#Sleepless Indie Battle

[aaronburrdaily]

January 26, 1809

Went to bed last night at 2; lay sleepless till 5; rose at 7. Dressed by candlelight. At 8 sor. to E. G. as per engagement. After much difficulty to gain admission, G. was sub. vi¹! Home ; breakfasted. The knitting woman. At 1/2 p. 9 walked to Walker’s, 23 Queen street, to breakfast again, as per engagement. Y: The family, Judge Hume et ux. Sat till 12. Amusing and amd.² Home to give orders (a most furious snow-storm). Sor. immediately in hack to Walker's. Took up Judge Hume and went to Jackson’s, who with Mr. Gray escorted us to Heriot’s Hospital; 140 boys at dinner; keeperess and ten fem.³ servants. Three sick, of whom one lame, one feeble constitution. Boys under 10 and above 7 are admitted. Sent out to trades, &c, at 14; ——— pounds to each on going out. More to those exhibiting literary talents. Income £5,000, and will in six years be £10,000. Food; clothing. Good faith to prevent detection of one who had plundered potatoes; all cut piece from their coats. During Jackson's administration, 5 1/2 years, not a death. Thence to Bank. Plan by Read, a young Scotchman. Twenty clerks; about twenty offices or branches in the different towns of Scotland; capital, $1,500,000. Home at 1/2 p. 3. Sent reply to Baron Norton's note to dine on Saturday, accepting. Chair to dine at Alexander Young's, 48 Queen street. Y: Mr. Stewart, very handsome, intelligent young man, £5,000 per annum; residence nearly opposite Isle of Man; near relation of Lord ———; Mr. ———, an intelligent young man ; been some years in East Indies; prisoner at Mauritius; his plan for taking Isle of France; knew mad⁴ Hulot. Tres gal.⁵ Bathing room. His son, un matelot en marine⁶. Hon. M’lle Crofton, Ireland. Mere Baroness Crofton. Belle. Social. Mr. and Mrs. Y. Miss Y., jo. interes. esprit⁷. Music. Miss ———, whose name was not heard. [Conversation] of the education and talents of women; great debate ; of J.B.; of Dug. Stewart. Mr. Y. is agent of Lord ———. Home at 11. At the instance of M’lle Crofton, took home and read review of “Cavallos” and of Hon. Parnell on penal laws against Irish Papists. On our return from Heriot’s Hospital to-day we heard the news of the battle of Corunna, and of the death of Moore⁸.

1  Probably for subter vi or vim. Under constraint. 2  Amusing and amused (?) 3  For femmes. Women. 4  The writing is not clear. The word may be “mad,” as given, or intended for an abbreviation of Madame. 5  For très galant. Very courteous, genteel. 6  A sailor in the navy. 7  For jolie, intèressante, esprit. Pretty, interesting, and endowed with wit, intellect. 8  Corunna is in northwestern Spain. The battle (between 15,000 British and 20,000 French) was fought January 16, 1809. Sir John Moore was killed by a cannon ball and was buried at Corunna by his soldiers.

[lilliagradiewrites]

wish you liked girls (kiara carrera)

Summary: You’ve been best friends with kiara for years, but lately you’ve noticed some changes in the way you feel towards her. When you hear the song she wrote about you, all is revealed.

WC: 4.5k

WARNINGS: homophobic, use of the f slur, cursing, nothing else really, just lots of angst and a lil fluff.

*this is based off of the song ‘wish you liked girls’ by Abbey Glover. I changed the lyrics around a little to fit the story better, but all credits to her nonetheless!!

A/N: happy new years my loves! this one shot is kind of my new years gift to all of you. I haven't been very active in the past few days, so I’m sorry about that. i tried to upload this on christmas, but tumblr was rude and didn’t let me, so here we are instead! wishing you all the greatest 2021, and I hope you all enjoy!

LET’S DO IT!!

~~~~~

You didn’t know exactly how you felt towards Kiara in the beginning. You feelings for her were indecipherable; more than friends… but also just friends?

The past few months had been a wild ride for you. Constantly, you were questioning your sexuality, and frankly everything you’d ever known.

It got harder as the days went on, and with every beautiful girl that showed up in your Instagram feed or your tiktok for you page.

And then, of course, there was Kiara.

Perfect, beautiful, unattainable Kiara.

She was your best friend, and you usually viewed your hangouts as a super comforting and safe space. Now, however, your hangouts were simply a cause for more stress.

Kiara was so… wonderful. After knowing her for many years, you could confidently say that the girl had no flaws.

Kie’s perfection made everything so much harder for you. Your feelings toward your friend were incredibly confusing.

Did you want to be her, or be with her?

The biggest issue was not your feelings for Kiara, but rather a completely separate problem.

Your boyfriend.

You were nearing a year with Hunter, the boy you found yourself lucky to call your own.

Hunter was an amazing guy, and everything a teenage girl could ask for in a boyfriend. He was considerate and sweet, and always knew the right thing to say to you. He never pressured you into intimacy, knowing that you weren’t comfortable or ready just yet.

You loved Hunter, you knew you did.

Yet, you found yourself feeling that same way towards Kiara.

This was the main issue causing the battle in your head. Was your love for Kiara just platonic? Or maybe you loved Hunter as a friend, Kiara was the one you wanted to be with?

None of those options felt right, but the last possible option made you feel confused and slightly guilty….

What if you wanted to be with them both?

All these thoughts rushed through your head as you brushed makeup on your face, preparing for a night with the girl who frequented your thoughts daily.

There was an open mic night at you and Kiara’s favorite indie cafe. Kie, who was unknowingly an amazing singer and songwriter, had played some music for you a while back, leading to a process of you encouraging her to grow as an artist.

For months, Kiara had been running song ideas by you. You could recall countless nights during which you and Kiara would sit on her bed, working together to finish up a song she’d been writing.

Kiara credits all her music to you completely, but you knew she was just being modest. The girl was undeniably talented.

That’s why, when you saw that Retro was having an open mic night, you’d insisted that your best friend go play one of her songs.

You had sat on her bed that night, the flyer you’d collected from the cafe sitting between the two of you.

You grabbed the notebook containing all of the lyrics you’d written together, and pored over the most recent piece.

The song was your best one yet. She’d been inspired by yet another fight between JJ and Rafe.

“What if I write something about the pogues and the kooks being so divided?” She’d suggested that same night. You could tell, judging by the look in her eyes, that a train of ideas was chugging in circles throughout her mind. “The whole thing is so ugly and gross… I just want to turn into something beautiful, you know?”

Without a second thought, you’d picked up a pencil and the song book you’d grown to be familiar with, and the two of you got down to work.

Two sleepless nights and countless cups of coffee later, the two of you had completed the piece. It was undoubtedly the best song you’d ever written. It captured the unnecessary feeling of hatred coming from the opposite groups of the island perfectly, adding a touch of soul. The moral of the song was simple: can we just get along?

Kiara had strung the words together beautifully, adding a gorgeous melody and some strums on her guitar. Once the two of you heard the lyrics had worked so hard on turned to music, you knew that there was something special about this piece.

That’s why you insisted so strongly that Kiara sing it at the open mic night.

“I don’t know, Y/N…” Kiara had twiddled her fingers, biting her lip in apprehension. “What if people hate my music? Or what if I fuck it up so bad I become a massive laughingstock. I don’t think I could handle it.”

You smiled, grabbing her hands to still them. “It’s a good thing you won’t have to worry about that, then, because you’re not gonna fuck it up.”

“You don’t know that for sure.” Kiara protested, breaking the gaze you’d been holding as you spoke.

“I do!” You grabbed Kiara’s chin, moving her face towards you so that her eyes met yours again. “You are fucking amazing, Kiara Carrera. Do not doubt yourself. You are so talented, Kie, I don’t think you even realize how incredible you are. I am going to that cafe tomorrow and signing you up for the open mic night whether you like or not.”

This was a threat, but not an honest one. You would never sign her up knowing she was uncomfortable. So, when you let go of your light grip on her chin, you listened intently for a murmur of approval.

After a moment, it finally came.

“Okay, I’ll do it.”

“Yes!” You exclaimed in celebration, throwing your arms around your friend. “I’m so excited, you’re gonna be amazing!

Now, a few days later, you’re sitting at your vanity, preparing for the night you’d be waiting for. Kie was extremely nervous, so you’d taken her out shopping earlier that day to calm her down. She’d bought a new outfit for the open mic night, which looked amazing on her. She promised you that she’d come pick you up so you could go to the performance together, and you’d happily agreed.

You didn’t expect to be at your house an hour early, though.

You weren’t even halfway through your makeup when you heard a knock at your door.

You’d rushed down the stairs, praying you’d get to the door first.

Your parents never liked Kie. They knew she liked girls and guys, and called her a “Hippie whore.”

Your homophobic parents: Yet another reason you couldn’t come to terms with the way you felt towards your best friend.

The odds seemed to be in your favor today, as you reached the door before your parents and swung it open to reveal a highly nervous Kiara.

“Hey!” You smiled. “What are you doing here so early?”

Kiara bit her lip in embarrassment and looked down to her feet.

“I-I got nervous and I got ready way too early. I know I’m not supposed to be here for another 45 minutes, but I’m too freaked out to be alone. Is it okay if I hang out with you while you finish getting ready?” She questions softly, almost embarrassed.

You smile, finding her nerves exceptionally adorable.

“Yes, of course you can. Come in, come in.”

You grab her arm, closing the door behind her and pulling her quickly up the stairs. The last thing you wanted was for Kiara to have to interact with your parents.

Once in your room, you close the door and head back to your vanity, Kiara flopping down on your bed.

As you sat down and continued applying your makeup, you spoke to your friend.

“So, how nervous and excited are you for tonight?”

Kiara smiled lightly, and bit her lip once again. “Very for both.” She confesses with a small chuckle.

“I know you can’t tell someone not to be nervous but I can tell you that you shouldn’t be. You’re incredible, Kie. I can’t wait for everyone to see how talented my best friend is.

You focus hard on your eyeliner, leaning in to your mirror to make sure you get a clean wing.

Once you're done on both sides, you lean back and admire your work. Perfecting your winged liner was something you’d been working on for a while, and it seems that your practice has helped. The wings are sharp and pretty much even. If you don’t look too closely, the wings are seemingly symmetrical. This is good enough for you, you decide, capping the liquid liner and setting it back in your makeup drawer.

Finally done with your makeup, you begin cleaning off your desk. You put your products back in your drawer, and the brushes in the holder you have for them on the corner of your desk.

Standing up, you look at Kie with a smile. “Now help me pick out an outfit so that I look hot supporting you from the audience.”

45 minutes later, the two of you are finally ready to leave. Kie is nervous as ever, but you offer comforting words to try and help calm her down as much as possible. You grab your favorite bag and throw the essentials in it. Your phone, a portable charger (just in case), and a few extra hair ties. Once you were done, you turned to Kie, who was playing with her fingers anxiously. “You ready?” You asked, encouragement laced in your voice. Kiara, still very obviously apprehensive, could do nothing but nod. Taking your bag in one hand and Kiara’s hand in the other, you head out of your room and towards the front door.

The two of you made your way down the stairs, moving quickly to leave so that you didn’t have to interact with either of your awful parents. When you got to the bottom, you rushed for the door, fumbling with the door handle. The house you lived in was old, and all of the metal pieces (such as the door knob) were rusted and hard to use. You did your best trying to twist it open, saying a silent prayer that one of your parents didn’t round the corner and see Kiara with you. She was nervous enough as it is; she didn’t need your parents making her night even worse.

Unfortunately for the both of you, your prayers were seemingly denied as your mother walked into the foyer, arms crossed over her chest.

You had hardly even noticed her presence until she said your name, anger apparent in her voice.

“Y/N. How many times do I have to tell you who you can and cannot bring into our home?”

You grimaced at the sound of her voice, turning slowly, knowing you’ll be met with inescapable doom. In the process of turning, you saw the look on Kie’s face. She looked anxious and heartbroken, not to mention severely guilty. After seeing your best friend’s expression, you knew you weren’t cowering down to your mother.

Your original plan had been to apologize profusely and beg her to let you go with Kie, possibly even lying about where you were headed.

But you knew you had nothing to apologize for, and neither did Kie.

“I don’t see why it matters, Mom.”

Surprise flashed over your mother’s face, shocked by your confidence. Standing up for yourself wasn’t your usual reaction to her scoldings, and she wasn’t prepared for the reply she was given.

“It matters because it’s my house, and because I’m your mother. I told you I did not want people like her over at this house. Now send the girl on her way and come sit down with me. I think we need to talk.”

You had to admit, you were nervous to make your next move. You knew what you were going to do, and it would result in getting your ass shredded when you come back home. But you didn’t care; you had to be there for Kie.

“I can’t right now. Me and Kiara have a place to be, so…” You turned and messed with the doorknob some more, finally getting it to work correctly. “I’ll talk to you when I get home tonight. It shouldn’t be terribly late. But, I might stay over at Kie’s, so, you think you could wait until tomorrow?”

Anger washed quickly over your mother’s face. She uncrossed her arms so that she could clench her fists at her sides, moving towards you menacingly. “Absolutely not, Y/N Y/M/N Y/L/N. You will be staying here, and you will not be staying at her house. I won’t allow it.”

You smirked, a sudden confidence washing over you. “Well, that doesn’t sound very fun. Good thing I didn’t ask for your permission, huh?”

Kie looked shocked by your attitude, and your mother was getting angrier by the second.

“I’m going to need you to fix your attitude, young lady, or there will be severe consequences.”

“I don’t care. I don’t, and I’m not sorry about it. Kie is my best friend, whether you like it or not, and I’m spending the night with her.”

Your mother’s face was almost completely red. “Kie is a fag-”

“No. Don’t you dare finish that sentence. I will not allow you to talk to her that way. Why are you the way that you are?”

“Why are you hanging out with gay people? Do you like girls or something?”

“Why does it matter?” You’re fuming at this point. If she wasn’t your mother, you would’ve hit her by now.

“It matters because homosexuals are abominations. The Lord says so. I thought I’d taught you this by now, but clearly I didn’t press the word of God into you hard enough when you were younger.”

“No, Mom. Terrible people like you are an abomination. We’re leaving.”

And with that, you were gone, wrenching the door open and ushering Kie out of it, ignoring your mother’s shouts as you closed it behind you.

You rushed to Kie’s car, hopping in it as she pulled out of your driveway and sped through your neighborhood.

The two of you were completely silent for a moment. Both of you could barely process what had just happened. The more you thought about the situation, the more it upset you. Who was your mother to decide who you could and couldn’t hang out with? Especially when her reasons for you not hanging out with Kie were so disgusting.

What would your mother say if she knew the thoughts you’d been having?

After a little while, Kiara broke the silence. “Why is your mom like that?” Her voice cracked slightly as she spoke, and you could tell by the tone of her voice that she was fighting tears.

You sighed. Hearing Kiara so upset, especially on a day that was supposed to be fun, broke you. “I wish I knew, Kie. I’m so sorry.”

“I can’t believe she accused you of liking girls just because you hang out with me. She’s so disrespectful for no reason.”

You shook your head. “You say it like it’s a terrible thing she ‘accused’ me of. It’s not a bad thing. She just made it bad because she’s a bitch.”

Kiara nodded, turning her head to gaze out the window. A momentary silence fell over the two of you, but you couldn’t help but feel like something wasn’t right. You glanced over at Kie, whose brows were furrowed. She bit her lip in thought.

Is there something she wanted to say?

“Kie? Are you alright?”

The brunette didn’t say anything. You knew something was up, so you pressed further.

“What’s on your mind, love?”

Kiara shot out her reply quickly, like it was taking all of her courage to say it.

“You didn’t deny it.”

“Deny what?”

“Liking girls.”

You paused briefly, letting the girls words sink in for a second.

“No, I didn’t.”

Kiara turned to you, a million emotions in her dark eyes. They all flashed as you made eye contact, making each feeling hard to identify. “Do you?”

“Like girls?” Your breathing was halted. Was Kiara… feeling the same way towards you as you had been for her?

“I-I don’t know.”

Kie turned towards you. When you looked at her, you could see the tears in her eyes.

You could identify a strong sense of hope in her dark eyes.

“You don’t know?”

Suddenly, you remembered.

Hunter.

Your amazing boyfriend that you loved so much.

“It doesn’t really matter though, I guess. Since I’m with Hunter.”

The words had left your mouth before you could stop them.

Kie took a deep breath, and looked away.

“Right. Hunter.”

A few minutes later, you’d arrived at the cafe. No more words had been spoken, and tension in the car was thick.

Once the car was parked, you finally spoke.

“Are you ready to go?”

Kie nodded. “Yeah, I think so.”

The two of you climbed out of the car, Kiara going into the back to grab her guitar. Once everything was locked up, the two of you headed inside in silence.

The crowd was bustling with life in the small cafe. On one side, people with songbooks and sheet music sat with their instruments, and on the other side, people sat sipping on cups on coffee.

When you noticed the separation, Kie headed over to the performers side. You gave a light ‘good luck,’ to which Kiara didn’t reply, and then the two of you went separate ways.

Kiara took a seat in the performer section, looking nervously at the people around her. She tried her best to push away the feelings from the conversation in the car earlier, but it was very difficult. For a moment there, she had allowed herself to believe that the feelings she had for you were reciprocated. That look in your eye when you looked at her… something about it made her think you felt the same as she did. Unfortunately, she was wrong.

You just had to bring your Hunter.

Kiara hated Hunter, though she’d never let you know that. She had no real reason to hate him, but she did. She hated him so much, it was almost painful to see his face.

She hated him because he had what Kie wanted more than anything else in the world.

You.

Kie watched you as you moved around on the other side of the cafe. You were standing at the counter, talking to the barista. Though Kie couldn’t hear you over the bustle of the place, she knew exactly what you were saying.

You were ordering your usual: a large vanilla sweet cream cold brew with caramel drizzle. You order has been the same for what feels like forever. You had tried other things, but you always stuck to your favorite.

“I’ve never liked anything as much as this.” You’d said a few weeks earlier, when Kie had teased you for never changing your order.

Kie longed to be over there with you, teasing you about your order. Just talking to you lit up her life. You were everything to her, and she wasn’t even afraid to admit it.

You got your coffee, thanking the barista and dropping some change in the tip jar.

Kie watched as you scanned the room, searching for an empty seat. As you looked around, your eyes met Kiara’s, and you held her gaze for a moment. Though you didn’t know why she was being so cold towards you earlier, you couldn’t help but offer a small smile of encouragement.

To your great relief, she smiled back.

Once you knew she was alright, you broke her gaze and continued searching for a seat. You wanted to sit near the front, so that you could lock eyes with Kie when she was on stage as a form of moral support, but all of the front seats were taken.

Slightly disappointed, you had to take a seat in the back, near the exit.

When Kie saw that smile you gave her, she knew something had to be done. Even when the two of you weren’t really on the best terms, you continued to support her.

She loved you so fucking much.

Right then and there, Kiara made a decision, one she hoped she wouldn’t come to regret in the future.

An hour had gone by, and many performers had made their way on and off the stage in the small cafe. You counted down the performers until your best friend went on the stage, nervously playing with the straw on your cup. Even though you weren’t the one going up on the stage, you still felt terrified.

When the performer before your friend was reading off the last lines of his slam poem, your heart began to race.

The guy walked off, and you watched your friend stand up.

“Next up, we have Kiara Carrera, performing an original song called ‘differences aside.’ Let’s give her a very warm welcome!”

You could barely hear the announcer calling Kie’s name over the sound of your heart pounding.

Up on the stage, Kiara’s heart was pounding just as loud.

See, when Kie showed up at your house earlier in the day, she had completely intended to sing the song the two of you had written together. ‘Differences Aside’ was a beautiful song, and one she was very proud of. However, after the events that had went down on the way to the cafe, her mind had changed.

She was writing a song she had written by herself.

A song she wrote about you.

“Hey, everyone, I’m Kiara. I know I said that I was gonna be singing a song called ‘Differences Aside,’ but there’s been a slight change of plans. I’m going to be singing a different original instead. I hope you all enjoy it.”

When she had finished talking, she made direct eye contact with you. You were shocked by her words, and a little bit upset. Was she really so frustrated with you, or hurt by your previous conversation, that she refused to sing the song you wrote together?

It was heartbreaking, and you moved lower in your seat as she began strumming her guitar, fighting the tears forming in your eyes.

“I grew pretty attached to you,

Like a dog on a lead

Thought you were everything I could’ve dreamed of,

And all I could ever need.

But you like him, him, him

But you like him, him, him

And you don’t like me.”

Kiara’s voice rang out as she began singing. She sounded beautiful, and the song was very pretty.

You would’ve loved it, but you were slightly confused.

With every word she sang, she was looking directly into your eyes.

“Always thought you looked at me differently

Than any other you'd see

Thought you were aching to see me

At any, any possibility

But you like boys, boys, boys

But you like boys, boys, boys

And you don't like me.”

Your eyes widened at the last lyrics.

Was this song about you?

“I could be a bitch and tell you a million reasons why

Being with me would be much better than with any other guy

I could tell you I'll treat you right

And never wrong

Tell you in my arms is where you belong

“But I know that you can't change someone

So I'll just leave you alone, although

I wish you liked girls, girls, girls

Wish you liked girls, girls, girls

Girls like me.”

With Kie looking in your eyes as she sang, the lyrics hit you hard.

She did have feelings for you.

Tears began to sting your eyes, and you were overcome with emotion. You dropped Kie’s eyes, grabbing your things and standing up. Unable to stay any longer, you ran out the door, crying as you did.

Inside, up on the stage, Kiara’s heart dropped as she watched you leave. She had no choice but continue to sing.

“I wish you would’ve been more clear

When I was hanging out with you

That women isn't really something

That you've ever been into

'Cause you like boys, boys, boys

'Cause you like boys, boys, boys

And you don't like me.”

Tears began to fall as she sang, blurring her eyes. She just kept strumming, putting everything she had into the last verse and chorus of the song.

“And I know you don't swing that way

But that won't take my feelings away

Oh I wish you liked girls

I wish you liked girls

Like me”

It became harder to sing as sobs caught in her throat, but she pushed through. She was going to make it through this performance. She had to.

“I could be a bitch and tell you a million reasons why

Being with me would be much better than with any other guy

I could tell you I'll treat you right

And never wrong

Tell you in my arms is where you belong

But I know that you can't change someone

So I'll just leave you alone, although

I wish you liked girls, girls, girls

Wish you liked girls, girls, girls

Girls like me”

When the last chord rang out at the end of the song, the crowd erupted in applause and murmurs. Kie choked out a quiet ‘thank you’ in the microphone before running off the stage and outside to you.

She was so so scared that she’d ruined everything.

When she got out there, you on the phone, sniffling as you spoke.

“See you soon. Okay, bye.”

You turned around, and your cheeks immediately went pink when you saw her.

“Hi.” You said softly, not knowing what else to do.

“Who was that on the phone?”

“Hunter.”

Kie’s heart dropped when she heard the name. She recalled your words from when she’d first walked out. ‘See you soon.’ Her heart dropped further.

“Is he coming to pick you up?”

You shook your head, causing a small bit of relief to flood through kiara. “What were you talking to him about?”

You paused for a moment, dropping the eye contact the two of you were making.

“I broke up with him.”

Your friend let out a light gasp, hope entering her mind once again. “Oh.”

You just nodded, looking anywhere but at Kiara.

“May I ask why?”

Your response was simple.

You ran up to her and kissed her.

Finally.

Kiara was taken aback, but kissed back eagerly, so happy this was finally happening.

And when she was kissing you, everything was good.

Maybe changing the song was a good idea after all.

[bunnymajo]

Top 5 Magical Girls that aren't anime ? (can be Western Animation, comics, VN, etc)

I'm gonna focus on western comics for this.

5) Battle Princess Peony - because I just finished reading it this week and want to tell people about it. Battle Princess Peony is an indie graphic novel that recently got released. She's a character that's been spoon fed a lie about her role as a magical girl and who her enemies are, but after she learns the truth she becomes a lot more active on trying to change her world & relationships for the better. Also every character is a lesbian. And anyway it's good.

4) Undine Wells from Sleepless Domain - I like the concept in Sleepless Domain of a character-type that is usually pegged as meek and unassuming to suddenly becoming being the main character. She's good and I just want good things for her

3) Jem (specifically the IDW comics) - giving Jerrica a problem with stage fright and standing up for herself was a good move to make her more relatable and more understanding of why she would rely so much on her Jem persona to get her out of trouble. Idk, I just like the Jem reboot comics.

2) Moth Hush from The Okay Witch - Nerd.

1) Amy Winston/Amethyst Princess of Gemworld (any version) - the only DC "superhero" that I will buy every single comic for I can find. I just think she's neat.

[malecsecretsanta]

Merry Christmas, @actuallyredorchid!

Thank you for your great prompts, I tried to combine as many as possible into one fic (and it evidently ran away with me …)

malec | rated: t | extended oneshot | canonverse time travel, first meetings, developing relationship, established relationship, 5+1 things

fic summary:

Magnus Bane meets a man from his future, interwoven throughout moments in his past.

Read on AO3

*****

Your Name for a Capital

“In my dreams I am kissing your mouth and you’re whispering ‘where have you been?’ I say, ‘I’ve been lost but I’m here now. You’re the only person who has ever been able to find me.’”

— Sue Zhao

ONE | MADRID, SPAIN, 1619

Magnus Bane saves people. Somewhere along the line, this became fact. Somewhere along the line, he lost someone he couldn’t get back, and he decided no more. That’s enough . He suspects it was his mother.

Catarina says that other people’s happiness takes priority over his. You need people to need you, Magnus.

Magnus laughed at her the first time she suggested it: you’ve only just met me , he had said. How can you know that?

You rescued me from that stake , she replied matter-of-factly. You didn’t have to, but you did. That’s how I know .

I just wanted to make an impression , Magnus had said. He didn’t want to tell her that she was right.

And Catarina being right is the reason why Magnus is still awake and hasn’t been home since the morning before, wandering the deserted streets of a slowly stirring city as the last of his adrenaline fades: last night, the High Warlock of Madrid had refused a newly-turned Vampire in need of a potion to quell his hunger, and Magnus has never been one to stand idly by. He knows how the High Warlock looks at him and sneers, an ugly wrinkle to his nose as he calls Magnus young and inexperienced and insolent , but Magnus doesn’t like playing by the rules.

He saves the people he’s not meant to save. There’s an opiate thrill in it, swooping in at the last minute and saving the day, and he chases the rush, the way adoration and gratitude burn through him leaving him breathless and ignited. The taste of power in his fingertips, willful and impassioned and destined to do good - he needs it. He needs to know that it’s still possible for him after he left everything in the East Indies behind.  

Madrid is sleepy shortly after sunrise; the sky is a brilliant blue but the streets are steeped in shadow that remains icy cold to the touch. There are alleyways and dark corners aplenty for demons to hide, but Magnus lingers in the intermittent shards of early sunlight that slip through the spaces between the townhouses. The city rarely feels this still, but the cobble beneath his feet and the granite on either side muffle all sound in the narrow, valley-like streets. Magnus feels like he’s walking along the bottom of a steep canyon and his every step might echo.

The clack of wooden shutters against the side of a house echoes too. The opening of balcony doors. The yowl of a stray cat. All the sounds of a home that has been made a home; the city begins its wakening, and Magnus finally feels his sleepless night weighing on his shoulders. His bed calls out to him. He might as well get a few hours of shut-eye before the High Warlock comes looking and chews him out.

And then, Magnus hears the echo of something else. He’s not sure what catches his attention: a shout, a clatter – but it’s his magic that stirs first. He feels it in his fingertips, a twitch, as it scuttles up the back of his neck forcing him to turn his head, like the restless spasm of a nerve.

He strains his ear to listen, but the silence suffocates all noise, and the world holds its breath, deathly still.

Clang !

A resounding clamour behind him; a body shoved against a wall, a low grunt.

Magnus stops in the middle of the street and turns a full circle, listening for another sound. The wind, the rattle of wagon wheels on the cobblestone, the city’s murmur - another muffled shout. The twang of a bowstring. The recognisable hiss of a demon evaporating in a shard of sunlight.

He reaches out with his magic, probing for disturbances in the air; in return, he feels the bitter, swirling energy of Shax demons, a lot of them, biting and snapping at his magic as he reels it back in.

Strange , he thinks. But not unheard of . Shax demons rarely attack in the daylight, but they’re drawn to concentrated power, unusual magic wetting their appetite, and in a city like Madrid, there is plenty of that to go around. The leylines that spread out across the country gather in the Plaza del Arrabel, and it’s not inconceivable to find a spider waiting at the centre of the web.

Or a Shax. Regardless, they both have too many legs for Magnus’ liking.

Cautiously, Magnus extends the shield of his magic again: the demonic energy is familiar in the way it always is, reeking of Edom and the planes below, red and brimstone-coloured in Magnus’ mind like Hellfire. But there’s another layer, another current clashing with it and forming a riptide: it’s faintly white and silver, cutting through the stench of Hell. It tastes Angelic - pure and metallic like Adamas - and Magnus’ magic recoils at the touch, but it doesn’t burn as it usually does.

It’s not a Shadowhunter. Well, it is, because the Nephilim are loud and brash and unmistakable in everything they do, but it’s not Angelic power as Magnus knows it.

It’s different, obscured. Distorted somehow.

Another loud crash rings out through the empty streets.

Magnus gathers his magic into his palm, wisps of blue and purple that coil like a serpent in his waiting hand. He slips down a sidestreet, his magic wavering like a compass needle as it guides him towards the epicentre.

Trust the Nephilim to get in over their heads , he thinks. And expect a Warlock to come save the day.  

He can hear Catarina scolding him: I told you I was right.

The old parts of the city are like a maze: twisting, turning, easy to get lost in for anyone but Magnus - but he’s drawn towards the sound of a fight, his magic crackling in his fingertips, eager and impatient.

The stench of the Shax demons gets stronger as he draws closer and he wrinkles his nose. He can sense five, maybe six, not enough to be a problem, but too many for Magnus to waltz into the middle of a battle and not risk being hurt.

And one Nephilim.  

The Angelic power crackles in the air, scattering across Magnus’ skin and raising the hairs on his arms. It pulses and spasms, unstable in a way Magnus has never felt before, as if suddenly cut free from age-old ties and left to convulse as feeling and freedom rushes back into its metaphysical body all at once.

Shadowhunters are usually so cold and controlled. Their power is regimented and stern, never wandering and never wavering, and yet this - this is rogue.

And there’s something more. Magnus doesn’t notice it at first, but as he plasters his back against a wall to catch his breath and his bearings, he listens to the hum of his answering magic, and he feels it. A presence, heavy and unfamiliar, intangible in a way Magnus’ magic cannot grasp. It has no smell, no taste, no colour at all, a blend of magic existing in a dimension he cannot fully grasp, but he feels its effects so strongly it overwhelms him.

The air seems to shimmer like a mirage. Magnus can feel the leylines thrumming beneath his feet and it makes him uneasy, but it makes his heart pound too.

You’re reckless with yourself , Catarina would say. You’re going to end up hurt.

But Catarina isn’t here.

Magnus straightens out his doublet and smooths his hands down his breeches, flexing his fingers as he moulds the magic from blue to red and the intent becomes him.

Then, he steps out from behind the wall - and it’s exactly as he expected.

Six snarling Shax demons circling a lone Shadowhunter, froth dripping from their open jaws and their shrill cries piercing the air like the dying herald of a wounded animal. The Shadowhunter is pinned against the wall; he has a bow in his hand and an arrow poised, but he holds himself still, waiting for one of the demons to pounce before he looses it.

He doesn’t look hurt. In fact, he looks remarkably unbothered, and the only thing askew about him is his dark hair, ruffled by the wind, and the scuff of dust on his knees. He breathes deeply, and even at a distance, the deep rise and fall of his shoulders is apparent, but his eyes are focused, moving from demon to demon, anticipating their every move with the expertise of a man who has spent years training to hunt monsters.

The Shadowhunter’s gaze flicks to Magnus, over and above the wall of prowling Shax demons. His eyes briefly widen, his eyebrows jumping in a way that highlights the thin scar that runs through his left brow, but his stare is vibrant, honeyed-brown in the early morning, and alive . Magnus’ magic jolts in response.

And maybe he imagines it, but the corner of the Shadowhunter’s mouth tips up into the crooked inkling of a smile. He nods at Magnus.

And then he leaps into action.

The Shadowhunterdraws back his bowstring and releases, his flying arrow piercing straight through the hide of the closest Shax demon. The demon shrieks, clawing at its own chest, but the arrow glows bright white, and in a sudden burst of ether, the demon dissolves into a cloud of black dust.

But before the Shadowhunter can blink, a second demon lunges for him from the side. The Shadowhunter ducks beneath the outstretched claw, spinning onto his knees and stabbing the sharp end of his bow into the demon’s belly. The demon throws its head back with a scream and strikes at the Shadowhunter again - but Magnus thrusts his palm out and blasts it with a torrent of magic, carving its body in two and turning it to dust.

The Shadowhunter glances over his shoulder and Magnus grin, the blue tendrils of magic twisting in between his fingers, but the Shadowhunter doesn’t stop; he’s on his feet again and moving, notching another arrow like he’s done this a hundred times before and trusts Magnus to watch his back. He draws the bowstring back to his lips and the arrow soars, so fast and hard that it pierces through the third demon and out of the other side, as if its flesh has been turned to butter. The bow in the Shadowhunter’s hand quivers.

Magnus has never seen a bow like it, sleek silver and glowing with faint runes embossed on the metal. The Adamas sings and Magnus can feel its residual power meshing with his own magic; it invigorates him like a gasping breath, like a punch of energy he’s never felt before, white-hot and celestial and setting his own magic alight as if drawn, instantly, to the point at which Magnus is most flammable.

An arrow whizzes past Magnus’ ear and the breath of it slice into his cheek as it disappears over his shoulder. His fingers shoot up to his face to feel for the thin line of a cut, but his hand comes away bloodless. Magnus’ mouth falls open on instinct, but the Shadowhunter is grinning at him like he’s God damn pleased with himself, and he fires another arrow over Magnus’ head. Magnus twists around as the Shax demon behind him falters - the shafts of two arrows protruding from its chest - and evaporates, its remnants splattering across the cobblestones.

One demon left. Magnus turns to face it as the Shadowhunter does, reaching back for his quiver.

The Shadowhunter sucks in a breath, grabbing his last arrow and notching it in his bow. The Angelic power shudders, and so does the presence that belies it; it radiates out along the shaft of the arrow, gathering in the point.

His fingers twitch, the arrow flies, but Magnus waves his hand in a sudden arc, launching the last demon into the wall where it explodes in a shower of black dust. The Shadowhunter’s arrow misses, embedding itself in the wall with a silent puff of plaster.

The sound of a clock tower bell striking upon the hour rings out in the immediate silence. Each clanging ring pulsates like a drumbeat, disturbing the dust and demon viscera settled on the road.

Magnus smirks to himself, dusting his palms on his doublet and sweeping his windswept hair back against his head. He can feel his heartbeat racing, his breath panting. Exhilaration makes him grin. His eyes flick towards the Shadowhunter who stoops to collect his spent arrows and slots them back into his quiver.

Magnus’ head is buzzing.

“That was impressive,” he says, eyes raking over the Shadowhunter’s broad back. His clothes are like nothing Magnus has ever seen before, tight-fitting and embossed with metal; and instead of buckles and clasps, his shiny leather jacket fastens with a line of silver teeth. He wears no armour. No waistcoat, no stockings, no simple cravat.

But he’s tall and handsome and well-built, with the gait of a soldier and a dark, inky Deflect rune snaked around his pale throat. Definitely Nephilim .

So why doesn’t he feel like a Nephilim?

Magnus raises his eyebrows, running his teeth over his lower lip as he appraises the long line of the Shadowhunter’s legs as he bends over to yank his last arrow out of the ground. “You dispensed those Shax demons rather proficiently, I must say.”

The Shadowhunter pauses and glances back over his shoulder, looking Magnus up and down, and laughs. Laughs. Not at Magnus, per say, but he laughs as if he’s genuinely delighted by the fact Magnus just saved his life, and yet is completely bemused by it.

His laughter lights up his face, attractive creases forming at the corners of his dark eyes as he straightens and turns to face Magnus. “You’re supposed to say well done ,” he says.  

Magnus raises his eyebrows, unamused. “Well done?”

“Yeah,” the Shadowhunter grins. He slings his bow over his shoulder and walks up to Magnus like they’re old friends who often spend the morning dispatching demons in a back alley - but Magnus refuses to budge. “You say well done , and then I say: more like medium rare .”

Magnus frowns. “If that’s a jest, I’m afraid I don’t follow.”

“It’s our thing,” says the Shadowhunter, but then he glances around, his gaze sweeping up the walls of the overlooking townhouses. He seems to realise where he is for the first time and his cheer wavers for a moment. “Or it will be, I guess. Where, uh - where am I?”

“Did you take a bump to the head back there?” Magnus scoffs, but the Shadowhunter’s earnestness makes him pause; the Shadowhunter grips the limb of his bow where it’s looped over his shoulder, thumbing at the metal. He genuinely doesn’t know. “We’re in La Latina.”

The Shadowhunter scowls. “Spain?”

“What do you mean, ‘ Spain ’? Of course we’re in Spain,” Magnus laughs sharply, “We’re in Madrid. I’ve met my fair share of Shadowhunters in my time, but never one quite so directionally challenged. Where did you think you were?”

The Shadowhunter shrugs, his cheeks tinged pink.

“Dunno,” he says, and Magnus struggles to make sense of the curious twang of his accent, but he can’t place it. His English is good, fluent even, and yet Magnus has travelled the world over and never met anyone who sounds like this. “I figured Europe, but I wasn’t sure. I didn’t know where I’d end up, but - shoulda known it’d be here. With you.”

He smiles at Magnus again, as if that’s enough to answer the myriad of questions Magnus now has. He seems delighted to see Magnus, to see him here despite not knowing where here was, and as his eyes roam over Magnus’ face, pinning every detail to memory, Magnus doesn’t have the faintest idea why.

The Shadowhunter must be concussed. Perhaps that explains why the power leaking from his runes is going haywire. Magnus should really do him a favour and take him back to the Institute, leave him out on the front steps. Not only will the Head of the Institute then owe him a favour, but the High Warlock will also hate the fact Magnus has been out helping amnesiac Shadowhunters in his spare time.

Two birds with one stone, really.

Magnus narrows his eyes. “Evidently, you know who I am and expected me to be here,” he says carefully, but the Shadowhunter doesn’t show any signs of annoyance at being found out. He even has the nerve to take a step closer. “But I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure of your company before. And I am not one to forget a face.”

The Shadowhunter rolls his eyes. “It’s fine,” he says, but the fond exasperation in his voice throws Magnus. What on Earth is wrong with this man - “You don’t know me.”

“But clearly, you know me,” Magnus presses. “If the Institute has some business with me that I don’t know about, they can come knocking on my door and pay for my services like everyone else. They don’t need to accost me in the street.”

“I’m not here on any business,” says the Shadowhunter, looking down at himself and drawing Magnus’ eye back to his clothes. He’s too pale to be local, his skin untanned by the Spanish sun, and his gear is shiny and elegant, his leather boots well-polished. His trousers are practically painted onto his long legs, and his collarless shirt clings to the faint outline of muscle on his chest.

It makes Magnus feels uncharacteristically underdressed. Or overdressed. He’s not quite sure. Self-consciously, he straightens out the sleeves of his doublet and adjusts the frill of his cuffs. If he’d known he’d be meeting mysterious Shadowhunters in the depths of the old city this morning, he would’ve worn his best hat, the one with the feather, God damnit.

The Shadowhunter is still watching him. Openly, gently; it’s all wrong. A Shadowhunter has never looked at Magnus like this before: like he wouldn’t rather see Magnus locked up in some dungeon or put to use warding the Institute, as has always been his only value in the eyes of the Nephilim.

Maybe he’s playing you , Magnus thinks. He’s acting friendly to get what he wants, whatever that is. He’s not what he seems.

Or maybe he’s exactly what he seems and you’ve just forgotten how to trust people.

Magnus frowns, and looks down at his ringed hand before he extends it to the Shadowhunter, letting the wisps of his magic curl and then fade around his fingers. The Shadowhunter is unfazed.

“Alec,” says the Shadowhunter, his smile turning playful. He reaches out and grasps Magnus’ hand with a sure grip, and it makes Magnus’ magic stutter again.

“Alec. Short for Alexander?” Magnus guesses, “Alexander whom? I thought you Shadowhunters were excessively proud of your lineages. Do you not have a family name?”

Alec bites his lip and shakes his head, holding in a laugh. He withdraws his hand too soon. “Yeah, I do. But, well - I guess that’s spoilers.”

“Spoilers?” Magnus repeats, rolling the unfamiliar word around in his mouth. “Hm.” He considers cutting his losses - he’d rather not get involved with a troublesome Shadowhunter who speaks in riddles and won’t even tell Magnus his name - but his curiosity has been piqued. Curiosity killed the cat, Magnus , Catarina would tell him. She’s probably right. This might be the weirdest thing that’s happened to him all decade - and that includes a very unfortunate incident involving Ragnor, a bottle of tequila, and the fact he is now barred from purchasing a copy of Don Quixote de la Mancha anywhere in the city.

“You’re a long way from home, aren’t you, Alec?” Magnus probes, circling Alec slowly. “And if you truly aren’t here on Institute business, how did you end up in my neighbourhood encroached upon by a swarm of Shax demons, might I ask? They don’t rarely attack people in the daylight.”

Magnus’ magic flexes in his fingertips, reacting to the unknown undercurrent that still lingers in the air. It’s not Angelic. He can discern that now, but it’s not Demonic either. He doesn’t know what it is: a shiver of someone else’s magic, but it doesn’t belong to this Shadowhunter. Too powerful for that.

It feels like temporal magic. Vast and unwieldy and unable to be bent and shaped like other forms of energy. Magnus doesn’t know it well, but he’s been working on his portal theorem for a while now, and he’s read every musty old text the Silent Brothers have to offer on the subject of how magic threads itself through time and space. He just hasn’t been able to grasp it yet.

The unfamiliar magic flutters in a realm he can’t comprehend; it’s like reaching for a handful of water, only for it to flood between his fingers. Magnus frowns, but when he glances up at Alec, he finds Alec watching him expectantly, like he’s waiting for Magnus to come to a realisation that must be inevitable.

Oh , Magnus thinks. He knows what it is. He knows exactly what it is and must know that I can feel it.

“Wrong place, wrong time,” Alec says cryptically. His voice is low. Magnus feels it ripple down the back of his neck.

“Do you believe in chance?” Magnus asks.

Alec’s mouth quirks again. “Not really.”

The demonic energy has faded and no more Shadowhunters have come running. Whatever or whoever Alec the Shadowhunter is, Magnus doesn’t want to let him go now. He’s too interested.

This is going to come back and bite him.  

“So, what now?” He doesn’t realise he’s said it until it’s said, and it hangs, suspended, in the space between him and Alec that has contracted without Magnus really noticing. Did I take a step forward, or did he - “Where are you headed?”

Alec says nothing, meeting Magnus’ eyes and holding his gaze. The temporal magic quietens, but doesn’t vanish. Instead, the buzzing in Magnus’ temples simply fades until it becomes a hum of background noise.

Alec looks at him. Alec looks through him, as if all Magnus’ smoke and mirrors are nothing but fantasy and he can see straight into Magnus’ chest, to a part of Magnus that Magnus doesn’t even know exists, let alone how to control, but he’s sure he’s exposing all his secrets.

Magnus clenches his jaw and shifts in his boots, refusing to be unwound. His magic pulls taut, straining at his skin, reaching out for the other magic he just can’t seem to grasp; it dips and dives through his metaphorical fingers, slippery and unwilling to be caught. The silence stretches on a beat too long.

And then Alec shrugs again, breaking the spell, his eyes flicking away like it was nothing. His smile turns gentle. Illuminated. Almost dazed. The slow rising of the sun over the rooftops glances off his cheeks and forehead, highlighting the threads of deep brown in his hair and drawing Magnus’ attention back to the honey colour of his eyes.

“Anywhere,” he says simply.

Magnus blinks. “Anywhere? What does that mean?”

“It means I’ll go anywhere,” Alec clarifies, “I have nowhere to be. Not for a while. Where are you going?”  

Magnus’ mouth falls open. Oh .

What is happening here? Who are you?

Why are you looking at me like that?

His magic reaches out for Alec on its own accord. Alec can’t see it and likely can’t sense it either, but Magnus feels his power reaching, eager to grab fistfuls of Alec’s jacket and pull him closer.

A thought: you can trust this Shadowhunter. He isn’t like the rest. He isn’t like anyone you’ve ever met .

Magnus clears his throat pointedly. “I was on my way to Plaza del Arrabel,” he lies. His bed can wait. He’s going to do something stupid first. “Perhaps you’d like to see it. I could show you the way.”

“I’d like that,” Alec smiles.

&&&

Magnus leads the way through the old city: he loves the narrow Gothic streets, their sun-baked cobblestones, the earthy colours and heavy stone, the ornate windows and doors with heavy cast-iron knobs and a thousand stories to tell. He knows the name of nearly everyone who lives here: the merchant on the corner, the painter in the attic room, the greying musketeer who frequents the tavern in the basement, spinning tales about his days in the regiment that get more and more grandiose with each successive glass of wine.

The street smells like people wilting in the heat, and the pot-holed stone shimmers. A church casts a shadow that blends with the dappled shade of a single olive tree bursting out of the earth. Magnus can hear the strum of a sitar seeping from a high-up window and it coaxes his blood to sing.

He walks beside Alec, but doesn’t noticed the distance between them disappearing until Alec’s shoulder brushes against his. Magnus glances sideways at Alec, but Alec doesn’t notice, enraptured by the sight of a shoe-shiner polishing the boots of a man in armour; of a young woman setting up her stall of apples and cantaloupe melons to sell; of two horses tied to a hitching post and huffing in the slowly rising heat.

Magnus summons two apples from the grocer’s stall and holds one out to Alec: it’s ruby red and glossy in the sunlight, but Alec still squints at him, glancing back at the woman at the stall. Magnus rolls his eyes and snaps two gold coins into her pocket for her trouble, and that makes Alec smile triumphantly as he takes the apple from Magnus’ hand, his fingertips brushing against Magnus’ rings.

The apple crunches as Alec bites into it, the flesh crisp and sweet, and the juice rolls down his chin. Magnus watches, transfixed, until Alec meets his eye and raises his eyebrow as if to say what? Magnus laughs quietly to himself, but it sticks in his throat.

Deliberately, he lets their shoulders brush again. His pinkie strokes against the side of Alec’s and the magic sparks like flint.

Alec doesn’t react, taking another bite of his apple as he looks upwards, his attention now caught by a woman leaning out of her window three floors above their heads, reeling in her washing line; everything is a marvel to him, save Magnus. He’s not surprised by the touch. Not repulsed by it either. It’s almost as if he’s used to the familiarity, as if he’s expecting it, and that -

That makes Magnus nervous.

Madrid lives and breathes in its people. It’s a city adored by the sun and swathed in music at all hours of the day and into the night. Dozens of intersecting lives, and yet Alec doesn’t fit in at all. It’s like he’s stepped out of a different time.

And yet why do you feel so endlessly familiar? I would remember if I’d met you before.  

“You know, I’ve never been to Madrid before,” Alec remarks then, taking the tip of his thumb into his mouth as he licks off the apple juice. “Which is weird when there’s been an Institute here for so long, but I never really travelled before I met - uh. Yeah. I should make the most of it while I’m here, huh?”

Magnus snorts. “You keep saying these cryptic things that make me more and more confused as to how it was that you accidentally ended up in Madrid,” he says. “Which Institute are you from?”

“New York,” Alec says automatically, before he pauses, the apple pressed against his lips. He turns to look at Magnus. “I mean, uh - shit. New York probably doesn’t exist yet, does it?”

Magnus narrows his eyes, and with his free hand, he lets his magic curl. Quietly, probingly, curiously - a question posed ( who are you ?).

And much to his surprise, he feels a ripple of an answer in return, spoken in a language he doesn’t know how to translate. The magic coaxes him back to Alec with a magnetic pull. A shift in the fabric of the universe, unnoticeable and untraceable, but not unlike a faint shimmer in the air above hot cobblestones or the glimpse of a shadow from the corner of the eye. Something that’s not quite right, but which disappears when looked at for too long.

Temporal magic. Of course. It makes sense now.

Alec didn’t know he was in Madrid not because he wasn’t expecting to come to Madrid, but because it doesn’t look like the Madrid he knows.

He’s a long way from home, indeed.

“I can’t say I’ve ever heard of New York,” Magnus says slowly, “York in England is a delightful place, of course - I’ve been many times, but - something tells me you’re not from around here.”

Alec shrugs meekly, taking another bite of his apple. “Like, I said -”

“I know what you said,” Magnus insists, “I’m asking how did you get here ? How did you end up in this particular year ?”

“Ah,” says Alec.

“I’m still trying to master cross-time magic, but I know it when I sense it, and you are drenched in it,” Magnus continues. “If someone has beaten me to the creation of the portal -”

“Not a portal,” Alec admits, “Spell. We were trying to bind a demon, I got hit with some residual magic. This is a side effect.”

Magnus’ eyes widen. “So, you are from the future.”

Alec shrugs again, but he’s biting back another smile. He seems infuriatingly unconcerned by this revelation. “Promise you won’t tell anyone?”

“Oh, I am a warlock of my word,” Magnus says, marking an X across his heart with his index finger, but he can feel his magic vibrating, and it’s a miracle his hands aren’t shaking too. “What are the Nephilim doing with temporal magic?”

“Not us. We called in an expert. A Warlock.”

“Oh, a Warlock. And what is their name? I might know them.”

“Spoilers, sorry.”

“But the spell was strong enough to send you back in time,” Magnus remarks, “Which suggests the caster was someone particularly powerful, and I can only think of a few who might be able to wield that sort of magic -” He taps his index finger against his mouth in thought. The High Warlock of Rome has long been interested in manipulating time with magic - but only because he’s incredibly vain and fears getting any older. And then there’s Ragnor, who has been helping Magnus collect old tomes for his portal research, and so help him God, if the old bastard’s gone and stolen Magnus’ work in the future - “If I guess correctly, would you tell me?”

Exasperated, Alec rolls his eyes. “Spoilers,” he says again.

Magnus clicks his tongue. “Very well. Keep your secrets, but permit me one last q uestion ... when is it in the future that you come from?”

Alec licks his lips but shakes his head. His smile is coy. “I’m not going to tell you that either,” he says, “Sorry.”

“Good God,” Magnus laments, throwing his hands up in the air, “Ruin my fun, why don’t you. Can you not give me a clue? A hundred years? More?” He gestures at Alec’s clothes. “I want to know when it is that I might look forward to this strange fashion.”

“I’m from ... a while in the future,” says Alec, glancing up at the yellow-stone buildings that tower above them. His brow furrows. “I think.”

“You think?”

Alec nods. He glances around, and while a few people are eyeing Alec strangely, no-one stands within ear shot. Still, Alec drops his voice low. “Yeah. It’s, uh - it’s temporal hopping. Jumping through time. I’ll bounce around a bit until the residual magic wears off, and then - yeah. It’s not permanent. I’ll probably just disappear without warning.”

“I see.”

“You’re … you’re not freaked out by that?”

“If by ‘freaked out’, you mean to ask if I’m alarmed, then of course I -” Magnus stops himself. He’s not alarmed, but he should be. Men don’t just step out of a rip in time and claim to know him; it’s the stuff of fairytales and the theatre and the tall tales that find people accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake.

And yet he finds no space inside him to feel fear or shock or anything but the small flicker of deja vu and the unparalleled sense that he knows - this . The marvel in Alec’s eye as he takes in the city; the way he holds himself completely still and statuesque when Magnus speaks to him; and the soft laughter that underlies his words

Did I call out to you across time? Is that why you’re here?

“Magnus?”

Magnus looks up. It’s the first time Alec has called him by his name.

But Magnus never told him what it was.

It all comes together in a rush: he knows Magnus in the future.

Oh, God, what have you gotten yourself into, Bane?

“I’m not alarmed,” Magnus says, “Perhaps I should be, but I’m not. You live as long as I have, and you see enough that the world stops surprising you. Well -” He looks Alec up and down. “Almost. Here and there, there are a few bright spots.”

Alec beams at him, and it lights up his entire face. And the rest of the world - it fades away. Magnus wonders if he will miss it at all.

&&&

They come upon a large archway and Magnus guides Alec into the deep shadow and out the other side where the street opens up into an enormous plaza, three hundred feet across in each direction. The leylines gather here, and Magnus can feel the humming of energy beneath his feet like a network of blood vessels, pumping magic into the city’s heart: Warlock magic and Angelic power and Seelie spellcraft, and as Alec steps out into the sunlight, something else entirely. Magnus feels the change ripple through the leylines, spreading out and away from them and radiating across the square: not an earthquake, but still a seismic shift, a change in the fabric of the planet for those that might be looking.

But no-one is looking. That’s the beauty of Madrid, a place where Magnus needs not have a name if he doesn’t wish to have one.

In the centre of the plaza, there is a market, a patchwork of coloured tents and twisting pathways, hemmed in by tall red townhouses with slate grey roofs and elegant spires tipped by flags fluttering in the breeze.

The air is lively with chatter and smells of cattle, the merchants driving hard bargains and flashing brilliant smiles, herding the morning crowd towards their stalls lined with trinkets, gold and silver and impressive jewels alongside the vibrant colour of fresh fruit and smoked meat. A wagon rolls by, pulled by an ox that haws and huffs in the heat; in the back, crates of plump, red tomatoes that make Magnus’ mouth water.

But Alec’s focus is elsewhere. The sky is an endless canopy of blue, and he turns his face to the sun, his eyes fluttering closed. His eyelashes cast thin, delicate shadows upon his cheeks, and as the sun warms him, the corner of his mouth tilts up serenely.

Magnus is transfixed. He’s young, reckless, a hedonist; he considers himself a purveyor of beautiful people as much as he has a taste for danger, some soul-felt thrill to be found in complimenting the strength in a handsome man’s jaw or trading coy smiles with a woman in a lively crowd. He knows how to enjoy the sight of a man completely at peace.

But this - he doesn’t know this. Alec is both timeless and other-worldly; and as the rest of the world rotates around him, he doesn’t move.

For someone stepped out of time, he seems so permanent, like a man who has found his fixed point in the universe after a lifetime of searching. He exists differently to the passage of the sun in the sky and the bustle of movement through the market; he exists where Magnus exists.  

His immortality is not the same as Magnus’ - he’s Nephilim and Magnus can see the signs of age beginning to mark the corners of his eyes -  but, like Magnus, he views the world from a distance, through the perspective of someone who has seen different far-off times and places.

Looking at him makes Magnus feel younger than he has felt in centuries.

They meander through the labyrinth of market stalls, and it doesn’t take long for Magnus to notice what catches Alec’s eye.

His fingers trail across the spines of old leather books, and he admires a pair of earrings curled in the shape of two silver snakes while Magnus watches from afar. An artisan’s stall stacked with bright coloured jars of painter’s pigment leaves him looking wistful. A blacksmith displaying an array of ornately carved knives has Alec’s hand drifting to his side, his palm splayed over a rune Magnus cannot see.

None of these things match Alec - and Magnus doesn’t know how he knows that - but Magnus sees the love reflected in Alec’s eyes, a homely and unfettered sort of love, and he wonders who he thinks of.

But it’s the jewelry that draws Alec like a moth to a flame, the barest glint of gold and silver pulling him this way and that as Magnus dips through the crowds behind him. Rings and necklaces, small trinkets for the pocket, even a chain for the ankle adorned with fine jewel-coloured charms - Alec has to look at them all, has to weigh them in his hands and brush his thumb over the metal with a small but fierce scowl.

Magnus wants to ask him what he’s looking for, but perhaps that would disturb the trance - if Alec knows he’s been caught, he might stop, and Magnus is fascinated by his scrutiny. He studies each ring with the diligence Magnus might afford any Shadowhunter - but in the training room or on the battlefield, and not here, in a sunlit market of Madrid at noon.

Magnus allows his eyes to wander over Alec’s body: his long legs, his strong chest, his large alabaster-white hands as he cups the pendant of a necklace and inspects it in the sunlight. He wears no jewelry of his own, no necklaces, no cufflinks on his jacket, no rings save one.

A plain silver band winks at Magnus from Alec’s fourth finger.

“You’re married.”

Magnus doesn’t mean to say it - it’s nothing more than a passing observation, but -

It feels important. A detail meant to be noticed. And now that he’s seen it, it’s like the temporal energy swarms there, gathering on the ring in a cluster of dense magic.

Alec sets down the necklace in his hands and grins at Magnus, but this time, it’s accompanied by the most exquisite pink flush to his cheeks.

Yes, Magnus thinks, yes, I can see how someone would marry that.

“Yep,” Alec admits. The look in his eyes is tender and adoring as he looks down at his wedding ring, rubbing it with his thumb, and then back up at Magnus. “About a month ago.”

“Well, congratulations. What’s her name?”

“ His name.”

Alec holds Magnus’ gaze with diamond-like focus. He says nothing, but Magnus is unable to look away.

Magnus wets his lip and measures his words; it seems as if they might matter.

“How peculiar,” he says slowly, watching Alec’s face - he doesn’t give anything away, but his shoulders fall with the quiet release of a breath that Magnus might call relief. “Although, not as peculiar as a Shadowhunter wearing a ring. I was of the opinion that it was a rune on the hand and a rune on the heart.”

“It is.”

“Oh? So he’s not a Shadowhunter? Now I’m especially intrigued.”

Alec grins, his mouth parenthesised by dimples. He turns back to the stall and picks out another necklace, the fine silver chain and pendant glinting in the light.

Magnus frowns, stepping up to Alec’s side to peer over Alec’s shoulder..

The necklace is pretty. Magnus might wear it himself. He can imagine how it might feel draped against his chest, beneath his collar, the cold kiss of metal.  

“What do you think?” Alec asks, and he’s close enough that he need only whisper. Magus feels the puff of his breath against his jaw. “I like this one.”

Magnus hums, reaching out to take Alec’s hand and rub his thumb over the pendant cradled in Alec’s palm.

“Yes,” he says, “This one’s nice, indeed.”

&&&

The sun sets slowly, staining the sky in shades of orange and pale blue. Lanterns flicker to life, suspended from the awnings of the market stalls and dancing in the open windows that overlook the square. Shadows stretch long and thin and dark, and Magnus finds himself sat on the steps of the bronze statue in the middle of the plaza, still sun-warmed against his back.

He’s sat here a hundred times before, content to watch the day pass him by as people come and go. He has the time to spare; immortality lends itself for lounging and for lingering.

Now, though, Alec’s tall shadow looms over him, illuminated in gold around the edges by the dying of the sun.

Magnus looks up at him. Alec holds out a bag of mazapanes.

“Want one?” he asks.

Magnus takes a handful and pops one into his mouth: the taste of marzipan and almonds melts on his tongue and fills him with quiet fondness for this city he calls home.

Alec folds himself up on the steps beside Magnus, his legs stretched out in front of him and his shoulder pressed up against Magnus’. He’s warm to the touch, and Magnus feels his magic laving at Alec’s skin, wherever it can find space to shimmy beneath his clothes.

From the corner of his eye, he watches Alec lean back against the statue and exhale, his whole body relaxing. He tosses a few candied almonds into his mouth and then licks his fingers absently, all the while staring at the sky. The orange glow catches in his eyes and highlights the different shades of brown.

“Thank you for today,” he says, without looking at Magnus. “I had a good time.”

“I should be the one thanking you,” Magnus says, “This will make for an excellent dinner time anecdote that I’m sure no-one will believe. Heavens, I might not even believe it by this time tomorrow.”

Alec laughs softly. “I mean, thanks for not running away. I know this must -” He gestures with his hands. “- kinda weird.”

“Why would I run away?”

I feel like I know you. How impossible is that?

“I dunno. I just figured -” Alec stops mid-sentence, a frown furrowing his brow.

“What?” Magnus asks, “What’s the matter?”

Alec sets the bag of mazapanes on the steps and inspects his hand, curling and uncurling his fingers into his palm. “The magic’s fading,” he says, “I think.”

“Oh,” Magnus replies, “Are you sure?”

Alec holds out his palm to Magnus and Magnus reaches out with the invisible touch of his own magic, probing at the energy that licks across Alec’s skin: sharp, staticy, but there’s a restlessness to it now that wasn’t there before. The threads of the universe begin to fray and Magnus can feel them tickling, like fingertips skittering up his arm or like an intimate breath ghosting across the back of his neck.

The rest of the world seems to slow. Alec’s presence here distorts space-time just enough for Magnus to notice. The people passing by walk slower. Distant bird calls become longer. The sunset is paused, suspended in a forever yellow.

Alec’s going to disappear.

Magnus doesn’t have much time.

“The magic,” he starts, but he doesn’t know how to continue. He has so many questions still to ask and he’s not going to get answers to all of them. “The magic I feel on you, it’s volatile. It’s moving.”

Alec nods, still staring at his fingertips. “Yeah. I can feel it. It’s what happened just before I jumped the first time. It’ll stabilise for a bit, and then flip out again. Guess I’m about to go somewhere else.”

Magnus swallows thickly, and then, tentatively, he reaches out and touches his fingertips to the centre of Alec’s palm. The magic ripples as if Magnus is a stone in the water. He sinks too fast for his own liking. “The magic’s strong. I don’t think I can influence it, but I might be able to calm it,” he murmurs, gently pushing his own magic into Alec’s skin - his Angelic power hums, but Alec doesn’t resist. Magnus’ magic slips into his blood like sunlight. “It feels familiar, in a way. I don’t know why.”

Alec glances up at him, his mouth opening into a soft round oh . “Familiar?”

“Does that surprise you?” asks Magnus.

Alec shakes his head. He holds up his hand to the sunset, and it’s then that Magnus sees his skin has turned translucent and now, it appears near gold, like a shard of sunlight in which dust particulates dance. Slowly, Alec begins to fade away.

“No,” Alec says, turning his hand this way and that, and the pricks of dusk-coloured gold glint like jewels.

And Magnus - Magnus longs to touch him again, but fears his hand might pass right through, like wisps of fog and smoke that might disperse with even the tiniest shift. He cannot move; he doesn’t want Alec to go. There’s a feeling in his chest too big to comprehend; he hasn’t yet learned the way to grasp it, to hold it within himself. He wishes he knew what it was.

Alec’s shadow disappears, fading sunlight trickling through him. His legs, his arms, his body, now dust. All that remains is a whisper, before he is whisked away through the recesses of time that Magnus has yet to experience.

“No, Magnus,” he says, his voice lingering, “That doesn’t surprise me at all.”

Magnus doesn’t move for a while after. He watches the sunset pale into the faintest of yellows, and then lilacs, and finally deep, deep blues as the sky becomes pitted with stars. Madrid dances on. Laughter and music takes over the night, drunken cheers and singing, people spinning in the plaza around and around and around, but Magnus is unwilling to join them. Not yet. Maybe later. Maybe in a moment.  

He looks down at the steps. The bag of mazapanes is still there, solid to the touch, and yet an afterimage lingers upon it, invisible fingerprints that only his magic can sense.

He feels changed somehow. A part of him has shifted out of plane and now exists a step ahead or a step behind everything else.

Oh , Magnus thinks. I should’ve asked when I’d see you again.

TWO | LIMA, PERU, 1791

Nights in Peru smell like the sea: salt and seaweed and high winds that bring the Pacific inland as waves, washing over the taste of roasting bananas and coffee beans drifting up from the streets. The sky is navy blue and the moon, a thin white monolith, is suspended in a field of stars and constellations that Magnus has spent centuries learning.

He sits on the balcony of a townhouse, overlooking a small courtyard and nursing a cup of rich, red wine that reminds him of the dusty hills and towering mountains that surround the city. He doesn’t know how many cups he’s had, but it’s enough to warm his blood and linger like a hum in the back of his throat.

And it’s enough to forget a broken heart. Not enough to be rid of loneliness, but not even Catarina and Ragnor dragging him halfway across the world could do that, despite their best intentions. He can outrun a string of failed affairs, but he cannot escape the fact he’s four hundred years old and wants a little more than some smeared night he can’t remember with someone he’ll never see again.

Magnus sips quietly at his wine. Downstairs, there’s a party in full swing, drunken and exciting and billowing with oaky cigar smoke. Ragnor will be sitting in an armchair in the corner, and Catarina will be making elaborate excuses for Magnus’ absence, he’s quite sure.

But it’s the noise - the constant noise - he needed to escape. I need some air , he’d said to Cat. Just for a moment. I’ll be back . That was almost an hour ago, but she hasn’t come looking for him, not to introduce him to some doe-eyed stranger, nor to check that he hasn’t drunk himself into a self-deprecating stupor in the bathroom once again.

High above, the shadow of a large bird briefly crosses the moon; it soars on updraughts that Magnus cannot reach, borne away with ease, not minding where it ends up. It might be a condor. He envies it. They probably mate for life. How dreadful.  

Magnus tilts back in his chair, taking another sip of his wine, and sighs. The chair creaks and he closes his eyes, letting his breathing slow and the tension drip out of his body. He can hear a flute playing from a downstairs window and the thin, delicate notes drift upwards, longing and melancholy and dreaming of a wide expanse of wilderness, of freedom, of the loss of a great love. Magnus doesn’t really know which, but the song is beautiful and it lulls him into a doze.  

There are worse places to be alone. The night is balmy and he’s always loved the enduring magic of this place, the way the city is steeped in layers and layers of history, where the ancient world meets the new, and travellers from across the continent pass through in search for gold. So many men have spent their lives chasing paradise, but truly, Magnus might have found a slice of it right here.

He could fall asleep and never wake up again, and he doesn’t even think he’d mind. Catarina might find him faded away with the dawn and a soft smile on his face, a spilled cup of wine at his feet.

And yet why does your heart still ache? Why is it that you close your eyes and still dream of all the someones who have left you behind?

This is too much longing for one person. Too much time spent alone with the world; he knows all its corners far too intimately. There’s nowhere else left to see.

Behind him, the curtains rustle as someone steps out onto the balcony: a man, judging by his soft huff of breath as moves towards the balustrade. If he’s handsome, Magnus might take him back inside to bed. A whirlwind love-affair. He could stay in Peru a few decades. He wouldn’t mind that. His sheets have been cold for a while now, and he longs for cooling sweat and breathlessness and the feeling of being wanted. He longs for a flutter to stir his heart.

Magnus meets the man’s eyes and the thought fragments with a quiet, rippling chime, indistinguishable from the soft music in the distance or the sound of Magnus’ nail tapping against his wine glass.

Oh . A dream. A dream of a dream. A summer’s day in Madrid, years and years ago is borne back to him on the breeze.

It’s you.

I thought I dreamt you.

The curve of his back a beautiful parabola as he leans over the railings and gazes out across the rooftops, his profile highlighted by the flickering yellow glow of lantern light and the deep blue of the settled sky. His hair is the same inky black as it was all those years ago; the rune on his neck, just as stark. His clothes are different now, soft worn fabric clinging to his broad shoulders, while his pants hang loose about his hips. He goes barefoot.

And he hasn’t aged a day since Magnus saw him last. Perhaps it’s only been days for him. Not like the centuries for you.

Magnus barks out a laugh, swinging back in his chair and hoisting his feet up onto the balustrade. He swirls his drink around and presses the glass to his lip, but doesn’t take a sip. He must be drunk if he’s conjuring up memories from his past when he’s so desperate for companionship.

“God,” he laughs, shaking his head. He wonders if his longing can be heard through time. “Catarina and Ragnor always insisted that I made you up, but I told them you were real. Either they will kick themselves when I tell them later, or they’ll have me institutionalised. One can’t be sure.”

Alec, his impossible Alec, turns to look at him, his body still bent over the railings. His smile is fond and sleepy, like he’s been stolen out of a moment just before bed. It makes Magnus’ heart skip a beat.

“How long has it been?” Alec asks.

“One-hundred and seventy two years. Give or take a few, I’m sure. I might have lost a decade around the turn of the century through no fault but my own.”

Alec whistles a low note and looks back out across the city. The nighttime toys with the shadows that stretch and pool upon the mismatched rooftops: wells of deep purple and blue and odds with this glow of orange that seems infinite and ephemeral in the same moment, fading into the sky like a halo. Upon Alec’s skin, the colour is exquisite. It makes his eyes simmer with a gentle opal-dark fire.

“That’s a long time,” Alec says quietly, “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry? You have nothing to be sorry for. You can’t control it, the magic is volatile. You said so yourself.”

“A hundred and seventy years is a long time to go without seeing someone.”

Magnus hums, hiding the quirk of his mouth behind his glass again. He tips it back just enough to taste the wine on his lower lip, his tongue. It draws Alec’s eyes.

“It is,” he murmurs, “But worth the wait, I dare say.”

“You knew I was coming back?”

Magnus rolls his shoulders and slips out of his chair, joining Alec against the balcony. He molds himself into the space beside him, resting his glass on the railing and curving his body towards Alec, an open question. Alec shifts to face him, a timeless answer.

“Temporal hopping,” Magnus explains, “I’ve been reading up on it in the hope that you might come back to me. The magic may not be stable, but it still requires an anchor. Something that stays the same in all the places you’re drawn to. Usually it’s a location, the place where the original spell was cast, but given I’ve found you in both Spain and Peru now, I’m inclined to say that your anchor might, in fact, be a person.”

Alec’s mouth twists up into a smile. “Yeah?”

Magnus scoffs, buffing Alec on the arm with the back of his hand. It’s an excuse to touch him, to know that he’s real, to feel that forgotten ripple again. “Oh, come now, don’t play coy with me. I’ve had almost two centuries to think about it.” He pauses for dramatic effect. “You and I know each other in the future, don’t we?”

“You could say that.”

Magnus raises his glass at Alec. “You knew my name that day we met. I never told it to you, but you knew it all the same.”

“I did.”

“And in the future, we’re well-acquainted?”

Alec blushes, colour rounding at his cheeks. “Yeah. Yeah, definitely.”

“And I work with the Shadowhunters? Are we in business together?”

“Sometimes.”

Magnus scoffs, rolling his eyes. “You’re still just as cryptic and infuriatingly tight-lipped as before, I see.” His attention drifts down to Alec’s hand, curled over the balustrade. His wedding ring looks molten tonight.

“Your husband,” Magnus says, glancing up at Alec, “What did you say his name was again?”

“I didn’t.”

Magnus’ heart skips a beat. He wets his lower lip and is glad he’s got one hand on the railing and the other on his glass, so that Alec can’t see his fingers shake. “Ah,” he says, his voice a murmur, “You called that spoilers , if I remember correctly.”

“You do.”

Magnus hums, swirling the wine around in his glass. He considers the way the purple splashes up against the sides and leaves behind a fading red residue.

“I have a hypothesis,” he says boldly, “About why you wouldn’t tell me your name, last time. Do you see where I’m going with this?”

Alec chuckles to himself, looking to the sky. The constellations are reflected, dizzyingly, in his eyes. “You said you’d figure it out straight away. I shouldn’t have second-guessed you. You’ll say ‘I told you so’.”

“Future me sounds terribly astute.”

“Future you is a pain in my ass,” Alec teases, but the look in his eyes is endless. It speaks of a man deeply in love, the sort of love that has transcended a thousand hardships and never wavered, the sort of love both effortless and consuming - all the things that Magnus wants for. His chest aches again, some parts longing, and other parts jealousy. It makes that passing thought of taking a stranger to bed feel lukewarm.

And what’s the point of any of it being lukewarm -

Magnus’ smile becomes wry. He doesn’t want to dwell on that. Instead, he offers, like a baited line, “So, Alexander Bane, is it?”

“Lightwood-Bane,” Alec corrects. He thumbs at his wedding ring again, twisting it around his finger. It must be a habit. “Magnus, uh - my Magnus, he told me I shouldn’t tell you very much.”

“What a spoilsport he is,” says Magnus, but he leans in closer to Alec, drawn to the bob of Alec’s throat as he swallows, the gentle tremor of his nerves attuned to Magnus’ magic. What does he have to be nervous about? He knows Magnus. Incredibly well, it seems.  “So, it was my future self who cast this spell that backfired on you? How inconsiderate of me.”

Alec nods. “The demon was stronger than the binding spell you prepared. You managed to seal it, but - well, yeah. This happened. You said it would wear off pretty soon, but there might be, uh - bad side effects.”

“Side effects,” Magnus muses, “If me getting the pleasure of your company is a bad side effect, then -”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Alec interrupts quietly. “I mean - I won’t stay for long and I can’t control it. I don’t know where I’m going to end up. Or when.” His hand has shifted near to Magnus’ upon the railing, and now, Alec’s staring at them both, wondering where to draw the line before he oversteps. Magnus wants him to overstep.

This is his husband . It doesn’t seem real. Right now, in fact, it feels impossible, and it makes that too-large feeling build inside his chest again, constraining at his ribs and longing to be free; in the almost two hundred years since that day in Madrid, he still hasn’t learned how to contain it.

He has never imagined himself married. He’s never imagined finding a person who’d want to marry him . It makes no sense, and yet he doesn’t question it. It fits , he thinks. It fits with me. I feel whole. Too whole.

Perhaps it is a ruse. A drunken delusion, a joke. A cruelly crafted one for sure, but Magnus cannot bring himself to care. Not when Alec is gazing at him so softly, and the starlight is tangled in his messy, bed-ruffled hair.

He wants this man. He doesn’t understand it, but it hardly matters, because his head is wine-addled and he feels not himself, caught in Alec’s inexplicable pull and dragged, stumbling, off course.

It scares him. It does. There’s some part of him he has no control over and he’s not used to trusting himself to someone else’s hands.

“So what did my future self have to say about me?” he asks, and he wonders if Alec can hear the tremble in his voice. “Did he warn you of how devilishly handsome I am?”

He reaches out and trails his fingers down Alec’s shirt; the fabric is gossamer-soft to the touch, and Alec’s chest is warm and hard beneath it, but what surprises Magnus most is way his magic pulses in his fingers like it’s mimicking a heartbeat. A beat and an answer. An echo that doesn’t seem to fade away.

His hand falters. Alec notices this time.

“He didn’t tell me anything. That’s not how it works,” he says softly, “All time is concurrent. The past and the future - they happen at the same time, so this - us. Us meeting here. This hasn’t happened before.”

“Did I tell you that?”

Alec smiles sheepishly. “Yeah. Yeah, you did.”

“Oh,” Magnus murmurs, brushing his near-shaking fingertips over the slip of Alec’s clavicle visible beneath the neckline of his shirt. He marvels at the way Alec’s throat moves as he swallows; as he holds in a breath. He drops his voice to a whisper; any louder, and his magic, and the way it leaps at the touch, might bleed through. “So, your undoubtedly charming husband has no memory of what happens here tonight?”

Alec shakes his head. “Us meeting here - it makes a different future. My future is - it’s not going to be the same as your future. But they both exist. It’s, uh - kinda complicated.”

“Infinite futures. Hm. How extraordinary.” Magnus’ fingers drift along Alec’s collarbone, smearing through the invisible current that trips across Alec’s skin. His magic verberates, resonates, reflects. It’s like he’s ghosting his fingertips along the frayed edges of a nerve that stems from his own body - the frayed edges of a tiny rip in time and space - and every slight quiver threatens to make his breath hitch. He touches Alec and he feels it in himself. A part of him, a part of Alec, inexplicably tied. “I wonder if we meet in every one.”

Alec exhales slowly, steadying himself. He briefly glances away, out into the city, his eyes dancing from rooftop to rooftop. Magnus follows the working of his jaw. “If you did know. If you in the future did remember this, I don’t think you would’ve told me. Not when we first met, at least.”

Magnus’ hand stills against Alec’s sternum. The closer he gets to Alec’s heart, the stronger the pulse, the more he can feel the familiar undercurrent that lingers beneath the temporal energy that surrounds him. He looks up. “Why not?”

Alec screws up his mouth and hunches his shoulders, but it seems far less easy than before. “When we first met, I was scared. If you’d told me that we met before, I would’ve - I would’ve probably run, if I’m honest. I was kinda dealing with a lot back then.”

“But now?” Magnus asks.

“But now I’m happy,” says Alec.

Magnus doesn’t know what to say to that. He hears the sincerity in Alec’s words; it speaks of a terrible vulnerableness, a terrible loneliness left behind but not completely forgotten, one that Magnus knows too well, but it also -

Alec’s eyes meet his, and he smiles his lopsided smile, his eyes creasing up again, and it’s inutterable: this warmth, this tenderness, this growth from a shell of man that Magnus doesn’t even know and has never met, but he feels the entire story resonate as the magic does. The love radiates from Alec like he was fashioned from it, like the Angel gifted him devotion instead of skin and bones.

And to think it’s just a fraction of the love he must feel for his husband , Magnus thinks. That he feels for me, but not me.

Never me.

Magnus lays his palm flush against Alec’s collarbone. The familiar magic answers him, a surge more profound than before: that threads of torn time and space intertwine with something else, another magic so endlessly recognisable that it makes Magnus gasp.

Beneath the quivering Angelic power, and beneath the remnants of the backfired spell, Magnus finds a reflection of himself, every will and wish and want he’s ever known, because that’s what Alec is drenched in. His magic. Magnus’ magic - and how did he not notice it before, because it breathes and moves the same, answering the quirk of his fingers in a way he knows innately.

Magnus’ magic . Evolved to be softer and kinder, stronger and more encompassing, woven through with Angelic power, caressing at Alec’s skin and absorbed into his very being. And the pulse that Magnus feels within it is Alec’s blood, Alec’s heartbeat, Alec’s soul, bared to Magnus as he pushes and prods at this impossible man who stands before him.

Magnus rubs his fingertips against the slip of Alec’s bare skin. The strong tendon of his neck. The base of his Deflect rune, and it summons a trail of goosebumps down Alec’s throat and across his shoulder.

He watches Magnus’ intensely. Magnus can’t meet his eyes; he summons blue smoke into his fingers and marvels at the way it clings to Alec’s skin as it does to his own hand. Like it cannot tell the difference between him and Magnus.

How is that possible?

It feels so intimate. Magnus feels so known.

“I can feel -” he starts, before he realises he’s talking at all. “I can feel myself. I’m all over you.”

“Yeah,” Alec whispers. He reaches up and covers Magnus’ hand with his own, holding Magnus’ hand against his heartbeat. His wedding ring catches the midnight glow of the city and turns gold. “Yeah, I should hope so.”

“It’s my magic, but - it’s so strange. It’s like seeing your reflection in a mirror and noticing something is not quite right, but you can’t put a finger on the difference,” Magnus murmurs. “It knows you. It’s like it’s changed because of you.”

How can I feel so connected to someone I don’t even know?

“It can do that?” Alec asks.

“It appears so,” Magnus says, before frowning. He pulls his hand away from Alec. “It makes sense. If what you say is true, and all time occurs concurrently, then it appeals to reason that the pool from which I draw my magic transcends space-time too. I just haven’t yet learned to wield it the same as I do in the future. With you.”

Magnus snaps his fingers, summoning a blue flame into his palm. The light of it dances across Alec’s face as Magnus holds it between them, watching as it sways and shifts, despite the stillness of the night.

“My magic knows you,” Magnus repeats, “It knew you before we even met. How impossible does that sound?”

“Nothing’s impossible,” Alec whispers, “Not for us.”

Magnus’ chest clenches. Us , Alec says, as if that’s something Magnus understands at all. Us , he says, as if Magnus’ last string of relationships haven’t all ended in heartache.

Us , he says, because when he fades away at the end of this night or in the early morning or whenever, he goes back to that, to them, and Magnus is left - here. Alone.

“Magnus?” Alec asks, stepping closer. His hand brushes Magnus’ sleeve and leaves ripples in its wake.

“Tell me about him,” Magnus whispers, half-breathless and half-hoping. The loneliness solidifies within his chest, filling the chasm of space he’s nursed with endless glasses of wine; now, the longing has mass, has weight. It won’t be ignored or shoved to the side. “About the Magnus Bane you know. Tell me about him. About the both of you.”

Tell me I get to have what you have. Tell me I get there.

“What do you want to know?”

“How did we meet? What was our courtship like? Was it you who asked me to marry you, or was it -”

Was it me?

Alec glances down at the wine glass in Magnus’ hand, and then at the near-empty bottle that sits abandoned next to his empty chair. “If I tell you all that, will it help?”

“What?”

“You’re lonely,” Alec says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world, and so easy to say. “I know you are, but I - I don’t - if I tell you all those things, it won’t make it easier.”

Magnus frowns. “How could I be lonely when you’re here?”

Alec sighs softly and turns back to the city, leaning his wait once more upon the balcony. He folds his arms upon the railing. The swell of his spine can be seen through his shirt, his back a long, curving arc.

“There’s a man who plays the charango,” he says then, and the soft glow of the city almost swallows his words up. “You’re probably going to meet him soon. Here. He’s good for you. You still think about him often.”

“I don’t want anyone else,” Magnus says, sliding his palm across the back of Alec’s neck, thumbing at the skin below his ear - but Alec turns his head away, his jaw working. “Alexander - you feel this, don’t you? It’s inexplicable. The connection. My magic. I’ve never felt anything like it before.”

Magnus rubs his fingers against Alec’s neck and feels Alec lean into the touch.

Do I touch you this way often? Are you used to this?

“There’s a party downstairs,” he finds himself murmuring, “Catarina and Ragnor are there. We can go down there together.”

Alec shakes his head softly. “And if I disappear in front of everyone?”

“That’s the beauty of magic,” Magnus says, “It explains the unexplainable. A party of inebriated Warlocks won’t question a thing.”

“Magnus -”

Magnus sweeps him thumb across Alec’s pulsepoint. He takes another step closer, crowding Alec against the balustrade, ducking his head to intercept Alec’s line of sight.

“I have rooms inside. A bed. We could share another bottle. See where the night might take us.”

“Magnus,” Alec says again. His eyes meet Magnus’, and then flick towards his hand, which he holds out over the balcony edge. “Look.”

He’s already fading.

“So soon,” Magnus whispers. “You stayed a whole day last time.”

“I know,” Alec murmurs, twisting his wrist and sifting his fingers through the moonlight. “I’m sorry.”

THREE | BLACKFRIARS, LONDON, UK, 1872

As rain lashes against the concrete, the wind over Blackfriars Bridge wails like an abandoned child at the side of the road. Below, the Thames churns, infinitely black and grotesque in the dark, eager to swallow people up and never spit them out again. Its stink is sewage and its rush of water is a hiss that presses against Magnus’ back, whispering in his ears.

You sure you still don’t want to jump?

It’ll be cold. You’ll feel something. You’ll feel nothing. Both will be good.

The rain soaks Magnus to the bone. His frock coat clings to him like a second skin and his hair hangs limp across his forehead, rainwater streaming down his nose. His hands grip tight to the railing of the bridge, his fingers stark and cold. He doesn’t remember taking his gloves off. Hell, he doesn’t remember putting them on.

He only remembers standing on the edge and looking down.

You’re not actually going to jump , Camille had said. You’re not a coward.

Maybe I am , Magnus had replied, Maybe I always have been. I’ve spent my entire life running.

His skin still stings with the indentations of her nails on his arm, yanking him back from the edge. He can still hear her hiss, her sharp words, her fury. The rare fear in her eyes as she screamed at him to climb down from the railings.

This is ridiculous! she had snapped. Come and find me when you’ve sorted your head out, Magnus. I refuse to deal with this for you.

Magnus leans forward over the railings, staring down at the bubbling river. A stagecoach splashes water up the back of his legs, the horses snorting and the coachman tilting his tri-corner hat down to keep the storm out of his eyes.

Camille left. She always leaves. Unwilling to stand out in the rain and ruin her hair, unwilling to give any part of herself up for others.

She knows Magnus won’t jump now, so her work is done. He’ll live and he’ll drag himself back to her when he’s ready and she’ll say I told you so, Magnus. Why don’t you ever listen to me ?

Magnus feels cold - the sort of unforgiving cold that seeps into the bones and into the blood and drags thoughts to a shuddering halt. The wind is bracing, carrying with it sharp shards of slush-turned-sleet that cut into Magnus’ cheeks. He doesn’t know how long he’s been out here; he doesn’t know how long ago Camille left. Sunrise might be on the horizon, but he’ll never know, not with the smog that rises from London in the distance, thick pillars of soot black that blend into the clouds of rain and smother the stars.

He stares at the spot on the railings where he stood grasping at the lampost, his toes curled over the edge - an hour ago? Or was it two? Three? Time has slipped away from him, as it always does. What is time to someone who’s going to live forever, bound endlessly to watch humankind search for meaning in their fleeting lives -

Search for love -

Numbness tingles in Magnus’ fingertips, and he wishes for it to go away, he wishes for time to stop, he wishes for a feeling other than tenderness bruising in the hollow parts of himself, but -

The rain stops.

His magic flinches.

And Magnus looks up, blinking back the raindrops that cling to his eyelashes and pushing back the hair that lies limp over his forehead. A hand extended over his shoulder, and a large black umbrella hiding him from the clouds above.

It’s like a breath, a breath stolen after being underwater for so long - not enough to quell the painful ache in his chest, but enough to fill his lungs. He’d almost forgotten what it feels like.

He’s lived an entire lifetime since then.

“It’s going to get better,” comes the familiar voice that Magnus has missed eighty-one years now, a rumble he feels deep in his water-logged chest. “I know you probably don’t believe me, but - I promise.”

Magnus looks up at him. At Alec , rain-flecked and stepped out of the storm, holding an umbrella aloft above them like it’s the only thing he was put on Earth to do. He steps between Magnus and another passing carriage, shielding him from the splash of the wheels in the puddle. Alec grimaces, his nose scrunching.

Magnus laughs wetly. “You can’t say that. You have hindsight. That’s cheating.”

A raindrop trickles down Alec’s temple and Magnus follows it, across his cheek, drawn to the pull of his lips, dripping from his jaw and onto his shirt. His mouth is twisted with worry; his eyes flick between Magnus’, searching for some strength Magnus doesn’t know how to give. Not anymore.

Magnus sniffs, scrubbing his palms across his face, but it won’t make a damned bit of difference. He looks disgusting. He looks like a man who was about to jump off a bridge. He knows he does.

Why couldn’t you have shown up when I was on that ledge? Why couldn’t you have been here a day ago, a year ago, a lifetime ago, before it all went wrong?

“It’s not cheating,” Alec murmurs, “Not when it’s the truth and you need to hear it.”

He steps closer, crowding Magnus with his body, protecting him from the wind. He brings the handle of the umbrella down between them, and invites Magnus to hold it too, as if they’re sharing a flickering candle.

Alec’s hands are warm where Magnus’ are ice cold. He almost feels real. Oh, God, I’ve missed you.

“You’re soaked,” Alec says, his eyes wide and his brow furrowing. He rubs his hands over Magnus’ knuckles and huffs on them loudly; Magnus sucks in a splintering, wet breath. “Jesus, Magnus, you’re gonna get a fever -”

“Warlocks don’t get fevers.”

Alec scowls at him. “We both know that’s not true. I know what you’re like when you’re sick, and it’s the worst.”

“Me, insufferable?” Magnus laughs weakly, “I couldn’t imagine such a thing.”

Alec rolls his eyes, looping his arm around Magnus’ shoulders and clutching the umbrella between them.

“C’mon,” he says sternly, “Let’s get outta the rain.”

Alec grips his shoulder, his fingers pressing into Magnus’ skin through his overcoat - but unlike the prick of Camille’s nails, Alec’s hand is firm. He rubs his palm up and down Magnus’ arm.

Magnus feels like crying. Shock, relief - he doesn’t know what it is that clogs his throat and forces him to suck in sharp and shallow breaths. Perhaps it’s the realisation that he was a single step away from a plummet into the cold current of the Thames. Makes sense .

At the end of the bridge, Blackfriars station glints in the dark, its white tin rooftops spit-shiny. Alec pulls Magnus across the road, dodging carriages and offering his hand to Magnus to step across a puddle, and then he ducks into the station awning, and the braying of the wind is suddenly silenced.

Alec steps away from him, battling with the umbrella, and Magnus scrubs his hands down his face and pushes his limp hair back against his head. He flicks his hands and rainwater spits across the floor, accompanied by a pathetic spurt of magic that dies blue at his feet, extinguished like a damp flame.

Beside him, Alec flops back against the brick wall, tilting his head back and cricking his neck. Tonight, he’s in a suit, so deeply blue it might be black in any other light but the flickering of an underground station. It sticks to him, his shirt slick against the curve of his chest and abdomen, the silver buckle of his belt shining with rain. He picks at the cuffs of his jacket, but it’s sodden. He frowns, rolling up his sleeves and revealing his forearms covered in runes.

He’s without a tie, his shirt unbuttoned at the collar. Magnus wonders if that’s the fashion, or, perhaps, someone has already removed it for him.

Briefly, Magnus wonders if the cold of the rain masks colour in Alec’s cheeks or the redness of kiss-bitten lips. He wonders where Alec was and what he was doing before he was summoned to the banks of the Thames in a rainstorm.

None of the things he imagines makes him feel any better.

“We should probably wait it out. Your place is kinda far,” Alec remarks, peering out into the rain with a frown. “Every time you’ve taken me to England, it’s been like this.”

“Every time?” Magnus asks.

Alec looks back at him and smiles - not his crooked, heart-racing grin of a smile, but something small and quiet and precious that Magnus hasn’t seen before.

“We stayed in your apartment in Soho when we were on our honeymoon. For a bit,” he says, and not even the streaks of rain on his face can hide the delicate blush now. “It rained for three days without stopping.”  

“It always rains,” Magnus murmurs, “That’s why I love that apartment. You can always -”

“You can always hear the rain on the roof,” Alec says, “You say it helps you sleep.”

Magnus swallows thickly, but the lump in his throat makes it difficult to breathe. He shakes his head, but the tightness doesn’t go away; he only succeeds in splattering Alec with more rainwater.

Of course he knows that. He knows everything , and that’s unfathomable, because if he knows everything, he must know this: this wretched, inhospitable, ugly feeling that festers and bubbles inside Magnus’ chest that won’t go away no matter how much alcohol and reckless hedonism Magnus doses it with.

He knows everything.

“Alec -”

“Yeah?”

Deep breath, Magnus. No matter how much it hurts.

“Did you know I’d be on that bridge?”

Alec doesn’t blink; he doesn’t hesitate. He sets the umbrella against the wall and steps in close to Magnus, and Magnus can feel the warmth of him, ever-glowing and always-tended, even now. The longing to place his hands on Alec’s chest, to sink his fingers into Alec’s skin and step inside him and inhabit him - if only to know himself as Alec does - it possess Magnus, an urge.

“Yeah,” says Alec, meeting Magnus’ eyes deliberately, “I did. That’s why I went and found Camille and sent her to you.” He laughs softly. “She didn’t react well to a Shadowhunter telling her what to do, but I guess she listened anyway.”

Magnus’ heart lurches. “You sent Camille?”

“Yeah. But she would’ve come on her own.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“You should. She did,” Alec says, before adding, “Her one good deed.”

“Why -” Magnus says, but he feels the slap of Camille’s words again, the sting against his face, and he winces. He knows Alec notices the twitch. “If you were here, why couldn’t you - why didn’t you -”

“Why didn’t I talk you off the ledge myself?”

“Yes,” Magnus whispers, and he squeezes his eyes closed, and this time, water beads along his lashes and falls freely down his face. “Yes, Alexander. Precisely that.”

Alec glances down, fiddling with his wedding ring, twisting it around and around his knuckle. He chews on the inside of his cheek. Whatever he has to say, it hurts him. He doesn’t want to say it.

“It has to be her.”

“I don’t believe you.”

A man ducks into the station from out of the rain, shaking his umbrella and tipping his top hat at Alec and Magnus as he hurries towards the ticket office. The cold follows him like a draught and Magnus wraps his arms around his middle, digging his fingers into his sides. The wet fabric of his frock coat squelches.

He listens to the man’s footsteps as they disappear, and then he glances at Alec again, but Alec’s mouth has settled into a tight, straight line.

“Different futures,” Magnus says, “You said it yourself, nearly a hundred years ago. My life in this timeline might not end up the way it does in yours.”

“It will. I know it will.”

“You can’t know that,” Magnus presses, “You appearing here has changed that, Alexander. You’re a ripple in time. You must know how ripples work.”

“That’s why I had to make sure it was Camille who found you,” says Alec, “I can’t - I can’t change the past that made you who you are, Magnus. I had to make it right. Because if it was me -”

“If it was you, perhaps I wouldn’t have been there to begin with,” Magnus says bitterly, “And if it wasn’t you, and it wasn’t her - if I was alone up there, perhaps I would’ve jumped. You can’t know.”

“I know you ,” Alec says. “You wouldn’t have done it. People need you.”

Magnus shakes his head. It always comes back to that: people need you. You need them to need you.

“And you?” he says, his voice rendered hoarse. “Do you need me?”

Alec closes the space between them, shrugging out of his suit jacket. He shakes it out and drapes it over Magnus’ broader shoulders, and while the sleeves might be wet, the silk lining is warm and smells of Alec.

Then, he pries Magnus’ hands from his arms and covers Magnus’ fingers between his own two palms, gently rubbing at Magnus’ knuckles.

“I need you,” he says simply, “Now, in the future, in a hundred different timelines. Always. I need you to be alive to meet me, the past me, because he’s the one that needs you the most. And I think you need me too, even though I know that’s difficult for you sometimes, because you like to pretend that you can do everything by yourself and you don’t like showing people when you’re hurting, but - trust me. You can trust me. Let me take care of you. Let me return the favour.”

He brings their clenched hands up to his lips and presses his mouth to Magnus’ fingertips. The cold, the numbness in Magnus’ hands, it abates. In its place comes the rush of temporal magic, and a flutter not unlike a cautious heartbeat.

“It gets better than this,” Alec whispers. “I swear.”

&&&

The downpour doesn’t let off, and they find themselves on a bench on the empty platform at Blackfriars station, the smell of wet cobblestones replaced by creosote and stale air. This far below ground, they can’t hear the rain, but each train that rolls into the station is battered by a storm that rages a hundred feet above them.

It would take ten minutes to hop on the tube and ride to the stop closest to Magnus’ apartment in Soho, and another five minutes to run to the front door - but Magnus doesn’t mention it. He doesn’t want to move from here, he doesn’t want to lose the warm, solid press of Alec leant against his shoulder, his eyelids slowly drooping.

He doesn’t want to risk standing and disturbing the magic that keeps Alec tethered here. A little longer , he pleads with the universe. Just give me a little while longer with him.

Alec’s head drops onto Magnus’ shoulder and he lets out a snuffle that makes Magnus’ heart clench, and then a grumble as he cracks open one eye.

“What were you doing?” Magnus asks gently, toying with Alec’s long fingers, still tangled with his. “Before you came here?”

“Dinner,” Alec mumbles, words half-slurred. He gestures vaguely at his ruined suit. “The Clave has you running in circles at the moment, and they sent me to consult at the Institute in L.A. It was my first night back in Alicante.”

“We live in Alicante? In Idris?”

“Mhm,” Alec murmurs, “‘S nice. Not as bad as it sounds.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it. What were we having for dinner?”

“I didn’t finish making it yet,” Alec hums, “You were home early. We got distracted.”

Magnus rubs his thumb against Alec’s wedding ring; the metal warms quickly beneath his touch, but he feels the magic shiver, as if rain-cold. He hears Alec yawn, but the weight of him against Magnus’ shoulder is slowly lessening, bit by heartbreaking bit. Magnus lets his eyes fall closed.

This way, he won’t have to see him disappear.

“How very kind of you to make time for me,” Magnus whispers.

“I’ll always make time for you, Magnus.”

Magnus hums. “Hm. ‘ It’s rotten work ’, I believe dear Orestes said.”

“Not to me, it isn’t.”

It doesn’t make sense. None of it does. His devotion, his dedication, how he slips through time and touches Magnus and changes him so quietly and yet so fundamentally, only to disappear again and leave behind only memory to while away the years.

Alec’s will alone makes waves in the magic that surrounds them, the magic that binds them together in all this impossible possibility.  Perhaps his love for Magnus is enough to bend time and space. Certainly, it has been enough to draw him here, to Magnus’ side, over and over again.

You’ve figured it out, haven’t you? Magnus thinks. How to love someone fully and truthfully and with everything that you are. I’m jealous of that. I want it. I want you.

When Magnus opens his eyes, he is alone again.

FOUR | MONTMARTE, PARIS, FRANCE, 1929

Magnus is drunk. And not happily drunk, not the sort of drunk that’s dizzy and forgetful and where all the world seems like a miracle - he’s way past that. His stomach wrings itself in knots and he tastes acidic bile up the back of his throat and his skin feels hot and sweaty to the touch. He slumps over on a bar stool, his shoulders hunched and a glass of cognac between his hands, half-drunk. The ice has melted, the liquor lukewarm. His nails tap relentlessly against the crystal of the glass, but it’s like there’s cotton stuffed in his ears because he can barely hear the chime.

The bartender tries to pour him another, but Magnus waves him away. Whatever words he says are slurred. Magnus can’t remember them anyway.

How many days have you been sat here? he wonders, squinting down at his glass. The colour of the brandy swishes between brown and amber-gold. How much time has passed? How long has it been since you ended it? When was the last time you saw the sun?

The cognac has pooled in the hollow of his stomach; it sloshes around and Magnus has to grip the edge of the bar to stop him doing something stupid, like falling off his stool or upchucking all over his waistcoat. He glances down at himself and finds the buttons misaligned and his pocket watch missing  and the untucked tails of his shirt stained with sticky splashes of his drink. He waves his fingers, banishing some of the mess away, but the blue magic swirling in his palm makes his head spin.

Around and around, it goes. Around and around, Magnus goes, repeating the same mistakes time and time again.

This always happens , he tells himself. You get too attached and they break your heart and you drink the pain away and do it all again. You deserve it. You never learn.

On a stage in the corner of the bar, a jazz ensemble is packing up their instruments: one man with a saxophone, another with a double bass. The singer, a woman with sharp painted nails and a sharper smile, is smoking a cigarette and already turning down drinks from her admirers.

In the low light, she looks like Camille.

Magnus’ head throbs, and he grimaces, pressing his hand to his temple as he slouches lower over the bar.

Why are you still mooning over her? Ragnor had asked him earlier this morning when he had stumbled upon Magnus on his front porch. She never cared for you, Magnus. She only cared for herself. I don’t know how you stayed with her for so long.

I’m too afraid of being alone , Magnus had thought, but did not voice. Ragnor could see it in his eyes, and the slow turning-down of Ragnor’s mouth had been too much, and Magnus had to leave.

He spent the day wandering the streets of Montmatre. It feels appropriate: Paris, the city of lovers, and therefore, the city of scorned lovers. Montmatre has always felt especially unforgiving: a woman who eats you up and spits you out, lost and disoriented in her winding streets, while, in the distance, the Eiffel Tower and the postcard picture of France play pretend.

Magnus doesn’t know how he came across this bar. It doesn’t seem to matter. Ten drinks in, all brandy tastes the same. Perhaps it’s time to switch to whiskey; it’s his heartache drink after all.

Magnus leans forward and lets his forehead rest on the bar, but the room still spins. His skin, sticky, flushed; he wants to be rid of it. Strip it off and start again, someone fresh and new and unknown. He won’t stay here, but London holds more memories he wants to outrun. He could head south where the sun is warm and the afternoons are lazy, or across the sea, and spent the night in a daze in the gardens at Santo Domingo -

Ripples follow him everywhere. He needs to go somewhere new, somewhere far away where the past can’t find him. Magnus tips his head to the side, resting his cheek on the bar. He curls his fingers and summons forth the thought of a portal, shimmering orange-red around his rings, but he doesn’t give it form. The magic weaves in and out and around his fingers, endlessly curious, tiny appendages tracing the lines in his palms from end to end. He could push out his hand and make a doorway to another world. It would only take a second and he could stumble through, and wake up tomorrow in a gutter where at least the sun might be shining.

Look at you , he thinks, curling the portal magic into his palm and extinguishing it. Planning to run away again. You’ll regret this in the morning. You’ll regret this when you’re sober.

Magnus closes his eyes and clenches his jaw, but his stomach churns again and he tastes cognac on the way back up, no longer sweet and purely bitter.

Across the bar, the bartender frowns at him and pushes him a glass of water on a napkin.

Magnus murmurs a reluctant merci , but nudges the glass away again with his fingertip. He doesn’t want to drink it; he doesn’t want kindness. He wants to wallow and remember why he’s alone again.

His temple pulses. Pressure builds in his forehead and behind his eyes and in the bridge of his nose, pinching and pulling at his skin as if vying for his attention.

And then a warm palm presses between his shoulder blades and Magnus’ entire spine lurches; he’s not sure what’s going to come out: all the brandy he’s drunk in the last half hour, or some biting remark about leaving him the Hell alone, he’s not interested . Both are going to cut up the inside of his throat and taste like vomit.

He sits up too quickly and twists in his seat, but comes face to face with a shirt and the smell of expensive cologne - sandalwood . Soft and earthy and delicate against the sweet stench of spilt beer and cigarette smoke.

The hand on his back arches, fingers pressing into the knobs of his spine.

“Hey.”

His voice, Alec’s voice, whiskey-warm. For a moment - and then it’s sour again.

Oh, of course. You’re so drunk that you’re imagining Alexander now? It’s been decades. Alec is not here. You just want so desperately to feel loved.

Magnus looks down at his half-finished cognac. He laughs in disbelief.

“You were right about Camille,” he murmurs, swilling the brandy, wondering if he might find himself in the bottom of the glass. He’s drained far too many bottles in his time, searching for exactly that without much luck. Instead, he finds heartache and hallucinations of men he hasn’t seen in forever.

“‘That night was her one good deed’, that’s what you said. Would’ve been nice if you’d given me a forewarning about her. But instead, here I am, drowning my sorrows -” He gestures suddenly with his hand and knocks his glass; the drink sloshes onto the bar. Magnus pouts.

The room spins, but now the edges are blurred. It could be magic, it might be magic, picking at the threads of time and space and slowly unravelling them, or maybe he’s past the point where he’s going to remember tonight and everything else he does now is moot. He has free reign to be stupid.  

Alec’s hand sweeps up Magnus’ spine, a trail of white-hot heat that sticks to Magnus’ skin beneath his sweat-soaked shirt and waistcoat; Alec curls his fingers over Magnus’ shoulder and pushes Magnus back onto his bar stool.

Pretty strong for a figment of your drunken imagination, Magnus thinks. He didn’t even realise he left his seat.

“Magnus -” Alec starts, slipping onto the bar stool next to him, and now, Magnus gets a good look at this apparition: the fierce set of his mouth, the handsome three days of stubble along his jaw, the bruised, worried look in his eyes that Magnus in no way deserves to receive. He’s no older than that night at Blackfriars. Never older. He’s like Magnus, in that way.

And oh, Magnus hates him. Hates the part of his brain that summoned him.

Don’t talk to me , he thinks. Don’t you dare to talk to me. I can’t hear your voice, not tonight. Not when you’re just like the rest of them, but somehow worse than all. Never staying, always leaving.

Magnus grabs his drink and throws the last dredges of it down the throat. He slams the glass on the bar and turns to Alec - and it really is Alec, and not a stranger with Alec’s face.  Magnus stares at him, searching, but his vision blurs, smeared by invisible fingers. The magic swarms around him, around Alec, drawn towards him like he has a magnet at the centre of his chest that thumps with the same beat as a heart.

“You’re not even here,” Magnus mumbles, but he reaches out to jab Alec in the chest, and Alec is as solid and warm and unmoving as ever. “I’m just pretending that you’re here so that I can shout at you. So that I’m not alone for yet another night -”

Alec wraps his fingers around Magnus’ wrist, stilling the prod of his finger into Alec’s sternum.

“Magnus,” he says quietly, “I’m here, I’m real. Are you okay?”

“Do I look okay?”

Alec’s frown deepens. He stares at Magnus openly, the colour in his dark eyes swirling, but he holds Magnus’ hand fast against his chest, even as Magnus tries to pull away. “No, you don’t. What’s happened?”

Magnus laughs sharply. Drunkenly. “Everyone keeps leaving me. That’s what.”

He grabs his empty glass and leans across the bar, flagging down the bartender (“ un whisky, s'il vous plaît ”), but Alec takes it from his hand and sets it aside, out of reach. He hands Magnus the water instead.

“Magnus, you know that’s not true.”

“Oh? I do, do I?” Magnus retorts. “The man with the charango? Do you remember him? Five years that lasted, and then it was over. I watched him get on a boat in Callao and never come back. Or how about Camille? Or you .”

Alec glances around the bar, dragging his stool closer, but Magnus could not give a damn if anyone is staring. The cognac lights a fire in him; he feels it scorch, he feels it sear. It turns his insides black in sudden, irrational anger.

“Magnus, c’mon -”

“Is it easy? To come and go and not have to say goodbye over and over again and not know when will be the next time I might see you? If you’re coming back at all?”

“Magnus -”

“It’s been fifty-seven years, Alec!” Magnus snaps, surging to his feet. The stool topples over, and Magnus grips the edge of the bar to save himself from the same fate. Blood rushes to his head and black spots pitter across his eyes as he sways. He clenches his teeth and screws tight his eyes until the ache fragments through his jaw and up into his temple. “Fifty-seven years since that night on the bridge, do you know that? I’ve been counting. And every night since, I’ve looked for you, I’ve waited for you, I’ve - I’ve - every single man I’ve walked past, I’ve had to stop and check and see if it’s you. I’ve hoped for you .”

Alec stands too, reaching for Magnus’ shoulder. “Magnus, you’re drunk. Let me take you home.”

Magnus snorts, clumsily batting Alec’s hand away. “‘Let me take you home?’” he parrots, “Did that work on me the first time, hm? Is that the line you used? Is that the line I used?”

Alec suffers every blow, his mouth twitching, but the look in his eyes only grows more determined.

How much does it take to push you away? Magnus wants to beg. What do I have to say to make you leave and not come back?

“No,” Alec says quietly, and he touches Magnus again, his hand on Magnus’ shoulder, his thumb brushing against Magnus’ neck, slipping beneath his cravat to find his pulsepoint. “No. I said, ‘relationships take effort’. And then you said, ‘I’m all for effort’, and you meant it.”

Magnus scoffs, but his heart aches painfully, like Alec has wormed his way past Magnus’ outer walls and taken his heart in a vice and squeezed. It sounds like him. It sounds like the sort of thing he’d say when faced with a beautiful Shadowhunter with infinite patience and a mouth worth kissing.

Magnus’ head swims again, and he staggers off balance. Alec is quick to catch him, looping his arm around Magnus’ back.

He buries his nose in Magnus’ hair, just behind Magnus’ ear. Alec breathes in deeply, and it steadies him. He breathes in deeply, and for a moment, Magnus wonders what it must be like for Alec to see the person he loves most in the world try agonizingly to pull himself apart, while Alec knows he won’t be around long enough to see it through.

“Let me take you home,” Alec whispers, “Please.”

&&&

Montematre is moonlit as they stagger from the bar. Alec is strong, strong enough to support Magnus’ weight, probably strong enough to carry him, but Magnus’ coordination is shot to pieces.

It’s not the only thing that’s shattered. His resolve lies in fragments at his feet.

Red lights gleam in the dark as women hang from windows and call out to the late-night drunks in the street, beckoning them upstairs for the price of a few gold coins. A parade of towncars hurtle past, a young woman hanging out the window and screeching with laughter, waving her hat in Alec’s direction as the roar of the engine rumbles. They fade into the distance. And as far as the eye can see, there are rooftops, and there are men on the rooftops, singing love songs to a city that longs to be serenaded, who will stay up until the sky turns from blue to blush with the twilight.

Magnus dares not look up. He stares at his feet, willing his double-vision to go away so he can walk a straight line long enough to reach his apartment on the banks of the Seine - or at least summon a portal there.

He leans into Alec’s side, unbalanced, pressing his nose against the collar of Alec’s shirt; there’s that sandalwood again and leather and the sweet sugar of magic, comforting, familiar, too much. Far too much.

Magnus needs more. Instead of whiskey, let him drown in this.

He pulls himself close, until every point on his body is flush with Alec, and he feels the surprised gasp leave Alec’s mouth and it almost feels good . Alec’s arm tightens around Magnus’ back, his fingers gripping Magnus’ waistcoat to stop them from toppling over, but there’s a part of Magnus that wants to tumble to the ground. He wants to fall through the puddles that fill the gaps in the pavement, into the upside-down world, the other future where Alec is from, where they’re in love, where this Alec loves all of him as he is now, and not just a figment.

Magnus buries his head in Alec’s shoulder. Words escape him, humid and nauseous against Alec’s throat.

“I can’t wait another hundred years to see you again, Alexander.”

He hates it, he does. He hates the way Alec looks at him with a history they haven’t yet shared.

Alec’s fingers dig into his ribs. A moment of hesitation. “You won’t have to wait that long,” he murmurs, quiet enough to be a secret. “I promise.”

Magnus scoffs bitterly. “You don’t know that.”

Alec stops, forcing Magnus to stop too. Magnus squints at him, seeing double, but Alec shakes his head. “Magnus, I do.”

“How?”

“Because,” says Alec, and once again, Magnus feels the tug of magic kneading at his skin, a string of fate that wraps around his bottom rib and leads beyond his chest and enters Alec’s in exactly the same place. “You and me, we always find our way back to each other. Whatever happens.”

He’s said those words before, Magnus knows he has. Not to him, not yet, but - one day.

How far away is one day, Alec?

It doesn’t matter. Alec believes it with every fibre of his being anyway. Magnus knows that too.

&&&

Sunrise hesitates just below the horizon by the time Magnus’ apartment comes into view, his feet aching terribly, blisters on his blisters. He’d tried to call a portal, but his magic had spat out hisses and sparks, and now, he doesn’t want to know how far they’ve walked across the city in a strange stupored silence.

The sky is pinkening in the distance, spilt with shades of orange as Magnus stumbles into the lobby of his building and Alec nods at the doorman. In the elevator, Magnus mashes the button for the penthouse and then leans back against the handrail, tilting his head against the mirrored wall. He pushes his shirt sleeves up about his elbows and undoes the buttons of his waistcoat, letting it hang loose, and then he catches his own reflection in the mirror on the other side: his cravat is crooked and his hair unkempt; his red-shot eyes; his makeup smudged and day-old.

Alec slides in next to him, his hands folded behind his back, and Magnus watch him in the mirror too. His eyes roam the long length of Alec’s body, his heavy boots and his fitted trousers, up to the holster lashed around his thigh and the buttons of his shirt. Magnus lingers on the lines of his neck disappearing into the open collar of his shirt, and then on his mouth as Alec worries on his lower lip, deep in thought.

Everything blurs in and out of existence. Magnus’ heart beats sluggishly, pulling itself through the cognac settled in his stomach.

The elevator shudders upwards and their eyes meet in the reflection in the mirror.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Alec asks.

Magnus shakes his head. “No. Not really,” he murmurs. His temple now aches with the early onset of sobriety. “It’s a terribly sad story that doesn’t bear repeating. I’ll be fine once I’ve slept it off.”

Alec’s frown deepens, and he looks down, fiddling with his wedding ring again. The silence is only disturbed by the ding of the elevator as it rises floor by slowing floor.

“Can I tell you something?” Alec asks, after a moment. He turns to Magnus; the magic confined to the small space of the elevator ripples but has nowhere to go. It bounces back against the mirror, colliding with itself, and Magnus has to pull his eyes away from the mid-distance, from the patterns no-one can see but him, to look at Alec.

“Always.”

The corner of Alec’s mouth twitches upwards, almost a smile, but it fades. “When we meet, I - I never thought I’d get this. I never thought I’d meet someone like you and I’d decided that was okay. Well, not okay, but liveable. I had my job, my family, my parabatai - other things. I thought I could get by without-” He gestures between them. “- this.”

“And then I swept into your life and changed all that?”

Alec’s smile blooms again, distant, sad, somewhat wry. Faint colour creeps up his neck. “No. No, you came along and it - it made it worse. It was like, I could see what I could have and then it was even further out of my reach, y’know? Everything else in my life, it was like black and white, but you - you were colour. And that terrified me. I got one tiny look at it - at us - and it made me realise that that’s all I’d ever get because I wasn’t allowed to want it. You don’t just get to be a Shadowhunter and - well. This.”  

“This,” Magnus repeats. “Married?”

“Not just that. It was everything. And I ran away from it - or I tried. I was going to do something really stupid, but you … Magnus, you never gave up on me, even then.”

A breath catches in Magnus’ throat; the hand of magic encircles its warm fingers around his windpipe and applies just enough pressure for his next words to come out as a whisper or maybe as a croak. “What are you trying to say?”

“I thought I was gonna be alone for my entire life. I’d accepted it, just like you,” Alec says honestly, “I was wrong.”

The golden hand above the elevator doors tips over, and the doors open onto the penthouse. Magnus cannot move. His hands grip the bar behind him, and he stares at Alec, unwilling to blink, unable to take a breath.

He feels both cut adrift and rooted to this moment, held only to the ground by the steadfast look in Alec’s eyes. The universe moves around him, his determined heart at its very centre.

No, not the universe. Just yours.

Magnus sees that now.

“Magnus …” Alec whispers, stepping forward and reaching out. His fingers brush against Magnus’ bare forearm leaving goosebumps in their wake.

Magnus jerks away. He feels the sickness of the alcohol, but not the dizziness.

You talked about being scared. I know that too. I’m scared of this hurting my heart more than everything else that’s happened before.

“Let’s go inside,” he murmurs, “I need to lie down.”

&&&

The haze before the dawn echoes with the rattling sound of tires on Parisian cobblestones, the moonlight barking of neighbourhood dogs, and the ever-present rumble of Paris’ heart slowly stirring into wakefulness, but Magnus’ room is still and silent. His bed is unmade where he left it yesterday morning, sheets rumpled and half-draped across the mattress, pillows strewn against the headboard. Clothes litter the floor, unpaired shoes and untied cravats, a dress of Camille’s or two. On the bedside table, there’s an uncorked and half-emptied bottle of whiskey.

Halfway between dreams and sleep, Magnus is vaguely aware of the throbbing in his forehead, but he’s too delirious to feel real pain, not with Alec floating at his back like a ghost, close enough to feel, not quite close enough to touch.

Good , Magnus thinks distantly, his eyelids heavy as he drops down on his mattress and kicks off his shoes, his whole body suddenly sore. It’s more a hollow, tender feeling, as if his skin has coloured with poppy bruises, and clumsy, invisible hands poke and prod at these tender spots, as if seeking out old wounds. But the feeling doesn’t ebb or flow or fade like it should - it just lingers, a present thought in his foggy head.

The dream is strange: emptiness and longing, the vastness of a lonely city, the sickening of alcohol, the want for pliant skin just for the sake of touch. The overwhelming presence of Alec in his space, standing before him with his hands clasped behind his back, both a dutiful soldier and a perfect husband, drenched in Magnus’ own magic and the nauseating spin of time and space that’s not meant to be.

Magnus feels like he might vomit. God, what is wrong with me .

“Alexander,” he says, because he doesn’t know what else to say. I need you. I need you in a way that I don’t think you can give. Not yet.

Alec kneels down in front of him and lays his left hand on Magnus’ knee, his ring attracting the faint wisps of light that slip through the blinds.

“You’re allowed to want things,” he says, “You taught me that.”

“Even things I have no right wanting?”

“Even those,” Alec murmurs. “I wish I could give them to you.”

Magnus stirs, reaching out blindly for Alec’s jacket - the need to pull him close is overwhelming - but it’s Alec’s hand he finds, Alec’s hand that squeezes Magnus’ fingers tightly. His wedding ring feels cold now. Magnus’ focuses on that against the pounding in his head.

With his other hand, Alec loosens the cravat around Magnus throat and pulls it free of his collar, folding it carefully upon the nightstand. Then, he smooths Magnus’ hair away from his forehead, his fingers lingering against Magnus’ temple, as if drawn to the point where the blood pulses the loudest, knowing his touch will quiet it.

He knows everything about Magnus. All the tiny little things that no-one has ever paid attention to, Alec knows them intimately.

“Magnus,” Alec murmurs, his finger ghosting around the socket of Magnus’ eyes. “You need to sleep. Sober up.”

“I won’t until you’re gone.”

“It could be hours yet. C’mon. I’ll stay here with you.”

Magnus rolls onto his side, his cheek hitting the pillow - and the room swirls in dark colour - and he looks Alec in the eye. Alec’s expression is grave, his mouth drawn in a severe line. A crease appears between his eyebrows, and Magnus wishes it gone; it makes him look far older than he is. It makes him look as old as Magnus feels, like he has lived all these lifetimes between their visits too.

“Stop that,” Magnus whispers. He untangles his hand from Alec’s and presses his thumb between Alec’s eyebrows, smoothing out his frown lines.

“Stop what?”

Magnus shakes his head, and drags his thumb down the length of Alec’s nose, across his cupid’s bow, and onto his lips, pushing down until blood gathers at the touch and Alec’s lower lip blooms in a dark, perfect red.

Alec exhales carefully, cool against Magnus’ skin. His eyes are wide when Magnus finds them again.

“Will I see you again?” Magnus asks. He has to know. Sooner or later, Alec is going to vanish with the morning and not come back. The residual temporal energy will only last so long.  

“The magic’s not gone yet,” Alec replies, but the sorrow lingers. “Maybe - maybe I’ve got one jump left. I don’t know.”

“Am I getting close?”

“Close?”

“Close to you, in your present. My future. Wherever it is that you are and I am not.”

Alec doesn’t speak for a moment, but Magnus can see him thinking. His thumb rubs at the bare knuckle of Magnus’ fourth finger.  

“It’s soon,” he settles on, but he still won’t tell Magnus exactly when. “But I can’t-”

Just give me a year , Magnus thinks. Give me a decade. Something to hold onto.

“But you can’t just wish away your life waiting to catch up, Magnus,” Alec continues, “There’s so much - there’s so much you’re gonna miss, and you’ll regret it if you do. There’s so much ahead of you that makes you who you are -” He takes Magnus’ hand by the wrist and draws his fingers close; he presses a soft, worshipful kiss to the pad of Magnus’ thumb. “It makes you the man I fell in love with.”

Magnus’ heart lurches. “Are you always so frank?”

Alec smiles softly. “You love it.”

I do , Magnus realises. God above, I do.

FIVE | BROOKLYN, NEW YORK, USA, 1989

“That’s the last of them,” says Catarina, as the portal closes behind her, the swirling orange magic dissipating into sparks that extinguish on the rug. “I never thought we’d get the High Warlock of Madrid taking refugees from the Circle - what did you offer him? Diamonds? Jewels? Oh, Magnus, it better not be your apartment in London, I know how long he’s been coveting that.”

“I am most certainly not giving him the apartment,” Magnus says, “The old coot just owed me a favour from a very long time ago and I decided to cash it in. The High Warlock may be a stick in the mud, but very few people hate Shadowhunters as much as him. He won’t let Valentine Morgenstern come within a spell’s throw of the Warlock community in Spain.”

Magnus swans towards his drinks stand and picks up two glasses: one, tall and thin-stemmed with a trio of olives propped against the rim, and the other dark and purple and glittery. He holds it out to Cat, but she raises her palm and shakes her head.

Magnus raises his eyebrows, a silent ‘ suit yourself ’ as he takes a sip of his drink. “Besides,” he continues, licking the taste of the martini from his lips, “There’s nothing he could give me in exchange for that apartment. Where else would I stay when visiting Ragnor, if not there?”

Catarina rolls her eyes. “You haven’t visited Ragnor in fifty years. You and I both know that’s not the reason you want to keep that apartment. I seem to remember you insisting that you needed it for a very special occasion, last time the High Warlock tried to buy it off you.”

Magnus waves his hand noncommittally. “I was drunk. Whatever I said can’t be held against me.”

“So you’re denying it then?” Cat says, but her eyebrow is raised and her mouth curves into a wry, crooked grin. She folds her hands across her chest and cocks her hip. “You don’t remember saying you were going to spend your honeymoon in London and you’ve already planned it all out, despite the fact you and I both know you’ve never been married, not once in eight hundred years, even though I’m pretty sure a number of people have asked you -”

“I said no such thing, and even if I did, I maintain that I was incredibly drunk. You’re putting words in my mouth, Catarina.”

Magnus flicks his fingers and the balcony doors swing open, daylight streaming into the loft from across the East River in shafts of yellow. He squints, raising one hand to shield his eyes. The shapes of skyscrapers coalesce; the Brooklyn Bridge catches the reflection of the water and the brown stone ripples.

Magnus wanders out onto the balcony, setting his glass down on the edge and spreading his hands wide. He surveys the city: the bustle of Brooklyn, the cacophony of car horns and the sound of construction, Manhattan looming in the distance.

The city that never sleeps. Except when Shadowhutners are killing and torturing Downworlders and then, then it’s time to turn a blind eye -

Catarina hesitates in the doorway, watching him from afar. He doesn’t turn back to look at her, but he can feel her eyes on his back.

“Are you worried?” she asks. It’s a loaded question and only has one answer.

“I’m worried about a lot of things,” Magnus replies, “I’m worried that Valentine Morgenstern and his lackeys are going to wipe out the Downworld population of New York. I’m worried that we can’t trust the Shadowhunters to look out for our best interests any more, not if it means going against other Nephilim. We’re on our own.”

“The Shadowhunters have always been that way,” Cat frowns, “Trusting them is stupid, you’ve said so yourself. Nephilim are all the same.”

Not all of them , Magnus thinks, not one. I still have hope that things can change.

But we can’t afford to wait for that. Too many Downworld lives are on the line.

Magnus sighs heavily, turning to face her. He leans back against the edge of the balcony. “No, you’re right,” he says, “I’ll summon the other Downworld leaders and we’ll discuss how best to deal with the New York Institute. I’ll send you a fire message so you can be there.”

“I’ll do my best,” says Cat, “I’m moving a lot of people out of the city this week. I’ve got a clan of Vampires going to Tokyo tonight, and another six Warlocks to send to Madrid. It’s hard enough summoning so many portals, but harder still when we have to hide the magical trace from the Nephilim so that they don’t know what we’re doing. My magic is shot and I’m exhausted.”

Magnus smiles tightly. “You worked for the Underground Railroad in the fifties, Cat. There’s no-one else I would trust with this.”

“Yeah, the eighteen fifties. That was a long time ago, Magnus. I thought we’d seen the last of this. Genocidal maniacs hunting and killing our people.”

So did I , Magnus thinks. So did I .

&&&

He lingers on the balcony a while after she’s gone, long after his drink is empty. He runs his fingers up the stem of the glass and listens to it sing, a sound shrill and sharp against the rumble of the city at large.

He has so much to do - potions to make and clients to call, and there are a stack of fire messages on his desk waiting to be read, all from young Warlocks desperate for his help to get out of the city before the Circle find them - but he finds he cannot move, not for a quiet moment that seems slotted in between the passage of time. His eyes follow a lone seagull coasting on the updraughts, hanging motionless in the bright blue sky. It bobs in the wind, its caws carrying across Brooklyn, and it lulls Magnus into a stupor where the rest of the world is drowned out.

His magic envelops him, a shield between him and New York, between him and the world he has stopped running from and finally turned to face. He taps his fingernail upon the stone edge of the balcony and listens to his magic reverberate - tip, tip, tip - and then he feels a swell, a gentle pushing on his wards at his front door.

Magnus frowns, peering back into the loft. The protective magic shifts again, but rather than someone trying to break in, scratching and plucking at the spell, desperate to unravel it, it feels as if its a curtain parted and someone slips through quietly. Very few people can get past Magnus’ wards - he can count them on one hand. Catarina, Raphael, Ragnor - if the old bat ever left his cottage in England to say hello to a friend who misses him -  

Frozen, he watches as the front door opens, and then, slipping into the loft like he’s lived there all his life - Alec.

His Alexander. Of course the wards already know him. He was woven into their magic before Magnus even cast the spell.

Magnus’ heart beats loudly, a rhythm he hasn’t felt in a long time, a reverberation in his chest that he knows intimately, locked away in his memories.  

He watches Alec’s eyes dart around the loft, lingering on the drinks bar and frowning at the large sofa Magnus has been planning to switch out for something more modern. He sets his bow and quiver down by the door, and then his fingertips trail across the back of an armchair, and he steps around the rugs on the floor without even looking, as if he already knows where they lie.

A smile curves Alec’s beautiful mouth: it’s soft, loose, completely at peace. His gaze flicks up and he sees Magnus standing on the balcony, and that same smile blooms with the sunlight as it passes across his face.

And in that moment, Magnus realises: this is his home .

This loft in Brooklyn is Alec’s home. It’s their home. They live here together, they’ve made a life here together; this space is Alec’s space.

“Hello, stranger,” Magnus says, leaning back against the balcony, basking in the roam of Alec’s eyes up the length of his body as he, too, steps out into the view of Brooklyn. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?”

“What year is it?” Alec asks. He’s wearing his usual jeans and jacket, but his shirt shines with subtle silver thread, and Magnus knows that same shirt sits in his closet right now, still in its garment bag. Magnus bought it only last week.

.

“1989,” Magnus says, curving his body towards Alec as Alec rests his hip against the stone railing. “George Bush is President, the High Warlock of Bangkok skipped my birthday party, and Madonna released an excellent fourth album. It’s hard to guess what might go down in history.”

“Sixty years since Paris,” Alec remarks.

“The blink of an eye,” Magnus says, offering a smile. “You don’t have a single grey hair.”

Alec ducks his head on a blush. The corners of his eyes crinkle. “Got a couple wrinkles though. Perils of the job, I guess.”

Magnus hums. He could say that the faint lines around Alec’s eyes make him handsome, or he could remark on how he wouldn’t mind feeling the bite of Alec’s stubble against his skin - and it all would deepen the colour in Alec’s cheeks - but he’s content enough just to look.

So, he looks. He looks, he marvels, and while the ache in his chest is still there, it’s quietened. It’s softened. It doesn’t bruise him anymore because he’s made peace with it, with the tenderness of his skin and his carefully-concealed heart whenever Alec is nearby.

The magic trickles across his skin, the barest touch. A long time ago on the streets of Madrid, it was a flood, a wave punching against his chest, but now, the same temporal magic fades, hissing across the metaphorical sand as it retreats back into the sea.

The spell is weakening, the tear in space and time slowly stitching itself back together, and soon enough, Alec will no longer be able to step through. But Alec - oh, his eyes have softened and he gazes at Magnus with such an overflowing amount of love, and Magnus wants to know how he ever missed it.

How he ran into that Shadowhunter all those centuries ago and didn’t know what this was at first glance.  

I should’ve known you then as I do now. I should’ve known you then as you’ve known me always.

“What?” Alec asks, his smile slanted.

Magnus shakes his head. “Nothing. It’s nothing.”  

Disantly, Magnus hears a hiss, the whistle of a fire message cutting through his wards. He snatches it out of mid-air, embers cooling on his fingertips, the edges of the parchment scorched.

“Is it urgent?” Alec asks.

“No,” Magnus replies, but he scrunches up his mouth and frowns anyway. “It’s Catarina. She’s been moving Downworlders out of the city and needs my help with masking the energy signature of a portal.”

“Moving Downworlders - oh . The Circle. Valentine.”

“The fact that you’ve heard of him doesn’t fill me with much hope,” says Magnus, snapping his fingers and turning the fire message to ash. He nods at Alec to follow him inside.

“I don’t know him, I’ve met him,” Alec corrects, “Wish I hadn’t.” His voice drops and he fiddles with his ring. “Wish you hadn’t.”  

“There are a great many things I wish I hadn’t done,” says Magnus, leading the way into the loft and towards his study. “But as someone very wise once told me, you can’t just wish away the things that made you who you are.”

Even with his Shadowhunter reflexes, there’s something endearing in the way Alec almost walks into a bookcase, unaccustomed to it being next to the door. Alec glares at it, and Magnus huffs with laughter, sliding behind his desk. He picks up the stack of unburnt fire messages next to his quill and leafs through them.

“The Circle is torturing Downworlders,” he says as Alec hovers on the other side of the desk. “Catarina and I are ferrying as many as we can out of New York to sanctuary cities. The New York Warlock council is not happy with me, of course, because they think we should stay and fight, but - as High Warlock of Brooklyn, my responsibility is to the safety of my people first, and not to the war that Valentine Morgenstern is so eager to fight. It’s kept me very busy.”

“I’m glad,” says Alec, “I mean - I’m not glad that this is happening, just that you’re - that you’ve found purpose. Back in Paris, I thought - I was - you save people , Magnus. That’s what you do.”

“You flatter me.”

“It’s the truth.”

Magnus hesitates, but Alec doesn’t look away. The way he stares, sometimes, wide-eyed and earnest and unblinking, makes Magnus feel so see-through. And it’s in those moments that Magnus finds he knows himself, the truest version of who he is and what he can do: he sees himself as Alec sees him.

Whole.

Magnus clears his throat pointedly and summons his caldron and pestle and mortar to his desk.

“I need to make a magical restoration potion for Catarina,” he explains, “Can you pass me the cypress? It’s in the jar on the -”

Alec reaches out and grabs a small glass jar from the shelf behind him, handing it to Magnus. He doesn’t read the label, but as Magnus uncorks the jar and turns it upside down, a few green branchlets shake out into his palm. Magnus inhales the sweetness of pine and the dry peppery smell of juniper.

“You knew where that was without even looking,” he murmurs, staring at his hand, “I know what that means.”

“What does it mean?”

“It means I’m getting close.”

Magnus crushes the cypress leaves in his fist and tosses them into his cauldron, and then he steps around the desk, crowding Alec against the pantry. The glass jars clink as Alec’s shoulders knock against the shelf.

“It’s a different me,” Alec murmurs, “I told you, when we first meet, I’m -”

“You’re still you,” Magnus says. “That’s all that matters.”

Magnus cups Alec’s neck, kneading his thumbs into the soft, pliant skin beneath Alec’s jaw. It makes Alec’s lips part on instinct. His heartbeat is traitorously loud.

“I think this is the last time I’m going to see you,” Alec whispers. “The magic left over from that spell is wearing off, so I probably won’t - “ His sentence breaks and he swallows thickly, and Magnus follows the slow, pronounced bob of his throat. Magnus strokes his fingers over the tendons in Alec’s neck, feeling them jump and shift with his touch. “I probably won’t get to …”

“You have your own future,” Magnus replies, “And I have mine. You’ve known from the start that this meeting was an accident.”

Alec chews on his lower lip, his head jerking. His eyes have grown dark, his irises eclipsed by his pupils. One hand comes up to cover Magnus’ against the side of his throat. His wedding ring glints and feels cold against Magnus’ fingers.

“It happens soon,” Alec confesses, and the words tumble out as if he might regret them if he says them any slower. “Less than thirty years. In Manhattan -”

“Spoilers, surely?”

“- and I take one look at you and it terrifies me, because I want it so much and I’d never wanted anyone like that before.”

Magnus sucks in a sharp breath, and then he surges up onto the balls of his feet, threading his fingers through Alec’s hair, and he kisses Alec hard.

Alec stumbles back into the shelves and the jars and pots and trinkets clink and jangle, but none of them break, and Alec grips Magnus by the lapels of his jacket and pulls him close.

Magnus’ magic stutters - and then it leaps. He feels it surge into Alec at every point they touch, and Alec returns it in like: Magnus’ own magic, but more, outpouring with this timeless and irrevocable love that makes no sense, and yet, here Magnus is, cradling it between two palms and feeling the way is disturbs the universe - palpable, tangible thing.

Alec kisses him deeply, his tongue flicking against the seam of Magnus’ mouth, his teeth nipping at Magnus’ lower lip. He kisses Magnus like he’s been kissing him for years - and God, he has, he has - and he knows each and every way to make Magnus’ heart beat faster.

Then, Magnus can feel his smile: tiny, guilty, perfect, and the kiss softens. Alec presses his lips to the corner of Magnus’ mouth, to his jaw, to the soft skin of his cupid’s bow as Magnus, each one more gentle than the last as Magnus threads his fingers through the dark hair above Alec’s ears.

And Alec trembles, the magic they share trembles, shivering through Magnus’ fingers and up his arms and into his chest where it bounces across each rib. It breathes, and Magnus takes each of Alec’s shaky inhales and exhales as his own.

The kiss fades, until it’s just the brush of Alec’s lips across his, and then Alec tilts his forehead against Magnus’, his breathing deep. His fingers are still knotted in the lapels of Magnus’ jacket.

“I never -” Alec whispers, and Magnus feels every word against his mouth. “I never thought that I’d - that felt like our first kiss again. I never thought I’d feel it a second time.”

Magnus brushes his nose against Alec’s. “And which of us did it better?” he asks, “Him or me?”

“You. Always you,” Alec murmurs, “He is you.”

The buzzing in the magic has yet to dissipate, and Magnus can feel the invisible threads of the fading spell wrap their tendrils around Alec’s arms and legs and begin to tug. They don’t have long.

Magnus closes his eyes, holding Alec near to him. “I stand no chance, Alexander,” he confesses, “The moment I meet you, I’m already going to feel so -”

“I’m going to feel the same thing. I promise.”

Magnus shakes his head. Alec doesn’t understand it; he can’t. The feeling has always been too big for Magnus, to unwieldy for him to grasp, and yet Alec lives and breathes it: this thing called love.

“It makes no sense, but I know you,” Magnus says. “I know who you are in the same way I know my magic. It’s intimate. Inherent to who I am, and yet it’s a life I haven’t yet lived.”

“It’ll make sense,” Alec replies, and his lifts his hand to cup Magnus’ jaw, but the touch of his fingertips is incorporeal. His eyes find Magnus’, endlessly. “It makes sense to me.”  

“I look forward to meeting you,” Magnus whispers, as Alec’s skin turns translucent and becomes the same dust particulates always suspended in a beam of silent sunlight.

PLUS ONE | MANHATTAN, NEW YORK, USA, 2016

The lights of Pandemonium pulse with electrochromic intensity: blue, purple, green, white, strobe passing across the crowd like a searchlight, plunging young thrill seekers in and out of shadow. The floor is sticky with spilled beer, the air is sweet and sickly with Seelie magic, but it’s the music that laves across Magnus’ skin and always fills him with that heady rush.

That, and the power flickering in his fingertips as he summons a portal, the thrill of holding a Shadowhunter by the throat with just the lick of his magic, the power pulsing from the red jewel in his hand, returned to him by Clary Fairchild and that insufferable blonde Shadowhunter, and engraved on the back with the single word, amor -

True love can never die .

“Look out!”

The arrow comes out of nowhere, piercing a hidden Circle member through the heart. The man falls with a thud, but electricity skitters up the back of Magnus’ neck.

He turns. The archer comes striding down the stairs and pushes his way through the crowd, brushing Magnus’ shoulder on his way to retrieve the arrow. He’s young - painfully young - and skittish and beautiful and, at last, unfamiliar.

There’s not a single wisp of temporal magic to be felt. The universe, for once, is whole and faultless.

It’s taken almost four hundred years.

“Who are you?” Magnus asks, already breathless. He knows the answer. What was it he’s supposed to say? More like medium rare?

He watches the Shadowhunter toss his Seraph blade in the air and catch it. The roaming yellow-gold lights of the club pass across his bare forearms, the empty space on his left ring finger.

Heat unfurls beneath Magnus’ skin.

The magic sings.

[djfrankk]

(Der verspätete) Jahresrückblick 2019

10 mal Dancefloor. 20 Alben. 11 mal Radio. 1 mal alles andere (28.01.2020)

Ok, ich bin spät dran. Irgendwie habe ich mir eingeredet, ich höre mir noch die Bestenlisten der diversen Magazine und Leser-/Hörer-Votings durch, und hübsche meine Listen dann noch auf. Ersteres habe ich auch gemacht, aber eigentlich hatte es auf meine Listen von MItte Dezember keinen Einfluss mehr. Viel Spaß beim durchstöbern und wundern. Reviews sind verlinkt. Feel free to comment. 

BEST TRACKS (DANCEFLOOR)

1. marie davidson – work it (soulwax remix) 2. the chemical brothers – got to keep on 3. roman rauch – blackout 4. gerry read – it'll all be over (dj koze remix) 5. daphni feat. Paradise – if 6. dj hotel – sleepless 7. ross from friends – epiphany 8. martyn – odds againsrt us 9. mstrkrft – city violence 10. kedr livanskiy – sky kisses

BEST ALBUMS

1. jayda g – significant changes

2. karen o & danger mouse – lux prima 3. die türen – exoterik 4. thom yorke – anima 5. battles – juice b crypts 6. kim gordon – no home record 7. modeselektor – who else 8. the chemical brothers – no geography 9. !!! – wallop 10. elliot adamson – tihkal 11. black midi – schlagenheim 12. peggy gou – dj-kicks peggy gou 13. efdemin – new atlantis 14. clark – kiri variations 15. loraine james – for you and i 16. dj shadow – our pathetic age 17. deichkind – wer sagt denn das? 18. chromatics – closer to grey 19. sleaford mods – eton alive 20. wilco – ode to joy

BEST SONGS (INDIE, POP & RADIO)

(ohne reihenfolge)

dj shadow featuring de la soul – rocket  fuel kinderzimmer productions – boogie down sampa the gread – final form kim gordon – air bnb deichkind – bude voll people two door cinema club – talk sleaford mods – kebab spider lizzo – juice wolfram feat. Peaches – automatic cherry glazerr feat. Portugal the man – call me toro y moi - freelance i jahbar - turn up

AND ALSO …  

DJ/ELECTRONIC SET – chemical brothers, cardiff CONCERT – die türen @ chelsea, vienna FESTIVAL – fm4 unlimited CLUB – jazzkeller, krems TV – watchmen; the loudest voice; too old to die young, bojack horseman, true detectives, tuca & bertie RADIO – fm4 unlimited MOVIE – the irshman (peinlicherweise weil auf netflix zu sehen) MUSIC-VIDEO – next year MAGAZINE – the gap MUSIC-MAGAZINE – groove (online) BOOK – next year NOT BAD – spex und groove gehen online weiter. und es scheint zu funktionieren. NOT GOOD – kein neuer, aktueller mix von mir 2020 – fitter werden, etwas durchstarten.

[jayalaw]

Endgame Deviation: Thor the Gamer

@kingofthewilderwest

So picture this: after Infinity War, Thor is wracked with guilt and a sense of failure. He feels he can’t be trusted to fight.

Valkyrie and the surviving Asgardians rally and ground him. They remind him that Odin also failed to protect them from Loki and Hela. Thor takes effort in rebuilding on the land allotted to them. He leaves the Stormbreaker to gather dust in his hut’s corner.

He has good days and bad days. On the bad days he asks why he didn’t go for the head. Good days are funerals for celebrating the dead in Valhalla, to carve model ships that go over the local waterfall.

It starts when Korg buys a PC and starts playing games. Thor joins him one day and sees tribute to let’s players who were dusted. The survivors raise money for charity. Thor feels some of the guilt, but inspiration on seeing people who have lost everything and are seeing them give their time and happiness.

A phone call to Tony and some tutorials later, Thor learns to work a stream. He tries out a peaceful building game. Sleep eludes him because he dreams of the sound of necks snapping, and Loki’s choked final words.

The stream is a hit; people like seeing their hero as human. Thor can give him his time and hammy reactions. Of course he has guidelines: there can be no game with an utter downer ending. Otherwise he’ll have to carve more boats. They’re running out of llumber on the island. Thor must have a chance to inspire people.

The softer indie games get to him. He cries after playing Undertale the first time, and flies to thank the creator. The Pacifist route allows him to save his father and mother from themselves, and honor Loki. Loki as a child would have fed buttercups to Odin as a joke. And Loki did die trying to save his brother.

When he likes a game, he flies to help the creator out with anything they need. The Toby Fox visit goes viral after he asks the gaming community to help the creator with the sequel. Thor realizes he can use his celebrity to crowd fund.

He and Morgan play whenever they go to visit Tony. Tony has been trying to live simply but can’t resist the lure; he finds and adapts Nintendo drivers so all three of them can enjoy each other’s company. Morgan’s love of Duck Hunt disturbs them, and she becomes a giggling crackshot. Pepper insists on some educational games, so Thor helps chase down Carmen Sandiego and learns to type rapidly.

Tony knows Thor is broken and in denial. But also Thor, like Tony, is trying to make something good out of all the bad that happened because their plans went wrong. When they try to talk out what happened, their throats close.

Bruce Hulk ends up getting through to Thor, after Scott appears from the Quantum Realm. He waits for Thor to finish recording his latest stream on a sleepless day and night. Then they talk.

“I can’t do it,” Thor says. “I am not worthy for real battle. The Stormbreaker accepts me, but Mjolnir would not. I would sabotage your mission, good friend.”

Hulk gently grabs his shoulders and tells him Thor did his best. Thor isn’t unworthy. This is a chance to change their future for the better. Creators who got dusted or lost their motivation after seeing entire families and neighborhoods die. Or those who keep going because creation is the ultimate rebellion against certain oblivion.

“Do it for Toby,” Professor Hulk tells him. “He would want you to save this world.”

Thor messages Toby, giving the gist of the time heist without details. No need to give someone false hope. He gets the words he needs to hear before preparing to go back in time and steal the Aether from his ex. Jane has never looked more lovely. He leaves a USB containing undertale by her side and a long note.

After, he and Morgan play ten hours of Ninentendo to honor her dad. He claps her back with pride when she wins nine out of ten rounds of Duck Hunt. Popsicles and cheeseburgers substitute mead easily.

Thor doesn’t plan to become a Guardian. Too much work to do on New Asgard as their king. He orders Peter to find his grandfather afrrr learning he’s from Earth; life’s is fleeting and fragile. And he keeps gaming while the people around him rebuild and grieve once more. He keeps streaming, but with more fervor and joy.

[monsterproblems]

Genre: Sci-Fi’ish Comedy

Premise: In a future where the world has been overrun by monsters, a young man risks his life to get to the woman he’s fallen for.

About: Brian Duffield is one of my favorite writers. One of his scripts, Your Bridesmaid is a Bitch, is on my Top 25. And through no fault of his own, another of his projects, Jane Got A Gun, found itself in the middle of a production circus when on the first day of shooting the director of the film just decided not to show up. This resulted in actors dropping out, other actors switching roles, and a full-on game of production musical chairs. Monster Problems was picked up last year. It’s unclear where it is in development. I’ll tell you this right now, though. If I were a studio, this is one of the first scripts I’d green light.

Writer: Brian Duffield

Details: 113 pages (undated)

Okay, so I want you to imagine Sleepless in Seattle. Mixed with a John Hughes film. Mixed with Harry Potter. Mixed with Pacific Rim.

You may be saying, “Carson, that is an unbelievable combination of films. There is nobody in the world who could make that work.”

Ladies and Gentleman, may I introduce you to Brian Duffield. The only person in the world who can make that work. And honestly, I’m in awe of the guy. I really am. I don’t know anyone else on earth who has this kind of imagination, that is also good with character, who can also create a believable and touching romance, who can also add hilarious comedy and lots of heart, whose writing style is sparse yet packed with information, who can ALSO tell a great story, and who always surprises you with his choices.

You just don’t find that kind of writer often. If ever. And it kind of depresses me. Because we’re all supposed to have weaknesses. Those weaknesses are what make other writers feel like they shouldn’t commit suicide. It’s important for them to be able to say, “Okay, sure he can do comedy. But he can’t develop characters like I can.” Duffield can do it all. I guess maybe in Jane Got A Gun, things were a little slow. Maybe when he’s not able to use comedy, his scripts aren’t as entertaining? Maybe that’s a weakness? I guess. Or maybe he purposefully slowed things down in “Jane” because he didn’t want to make all us other writers feel bad.

So what’s Monster Problems about?

This guy, Joel Dawson. A really good guy, this Joel. But he’s been dealt a shitty hand. He lives in this underground bunker with 37 people and he’s the only single guy there. Everyone else is always making out and having sex while he’s just… dreaming of what it would be like to have a girlfriend. Oh, and then, of course, it’s a hundred or so years in the future where the world’s been overtaken by monsters. Bad hand once again. It’s safe to say poker’s not Joel’s thing.

The one thing Joel’s got to look forward to is a girl. Her name is Aimee. She’s got red hair. He knows that because he asked, though he’s never seen her. See, Aimee is in another bunker 30 miles from his. And they can only contact this bunker for a couple minutes a day due to battery issues. And because the hope of being with Aimee is the only reason for Joel to put on his pants every morning, he decides to do the unthinkable – go to her.

Now that might not sound difficult to you or me. 30 miles puts a lot of stress on your quads but it’s doable. Here’s the problem. Monsters. And this isn’t the monster problem you see in Pacific Rim. Or that indie movie, “Monsters.” You know when Will Smith says in the “After Earth” trailer, “Everything on this planet has evolved to kill humans?” And then you went to see the movie and nothing on this planet had evolved to kill humans?

Well imagine a movie where that was actually the case. The second Joel leaves the bunker, he’s attacked by a strange dog-like critter, a raptor-thing, a giant frog, a giant spider, giant killer moths, a weird seven feet tall ghost-like centipede thing, a three headed T-Rex, a giant sea creature, as well as a few other beasts so strange they’re impossible to describe! And all Joel is armed with is a crossbow and a mangy dog he finds along the way.

Joel fights for his life, almost dies a thousand times, saves his dog, gets saved by his dog, meets a father-like figure, meets an astronaut robot, almost dies a thousand more times, etc. There aren’t many things Joel doesn’t experience on this perilous journey. But will he make it to Aimee? And what will happen if he does? Will she be everything he hoped for?

This script. Was awesome.

Period.

It was awesome. Where do I begin? Oh, I know. I’ll begin at the end. Duffield arcs the dog character. You read that right. Duffield GIVES A CHARACTER ARC TO THE DOG! Remember the scene in Cast Away where Wilson, an inanimate object, floats away forever? And you were crying, desperately hoping your date or parents didn’t look over at that exact moment and see you drowning in tears?

There’s a moment that rivals that here with the dog. The dog, you see, was found clinging to the dress of his long-since disappeared female master. He won’t leave with Joel until Joel brings that dress with him. And he’s so stuck on that dress. He cares more about that dress than he does Joel. And then in the end (spoiler), that dress gets stuck in the ocean, where Joel is battling a monster, and he has a choice to either go after the dress or save Joel. And he picks Joel. He changes. The dog arcs. Not barcs. Arcs. And it was so fucking good you cried just like when Wilson died.

Oh, and did I tell you about the astronaut? Yeah. One of my favorite scenes all year has this robot astronaut, split in two, only wires holding her together, pulling herself across the terrain, bumping into Joel, explaining she only has 16 minutes left before her battery runs out. And the two just share her last moments together before she dies. And it’s heartbreaking. And I don’t fucking understand how anybody comes up with this stuff. We can talk about structure until the screencows come home. But you still have to have imagination. You still have to come up with unique choices. How does Duffield bring a nearly dead cut-in-half female robot astronaut into a story about monsters taking over the earth and make it work? I don’t know but it fucking makes me jealous.

And then there’s the ending. I’m not going to get into spoilers, but let’s just say what you thought was going to happen doesn’t happen. That ALSO is a trait of great writers. They take you to the place you think you’re going, then totally change things up on you. You realize the writer is in control. Not you.

There were a few other reasons I loved this script. The main character is a lovable loser. But when he befriends this dog and loses his loneliness, we officially fall in love with him. It’s really hard to have a character befriend a dog or save a dog and not like him. As ridiculous and simplistic as it sounds: we like people who love animals. Who will protect them. It’s crazy how obvious this is, yet when it’s done well, as it is here, it makes the character irresistible.

And I love stories where the obstacles are impossible, where the writer is never easy on his hero. His hero has to earn every step he takes. Remember in After Earth, where the main character is basically guided by his father the whole way? So he didn’t really earn anything? He just follows orders. Here, Joel earns every step he takes. He finds the solutions to all the problems. He outruns or outsmarts or outbeats all the monsters.

And the sheer number of monsters he has to take on is ridiculous. At one point he’s trying to get over a rickety bridge when giant moths with needle teeth attack him, teeth that inject deadly venom into him, while a 3 headed T-Rex is trying to kill him, while he drops his only weapon, his crossbow, into the monster-infested waters below. There are so many moments like this where you wonder, “How the hell is he going to get out of this alive?” And because the odds are so heavily stacked against him, we hover over the page with baited breath, reading as fast as we can so we can get the answer.And then at the heart of this script is… heart. See that’s the thing. All these big effects movies have zero heart, have zero characters we really care about. I mean does anybody in the world really care about Shia LaBeouf in Transformers? Here, we care about Joel. We care about his dog. Because Duffield knows that none of those effects will matter. This is about the character. And you will like Joel. You will love Joel. You will love this journey he goes on. You will be shocked by the ending. And when it’s over, it’ll be one of the few times you’ve finished a script and wished there were more pages to read.

[ ] what the hell did I just read?

[ ] wasn’t for me

[ ] worth the read

[x] impressive (TOP 25!!!)

[ ] genius

What I learned: The key to writing these scripts is mentally stripping out all the big creatures and monsters and robots and effects, and remembering that it’s a personal journey. Focus on making that personal journey work first. Make your audience fall in love with your main character and want them to succeed. And then build that effects world up afterwards. This is such simple advice and yet this is the first time I’ve seen it done in maybe two or three years? If you’re a big-budget writer, get this right and you’ll be golden.

What I learned 2: Choose action over dialogue to build a relationship. — Let’s say you only have one scene to make us care about a key relationship in your script. In this case, we’ll use Joel and the dog as the characters. Scene Option 1 has Joel talking to the dog over the fire. Scene Option 2 has both of them being attacked by a monster, and Joel has to make a choice between either saving himself or trying to save the dog. ALWAYS choose the second scene option. Action always accelerates a relationship faster than dialogue. Obviously, scripts are long so you’ll have the opportunity to do both, but always favor action over dialogue when you can.

[indraste-darktalon]

Finifugal 👀

finifugal   –  hating endings; of someone who tries to avoid or prolong the final moments of a story, relationship or some other journey

-----

Indraste was no stranger to nightmares. They were fewer and farther between these days, but when they came, they came more intensely. The ghosts in her head made up for the downtime with an intensity that sometimes left her sleepless.

Recently, it had been her old best friend who visited her in dreams. Indy was taken back, time and again, to that battle where the demons ripped apart her entire order, leaving her cradling the paladin who had worked for years to keep her safe, healing her even though too many parts of her were missing.

At least it had taken the pain away.

Indy hated these nightmares. She was a healer. The people she loved were supposed to have long, happy lives because they knew her. Her best friend hadn't even been going grey; they would have had decades more together.

Nothing was supposed to end too quickly when you had the power to stitch flesh back together and cleanse disease. Nobody was supposed to leave her young. Her job was to keep people with her.

Every time she failed, another nightmare cycled into her rotation. So in some ways, at least, the people she lost stayed with her. She just wished she could remember them at their best, rather than in the pieces they left the world in.

((@raevenbehindthemuse you know EXACTLY what you're doing. Shame on you! 💜))

[eddycurrents]

For the week of 9 April 2018

Quick Bits:

Animosity: Evolution #5 gets to the heart of the criminal enterprise undermining Wintermute’s authority, operating the black market, and what they’ve been trying to accomplish. This arc has definitely been interesting so far, showing that the animal organizations aren’t really all too different from their human counterparts.

| Published by AfterShock

Avengers #688 raises the stakes higher as we speed towards the conclusion of “No Surrender”. While the Challenger flips the table on the game, this issue takes its perspective from Quicksilver, setting up the next stage for his forthcoming Quicksilver: No Surrender limited series.

| Published by Marvel

Barbarella #5 tosses in some more weird science as Barbarella and Vix go prospecting for RUST.

| Published by Dynamite

Bloodshot Salvation #8 begins to marry up the timelines, such that the present is becoming the “soon” timeline that began in the first issue, as Bloodshot travels through the Deadside and we find out how he got tossed into the future. It’s interesting to see how Jeff Lemire’s non-linear threads have been playing out through the story.

| Published by Valiant

Brothers Dracul #1 reunites the team of Cullen Bunn and Mirko Colak, having recently completed the Unholy Grail series, here for an interesting take on the Vlad Tepes story and the Dracula myth. Bunn takes a different approach to the myth, rooting it in much of the recorded history of Vald, his family, and Wallachia under Ottoman rule and it results in a much more grounded story. At least for the first issue. The art from Colak, with colours by Maria Santaolalla, is also great.

| Published by AfterShock

Captain America #700 is Chris Samnee’s last issue on the series, and the last of his work at Marvel for the time being, and he sure does go out with a bang. Samnee and Mark Waid stitch up a conclusion to the Cap in the future arc, although there are some interesting ramifications of the story to unpack, including presenting an idea of the futility of hope. That’s probably bleaker than the creative team necessarily intended it to be read as.

| Published by Marvel

Champions #19 begins the next chapter in the team’s chronicles, with Jim Zub and Sean Izaakse taking over as the new creative team. The art from Izaakse and colourist Marcio Menyz is wonderful throughout, including some great character designs. It’s also interesting to see how Zub has the team approaching new recruits like Ironheart as they try to figure out how the new pieces fit.

| Published by Marvel

Cold War #3 dives into the past of two survivors this time, giving us a look into the history and personalities of LQ and Johnny. Even as the latter fights for relevance and control in the present, seemingly unable to accept the leadership of Vinh or her attempts to protect everyone remaining. Then Christopher Sebela drops another bomb on us as to the state of this future.

| Published by AfterShock

Crude #1 is an interesting beginning, setting up a bit of a mystery involving the death of the son of a former Russian agent, as he gets dragged back into a seedy, harsh existence to hunt down his son’s murderers. Steve Orlando begins this first issue mostly as set-up, flashing back through both Piotr and, his son, Kiril’s lives before getting us to the main plot and arrival at the setting, and source for the title.

| Published by Image / Skybound

The Dead Hand #1 is an impressive debut, capturing perfectly the intrigue and action of a Cold War thriller, matched with the bleakness of more modern interpretations of Russia and a twist that you’ll never see coming. Kyle Higgins’ Image outings tend to be wonderful reads, like COWL and Hadrian’s Wall, and this series seems no different so far. It’s also great to see Stephen Mooney providing the line art here, his style is perfectly suited to spy and thriller stories, especially as coloured here by Jordie Bellaire.

| Published by Image

Deadly Class #33 continues to tear everything down, blow everything up, or beat it into a bloody pulp. Nothing seems to be safe. Rick Remender and Wes Craig seem intent on putting everyone through the wringer, and Craig (with colours from Jordan Boyd) is reminding everyone why he’s one of the best artists working in comics today.

| Published by Image / Giant Generator

Doctor Strange #388 is another integral part of the Damnation event, diving into Strange’s possession and what’s going on with the other fallen heroes current plaguing Vegas at Mephisto’s behest. The story from Donny Cates is good, weird, and has Niko Henrichon at the very top of his game.

| Published by Marvel

Domino #1 is damn great. In some ways, it feels like old home week, as Gail Simone brings back some of the characters and stylistic quirks from her time writing Deadpool and Agent X, complete with the humour, action, and absurdity, but at the same time, this feels fresh. It’s not as over the top as the other two outings and it makes for what feels to me like a better story. It also makes the humour pop a bit more as it feels natural. Also, the art from David Baldeón and Jesus Aburtov is gorgeous. Baldeón surprised me with how great his art has become on Spirits of Vengeance and here he’s bringing it to an even higher level. This first issue is fun and comes very recommended.

| Published by Marvel

Dry County #2 sets up the mystery. After being embroiled in Janet’s life as a kind of sad sack saviour in the first issue, Lou gets his hopes dashed by her kidnapping this issue. If it follows traditional Miami Noir themes, I have my suspicions about it, but here Rich Tommaso plays it straight and uses it to start Lou down the path to find out what happened to her.

| Published by Image

Exiles #1 begins a gathering the team arc, as Blink is drafted back into the multiverse-saving business by the reappearance of the Tallus and the Unseen’s premonitions of the white fire of nothingness caused by the Time Eater. Saladin Ahmed does a great job of playing with Exiles history and Marvel ephemera in constructing this first issue, but the real star is the artwork. Javier Rodríguez is one of Marvel’s underrated talents who really should be heralded as a superstar. Here, he, Álvaro López, and Jordie Bellaire make this issue one of the most visually interesting on the stands, with great page layouts, interesting panel transitions, phenomenal use of page for storytelling effect, and unique character designs. This is a great start and I’m dying to see more.  

| Published by Marvel

Gideon Falls #2 continues a slow burn through the story, focusing on both Norton and Father Fred’s experiences with the black barn, and the world beyond them not believing their respective stories. It’s a common horror and mystery thread, but it’s still interesting how Jeff Lemire is framing the narrative and building the characters through the dialogue. Also, the art from Andrea Sorrentino and Dave Stewart continues to be amazing. 

| Published by Image

Ninja-K #6 plays with a number of the messes that have yet to be cleaned up across the Valiant universe. It’s interesting to see Christos Gage play with the toys, with visceral art from Juan José Ryp and Jordie Bellaire.

| Published by Valiant

No. 1 With a Bullet #6 is a brilliant end to what has been an excellent series. Jacob Semahn, Jorge Coello, and Jen Hickman have a story here that is relevant in today’s society obsessed with social media, and delves deep into what can happen when that obsession turns deadly and debilitating. There’s one last twist this issue and the art, especially as it simulates the current state of Nash’s eyesight, is amazing. I highly recommend this series.

| Published by Image

Oblivion Song #2 fleshes out a bit more what happened from Earth’s perspective on the day that parts of Philadelphia fell into Oblivion. It’s interesting to see it unfold, especially in relation to the two recent survivors who came back. It’s slow going, and there are oblique character moments, but it’s enthralling.

| Published by Image

The October Faction: Supernatural Dreams #2 sees the summoned demon wandering around, causing havoc, raising hell. Oh, and Geoff and Vivian get their butts handed to them.

| Published by IDW

Prism Stalker #2, like the first issue, is very, very strange. On the one hand, it’s presented and illustrated by Sloane Leong as this surrealist weird comic that almost defies classification. Kind of like some of the silent indie comics out there that are more experienced than “read”. On the other hand, the story Leong presents is fairly mundane, one of coming of age in what appears to be an oppressive alien society. I’m not really sure what to make of it still, but it has my attention.

| Published by Image

ROM & The Micronauts #4 gets the full band back together in our world as the final battle against Baron Karza and the Dire Wraiths looms on the horizon. Christos Gage waxes philosophical on physical and emotional change, and how love will find a way in strange cases, but what’s really pushing us towards the final battle is the promise of raising the Lovecraftian monstrosity at the heart of the Earth.

| Published by IDW

Sleepless #5 works further on the intrigue going on, revealing that some of the plots may not have been put into motion by who we may have be led to believe previously.

| Published by Image

Sword of Ages #3 has the crap hit the fan. Some of the political machinations come to a head and it’s all pretty glorious. Gabriel Rodríguez is telling an incredible story here, adapting Arthurian legend in a very unique way.

| Published by IDW

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #81 is a densely packed narrative, picking up on the threads from the recently concluded Triceratons arc, the running undercurrent of Splinter’s ideas for the Foot Clan, while also spilling out the return of the Rat King after TMNT Universe #19. There’s a lot going on, but I’d argue that Kevin Eastman, Bobby Curnow, and Tom Waltz make it accessible and interesting. Aiding in that effort is phenomenal art from Dave Wachter and Ronda Pattison.

| Published by IDW

Thanos #18 concludes “Thanos Wins” and with it this chapter of the Mad Titan’s adventures (apart from a forthcoming annual in a couple of weeks). This issue is big and epic and has a very interesting ending. Donny Cates, Geoff Shaw, and Antonio Fabela have outdone themselves.

| Published by Marvel

Vs. #3 gets a look at the ruling class in this world, trying to figure out why Flynn’s ratings remain high despite him continuing to suffer losses. It’s a little dry, but it does set up some further conflict between Flynn and Devi, and continues to draw some beautiful art from Esad Ribić.

| Published by Image

X-Men Blue #25 gives us a main story with Magneto’s confrontation of Miss Sinister and her allies, while Polaris and the other remaining X-Men lick their wounds in Madripoor. There’s also a back-up that serves as a bridge between the “Poison X” and Venomized stories for the original five and Venom, with some really nice art by Mike Perkins and Andy Troy.

| Published by Marvel

X-Men Red #3 gives some more oblique hints at what’s really going on, as anti-mutant hysteria begins reaching critical mass and attacks, protests, and riots begin to spill over. Tom Taylor is aptly using parallels to current events across America and the world here and it makes it a bit scarier.

| Published by Marvel

Other Highlights: Algeria is Beautiful Like America, The Archies #6, Astonisher #6, The Beauty #21, Ben Reilly: The Scarlet Spider #17, The Despicable Deadpool #298, DuckTales #8, Eternal Empire #8, Falcon #7, Ghost Money #9, James Bond: Casino Royale, Minky Woodcock: The Girl Who Handcuffed Houdini #4, Old Man Logan #38, Planets of the Apes: Ursus #4, Resident Alien: An Alien in New York #1, Rick Veitch’s The One #3, Rose #10, Shock, Spider-Man vs. Deadpool #31, Star Wars: Darth Vader #14, Star Wars: Thrawn #3, Tomb Raider: Survivor’s Crusade #4, The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #31, Venomized #2

Recommended Collections: Aliens/Predator/Prometheus: Fire & Stone, Cable - Volume 2: Newer Mutants, Clover Honey, Coyotes - Volume 1, Deadpool vs. Old Man Logan, DuckTales: Mysteries and Mallards, Family Trade - Volume 1, Jean Grey - Volume 2: Final Fight, Lazarus X+66, Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man - Volume 2: Most Wanted, Rock Candy Mountain - Volume 2, Spider-Man/Deadpool - Volume 5: Arms Race, TMNT/Usagi Yojimbo - Expanded Edition, Transformers: Till All Are One - Volume 3, The Unbelievable Gwenpool - Volume 5: Lost in the Plot, Underwhere

d. emerson eddy tried to make a souffle a few days ago. It fell.

[thiyagaraja27]

First 10 Years of Filmmaking: The Worst.

A Self-Reflection on the Virtues of Failure.

I have been fighting to make movies in the past 10 years. I went to a college that was only worth it for the people I got to know there. I had the opportunity to work in some tiny corner of Hollywood’s indie circuit a bit, just a small taste of what could have been. Then I returned home to Malaysia so that I could perhaps explore another window of opportunities to further grow my oeuvre. By the way, the use of the word “oeuvre” - that’s how you know when a piece of shit thinks highly of themselves.

I fought for the conception of tasteful movies and for taste itself at the risk of being perceived as a snob. I am aware that my ego has taken centre stage in many occasions but it has come with a lot of sacrifices on my behalf. My main interests were always in writing and directing. Producing was just something I had to do to survive but I made my peace with it because it was still close enough to my passion. (another annoying word) People think they’re being smart when they say they’ll never work for a corporation or a movie studio - but they’re missing out in terms of really experiencing what an ugly and cutthroat world it is out there. You can’t shield yourself from harm forever. You gotta take some real risks to grow and advance. If not for learning the trade it is good for building character.

I fought for the movies I knew I could make - countless of sleepless nights spent in anxiety, depression, frustration, rage over scripts and projects that were moulded lovingly with the help of clever people I learned a lot from. So far I’ve written 9 complete scripts and countless stacks of unfinished ones. None of them saw the light of day. The pages are haunted. I found a way to deal with pain by building secret passages to my past and trapdoors to keep the insanity contained - majority of them of course dramatized for emotional resonance. I languished in personal tragedies thinking it would form a better foundation of character in me and meanwhile I tried to keep my eye on the prize for the most part. Now after 10 years I find myself with so many loose ends and some can only be tied up inside stories while I remain unresolved as a person in real life.

I may seem like a fighter but sometimes I succumb to mediocrity. People who know me may say that I’m an opportunist, I hardly ever turned down anything. I rushed into a movie twice when offered & both times I regretted it. I got fucked, fucked with, fucked upon, fucked over by so many people - who took advantage of my passion & naivety. And I knew too, for I didn’t care so as long as I was doing good work. Or any work. The reality of it is I became too blindsided and engrossed in whatever meaning I wanted to spin that I did not see the big picture at all. As a result of that, I must say I am mostly embarrassed by a vast majority of my own work. So that would explain the lack of self-promotion. The only consolation I take from them is the acknowledgement of my own weaknesses that could hopefully course-correct whichever wrong paths I’ve travelled down. 

I have fought for movies against conventional idealisms and old-age tropes. With a childhood of mostly worshipping at the altar of cinema I had selfishly abandoned all other worldly beliefs. Movies seemed much more spiritual than anything else. So my idealism gets the better of me sometimes. It may sound cheesy but I was always around to remind people the purest of intentions when the world of filmmaking becomes too overwhelming & business-oriented. At the same time I aimed to demystify their childish notions towards it. I always try my best to be practical because it was much more helpful than saying “Yes, you can do it!”. And I tried to practice pragmatism in anything I do. So I bid my time at times. I polished and nurtured my projects and constantly searched for like-minded people to collaborate with. Yet out there rages on a war between people who use artistic aspirations as a means to become rich, famous and powerful. Behind the thinly-veiled glitz and glamour of the movie world is a desperate Westworld-like kill-or-be-killed reality. I tried treading the minefield carefully in my navigation so it took me some time to find the right people to fight with. Because when you have the right people with you that makes any battle ten times more worth fighting.

I’ll keep fighting for the movies despite its deep influence by corporate interests. Making a movie is a gargantuan task you undertake at the risk of losing your soul and that in itself is taxing. But then you learn that all the decision-makers of the world pushed a pen over to a name or date and that’s that. A bunch of execs flipped a coin on your fate in-between smoke breaks while you’re out there jumping through rings of fire. How you find the balance and how much you compromise is a tale nobody is interested in indulging. Inspiration without realism sells better. 

I’m fighting still today, almost no difference than 10 years ago. The bridges I built - almost half of them rendered pointless due to countless ever-changing circumstances. I keep leaping from places to places every 3 to 4 years and everything resets. The older you grow the more you start to recognize that you are merely a victim of time. The universe is indifferent to your goals and ambitions. I have failed continuously for 10 years in a bid to be taken seriously as an ... whatever that is I’m trying to be taken serious for. I know if I keep this up most probably I would end up doing whatever I set out to do eventually. But then again none of that guarantees a catharsis, closure or compensation for this painfully mundane existence. Some would say “Hey, don’t beat yourself up so much. You’re actually lucky to be in the position that you are in.” To that I would say, “Winners don’t take consolation. Only adulation.”

Here’s hoping the next 10 years won’t be as bad.

“I may be in this ring, but inside I sing, so give me a stage, where this bull here can rage, And though I can fight, I'd much rather recite, because I'll go all-out for what I want, I'll never go blunt, For I wanna bring entertainment, and that's entertainment...”

If you don’t know where this quote is from please don’t make movies. Thank you.

[cathygeha]

The biggest fight for the new Lycan King is convincing his Queen that he is committed to her forever. Darren has already fought to convince Cass to give him a chance, but a new Monarchy is just the beginning of the changes to the Lycan Kingdom. But as secrets and challenges to Darren's crown emerge, his inner circle must close ranks to protect their Kingdom, and to make sure the newly-returned Lycan King keeps his crown. Candace Blackburn returns to the world of the Lycan King in this epic, edge of your seat third installment!

 Rafflecopter for Return of the Lycan King: Book 3: Darren and Cassandra Blog Tour Giveaway:

 Candace is offering two lucky winners their choice of either a $25 Amazon Gift Card of $25 Barnes and Noble Gift Card! To enter, simply fill out the Rafflecopter below:

 Direct Link:

http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/b050ef29600/

  About Return of the Lycan King: Book 3 Darren and Cassandra:

 Title: Return of the Lycan King: Book 3 Darren and Cassandra

Author: Candace Blackburn

Genre: Paranormal Romance

Release Date: December 11, 2018

Publisher: Candace Blackburn

Series: Return of the Lycan King #3

Format: Digital eBook

Digital ISBN: 1-7328151-0-0

 Synopsis:

 Darren chases Cass to Ireland, determined to make up for his mistakes. When they return to North Carolina to build their lives together, nothing is the same. Darren has already fought to convince Cass to give him a chance, but a new Monarchy is just the beginning of the changes to the Lycan Kingdom. Secrets and challenges to Darren's crown emerge, and his inner circle closes ranks, to protect their Kingdom, and to make sure the newly-returned Lycan King keeps his crown.

 Available at:  Amazon |  Barnes and Noble  |  Goodreads

  Excerpt:

 Copyright © 2018 Return of the Lycan King: Book 3 Darren and Cassandra

Candace Blackburn

 Chapter One

 Liam's completion of flight training had rather fortuitous timing. Liam was one of the members of Lex's security team before Darren moved in. Darren snagged the other Lycan on the way to the airport with the subtle threat to "move your ass and don't breathe a word to anyone." Darren looked out the window of the Konstantine jet and didn't see ocean, but he didn't know how close they were to Dublin Airport.

Reading Liam's thoughts would have been easy enough, if Darren hadn't happily discovered that he could block that ability. So, he hadn't been subjected to the "have you lost your fucking mind" lecture that Liam likely received from Lex. Or the "you let anything happen to him, I'll kill you, myself" that undoubtedly followed said lecture.

Darren spent the entirety of the flight thinking of his mate. The pain in her voice, on her face, and the tears in her eyes, all as a result of Darren not claiming her. Pain, he had his own. Not claiming her was a physical, mental hell--it was pain from head to toe. But, he had reasoned that he'd rather live with that pain, than put Cass through one second of his impressive--or not--collection of screw-ups. Not to mention, all the bullshit that came with being King.

I'd rather cut off my own head than cause her pain like I saw that day.

Which is why they were over European airspace, because Cass was in Ireland. She left to escape him.

Because seeing me hurt her.

"Darren, we're ten minutes out from Dublin."

Liam's voice cleared his guilt-filled thoughts. He ran his hands through his hair and realized he needed to go splash some water on his face. "Thanks."

"No problem."

A minute later, he stood in front of the mirror and frowned. One of his buddies in college looked like he was in a perpetual hangover. Darren's roommate used to tease the guy, telling him that he looked like he'd been ridden hard and put away wet. That saying pretty much summed up the reflection in the mirror.

Maybe I should stop off and get a haircut, buy a new shirt and jeans.

He probably would do that, if it didn't take much time. His primary objective was to find Cass and get them back to the plane as soon as possible. Hell, he might as well tell Liam to file a return flight plan for, what, five hours from now? Yeah, that should do it. He hated the thought of claiming his mate in the bedroom on the plane, but damned if he was going to wait to get back to Raleigh. And, they wouldn't be in Ireland for very long. Oh no. In and out, that was his plan. They'd be back in no time.

 ***

 Liam kept up with Darren's footsteps, barely.

"Still don't understand why you wouldn't want another beer. That may have been the best I've ever had. We should take a European beer tasting trip, just for comparison, though. German ales are pretty damned good." They'd only gone in the last bar because Darren caught Cass's scent.

"Not interested." Glancing around the crowded Temple Bar section of Dublin, Darren wondered why Cass would be there. She was private, definitely not the type to hang out in tourist spots.

"Or we could just stay here and sample whiskey. All the whiskey."

Technically, that didn't sound like too bad of a plan, if he weren't searching for his missing mate. "You should get on your knees and thank God that you can't get cirrhosis."

Liam snorted just as Darren thought he'd, again, picked up on Cass's scent. He froze mid stride and almost took out a group of people. Peering inside the closest bar, he inhaled deeply and looked for her glossy black hair. Nada.

Shit.

Darren turned, making a complete circle so he could visualize everything around him. His frustration was growing. Cass was so close, and he needed to see her. Feel her. Wrap her in his arms. Drop to his knees and apologize for being a colossal ass. Spend the next century begging her forgiveness. Then spend the rest of his life making her happy.

The sounds of barf splattering the pavement shook him out of his thoughts.

"This"--he pointed down at the moaning human in front of him--"is what all the whiskey gets you."

Liam glanced down with disdain as they stepped around the human. "Not me." He waved a negligent hand. "Higher tolerance and all that."

"Mmm hmm." Looking around, again, Darren barely restrained a growl. Cass's scent grew fainter, and he was no damned closer to finding her.

Going to lose my motherfucking mind.

Material brushed his arm, and Darren snarled as his head snapped around. "Hey, do you mind holding my jacket while I tie my shoe?"

What the fuck? Darren snatched the jacket and Liam bent, after casting a pointed glare toward Darren's hands. Claws had already punched through the tips, and if he were a betting person, he'd put money on his eyes glowing. Taking a deep breath and closing his eyes, he slipped on his polarized Ray Bans, covered both fists with the jacket and willed himself to calm.

"No problem."

Biggest white lie ever. If Darren spent two more seconds out there without Liam's assistance, he'd likely have shifted and torn a bloody path through the Temple Bar district.

They needed to get out of public, check into a room and Darren needed to sleep off any jet lag. Then come sunrise, he'd try again.

Liam stood and cast a worried glance at Darren. "Okay?"

Not in the slightest. "Fine. Let's get something to eat, go find a room, and search again tomorrow."

Liam almost seemed to slouch in relief. "Sounds good. We'll hit the roads in the morning."

He confirmed that with a small nod. And I'll spend another sleepless night without her.

  Other Books in the Return of the Lycan King Trilogy:

 Return of the Lycan King: Book 1 Nicholas and Kristen

 One life, one mate.  Nicholas Konstantine has been waiting over a thousand years for his mate. But when he finds her, she's completely unaware of her Lycan biology, and she's battling her own personal demons.

 Kristen O'Connor is a recovering addict, with some major trust issues. By not letting anyone get close, she won't get hurt. Yet after one meetiing with Nicholas, her walls are crumbling, and she wants more with this man.

 But Nicholas reveals his Lycan side, and hers as well. In addition, ghosts from both of their pasts come back to haunt them. Will they face everything together, or will Kristen's fears be stronger than her love?

 Available at:  Amazon  |  Barnes and Noble  |  Kobo  |  Goodreads

  Return of the Lycan King: Book 2 Lex and Elizabeth

 Lex thought he'd lost her, but Elizabeth is back and she is his mate. But between her getting used to life as a Lycan, threats from dangerous elements looming over their heads and very odd changes in the Lycan kingdom happening all around them, nothing will be easy. Lex and Elizabeth's love has to be the strength to pull them through.

 Available at:  Amazon  |  Barnes and Noble  |  Goodreads

     About Candace Blackburn:

 Candace makes her home in North Carolina with her high school sweetheart husband and their two sons.  She's an indie author who has published two previous romances (with a bit of fantasy in each), Tristan's Redemption and Nate's Forgiveness.  Her current works are all paranormal romance (her favorite genre to read!) and are set in her home state.  She loves coffee, cold weather, the Boston Red Sox, the Carolina Panthers, and hearing from fans.

 Connect with Candace:  Website  |  Facebook  |  Twitter  |  Goodreads |  Amazon

  http://www.barclaypublicity.com/

[gazzhowie]

My Top 25 Movies of 2017.

Yes, it is indeed that time of year again where I blow the annual cobwebs off my Tumblr account to post my Top 25 movies of the year. And yes, I am indeed late by a few weeks in getting this up online... but I was celebrating this being the TENTH anniversary of this makeshift column thing. It started out as a regular on one website, moved to another and now it’s its own Tumblr ‘thing’. So... yay! Happy tenth anniversary. Or something.

Anyway, you frequent visitors know the score by now. I throw down a big long mournful special mention to all the films that I wish I could’ve included but couldn’t make them fit but think they deserve a shout out regardless and then I get stuck in to what I think are the 25 best films of the year.

As always, films listed are based on their UK release date. Without further ado...

In relation to the year’s dramas, I thoroughly enjoyed T2 Trainspotting and in a lot of ways the ‘long wait’ for a sequel we never really needed didn’t seem to hurt it at all. However, unlike the original, this felt like confection in the sense that once it was finished it didn’t really leave any lasting impression. I really liked Bleed For This and whilst familiar with the true story that it was dramatising I felt that for a lot of people they’d STILL find it completely incredulous. It was a well-directed, solidly acted little film that deserved more love. In an age when Jackie Chan films are so wildly all over the shop in terms of quality it was quite the delight to get two legitimately brilliant efforts from the legend. The first was Railroad Tigers which somehow managed to be part history lesson, part caper and part atypical Jackie Chan action extravanza without ever being annoying. Russia’s Panfilov's 28 (turigidly retitled Battle For Moscow here) was a great ‘stacked-odds’ war movie that rewarded the long wait to get itself into gear with some terrific tank-on-solider action set-pieces and high-stakes tension. 

Keeping with dramas, Anne Hathaway successfully rebirthed from having her cinematic abilities ruined by her obnoxious celebrity personality with Colossal, a terrific study of addiction and responsibility – somehow presented through the purview of a Kaiju movie! The Wall, Doug Liman’s second of two movies this year (after the likeable but disposable American Made), was the better one – playing out as one of those high concept ‘one location’ thrillers that keeps you suitably gripped… before sadly fizzling out in the final stretch. James Gray’s The Lost City of Z was a gorgeous-looking, wonderfully directed movie of a fascinating story sadly undone by last minute “that’ll do” casting that saw Charlie Hunnam completely derail a film that had every chance of being an instant classic. Jeff Nichol continued his pathway to becoming my generation’s Spielberg with Loving, the true life story of an American interracial marriage that challenged the law. Scorsese finally made his passion project, Silence, and it was a heavily flawed film that still some how felt like a sumptuous work of art at the same time. Finally, there was The Age of Shadows which was Korea’s attempt at gung-ho action-heavy, cat-and-mouse, double-agent espionage thriller that narrowly missed out on a place in the final Top 25.

In terms of blockbusters, Kong: Skull Island was tremendous fun with some of the best FX designs and action set-pieces you’d find in a Summer blockbuster in 2017. Only third act issues and a terrible Tom Hiddleston performance stopped it from being one of the year’s best. Fast & Furious 8 was a crushing disappointment that absolutely confirmed my worst fears after the death of Paul Walker – namely that this franchise would become utterly unmoored by Vin Diesel’s ego and his belief that HE himself is what the audience for these movies care about most. Guardians of the Galaxy 2 was as much of a delight as you were probably hoping it would be and I loved it a great deal, but it completely lost my interest by its climax with its cavalcade of CGI smashing into CGI incoherently. 

Alien Covenant was a vast improvement on Prometheus (soon to be retitled Alien: Prometheus if rumours are to be believed!) but it still leaves you questioning why Ridley Scott is obviously trying to sandwich other sci-fi intentions he has into a pre-existing franchise that doesn’t quite accommodate them. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (I’m not calling it by that bizarre inexplicable UK title!) was… pleasantly surprising in the fact that it was not awful! Wonder Woman was legitimately jaw-dropping in terms of just how great it was (who’d have thunk it?) but, just like with Guardians of the Galaxy 2, the minute it leaned back on clattering CGI and nonsensical reveals it lost me entirely. The two biggest surprises of all though in terms of blockbusters was Life – which was a better Alien movie than Alien: Covenant with a humdinger of an ending that due to poor box office we’ll never see developed as intended – and Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle which somehow managed to be the best teen movie of the year and the best video game movie (for a video game that doesn’t exist!) AND one of the best sequels of the year too!

Not a huge amount of horror movies greatly impressed this year but M. Night Shymalan’s Split worked effectively for me and The Autopsy of Jane Doe stood out as one of the year’s best horror movies with some fantastic jump-scares and lead performances that fully commit to selling the concept. However, one that did really impress was Gerald’s Game. Mike Flanagan continued his own pathway to becoming my generation’s maestro of horror with an adaption of Stephen King’s novel that proved to be an engrossing, sickening, improbably excellent adaptation. Carla Cugino’s performance in it is one of the best of the year.

Whilst we’re talking great performances of the year special mention most definitely has to go to Theresa Palmer for her work in the uncompromising, upsetting indie thriller, Berlin Syndrome. 

For comedies, Don't Think Twice was a lovely watch and seemed to work past just how incredibly niche and “inside-y” it was through the hardwork of its thoroughly likeable cast. Goon: Last of the Enforcers was every bit this year’s underrated gem as its predecessor was when it was released years back. Then there was The Big Sick which managed the commendable balancing act of being incredibly lovely, moving, dramatic, hilarious and really rather wonderful all at the same time.

For action B-movies, it was a surprisingly great year in 2017. The team behind The Raid gave us Headshot which kick-for-punch gave us some of the best fight sequences of the year. Sleepless, a totally unrequired remake of the French classic Sleepless Night, ended up being a really fun, gritty ride full of entertaining shoot-outs and improbable fight sequences with Michelle Monaghan committing to the material with more gusto than it probably deserved and the film being all the better for it. The second best of the three cinematic attempts by Mel Gibson to be redeemed by his industry was Blood Father, a down-and-dirty gun-and-run action shoot ‘em up that would have been nothing without Gibson’s throwing-it-all-down performance. John Wick Chapter 2 was extravagant excellence that at times I felt unworthy of being exposed to. Jeremy Rush’s debut, Wheelman, took all the clichés of “the good criminal on a bad job gone wrong” subgenre and - thanks to Frank Grillo’s performance – made a better movie than the similar but one-note and overly acclaimed Baby Driver. 

Shockwave Tunnel was a dependably solid Andy Lau actioner that played like Die Hard meets Daylight – all the overblown, enthralling action you’d expect from a Hong Kong mid-level blockbuster with all the overwrought emotionally manipulative dramatics too! Finally there was Martin Campbell’s The Foreigner, the second of those brilliant Jackie Chan movies in 2017, which was part political revenge movie, part First Blood homage, part commercial for Chan being considered for actual serious acting awards and part ‘Is Pierce Brosnan doing Gerry Adams?’ think-piece.

It was another stellar year for documentaries too with Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press being the biggest jaw-dropper of the lot as Hulk Hogan, backed by a billionaire with nefarious intent, destroyed a website for reporting on his sex tape – and set a dangerous precedent in the process! Bright Lights, the candid documentary on Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds, landed on UK shores early in 2017 and proved to be every bit as heartbreaking as you’d expect in light of Fisher’s death. Probably one of the biggest, bizarre curios this year was Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond, a candid and unfiltered look behind Jim Carrey’s “process” in making Man on the Moon many years back and which gave way to finally turning many a long-held rumour to fact. Spielberg was an out-and-out delight for any fan of cinema, delivering an enormous amount of access to the master of cinema himself as he and his colleagues took us through his career and his life. Finally there was the magnificent and majestic epic OJ: Made In America which makes these ‘mentions’ as an eight hour documentary in the same way Twin Peaks Season 3 is allowed to be considered as one of “the films of the year” too. It is an accomplished, thorough and engrossing study not just of a miscarriage of justice but of race in America, celebrity and human toxicity.

I did not catch a lot of animation in 2017 but the two standouts worthy of mention were The Lego Batman Movie, which managed to keep the delightful ball bouncing that The Lego Movie itself threw up in the air by way of pacey and inventive plotting/design and a very, very clever and knowing script. Then there was Seoul Station, the animated prequel to last year’s sublime Train to Busan. It deserves a shout-out not because it is particularly stunning as an animated film (it isn’t!) or that it works particularly brilliantly as a prequel (it doesn’t!) but as an animated zombie contagion movie in its own right it is very much entertaining and proves to be quite the thrill-ride with a gut-punch denouement.

And now to the Top 25 movies of the year themselves:

 25. It Comes At Night

Badly mismarketed - according to some - as some sort of zombie/creature feature that saw an immense audience backlash, this is actually a brilliant study in dread and human frailty told on an intimate scale with yet another dependably excellent performance from Joel Edgerton.

24. Spider-Man: Homecoming

I’m as big an MCU ‘junkie’ as most but I went into this cynical and with my arms dismissively folded across my chest. I was burnt out on Spider-Man and the Civil War cameo, whilst ‘fun’, didn’t give me any feeling it would work as another feature. I thought the Sam Raimi trilogy was badly cast and over-rated fare and I actually went against the populous on the Andrew Garfield movies by finding them entertaining clusterfucks that worked in spite of the committee filmmaking approach. I just didn’t want another round – but Homecoming gets Spider-Man entirely right for the first time, for me. It moves like a bullet without an inch of fat on it (a rarity for a lot of MCU movies!), it’s wonderfully cast and, best of all, it manages to be exciting and funny in equal measures like the best MCU movies and no other Spider-Man movie has before!

23. Manchester By The Sea

This is not your recommended Friday or Saturday night ‘easy entertainment’ and for many its quality has been blighted by the revelations about Casey Affleck but this is an uncomfortably honest and heartbreaking mediative study on grief, loss and loneliness. Affleck is superb and Michelle Williams once again shows that she is the greatest actress of my generation by an easy mile.

22. Super Dark Times

I was lauded like the hero I rightfully should be considered as for labelling this movie on Twitter as “Stand by Me meets American Psycho” and the description really works. Go in knowing as little as possible and just let it play out. It’s dark, grimy and captivating and it works as tremendously as it does because it never once feels anything less than completely real. It’s now on Netflix here in the UK.

21. Patriots Day

Mark Wahlberg is one of the worst mainstream actors (and, lest we forget, human beings!) in the movie business today. And here he’s playing (badly) an unnecessarily and inexplicably invented “composite” character in an otherwise authentic dramatic recreation of the Boston Bombing and the hunt for the culprits. When Peter Berg sticks to the facts and procedurally works through the events and the investigation, you’re gifted an exemplary thriller that delivers – with the Watertown shoot-out – one of the year’s best sequences. When you’re put in the hands of Wahlberg, it’s painful. I was able to forcibly separate the former from the latter. Many couldn’t. It’s now on Netflix here in the UK.

20. Hacksaw Ridge

I’m keeping my opinion on Mel Gibson absent for once (everyone knows I’m big on cutting the guy some slack, frankly!) but I was delighted to see this received the way it was. Not everything in it works (Andrew Garfield does his typical “swing for the back” unsubtle performance, its first hour works more as an outright homage to 1950s dramas than it does in its own right!) but, man alive, does it serve to remind us all what an absoloutely outstanding filmmaker Gibson is. He’s delivered one of the greatest war movies of the modern age, telling an outstanding true story in the process and refusing to skimp when it comes to brutality, octane or high drama in the process. It’s now on Netflix here in the UK.

19. La La Land

I really don’t understand the backlash to this movie at all. Not one bit. A talented director has taken two of the best working actors in the industry right now and made an ode to movie musicals of yesteryear with all the aplomb and appeal you’d expect – and it’s delightful. It really is. It’s now on Netflix here in the UK.

18. Atomic Blonde

Someone somewhere thought a tribute to Roger Donaldson’s No Way Out but starring Charlize Theron and made in the style of John Wick should be made and that person should be applauded and carried through the streets on a throne! This is not a perfect movie. Hell, it’s not even a movie that is anywhere near as clever as it thinks it is. But as a piece of action entertainment, it really is terrific fun – stupendously well directed with energy to spare, a cool as hell soundtrack and Theron is excellent! That “one take” hallway/apartment/car fight is absolutely audacious - and brilliant just for watching Eddie Marsan, the modern day Yoda of character actors, try to just... “not get in the way”.

17. Thor: Ragnorak

Everyone had a right to be cautious about this one – on the one hand anyone familiar with Taika Waititi knew that he’d never made a bad movie and was becoming one of the strongest voices in cinematic comedy. But on the other hand Thor was proving to be one of the weakest characters in the MCU and his previous movies had been less than great. So you can chalk this one up as one of the biggest and best surprise blockbusters of 2017. It delivered on the action and spectacle in all the ways you’d expect from a Marvel movie but it was also one of the best comedies of the year too.

16. Blade Runner 2049

Who would have thought for one second that this was going to work let alone work as well as it did? A direct sequel, decades after the fact, to a box office failure that has aged into an inarguable masterpiece? It is almost too bittersweet then that its sequel would be critically adored but also fail at the box office as well. Blade Runner 2049 is not a film for the casual cinema-goer. It’s certainly not for someone who hasn’t seen or truly appreciated Ridley Scott’s original classic. It’s a reward dressed up as a film for people who like beautiful cinema, technical audaciousness, strong performances and intricate, mature plotting all wrapped up into one.

15. The Handmaiden

Park Chan-Wook’s adaptation of the novel ‘Fingersmith’ is a sumptuous cavalcade of deception, erotica, dark obsession, greed and romance. You watch it waiting for one of the cogs to break and for the whole thing to come undone because it’s hard to get your head around how all of these elements are kept in motion so seamlessly and so enthrallingly. The cogs never break. It really is just that excellent.

14. Okja

I went into this as one of the rare few who find Tilda Swinton abrasive, who’d heard terrible things about what Jake Gyllenhaal was doing in this movie and was getting caught up in mixed word-of-mouth about what the film itself was actually about. But when you’ve made Memories of Murder, The Host, Snowpiercer, and Mother you get to buy a lot of good faith from a viewer, frankly. So in Bong Joon-Ho we trust and boy did that trust pay off! This is the only funny, harrowing, thrilling, moving, thought-provoking caper / thriller / drama / “message” movie you’re going to see this year. It is, of course, on Netflix now to view.

13. Detroit

It sort of annoyed me that I was so ignorant to the facts prior to watching Kathryn Bigelow’s searing drama set during the 1967 Detroit riots, in which a group of rogue police officers respond to a complaint with retribution rather than justice on their minds. I felt I should have been better educated on the grave injustice and inhumane horrors of this incident. It’s testament to Bigelow that she manages to educate the unknowledgeable on the context needed, the geography and the peole without ever making you feel like you’re being lectured. The film struggles to stay afloat as we decompress from the horrors of the extended second act set-piece into what is ostensibly the cover-up but it’s testament to all involved that it manages to nonetheless.

12. Brawl in Cell Block 99

Craig Zahler’s follow-up to Bone Tomahawk is an astounding homage to the 70s/early 80s exploitation movies that cluttered up the bottom two shelves of many a local video shop. It’s got that C-grade exploitation movie type plot but what Zahler does is expand it in a way to give it time to breathe in ways an ‘original’ exploitation movie couldn’t. We get to spend time with the characters and get a feel for predicaments and locations so when the “hell” does break loose we are in it alongside them. Vince Vaughn uses this movie as a farewell to every safe, easy, shitty studio romcom his reputation stalled on and reinvents himself as a lanky Charles Bronson type for a modern age. It gets horrifying and grim and then keeps going and does so with a sense of zeal and pride that is really rather admirable.

11. Logan

We know that James Mangold is one of the great American filmmakers very rarely put to use by studios the way he should be (i.e. give him money and get out of his way) but he still manages to insert moments of brilliance in otherwise throwaway films (Identity, Knight & Day and The Wolverine all have moments in them that make them better than you’ve probably heard!). Somehow he managed to convince Fox to let him take one of the most iconic but problematic runs in comic book history and make a third solo Wolverine after two previous fatally bad/uneven attempts – but make it as a futuristic western farewell to the character itself and, oh, he won’t be pandering to any of the inter-universe stuff either... And in the process Mangold essentially made the UNFORGIVEN of the comic book movie genre. Like with that movie, it now feels like the door's been closed on this particular genre of movies (the MCU movies feel like their own unstoppable beast at this point) rather definitively. Everything needing said or done within the genre is right there in LOGAN. This works because it has something to say and an actor with a point to prove - It's not out to stake its claim as the best 'comic book movie' (it is one of them though!) but it is very interested in making sure it is a great movie. Not only does it achieve that, but it sort of lands as its own instant masterpiece of sorts too. Hugh Jackman's doing work here that is utterly terrific and if you'd said last year that some of the best performances you'll find in cinema in 2017 would be in "the third WOLVERINE movie" you'd have been drowned in laughter. Yet here we are. If you were to recalibrate the 'limitations' of the past, present and future of the western genre, then with COPLAND, 3:10 TO YUMA and this James Mangold has made three of the best in modern cinema.

10. The Villainess

This is a movie that is so absolutely chockfull of full on "HOLY SHIT!" moments and action sequences that you’re still sat muttering "How the hell did they do that?!?" days after you’ve experienced it. Its story is muddled in its delivery and it does take a little bit to bed down with what is going on, where they're going and what story they're trying to tell but... maaaan... when it lights up it fires off like a nuclear friggin missile. Controversial as it's going to sound, it's a rarity in that as a homage to a source material (NIKITA in this instance) it surpassed the source in my opinion! You will invariably see stories get better told this year - but you're not going to see a film with better action sequences! Fact!

9. War For The Planet of the Apes 

Enter into this movie with a broad mind and in return you'll be rewarded with an astoundingly good time full of great direction, terrific visual effects, wonderful performances and fantastic set-pieces! I just REALLY hope that this is the closing chapter of a particular trilogy but not necessarily the franchise as a whole - To develop this textured a 'history', pay it off in this manner and NOT take it now into themore pointed direction of the original Charlton Heston movie seems like an awful waste! Any failings WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES has is not in the film itself but in the marketing - There's going to be a boatload of folk expecting to see helicopters and tanks, commanded by Woody Harrelson, panning out over snowy terrain to blast away at an army of apes in what is all pay off to the build-up of the last two movies. This isn't THAT movie! The movie it IS though is a tremendous achievement both on a technical level and as a piece of storytelling. It's a beautifully realised, rich revenge Western dressed up as a prison escape movie - but with apes! And in marketing it the studio really didn't seem to want you to know that Matt Reeves has essentially remade APOCALYPSE NOW and THE GREAT ESCAPE at the same time, in the same movie - but with apes!

8. IT: Chapter One

I was one hundred percent blown away by Andy Muschietti's adaption of IT. I was hoping it would be good but... Jesus... this was actually astounding! Seriously! It's not just a great horror movie. It's a great movie, full stop. And possibly one of the best adaptations of a Stephen King novel ever made. Shit thee not. It absolutely works on every conceivable level. It is legitimately scary (downright terrifying in parts!), completely enthralling and so incredibly well crafted. The key to adapting King has always been in accepting that the man is a wildly uneven and incredibly ill-disciplined author and a great adaption needs to fight against his worst excesses. Which often means being willing to cull away at the source material with brutal confidence. That's why STAND BY ME, THE SHANKSHANK REDEMPTION, MISERY, THE MIST, CARRIE, THE GREEN MILE and especially THE SHINING are tremendous... and why the likes of UNDER THE DOME and every movie Mick Garris touches is flat out awful and barely watchable! The casting is utterly sublime - Finn Wolfhard from STRANGER THINGS is a delight, Jeremy Ray Taylor was so moving he broke my heart and Sophia Lillis is just jaw-droppingly brilliant. She gives such an assured performance for someone so young and, in the process, delivers one of my favourite performances of the year. And Bill Skarsgård? HOLY SHIT!! I can't rave about this movie enough, frankly. By moving it to the 80s it hit my 'nostalgia button' just perfectly and the scares were so expertly executed.

7. Dunkirk

Nolan has proven time and again that he is a master craftsman in the field of modern cinema, whether through populist fare like THE DARK KNIGHT trilogy, playing opulently in the sci-fi sandbox with INTERSTELLAR, gunning for hire on police procedurals with INSOMNIA or delivering his trifecta of inarguable cinematic masterpieces with THE PRESTIGE, MEMENTO and INCEPTION. This moves like a fuckin rocket-ship, just non-stop propulsion from the first frame to the last drawing exhilaration and exhaustion from you at every step. The non-linear format is a masterstroke in that it rather exquisitely uses the agonising wait that comes with time pushed right up against the race against the very same thing. It's so intricately developed. Harry Styles doesn't do enough to make an impression but nor is he given enough to offend. He's just there. Hans Zimmer reinvents himself musically once again. And Nolan clarifies once more that there is still a place for old-school movie majesty in the modern age - the push wherever possible to avoid CGI aerial battles and painted-in boats shows a determination and dedication that deserves kudos. With the stripped back dialogue, the never-ending series of jaw-dropping and nerve-shredding set-pieces and a gorgeous, old-fashioned execution, this is a ready-made masterpiece!

6. Get Out

What's getting lost in all of the critical plaudits for this film is that it is possibly one of the most assured and successful directorial debuts in cinema history! This is an absolute humdinger of a movie, reconfiguring what you think of cinema as social commentary, what makes a horror movie scary and what you think of Allison Williams (no joke!). So much fun and more importantly thought-provoking! KEY & PEELE was some majestic shit – but, between this and KEANU, Jordan Peele has proven worthy of being followed wherever he wants to go with his film ideas!

5. Free Fire

I urge you to believe the hype - FREE FIRE is *that* good! Kinetic, original, hilarious and exhilarating. It's a legitimately great time, doing for the shoot-out in 2017 what MAD MAX: FURY ROAD did for the car chase in 2015. It is quite literally everything that everyone is overstating BABY DRIVER to be - an inventive recalibration of a frequented cinematic form! Everything said and overhyped about Edgar Wright (a director far more interested in his own celebrity than making gimmick-free films) is wholly true of Ben Wheatley who, film by film, seems to repeatedly reinvent himself and has never delivered something less than excellent. FREE FIRE is what would happen if Florent Emilio Siri's NID DE GUEPES made a baby with BOOGIE NIGHTS! It's ridiculous how well Ben Wheatley manages to choreograph this thing... a ninety-odd minute, one location, non-stop shoot-out... with such clean geography where you're always aware of what's going on and where every character is. And, honestly, let's reiterate it again now - In terms of great Oscar injustices, Sharlto Copley not winning in 2018 for his work in this will be one of the all-time travesties!

4. I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore

This is a quirky, grim, funny, gripping gem of a movie that I saw early on in 2017 and it stayed with me right the way throughout the year. Macon Blair has went from being the driving force (BLUE RUIN) and supporting foundation (GREEN ROOM) in straight-out-the-gate modern masterpieces to delivering a directorial debut that immediately lands as one of the films of 2017! If only there was some way we could go live in a world where Trump wasn't president and Blair, Elijah Wood, the never less than excellent Jane Levy and the utterly outstanding Melanie Lynskey were taking home ALL the awards for this! Who'd have thunk Lynskey would go from bit-player in an awful sitcom to the best actress of our generation? Maybe The Duplass Brothers’ Togetherness that y’all didn’t watch was the goddamn clue, huh? For me, Melanie Lynskey delivers THE best actress performance of the year. It’s now on Netflix here in the UK.

3. Jawbone

I was absolutely blown away by what is easily one of the best British films made in a long time! And on top of all THAT, in time it'll come to stand as one of the best boxing movies of all time too. It absolutely captures the level of boxing I know of - that whole subculture of what rises up from when Golden Gloves contendership ends but no pro-journey materialises. On top of THAT, it's a tremendously well executed study of the pain that manifests from addiction, grief and loneliness. Seek this out. I urge you. It’s the anti-Rocky and there's not a single false-note in the whole film. It’s now on Netflix here in the UK.

2. Wind River

I jested from the minute the trailer dropped that all involved had inexplicably and unnecessarily remade my beloved Deadly Pursuit. How wrong could I be? For me, in his directorial debut, Taylor Sheridan has absolutely nailed it as a director what he did twice over the previous years as a writer with Sicario and Hell or High Water - delivering a mature, harrowing, enthralling thriller that has something to say. Awards season seems to have forgotten it already but Sheridan's debut direction and Jeremy Renner's performance are more than worthy of consideration.

1. Good Time

Robert Pattinson, an actor I have never been able to stand in anything (and that includes his Cronenberg rebirth period stuff too!), captivates completely in what is the most kinetic, captivating and energetic film of the year. Pattinson plays Connie Nikas, a scumbag low-level criminal who, after a heist goes awry, has to spend one long night trying to free his brother with learning disabilities from custody in the notorious Riker's Island prison. What follows is a relentless foot-chase through the streets, tenements and shitholes of New York City that plays out as a non-stop living nightmare. I heard of Good Time’s directors, Benny Safdie and Josh Safdie, as being announced for the remake of 48hrs before I’d seen this, their debut feature. And I spent a great deal of time whining about how 48hrs doesn’t need touched and who did these Safdie brothers think they were, etc. Now? Having seen this movie and adored it as much as I have, I’m legitimately excited to see what their version of a modern day 48hrs could be! Good Time is now on Netflix here in the UK.

[mikaelmarczakdirector-blog]

Everything You Need To Know About Film Director Mikael Marczak

Every now and then a film comes along which makes everyone sit up and take notice every one. It might be a compact indie video that captures the eye of individuals from distinct areas or it is sometimes a substantial-funds movie that ultimately taps directly to the ethos of nearly everybody world-wide. The decreasing doc- ALL THESE SLEEPLESS evening by director Mikael Marczak appear to be merely a genuine picture.

The 30-yr-old overseer is not newcomers at the movie marketplace. His 2012 documentary blockbuster film, ‘FUCK FOR FOREST’ attained outstanding criticisms at nearly all video event it experienced at. Experts lauded the docu-movie Mikael Marczak for being forward of it is moment. The picture was viewed a strange homage to one of the world’s many unusual charities FFF. The motion picture was requested on account of the non-profit trust to market fantastic change in the form of body system positivity. The charity as well has fundamentally the most ingenious tactics to saving cash external atmosphere. The FFF makes and retails homemade erotic films to internet surfers, according to sources. The cash from your own film sales and different marketing devices are provided to businesses which in fact work on the method to saving money the planet earth. This might seem just like a odd strategy to ecologically-upkeep but it surely does seem to execute. The FFF Altruistic trust h-AS numerous thousand bucks for environmentally-friendly strategies therefore it seems to be prospering day to day. The overseer Marczak has cashed in right through to to the buzz and the show ‘FUCK FOR FOREST’ were able to generate a furore to the photo routine. The Polish Director was praised and identified by by the Polish Picture Institution. In fact, the movie was thought of and commended being the ‘Most Seen Sparkle Documentary abroad’ in 2013.

But Marczak is simply not new to docu/picture shooting. His previous attempts 2012’s “MAN AT 2010’s and WAR” “LA MACHINA” were truly also thought of among the very best movies throughout their classification. The director is currently attaining prominence and recognition due to his latest re-lease “ALL THESE SLEEPLESS NIGHTTIME.’ The cutting edge docu/movie uses the life of two young ones as they move through an average day and night in modernday Warsaw, yet. Either famous performers are innovative plus they continue through connections, form new links, blast- up and conflict; during the period of a particular night and daytime. While the premise point is in some events grippy and imprecise, it can frequently catch the audience’s attention. Pundits have enjoyed the manner where the digicam seems to intrude into the actos’ face and lifeshowcase and encounter what's going on around and also in the leading personas.

Nearly all the dvd h-AS become picture at before-daybreak or during the nighttime as well as the digicam system Mikael Marczak might appear to incorporate in-between numbers though however left over as motionless as-is feasible. The story line begins with the two main characters searching in a hazy subject-matter on the seashore. In the end, both chief protagonists, the Krzysztof and Michal start off researching the large nightlife provided by blog-Battle Warsaw. Krzysztof merely broke apart a a few-time association in which he determines to learn his freedom along with his buddy Michal towards maximum amount. This will take every one mo-Re than Warsaw after dark appreciating virtually everything that the place can offer. On the other hand, the tale actually takes a turn for the worse when celebrity Krzysztof requires up with Michal’s ex girlfriend Eva. This causes a large amount of friction regarding both teammates and new conundrums come about that tax the threesome.