl. Anger. Intent to kill.

“I’m sorry,” she said to Kyle, her voice ragged. Her hand tightened around Mina’s arm. “I’m sorry. It was me. I panicked and I m-made you change and I thought I-- I thought I could stop it. Stop you. I’m sorry. Please don’t-- please d-don’t be sorry. It’s not your f-fault.” She looked to Morgan, to Nell, to Mina. “It’s not his fault.” She could feel sweat beading on her forehead. She was so tired. Her eyes fought to stay open as her head lolled against Mina. “Please don’t...hurt him...he didn’t...do anything…” She tried to give him one last look, but she knew it fell short. The world was consuming her again. She reached out for him, but he was too far away. She couldn’t reach him anymore.

She wished she could still hear him in her head. Maybe then she could reassure him.

“Oh, trust me, we are definitely talking about how responsible you are for this,” Morgan grumbled at the girl, taping down the last of Kyle’s bandages as she did. She pressed him down in place, muttering, “Stay put. I’ll finish taking care of you later.”

Then she was on her feet, rushing to Bex. “You need rest first, you need--” But whatever energy Bex had was already drained from her body. Morgan sighed and gathered her into arms as if she were no more than a basket of laundry. “I’d like to get her back to bed now, but I can’t leave Kyle alone if the two of you are going to keep twirling your knives at him,” she sighed, bundling Bex closer to her. “I don’t think he can make it up two flights of stairs, much less maim anyone else. He’s sorry and he’s not a threat and even if he was, I could throw him through a wall before he did anything. And Bex was clear about treating him with kindness. So, are we ready to go?”

“I wasn’t twirling a knife at him,” Mina muttered. The truth. She’d never twirled it. He hadn’t even been awake when it was in her hands. But that wasn’t important, now. She gave Nell a look, one that she hoped said, no for now but yes if necessary. She told herself that this wasn’t just about Bex, that she couldn’t suffer a dangerous werewolf to live if that was what Kyle turned out to be. Yet… there was still a werewolf out there that she’d been pitted up against twice that kind of disputed that as a fact. The thought of her dad lying in his own blood flashed in her head, and then he was gone, and it was Bex, and Mina felt the hand still on her arm, and she swallowed, tightly. She told herself it wasn’t just because of Bex. She was lying to herself. At least those lies didn’t hurt as bad. She looked at Kyle, still upset but not seething with it anymore. She wouldn’t try to kill him again, not now, at least. She moved Bex’s hand from her arm and squeezed it before she stood up. “Stay,” she told Kyle, no room for argument in her voice. If Bex wanted him to stay, fine. He’d stay and heal and then provide better answers. He didn’t particularly matter to Mina anymore. “I’m ready.”

“I already showed you that I got what I wanted for now,” Nell commented for whoever it was that apparently needed consolation on the matter of whether or not Kyle would make it through the next hour without finding her knife stuck between his ribs. “And if I’d wanted to kill him I already would have. I said that too.” Her foul mood at having found Bex bleeding out didn’t make for much patience when it came to her words at the moment, especially when she felt as if she were being warned off in a situation she was familiar with. Despite her short patience, it was obvious that there had been a lapse of judgment in Bex’s dash to Kyle, and Nell made a mental note to go over werewolves in more detail whenever their regular lessons began again. Maybe she could ask Kaden to speak to Bex about some of the finer points as well. After all Nell hadn’t known about loup garous until he’d told the witch of them after her stressful night under the moon with Adam, and they’d waited to see if they’d turn into what was currently sitting in Morgan's basement.

Nell flicked her gaze towards her familiar, and the Ovinikk got the hint without any verbal indication needed as Taki took up position next to Kyle, as if he were a prison guard escorting a convict to their next destination. Sensing his witch’s frustration, he took it upon himself to let a little burp of flames split through his lips, trying his best to make the small demonstration of his fire breath look as innocent as possible. Then Nell was drawing close to Bex as well, laying a hand against the other witch as she transferred some more energy into the girl, trying to give her the strength to at least make it to her bed. “We’ll get you to rest, and then we can talk about everything later.”

Preparing to ascend the stairs, Nell remembered the conversation she’d had with Morgan no more than a few days ago, centered around Bex and the lessons she’d have to learn the hard way when it came to the supernatural. It seemed one had already come to pass in the form of a werewolf mauling, but Nell couldn’t help the twinge of responsibility settling into her gut, thinking about how she should have acted faster on dissipating the mind-meld, how she might have tried to reach out to someone more practiced in mental magic if she’d managed to find a witch that would actually talk to her instead of spitting in disgust and cursing her away. She should have told Bex more about werewolves to begin with— should have shown Bex at least one spell she could have used to come to her defense. Instead they’d been left amongst the rubble of the first safehouse to fall in Bex’s world of diving into her new world of magic and discovery. “Let’s just get you to bed.”

Before Bex had even fully collapsed again, Kyle had convinced himself that she was dying, right here, before his eyes. What’s worse, she was blaming herself for a situation that was undeniably Kyle’s fault. His plans for escape seemed to be slipping away as he was told to stay put. Even more so when they put the infernal cat on guard duty. He bit his tongue to keep from making any snide comments about the cat, but that didn’t stop the reflexive growl that bubbled up from his chest. Kyle debated if now would be an appropriate time to request clothes, but Bex’s funeral procession was already headed up the stairs.

He had so much left that he wanted to say. He wanted to thank Morgan for defending him as much as she did. He wanted to apologize to them all for nearly killing their friend. He wanted to defend himself further by explaining the situation fully, though he still blamed himself entirely. He wanted to tell the damned cat to fuck off. Most of all, he wanted to apologize to Bex; if Bex yelled at him, if she never wanted to see him again, that was better than what he deserved. It wasn’t like they’d been friends before meeting in the library. But he’d been in her head, and he’d heard her just a few minutes ago. She wouldn’t yell at him. Kyle let his head drop back against the floor and he closed his eyes with a sigh. Maybe he should message Alcher or Ari. Maybe he should run into the woods and never look back. Maybe he should call his mom. He curled up, turning his back to the cat. All that could wait. Right now, he needed some sleep.

Bex wanted to stay awake for just a little longer. She really did. But Morgan’s arms, despite their chill, were very comfortable. Her grip was tight, and it felt safe. There weren’t claws in this moment, there wasn’t pain. She settled against her chest with weary eyes and looked at Mina next to her. Then Nell, coming hurriedly over. All their voices so concerned. But no one was concerned for Kyle. Bex was. She turned her head enough to try and see him again. He was slumped in the corner, curled up in his blanket on the floor. Her eyes welled up with tears again. She’d never wanted this for him. He had been so annoying when they first met. They’d never gotten along, not even for a minute. Screaming at each other through their thoughts. Blasting stupid music, thinking mean thoughts-- and it was all her fault. Because she didn’t know how to control herself, her magic. She turned back to bury her face in Morgan’s shoulder, shaking with quiet sobs. “I’m sorry,” she muttered into her shirt. “I’m sorry.” She doubted it would ever be enough. “Please be...please don’t be m-mad at him,” she breathed into Morgan. “P-please. He’s just scared. He’s s-scared, too.” She knew because of his thoughts, because they’d been inside each other’s minds for so long. It felt empty now, without him there. She couldn’t reach out and tell him sorry or ask if he was okay, or wonder what type of Yu-Gi-Oh cards he was looking at today. She’d said sorry for making him change, for making this happen, but she’d never said sorry for stealing his mind away from him. She wasn’t sure she could ever apologize enough for that.

Her body grew too exhausted to think too much anymore. She was limp in Morgan’s arms, her eyes barely open. She knew they were moving. Upstairs. Kyle wasn’t with them. It was a solemn trail of bodies. There was nothing left she could do, and so she closed her eyes, and let sleep take care, and hoped that in her dreams, she wouldn’t see claws again. That maybe she wouldn’t see a friend staring at her with death in his eyes.

[theskyeandsea]

Baking & Entering || Nate, Shiloh, Rio, & Skylar

Timing: Late January 19th, 2021 (takes place after this chatzy)

Location: Fondante’s Inferno

Tagging: @nate-santos @evanescentform @3starsquinn & @theskyeandsea

Description: Nate just wants to close up shop, while Shiloh and Rio solve the mystery surrounding where Skylar’s been. It’s a sticky situation all around.

TW: Drug Use, Addiction, Body Horror, Violence, Car Accident

It was nighttime. Skylar was sure that it was nighttime. When it had become night, she wasn’t sure but she wasn’t sure of much anymore. All she knew was that the streets were empty, the lights dim, and the world around her felt lighter than it ever had before. Her feet skipped down the empty road, her body feeling lighter than anything. Humming tunelessly to herself, Skylar ran a hand along one of the walls of the building next to her. And as she did so, she felt herself slipping through, sliding through, as though the wall didn’t even exist. Because it didn’t. It was part of her and then suddenly-- it wasn’t. 

Stumbling, Skylar caught her balance as thick plumes of dust flew around her face-- no, not dust. Flour. Skylar flexed her fingers experimentally as she looked around. Bright fluorescence. And flour. Flour-essence. An off-kilter giggle burbled from her lips as the rest of her body slid through the wall, as though it was nothing at all. She was light on her feet, lighter than anything. Running her hand along the table, Skylar idly knocked the bowls and cake stands to the ground, fingers pressing the buttons on a large oven as she walked through the back of the shop. “Nope, nope, nope.” She said as she tossed knives and cake tins across the room. 

Nate liked the evenings at his shop. It was nothing like the daytime, with loads of people coming in and out. Before the accident he might have felt differently, but now he enjoyed the silence his late night shifts brought. Only a few customers filtering in and out after the bars had closed, and only one of the previous owners’ regulars had asked for the Extra Raw Special, whatever that was. Nate had just flipped the open sign over to “closed” when he heard the commotion in the back. His heart stopped and he froze like a deer in headlights. He’d locked the back door, right?? He always locked the back door. Grabbing the nearest weapon - a mighty broom - Nate stepped quietly behind the counter, preparing to open the door to the back room. “H-hey! Whoever’s back there! I-I am armed! Go b-back where you came from!” Yeah, Nate. Super intimidating. 

Looking around at the rows of things she could never eat, Skylar ran her tongue against the jagged points of her teeth. Cakes and sugar and flour and pastries. She tipped a tray over with a giggle before realizing that someone was talking. Someone was yelling at her. They weren’t here though, she couldn’t see them here. Her body was buzzing with energy as she pressed her head against the wall, the sound of their voice muted through the haze. But, she could hear them on the other side. “Oh yes, you’re very armed,” Skylar said and looked at one of the tables next to her. “I can do that too.” She said and she picked up a knife, the blade so very very light in her hand. “One, two, two arms!” She sang as her body slid through the wall and she emerged, staring at the man before her, clutching a broom tightly. The knife in her hand was suddenly slick with something hot and wet and she glanced down at her hand, tilting her head in surprise. Blood was streaming from the tips of her fingers-- One, two, three, four… What happened to her fingernails? She should have ten. “Oh well!” Skylar turned her attention to the man again, “Are you going to try and sweep me under the rug?” She asked before lunging at him with the knife. 

Nate couldn’t help but shudder, his grip on the broomstick slipping. Despite being open late for potential drunk and disorderly patrons, Nate never had to deal with them. Usually the more rambunctious people in town left his little shop alone. He was cursing his lack of preparedness when he heard the intruder respond, teasing him that they were also armed. Probably with something more deadly than a broom. “I-I’m warning you!” He yelled with as much force as he could muster, his eyes darting around for a better weapon. “The police are on their way!” A lie, but hopefully one that might give the intruder a second thought about attacking him. He heard crashing coming from the back room as bowls of ingredients fell to waste. The woman’s singsong voice, muffled at first through the wall, became perfectly clear as she literally phased through it, right before his eyes. As if he wasn’t terrified enough already. The person standing before him, waving one of his knives around, was the most horrific thing he’d seen since his accident. Razor sharp teeth formed a hazy smile while blood dripped from her fingertips, leaving bright red dots on his freshly cleaned floors. A chunk of hair seemed to be missing. But nothing compared to the wild look in her eye. 

“N-no, but you should just leave! I don’t even keep cash in the st-” His bargaining was cut short as she leapt towards him, blade raised for the kill. Nate dropped to the floor and rolled, the knife just barely grazing his arm. Thrusting his legs out, he attempted to trip her up, at least to get the knife out of her hand before scrambling back towards the counter. “Why are you doing this?!”

Skylar watched as the knife darted out from her hand, like a sliver of light as it pierce through the air between them. It was so fast, so quick. Was this was power felt like? Freedom? She could do whatever she wanted, she could do anything she wanted. And she wanted to… “I don’t want money.” She laughed, shaking her head as he fell to the ground. His feet hit against her shins, but she felt light and buoyant, barely affected by the kicks. “I want,” Skylar paused, looking at a glass stand on the counter and grasped the glass with her free hand. “Sugar and spice and everything nice.” She said to herself as she looked at the pastries on the tray. Looking over at the man, she cocked her head. “Don’t you hate being nothing but sugar all the time? Better be bitter, mmmm.” She hummed before throwing the glass stand at him with a gleeful look in her eyes.

Nate honestly didn’t think his life would end up like this, being robbed by a drugged out land shark with mutant powers. He’d survived the brutal car crash for this? There was a touch of madness behind her eyes as she went about destroying his shop, his livelihood. “I quite like sweetness actually,” he mumbled, knowing she hadn’t been looking for an answer, only chaos, it seemed. He cowered, throwing his arms over his head just as glass and icing rained down on him. A spatter of blood dripped down into his eyes and suddenly he was back to hanging upside down in his truck, blood falling from his nose onto the shattered windshield. Panic swelled up inside him as his hands fumbled for anything to help, anything to cut himself free. Fingers closed around something long and sharp, a sliver of glass, it’s edges biting into his fingers as he gripped it tight. Lashing out blindly, unsure if he was trapped under his bakery case or in his car in the woods, all Nate knew was he needed to slash until he made contact. 

Skylar continued to bear down on the man before her, his face flickering in her vision. She could see the fear in his eyes and it felt so, so good. Someone else could finally be as afraid as she was, they could finally see what all of this meant to her. Everyone had told her to just be happy with what she was and she’d tried to do it their way and now she was doing it her way. Ever since she’d first taken that dose of Bliss, she’d been happy and now? She was ecstatic. And shouldn’t everyone be happy for her? She was showing the world the monster she’d seen in the mirror since that terrible day last January. And she was happy with that. Everyone had only ever wanted her to be happy with herself and now she was. So they should all be happy.

But the man, he didn’t look happy. As he grasped at bits of bloodied glass, Skylar regarded him with a doleful expression. Why wasn’t he happy? She could change that. Grasping the knife once more, she made her way towards him, ignoring the way his arms flailed around him. She held the knife out, a manic smile on her face before something stopped her abruptly. Glancing down, Skylar realized that her shirt was slowly darkening, the source a large slash across her side. She pressed her fingers into the wound, her hands coming back covered in cloying, dark blood. “This should hurt, I think it should hurt.” She said as she pressed her hand against her wound, more and more blood flowing down her body. “But nothing does, nothing does anymore.” She said to the man. “Isn’t that wonderful?”

The room came back into view, fading in like someone was drawing back the curtains on reality. Nate dropped the fragment of glass, letting it clatter to the floor, splashing dark red splotches all the way down. In front of him wasn’t the scene he remembered, the horrific scene in the wreckage that came to him in flashes when he slept too deeply. The intruder with the spiked teeth was bleeding, more than she was, this time from a large gash in her side. Nate’s stomach dropped. Did he do that? What if she died? He scrambled backwards, looking at his shaking hands like they belonged to someone else. Tears streamed down his face as he watched the girl so divorced from reality. “W-what happened to y-you?” He sobbed, hugging his knees. 

Skylar couldn’t feel anything as the blood continued to drip and puddle around her, hands attempting to stop the steady flow. It wasn’t just the pain because she should, she really should be feeling that. She didn’t even feel warm as the blood rolled down her skin. It felt like water, drip drip dripping against her. Pulling her hand away, she ran her palm against the counter top, leaving a thick smear across the once shiny counter. She watched as he backed away, curling up. And for a brief moment, she could see herself where he was. Crying and hugging herself, wondering, “Why, why, why is this happening.” She murmured. Bobbing her head from side to side, she shrugged. “Sugar and spice and everything nice. Pills and vials and needles and dust. That’s what seals are made of.” She said before sighing. This place was too saccharine sweet. She wanted something different, like the salty tang of the sea, like the bitterness of blood. Stepping over the man, glass crunched under her shoes as she made her way towards the door. She pushed it open with her bleeding hand, two streaks of red running from her raw fingers and down the glass.

Shiloh smiled to herself, amused by what Rio had said. It seemed she made a good decision to come out with him and take her mind off things. She needed this. As she glanced up, she saw someone she recognized. When she took in her state, she almost wished she didn’t recognize her. “Skylar?” Shiloh questioned, unsure if what she was seeing was true or if her dreams suddenly started to blur into her reality. She glanced over at Rio to see if he had caught what she saw because if he saw it too then it must be real. It must be real. “Skylar!” She called out as she started running towards her. All that her mind was picking up was blood. Blood on Skylar. Someone must have hurt her. “Are you okay?” She asked as she came close, already trying to investigate where the blood was coming from.

If there was any irony in the fact Shiloh and Orion had come out here to distract themselves from the worry they felt about Skylar, he didn’t appreciate it now. Rio hardly considered himself a social butterfly, so the fact that Shiloh and himself had seemed to hit it off had been a bit of a surprise to Rio. But all the ease or relaxation he had felt for the last twenty minutes evacuated as soon as he was close enough to see the commotion in the bakery that they were heading towards. “Holy crap” Rio murmured, taking off after Shiloh was already rushing in Skylar’s direction. “Does she have a knife?” Rio asked again, to nobody in particular but quiet enough that maybe he was too shocked to believe it himself. What the heck was going on with Skylar? And why was she bleeding? Shiloh was already checking on Skylar, trying to get her to calm down and make sure she was okay. In the meantime, Rio assessed the rest of the store, eyeing the blood smeared across the glass. “Nate, what’s going on? Are you hurt too?”

Swaying as she stood in the middle of the street, Skylar leaned over to squint in the darkness at the two figures coming towards her. She recognized them as their shifting faces came into view-- Rio and Shiloh. A burbling laugh erupted from her mouth at the sight. She’d never seen the two of them together and here they were. Standing up right, she tilted her head at Shiloh’s question, eyes slightly unfocused. “Mmmmm, I’m okay, yup. That’s what you’d like to hear, right?” She said with another giddy laugh, the knife still light and bouncing in her bleeding hand. “I’m okay! I’m fine! I’m so, so happy! Just super, super happy, yup.” She said before turning to Rio, who was peering at the store behind her. “He’s fine, too.” Skylar said, her tone shifting as she stared intently at Rio, the knife suddenly still in her hand.

Shiloh almost didn’t catch the knife in Skylar’s hand, more preoccupied with everything else that was going on with her. Not that she worried for one minute that Skylar was going to hurt her, she was worried she might hurt herself. Had she hurt herself? While Rio was concerned with the owner of the store, Shiloh had different priorities. “Skye what’s going on?” She gently asked, coming close to her. “I need to know if you’re hurt.” It didn’t seem Skylar was too interested in herself though - surely if someone was injured to the point they had that much blood on them, they’d be looking for help, right? And yet - she laughed. “Let me help you, Skye. Can I see that? ” She asked as she held her hand out. She tried to look into Skye’s eyes, trying to reach out to her. The only thing she could notice was that she really wasn’t looking at them. Something was wrong and Shiloh needed to get her help. It was really hard for Shiloh to look at anything but her eyes right now, not wanting to see the amount of blood on her.

Still looking at Rio, Skylar couldn’t help but wonder what he’d look like if she stuck him with her knife, if she slashed across his face and left him to bleed on the pavement. “Would your hair go pink or red?” She wondered out loud. Before she could reach out to see for herself, Skylar noticed Shiloh move towards her and she danced backwards clumsily. A trickle of warmth spread down her side as she moved away, shaking her head. “Nope, nope, this is mine. Well, it was his,” Skylar pointed back to the shop she’d emerged from, “But I have it now, so that makes it mine.” She said before focusing back on a word Shiloh had said. Help. “Help?” Skylar raised her eyebrows, mouth going wide. “Help! You want to help. Ohhhhhh, no, no thanks. I’ve had enough help.” Skylar spat out the last word with venom, thinking back to Morgan and Erin and Leah in her home, telling her what she should do. 

Orion had no clue what was going on with Skylar, but he knew it wasn’t good. She was laughing and smiling, but there wasn’t any of Skylar’s usual kindness in her tone. It all felt manic, almost hysterical. It was far more unsettling than if she had been completely serious holding the knife. Skylar’s question pierced through Rio’s wandering eyes and forced him to focus on her. She didn’t provide much context, but the way she was handling the knife gave him an idea of exactly what she was asking. Shiloh seemed completely set on Skylar, her eyes barely wavering. But Rio couldn’t help but glance worriedly around. From Skylar to Shiloh to the bakery and Nate. This all seemed so wrong. This wasn’t Skylar. Skylar wasn’t dangerous. So why was Rio so nervous about the way she held the knife? “We don’t know what’s going on right now, Skye.” Rio held his palms out in surrender and took a step towards her. He had no idea what to do. But he didn’t want Shiloh ending up hurt if Skylar really was dangerous. “You don’t want help. Um.. okay. What do you want then?” 

Shiloh looked over at Rio when he spoke, seeing if Skylar reacted to anything he said. She was so worried for her that she didn’t even realize she should be careful in approaching Skylar. She chose not to think Skylar would hurt her, even in this current state. Besides. What’s a little blood? Or a lot, she realized as she looked closer at Skylar’s bloodied state. Where were her fingernails? Still that wasn’t the center of Shiloh’s attention. There was blood at her side. It had to be coming from her. “Skye, you’re bleeding a lot.” Shiloh couldn’t wait and came closer, entering Skylar’s space and putting a hand to her back to try and usher her back to the car so she can get medical help. Whether she wanted it or not - Shiloh wasn’t going to have her bleed out and die. “C’mon, let’s go.”

Mulling over Rio’s question for a moment, Skylar’s head flopped from side to side as she thought about it. What did she want? What did she want? She had everything she wanted right now-- the pain was gone, the guilt was gone, the anger and the fear had all been washed clean with the medley that ran through her system. But what else did she want? She wanted… To feel like this all the time. And how could she do that? What had been the source of all her problems, the reason why she’d never known what she was? With a growing smile on her face, Skylar straightened, “What do I want?” She stared at Rio intently, her grip tightening around the knife. “I want, I want Hunters to die. I want them to know how much it hurts to be like me, to be alone and lost and scared and hunted. You get it, don’t you? You don’t even like what you are.” She said. Pressure against her back sent Skylar spinning, knife slashing through the air. “No. No, no, no, I’m not going with you. Nope. I told you what I want and I don’t want to go with you.”

Skylar couldn’t have known but that felt like an attack straight to Shiloh’s heart and she had a visceral reaction to that, taking a step back as if she were dealt a physical blow. Or maybe something told her there was a knife swing incoming - either way she moved back just in time. She tried to remind herself that Skylar didn’t know what she was and Skylar couldn’t know what she was. Shiloh had only told one person. One. So then… was she talking about Rio? Shiloh glanced at him, her brows furrowing as she wondered what Skylar was referring to. However, it wasn’t her place to ask and she shouldn’t ask. The point of focus here wasn’t Rio or Shiloh, it was Skylar. They had to get her somewhere safe so they could tend to her wounds. Shiloh took a deep breath to center herself, mildly wishing she hadn’t. She could smell blood and other not pleasant scents. She looked over at Rio. “I’m going to bring the car around okay? You stay here. I’ll be right back.” Shiloh said and ran over to her car. It wouldn’t be the first time it had blood spilled in it but as long as they got Skylar to safety it would be fine. Everything would be fine.

Orion wasn’t sure why Skylar’s words hurt him so badly. Because she was right, he didn’t like what he was. He had hated every aspect of it since before his powers had ever activated. He hated the abilities, the implications, the perception of what being a hunter meant to the supernatural world. And yet, in the last year hadn’t he started to give in to exactly the lifestyle he had spent so long avoiding? The guilt more than anything else was what made Rio shutter and wince when Skylar began swinging the knife around. His shoulders sunk as he considered it, and as he tried hard to ignore the look that Shiloh gave him. Shiloh was going to get the car. That was good. Rio nodded and stayed put with Skylar. He hadn’t been close enough to the knife before, but if she began swinging again would he even try to dodge it? Would he want to? “I’m sorry. I know the hatred, but I’ll never understand the fear. You deserve a lot better. Everyone does.” He didn’t know what else to say. He wasn’t even sure Skylar could listen. “But you’re going to hurt yourself if you don’t give me the knife.”

As Shiloh left, Skylar watched her run away with mild interest. She was leaving again, leaving again, yep. Just like everyone else. Swaying as she returned her focus to Rio, Skylar looked at him inquisitively. “I don’t think you do though. Because it’s not just Hunters, I don’t just hate Hunters, even though they’re the ones who did all of this. They killed my dad, you know. My real one. And my mom too, probably.” She said, her voice conversational and light as she stared at him from behind manic eyes. “I saw my dad. His ribs were exploded from where a shotgun got him and his face looked like someone had slammed his head over and over again with a rock. That’s what Hunters do and I want, I want them all to know that when, when they kill people. They do so much more than that. They ruin people too.” She said, running her free hand over the openly weeping sores on her arms. “They ruined me. Not as much as I ruined me, but they didn’t help.” Skylar said and focused back on Rio. “Oh, I won’t hurt myself,” She said. With a breathy laugh, she smiled and pulled her arm back. “Catch!” Skylar said and hurled the knife at Rio, the blade spinning through the air.

Orion didn’t talk much while Skylar did. What could he even say? His expression shifted from a knowing sadness to wide eyes as Skylar’s story got darker and darker. He hadn’t known about her real dad. That his life had been taken that cruelly. The specifics didn’t surprise him, but it did disgust him. “I don’t know that I-” What could Rio be? Whether he wanted to be or not, he was exactly what Skylar hated so much. He had grown up in a family that had taken lives just as gruesomely. “I know. They ruin lives. And they don’t care about the people they hurt or leave behind in the process.” Some of the hunters that he had befriended in town flashed across his mind. But now didn’t feel like the right time to try to argue the specifics of what made a good or bad hunter. Or if good hunters even existed. Rio had been staring at the ground, too embarrassed and disgusted with himself to meet Skylar’s eyes. A flush of light caught his attention, and his hand snapped up on instinct before his brain had even processed what was happening. A sharp pain shot up Rio’s arm as he realized that the knife had been chucked his way. He had caught the knife midair, the blade trapped between his clenched hand and slicing into his palm.Blood began dripping down his wrist and off the blade and Rio stared at it for too long before he finally unclenched his hand and readjusted to hold the knife by it’s hilt. “I don’t know how to help you. But I want to.”

Skylar watched the way his hand shot up and caught the knife like it was nothing-- he really was a Hunter, a Hunter through and through. Everything he could do made him a killer, just like the man who’d held her at gunpoint by the river, who’d shot her as she’d tried to flee. And now, as she watched him flip the knife around so he was holding it by it’s hilt, Skylar realized that she’d just given him a weapon. Backing away, Skylar shook her head from side to side. “No. I don’t want your help. I know what the help of a Hunter feels like.” She said, remembering the way the bullet had felt as it had seared across her leg, mid-transformation. Without a word, Skylar turned around and ran down the dark street away from Rio. She didn’t want anything he offered, she had everything she wanted. Everything she needed. She didn’t need anyone else.

Shiloh got into her car and didn’t realize her hands were trembling until she tried to put her keys in to start it. Once she turned the engine on, she took a breath, regaining her composure and trying to figure out how they would get Skylar in the car. She wouldn’t come willingly - Shiloh already knew that was going to happen. The last thing she wanted to do was force Skylar to do anything but it was for her own safety… She began driving toward Rio and Skylar. She saw them talk and watched as things unfolded but right as she arrived Skylar took off. “Oh no.” Shiloh said as she watched her disappear in the darkness. What were they going to do now? Chase her in the car? Skylar could jump in front and hurt herself. Call the police? What would they do, honestly? Shiloh exhaled deeply as she just slumped into her seat. Hopefully Rio had an idea.

[multeasers]

KNOWING YOUR PARTNER WELL CAN POTENTIALLY MAKE WRITING TOGETHER A LOT EASIER. REPOST DO NOT REBLOG !!

NAME: Zag !!

PRONOUNS: they / he

PREFERENCE OF COMMUNICATION: personally, I'd prefer tumblr ! either through asks or dms, i don't mind ! i’ll only give my discord out if it’s really needed, and only ever in private, but i’m kinda choosy on who gets it anyway

NAME OF MUSE(S): a-qing !

RP EXPERIENCE / HOW LONG (MONTHS  /  YEARS ?): i started between 2013 and 2015 i wanna say,,, i cant remember exactly when, but it's that timeframe for sure . i stopped in 2016ish tho, and was on / primarily off until now !

PLATFORMS YOU’VE USED: chatzy ( hell world ), kik, and now tumblr

BEST EXPERIENCE: hmm,,, it kind of had nothing to do with rping itself, but the chatzy room that i was first in ( that wasn't like, private and only for certain people ) had a set amount of users allowed in it at one time, but it would tell you when people TRIED to enter . so, eventually, we all figured out that some of us could LEAVE the room, BUT if we stayed in the same tab when we did, when we hit the back arrow we'd be able to bypass the max amount of people bc we'd be brought right back in . when i say we CELEBRATED when it worked the first time 😂😂

RP PET PEEVES / DEAL-BREAKERS: peeves-wise, one liners, mostly ; i need somethin to work with ! but also script- / play-style writing . also, the usage of asterisks when a muse does something ( within the thread itself, i mean ) . a deal-breaker would be if you’re really fucking rude to me outside of rp, or straight up refuse to discuss anything potentially triggering before introducing it / doing it in general . it’s one thing to not realize, and another altogether to just refuse to say anything about it . if it’s a general sort of thing though then it does kinda irk me if we haven’t discussed that we’ll be doing that ; if we’ve talked prior about just doing what we feel is best for the direction of the thread, though, then that’s also different since, yanno, we talked about it lskdma ESSENTIALLY this is a long winded way, maybe, of me saying a deal-breaker is if we don’t talk about SOMETHING before starting a thread, and later if it’s refused to be given discussion then that’s for sure a deal-breaker

FLUFF, ANGST OR SMUT: i'll do anything but romance and smut ! even if i introduced other muses, i’d still hold on to this stance 

PLOTS OR MEMES: i think memes are fun but i've got very little experience w them ;;;; i prefer to plot if we've just met tho for sure 

LONG OR SHORT REPLIES: personally, i prefer long replies for myself ! certain chatzy rpers ( at least for the fandom i was rping in at the time ) were hell if we didn't go for long responses, and at the time i looked up to a lot of them, so now it’s just habit . tbh if i ever give a short reply / shorter reply than normal, it’s because i’m either tired or in a lot of pain ( just not enough to keep me from the blog LOL ) . for partners though i couldn’t care less, get as long or as short as you want !

BEST TIME TO WRITE: honestly, just whenever i can ! though typically it’s whenever i finally manage to get outta bed, so anywhere between 5 pm to 5 am my time is fair game

ARE YOU LIKE YOUR MUSE(S): depends on if i want her to be :p

Tagging : @vagomvndo and @alurkingdisaster 

[cryxmercy]

Backdraft || Mercy & Arthur

When: A couple of weeks before New Year’s Eve. Immediately following this. Where: Arthur’s office @ the University. Who: Mercy and @arthurjdrake

TW: one mention of preventing potential head trauma, but no actual head trauma; possible memory loss tw (for a few brief moments of confusion)

Sometimes the simplest solution is not the right one. 

By the time Mercy had driven the distance from the house to the University, she’d managed to pull her scattered thoughts into some small semblance of order. She could still feel the unsettling pins and needles sensation across the skin of her arm, and her anxiety thrummed like a swarm of angry bees, but the former had at least faded a bit as she’d distanced herself from the cause. For now at least.

She didn’t linger too long in the parking lot, but also tried not to look hurried as she made her way towards Arthur’s office. As always, she entered without knocking, except this time she closed and locked the door before settling heavily into the chair opposite his desk. Mercy sat there, legs crossed, foot shaking up and down as she worried her lip with her teeth. 

“How’s marking?” she asked after a bit, indicating the enormous pile of papers on his desk (and promptly avoiding the real reason for her visit). “Want some help?” 

Arthur reclined in the aged leather chair a crisp winter breeze stirring some of the coursework papers stacked in piles upon his desk. His eyes tracked back and forth across each line of text as he read, still and quiet save for the lo-fi music drifting out of a bluetooth speaker on the shelf. Occasionally the stillness was broken with a reach for his fourth freshly brewed cup of coffee, a sip before its return to the ornate coffee mat off to one side of the desk. 

The process was methodical, reading through the coursework before a second read through was taken with pen to paper marking addendums or eliminations of unnecessary or particularly insightful details. And then the tedious task of checking each citation list for formatting errors - the most boring part of the process admittedly.

It wasn’t surprising for Mercy to arrive unannounced and deposit herself in the chair opposite and Arthur didn’t look up initially though the click of the lock was different. A flicker of his eyes followed, a quick track from the door to Mercy and then back in a fraction of a second until he finished reading and set the paper aside. “Honestly I’m actually almost done with them,” it wasn’t entirely true but it was clear as day she was skirting around something. “I’m surprised you came down. I’m almost done for the day to be honest.”

Mercy wasn’t bothered when Arthur didn’t immediately look up from his marking. It wasn’t as if her presence was anything unusual at this point, even if her behavior was slightly out of the ordinary this time. His decline of her offer to help was acknowledged with a distracted hum instead of Mercy’s usual sarcasm or witty retort, and although the rest of what Arthur said wasn’t phrased as a question, they had known each other long enough to know when one was being asked.  

This time it was Mercy’s gaze that flickered towards Arthur before sliding over the papers on his desk, and then to the other neatly stacked piles of letters and correspondence that sat here and there. She even glanced towards the rubbish bin, but there was nothing that caught her eye. Best get on with it then. 

“A letter came for me today.” At first, it sounded like nothing unusual. Everyone received letters in the mail on occasion. It was the addendum to that statement that made all the difference. 

“A Black Letter.” 

Arthur knew it was simply a matter of time, he didn’t need to probe or ask to know that eventually an answer to why she was here would present itself. He waited, giving her time to process and search for the words she wanted to put together, and as expected it came not much later. A letter. Not all that strange but he was sure there would be something that set this mail apart. 

The scratch of his fountain pen stilled with the further clarification; a dark blot staining the paper as the ink bled out his hesitation. The stark proof of his conflicted thoughts and feelings towards this revelation laid bare. 

Firstly: relief over the simple fact he hadn’t received such a notification himself. Wasn’t apparently still bound to a contract he too had signed and agreed to.

Secondly: ire that Mercy was still beholden to a contract signed such a long period of time ago which was somehow being seen as something she was beholden to act upon. It was nonsensical and illogical and made his blood steam in his veins. 

The ink continued to run for several long moments before Arthur finally retracted the pen and set it aside, cracking his knuckles individually as he finally looked at Mercy across the desk. “What do they want?”

A small furrow appeared in Mercy’s brow as she watched the ink blot spread across the paper. Further proof that Arthur hadn’t received a letter of his own. If he had, he would have already been aware of the fact. So she knew he had to be relieved. Why wouldn’t he be? He was a different person now, wasn’t he? The man that had signed that contract so many years ago now had long since died and been reborn. Many times over. 

Unlike Mercy. Who was as she’d always been. And always would be. 

But even so… surely there was a statute of limitations on such a thing? Surely she wasn’t beholden to a contract signed nearly half a millennium ago. Surely there was some mistake. 

The ache in her arm told her otherwise. 

So Mercy waited as Arthur absorbed the information. All the while, a voice in her head whispered ‘See? It doesn’t matter what you do… or who you try to be… how you try to live… you will never find peace… you will never be free…’ 

Fingers pressed against her temple as she forced the voice into silence. As she did, Arthur asked his question, to which Mercy could only shake her head. “I don’t know. I didn’t touch it yet.” Her hand flexed. “I thought you might’ve-” But she stopped short, letting out a sharp huff of air. Mercy set her jaw, her next words coming far steadier than she herself felt. “But I don’t suppose you would’ve. That’s good. That’s-” She nodded once, flexed her hand again. “- good.” And it was. She wouldn’t wish this on Arthur. Not ever.  

A bit of silence followed, until finally Mercy seemed to deflate.

“I don’t want to read it. I don’t… want anything to do with it.” She looked up at him finally, her eyes full of shadows. “I’m tired, Ren. I’m just… so fucking tired…”

Absentmindedly Arthur started to lightly pull at the sleeve of his jumper, worrying the fabric in thought now that his pen was out of his hand. It was an old habit, one that seemed to transcend lifetimes. To fiddle with any one of the many little knick knacks scattered across his desk and failing that stretch the sleeves of his jumpers into paws when his brain started to work overtime.

His eyes fixed on the letter, wondering just what the contents might pertain to. What they would want after all this time. Surely their contracts were done. Null and void to the dusts of time. But apparently not. How many more times would this happen across their lives? Something from centuries past cropping up to haunt them with living nightmares. “No it isn’t,” the words came out sharper than intended and a scowl marred his expression “no it isn’t good. This” he punctuated jabbing a finger at the letter “isn’t fair.” 

The silence that followed was deafening and Arthur’s scowl only deepened the more he looked at the letter.

“Then we burn it. We get rid of it. No letter no message.” It wasn’t that simple. It never was, but he had to suggest it at least. 

Mercy’s eyes drifted to Arthur’s hands, watching the familiar habit with a mixture of fondness and worry. Her thoughts moved in the same vein as his: how many more times would their past come back to haunt them? How many years - how many lifetimes - would they have to live before they were allowed to simply… be? Obviously 400 years didn’t mean that particular quota. 

It wasn’t until Arthur spoke that Mercy looked up again. Her frown deepened, and for just a moment she wanted to explain that she’d meant it was good that he hadn’t received a letter as well. But Mercy knew Arthur was perfectly aware of what she’d meant. So his anger wasn’t surprising. Part of Mercy was even glad for it… needed it even. But only because it solidified what she already knew: that they would find a way through this. Together. 

“No. It’s not.” Mercy’s scowl grew to nearly match Arthur’s as she watched him stare at the letter. 

The suggestion of simply burning the damn thing gave Mercy pause. Had they tried that before? Gods it had been so long ago… But the letter was still sealed. So whatever ‘contract’ lay inside was still inactive. Perhaps with enough of the right sort of fire, they could be shot of it. 

“It’s worth a try,” Mercy said. Though it was never that simple, was it? “We should go home. The firepit on the back porch should work fine.” Mercy stood, knowing Arthur would never be able to concentrate on his marking now, and feeling a wash of guilt - and the stirring of old fears - that couldn’t be helped. “I’m sorry, Ren, I- I thought this was behind me. Behind us.” 

There was something to be said about his tactile nature, a need to always have something on his person to keep his hands occupied and distracted. On the occasions he didn’t have any such object or item to fiddle or fidget, his fingers often sought out other alternatives. Such as his jumper, though it was typically the rotating dial on his iron plated watch. Today in his distraction though the cotton stretched over his fingers as he proceeded to rub his scruff lined chin idly with his thumb. “No,” he agreed, echoing her own words in his contemplation of the scenario, “no it’s not.”

He released the sleeves with a final huff and leaned forwards, snagging the letter and bringing it up to study intensely while Mercy answered. Why couldn’t they burn it? Surely that would be enough. If the letter wasn’t opened. If it simply… ceased to be. Perhaps it would buy them time to figure out what they needed to do in the interim. “Don’t be sorry,” his eyes flickered up from the intense stare he was currently directing towards the letter, the intensity of his expression easing into something softer. “You have nothing to be sorry for.” 

Without another word his attention returned once again to the thick folded parchment, the wax seal pressed in to hold it shut and the intensity of his focus narrowed to a pinpoint. He imagined each particle of the paper vibrating at an infinite frequency beyond what the eye could see, gradually building in frequency. He thought of the countless firesides the two of them had sat beside, sometimes in jovial jest and others in sorrowful grief, the warmth of drink in their cups and laughter in the air. But each fire began with a spark and he willed that spark to ignite here. To burn the very paper in his hands.

What Arthur failed to notice was the creeping drop in temperature, the heat being drawn forth and consumed, much as stars are crushed in the void of space. Infinite and precise, but where typically a flame would spark, curling the edges of the paper into a burning cinder his brow furrowed. 

Nothing. 

No spark. 

Absolutely nothing. 

There were few things in the world that could unsettle Mercy quite so abruptly as a Black Letter. Once, it had been a means to an end. A way to serve a purpose. A way to put her unique ‘talents’ to good use. Or so she’d thought. So they’d both thought. Arthur had been there too, right alongside her. Looking for something to help make sense out of so many lifetimes come and gone. And they had done good things back then, thievery and subterfuge aside. They had saved lives in keeping what wasn’t meant for humans out of their hands. But the altruism had eventually turned to something else. Something greedy and wicked that she and Arthur had been bound to regardless of their personal feelings. 

But they had fulfilled their contracts centuries ago. The agency was long disbanded, and the other creatures they’d worked with were long dead, barring perhaps a scant few that had been fae or undead. It simply made no sense. 

Mercy was silent again as Arthur picked up the letter. She tensed, expecting something to happen, but the letter remained quiet. Only when his gaze softened as he turned it towards her did some of that tension ease. Her expression followed suit, softening the tightness around her eyes, but she remained standing once their decision had been made. 

She’d seen Arthur do this thousands of times, and it still never ceased to amaze her. Yet in the countless lifetimes they’d spent together, Mercy had never seen him call forth the flames… and fail. Until today. The thought rested on her tongue that perhaps the letter simply couldn’t be burned. That perhaps whoever was sending it knew Arthur was with her and that he would try to destroy the letter. Perhaps it was simply charmed against phoenix fire. 

But Mercy never got the chance. 

The air she sucked into her lungs burned. Not with fire, but with ice. Mercy frowned deeply at the sensation, but it was so sudden and so frigid that it set off a violent coughing spell that left Mercy gasping for air - both hands braced against Arthur’s desk - before her healing factor kicked in. “Arthur, what -” She coughed again, and her breath rose in a white cloud as the temperature continued to drop. “- what’s happening?”

It was sudden and without warning that the snap-frost hit; sucking the very essence of warmth from the room and layering the windows in a thin striated pattern of ice crystals. It was a blast of energy, too much for his body to cope with and where typically he might’ve been able to absorb it at present it was too much. The overload caused a wrack of shivers to shudder through his frame where he sat his senses fried from the force of sudden adjustment.

The soft flutter of paper falling through the air broke the silence, brushing the wooden floor and vanishing under the desk forgotten for the moment and rather unimportant by most accounts in the moment. These strange bouts of power fluctuations had been growing increasingly more sporadic, first around the house but now any attempt to summon a flame practically short-circuited him for several hours at a time leaving him weak and so very cold.

He shuddered unable to support himself even sitting as he was and half slipped out of the chair, a rag-doll without a spine. Dark eyes slipped shut, eyelashes fluttering in sync with the chatter of his teeth and the rattle of his fingers “I- I-” but nothing more came, dissolving in a short cloud of cold breath.

The sluggish attempt of his supernatural constitution did little to help while attempting to pull himself back into the chair, trying to kickstart an engine that had presently flooded itself. All Arthur could groan, in a deep, grating rasp is “fuck.” 

The black letter was all but forgotten as Mercy watched Arthur start to crumple under the magical blowback of whatever had just gone horribly wrong. Her own breath still rose in a white cloud, but her supernatural healing factor was quickly pushing back at the cold. The same should have happened to Arthur, faster than Mercy honestly, but to her horror, it didn’t. 

“Arthur- Woah! Hey…” She bolted around the desk, trying to catch him before he could crack his skull open. He was trembling so badly that for a moment Mercy thought he was having a seizure. “Sshhh, it’s alright… don’t try to talk...” Then his eyes started to close. “No… no, hey. Ren… Hey! Stay awake…” she said, taking his face in her hands. Gods above, but he was so cold. “Just… don’t move, okay? I’ve got you.” 

She held him close, trying to warm him as best she could until whatever the hell this was passed. She tucked his arms beneath her jacket and sweater as best as she could manage with Arthur barely able to help. Then she pressed her palms to the sides of Arthur’s neck, over the great arteries that pulsed just beneath his half-frozen skin, in an attempt to keep the blood flowing to his head warm. She was shivering a bit herself, but she was still far warmer than Arthur. Though for how long?

Having spent the majority of her 1200 years with Arthur, Mercy knew how to care for all manner of things that had afflicted him over the years. But this was a first. So Mercy was at a loss. Other than trying to keep him warm. She would have to call for help if this didn’t let up. But the list of people she trusted was short. It contained two, maybe three people. Thank the gods she’d locked the door earlier. The last thing they needed was someone walking in right now. Arthur groaned, and Mercy rubbed a hand down his back.

“Where does it hurt?” she asked gently, hoping to keep him focused on staying awake if nothing else.  

As a general rule of thumb, Arthur prided himself on his resilience. The ability to withstand bad things when they happened; riding them out until they reached the other side or at least long enough until a semblance of light shone through. Right now there was naught save the bone-deep chill that had shot through his body in an instant. One moment he could recall being sat at the desk and the next he’d felt so tired and then there was a voice. Familiar yet distant.

The hands felt like searing points of heat against his skin; which itself was covered in a sheen of cold sweat. Too hot. It was too hot and frantically he attempted to push her hands away, writhing and fighting between tremors of his muscles. 

Arthur could swear the room was closing in on him, the walls growing increasingly confined and constricting. Or maybe that was just his airway, it was hard to tell in the mounting panic that was sinking into his current state of consciousness. The air rushing in and out, faster and faster until his head began to spin, every frantic blink causing the room to shift first to an office, then a library, a bar and eventually a dark cell. The sudden shock to his system had him scrambling, reaching for whatever was nearest (Frey’s arm if he had any recollection or understanding in his panic).

Each breath felt more laboured than the last, struggling to fill his lungs as he clawed and gasped. Please. Please. Oh Gods make it stop.

Mercy didn’t understand. She didn’t understand any of it. Other than it was all wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong. Only the scar on her hand throbbed and flared as it always did when Arthur was in distress, though the fact brought little comfort.  

She didn’t know her touch was hurting him, and could only assume that in his bleariness he was confused and frightened as he seemed to fight against her hold. But then as suddenly as he’d been trying to push her away, something shifted, and he was grasping for purchase instead. His clawing, scrambling hands seeking anything to hold onto, anything that would hold him steady as the world spun out of control and he started to panic. Sucking in lungfuls of air that would never be enough to satiate his shell-shocked body’s desperate need for oxygen. 

“Breathe, Aren…” Mercy said, holding onto him as best she could without making anything worse. “Breathe for me…” She clasped his hands and pressed them to her chest as she spoke, hoping the deliberately slow  rise and fall of her breathing would help him slow his own. “Breathe in…” Inhale. “Breathe out…” Exhale. Mercy would’ve used her power to try and influence his psychological state, but her Fury magic had never affected him. So she didn’t waste her energy. “Breathe in… breathe out… I’ve got you… you’re safe…” Mercy would repeat the mantra as long as she needed to. As long as it took to bring him back to right. 

The panic was instantaneous as shock began to set in, bewilderment at his own sheer inability to control himself. The room dropped several more degrees as Arthur’s body shuddered. He was left gasping to try and draw in much needed air while utterly unable to stabilise its core temperature that was steadily beginning to creep higher and higher steam rising in the cold air of the room before it would plummet just as quickly as a candle being snuffed out. “W-What’s g-going on?” 

In an instant he was plunged into the memories of a similar time of panic, an alternate dreamscape, a different time - in aid of a friend that had ultimately been for naught. For that friend was long since gone. Yet it was a time that he’d felt water for the very first time without pain, only to realise his inability to swim and almost drowned in the process.

So he clawed and grasped at the only anchor that existed in the moment, the only anchor that had ever existed across all of time until with time his mind began to quieten once more and the white noise began to fade into the rhythmic instructions of a familiar voice. 

Breathe in. 

Breathe out. 

Breathe. 

Several more minutes passed until the room gradually warmed, Arthur’s breathing growing calmer until he could turn his face into her arm. Another full minute came and went before he was wracked with another bout of shivers before weakly attempting to push himself back into a sitting position. “What happened?”

Mercy opened her mouth to tell him… something… anything… that might explain what was happening. But the truth was, Mercy had no idea. As long as they’d known one another, something like this had never happened. Was it the letter? Had trying to burn it caused some… critical disruption of Arthur’s magic? But no… there had been episodes of his powers malfunctioning - for lack of a better term - for a bit now. Whatever it was, it couldn’t continue indefinitely. Mercy’s breath shuddered as the temperature dropped again, but she ignored it. She would be alright, despite the way the cold made the few scars she had ache miserably. As for his question… “We’ll figure it out, I promise… but right now you have to try and breathe, okay?” 

The minutes seemed to stretch into hours until Arthur finally seemed to stabilize. When he was breathing normally again - or as close as he was likely to get at the moment - Mercy fell quiet. She stayed by his side, gently stroking his hair and then pressing a hand to his forehead to check his temperature when he shivered. When he tried to sit up, she gave him a bit of space, but kept a hand on his shoulder to steady him. Again, came his question. This time, Mercy was honest. “I don’t know. You tried to burn the letter, and then...” She frowned, but eventually relayed the short version of what had happened. 

“How d’you feel?” she asked, though it was clear he did not feel great. Not one bit. “Does anything hurt?”

Arthur blinked slowly, his head throbbing with each breath he took to fill his lungs and he rolled his tongue across his teeth, the parchment dry space of his mouth an uncomfortable sensation as he listened to Mercy talk. He wanted a drink and yet the very thought of having anything made him feel like his stomach would turn over on itself. There was little else he could do but sit and try to do as instructed.

“No,” he answered the question after a few moments of silence, his voice cracking when he chose to speak and he had to close his eyes for a moment to fight against the wave of sudden nausea that overcame him. “I-” he shivered again pulling his jacket tighter around his body “cold and sick.” Certainly not fit to stay here, eventually he opened his eyes looking tiredly at Freyja. “can we go home, please?”

Mercy frowned, unable to keep the concern from her expression. That nothing pained him was a small blessing at least. But the fact did nothing for the tight knot of fear that twisted in her gut. Or the helplessness she felt as Arthur shivered, his normally heated skin terrifyingly cold and pale. It wasn’t the first time she’d seen him sick or hurt, but this was different. “Of course…” She took off her scarf and tucked it gently around his neck. “Of course we can go home.” 

As she buttoned his jacket so it wouldn’t slip loose, Mercy refused to think about what might happen if he had another episode like this. Or gods forbid… one that was worse. Instead, she turned all her attention to the here and now. To taking Arthur home and making him better. Everything else - the letter, Arthur’s marking, and the growing ache in Mercy’s arm - could wait.

~

[danetobelieve]

Morgue Demolition Derby || Ariana, Cece, Grace, Leah & Winston

When: before the morgue scream Who:@danetobelieve​, @thebickedwitchoftherest​, @silveraccent​, @phoenixleah​ & @letsbenditlikebennett​ Where: The Morgue Summary: the dead rise again and five ‘friends’ band together to stop them. Warnings: gore content warning, violence cw, dead bodies cw 

Winston was heading out of the morgue. It was the third time that they’d been there since they’d blasted a corpse with Grace and honestly for a while they’d really struggled to make eye contact with her. But time had passed and honestly, Winston was struggling to think about anything other than Roland’s death and the fact that there was nothing that they could do to change it. They weren’t going to mess around with necromancy again, not after the consequences of the last time and they didn’t really know what they were going to do to move on with their life so they just worked. They worked and worked and worked and pretended that everything was normal and worked some more. Except it wasn’t normal. Nothing was normal. Nothing at all was normal anymore. Their phone buzzed and Winston quickened their pace, they’d completely forgotten that they’d agreed to meet Leah outside of the morgue. They were definitely going to be late. Things just slipped their mind now more then they had before. 

Leah never considered herself a selfish person, but there was definitely an ulterior motive to her excitement at retrieving her book from Winston at the morgue.  There was always something new to learn about White Crest, something lurking in the shadows or right in front of people that deniers didn’t want to see.  And in all her time living in the town, the morgue was a place she’d never been.  That was a blessing, really, she wasn’t sad that she never had to go to the morgue.  But now that she had a chance to even see the inside made her practically jump with excitement.  As usual, she arrived a bit too early, but she sent a quick text to Winston to let them know she arrived and there was no rush.  She leaned against the building as she waited, thrilled to at least get a peek inside.  

All Ariana wanted to do was shake away the now permanent feeling of dread that seemed to live in her. She’d been stuck between keeping herself preoccupied and wanting to sulk away on her couch with Luna and sometimes Blanche. Celeste was dead. Winn was dead. She’d probably worry for Ace until he was a wolf and with her full time. Still, she’d made so many friends here and wanted to maintain those relationships. They were what pushed her most days when things felt hopeless and Grace was becoming a quick friend. Definitely a great neighbor. It’s why she decided against cancelling their dinner plans. She’d pulled up to the morgue and put the car in park. She shot Grace a text, but was surprised to see another familiar face. She hopped out her truck and called out, “Leah?” While she didn’t know the woman well, she had taken care of Layla when she was a cat. “What are you doing here?” 

Seeing Winston at the morgue had not only trudged up Grace’s uneasiness, but seeing Cece, too-- it was too close for comfort. A reminder of not only what had happened when she and Winston had been in the morgue those weeks ago, but her conversation at the bar, too. The secrets she was desperately trying to keep from reaching Regan’s ears, and for what? Though, she wasn’t sure that there’d be any point in hiding it… Cece was sure to tell, right? Grace was grateful for the distraction, the appearance of a newfound friend, one that she felt as though she could trust by proxy, thanks to Blanche. She caught the text light up her phone just as she left her office, careful to make sure that the door closed behind her. She waved at Ariana from the door as she left the building, her phone in her hand. She saw Winston heading outside too, and Grace swallowed thickly. She followed them towards the two in the parking lot, only recognizing Ariana. She tossed a glance over her shoulder at Cece’s words, eyebrows pulled together.

Things around work hadn’t been the same. Unsurprisingly, considering the recent deaths in town. A personal one, Winn’s death hadn’t been easy to process, especially when she had been the one running the tests on his body. As for Roland, his death had been hard one everyone. Cece had only had a chance to to talk to him on occasion, had dragged him out with her just once. Cece tried not to get too caught up in mourning. Too much death in her life to give in fully to the grief everytime. But Roland’s death had affected the morgue almost as much as it was hurting the WCPD. Things had been strangely quiet around, and Cece was ready to dip out early for the night. She was walking out of the morgue when she spotted all the people around it. Winston and Grace, the only two people that might actually have any business hanging around a medical office’s building. Then two girls who Cece didn’t recognize. “Wow, who knew this place was so popular with the kids?” Cece asked, glancing between the group, “You all looking for a tour guide or what?”

She’d been playing with her phone when Ariana pulled up, so Leah didn’t notice the other woman’s presence until she called out to her.  “Oh hey!”, she said, shoving her phone into her back pocket.  “I’m picking something up from Winston”, she explained.  Despite not knowing Ariana very well, there was a bit of an ease about being around her.  Leah wondered if it was because she definitely was aware of the supernatural.  It was inexplicably easier when there weren’t any pretenses to hold up.  “Do you know them?”  She couldn’t help but let out a chuckle at the idea of being called a kid, but she smiled at the new presence all the same.  “I’m just waiting for someone”, she said.  Although, if she were being honest, the idea of a tour guide for the morgue sounded intriguing right about now.

It seemed to take everything a bit longer to settle in for Winston. Not only did they feel numb to so many of their emotions but in so many ways they felt physically numb too. So they didn’t really notice Grace or Cece or even Ariana until they were right there. Looking up Winston forced a nervous chuckle. “Ha, no not quite, although, maybe we should start offering tours of the morgue as a side hustle or something.” Not very funny. Who wanted to see dead bodies in the morgue. Winston locked eyes with Ariana curiously for a moment before exhaling a long breath. “Ariana is a good friend of mine, but I was actually meeting Leah because she’d borrowed a book off of me and I was here for … y’know work.” Winston forced a brief smile, about to ask Grace why she was meeting Ariana when they heard a grossly familiar noise. What sounded like a lump of flesh wetly landing on the concrete pavement of the street. Turning, Winston was horrified to see that there was indeed a large lump for flesh and it was indeed on the pavement. But it was what was above it that worried Winston. “Oh for fucks sake,” Winston said as they spotted the reanimated corpse … no reanimated corpses that were emerging from the morgue that they had just left, “not again.” 

“Maybe we should,” Grace said offhandedly, “maybe if we do, we can charge an entry fee-- it’ll get us better snacks, who knows.” Grace tugged her bag closer to her shoulder before she shifted her attention to Ariana, doing her best to ignore the way that Winston’s nerves were rolling off of them. There was something different, too. She chalked it up to be mourning, however, the telltale signs loud and clear, even for somebody who didn’t have her gift. She cleared her throat in an attempt to dislodge the sudden uneasiness she felt. She glanced over to the woman whose name she now knew as Leah-- an individual she had spoken to online a few times, but nothing more. Grace was about to introduce herself when she froze, the all too familiar sound echoing inside of her head. She had tried to wash herself of the sound with all of the audio she could think of, but it still haunted her. She turned around to look towards the door, just in time to see a corpse fumble their way through the door. “Oh--” she took a step back and grabbed Winston’s shirt sleeve to pull them back, too. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Grace gasped as she stared. It was like that day in the morgue all over again, only worse. There were a few corpses headed their way, their slick hands pressed to the glass in an attempt to leave, two confidently followed after the one that had made their way onto the sidewalk before the small group. “Uh, Winston--?” Grace managed to stutter out.

It was nice running into Leah again. Ariana had been eternally grateful to her for taking care of Layla while she was a cat and she appreciated not having to hide the more wolf-like aspects of her personality. “I do know them, actually, they’re one of my best friends,” she answered and as if on cue, everyone seemed to be walking out. She hadn’t expected to see Winston here, but she gave them a wave. “Winston, wasn’t expecting to see you here. You know Grace,” she asked excitedly, but was quickly caught off guard by a smell. She wrote of the smell of dead bodies as she remembered they were all at the morgue, but she heard something approaching too. She did her best to drown out everyone’s chatter, which was apparently needless as she looked up and saw a bunch… dead looking people walking? “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” she mumbled and looked up to the whatever they were and let out a snarl. They didn’t smell great, so resorting to being a wolf to fight them would not be a pleasant experience. That and there were a bunch of people here. “Does anyone know what these are,” she looked between Winston and Leah, “and if you do, will claws work?”  

Winston’s heart was hammering in their chest and for the first time in almost two weeks they weren’t immediately thinking about Roland. Then they couldn’t help but think about what Roland’s reanimated corpse would look like. They never really went anywhere without a few gadgets that they could use to protect themselves. Not after everything that had been going on recently. But the enchanted net bomb they’d made would deal with a maximum of one of these things and the smoke bomb and sonic grenade weren’t going to do anything here. “They’re reanimated corpses,” Winston said stepping in front of Grace and taking long deep breaths in an attempt to settle into the serene space that they needed to summon their magic, “it’s a necromancy thing, when you don’t do it properly or you don’t have a sufficient sacrifice then you like end up with these corpses that don’t really have agency but they’re also not evil necessarily, they can be directed at the caster’s will and it’s all … yeah it’s super fucked up.” Winston looked around worried, there were cameras everywhere and it was the middle of the day. There weren’t exactly members of the public here but it was only a matter of time. Winston couldn’t help but wonder what the paper would say about all of this.

Well, this was annoying. Right as Cece was done for the night, these reanimated corpses that Grace had talked about were back at it again. One time could have been a mistake, an amateur necromancer testing their powers and fucking something up. But it was happening again, which implied something darker. This was on purpose, and seeing as how it was happening around the two of them again, it seemed to be pointed as well. That wasn’t a great sign for Winston, Grace or anyone that worked for the morgue. Sucked for these two randoms hanging around the morgue too. “Well, this totally ruined introductions.” Cece sighed and dropped her bag on the ground. That one wasn’t going to be any use to her. “Cece Bishop. Toxicologist, all around fun time. Reanimated corpse specialist. Nice to meet two.” She waved over to the two new faces and then glanced over towards Grace and Winston, “I should be able to make sure that no other cadavers can be brought back from the morgue, but it’ll take some time.” 

Leah opened her mouth to simultaneously say something back to Ariana and greet Winston when a sound she hadn’t heard before caught her attention instead.  She turned her head to examine the intrusion, taken aback by what she was seeing.  To someone who didn’t know better, they might have looked like zombies.  But the chatters of those around her confirmed what she already knew- these weren’t really zombies at all, but reanimated corpses.  “Shit.”, she said, glancing at Winston for a cue of what to do next.  She followed their  gaze to the cameras and felt a familiar panic rise in her chest.  “I take it you’ve dealt with these before?” she called over to Winston and Grace.  At the introduction, Cece she learned, mentioned that she was a specialist on these things.  “Leah”, she said with a nod of her head, way too focused on the problem at hand to deal with the pleasantries of a proper introduction.  This woman was a specialist on this, apparently.  Leah wondered if she’d like to sit down and chat one day, and unknowingly add invaluable knowledge to the Ramirez Scribe Journals. There was no time to worry about that now, though, when there was perfectly good learning material right in front of her.  “So, uh… what’s the best way to go about this?”

Grace flinched at the sound of a limb plopping to the ground. She reached out instinctively, ready to pull Winston out of harm's way if it came to that. Ariana’s words weren’t lost on her, but Grace decided that she didn’t have time to focus on it, or to worry about it. She looked to Winston as they mumbled things that Grace, when it had originally happened, she couldn’t quite understand. Now, she felt she knew enough, even if it were surface level. There was a general unease and discomfort that blanketed their little group, as well as a fear that made her skin crawl. “Well, uh--” Grace didn’t want to out Winston for having taken care of them last time, but wouldn’t they be outing them again? She reached out to tug at their shirt sleeve, “Winston?” She peeped out, her gaze never unmoving from the corpses as they continued forward. Cece’s words were supposed to reassure her, and she knew that, but they just made her all the more uncomfortable-- how many times would they have to deal with these? “We should-- we should get back, probably.” Grace said as she dropped her hand from Winston’s shirt and backed up towards Ariana. “They uh, they need to be obliterated,” Grace said in response to Leah in a shaky voice. Not much I can do here, Grace thought. It wasn’t like she could emote them to death, or, rather, out of their existence. 

Reanimated corpses. Ariana really hated that and instinctively took a step ahead of the others. She noticed Grace kept close to her and Cece’s introductions were nearly lost on her. Apparently she was a specialist in these things at least. “I’m Ariana,” she responded curtly, “Carpenter and much tougher than I look. So what do I have to do to make these fuckers stay dead?” As they approached closer, instinct kicked in and she let out a low growl. She focused on keeping herself in her more human form and eyed down the corpses that walked toward them. The inclination to fight was kicking in and she asked, “Can I like… punch them away?” Claws and teeth would be easier, but she could throw down MMA style, too, if she had to. She was thankful Celeste had been so insistent she learned how to properly defend herself. Hopefully, that could come into play here. 

Winston felt their heart racing. For once they weren’t thinking about everything else that had been going on in their life. For once they were filled with adrenaline and they could focus. Hell fighting reanimated corpses was something that would keep them distracted right? “I’m glad that we all know each other, in case anyone missed it I am Winston, now that we’ve got the introductions out of the way let’s do our best to not die.” Winston flashed a nervous smile and stepped forward. “Yeah so unfortunately we may have run into one earlier….” they looked around, fortunately the street was relatively deserted. “I think you can do whatever you need to do to stop them Ari but maybe” they couldn’t exactly say no biting and out Ariana as not a human, “try not to get any fluids in your eyes or mouth or anything because that’s rotten flesh and it’s probably full of gross bacteria and diseases and fucking … dark magic and shit.” Swallowing, Winston tried to reach the place of serenity they accessed whenever they used their magic. It wasn’t exactly easy but they needed it now. “Cece we can try and keep you free from this,” was Cece a witch too? Winston wasn’t sure how they had missed this but they would definitely need to have a chat about all of this later on, “I normally just do this,” Winston summoned as much magic as they could and blasted it at one of the corpses who took the force straight to their chest and slammed into a lamp post with a fairly explosive force, bits of body flying everywhere as they collided with the lamp post. “Whatever works though.” 

Cece was totally lying. If she was an expert on necromancy and corpses she might as well also be the queen of Whales. Why not pile on the fibs while she was at it. But she had dealt with the undead before, and more than just the normal undead like vampires and zombies. A former member of the coven and current inmate of some jail not far enough away from Maine had dealt almost exclusively in necromancy. She had been absolutely nuts, hanging around cemeteries and watching funerals only to reanimate them after and send them off just to fuck with people. As far as that joke had gone, she had really overplayed it. It had only been funny like the first two times at most. The child was pretty fiery, offering to punch the undead, and Winston manifested their magic physically like Captain Marvel and shot it off. Impressive bunch. “As far as the undead go, they’re not exactly indestructible. They’re rotting away, it’s only because of the magic that their body can even stay upright. But it’s like a jenga tower, it doesn't take much to knock them down. Keeping them down is another thing, if the necromancer is good they can effectively piece them back together.” Cece had seen it before. Between Winston and Ariana, which both looked ready to pick a fight with the corpses stumbling their way, Cece figured she could be better used on the inside. “Good idea. Kick their asses and all that. I can make sure that whoever is doing this isn’t able to steal corpses from the morgue again. I just need to set some stuff up inside the morgue.”

They need to be obliterated.  Ugh.  Leah chanced a glanced once again at the cameras that seemed to surround them, watching their every move.  She faced a tough decision: Try hand to hand combat, admittedly something that she was never good at (she should have taken Nell up on those lessons) with a bunch of corpses and risk an embarrassingly easy bone break, or risk extreme exposure to not only all of these strangers here, but to the cameras as well, and just set all of the corpses on fire.  The second option would be decidedly more fun, but she wasn’t sure it was the right choice, not quite yet.  “So do these assholes feel pain?” she asked to no one in particular, eyeing one that was getting dangerously close to her.  She watched out of the corner of her eye as Winston blasted one of the corpses back, their magic as impressive as ever.  For her part, she squared up, giving the corpse closest to her a swift kick in the gut.  She stared triumphantly as it seemed to stumble, but the pride lasted only momentarily.  Although sluggishly, it began to right itself without a second thought, clearly unphased by her badass kick.  “Uhh...Winston? Do you happen to know if our new friends here are...flammable?”

Grace hadn’t missed the way that Winston had warned Ariana against getting any of the corpses’ fluids in her mouth. Why would that have been an issue? Grace’s gaze flickered between the corpses, to the group. She had seen what Winston was capable of, but that had been one. They were now faced with multiple upright corpses, and Grace felt the nerves begin to lodge themselves into her skin. Winston threw the same force that they had done previously and she winced. She hated the sound it made when it hit the ground, it had haunted her dreams, but it was better than seeing them tear the faces off of her friends, or whatever it was they were on a mission to do. The nerves from the group were running high, and all of it was rubbing off on Grace. There was agitation, too-- determination, maybe. Grace cleared her throat as she looked at Leah, eyebrows pulled together, “They should be-- they’re--” She looked at them, they were clothed. “Do you have molotovs or something?” Was she suddenly in a video game? Grace took a step back so that she was closer to Cece.

Sweat glistened on Winston’s forehead and they glanced around them as more corpses shambled towards them in a mess of attention that Winston didn’t want to be dealing with now. But they didn’t really have any choice. “I’ll do something about the cameras,” they muttered as they reached out with their mind, the eye on their hand itched and for a second their vision was clouded with a kaleidoscope of pictures, most of them of a rag tag group of …. Well supernaturals who were fighting the undead. Winston knew that they were looking at themselves and it didn’t take them long to get the cameras to point the other way and erase their own footage. “We should be safe to … really let loose if we wanted to…” they didn’t know if Leah or Ariana really wanted to do that, but better safe then sorry, “as for flammable, they’re about as flammable as a human, but I could probably try and do something about that if there was more of a fuel source available.” But short of siphoning petrol from a car Winston didn’t exactly have a good suggestion as to how to do that.  

Offer to eat a squid monster one time and have to hear about it every battle that followed. Sounded about right. If it had just been Winston and Ariana, she would have already turned this into a dead dude buffet. “Hmph,” she pouted. She ate a venomous vampire and nothing bad happened besides a bit of a stomach ache, “I still think it would work.” Maybe he hadn’t totally given her away, but she wasn’t all that interested in concealing her identity, especially considering the hoards of reanimated corpses. With the confirmation she could in fact fight the corpses, she charged forward with fists ready to do some damage. She grabbed the first one who approached her by their very brittle shoulder and slammed it into the building causing it to fall apart. She was kick to kick the body parts far away from each other as if it could help the change of reanimation. Another came toward her and she growled at it as she raised her fist to throw in a hard punch. The thing seemed to collapse and her instinct was to kick and punch until these things stopped coming. 

“Did you just fuck with those cameras?” Cece questioned, glancing over at Winston curiously before breaking into a grin, “Sick. That’s impressive.” As far as physical combat went, Cece was not completely useless. She knew enough, and Tanner had taught her a bit with the coven while they planned to get away. But she was far from slaughtering an undead army. Winston was right, unless these bodies were completely destroyed they would just keep getting back up. Unless they were cut off at the head. If Cece could create a ward around the autopsy room, this necromancer’s entire power source would be cut off. Wouldn’t save the dead bodies out here, but they couldn’t get anymore at least. It was a start. “Well, while you all are Teen Titaning your way through these, maybe you could clear me a path to the morgue? I’d really appreciate not getting gnawed on by someone who’s urine I’ve tested. That would piss me off.” Cece let the joke marinate for a moment before glancing around, “Piss. Like urine. Get it?” She laughed to herself before trying to focus back on the task at hand.

“Back up!” Leah warned the corpse, who, understandably, didn’t listen.  Thank god for Winston for blocking those camera’s, because she could tell that trying to be modest with these things would be the quickest way to keep this group, and the rest of White Crest, in danger.  “I’ll figure it out!” she yelled back at Winston, giving them a quick thumbs up.  She gave the one in front of her another kick to the gut, watching in satisfaction as it fell backwards.  If the corpses themselves weren’t flammable without fuel, their clothes would certainly be easier to set on fire.  It wouldn’t slow them down nearly as much, but it was a start, right?  She set her gaze on the disoriented corpse’s shirt, causing the heat of the fabric to rise higher and higher, until… “Oh, how convenient, this one’s clothes just randomly set on fire!” she called, giving it another kick to the gut for good measure, ignoring the flames.  She grabbed one by the hair that seemed to be making it’s way toward Cece, pulling it back with all her might.  The gesture made it tumble on top of the one she had previously been fighting, and she grinned at success.  “Nice”, she said to Cece, though she couldn’t find time to laugh at the pun in this particular moment.

Grace braced herself for the sound of the flesh hitting the ground once more. It made her stomach turn in on itself. She hated the way it sounded like liquid. Grace knew that when it had happened before, Winston had taken care of the cameras, no sweat. She was grateful that they had the same kind of thinking now. They were in a bigger group, and she knew there wasn’t much she could do. It wasn’t like she could emote the corpses back to the grave. In fact, she couldn’t feel anything from them. It made sense, though. They weren’t alive, they were just… beings, walking forward, moving because that’s what they were being told to do. Grace blanched at the sight of the corpses as they began to ignite in flames. How was that possible? She swiveled her gaze between the group, suddenly feeling out of place. Grace backed up slightly, away from the majority of the group, but close enough so that she could still reach out and drag one of them away if it were needed. “Cece,” Grace groaned as she realized the woman’s joke. “Come on.” 

There were so many of these corpses that Ariana wasn’t sure how long she could keep this up. Especially when they kept rising from the ground shortly after she knocked them out. Her fists and feet could barely move fast enough, but hope was found when Cece was asking for a path to be clear. With a nod that strengthened her resolve, she said, “Clear a path, you got it.” She quickly darted toward the corpses that were blocking Cece’s path and began kicking them into pieces as quickly as she could. The smell of smoke filled her nose and her head whipped around. She raised an eyebrow at Leah’s remark on the fire. She was pretty sure that wasn’t how things worked, but she wasn’t about to push it in the middle of a fight. The brief lack of focus led to a corpse grabbing her by the shoulders. She was quick to grab its arm and flip them over her shoulder. The body parts quickly came apart and she went back to fighting more to clear out a solid path for Cece. 

Working on the cameras, blasting things with magic, the exertion of magic was something that Winston was never going to get used to. Sweat poured down their back as they worked. It wasn’t as if there was a lot of flammable liquid around them, but there was a petrol tank full of it in their car which was parked at the other end of the lot and although they had never siphoned fuel before Winston was pretty sure that the theory was simple enough. Working an engine to get it to spit fuel out however was less easy. “Keep them busy and I’ll make them more … flammable.” At least Leah didn’t seem to mind too much. Winston reached into the mechanisms of the car once more, sincerely hoping that this worked because they’d never tried technomancy on a car before, churning it’s cogs they managed to force the petrol out of the car the way that it came in, it hit the fuel cap which pinged open with a splash and Winston managed to catch most of the fuel before dousing a good number of the undead bodies with them. “Leah, if you’d please do … the … honours,” their eyelids felt heavy, their limbs like they were packed with lead, “that should clear the way.”

If there was anything that Cece specialized in after alchemy, it was warding. It had been a skill learned more through necessity than personal interest. While chemistry had been something Cece had enjoyed her entire life that naturally lead into a talent for alchemy, warding had been something that Cece had begun studying only after she was planning her escape from the coven. She knew she’d need protection and ways to stop them from tracking her. As it turned out, warding had more use than Cece had originally given it credit for at the age of twenty. Six years may not have been that long in the grand scheme of things, but it was like night and day compared to the life Cece had lived before getting to White Crest. With the help of some surprisingly violent children, Cece slipped through the crowds of undead and got to the morgue. She got to work quickly, ignoring the bodies for the most part and assuming that the rest of the group would be able to keep them at bay. Her purse had turned into a mini supernatural pharmacy, more and more things being added to it as she realized that it may come in handy in a bind. A ward against necromancy wasn’t difficult, especially since she already had such a ready supply of rotting flesh and magic used to revive the dead. The end result was a dark ashen powder, that Cece sprinkled around the doorways into the Morgue and mumbled a spell against it while glancing over at the rest of the group. Was Winston spraying gas at those corpses? Sick. Cece flicked her lighter and pressed the flame against the powder on the ground. As it caught, the fire changed from it’s red and orange color to a sickly green, racing across the ash and glowing there for a minute as it slowly burned away at the powder. The fire finally died once the ash had completely burned away and Cece turned towards the group and gave a thumbs up before yelling over, “Should be good on my side! No more Corpse brides coming out of this building. Just got to wrap up here!”

“You’re a rockstar, Winston, I’m buying you lunch after this”, Leah shouted to them between breaths.  Everything seemed to be happening all at once, but she couldn’t focus on anything too long.  She had a job to do here, they all did.  If these things managed to get past them all unharmed, most citizens of White Crest would love their mind. Thanks to Winston, she wouldn’t have to just focus on the clothes now, but the reanimated corpses themselves.  It would make things a lot quicker.. She took a step back, choosing to stand behind Ariana so she could focus as she did her work.  One by one, she focused on the corpses, raising their body temperature enough that, thanks to Winton’s quick thinking with the gas, caused them to seemingly spontaneously combust.  It was intoxicating to see all of them lit up, and she had to actively stop herself before she got carried away.  With their bodies being so weak, most of their heads just tumbled right off after being ablaze for barely a minute.  The rest, the group took care of rather easily.  After the okay from Cece, Leah finally turned her attention away from the corpses, who at this point where all re-dead and burnt to a crisp anyway.  She let out a heavy breath, looking between the group.  “Thank Fate you all were here to take care of that…”, she said, ignoring any part she had to play in it.  Hopefully everyone would just assume that whatever ward Cece had put up had somehow affected the corpses as well.  “I don’t suppose this victory means I get to see the inside of the morgue after all?”

The scene that unfolded before Grace was a violent one. She watched as Ariana ran forward, her tiny fists bludgeoning the corpses to death. She opened her mouth to tell her to come back, but she closed it shortly thereafter, noticing the way that the tiny girl took them down with ease. How could that be possible? She looked down at her own two hands, but was interrupted by the smell of gasoline. She whipped her head around to watch as Winston worked on spraying the corpses down with the liquid, and then as Cece bolted towards the morgue. She wanted to yell for people to stop, but she had to trust them, that they knew what they were doing. Before she could think of much else, the corpses were lit, the smell of burning flesh and gasoline curling around Grace’s nose, making her stomach turn over. She watched in horror as the bodies sank to the ground, melting into the asphalt. She stared wide-eyed, unable to move. White Crest certainly was no normal setting, that much was for certain. “Holy shit.” Grace muttered under her breath as she blinked at Cece who was working on something at the doors of the morgue. Even if she wanted to, Grace wasn’t certain she’d be able to completely understand what had just happened. 

Everything happened all at once and frankly Winston was pretty fucking exhausted after the amount of magic that they had been forced to use. They might have been able to get a hold of the technomancy stuff early on, but the truth was that they were still very new to everything and they were still working on a lot. It wasn’t something that was going to be easy but they couldn’t help but feel a little drained from it all when they were using the magic. Sweating gently, Winston gasped for air. “Why the fuck does this keep happening?” Winston asked, “I would love for us to all stay and chat but I think that we should seriously think about getting out of here before anyone else turns up. I don’t want anyone to get found … out.” They didn’t wait for the reply, heading towards their car. “If anyone needs a ride you’re obviously … you’re welcome y’know.”

[themidnightfarmer]

Good weekend boss? || Metzli & Jared

Location: The gallery

Tagging: @deathisanartmetzli​

Description: Getting to know who you work with. 😊

Triggers: none i think?

Jared was bustling as fast as he could into work. Carrying a cup of coffee and a bag of some things he could leave in the lunch room for people who’d missed breakfast. Though admittedly no one had taken him up on his offerings yet. Why no one wanted his mushroom and mayo bagels or spam and pickle wraps he would never know, maybe today would be the day. When he had some spare cash he’d buy something instead of making it himself. But that was a problem for another time. It took him around ten minutes into his shift before he found himself in the back looking for a piece and found his boss amongst the art. 

“Morning.” he greeted cheerfully a smile adorning his face for all of two seconds before it fell. “Good weekend boss?” The nymph inquired with uncertainty. 

Without breaking concentration on the work they were focused on, Metzli gave Jared a single wave before greeting verbally. “Morning, Mr. Gordon. Yes, I had a rager of a weekend. Multiple BDSM orgies.” A playful lie in hopes that they wouldn’t get any more questions. The weight on their chest was heavy enough from the anxiety of being in the building that Eloy knew about. Several times the night prior, they nearly called all of their employees to lay them off, close the gallery and stay inside. But that would be giving in. 

“And what the hell did you bring into this building? Your food smells awful and I could smell it from here.” Metzli finally looked up and let their eyes meet with Jared’s. The bruising had faded significantly, but it wasn’t enough to go unnoticed. “Are you looking for a specific piece or are you in need of help? I can give you more in depth training after your lunch break.”

The response was certainly not what he’d been expecting whatsoever. Enough to make this grown man blush. He opened and closed his mouth a few times letting out a soft sort of embarrassed laugh. “Really? Huh, wow okay cool. Pretty good weekend then I guess…” He trailed off. Although his eyes lingered on the marks and wondered if it was usual to be so injured...and deciding quickly that it wasn’t his business and he was DEFINITELY not going to be asking.

Jared bumbled over with his clipboard of paperwork and smiled. “I brought breakfast just in case anyone skipped it. Strong smell, great taste. It’s the good stuff!” He insisted. “Did you miss breakfast? I’ve been trying to coax some of the others, but maybe they’re too shy just yet because I’m so new…” His brain became alight with worry however as their eyes met. Completely missing the offer of more training or help with his current task he broke his own rules by asking further. “Are you uh...sure it was a fun weekend? I don’t want to like….pry too much but… you’re not looking so good…”

“The greatest.” Metzli droned, and went back to using their magnifying glass on the painting. They had just been sold a genuine Liu Wei, based on their current analysis. But their task didn’t last very long since Jared decided the conversation was still going. A fuse that was normally so long and rarely met its end, was much shorter now. Choking back a growl, they locked onto the food topic and stuck with it for as long as they could. “I don’t eat human food, Mr. Gordon. I can’t even taste it. And based on the smell of the combinations, I’m sure others would love to be blessed with—” The end of the sentence never came, they were too caught up with the genuine concern in not only Jared’s face, but his tone as well. 

Squeezing the magnifying glass, they placed it down next to the painting and circled around the table. Metzli looked like they were about to yell, go off on Jared, but they didn’t. Face softened and they sighed. There wasn’t enough energy to be angry or irritated. The vampire was simply just too tired. “No, it was not a good weekend. It was not a good week. But I’m alive. That’s all I could really hope for.”

His breakfast offering was far from his mind as Metzli rounded the table. Jared stayed where he stood, but raised the clipboard between them defensively as if that were to stop the other from throwing a punch for being so nosey. Belatedly recognising a punch was unlikely but a thorough dressing down was much more likely to be on the cards. 

“Alive is good.” The nymph commented dumbly. He stood unsure what to do for only a second before lowering the clipboard and reaching out tentatively to pat the vampire on the shoulder very gently. “Is there something I can do? I know it’s likely not something you wanna talk about or anything like that. But if something is ongoing I can maybe help. Or if it’s over and you just want to get it outta your system I can set something up.” Giving Jared this job was an incredible favour in the nymphs eyes and he’d try to return that as best as he could.

The sudden touch made Metzli lash out, grabbing Jared’s arm brashly and pulling it off. The hold threatened to be harmful, but their contracted pupils dilated, marking their mind’s return. “S-sorry. Please, don’t touch me.” Touch wasn’t something they let happen easily. Not the kind that was gentle or tender. There was too much room for deception, too much vulnerability. There were one too many times where their mother tricked them into a hug just so she could get them to come out for a punishment. Eloy did the same. “Not sure anyone can help. But that’s okay.” Posture sank and shoulders dropped despairingly. They couldn’t even help themselves, so how could anyone else do it?

“Why would you want to help anyway? We’ve met each other once.”

Jared flinched at the sudden and rather rough removal of his hand from their shoulder. Shaking his head and withdrawing a few steps to give Metzli more space around themselves. “Ah no it’s fine, sorry I forget not everyone needs the same sorts of things when things are tough.” He clutches the clipboard firmly with both hands in order to show that he won’t be reaching out again. Shooting an apologetic smile their way. “Well not sure isn’t the same as ‘can’t’ right? There’s always a chance?” Moving around the table to the other side he pushes the chair out from underneath on the other side and nods at it for his boss to take. Placing himself firmly on the other side of the table a nice safe distance from accidentally touching them again.

“Why shouldn’t I offer help if I can give it? You gave me a job. You carried me outta the way of the cops back on the street. Would be pretty shitty of me not to care at least a little about you.”

Metzli took the seat warily. It still made no sense that he wanted to help, and they were growing suspicious. Even given what they had done for him, they saw those things as favors for themself. “I did those things for me. Who’s to say you wouldn’t have ratted me out if I hadn’t moved you? And I needed a new-hire immediately. I know a lot about being an asshole considering I don’t even have a soul. Most of the shit I do is self-serving.” They shrugged and leaned back into their seat, crossing their arms. 

“You’re not bound to do anything, are you? Pretty sure the only thing you actually owe me is a meal.” Tone was doubtful and had no ounce of trust, especially for someone they did not know. “If you really wanna know, my master—my sire is after me. So I’ve been a little on edge.” They admitted a little crestfallen.

“Just because it benefitted you doesn’t mean it didn’t also really help me out?” Jared said with a dumbfounded expression. “I mean sure maybe your intention wasn’t to do good by me, but it ended up really helping me out...I uh….don’t really know what to do with the knowledge that you don’t have a soul though I mean...what does that even really mean?” The whole thought of not having a soul was lost on him completely. Weren’t they sort of fundamental? But then again if Metzli didn’t have one then he wasn’t sure what that even meant anymore, they seemed to be doing alright to him after all.

“No, not bound to anything more than another meal.” Unfortunately for the both of them, Metzlis explanation didn’t actually clear very much up for the nymph. “Your boss messed you up like that? That’s… damn that’s-...” He didn’t have words to convey what his expression likely would. A healthy mixture of confusion and a hint of disgust. 

An empty chuckle rang out and Metzli ran a hand through their hair. There was just so much going on. “You don’t have to do anything with that information. It just means I’m more of an asshole than most.” Their eyes rolled and frustration began to brew. Not at Jared, but at everything in general. Nothing was ever simple, but dammit why couldn’t it be at least simpler?

“Not my ‘boss’ but his little minions. I used to be one of them and he’s pretty angry that I’m not anymore. He doesn’t like to lose.” Metzli scoffed at their loose lips and bit the inside of their cheek to stop from revealing any more information. “Don’t know how you could help, but that’s fine. I’ll figure it out. Like I said, at least I’m alive.”

“Well...I guess some people are assholes even with a soul so it’s a good...excuse?” It was a valiant attempt to put a positive spin on things but he knew that was likely not something Metzli wanted. It was all he could think to do. Jared quickly shook his head and waved a hand for the vampire to ignore that comment, something he’d learnt early on in life...he’d been known by folk in town to say dumb things.

“So he’s a vampire like you then?” He nodded his head as he slowly connected the dots. Sire must be a vampire thing, he concluded. “So he’s trying to get you back.” Jared fiddled with the papers on his clipboard for a moment. “Well I mean, if you really don’t want me to try to help that’s okay. But I do mean it when I say I want to. Even if it’s just patching up after something like-” he gestured to his own face in places where the bruising was still apparent on their skin “- all that happens.” He didn’t quite know the extent of what was going on, but the grim expression was definitely giving him a hint. “Glad you’re alive boss.” he tacked on the end with the hint of a hopeful smile.

Metzli struggled to understand why Jared would be so concerned and willing to help. It was so easy to forget how kind people could actually be without needing anything in return. They envied that about people with souls. They were a monster, a selfish one. And it made them yearn for their soul a little more. Being soulless wasn’t an excuse. Bex had taught them that. But they were too tired to even attempt to explain. 

“Yeah, vampire like me. Only way more powerful and has actual control over me. But it’s whatever. You don’t have to be concerned about it.” Metzli rose from their seat and made their way back to the painting so they could get back to work. “Of course you’re glad, Mr. Gordon. I write your paychecks.” There was a small smirk playing at their lips, and then it curved fully. “Which reminds me, here.” Pulling a check from their pocket, they handed it over to Jared. “Everyone else is on direct deposit, but here’s your pay from last week.” The check was for a thousand dollars. “Not all of them will be like that. But you held down the fort while I was gone on your first week, so consider it a bonus.”

The nymph opened his mouth to reiterate the sentiment that they would be concerned whether they were directly involved or not but decided against arguing any further. His new boss didn’t want the attention so he’d keep it to himself. Unfortunate for the both of them that Jared had a hard time not worrying over people he knew. Especially those who found themselves in dangerous situations on the regular… Which was a description that matched far too many people Jared knew.

He mumbled quietly about how he’d been friends with all his bosses in the past before he’d worked for himself, to be cut off when handed the check. He blinked rapidly at the amount and looked up at Metzli completely astounded. Mouth opening and closing like a crazy golf obstacle Jared was speechless for a moment. “Surely that’s too much! It’s not like I did anything crazy.”

“Just take it and don’t throw a fuss. I’ll bite you if you do.” Metzli smiled at Jared and winked. They could tell he’d be a good addition to the staff, and maybe he’d be a good friend too. Making friends didn’t come very easily, though. Having friends was dangerous. The more people you had around you, the more ways you could be hurt, the more you had to lose. Part of them didn’t really care and they could see themselves not caring if Jared was killed. Soul or no soul, though, they knew that way of thinking was inherently wrong. That way of thinking was way too similar to the man they detested so much. There was no way they were going to let themselves actively be the monster Eloy molded them to be. It wouldn’t undo everything they had done up to date, and it probably wouldn’t change that they were a monster, but they could at least try. Bex told them if they could at least try, it was enough.

“Now, Mr. Gordon, care to update me on our most recent purchases and submissions? Or do you just want to carry that clipboard for no reason all day?” Metzli raised a brow as they teased him. Personality returned to the surface, and for a bit they didn’t have to be scared of their gallery, that someone could be watching them and relaying every bit of information to Eloy. That didn’t matter, not now. Not when they had worked incredibly hard to make a name for themselves.

Jared scrunched up his nose in response, only barely avoiding sticking his tongue out at his boss for the biting comment. But a quick laugh did follow as he stood up from his own seat, it seemed the brief discussion of what had been going on this last week for Metzli was finished with and it was to be back to work. Although this did mark a moment the nymph would be likely citing further down the road as perhaps the true beginning of a friendship. Sharing things like Metzli had was laying a sort of trust in Jared that he hoped he could keep.

“The clipboard is all for show.” He quipped in return before rounding the table to push the paperwork towards the other. “Or well, I was looking for this piece to mark down the code-” The nymph rambled away, happy enough to immerse himself back into work. Easily distracted.