#also there is some part of her that is slightly resentful of link for being able to fight ganon when she tried and failed

[saltpotion]

the zelda ii backstory idea had morphed once again into a LU fanfic idea bc i cannot stop brainrotting aurora and dawn’s relationship, esp in light of everything that happens with aurora pre-sleep curse

might also give lu hyrule daddy issues. stay tuned

[first-edition]

Fox and the Hound

Sum-Joffrey wants to send a message to your family after your brother embarrasses him, so he marries you off to his most unwanted man in his court, the hound. But will this marriage truly be a statement for an eyesore, or will it grow into something more. 

Cw for chapter- 18+ words and themes overall, cussing, mention of death, mention of sandors death, joss and Podrick being cutie pies,

// A/N: just wanted to apologize for the broken links at the beginning of the book since i changed my username they haven’t been working but i assure you I’ll get to fixing them. I will also end up making a goggle docs with the entire book for downloading when this series ends//

Previous chapter here

Chapter 22

You hold your son in your arms walking around the room as you rock him and hum too him. He coos in your arms he holds onto your finger. You smile down at his little face admiring his feature yet to come in your excited to see him grow into his fathers looks. 

There’s a knock on your door. 

“Enter.” You say the door opens and joss enters. 

“Your grace.” You says bowing slightly. You smile at his persistence to come in and check up on you once in a while. Its been just over a month since you gave birth to Joss, and the recovery has gone smoothly and being fully healed your back to doing the normal things relatively. 

“The lady Sansa is looking for you. She’s by the wearwood.” He speaks 

“thank you. Ill be right out. Leave the door open” You say he nods and exits leaving it open as per your request. He dosnt leave he just merely stands to the side to wait for you. with your newfound talent of doing things one handed you lay out the fur blanket on the bed before laying your son on top. 

You turn and pull on your cloak and gloves before going back to your son. You swaddle him in the furs before pulling him back into your arms and heading out holding him close to you and walking out to find Sansa joss follows close behind you as usual. 

“Joss?” You ask him on your way over. 

“Yes?” He asks 

“may i task you with something this evening?” You ask.

”of course your grace.” he answers. 

“Will you go into the town and fetch some new furs as he grows i will need more.” You say. 

“Of course your grace.” He says and smiles before trailing away from your side to the stables to collect a horse for his ride. 

————

You see Sansa red hair before herself. 

“Sansa.” You call. She turns around to face you her face lighting up as she sees you holding joss in your arms. she holds out her arms asking for permission to take a hold of him and you happily ablidge as you both move to the stone carved bench and take a seat. 

“You were searching for me?” You ask her once seated. 

”ah yes. John sent word through raven about the success with the dragon queen. She will be joining us in the next coming months, John will be arriving home soon to prepare…and he says he’s bringing a friend.” She says breathlessly. 

“You dont sound pleased to have another royal arrive.” You say she chuckles and shakes her head. 

“Her father was the mad king…shes a targaryen they are, to say the least, the more so crazy of the rich royal families.” She speaks bouncing joss slightly. you snort at her rude comment. 

“Do you think she actually has dragons?” You ask she nods. 

“John drew a picture.” She says about the ravens scroll that was sent. You nod and sigh looking at the tree. 

“May i ask you something?” She asks. 

“Hmm?” You answer mindlessly. 

“Do…hm..” she trails off thinking on how she wants to word the topic that could either piss you off or make you cry. 

“When…you look at, joss…” She says signalling to your son and not the squire. 

“…is there any part of you that may have resentment, or pain for the death of sandor?” She asks. You sigh and look at her. 

“No..i miss my husband dearly and every night wish that he were still here to see his son grow but..i have a part of him and i'm grateful for that. Although I do sometimes remind him of how much pain he caused me. When he’s king I hope he goes out of this world just as stubborn as he wanted to come into it…with a fight.” You smile looking at your sons blushed face as he sleeps in Sansa’s arms. 

“I wish to have a babe of my own, whether it is born from me, or im to come upon one that needs care.” She says and smiles. 

“I would’ve liked to give joss a brother so he’s never lonely but I refuse to give myself to another man. when the time comes i want to visit the orphanage.” You say. Sansa smiles and looks to you. 

“I shall join you and we can give two children the rightful home they deserve.” She says happily you nod, brushing your finger against your sons cheek. 

“Speaking of…joss. Where is he. It seems he never leaves your side.” Sansa jokes. 

“Ugh can you believe it? I sent him away to get more furs but i know he’s going to have a hard time determining which length or color to pick.” You say as Sansa hands your son back to you before you both get up deciding to head back into the halls to warm up. 

————

Standing in the shop joss looks at the furs just a suspected he struggles with choosing the type of furs asking the store clerk a thousand different question about them. The front bell attached above the door rings making Joss double take at the arrival of the other squire sent out. 

“Joss.” Podrick speaks enthusiastically as he sees his fellow looking frantically at the selection the clerk has shown. 

“H-hello.” Joss gets out before running his fingers through the furs now testing the feel once deciding on the color, granted it should’ve been the first thing he does as now he regrets choosing the type and he begins the process all over again. 

“What are you doing?” Podrick asks. 

“H-her grace has asked me to gather furs for the next coming years for the little prince but i dont know if she sent me away to torture me for I cannot choose the best.” He huffs. 

“For now he is a baby no bigger than forearm so he will only need long furs for the next 2 years and the life spans of furs is four. Six if taken care of properly. So you can get him 2 of the long gray. It has soft enough fibers that it will not cause irritation and prevent choking for the prince. You cal buy six other pertaining the length as as he grows older they are most likely to be worn as a cape to there's no need for a backing it can stay as the Hyde, also better for insulation.” Podrick educates your squire as well as telling the store clerk what is to be bought. 

“When have you become an expert on furs?” Joss asks genuinely although it sounds more like a mock. Podrick scoffs. 

“My time spent with Tyrion lannesister wasn’t just golden roofs and armor plating, i took his orders and lists and he had a collection of fine furs.” Podrick answers. 

“I apologize i mean no ill intent for my question it was genuinely a skill i need to learn for her grace.” Joss replies reassuring. He pays the correct amount for the fur selections of one of the guards that went with him taking some in his hold as theres quite a few. Podrick quickly grabs the fur hes chosen an pays before following joss outwards. 

“I could… teach you if you’d like about the difference in fine things.” Pod offers. 

“Take these back her grace I will be alright.” Joss instructs the guard you puts the furs in the saddle bags of his horse before nodding, mounting and riding off. 

“I would enjoy that very much.” Joss says looking at podrick who puts the single fur pelt under his arm smiling back at the other. 

————

“I was a soldier once. All my superiors thought I was brave…I wasn’t. I mean i never ran from a fight, only because I didn’t want to see who i thought were my friends to see me a coward. And no matter the orders I would do them without a blink. Burn that village im your arsonist, steal from the village, fine im your thief, kill those boys, i'm your murder.” Everyone sits around as Brother ray speaks out on the past he wishes to re-write. He takes a seat looking at everyone who’s listening, including sandor. 

“I went to a village, much like the one we are building, and slaughtered those within, I heard a boy away from his mother as i slit his throat. That night the screams of the mother calling out for her son haunted me. And they still do to this way. And will so for the rest of my life.” He sighs standing up once more. 

“We cannot undo what was done in our past, however we can mold our future to be braver, better, happier, kinder. We can use our wits and our strength for the goodness of our next life.” Brother ray speaks looking directly to sandor. 

Before he begins to speak again the sound of horse hooves trods closer allowing the view of three men to ride up to the group as everyone stands. 

“Good Morrow friends.” He speaks. 

“Whats your business here?” The one in the middle asks looking around at everyone. 

“Building a new civilization my lord.” Ray answers. The man chuckles lowly before speaking again. 

“Have you any more spots? Or steel?” He asks. 

“We are welcome to anyone who wants to help with the thrive, but we’ve no gold, no steel. Your welcome to join us for supper however we’ve many hungers mouths here.” Rays continues to answer kindly. 

The man takes another look at the small crowd before backing his horse up a it. 

“Stay safe then. The night is dark and full of terrors.” He speaks before nodding to the other men. 

“Seven save you friends.” ray replies before the three men turn and ride off. Ray turns to the crowd taking a breath reassuring everyone. 

“Now then let us do some more work and supper shall be prepared.” He smiles. Sandor continues to look at the men who ride off recognizing the symbol in the chest plate. Ray gives him a look before sandor turns and heads back off to his station of chopping wood since he's the strongest and does not tire easily. Brother ray however does not go to his of supervising, he follows sandor watching him pick up the axe and begin easily splitting the large logs. 

Sandor stops a second before turning his head seeing ray walking to him. He scoffs rolling his eyes. 

“Seven blessings, fuck that.” sandor huffs as he goes back to splitting logs. 

“Im a fucking septon what was i supposed to say?” brother ray sighs back to sandor. 

“They dont believe in your seven god shit, theyre from the brotherhood, they serve the redgod…Fucking cunts.” sandor says putting down the axe breifly to talk to ray. 

“Anyway weve got nothing for them.” ray speaks, sandor scoffs at his comment. 

“Sure you do…youve got food, you’ve got steel, even if you say you don't, and you've got women, a man like that whos been out on horse back for long enough is gonna want a women no matter the cost.” sandor retorts back to brother ray. 

“Not you? Youre a man, youre around women?” ray suggests. 

“No not me. I dont need another woman.” he huffs turing back around and picking up the axe once more. Brother ray walks around sandor to face him to continue the conversation. 

“Another? Hm?” ray prods at sandor for mentioning the slightest of you. Sandor huffs and continues to chop. 

“When i found you i thought youd been dead for days. When you were stinking already and covered in bugs, and bone was coming through your leg right there. But youre all healed up apart from the little limp.” brother ray chuckles as sandor looks up at him stopping his chopping yet again for a moment to talk. 

“I was gonna give you a proper burial but the you coughed, Ha, nearly shit myself…i thought, you would die by the time i got you back here, but by that time you didnt. And i reckoned you’d die a dozen more times over those next few days but you didnt…what was it that kept you going?” ray asks. Sandor glances at the ground for a second before taking a breath and letting it out in a sigh. 

“What is her? ‘The Woman’?” ray asks once more. 

“Shes pregnant, with mine, might have given birth by now its been about a year. I made her a promise that i would come back, find her. And i would like to keep it.” he says looking brother ray in the eyes for once. Brother ray nods and walks around sandor beginning his walk back to the village area. 

“Come on now get some supper.” he says. 

Sandor picks up the axe and begins swinging once more. 

“It’s gonna be a cold night. You’ll need firewood.” sandor says chopping and splitting the wood. 

“Ill save you a bowl. Might even have some ale hidden away” ray smiles to sandor before hading back to the village plot. Sandor chuckles and continues chopping although his math is slightly off and with in the next new chops he’ll have to go into the forest for a moment to collect more.

Next chapter here

TAGLIST. If you’d like to be added to the tag list please leave a comment down below.

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[ingravinoveritas]

Heheh

Grouping these all together because a whole bunch of things happened today and there is a lot to talk about. For those who haven't seen, Georgia posted an Insta story of the sunset, which was followed by an extremely similar picture/Insta story from AL about an hour later. Shortly after that, Anna posted another story of Lyra and Birdie baking side by side, which Georgia also reshared:

Right off the bat, one thing in particular stood out about AL's story: Her using the hashtag #bakingwithsheenant, which differs from the tags she and Georgia normally use (#Sheenbergnants or something to that effect). It especially caught my attention because "Sheenant" is one of the ship names used in the fandom for Michael/David (though it is not a term I normally use). AL could have easily been referring to Lyra and Birdie in the photo, of course, but...of all the portmanteaus and hashtags AL could have chosen, she went with that one, and all I can say is that if it was nothing more than a fluke, then it was one hell of a fluke for her to make.

As if all this weren't enough, however, we then have what @phantomstars24 has mentioned, which is another story that Georgia shared just a little while ago:

To what was said in the Asks above, if this is true, it would absolutely mean that Michael and David are also neighbors, and that my head feels like it's slightly melting. Because there is no way in hell Michael bought a house in London next to David by accident. A meteorite has a better chance of hitting the Earth and bringing back the dinosaurs as our reptilian overlords than that does of being an accident.

Also if Michael and David are together as part of some poly arrangement, I can't think of a better way for them to ensure that they can see each other all the time. The number of possibilities are limitless: Random sleepovers, snuggling on the couch for movie date night, unwinding with a glass of red wine after they've had a long day doing their respective plays. Thinking as well of how we saw Michael and David looking at each other at opening night of Macbeth, now the chances of them going home together afterward have shot up by about a million, and I can hardly get my mind around it. I mean...dear God...

As for Georgia's "So linked!" sounding sarcastic, I could definitely see that as sarcasm. The sunset pictures from earlier seemed very planned, and even more so once we saw the baking picture. I saw some reactions from fans calling AL and Georgia "besties" once the Insta stories were posted, but I'm not exactly sure how those posts make them besties. The way Georgia posts about Anna is entirely different from how she posts about Jennie Fava, whom we know actually is one of Georgia's longtime best friends, so that difference makes it difficult for me to see why people see Georgia/AL in that light.

And if they are frequently getting together because of that proximity/because it is easier for Michael and David to have one house to themselves while AL, Georgia, and the kids are in another, I could see some degree of resentment existing on Georgia's end, especially if she feels like more of a babysitter than anything else. It's difficult to say for certain, of course, but we also have so many instances now of Anna copying Georgia on social media that I would imagine it has started to feel like a bit of a "me and my shadow" routine.

In any case, we have a lot of little pieces here that only give us a small glimpse at the whole, but boy, are they some very interesting pieces indeed. I think what strikes me most about all of this is that these stories also allude to Michael and David spending time together, yet we never actually see any pictures of them. (I have an Ask related to this waiting in my inbox, so I will expand more on that in a bit.) But we are being given room to think that, and to draw certain conclusions as a result, and I think both Georgia and AL know that and seemingly do not have a problem with it.

So yes, those are my thoughts on all the developments from today. Glad as always to hear from my followers and what your thoughts are on all this...

[runawaychar]

Myst Master Post

Okay, so here's a massive infodump for Myst, made to introduce my friends a series that I've been obsessed with since I was a child. In light of the upcoming remake of Riven, I decided to share it with y'all. I'm gonna be laying down some spoilers to the Myst book series and the first three games - you've been warned:

Part 1: The fall of D'ni

The D'ni were an ancient civilization from another world that lasted for tens of thousands of years. They advanced technologically and scientifically further than we can possibly imagine, but along a different axis than we would recognize as progress. A good example of this is their apparent obsession with geology - the D'ni were obsessed with stability and longevity, and found metal a poor building material, since they built things for the long haul and steel doesn't last as long as stone. Their capital city also existed within a massive underground cavern, and as a result they made it their business to understand Rock.

In conjunction with Rock, the D'ni civilization was built upon the Art of Writing - they had the ability to create books that, when a certain page is touched, would transport the reader to the world described therein (but leaving the book behind - this becomes important later). A poorly written book would be unstable - the world within falling apart if instabilities weren't corrected in time. Linking books could also be written - smaller books that reference another preexisting book - essential to keep on your person if you ever planned on returning home from whatever world you warped into.

Now, the origin of the D'ni is lost knowledge, but it is known that they aren't native to any of the worlds they inhabited. Long ago there was a schism that resulted in the D'ni fleeing their homeworld into a book Written by their founding figure. Without a linking book back, they essentially cut themselves off completely from the worlds they originally came from. The book they fled into linked to the massive cavern I mentioned earlier. The book itself is described as one of the most detailed ever written, designed to last without instability.

It isn't revealed until the third book why, but the D'ni took with them a taboo that, if broken, would result in the writer being sent into a prison world - essentially an island or wilderness without a linking book back home. The taboo was this: never ever ever write a book with people in it.

So you can imagine their surprise when an archeologist on a dig in New Mexico stumbles into their cavern.

Slightly upset at the revelation that their super special custom-made paradise has natives crawling on the surface, they imprison the archeologist, named Anna, and proceed to have many big boy discussions about whether or not this surface creature is intelligent or just a philosophical zombie. She manages to eventually win her freedom by learning their language and speaking to them in it, but they forbid her from ever returning to the surface, lest more filthy non-Writers dirty up their cavern.

She gets taken in by a respected D'ni called Aitrus, who has a thing for surface girls. He happens to be friends with a Writer's Guild member called Veovis, who decidedly does not. Their friendship becomes strained and eventually breaks after Veovis learns they fuckin', but worse, Aitrus is teaching her the Art.

Meanwhile, we meet an incel called A'gaeris who has a chip on his shoulder about being kicked out of the writer's guild and likes to write reactionary pamphlets in his spare time about the dangers of "interbreeding" with natives, i.e. Anna. In the fashion of youtube skeptics, he calls himself the Philosopher, and fosters a cult following of D'ni fuckboys. He befriends Veovis and secretly frames him for a murder, guaranteeing his exile and radicalization as part of A'gaeris's master plan. He resents the D'ni for not giving him his dream job, and sees the acceptance of Anna as proof of their degeneracy.

Using this as an excuse to break taboo, A'gaeris writes a book in secret with a native population that he enslaves, and uses this base of operations to free Veovis from exile and recruit him into his shitty shitty schemes.

Having been convinced that the D'ni aren't worth saving, Veovis helps A'gaeris spread a deadly plague through the D'ni cavern, killing every member of a ten thousand year old civilization overnight. They load up bodies onto carts and link them into every book they can find, spreading the disease to every world the D'ni ever linked to... All because his best friend married outside his race.

Agaeris then turns to Veovis, and says "haha lets create a world where we can rule over everyone as gods" and Veovis finally gets it through his thick skull that maybe his new friend isn't as rational as he advertises in his debate streams. This revelation doesn't mean much in the face of freshly commited genocide, and doesn't last for very long before he gets shanked by A'gaeris.

Anna, Aitrus, and their shitty kid "internalized Racism" Gehn, manage to escape the plague by sheer accident, having made a pilgrimmage to the surface. Aitrus finally kills Agaeris by luring him into a linking book to a volcanic inferno, sacrificing himself in the process. Anna leaves the cavern with her terrible child and raises him on her own, a task made difficult by the fact that Gehn blames her for the fall of the D'ni and hates that he's part human.

So that's the first part of our story - a civilization isolated from an outside world and cultures that they considered to be less real than themselves, destroyed utterly because they couldn't handle contact with evidence to the contrary. Their refusal to link to worlds with other people, while understandable considering what people like Agaeris would do with the power, led to a brittle, deeply racist society easily toppled by a reactionary demagogue.

In the second part, we'll see what happens when an asshole romanticizes that society and attempts to rebuild it in his own image.

Part 2: Gehn is the Worst

A thing to keep in mind before I continue is that genocidal fuckery skips generations in the myst series, opposed by those unfortunate enough to be in the odd-numbered ones.

Let me compose my thoughts here and tell y'all about Gehn, proof that good parenting does not run in the Atrus family tree. Gehn was a mixed race child to a human and a D'ni, and that came with complications, physically and socially. He suffered a lot of illness and was sickly as a kid, and no one really thought that he'd survive to adulthood - worse, his teachers and peers hoped that he wouldn't. Incredibly bright and taught by brillaint parents, he made it into the Book-Maker's guild, second only in social standing to the Writer's Guild. While there he was harrassed and bullied mercilessly by his racist classmates, and internalized that hatred, resenting his mother and idolizing his father and the D'ni culture even as it collapsed around him. When the D'ni fell, he blamed the events on his mother's arrival to the D'ni caverns, and decided to rebuild the lost civilization entirely by himself. He abandoned her to solitude while he crawled through the D'ni ruins, trying to understand a people that he only really knew in childhood.

He also had a kid with a native tribe on the surface, who he suspected had contact with the D'ni millenia in the past and were therefore worthy of his notice. The mother suffered complications during childbirth, so he brought her to Anna for help, the first time she had seen him in years. The mother died, something which Gehn also blamed Anna for, and without even looking at his child he set out back into the ruins.

Gehn, filled with ideas about D'ni supremacy, finished the work that A'gaeris set out to achieve - he pieced together the Art from books he found, and Wrote (i.e. slapped together) several unstable worlds that he dominated as a God and destroyed.

Now, imagine that you are someone who desperately wants to write a book, but can't read. Imagine you are clever enough to piece together linguistics ex nihilo but too full of yourself to actually learn how to write your own original sentences. Imagine you have a lifetime of anger and access to the complete works of the Library of Congress. You may begin to understand the "incredible chaos that my father's economy of words has yielded", as Atrus puts it at the start of Riven.

Motherfucker literally took sentences out of Shakespeare and stiched them onto Steven King paragraphs because they seemed to "work right" in the original books. This led to horribly unstable links, where contradictions, mismatched vocabulary, pacing, and tone led to worlds on the verge of collapse.

Of course, Gehn wasn't to blame. Gehn was never to blame. "It must be the ink I'm using", mr. Fuckboy thought to himself. "My moleskin notebook just isn't authentic enough to convey my brilliance".

So he did as one does and wrote worlds with the materials he needed, and people in them to exploit as a workforce. He showed up, used D'ni technology and manipulation of the link to freak out the natives, and set himself up as both their boss and a deity, who's divine commandment was "clearcut your forests and hunt your wildlife to make me books".

After four failed attempts, Gehn finally created his first working age, which he called the "Fifth" age because creativity is for soyboy losers and has no place in big boy writing. The natives called it Riven.

This world was probably his most stable work ever, which is a very low bar. It was so fucked and so kludged together that it eventually split into five seperate islands. The contradictions were also enough to eventually creat a tear in spacetime, which we'll get to in a bit.

Gehn eventually realized that he needed an assistant to help keep the world stable while he did his godly duties, so like a the deadbeat that he was, he showed up fourteen years late to take custody of his teenage son. At first enamored by his cool dad with goggles and an ancient city, Atrus's opinion of his father started to sour when he realized just how boneheaded the old man was. Without the mythologization of the Art that made the D'ni super special in the mind of Gehn, Atrus figured out something in a couple months that his father couldn't do in a couple decades: these were just words. Like, what if instead of trying to create Othello by slapping together phrases you found in a dictionary and a farmer's almanac, you just wrote something original?

Gehn was not happy with this idea - how dare this fucking child sully the Art by trying new things?! Everything good has already been written by the master race, dumb dumb, what makes you think a half breed could do better?

Gehn burned Atrus's first book.

It was around then that Atrus decided his father was a dangerous moron. When Gehn finally took him to Riven and Atrus saw what was going on there, he knew he had to do something. Meanwhile, he met a cool girl named Katran, who found his stuttering and mispronunciation of her name cute in a lame puppy kinda way.

Gehn had, in the years before he suddenly remembered he had a son, tried to recruit assistants out of the Rivenese population - Katran was his best student, and so he decided was gonna marry her. Real Frollo shit. When Katran shows Atrus the book she had written by herself in secret, Atrus scoffed. It was full of contradictions, broke every rule of Writing. The grammer didn't work, the words were out of order. It was poetry. The world she had made surpassed anything the D'ni or Gehn had thought possible. She had linked to a torus world, kept together with spin gravity - A pillar of water in the center shot out of the world on the dark side of the rim, spilling out into the stars. This blew Atrus's mind, who had adopted his father's unconscious bias that only the D'ni could Write. And here was some "primitive" native in a dying world, who had managed to create something impossible. She had groked the concept of symbiosis and dialectics in Writing, and demonstrated that contradictions work if done in a way that complement the whole. She then shows Atrus another book - this one leading to a library on a forested island - Myst.

They make plans to imprison Gehn and keep him from destroying more worlds. Atrus links into Riven and destroys all the linking books he can find leading out of it -unfortunately, his father captures him in the act, and imprisons him. Katran is not happy about this. And from their base in Myst she happens to have in her possesion the book that Gehn wrote - his fifth age. She does some editing.

Part 3: Katran is so cool in the books holy shit

Now, y'all might be going, "but Char, if Writers don't create the worlds they link into, how can they make changes and write a world into tearing itself apart?" The answer given from on high, unfortunately for us, is quantum mechanics.

You see, when you write a book, you essentially are referring to a place in the multiverse that matches your description. In the Myst universe, everything that hasn't been observed/described yet is in a combination of all possible states. So you can't really write in a forest fire if the forest's climate is already described and precludes the possibility without risking linking to an entirely different age, but you can describe the unseen/undescribed tectonics to cause a lava flow. This also means that unstable worlds like Riven become even harder to patch the more you try, because you can't really take anything written back or remove observed inconsistencies without linking to an entirely different place filled with strangers.

This does mean though, that the Writers of these books have a horrific amount of power over the future of the worlds they link to, and shitty writers will doom all that live there.

So, with that in mind, Katran, seeing her boyfriend trapped by his abusive dad, decides that, actually, metors in the shape of GIANT KNIVES exist, and have always existed, moving inexorably through the unobserved void of space over countless eons in a direct collision course with her homeworld. There were probably less metal options, but Katran was not interested in those.

The collision and resulting earthquake opens Atrus's prison cell and the patch job that Gehn had done to contain the rip in spacetime his shitty writing had caused, and he soon learns a timeless lesson: never, ever, *ever* piss off your editor. The final showdown has Katran linking in to save her nerdy damsel boyfriend in distress, while his father rants about being God and air gets sucked, howling, into the void between worlds. They put up their finger at him and walk backwards into the void, linking out while he sputters at them and all of Katran's childhood bullies stare at the power couple in religious awe.

I may be editorializing a bit here.

The Myst linking book, the last way out of Riven, tumbles through the vastness of not-space, far away from the pretentious self-hating clutches of the world's worst writer with a god-complex... and ends up almost clocking a random hiker in New Mexico as it tumbles back to the most improbable place imaginable, the place where it all started.

This is where a 90's point and click computer game about pipe management begins.

Once on Myst, Atrus discovers that Anna, 100% done with her son's bullshit, had actually done the responsible thing and followed him into the caverns when he was collected by his deadbeat dad. She had written Myst and given it to her grandson's more competent significant other and helped orchestrate the rescue attempt in secret. Katran and Atrus then lived happily ever after had some more shitty kids.

Part 4: Pipe Management and Terrible Children

Turns out, Atrus was too busy writing journals, trying to figure out a future for what was left of the D'ni after generations of fuckery, and stopping Riven from completely collapsing to really do the whole genocide talk with his sons. And I assume Katran was too busy doing hot girl shit. So they kinda left their sons to run amok with the native populations of peaceful tree dwellers and waterworld survivors.

The sons weren't motivated, as Gehn was, by some imagined past empire, or as A'gaeris was, by some deep seated hatred of the culture that denied him a spot at the top. They just really liked it when people licked their boots, both in and out of the bedroom. Maybe they were a shitty influence on each other, in the way that fuckboys are. Or maybe the Atrus family just has the star wars gene. In any case, the brothers suck each world that their father let them loose on dry to satisfy their endless greed and bloodlust.

Achenar, the violent one, has torture devices in the rooms you stumble on on the game, holograms designed to scare the natives (something he picked up on from gramps, maybe), poisons, and a torture chamber filled with human remains.

Sirius, the greedy one, has chambers filled with jewels, fine wines and silks, hidden daggers, plundered wealth and thrones.

Atrus's solution when he learns about this was "Oh no, we better send them to a nice friendly age with nice innocent people who will show them how to be kind and stuff" and there goes Channelwood.

They were not taught how to Write, ironically because Atrus was worried about their maturity and didn't want another Gehn in the family. He also forbade them use two books. You see, Atrus was feeling guilty about trapping his father on Riven - not because he was torn up about his dear old dad, but because he had basically trapped him in with a bunch of innocent villagers who he was taking his anger out on. So he had been working with Katran on a plan to trap pops in a prison age, similar to how Veovis was trapped.

This plan involved two prototype books called Trap Books - books that *look* like they're gonna link to somewhere fun, but instead trap the linker in the void between worlds. He had realized that having a library of books sitting around for anyone who may stumble on a myst linking book to fuck with was not a a good idea, so he put the trap books on the shelves with the rest for extra security. There they would sit undisturbed until he was ready to face Gehn again. Or so he thought.

Sirius and Achenar, not content with simply fucking up Channelwood, embarked on an omnicidal mission - they exploited, terrorized, exterminated, and burnt every book in Atrus's collection they could get their grubby paws on. When Atrus realized what was going on, he tried to return home, but was tricked into linking to D'ni with his Myst book tampered with. Katran was similarly tricked into linking to Riven. These fuckos, thinking themselves kings of the multiverse, started to wonder about the two forbidden books - was dear ol' dad hiding the best jewels and slaves from them? Was this his secret stash?

...And this is how we find the Atrus family when the MC links to the island.

These idiots plead their case to the Stranger, each blaming the ruination of Atrus's collection on the other, and ask you to free them by collecting all the link pages that Atrus had torn out of the trap books and scattered across his surviving worlds. After some excellent pipe management, you collect enough pages for both for them to let slip that "hey, don't check out that green book in the hidden room, just get me the last page buddy". Of course inside the green book is a very irate Atrus, pissed off that this has happened a second time in his family's history. You free Atrus, he throws his sons into a fire, and they live happily ever afterfuck we forgot about Katran.

Part 5: The part where I spoil all of Riven (please go play this its so good)

So Atrus gives the stranded hiker (you) a deal - help him free his captive wife, get rid of a tyrannical godking, and evacuate the Riven people utilizing your incredible birdwatching skills and pipe management experience. In exchange, you are given a way home to your retail job. You pick him up on the offer, because confrontation makes you socially anxious.

You are captured almost immediately, and the prison book you brought with you confiscated by the cops. Fortunately, you happen to be on the same world that Katran was tricked to, and she has been *busy*. An antifa supersoldier knocks out the guard, takes the book to someone competent, and lets you out of jail.

Turns out Katran did the sensible thing and has been fomenting rebellion against god from the second she realized her sons were the worst. Meanwhile, you bumble around the islands for a bit, fixing their pipes and learning how to count while guerilla forces fight for their freedom.

You eventually learn that Gehn has been successfully (by some definition), writing books. Fuck. Not willing to let the Wheel of Time author loose on an unsuspecting multiverse again, you manage to apply your birdwatching skills and locate the rebel base. All according to plan. After beating you up a bit, they let you know that Katran has been locked up, presumably after trying to take down Gehn with fisticuffs, idk. Turns out that Katran and Atrus's exit was kinda a big deal, and led to a weird offshoot religion where they worship Katran and... Atrus for some reason. They formed a secret society known as the Moeity, who use the space knives as sacred symbols. Katran uses her exile in Riven to build a world with a secret treehouse for them to hang out in.

This treehouse.

You go to Gehn's HQ, trick him into linking into your prison book ("oooh nooo haha don't steal my only way home >_>") and set Katran free. You signal Atrus that the mission is a success by opening the star fissure and starting the collapse of the world while Katran evacuates her people. He shows up, thanks you, and you jump into the star fissure, returning to the 9 to 5 grind. It is lucky that the star fissure ends up opening in Anna's backyard a couple miles away from the D'ni cavern, because Atrus and his family getting into situations that can only be solved with pipe management skills.

Part 6: The final book

The last part of the story I want to talk about is from the Book of D'ni, arguably the weakest of the Myst Reader trilogy, set shortly after the events of Riven, I think. It's about Atrus finding D'ni survivors in linking books, and trying to figure out how they're going to rebuild, but Do It Right This Time(tm).

Eventually they unearth a massive ancient linking book underneath the zero point - the original linking location of Earth's descriptive book, and central location in the D'ni cavern. Turns out one of the original D'ni who fled to Earth decided to bring a linking book back home. This book leads to an age called Tehranee (no, seriously), where they encounter a thriving Ronay (the D'ni race) civilization on a lush paradise world. These people, who all live in massive opulent ziggurat palaces the size of cities, welcome the descendents of their wayward cousins who decided to fuck off ten millenia prior, and offer the D'ni survivors refuge in their utopia. Inside the palaces they live in the lap of luxury, playing games with mechanical contraptions and mazes, eating amazing food, having stimulating intellectual conversations and parties.

The other shoe drops when Atrus n' pals realize that the walls are unusually thick, and discover the slave races imported from a hundred thousand different worlds that toil and perish out of sight of the ronay so they can play their stupid games. There is a part where they realize that an indoor waterfall is literally powered by a crank - some poor person is forced to toil at the pump so they can have a water feature. So! Turns out there was a reason why the D'ni have a taboo about writing worlds with people in them - Because this shit right here is what they wanted to escape.

In a fitting end to the tehranee, the survivors happen to have brought A'gaeris's plague with them, having developed an immunity to it. The slaveowners all perish to smallpox, and the slaves lead a revolution.

The big takeaway Atrus has after his summer vacation is that maaaaaybe rebuilding the ronay civilization is not such a good idea. So he decides to close the sordid chapters of Tehranee, A'gaeris, Gehn, and his sons, and build a new age for all D'ni and the inhabitants of the worlds they touched, to live in harmony together.

Conclusions

Every story after this is kinda added on, I feel that this covers the main storyline. Atrus and Katran eventually have another kid, this one they parent way too well to overcompensate and ends up becoming the D'ni'satz Haderach.

Thanks y'all so much for listening to me ramble about a series really close to my heart - sorry for the tense issues, this was really stream of consciousness.

Oh! One last piece of worldbuilding I find Neat is the D'ni guild of Maintainers - they had the unfortunate job of being OSHA for books. When they found a unusual book or discovered one that had little to no info on the other side, they would link into it to make sure it wasn't leading to the center of a gas giant or covered in poisonous spiders. They did this while wearing something called an EV suit - a big bulky hazmat suit made of special Rock designed to be nigh unbreakable. The gauntlet had a linking book back home built into it, with a temporary membrane acting as a timer in case the inspector gets knocked out. There has only been one recorded instance of the EV suit being damaged by unfavorable conditions - The inspector had the misfortune of linking into a book just as its star went supernova (the helmet got a tiny crack in it).

Book of Ti'anna showed us the consequences of a racist, isolationist culture so fragile that, for all talk about stability and millenia of continued status quo, it collapses after it encounters a single person from the outside world.

Book of Atrus shows us what happens when an egomaniac fetishizes a glorified view of a mythic past and builds a fascist police state. It also shows just how incompetent and hateful such a worldview makes a person.

Myst shows us that even barring contact with some original historical sin, the atrocities from the past will come back to haunt us if we aren't vigilant against the impulses of greed and hatred.

Riven shows us that revolution is the only answer against fascism.

Finally, the Book of D'ni reveals what happens when fascism wins. It shows that the past was Terrible, Actually, and we should focus on building a future, rather than attempting to go back to some imagined golden age.

I think Myst:Exile shows how the past cannot simply be buried, however. Some victim from the past comes back for vengeance against Sirius and Achenar and steals Atrus's book, i.e. the future of the D'ni. Myst:Revelations is about forgiveness and redemption, and book five is about book jesus? idk. Uru is about saving a dying videogame studio before it gets bought out. Not sure if it's about anything else, I've been stuck on a puzzle since 2019.

Till next time.

[fazgoo-connoiseur-1987]

🐰🧑‍🧑‍🧒

🐻🧑‍🧑‍🧒

Link to the Prompts :]

🐰👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 (the Afton Family; what were they like?)

Bill is divorced from his ex-wife (Maggie Schmidt) and he has the kids on the weekends prior to CC'S death when Mike elects to go live with him full-time.

He's an okay-to-good dad, actually. He's fun and gets his kids these lavish gifts but he's pretty terrible dealing with emotional problems they might have. Type of guy to get you the new game system but stare at you blankly when you say you feel sad. The Afton kids get more emotional validation out of him when he's in costume.

Maggie is also a decent parent. She's harder on the kids but patient and understanding. She moves a couple towns over and eventually out of state to get away from the absolute mess that is Hurricane and Freddy's after her kids like... die.

Mike didn't take the divorce very well cus he saw his family as picture-esc and he feels weird about that illusion being shattered- Maggie's better than William at actually helping him with that. He still lashes out though mostly agaisnt his little brother. He does love his family a lot though he's tricked himself into thinking he's scaring Nate to "toughen him up".

Lizzie also didn't take the divorce very well but mostly because she wants to spend more time with her dad than she's allowed to. This sorta bubbles into a childish resentment for her mother but it's nothing tooo serious (she still loves her, she still knows her mum loves her, her dad just Gets Her in a way Maggie doesn't).

Nate is a small child and he's generally just confused about everything going on around him. He was a newborn when his parents split so he doesn't really know anything else. He likes his parents cus they're nice to him and hug him when he cries but he's a little scared of bill cus he saw him climbing out of the Rabbit costume once and he HATES THAT THING !!!!! It ATE HIS DAD !!!!! He has the SCARS TO PROVE IT !!! I think he prefers Henry, actually- cus he comforts him when Mike locks him in parts and service. Speaking of.

🐻👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 (the Emily Family; what were they like)

Henry was a shit partner and a slightly less shitty dad. Him and his wife (Eryka) are also divorced but they split before Bill and Maggie did. Henry is very emotionally unavailable (on a good day) and tends to just block everything out when he's too consumed by his work- which is often. He couldn't give Eryka the type of support she needed so they amicably split and tbh Henry hardly noticed. He's trying to be better for Charlie, though. He's still distant but he does things with her and is making a genuine effort. He forgot Sammy existed when Eryka left with him, though. Just completely blocked out his other child.

Eryka is an aspiring author and her leaving Henry and taking Sammy with her is probably the best decision anyone in this franchise has ever made. Her and Sammy just completely dodge all of the shit going on until like... 2017. Obviously she comes back to Hurricane for Charlie's funeral and things between her and Henry are very very tense (him being even more shut down than normal didn't help).

Charlie was a real rough and tumble kid I think. She'd get knocked down and keep swinging till she won. Her and Mike would wrestle pretty often and she'd want to keep going long after he ran out of steam (she'd run and grab him some fruit and plasters after tho :]). She loves her dad and looks up to him a lot but she secretly prefers spending time with Bill. Cus he's funny. She'd go and visit Sammy and her mum monthly :]

Sammy is a lot quieter and more introverted. They takes their parents splitting a little harder than Charlie did cus they LIKED Freddy's and liked hanging out with Nate but... hey what are you gonna do. He grows up to be a school teacher but he keeps up with the goings on in Hurricane. I think they doodle the animatronics every so often. Generally tries not ti think about how fucked up everything that happened was.

[svnflower-writes]

i'll stay in the pool and drown (so i don't have to watch you leave)

description: in which Sirius runs away and Regulus is left to deal with his emotions alone.

relationship: james potter x regulus black

warnings: mentioned child abuse + neglect, angst, hurt/comfort, not much jegulus more focused on reg and sirius. not a warning but i love pandora sm

word count: 3,806

requested: no but it tied for first in the poll

note: inspired by me listening to tv by billie eilish on loop (title lyric is so regulus coded). some mutuals will know allll about my little spiral and how it included a lotttt of tv by billie. oops. this is very angsty and possibly a reflection of my mental state rn but uh… sorry??? also this is totally unedited as always oops. also there’s not really much jegulus but the stuff that's there is fluffy. It’s mainly regulus and sirius being siblings and regulus centred angst bc i love him. a bit of sirius focused angst snuck in at the end and i didn't plan that but i love him soooo. again. i'm sorry. this is almost 4k words of pure angst. so.

ao3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/54978655

marauders taglist: (lmk if you want to be added or removed) @lovefolder @gu1lty-as-sin @dandelions-fly-in-summer-skies @a-beautiful-fool @optimizedchaos @qwerty-keysmash @lost-in-reveriie @tulips-best @nqds

Regulus supposed that deep down, he had always known how everything would turn out. Sirius was always going to leave him, it was an unavoidable fact. Some things were simply written in the stars, irreversible parts of life that could not be changed by mere mortals meddling around with them. But just because it was fixed in stone, just because it was fate, didn’t stop Regulus from being completely and utterly destroyed by the mere concept. 

Sirius had been the only true constant in his life. 

He had been there when Regulus was five and their mother had looked at him with true resentment in her eyes and slapped him across the face for the first time. He had held the younger boy in his arms and ran his fingers through his hair, both boys shaking with fear as tears rolled down their cheeks. 

He had been with Regulus when he was eight and Orion had verbally abused him for merely interacting with a muggleborn. Sirius had sat down with Regulus and ensured that he had known that nothing he had done was wrong. After Reggie had understood this, they snuck to the kitchen and stole a jar of cookies to eat while the two hid in Sirius’ room. 

He had been there when Regulus was nine, his parents locking him in his room with no food for two days because he had freed one of their house elves. Sirius had sat outside Regulus’ door for the whole time, whispering to him and slipping food through the gap under the bed. They had sat in silence, neither finding anything to say that could possibly improve the situation. But silence or not, being there together made them both feel immensely better. 

Sirius leaving for Hogwarts was one of the worst years of Regulus’ life—he knew Sirius would be back, though, and that’s what kept him counting the days. 

Once Regulus came to Hogwarts, him and Sirius had seemed to drift apart slightly. This didn’t hurt as much as Regulus had anticipated it would, because he now had friends. He had Pandora, Evan, Barty, and Dorcas. Sometimes he had Sirius too, but Sirius was popular; he didn’t need to cling to his brother like he once had. Regulus didn’t miss the lingering glances in hallways, but he never really took any specific notice of them. He assumed that if Sirius had wanted to speak to him, he would have. 

In the summer holiday after Regulus’ first year, the brothers had reconnected. They grew closer than ever, and although they still didn’t speak much at school when they finally returned, there was no doubting the love between them. 

Sirius had always been there. Whether he was actually present in the moment or just in Regulus’ head, he was always by his side in his heart. But then, during the Christmas holidays of the year when Sirius turned sixteen, something seemed to change. Sirius’ fights with their parents became more and more frequent, going from happening twice a week to twice a day. He stopped being around as often, crashing at James’ house a few times a week. Regulus was holding his breath, knowing that if he stepped out of line even the slightest bit, one of his parents would snap and everything would take a turn for the worse.

He was also spending an increasing amount of time at Pandora’s house, her sweet nature a much preferred option to the feeling of walking on eggshells in his own home. Evan was there most of the time, and where Evan was, so was Barty. Every once in a while they’d manage to drag Dorcas away from Marlene and get the whole group together, but that was rather rare. It was nice, though, spending time together without the pressure of school. It ensured that Regulus understood that they actually wanted to be around him, something he had struggled with for as long as he could remember. 

One thing Regulus knew was that if asked who his best friend was, he would say Pandora without hesitation. He never doubted her genuinity, which soothed a lot of his anxiety and helped him put things into perspective. Regulus needed to know that he was wanted, and Pandora never hesitated to reassure him. The two had just had the Rosier house to themselves, Barty and Evan on a date and Pandora and Evan’s parents out for a dinner party. Music softly playing off Pandora’s record player she had bought at a muggle thrift store, the two sat on her bed eating chocolate brownies and talking about what some would consider nothing but was everything to them. They had been doing this for about six hours when Regulus decided that he should probably head home to avoid his parent’s anger at him for being late. 

Regulus got home and knew before he even stepped in the door that something was terribly wrong. Slowly and cautiously opening the door, Regulus held his breath as he stepped inside. The house was eerily silent, no whispers of paintings or hurried footsteps of houselves, let alone not a single sign of human life. Exhaling softly, he quietly shut the door and attempted to walk down the hallway without making a sound–which turned out to be easier said than done. The eyes on the paintings followed his every move, not once losing focus on him. He raised his hand to his forehead and pushed some stray hairs out of his eyes before making his way up the stairs to his room. He went three steps at a time, eyes fixed on the floor as the nervous lump in his throat simply grew. After what felt like an eternity, he made it to his room. His hand closed around the cold metal doorknob and he exhaled shakily. Turning the door handle, he stepped into his room before pausing. He turned, eyes landing on the door to Sirius’ room. Sighing softly, he closed his door and made his way across the hall to the door of his brother’s room. 

He knocked softly.

No reply.

“Sirius?”

He knocked again, slightly louder this time.

Still, nothing. 

“Sirius, can I come in?” 

There was no response. Regulus sighed, slumping down on the floor, leaning back against the door and letting his head knock against the wood. He chucked. “Doesn’t this remind you of something?”

Once again, nothing. He didn’t really know what he had expected.

“Sirius, I don’t mind if you don’t want to talk to me. I won’t be offended. Can I just come in and make sure you’re okay? Please?” 

The silence that followed ached painfully in Regulus’ ears. 

“I’m going to take your silence as a confirmation that I can come in.”

The only sound that broke the silence was Regulus’ sigh. He stood up, opening the door of Sirius’ room and glancing around slowly. It was messier than usual. Sirius wasn’t a tidy person, but he wasn’t this messy. Clothes covered every inch of the ground and one drawer of his chest of drawers had almost fallen right out of the frame. His bed was a sorry excuse of being made, covers and sheets falling off to the point where they were more on the floor than the bed itself. There was no Sirius to be seen. 

“I guess he’s spending the night at James’ again.” 

He turned to leave before pausing. He grabbed a piece of paper and a pen and started writing.

Hi, Siri. 

I assume you’re at James’, and I hope you’re okay.

I miss you, by the way. Maybe we could hang out when you get home back.

Reg

Regulus liked James—possibly a little too much —so he knew his brother was in good hands. He just wished he could see him. 

Two days later, Sirius wasn’t back. It was now pretty obvious to Regulus that he was not going to be back. Sirius had left . 

Left him. Sirius had left him. 

He couldn’t quite believe it. He had spent five hours last night simply sitting on Sirius’ bed, wishing he was still there. The emotions he was feeling were not quite describable, but if he was in a state where he could think of the words matching these emotions, he’d probably say he felt betrayed, lost, and hurt. Of course, he would never actually say that. Regulus wasn’t one to express his emotions. One thing that Regulus understood was that he felt no form of anger towards his brother. He recognised why Sirius had left, and he thought it was very understandable. What he hated was being left. He was alone in this horrendously big house and he didn’t even have it in him to talk to Pandora about it.

Regulus had never felt comfortable sharing his feelings. He assumed this was due to his parents pushing them away whenever he had tried to tell them anything at all. 

Regulus knew he’d be okay. He didn’t need other people to survive, he never had. 

Three weeks later, Pandora showed up at his bedroom door with a box of chocolates and a mission. She was determined to get him outside and out of the bedroom he was rotting in if it was the last thing she did. Regulus knew he was lucky to have a friend like her, but he wanted nothing more than to sit in his bedroom for the rest of his life. Part of him knew this was unhealthy, but part of him just didn’t want to show his face to the silent house he was residing in. 

Pandora would do anything to make Regulus feel okay, and she was well aware that to do this she would have to take him to Sirius, but they would cross that bridge when the time was right. First, she had to carefully shake him out of his shell of self destruction, reminding him that there were people who cared for him. 

Pandora sat on his bed, looking at him with soft eyes that he avoided at all costs. “Reg… Reg, look at me.” 

He didn’t, but that didn’t stop Pandora from softly cupping his head in her hands. “Regulus, I have been your best friend for five years. I know something’s wrong—and you don’t have to tell me. Just come to my house with me, Merlin knows you need to get out of this house, and Barty and Evan are out. You don’t have to talk to anyone you don’t want to talk to.” 

Now Regulus looked up Ever so slowly, he leaned in to rest his head on his best friend’s shoulders, not speaking but his eyes holding more meaning than his words at this moment possibly could. 

After ten minutes of simply being in each other's presence, Regulus spoke. “Can we get out of this house?” 

Pandora nodded, helping him up. “My house?” 

“I don’t mind.” 

“Would you rather be alone or do you mind seeing everyone else?” 

“Where are they?” 

“I think they’re at Marlene’s house.” 

Regulus was not close to Marlene. He didn’t know much about her, in all honesty, but because her and Dorcas were practically attached by the hip, he assumed that she was nice. And to tell the truth, Regulus needed to see his friends. He paused before muttering. 

“I want to see everyone.” 

“Alright.” 

Much to his relief, the mood of the hangout didn’t change vividly when he arrived. He noticed Barty and Evan shared a soft glance between them, and Dorcas gave him a quick hug that was noticeably more gentle than usual, but the conversation stayed as lively as it had been before he arrived. Regulus allowed himself to lean into Pandora’s side, twirling her long hair between his fingers. She continued talking to Dorcas as her right arm embraced Regulus into her side. Regulus didn’t speak much, but no one expected him to. 

As comforting and grounding as it was, it wasn’t what he needed. Regulus needed reassurance, he needed affirmations that he wasn’t the reason his brother had left. And the only person who could truly give him this confirmation was Sirius himself. He felt guilty about this; Pandora was doing more than she had to do and he couldn’t feel the amount of gratitude he knew he should be feeling. He must have stiffened, because his best friend looked down at him with an amount of gentleness that made him feel alarmingly close to tears. He felt impossibly small, looking down at his hands and fixing his gaze on the golden sun ring he always wore as he tried to regulate his breathing.

Marlene looked at him curiously from where she sat on the dark red couch across the room. She cautiously glanced at Dorcas before speaking. “I know where Sirius is if you want to see him.” That was possibly the most Marlene had ever said to him. Regulus stared at her blankly for a moment, before nodding slowly. 

“Yeah, uh. That sounds nice.” his voice was impossibly weak, and he might have been embarrassed had he had any awareness of himself at this moment. But he felt like a shell of himself, he wasn’t really there. 

“Okay. We probably shouldn’t all go, it might be overwhelming. So–” 

“I’ll come.” Pandora spoke, much to Regulus’ relief. Despite not feeling entirely complete with her affection and care, he appreciated it. It was a kind of foreign concept to him, the genuine adoration she had for him. He had never witnessed that in his family, let alone experienced it himself. He smiled shakily at her and she squeezed his hand reassuringly. 

The trip to find Sirius was quiet, but no one seemed to mind. When they were about halfway there, Regulus’ heart leapt as he had a sudden realisation. They were on their way to James’ house. On second thought, it made sense. James Potter was Sirius’ best friend, he wasn’t sure why he was so alarmed by this fact. When they arrived at the house, Regulus took a deep breath. He was overwhelmed by the emotions of this moment, the concept of seeing Sirius for the first time in two and a half weeks and being back at James’ house was causing his head to spin. He hadn’t seen James in almost a month and it was achingly evident from the heavy feeling in his heart. 

Walking through the door, the first thing he saw was Sirius’ black Doc Martens sitting next to a few pairs of dirty converse beside the doormat. James’ converse. He swallowed. The first thing he heard was Sirius’ voice from a few rooms away, which almost made him do a double take. Marlene walked further into the house after quickly kicking off her red converse, and Regulus followed soon after. Pandora kept her distance behind the two, not wanting to intrude on the moment—this consideration once again reminding Regulus how deeply he loved her. 

Marlene glanced back to make sure Regulus was behind her, smiling gently at him before walking into the Potter’s living room. James looked up instantly, eyes widening a fraction as he took in the boy standing in the doorway. He clearly didn’t think his words through before blurting, “Reg?” 

Sirius stopped talking, whirling around with wide, panicked eyes. “Regulus?” 

Regulus desperately searched in his brother’s eyes for a sign that he could go hug him, that he could say something, that he could walk further into the room. There was a certain element of distress in Regulus’ eyes as he seeked the affirmation he so desperately needed. Sirius seemed to be in shock, and it was clear to James that he would not be affirming his brother’s doubts any time soon. He wanted to, of course he did—James was well aware that Sirius loved Regulus more than anything in his entire world. So James spoke up, saying possibly the most awkward thing he could have said in this situation. 

“Do you want a cup of tea?” 

Regulus seemed to do a double take, but he nodded. He hadn’t considered that in order to make the cup of tea, James would have to leave the room. And James leaving the room meant Regulus and Sirius being the only ones in the room. He was unaware of this fact until James left the room, throwing a sweet, gentle smile over his shoulder. Regulus felt alarmingly alone without him there, his eyes darting from Sirius to the wall to the floor to Sirius again to his hands. He didn’t want to stare; if there was one thing that his parents had succeeded in, it was raising their youngest son with impeccable manners. No matter how good his manners were, his parents had failed to teach him how to deal with his anxiety. He fiddled with his hands, twirling the gold ring on his index finger around slowly for about a minute before finally looking up again. 

This time, Sirius was looking at him too. The older brother seemed to understand that Regulus was not going to be the one to start this conversation, so he sighed and sat down, patting the spot on the couch next to him. Regulus sat, decidedly further away from Sirius than Sirius had gestured for, but Sirius didn’t seem to mind—if he did, he had the decency to stay silent. It would be hypocritical for Sirius to get upset about Regulus not sitting next to him on the couch after leaving him alone with their parents for two and a half weeks. 

“I’m sorry,” Sirius eventually spoke. 

Regulus said nothing, so Sirius shakily continued. “I didn’t want to leave you. It’s just– it just– it was too much. They were too much, you know?”

“They always have been.” Regulus mumbled softly. 

“And they said something about Moony.” 

Of course they did. 

Sirius sighed, “he told me off for leaving you though. Said I should have bought you with me.”

“You should have.” 

“I know.” 

Just as the two brothers fell into an awkward silence, James walked in with a small grin on his face. “Okay, so, I think I remembered pretty well how you like your tea.” 

Sirius looked between the two as James passed Regulus the mug, watching how their fingertips brushed and a smile graced Regulus’ lips. Regulus didn’t like milk or sugar in his tea, something that Sirius had always wrinkled his nose at. James took his tea far sweeter than Reg did, but he was more than happy to make it exactly to Regulus’ tastes if that was what would make him happy. “It’s perfect. I can’t believe you remembered.” 

“How could I not?” 

It was then that Sirius’ eyes fell to their hands, noticing that Regulus’ gold ring was a sun symbol and James wore a silver star one. This was a contrast to both of their usual jewellery colours, the gold earrings in James’ ears suddenly a lot more obvious than they had been minutes ago. Sirius silently watched the interactions between the two and swallowed slowly. 

Sirius had this burning need to be loved, to be appreciated, to be the favourite. Regulus was his parents’ favourite son, and although he acted like this didn’t faze him, it stung. Sirius had introduced Reg to Barty and Evan, and now the three were inseparable. Sirius didn’t even talk to the two Slytherins anymore. Remus loved Regulus, the two had bonded over things that Sirius couldn’t even begin to understand—and he knew it was stupid. He knew that Remus looked at him like he had literally hung the stars, but there was this underlying jealousy of the fact that his brother got along with everyone without even trying. Regulus didn’t want to get along with people, he’d be quite happy spending his days whispering with Pandora and basking in his own company. 

Was Regulus more likeable? More manageable? That had to be it. Sirius was too much for people. Sirius was too much for everyone. 

And now, his best friend was snogging his brother behind his back. It wasn’t that he was bothered by their relationship, he didn’t care who Regulus dated as long as they didn’t hurt him—and James would never hurt him. 

James was, theoretically, perfect for Regulus. They balanced each other out, much like Sirius and Remus. James was the Yang to his Yin, the base to his acid, the light to his dark. And perhaps it was the fact that the two fit together so naturally that bothered him. Perhaps it was the inherent jealousy of Regulus always being better than him at everything. Regulus had Sirius’ best friend looking at him with pure, soft adoration in his eyes, and Sirius couldn’t even deny how much sense they made together. 

In his heart, Sirius knew how much love James had for him. James was one of those people who did not ration out the love and care he gave people, he was overflowing with genuine devotion and love, not hesitating to shower those around him with it. And Sirius knew that the two of them had the strongest friendship he had ever had and likely ever would. He knew it wasn’t going to change. Merlin, with how James gazed at Regulus, Sirius predicted that whatever they had had been going on for at least five months. And those five months had not changed how James had acted with Sirius, their friendship was as codependent as ever. 

Sirius knew that James had enough love for both of them. He knew that the love that James could give was exactly what Regulus needed. Sirius knew that these feelings had been drilled into his mind by how his parents had treated him, but his parents weren’t here now. Sirius knew that this trauma ran deep, however, and it would take a while for him to come to terms with this relationship. 

Regulus could tell from the look in his eyes that he had figured it out. It didn’t bother him, the only reason he and James hadn’t mentioned it to anyone was due to the complications with their families and how difficult it was to actually see each other regularly. Offering a soft smile to Sirius, Regulus leaned into his brother’s side. Sirius froze up for a moment, glancing at James as his eyes widened. James smiled tenderly at the two before getting up and leaving the room to wherever Marlene and Pandora were. 

Slowly, Sirius relaxed, and Regulus almost breathed a sigh of relief. “I missed this.” 

Sirius hummed, “I missed you more than you know, little star .” 

Sighing, Regulus closed his eyes. Sirius may never be the constant in his life he had once been, but as long as he was part of it, Regulus couldn’t complain.

[sleepingsun501]

Chapter 4: Two Truths and a Lie

Characters: Commander Fox, Commander Thorn, OC Keeda Ionza

Summary: Fox could not look away. She wore a perfect, congenial smile like a mask and carried herself with the grace of a queen, but her closed-off, stiff body language made Fox want to throw himself between her and the rest of the room—if only to shield her for a moment to let her breathe.

Rating: Chapter is rated G (Series is rated Explicit 18+)

Warnings: Language, political references, political negotiation

Word Count: 6.7k

Ao3 link

A/N: Welcome to Chapter 4!! It’s been a long time coming, but this is the last of the reworked chapters. It’s probably one of my favorite things I’ve ever written, and I hope you all enjoy it as much as I do.

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Two Truths and a Lie

Fox sighed as the steaming water coursed down his body, ducking his head under the spray and scrubbing the last suds of shampoo out of his thick curls. The heat leeched the strain from his muscles, and a few of his joints released deep, satisfying pops. He wished he had a few extra minutes, feeling the heaviness of his perpetual exhaustion weighing him down again, but he knew he would never get out if he lingered. Reluctantly, he turned the water to cold and let it reinvigorate him.

Two of the very few benefits of being a marshal commander permanently stationed on Triple Zero were private quarters and hot showers. It hardly made up for the multitudes of other issues he dealt with daily, but it was far better than the communal sonic showers his millions of brothers were forced to use in the field and on starships.

Tucking his towel low around his hips, he wiped the steam from his mirror and pulled his razor out from his refresher cabinet. He wished he did not have to shave so soon, rather liking how his slightly greying stubble made him look more distinguished and always set him apart from his brothers, but he had no choice. He had to be as presentable as possible for the gala in a few hours, and he mentally cursed whichever senator had stolen Thire from his post.

Pushing his dripping curls away from his face, Fox slathered his cheeks and jaw in shaving cream and began methodically scraping away his stubble, careful not to nick himself. As he shaved, he mulled over his resentment toward the many senators who seemed to think the Corries were their personal bodyguards instead of elite shock troopers.

The clone troopers were constantly called upon, day and night, to escort senators and other public officials to wherever they wanted to go, regardless of the private security forces that many politicians were already provided with. Even their underpaid aides were not called upon as often as the Corries were for menial tasks—the moment a senator needed to travel off-world or needed a kriffing lightbulb changed, they rang a squad of guardsmen.

The dark circles under Fox’s eyes were partially a result of this constant mismanagement, but they were not as prominent now as he had finally managed to get a few hours of solid sleep after his workout. He had also taken Thorn’s advice about dabbing some dermabacta under his eyes, which seemed to help, too.

Not only was he glad for the dreamless sleep he had gotten, but grateful that he had woken up in his bunk at all. It had only happened a few times–even once being too many for his liking–where he had woken in a different part of the base or deep in the bowels of Coruscant only to realize that he had done something he could not remember doing. 

He tried his best not to dwell on it as he rinsed his razor, focusing instead on how he somehow looked a bit younger as his skin became smooth. However, it was a sore reminder of how young he technically was. Physically, he was only about twenty-five, but he felt like he was nearly a hundred on most days because of the mental strain of the blackouts.

Each blackout required him to rewatch the footage from his helmet to see whom he had spoken with, where he had traveled, and what orders he had given, and they all secretly terrified him. He would take the knowledge of what he had done, and what he was capable of, to his grave.

Shaking himself from the dark thoughts, Fox eased a clean undershirt over his head, careful not to muss his freshly faded hair that he had slicked back into smooth waves. The ever-present greys in his once jet-black hair had ceased to bother him, especially because they seemed to be a date magnet on the incredibly rare occasions he took to venture out to 79’s. Absently, he wondered how Thorn’s night had gone with the Zeltron woman.

He smiled to himself as he pulled on his dress greys, fondly remembering a different night when Cody and Wolffe had dragged him to the bar with every intention of getting him laid. At the time, they had no idea their youngest batchmate had spent the past year carefully observing the very politicians he loathed, watching their formal, charming interactions, and quietly putting them into practice. Fox had a woman’s attention within twenty minutes that night, and Cody’s and Wolffe’s jaws had been on the deck.

Part of his charm, he had learned, came with his expression of intention. Fox had never once led anyone on, making sure an unattached night was all a lady was to expect from him. It was not that he wanted to sleep around or that he did not have feelings, but he knew he had no time for a committed relationship—even if it never stopped him from wondering how nice one would be.

He rolled his muscular shoulders in the stiff, heavy fabric of his dress uniform and checked his appearance over one last time, pulling his mind back to the present.

All right, time to focus. Just another big fancy dinner. he thought to himself, tucking his cover under his arm and echoing Thorn’s words from a few days prior.

“You’re fidgeting,” Sareel whispered concernedly as her daughter exited the speeder after her.

“Just nerves,” Keeda muttered in excuse, shivering slightly and smoothing out her flowing, dark green dress. She was glad she had chosen something with a loose skirt that she could both walk and breathe in, as the latter felt rather difficult.

“It’s nothing you haven’t done before. I have all faith in you.”

Despite her mother’s comforting words, Keeda gnawed at the inside of her cheek as she glanced around. The opulently dressed guests were arriving in droves, making introductions and greeting those they recognized with both genuine and faux smiles, la bise kisses, and graceful bows.

Maybe they’re secretly competing with each other to see who can be more generous tonight. she thought, mildly amused.

She detested the number of galas and other extravagant parties she had been forced to attend over the years. In her learned opinion, they were nothing more than expensive excuses to rub elbows with other influential and affluent people. Keeda much preferred to hold private meetings and dinners in order to discuss business or charitable donations, but she knew the one thing the exorbitantly wealthy loved to do more with their money than spend it was to show it off.

Although she herself had never required such grandiose persuasion to donate her own wealth or to work with other various charities, her mother’s tactic was flawless in that regard. Somehow, inviting celebrities and politicians to come for a night of food, drink, and dancing—and dressed in all their best finery—convinced them to loosen their purse strings for those less fortunate in a galaxy at war.

Silently, Keeda resigned herself to participating in high-class society, and she was sure the gooseflesh breaking out over her skin had nothing to do with the chill in the air.

As the daughter of the gala’s host, she started to feel the pressure as eyes were beginning to turn toward her and her mother. The sickening clench of her stomach was hard to ignore as she slapped a practiced smile on her face. 

Beneath her long, stylishly curled and plaited hair, she felt Sareel’s silk-gloved hand subtly adjust one of the X-crossed straps on her backless gown before looping their arms.

“You are so much like your father. He hated this, too, but you’ve nothing to worry about tonight, dearest. Just try to relax and enjoy yourself,” she said soothingly, ushering Keeda inside and out of the chilly air.

As they made their way closer to the grand doors of the hall, Keeda spied a few clones in their distinct red and white armor cleverly stationed in the shadows, and her nerves calmed a bit. 

Whereas many of Coruscant’s citizens had come to loathe the ever-present shock troopers, she found their presence to be a comfort, more so now than ever before. She wondered if the commander was among them, but before she could dwell on the thought, her mother was pulling her into the venue.

Sareel’s slender fingers patted her daughter’s bare forearm reassuringly as they made their way into the dazzling hall, and the sight stole Keeda’s breath away. 

The hall was massive, and the cavernous, arching glass ceiling reflected thousands of fairy lights woven into the garlands and wreaths June had no doubt spent hours setting up. The air was fragrant from the candles on each dining table, and from the same little peace blossoms that were nestled in her fashionably twisted hair. The tiny, softly twinkling lights and candles created a tranquil ambiance that seemed to warm even the darkest corners of the hall, giving Keeda a much-needed sense of calm.

While she looked around, she noticed a familiar, friendly face illuminated by the glow.

“Oh, my dear, Keeda,” Henya greeted compassionately, coming around a large, ornately set dining table.

Keeda grinned happily for the first time that evening as the tall Twi’lek woman embraced her, and the soft fur of her shawl tickled her nose. 

“Hello, Auntie,” she replied.

“You look positively divine tonight. That dress does wonders for your eyes,” Henya complimented, but her own striking yellow eyes held a trace of guilt as she pulled away. “May I steal her for a moment, Sareel?”

“Of course, of course. I will find you later, Keeda,” Sareel answered, giving her daughter a quick peck on the cheek and moving to graciously greet the other guests.

As Henya took Keeda’s hands in hers, she could practically feel the emotion rippling off her beloved aunt. Even her long violet lekku were twitching restlessly as she searched for her words.

“You don’t need to apologize for anything, Auntie,” Keeda said, already having some conjecture as to what her aunt was trying to say. “What happened the other night, that’s not your fault.”

Henya sighed heavily, “I am still terribly sorry, my dear. You shouldn’t have had to endure that.” She paused for a moment, looking around before her eyes settled on a rather severe-looking couple taking flutes of dark blue, bubbling wine from a passing server. “I’m even more sorry to say that Governor Gargeli would like to speak with you before the evening’s festivities begin.”

The pit in Keeda’s stomach immediately gave way to a dull numbness that flooded through her limbs. She would recognize Governor Baylo Gargeli anywhere, even without having gone on a horrific date with his son—whose name she irritatingly still could not recall.

Thankful that there seemed to be no sign of their son, she breathed deeply and unlocked her knees to help her head clear. Might as well get this unpleasantry out of the way.

Striding forward with purpose, her father’s voice whispered in the back of her mind. Opportunity lies in the most unlikely places. 

When he had spoken those words to her so long ago, Keeda had not fully grasped their true meaning. But now, as Henya led her across the room, her sharp mind understood that the governor was about to ask something of her.

“Governor and Missus Gargeli, may I present Miss Keeda Ionza,” Henya said diplomatically.

While Gargeli might have looked unyielding on the outside, his blue eyes were benevolent. His son had inherited his looks from his father, but Keeda refused to let it unnerve her.

“Miss Ionza, it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” he said authentically as he extended his hand.

“The pleasure is mine, Governor.” She shook his large hand firmly, conveying her directness.

“It is an esteemed honor to be invited this evening,” he remarked, releasing her to allow her to shake hands with his wife. “Although, I do wish the circumstances of our meeting would have been… less precarious,” Gargeli added softly and opened his arm. “May I?”

Keeda fought the urge to huff in frustration as she was passed to yet another arm. Did people think she was unable to walk on her own? 

Despite being on his arm, she steered the governor to a quieter corner of the hall and waited until she was sure the sharp click of her heels on the tiles was no longer audible to the other guests. She paused beside one of the massive bouquets that matched her hair, releasing herself from the escorting grip and stepping in front of the much taller man.

The governor, for all his formal appearance, looked ashamed. “I can see we don’t have much time, so I won’t waste it. I want you to know that my wife and I do not condone our son’s actions,” Gargeli whispered gravely. “Pettri was brought up to be better than that, and I sincerely apologize for any harm that has befallen you.”

Keeda’s jaw tensed as she finally remembered. Pettri Gargeli. That was the fucker’s name, but how does the governor know what happened that night? she thought pensively. Surely Pettri would’ve lied?

The governor’s Coruscanti accent was much thicker than her own, and she had to strain a bit to hear him over the growing hum of the other guests and the gentle classical music that was beginning to play. But he had her full attention as he continued.

“I also wanted to inform you personally that Pettri is no longer living on Coruscant, and he will not be returning. I’ve consigned him to my family’s homeworld, where he will be chastened in a manner befitting his actions.”

Keeda hid the wave of her relief well, only shifting her weight from one hip to the other as she took in the revelation and continued her nonchalant surveying of the incoming guests. It would have been a lie if she had said that she was not secretly dreading seeing Pettri again, even in passing. But now, the weight of that fear dissipated from her shoulders. 

“I am grateful for the measures you have taken in resolving the situation, Governor,” she replied with a slight nod of thanks, “but I sense you have more to say.”

Gargeli tapped a finger on his glass rather anxiously as he scanned the room blankly. “I’m afraid I do have another motive for speaking to you privately this evening, Miss Ionza,” he confessed. He swiftly acquired another flute of bubbling blue wine from a passing attendant and offered it to her as a gesture.

Here we go. Keeda thought. There’s always an ulterior motive. 

She was far too accustomed to being sought out and patronized for her connections or funding, especially at large gatherings, and she already had an inkling of what the governor wanted. Nonetheless, she accepted the drink to let him know she was listening, bracing herself for his request.

“As you may know, the local elections in my district are not far off.” He paused to clear his throat to emphasize the point he was about to make. “If rumors were to spread, a scandal such as this involving a member of my immediate family would potentially—”

“—Potentially negatively impact your reelection,” Keeda interrupted gracefully, briefly meeting the governor’s eyes again.

Although the smile she wore was practiced and demure, Keeda’s green eyes shone with her perceptivity. The game of negotiation was set with their pieces on the board. All she had to do was make the first move. 

He wanted a guarantee of her silence. It would mean Pettri would never be prosecuted, but she could still hope his familial punishment would be befitting of his crime. Keeda was willing to pay that price, but the question was, was the governor willing to pay his side of the cost?

“If I were to ensure no such rumors were circulated, perhaps our agreement could be mutually beneficial,” she suggested.

An intrigued look crossed Gargeli’s aristocratic face, his thick mustache twitching up in interest. “Name your terms, Miss Ionza.”

Taking a long sip from her glass, Keeda glanced back out across the room, trying to look as casual as possible. “The Terreg Ionza Medical Foundation could do more work in your district if you would consider opening more public spaces to our volunteer clinics and providing security,” she said in a low, firm tone—her throat tightening a fraction as her father’s name passed her carmine red lips. “In the past, our volunteers have encountered significant resistance in underprivileged areas, largely due to threats of local gang violence. Not only would it guarantee my silence, but it would also benefit your constituents.”

With her demands on the table, the governor nodded pensively. “I assure you, my campaign already supports the increased street surveillance in my district.”

A half-truth. Keeda noted. The wheels turned in her mind quickly. If he was going to view her as an asset, he was going to have to earn it. She could not recall Gargeli’s previous campaigns being largely focused on the medical welfare of his constituents, but he seemed to be conceding already. Perhaps a gradual sway of his opinions through the polls would get him to see just how powerful an ally she could be. In any case, she could hear the quiet desperation he held in wanting to appease her, so she decided to use it.

“I see the Coruscant Guard are here tonight,” Gargeli observed as he skimmed over the room, trying to find a convincing argument. “They have been immensely helpful in training new local security forces, so any volunteers and supplies would be well protected.”

Keeda hummed absently as she sipped her drink, allowing the governor one more unspoken chance to enhance his offer. He seemed to take the hint.

“Perhaps my wife and I will become more regular contributors to your charitable foundation as well, to ensure their success, of course,” he added, turning toward her fully.

A wave of triumph surged through Keeda’s heart as she met the governor’s eyes once more, signaling she was satisfied with his overture. Despite how much she hated playing politics, she was rather reluctantly good at it, and she raised her wine flute in a small toast. 

“To mutually beneficial work.”

“Hear, hear,” Gargeli replied, a formal smile full of admiration and respect for the sharp young woman before him working its way onto his chiseled face.

With a clink of their glasses, the deal was sealed. Gargeli would open his district more fully to the charity’s work, thousands of citizens would benefit from increased medical aid, and the charity would receive yet another new source of funds–bought and paid for with Keeda’s silence.

“Please, Governor, enjoy the evening,” she said, sweeping her hand with an elegant motion and effectively excusing herself.

Gargeli gave her a refined bow before returning to his wife’s side. Even though Pettri had been a conceited, repugnant individual, Keeda was not going to blame the father for the son’s sins. The deal had been more than fair on her part, considering what she had endured, and she had a confident feeling that the governor would not go back on his word.

Now, she had another detestable task; mingling with the upper classes. She took another long sip from her drink, hoping it would help soothe the new set of nerves making their home in her stomach, and set off into the crowd.

Several people whom she had worked with in the past caught her attention or stopped to chat with her, each offering their views on the latest cooperations with the GAR. Some approved, some did not, and some expressed their admiration for Keeda’s willingness to volunteer, but each tedious conversation seemed to draw on her energy reserves.

Even after dinner had been served—Keeda was eternally grateful her mother had not chosen that awful seafood dish to be an option—and the dancing had begun, she was finding the evening rather repetitious. She did her best to conceal it; however, there was only so much she could take.

Over the unceasing sounds of clinking glasses and light laughter filling the air, blending with the lilting music now echoing across the hall, she huffed out a weary sigh. She wished she had someone other than politicians and socialites to converse with—just someone who did not want anything from her. From the moment she stepped out of the speeder, tonight had felt more like work than the enjoyable evening she had hoped for.

Fox’s heart stuttered against his ribs as his blood seemed to freeze in his veins.

He knew from the moment he saw her that it was her. Blinking away his sudden lightheadedness, his eyes followed her every move as she wove between people, conversing briefly before moving on. They all parted for her, as though she were a goddess among mortals—even more beautiful than he remembered.

“The hell are you looking at, Vod?” Thorn asked, noting Fox’s sudden change. His older brother’s heavy brows were nearly knit together, and his scarred lips were parted in an awestruck expression. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

With Thorn’s voice pulling him out of his stupor, Fox nodded in the young woman’s direction. “She’s here,” he whispered, almost disbelieving his own words.

Thorn studied the crowd from their secluded spot—a doorway to a large, covered veranda—trying to follow Fox’s eye line. “You’re gonna have to be more specific than that.”

“From th-the other night. She’s… uh… Long, dark hair, with little flowers. In the green dress. It’s her,” Fox stammered quietly as his golden-haired brother looked back out to the crowd a second time.

“Oh, wow,” Thorn breathed. He knew Fox had not lied about her appearance a few days prior, but seeing her for himself, he finally understood why Fox had been so taken with her. 

He snickered to himself because the Marshal Commander of the Coruscant Guard was currently staring at a beautiful woman like a love-struck shiny after their first night at 79s. “You’re sure that’s her?”

“Positive.”

Fox could not look away. She wore a perfect, congenial smile like a mask and carried herself with the grace of a queen, but her closed-off, stiff body language made Fox want to throw himself between her and the rest of the room—if only to shield her for a moment to let her breathe.

“Well, go talk to her, di’kut!” Thorn laughed, nudging his ori’vod with a sharp elbow. “She looks like she could use better company than these stuffy nat-borns.” Fox opened his mouth to protest, but Thorn stopped him. “Go. You’d be shocked to know the boys and I can survive without your constant vigilance.”

Seeing her stealthily step out another door on the opposite side of the hall and onto the wrap-around veranda, Fox nearly sprinted out the door beside him—with no thanks to a playful swat on the ass from Thorn. It felt like his heart was about to jump through his nose as he quickly strode to where she had withdrawn.

Okay… okay… What am I gonna say to her? he rambled internally. Just ask her how she is, yeah? Ask her if she’s all right. No, why would she be all right? It’s only been a few days since… No, don’t bring that up unless she does. Just tell her… tell her she looks nice. She’d like to hear that. Right? Fuck. Fuck, I am an idiot. I did not think this through! 

Nevertheless, his feet propelled him forward. He paused and pressed his back against the cool alabaster wall just before turning the final corner of the building. Fox had never had any issues talking to women before, so why was he so unexpectedly flustered now? Straightening his spotless uniform, he blew out a long sigh, puffing his cheeks and clenching his fists.

Pull yourself together, Fox. You’re a kriffing Marshal Commander. You can do this.

The muffled silence was a welcome relief as Keeda stepped out of the hall. Taking a heady gulp of the chilly night air, she did not mind the goosebumps that broke out over her exposed skin as she rested her hands against the sleek metal railing. It was too cold for anyone else to want to follow her, and she needed a moment to recollect herself.

The crowds had begun gathering around to watch those waltzing about on the dance floor, and stronger liquor had begun flowing as a medley of desserts was served, but Keeda had opted to let Coruscant’s skyline dazzle her for the thousandth time instead.

Letting her eyes drift shut, she tried to savor the quiet moment and soak up the soft warmth radiating from the outdoor heater beside her. She could still see the twinkling fairy lights all around her from behind her eyelids, and she watched as they played across her blinded vision. If she had a blanket, she would have been content to stay right there until the sun rose.

Tomorrow, there would be no skyline–only the swirling blue and silver streaks of hyperspace, whisking her off to a war-torn world to deliver medical relief supplies, and she was eager for it. Like she had told June, Coruscant would always be home, but she needed to get away for a while.

She mentally grumbled as her moment was interrupted by the sound of approaching footsteps that ceased a few yards behind her. She half expected to find yet another aristocrat asking her to dance when she opened her eyes, but she was shocked to her very core when she looked over her shoulder.

Him. It was him. The clone commander that had come to her aid.

Keeda felt her eyes widen in surprise as he gazed at her. He was clean-shaven now, and his tussled, greying curls had been elegantly styled back, but his umber eyes still glimmered in the lights with the same care and warmth he had shown her just a few nights ago.

“You,” she breathed without thinking. Immediately, she cursed her impropriety and stumbled over her words. “I’m s-sorry. I-I meant—”

“It’s you,” he echoed softly, stepping closer. The commander cracked a roguish, bright smile—his mouth pulling a touch more to the right because of the scar on his bottom lip. “You look lovely tonight.”

“Thank you,” she replied, and she was powerless to stop the blush creeping up her cheeks. She could tell he was trying to put her at ease, and she could not help the little grin that broke over her painted lips. 

“I never expected to see you here,” he chuckled. His voice was low and gravelly, and his eyes never left hers. “I’m glad to see you.”

“You’re too kind, Commander. If I’m being truthful, though, up till now, I’d have rather been elsewhere.”

“Really?” he asked curiously, crooking an eyebrow and tossing his gaze back into the hall for a moment. “Even with all these fine, upstanding, utterly boring people here?”

There was a hint of sarcasm in his voice, and Keeda instantly relaxed despite the draft blowing across the veranda. She surprised herself with the giggle that bubbled up in her chest at his comment, and she realized it was the first time she had genuinely laughed all evening. 

“May I join you?” he asked, motioning to her opposite side. At Keeda’s permitting nod, he came to stand beside her, blocking the breeze and looking out over the ecumenopolis. 

Even while leaning down on the railing and without his signature armor, he was still so very tall and broad. His hard muscles filled out his uniform, pulling at the fabric and defining his figure, and it made Keeda wonder just how strong he was.

“Are you cold?” he asked thoughtfully.

Keeda shook her head faintly as she pulled out of her thoughts. She felt wholly safe beside him, as though he were an immovable wall protecting her from the cold and from the prying eyes of anyone who dared to look at her the wrong way.

That inkling of guilt she had felt as she was whisked away in the extravagant transport suddenly came crawling back. The last time she had seen this man, he had protected her, but she had spoken so harshly to him. She had feared she would never get the chance to apologize, and she was not about to let that chance slip away.

“Commander, I… I never thanked you properly… for the other night,” she said rather sheepishly.

He gave her a slightly puzzled look and shook his head almost imperceptibly, his eyes immediately coming to rest on her face again. “There’s no need to thank me.”

“Yes, there is,” Keeda insisted, gripping the railing and fighting the urge to shudder as she recalled the past for the dozenth time. “You and your men helped me. Something much worse might’ve happened if you hadn’t been there, and I shouldn’t have been so coarse.”

The gentlest look crossed his handsome, rounded features–one of both complete understanding and consideration. 

“You had every right to be,” he assured. “I have no doubt you could’ve taken care of yourself, but I’m glad I was there to help you.”

Keeda toyed nervously with a silver ring on her index finger as she carried on, “In any case, it’s no excuse for my behavior. I hope you’ll accept my apology, Commander.”

He turned to face her fully, leaning casually on one elbow and eyeing her charmingly. “I will, on one condition.”

How can he still look so powerful when he’s relaxed like that? Keeda asked herself, waiting for his request. He had somehow changed the very air around her so quickly that she found herself letting go of the ache in her chest.

“Will you tell me your name?”

Whatever he was doing to make her feel so calm was mesmerizing, but she could also detect a more playful tone in his question. 

“The name of someone from a crowd so upstanding and boring?” she teased, and he chuckled so heartily that Keeda swore she could feel it in her chest, prompting another laugh of her own. 

“You are anything but boring.”

She pursed her lips for a moment but gave him a cheeky grin. “Ah, but you don’t know that for sure, and I’d hate for you to think I am. So, I propose we play a little game to ensure I’m not. Have you ever played two truths and a lie?”

“Two truths and a lie?” he asked inquisitively.

Keeda nodded, fidgeting with her ring again. “I’ll tell you three things about myself. If you guess the lie, I have to tell you the truth about the lie. If you guess wrong, it’s your turn.”

The intrigued commander cocked a brow at her and smirked. “Very well, ladies first.”

She chewed her lip for a moment in thought, before settling on her lie. “My mother is the chairwoman of the foundation hosting this gala, I had a pet tooka when I was a child, and my name is Alana. Which is the lie?”

The weight of the commander’s gaze was encapsulating. As he analyzed her, she felt drawn into the depths of those dark, stunning eyes, where the twinkling lights shone off little flecks of gold.

“Your name isn’t Alana,” he said finally.

“You’re right,” she conceded with a giggle. “My name is Keeda.”

The commander did not say anything for a moment, but his expression noticeably softened. Keeda was not sure he was going to say anything until he muttered a single strange word, one she suspected was not Basic.

“Sorry?” she inquired.

“Mesh’la,” he repeated, a little louder the second time, as his cheeks darkened. “It’s Mando’a. It means ‘beautiful’.”

Keeda was certain her cheeks matched her lips with how hard she was blushing. His lips barely moved whenever he spoke, but his clear words had an impact on her so deep that she could practically feel the resonance of them in her bones, even despite how softly they were uttered. 

Unlike so many others tonight that had tried to woo her attention with overly-enunciated accents and pretty words, the true sincerity in his tone rang clear. His voice was so rich, like a lovely bass note—deep, smooth, matching the dark brown of his irises, and she suddenly craved to hear it again.

“Y-your turn, Commander,” Keeda whispered, trying to feel for the floor beneath her feet. 

He must have had his answers ready because he spoke without hesitation. “My favorite color is red, my name is Fox, and I’m a particularly good dancer.”

Keeda’s conscience came drifting back to reality as she mulled that over. Would he lie about his name, too? she wondered. It seemed logical, and she was normally very accurate when it came to noticing lies, but he could also have been trying to throw her off. He had never looked her in the eye at all, though, choosing to focus on the little flowers woven through her hair.

Sighing as she gave up trying to guess, Keeda settled on his name. “I… I don’t think your name is Fox.”

He flashed that white smile again. It contrasted so beautifully against his bronzed skin, and for the first time, she realized that she was more dazzled by the handsome man in front of her than the skyline she had come out to observe. His mere presence was brighter than any of the lights twinkling around them, and he exuded an affection that quieted any troubles in her mind.

“My name is Fox,” he said truthfully.

“Fox,” she repeated, bowing her head in mock defeat. “You’ve bested me. Where’d you learn to lie so well?”

“You pick up a thing or two when you’re around politicians all—”

As if on cue, he was interrupted as a group of guests came out onto the veranda, laughing boisterously and talking amongst themselves, trying to ward off the buzz they had going with the cool night air. 

Keeda silently glared at them for having dared interrupt the peace, but they took no notice. They took their time wandering away, but the door they had opened let a new melody waft outside. It was a slower tune, but just as grand and orchestral as the others that had been playing all evening.

Distracted, Keeda swayed her weight from one foot to the other to the music, feeling the skirt of her dress fluttering around her legs. It had been so long since she danced, and her thoughts drifted back to the last time her father had taught her the steps of several common waltzes in the middle of their living room.

She heard Fox shift and clear his throat softly beside her to get her attention, and as she turned back, she found the commander smiling kindly and holding out his hand to her.

“Will you do me the honor?” he asked, tucking his gloves into his pocket.

“Another truth?” she asked, resting her hand in his palm. His hand was calloused and strong, but his fingers were long and warm as they closed around hers ever so tenderly, leading her to the middle of the veranda.

The crowd had thinned a bit for the evening, and Keeda suspected this would be one of the last dances of the night, but she was glad to share it with Fox. They had the whole space to themselves, and she was no longer aware of any other eyes on her apart from his.

Her breath caught in her throat when she felt his other hand settle around her bare lower back beneath her hair. His fingertips left trails of fire in their wake as they gently grazed her air-cooled skin, but she eased into his hold as he began guiding her down the length of the veranda. The steps he chose were uncomplicated, but she was impressed with the natural skill he seemed to possess as he swept her down the length of the open space.

“You were definitely telling the truth,” she laughed giddily, enjoying how easily they moved together.

He arched his left arm and twirled her out beneath it before stepping in and sweeping her back into his grasp. “Don’t tell anyone, but I have my brother to thank for that,” Fox admitted, slowing a fraction with the timing of the music.

“Don’t you have a million brothers?” Keeda asked lightheartedly. 

The man she was dancing with now looked so different from the stoic commander she had first met. A single stray curl had fallen loose on his forehead as he spun her around himself, and he practically beamed at her.

“This one is special. He somehow inherited all the natural dancing talent, so we just copied him. He’s the commander of the 104th battalion.”

Keeda stumbled in surprise, gripping Fox’s burly shoulder for support, but he was quicker and gathered her into a graceful spin to let her recover, bringing her body flush to his as the music crescendoed. 

A star could have exploded between them with the heat of their bodies pressed together, and Keeda would have happily melted into it. The unexpected rush of adrenaline clouded her peripheral vision as Fox effortlessly lifted her off her feet, but his arm secured around her waist kept her grounded. 

After gently resting her back on her feet, Fox was the first to break the contact—although he seemed incredibly reluctant to do so–to continue leading her through the dance. He could feel the strength of her lean muscles beneath his touch, and he had no doubt of just how capable she was, but here she seemed so precious in his hold as if she were his to safeguard. Her smile, the blooming trust in her sparkling eyes, and the surety of her grasp on him made him feel lighter than he had in years.

“I’m assigned to the 104th as their official volunteer,” Keeda said quickly, remembering why she had misstepped in the first place.

Fox chuckled, remembering himself and spinning her out again just to show her off to anyone who might be watching. “You’ll like Wolffe. We grew up together as batchmates. He’s very stubborn and gruff, but he has a good heart.”

They stepped together again as the music ceased and the hall beside them burst into applause. The other dancers and guests began to say their goodbyes, but Fox and Keeda simply stood there under the twinkling lights, panting together from the exertion of the dance.

As Fox continued to hold her, Keeda drank in the woodsy, slightly spicy scent of him mixed with the fragrance of the flowers in her hair. She could not bring herself to put any more distance between herself and the commander, and she actively fought the urge to lean back into his embrace.

He gently brushed the back of her hand with his calloused thumb and would have been content to stay as long as she liked, but the commlink on his wrist beeped. Still holding her hand, Fox released her slender waist and turned his right wrist over to silence the beeping.

“Ah, forgive me. Duty calls.”

As his fingers brushed over the device, Keeda noticed the knuckles on his right hand were slightly blotched with fresh bruises. 

“I… I hope I’ll see you again, Fox.”

He grinned down at her and gave her fingers a delicate squeeze. “Me too. Be safe, Keeda. I’d trust him with my life, so do whatever Wolffe tells you to do.”

She felt a pang of longing as his hand left hers, and he turned to join the other guardsmen waiting in the shadows at the other end of the veranda. How long have they been standing there? she wondered, the heat lighting up her cheeks. 

It did not truly matter, though, because her heart stuttered as a deep ache crept into her chest with the blush, and she yearned to be near him just one more time.

“Fox, wait!” she called, and he was immediately before her again with a questioning look on his face. “Please, before you go… what’s your favorite color?”

Although he virtually towered over her, Fox took her hand again and bowed slightly, capturing her gaze once more. His lips were warm and delicate as he pressed an impossibly soft kiss against the smooth, thin skin of Keeda’s knuckles, and a mixture of shock and delight flooded through her body.

Smiling brilliantly at her, he replied, “Green.”

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[sweet-star-cookie]

also, is bootes an actual skeleton or is he just a guy with a skeleton mask and clothes?

You know what? I asked myself this question literally last week, what a funny coincidence! When I first designed Boötes, it was a situation where I didn't necessarily have to answer that question, the ambiguous nature of his body structure wasn't super relevant to his role in the story at the time, so I didn't really feel the need to clarify it more.

That is until very recently, where I came up with a way to strengthen his ties to the main characters and expand on why he's so hellbent on justice and revenge, particularly against Scorpio, which required me to assess what he is a bit more. Or what exactly his physical body is composed of, at least. Yes he wants Scorpio to be punished for his involvement in the destruction of the Astral Plane in general, but I felt I could push it even further than that.

When creating new lore like this, either I do a complete redesign to match it like I did with Aranea, or I use what I have already to inform said new lore. In this case I ended up doing the latter, though I'll still tweak a few things later to tie him to the new ideas more clearly. So I guess now it's New Lore Time™! :D

Just to recap a bit, Boötes is the guardian of Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, who are related to controlling and maintaining a lot of the Astral Plane's water flow, especially rivers and other smaller bodies of water that are connected to the astral sea. Initially, the previous incarnation of Boötes was always at their side to guard them at their home, wanting little to nothing to do with anyone else unless they threatened the bears' safety.

Though Ophiuchus was able to stop much of the Void magic when Scorpio first arrived, he couldn't save everyone in time given how quickly it spread, and the Ursas' connection to water unfortunately made them easy targets, similar to Pisces. That incarnation of Boötes died trying to save them, and at the time it was assumed that Ursa Minor was killed too (but really just succumbed to the corruption and landed on Earth, as Cassie discovers later).

Through his constellation's sheer conviction and desire to protect them, however, the current incarnation of Boötes appeared shortly after the death of the previous one and saved Ursa Major from being killed too. But, similar to Scorpio, this event permanently linked him with Void magic, as he quite literally emerged out of it when his constellation reformed itself.

After some investigation, it seems that a lot of Boötes's body is actually made out of Void magic, not just overtaken by it. Only the Light magic from his powerful spirit gives him a somewhat corporeal form to begin with. Like I said before, I'll probably tweak his current design a bit to better match the colours of Void/poisoned water magic that I've made, and give him a slightly more wispy look underneath his clothes and such to better convey this idea.

Trying to heal any of the shadowy parts of his body, for example, could cause it to disappear entirely rather than restoring it. So attempting to fully heal him could, ironically, kill him. Instead, Libra uses her magic to keep his balance of Light and Void magic in check, and gives him smaller amounts of periodic healing in between his rounds of patrolling to stem his fatigue. Though he resents his reliance on her in general, he is grateful for her help nonetheless. Given his current state, it is unclear if he'd survive full corruption or not, even if he became an Unsigned spirit on Earth rather than dying.

Because of this instability, Boötes fears that he will corrupt the Ursas again if he is too close to them, significantly hindering his ability to guard them effectively. So while he still upholds this duty, he now desires revenge on Scorpio for doing this to him, and on Ophiuchus for protecting him from punishment in the first place. This is part of the reason why Boötes initially hunts Cassie so aggressively, sensing the shared aura of the Starglass and thinking Ophiuchus merely changed his form to hide himself.

In many ways, Boötes and Scorpio are cut from the same Void magic cloth, so to speak, but this only led to hatred between them rather than camaraderie. Boötes serves as a particularly loud reminder of what Scorpio's Void magic has done to their world as a whole, and of the damage that Scorpio can't fix even if he tries. Some things just cannot be reversed, and he is forced to live with that. Even with Scorpio's current "agreement" with the zodiac that prevents him from being imprisoned, Boötes still looks for any opportunity to put him behind bars for good.

He began patrolling further out from the Ursas's home during this revenge quest, and this is how he met Ophiuchus and the zodiac in the first place. It was quite an explosive encounter, to say the least! It took much convincing from Virgo and Libra, and they were able to get him to agree to more of a sheriff/deputy role to help them protect the other constellations, but he still largely acts for his own reasons.

From a design standpoint, even if skeletons don't technically exist on the Astral Plane (as in, none of the residents have mortal bodies with skeletons inside them), I think keeping his skeleton motif helps add to him being somewhat of a symbol of death, or perhaps the undead, given this new lore. Plus I think he looks pretty cool that way too :D

I haven't decided yet if his dogs share the same predicament as him, or if they simply share a similar appearance, but they'll probably need some design tweaks as well anyway.

[nellie-elizabeth]

Grey's Anatomy: Haunted (19x04)

Happy Halloween!

Cons:

I actually wish they'd done more with the spooky holiday vibes. It was cute to see Bailey in a costume or whatever, but they could have had slightly more fun with the whole concept. What about Meredith's younger two children, did they get to have a fun night trick-or-treating? What about Teddy and Owen's kids? Felt like this episode could have had more checking in with the various families.

Say it with me: Nick is boring. This week he was nothing more than a boring sounding board for Meredith to bounce off of. I miss when she dated interesting and dynamic men with personalities. Sigh.

I thought that Jules's little rant about the cadavers being disrespected was a bit odd. Surely in med school she had to dissect a cadaver? She must know that donating bodies to science includes medical training purposes? I just thought it was odd to make her a mouthpiece for this. Almost like it was just there so that Owen could reassure us, the audience, that stabbing a dead guy's body and pretending there was still a way to save him wasn't actually as ghoulish as it seemed. To be clear, it is kind of ghoulish. But it's also an opportunity to learn, and that felt like an obvious truth that a resident would already know.

Teddy and Owen... I'm getting tired just from typing their names out. This week, we see that the resentments have piled up. We see Teddy advising Link not to go there with Jo, because dating your best friend just ruins everything. We see Owen warning Winston not to let his resentments with Maggie grow until it ruins the love part of things. So... are Owen and Teddy getting a divorce? Good, if so, let's get it the hell over with please. And if they're not, can they please just shut up for a while? Go away somewhere? Leave the show, and give me Jackson back? Sigh.

Pros:

Helm! I like that we've had Schmitt and now Richard each stopping by to chat with Helm as she works her bartender job. I'm surprised by how much I enjoy checking in with her, and how much I hope she gets everything she deserves from the hospital and then chooses to come back. Maybe Meredith will make a late-game realization about herself, leave boring Nick, and fall in love with Helm. Sigh.

While I wish there had been more Halloween vibes all around, I did still like the trauma lab, the way the interns worked together, and how Lucas maintained that team atmosphere by asking if all of them could scrub in on the prize surgery, instead of just him. We're seeing this show reflect some hopeful and real trends in the medical field at large. Our original group of interns never would have agreed to take collective credit for an accomplishment. Can you picture Izzy or Alex or Cristina offering to share their surgery with their friends? No! And yet Lucas offers it, and it's a sign that maybe things can improve. They even all go off to have breakfast together. Blue is clearly the outcast in terms of trying to make everything a big competition, but even he allows himself to be pulled into the camaraderie, which I like.

As a contrast to how much Teddy and Owen annoy me, and Meredith and Nick bore me, I like the more realistic, grounded, conflicts that Maggie and Winston continue to navigate. Maggie has a blind spot when it comes to her work, and she's definitely been steamrolling her husband in the office. Winston respects and admires her authority, but for the good of their marriage, he's considering switching specialties. I could see this conflict playing out in ways that annoy me, but I'm hopeful that we'll see a more realistic and interesting development of this plot thread from here.

One thing I almost put in the "cons" section but I'll reserve judgment for later... I heard that Ellen Pompeo was only going to be in eight episodes this season. For some reason I assumed they'd be spaced out throughout the season so we wouldn't even feel her absence, but instead she's been in these first four, looks like she's going to be in next week's as well, which has me worried she's going to be vanishing, maybe even moving away, for the entire second half of the season or more. However, I think the setup for this works okay: Zola's anxiety is continuing to cause problems for her, and Meredith is determined to get her into the right environment to foster her incredible mind and heart. We're seeing Meredith be the kind of mother she never had, endlessly patient and calm, giving Zola a chance to feel her feelings and process them. It's insane how long this show has been on the air, that I've watched the fictional character of Zola grow up this much.

Speaking of patient parental figures, I love that Richard noted Schmitt acting out, and he stepped in, was firm with him, but also admitted to his failure and said they were working him too hard. That was huge! I'm so happy for Schmitt that he has this opportunity, and also that he has Richard advocating for him and noticing when things are getting to be too much.

I also liked the Simone and Maggie stuff, where we learn that Simone cracked under the pressure in her last program after being subjected to racist and sexist behavior from her colleagues and would-be teachers. There's video of her freaking out and destroying property that's made its way online. This is a rebuilding year for Grey Sloan. I love that they've taken in the misfits, the people who deserve a second chance because life sometimes doesn't line up the way you want it to. And Simone showing the video of her breakdown to her fellow residents, them all being impressed and saying how they would have reacted, was honestly kind of sweet, reinforcing this teamwork thing our new characters have got going.

I don't know, I'm a little wary about Meredith's departure but honestly I'm having a good time with this season thus far, by and large! I'll definitely hang around to see what's next.

7.5/10

[ynscrazylife]

Kate bishop x reader

Taking place during episode 2. Reader is a young surgeon and kate's girlfriend. Kate comes back injured with a clint.

Steady Hands

Summary: The last thing Y/N expects is to open her door to face her girlfriend with an ex-Avenger.

Authors Note: I combined this with another Kate request. I hope you like this!

Request to be on a taglist (or multiple) here! (Taglists are at the end of the fic)

Main Masterlist | MCU Masterlist #1 | MCU Masterlist #2

PSA: Do NOT copy, steal, translate, plagiarize, republish, etc any of my works on Tumblr or any other platform. Also, do NOT claim any of my works as your own. All of these works are either requests I’ve gotten that people have wanted me to write or original ideas I’ve had for works. If you happen to take inspiration from anything I’ve written and want to write something inspired by that, please a) ask me first and b) IF I say yes, credit me as inspo in your post by tagging me and link whatever work of mine that inspired you. Thanks.

header c @/bevongf

“Are you usually this happy after your life gets turned upside down?” Clint Barton’s judgmental and slightly jealous voice floated into Kate’s ears as she trailed behind him, surveying the aisles of the grocery store.

Kate had calmed down enough from her awe that she was with a literal superhero to roll her eyes at him, although he didn’t catch it. “No,” she stressed. “Can you blame me for being a little excited that I’m going to a S.H.I.E.L.D. safe house?”

Clint stopped short, and Kate just about caught herself before she walked into him. “What?” He asked over his shoulder, straining his voice to not sound too shocked. He reached out to sift through some bags of pretzels, though does it absentmindedly. They were all bland, anyway.

“What ‘what’? We’re going to a safe house, right?” She asked, shifting from one foot to the other. The familiar sting from her injuries came back and she wished she could be anywhere else but this stuffy, grimy supermarket.

“Why would you assume that?” Clint questioned pointedly, resuming their walk as he spoke.

Kate shrugged. “I dunno, but you were once a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. I figured you’d have it figured out,” she admitted, now realizing just how immature and lame it sounds when she hears herself.

Clint heard it, too, because he scoffed. The minimal reaction dug a pit in her stomach. Great, the hero she admired liked her even less. “If only everything in life was that easy.” His words were vague, but she caught the disappointment and resentment in there.

Kate frowned. Where were they going to go to now? Her mother’s penthouse was out of the options, there’s no way she was gonna go crawling to Jack . . . That only left one place, or, person.

“I know where we can go,” Kate announced, surprising herself with how confident she sounds. A nervous grin slithered onto her face. Yes, she was excited to see this person again, but couldn’t imagine how she’d react to all this.

Y/N sighed as she leaned back against the couch, immediately feeling the relief as her muscles stretched from the tense position they were in. She forced her grip on her notes to lessen before she crumpled the paper, rubbing the tiredness away from her face.

Why didn’t someone tell her that medical school would be so difficult?!

Okay, she relented, Kate did warn her of that. But it was worth it. It had to be. She goes through medical school, qualifies as a doctor, and then can become a surgeon! All she had to do was remember all these procedures and information to pass her up-coming exam.

A knock interrupted her train of thought, and Y/N rose from her chair curiously. A tiny part of her was grateful for this brief distraction, but the smart part of her wondered who the hell was at the door at this hour. Peering through the peephole, Y/N saw the loving face of her girlfriend staring back at her. She made out the shoulders of someone else, but couldn’t quite determine him from this view. Thinking perhaps it was Kate’s soon-to-be step-father, but not knowing why, she pulled the door open.

“Holy Shi—” Y/N just barely caught herself before she cursed, eyes widening at the people in front of her. Indeed it was Kate, but also the man known as Hawkeye. A superhero. An Avenger who Kate had adored all her life.

“Hey, Y/N/N,” Kate greeted, wearing an over-the-top smile. Y/N snapped her eyes to meet her gaze and felt herself become grounded.

“Kate, what’s going on?” Y/N asked, now beginning to wrap her mind around this. Her girlfriend had come to her apartment late at night, with an Avenger, and appeared to be cut up and bruised — she had definitely gotten herself into some sort of trouble.

“Nothing I can’t handle! I was just wondering if my new friend Clint and I could crash here for a couple nights? Please? We’re kinda on some important superhero business,” Kate pleaded, ignoring the elbow Clint gave her.

Y/N looked between the two archers, gobsmacked. Clint offered her a small, forced smile which did nothing to lessen her confusion. Nonetheless, she forced that aside. She trusted Kate and Kate needed her.

“As long as you help me study for my test tomorrow,” Y/N conceded, letting herself share the brunette’s ever-contagious grin. Kate practically jumped in excitement, bouncing on her feet as Y/N stepped aside to let them in.

“There is one thing though,” Kate added. After locking the door, Y/N spun around on her heels suspiciously. “This guy is kinda injured. He insisted he was fine, but since you’re here, I figured he should be checked by an actual doctor.”

Y/N looked at Clint and sighed, letting the back of her head lightly hit the door. “I’m a med student, studying to be a surgeon not a—” she began to reiterate, but was cut off.

“Yeah, well, it’s like the same thing,” Kate insisted, shrugging her shoulders.

“It’s really not,” Y/N tried to convince her.

“Let’s just — just make sure I’m not dying, okay?” Clint reasoned, trying to keep them from going any further as he saw Kate begin to open her mouth. He was far too exhausted to deal with stubborn teenagers making no sense.

Y/N relented at that and them both sit down on the couch while she went to grab her makeshift first aid kit. Kate sighed as she spotted all of her girlfriend’s messy notes, instinctively going to organize them. Y/N was usually very organized, but those skills failed her in times of stress. Kate knew her well enough to know that if any of these notes got lost or damaged, that would only send Y/N spiraling into tears and yells.

Clint observed his new ally curiously, a little surprised to see her displaying an act of such genuine kindness. He smiled to himself, deciding that maybe she wasn’t so bad for a teen that was definitely in way over her head.

When Y/N returned, she quickly got herself situated. Opening up the first aid kit, she asked Clint the standard questions or if he was in any pain and how much. He told her that he had bruises and cuts all over, but the main pain was mostly in his left arm. Y/N gave him bandaids and disinfected the cuts on his arms. Since that didn’t take much time, she was able to quickly move onto the main concern. Y/N knew enough to tell that no bone was broken or anything, but made him a makeshift sling for good measure.

Kate wore a fond smile as she watched her girlfriend work. The way she tucked her chin and furrowed her eyebrows in deep concentration made Kate swoon. She would never get tired of watching her do what she does best. Her hands were rock solid as she worked, and Kate marveled at that. If she was dealing with a potential broken bone and risked injuring her patient with one wrong move, she’d be a trembling mess. That was probably the thing that fascinated Kate the most about Y/N — how steady she was. In high school Y/N had sewn, and Kate always wondered how her stitches came so perfectly, beautifully. No wonder she’d want to become a surgeon.

“All set. I have a guest room you can stay in and Kate’ll stay in my room.”

Y/N’s words caused Kate to blink, looking up to see Clint thanking her and rising from his seat. He bid them a quiet goodbye before retreating into the hallway, in search of the room.

Once they heard the door close, Kate smiled, about to go to her girlfriend’s comfy bed. To her surprise, Y/N went in the opposite direction. She nestled herself further into the couch, reaching over to grab her notes. Quicker than a snap, she was back in the zone, mumbling to herself as she tried to stick something in her memory, glancing to and fro across the notes.

Pouting, the brunette sat back down and leaned forward, tugging at the notes. “Hey, what are you doing?” She asked.

Y/N promptly pulled her notes back, eyes never ceasing to dart around the inked words. “I have an exam tomorrow. I need to study,” she said, in a monotone and rehearsed voice.

Looking around the room, Kate sighed. “How long have you been studying for?” She asked.

Y/N gave a small shrug. “Since I after I finished my takeout,” she murmured.

Kate eyed the takeout bag on the counter and reached it in quick strides. Peeling it open, she noticed that barely half of it had been eaten. Frowning, Kate made a decision. She walked right back to her girlfriend and easily slipped the notes from her loose grip, beginning to organize them and put them away.

“Hey!” Y/N protested, immediately leaping forward. “What are you doing? I need to study!”

Kate spared her a quick glance and caught, out of the corner of her eyes, her hands shaking like a frail leaf. Oh, god. That was never a good sign. She knew Y/N well enough by now.

Quickly dropping the notes, she encased Y/N’s hands in her own, meeting her gaze. “Hey, hey, take a deep breath, okay? You need to rest,” she said, her tone low and gentle but also firm.

Y/N just shook her head and bounced her leg, dissolving into her nerves. “No, no. I’ll-I’ll fail without the notes. Please,” she begged, lightly struggling against Kate’s grip. Tears quickly brimmed at her eyes, finally having broken out against the dam she had kept them behind.

Kate nearly started crying herself when she realized how bad it had gotten. Standing up close, she could see the bags under her girlfriend’s eyes. When was the last time she gotten a good night’s sleep?

“Oh, babe,” she said, frowning sadly. “You’re going to do great on the exam. You need to sleep, though. What’s all the point of studying if you fall asleep in the middle of it?” She attempted to reason, keeping her grip steady.

After a moment or two, Y/N lowered her head tiredly and sighed. Slowly, she began to relax. Her breaths grew deeper and her leg stopped bouncing. Yet, her hands still trembled.

“I know, but if I don’t get a good grade—” she trailed off, unable to finish her sentence in fear of jinxing it. She leaned forward, allowing her forehead to rest on Kate’s shoulder. In turn, Kate pulled one hand away, patting Y/N’s back.

“C’mon, let’s go sleep,” Kate said. At Y/N’s nod, she maneuvered them so her arm was wrapped around Y/N’s shoulders, one hand still holding hers. She led them to her girlfriend’s room, turning on the light as Y/N practically collapsed on her bed, snuggling under the blankets.

Kate smiled, rummaging through Y/N’s drawers for pajamas. She tossed a tee-shirt and shorts at Y/N, laughing when Y/N promptly whined as she dragged it off of her face, and grabbed one of Y/N’s oversized shirts for herself. The two changed in silence, both opting to disregard their daytime clothes on the floor.

Once done, Kate jumped onto the bed, making it bounce. She curled up beside her girlfriend, wrapping her arms around her waist and nestling her head into Y/N’s shoulder. Y/N let out a content sigh, leaning back into Kate.

Soon, the only sounds that filled the room were their breathing evening out. Neither of them had even bothered to turn off the light before they fell into a peaceful, heavenly slumber.

Kate’s last thought before she slipped into sleep’s clutches were how Y/N’s hands had finally stopped shaking in her hold.

The next morning, Kate awoke bright and early. A goofy smile rested on her lips, not at all bothered by the fact that sometime in the night, Y/N had shifted so her hair was in Kate’s face. At some point, Y/N had shifted to lie on her stomach, nearly pulling Kate on top of her.

Mindful so as to not disturb her sleep, Kate carefully disentangled herself from Y/N. She managed to stand up and looked down at her girlfriend’s still sleeping form with a smile. She had slept! She had rested! Her mission was a success.

Checking the time, Kate was relieved to see that it was still early in the morning. Y/N wasn’t needed at her exam until the late afternoon, so that gave Kate plenty of time to enact the plan she had whipped up when she first saw her girlfriend studying the previous night. She changed into an outfit of Y/N’s (that she had actually stolen from Kate) and got herself ready for the morning.

After packing a small bag, she scribbled two notes out, both saying that she had to run out for an errand but would be back soon. She stuck one on the fridge in case Clint woke up first and one on Y/N’s beside table.

Pressing a kiss to the top of Y/N’s head, Kate left the apartment, careful not to make noise.

Kate couldn’t keep the smile off her face as she trudged up the stairs, bags hanging off her arms. She didn’t even mind that Y/N lived on the third floor! The moment she had purchased all her goodies using a secret credit card her mother hadn’t cancelled yet, she had dreamed of Y/N’s reaction. She almost wish she had a camera with her to capture it.

It was a couple hours later. She had spent the morning going from shop to shop, buying Y/N all the fancy and somewhat expensive things that she knew she deserved. From her favorite chocolate and candy to fancy perfume and a big cuddly teddy bear, Kate had definitely spoiled Y/N. Would it do a number on her credit card and on her mother’s reaction? Most definitely, but she didn’t have it in her to care.

With all the things she was carrying, she was forced to kick the door to get somebody’s attention. Clint answered, in his hands a cup of coffee. He sent her a confused look, clearly wondering what she hell she had bought, but didn’t say anything about it. When he stepped aside, Kate entered. She had the perfect view of her girlfriend, sitting cross-legged on the couch, papers and books surrounding her.

The brunette sighed, but she wasn’t surprised. At least this time, the bags under her eyes were gone and she looked more awake now.

“Y/N/N!” Kate said in a sing-song voice. She missed how Clint rubbed at his head and took a long sip from his coffee. It hadn’t even been a full day and she already exhausted him.

Y/N’s hands snapped up, eyebrows furrowing when she saw her girlfriend. “What’s all that?” She asked, notes forgotten.

“It’s for you!” Kate answered, dumping them on the couch.

Curiously and a little suspiciously, Y/N moved forward to peer inside. Gasping, she said, “You did not—“

“I did,” Kate said, sitting next to the bags. She said it in such a way that someone could practically hear the grin in her words.

“Oh my god, you are too much. Thank you!” Y/N said, as she dived into the chocolates, practically ripping it open.

Kate watched her happily, filled with her own glee at seeing Y/N so relaxed and excited. “Anything for you,” she said, and she meant it.

Her hands didn’t shake once throughout the entire day, even when she sat down to begin the exam. Kate’s presence had been the trick to calming her down and getting her through this. 

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[angstyaches]

13 14 and 17 from the "are you okay" list with the new ocs? (if you're ready to write about them)

Okay, so this is NOT an official introduction to my new OCs. Some details might still change, and I still plan on writing in such a way that you guys can properly meet each one of them.

Also, as you'll soon see, I settled on a name for the blonde nonbinary OC. I'll post some more detail about that decision later.

Thank you for the request, V! Prompt Meme (by @emphasis-on-the-comfort ) is here.

___

13. *shrugs* "I don't know. I feel funny.

17. *shivers* "I don't think so. I'm pretty sure I'm running a fever."

14. *covers mouth and shakes head before making a mad dash for the bathroom*

CW: emeto with unspecified (i.e. secret hehe) supernatural element.

___

“We could do something with portals, maybe.” Rex spoke aloud as she was jotting down her ideas, though it was more of a formality now than a genuine attempt to convey her thoughts to her project partner. She wasn’t even making an effort to make her handwriting legible anymore; as long as she could read it later herself, that was all that mattered. “Maybe the physical accuracy of his ability could tame the haphazardness of mine…”

“Haphazardousness.”

Rex looked up. Blake was resting his chin in his palms, and his eyes were shut. She couldn’t have been blamed for not even realising that he’d been listening to her muttering to herself.

“What?” she scoffed when her brain focused on what he'd actually said. “No, it’s not.”

“Mmhmm.”

“Blake, it’s haphazardness.” Rex resisted the urge to take advantage of his attention, to call him out on failing to contribute anything other than nonsense. “What’s the matter with you?”

Blake gave a slow shrug. “I don’t know. I feel funny.”

“Funny? Funny how?”

He shook his head and didn’t reply to her beyond that. She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, if she was being honest. If she didn’t learn to manage her expectations, this summer – the time she spent on the pairs project, at least – would be very unpleasant and frustrating. Part of her had resented Astrophel and Lilith for pairing off this year, but she couldn’t deny that their project idea was a fascinating one that only the two of them could properly execute. She was happy and excited for them.

Even if it meant that she was stuck with a brick wall as a partner.

His eyes fluttered open, revealing one brown iris and one pale blue. He looked at her briefly before lowering his head, and letting out what Rex thought at first was a low groan. Only when she saw him flinch and smack his lips did she realise he’d just belched.

“God,” she whined in mild disgust.

“Yeah, I’m – I’m gonna go lie down for a bit, before the lecture.” Blake stifled a yawn as he slid from his stool, arching his spine and pushing his shoulders back. Rex could only watch in shock; surely he wasn’t serious? He wasn’t about to abandon her to continue planning this project by herself –?

“You’re good; you’ve got this, haven’t you?” he asked, waving a hand vaguely in the direction of her notes. "You've got this."

Rex’s jaw dropped. Nope. He was absolutely about to abandon her.

He scratched lightly at his belly before walking around the end of the bench and heading for the door.

__ Later that same day__

Astrophel tilted his head slightly and narrowed his eyes. Blake cringed at the sparkle in the boy’s eyes, the glint of concern that he knew he didn’t deserve. He looked away, glancing back just in time to see Astrophel lift a hand; his forefinger and thumb were linked together to form an O, while the rest of his fingers splayed out in the shape of a K.

“I don’t fucking know if I’m okay,” Blake hissed, trying and failing to suppress a shiver. As he shuddered in his seat, Astrophel jumped slightly in surprise. “Alright, I don’t – I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure I’m running a fever.”

Astrophel began to shift from his own seat, hands working through the signs for a series of letters that made Blake’s heart sink into his stomach.

“No, no, no, don’t get Lilith,” he snapped, making a grab for Astrophel’s wrist and yanking it towards the desk.

“Ow,” Astrophel mouthed. He threw what Blake assumed was supposed to be an angry, intimidating look, but really, he just looked hurt. Blake knew it was hurt, because he felt guilt grow heavier in the pit of his stomach the longer he looked at it.

He clicked his tongue and let go of Astrophel’s wrist. “Sorry.”

__ And even later that same day__

“And, you know, at a certain point, I feel like I have to say something.”

Oh, fuck. Blake gulped against the swell of pain and nausea in his belly, cringing at the uneasy squelching sound his throat made. His mind was so hazy with panic and guilt that Lilith didn't even seem real...

“You haven’t been doing your share of the work for Rex, and Astrophel says you were rude to him earlier, too.” Lilith folded their arms. “Life would be a lot easier for everybody if you –”

Shattered into a million pieces and never got put back together?

“– made more of an effort to get along with people.”

Blake swallowed again. There was a harsh twist in his chest and belly; he’d known that Lilith wasn’t going to say something horrible, yet it felt as though he’d just accused them of doing so. He watched their eyes, wondering if there was some way they’d read his mind and gotten even more pissed off at him.

“Yeah.”

Lilith raised their eyebrows. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, you’re right.” Blake’s stomach flipped over with an audible groan and a rush of air. A wet belch crawled up the back of his throat like a thing with legs and wings. “Hu-hundred percent.”

“I’m – I am?” Lilith’s eyes travelled up and down the length of Blake’s body, as though they were searching for something unusual in his silhouette. “The great Blake Forte admitting that I’m right? Are you sure you’re feeling okay?”

A hand miraculously slapped itself over Blake’s lips before a disgusting burst of air escaped. His eyes widened and he winced, but not because he’d just belched in front of Lilith.

He winced because the nausea in his stomach had grown significantly lighter, like the tickle of a paintbrush. And the feeling in his throat wasn’t burning like acid, but… fluttering.

Lilith’s arms came down from their defensive folded position in front of their chest. “Blake?”

He shook his head, though whether it was in response to their question of whether he was feeling okay, or just a last-ditch attempt to deny what was about to happen, he couldn’t be sure. The nearest bathroom was at the other side of the building, and mathematically – based on the whirring movement of his stomach – he wasn’t going to make it there in time unless he left now.

Unless he’d already left.

Hell, he could have been born in that specific bathroom, and he might still be late for what was about to happen.

He sensed Lilith jump at his abrupt departure. He heard his stool clatter to the floor in his wake. And he felt tears sting his eyeballs as he ran, praying he’d at least make it out of anyone’s line of sight before it happened.

[hopefullystillatheatrestudent]

The One Where Jensen Ackles Confirmed Cockles in 2016(????) No. Seriously. For real.

this is a DOOZY. strap in folks.

DISCLAIMER: this is chock full of rps. if you are against cockles/jenmish in any way, this post is not for you. however, if you’re like me, ummmmm...

alright. so. we are REALLY in it now, cockles truthers. and make no mistake, i DO NOT want to undersell the significance of what we have found on this glorious day in 2021.

BUT HEY! DISCLAIMER FIRST, THOUGH IT SHOULD GO WITHOUT SAYING! do not EVER bring this to jensen and misha’s attention. do not comment disrespectful things on social media. when cons/panels start again, don’t ask them questions about it. ever!!! that’s super weird, for one thing, and for two, they won’t give you the answer you want anyway! so, yeah. just be decent, y’all. let’s continue. 

so my dear mutual @green-blue-heller made this post today and i promptly lost my mind. in it, they link this video:

undefined

as far as i can tell, it’s from VegasCon 2016 but was only unprivated on january 24, 2020(dean winchester’s birthday??? wow ok) for some reason, and we have overlooked it until now. to whoever it was that posted it, THANK you for my reason for being and this delayed gratification five years later. anyway, let’s get into it.

right off the bat, those expressions in the thumbnail kind of tell you all you need to know about what we’re venturing into. i have to thank BOTH jensen AND j*red for being ridiculously transparent. i mean...j*red purposefully avoiding eye contact with jensen and looking at the ceiling with his eyebrows raised sky high? jensen hiding his face in his hands, smiling and blushing like a fool, the misha face™ & grin???

so let’s break down what happens with timestamps and everything.

so! i looked up what the question was, i scoured through the entire Vegas Con video, and here it is:

‘My question is for Jensen and Jared. You guys are both happily married, and I noticed that many people had a hard time explaining how they know their significant other is the one. The one they want to spend the rest of their life with, the one that they want to be with, and so, I wanted to ask you guys, how did you know that your current- who you’re with now(audience laughter cuts the rest of the question off and it’s unintelligible)’ ….i’m solidly guessing that the end of that question boils down to ‘was the one’. (....i...uhhhh....have some thoughts on how this question affected jensen, and i will be going into them later.)

Jared: *laughs* Jared, Jensen. When did you first meet your future ex-wives?

*both of them laugh*

Jared: I’m just kidding-I get what you’re trying to say and thank you, um...I, uh, I guess my current wife, uh-

*both laugh again*

Jensen: (sarcastically) Let’s start with her.

Jared: (repeats) Let’s start with her. I, uh, I...you said something kinda, uh, amazing in your question, which is that a lot of people have a tough time or a difficult time explaining to their significant others or to themselves what it is. And I guess I feel that I have no way to possibly explain it to myself or to her... I remember that I had been in a relationship and that I was single and I was like ‘I am not interested in getting in a relationship’ and then she and I went on a date and I was like, ‘I can’t go anywhere else. I’m not interested.’ So, that was kinda what, um, what started it for me *clears throat loudly* Uh. Yeah, I just feel like (searching for words) she makes me a better person-there are a lot of people that make you a better person, and so that’s not enough, I don’t think-or maybe it is, who knows-um...I don’t know, I can’t really...if I could explain, I’d be a poet.

here’s where things start to get interesting. before jared says ‘If I could explain, I’d be a poet,’ Jensen’s face looks like this:

stoic, thoughtful, composed. and then AFTER jared says that his face makes THIS little journey:

go watch it for yourself. this man is ridiculous. in terms of body language? he gazes up and AWAY from jared. it is a private thought, he is not sharing in jared’s joke with him, if at all. it is his own personal musings that make his face LIGHT up like that. this fool looks lovestruck!!! this fool is lovestruck!!!

now, i think it goes without saying, but there is an obvious cockles reason that springs to mind for this reaction. (hint: misha is a poet. that’s it, that’s the reason.) i don’t think jared intentionally said this with misha in mind, but jensen’s thoughts IMMEDIATELY went there. whether or not this is because he was already planning on answering and hinting at his relationship with misha before jared says this, which i think he was-you can certainly see the wheels turning in jensen’s head before this moment-his brain involuntarily makes the connection and it shows in his glowing smile. after that remark...jensen’s gone. he’s whipped. and he HAS to say something about it. 

continuing from where we left off:

Jared: ...and I would love to be a poet. (thought it would be fun to mention that at this point Jensen catches what his face did and immediately looks over to Jared and WIPES the expression of his face...but it’s too late, because someone recorded it, i saw it, and now i’m writing about it five years later)

Jared: But uhh…

Jensen: (interrupting) Just tap me when you want me to take over. 

i think that jensen is simultaneously joking and is also more than ready to say what he’s been composing in his head diligently for the last thirty or so seconds. he has made up his mind, and is now ready to drop the bomb on us.

*audience laughs, Jared playfully swats at him*

Jared: Uh… *thinks in silence for a bit* It’s really difficult, it’s really difficult. She makes me feel safe, she makes me feel loved. Uh...when...I’m in a position where I don’t love myself, I know she loves me, you know, um...she’s just an awesome, awesome lady.

*audience claps*

alright! so in terms of my OWN analysis for what’s happened up until this point, the conclusion i have come to is that there was something in the question that was asked that sets jensen’s mind off about misha, and i think it was the ‘the one’ comment. if we’re putting our cockles goggles on, jensen doesn’t HAVE a ‘the one’. he resents thinking like that. i’m also very intuitive, and i get a sense that jensen is an honest person and can’t really tell a convincing lie. i mean...we all saw that horrible airbnb debacle, right? and his slip up when he accidentally confirms that misha woke up and said ‘i miss (maison)’[which how would you know that unless you were...nvm] and became a stammering mess and had to sit down and cover his face. and that misha is always the one to take the lead when it comes to denying clothes sharing, for instance. jensen has never ONCE attempted to explain that away, because i don’t think anyone would believe him, and i think he’s incapable of doing so because he’s not a dishonest person and can’t lie easily. i’m the same way, so to avoid telling a lie i always speak partial truths, and i’m 99% sure jensen is well versed in this talent as well. oh, also, just to really land my point....we all know how he feels about the finale because he can’t make himself speak well on it. he’ll gush about 15x18 and the PEOPLE BEHIND the finale, but he has not uttered one. positive. word. about the actual finale itself. i mean, we all know what he thinks about it. in his own way, he has made his rage glaringly obvious. and i think he’s doing that exact thing here, where he resents the implication that daneel is the only ‘one’ for him, because that’s simply not true, and he can’t and won’t lie about something like that. 

i watched it back again and wrote notes on jensen’s body language as he’s processing the question. here they are:

from 0:13 to 1:21, jensen: 

looks down - tenses face - searching eyes, lost in thought - jared’s comment brings him out of it but it takes a second - fidgets, adjusts clothes, looks at jared - bites the inside of his cheeks and moves tongue around his mouth(pacifying gesture) - eyes start wandering away from jared, looks down and tenses face, looks back at jared - then looks away, eyes and mind far from the panel and pondering the question itself - somewhat wistful expression, gears clearly turning in his head, lips pursed, stops reacting to what jared is saying, fingers start fidgeting, eyes have moved downward as he is lost in thought - something shifts in his brain, he looks to the ceiling, fidgets and adjusts his clothing, squints and seems to resolve an inner thought - slightly comes back down to earth with newfound resolution - and then jared’s ‘i would be a poet’ comment happens while he’s coming down from that

i mean, this obviously doesn’t necessarily mean anything huge(yet), all it shows is that this question took a lot of thinking for him. when you compare it to how jared kind of just dove in? 

anyway; so then jared’s done, he slaps jensen’s thigh to indicate it’s his turn, jensen makes THAT face you see in the thumbnail, jared’s eyebrows raise, jensen looks down and scratches his forehead, and then makes the statement of a lifetime. 

here’s the link for this next part

Jensen: Ummm..I kind of feel like there’s two types of people ..uh..in regards to marriage and the, the one. Uh, it’s the ones that just, just know with an absolute and, and have a certainty of like, this is the one for me, unequivocally. And then there’s those who are, you know, I don’t know, I’m scared, but I’m willing to take that leap of faith with you. And, I kind of find myself in between both of those(...types of people). And uh, and so, it can be a scary endeavour, and it can, and it will certainly have it’s ups and downs, um, but I think it’s a, uh, it’s a bond, and it’s a connection, and it’s a friendship, and it’s a ride, and it’s a journey that, uh, if you’re willing to stick it out with one another, can be an amazing, beautiful thing and I’m glad that I picked the partner and the teammate that I have, so.

i’ll give you like a second to recuperate before we dig in. 

let’s start with both jared and jensen’s body language first, because it wasn’t even the words that clued me in, it was whatever the hell was going on with jared’s face. 

i really wish i could gif, but i can only attempt to convey the SPEED and VIGOUR with which jared snaps his head toward jensen. 

these pictures are objectively hilarious because you can see the entire mental journey that jared goes on. he was aloof and kind of relaxed because he was done, it’s jensen’s turn now, he’s surely not gonna out himself with this question right? and then jensen goes ahead and says ‘there are two-’ and jared instantly zones right into jensen with a look of horror on his face, that he tries to contain, but does so unsuccessfully. that is the face of a man who is internally freaking out, thought to himself ‘did he seriously just say...’ and is kind of staring at the culprit in shock and awe.

i know that’s what’s happening, because this is not the first time we’ve seen him react like this to something jensen has said. the classic head whip. a few examples, just off the top of my head:

1. ‘he has, hasn’t he?’ 

2. ‘he sounds like that in the morning’ ‘how do you know’ 

3. when he whips his head around when he notices jensen’s face(and instantly understands when he realizes it’s misha)

so yeah, i’m sure you get it by now. jared can’t really keep it off of his face. there’s no real analyzing to be done here...it’s just an obvious tell on his part. there’s no real reason for him to have reacted this way if jensen was saying something inconspicuous, is there? he would have continued to just kind of space out if jensen hadn’t just said something jarringly questionable. 

as for jensen’s body language, i can’t really tell where he’s looking from either angle of both videos i’ve seen. sometimes it seems like he’s looking straight at jared, and maybe nods at him once, but he could also(and is most likely) looking at the fan who asked the question. i don’t think there’s anything particularly telling about his body language because i think he rehearsed his answer in his head and also, he’s not shying away because he’s not lying about anything. like...everything he’s saying is true, so he’s not going to have any tells. and it’s the fact that he is TELLING THE TRUTH that is freaking jared out.

now for what he actually says. because oh my god. 

right off the bat, he says “i kind of feel like there’s two types of people..” and first off, what? what does that even mean? if you think of it in terms of ‘this is about daneel and only daneel’....isn’t this a realllyyyyy strange thing to start out with? objectively? the question that was asked to him was ‘how did you know they were the one?’ and he goes ‘actually there’s TWO types of people’ ...like, jensen never answers the question at hand. 

and then he goes “in regards to marriage and the one”. i hope i’m not the only one who noticed he said the words ‘the one’ in a resentful and kind of degrading tone? seriously, listen to it again. he seems like he’s almost mocking that sentiment. i swear i’m not making it up, it really sounds like that to me. 

and then he says “-it’s the ones that just, just know with an absolute and, and have a certainty of like, this is the one for me, unequivocally. And then there’s those who are, you know, I don’t know, I’m scared, but I’m willing to take that leap of faith with you.” *NON TINHAT VERSION OF EVENTS* what he could mean, i guess, is he was both scared to be with daneel but also knew she was the one for him. which....ok. alright. *TINHAT BACK ON* first off, there’s absolutely no risk with daneel. that’s not a judgement, because i love her; it’s just true. she’s a pretty, talented, amazing woman and they are very much in love. i’m not sure what risks he’s taking there. next up: pretty strange wording then, don’t you think? idk, if it were you, and you wanted to get that point across, wouldn’t you use words like ‘she both scared me and i knew i wanted to be with her at the same time’ and NOT this convoluted mess of ‘there’s two types of people and they are both drastically different but also one and the same’? 

SECOND OF ALL, as many people have pointed out.....he never uses pronouns. this is strange. jared does. jared says gen’s name, even. and uses ‘she’ and ‘her’. jensen never once does that, he practically refuses to do so. and yes, i fully believe it is entirely intentional.

because if you look at this phrase from a cockles lens it makes more sense then if you do not. 

the one that jensen knows, unequivocally, with the utmost certainty, is the one for him, no doubts, no risks; is daneel. the one that he doesn’t know about, is scared of being with, but is willing to take that leap of faith anyway; is misha. and all of a sudden the puzzle pieces fall into place.

because he goes on to say “I kind of find myself in between both of those.” 

he doesn’t say ‘i find myself in between both of those...with her.’ nope. he’s just...in between. caught in the middle. of those two types of people. translation: of those two people. mish. dee. 

“And it can be a scary endeavour, and it will certainly have it’s ups and downs, but I think it’s a bond, and it’s a connection, and it’s a friendship, and it’s a ride, and it’s a journey...” 

every single one of those words can be applied to more than one person. think about it. bond(between three people). connection(between three people). friendship(between three people!!!). there’s no ‘partnership’ in here, which does only apply to two people. 

lastly, “i’m glad i picked the partner and the teammate that i have.”

ok, look. you can easily say that it’s just one person he’s talking about here! of course you can. but this is jensen ackles we’re talking about. jensen ‘rock and pebble’ ackles. jensen ‘mish. dee.’ ackles. so yes. i definitely think that ‘the partner and the teammate’ fall into this category. and i think daneel is the partner and misha is the teammate. 

to put it matter-of-factly: you simply cannot prove that this isn’t about a poly relationship. there is absolutely nothing he says that makes it obvious he is talking about one person here. because he isn’t. 

i just feel like, in the simplest terms, if this were about only daneel, that he would not be using these weird phrases that are half-hidden truths. just to compare, i watched another panel where pretty much the exact same question was asked, minus the whole ‘the one’ debacle, and, just as i suspected, it was an entirely different answer. he talks about the moment where he knew he liked her. her, specifically. says the name daneel. gushes about her. there’s no tiptoeing and weird pronoun usage and vague terminology. 

tl; dr : i think he answered the question this way because there is no ‘the one’ in his life. and he is physically incapable of leaving misha out when talking about ‘the one’ because he has TWO ‘the ones’. and he wants to answer the question to the best of his best ability, but lying is unnatural to him. he will talk about daneel at length and misha at length, but i honestly to my core don’t think you could make him choose between the two. oh! and we literally had confirmation all the way back in fucking 2016, we just never paid attention until now. so......thanks, jensen?

sorry, this got super long, but i hope i warned you well enough. 

[raisinghellonstarbug]

Stumbled Into Laughter, Stumbled Into You - A James Acaster x Reader Story

Basic plot: The year is 2019, and life has been quite dull for you since working in a job that you hate for the past two years after graduating from university. You used to do stand up comedy at uni, but you’ve been putting off pursuing it due to lack of confidence and motivation. Your best mates decide to encourage you to try a comedy mic night for the first time ever and while there you incidentally run into an old mate of yours, comedian Rhys James. That’s when your life gets turned around as you end up diving into the world of the comedy circuit and becoming close with other famous British comedians. In the midst of it all, you end up meeting a particularly distinctive red headed fellow who might end up being the very thing that brings meaning to your life again.

*

A/N: Hello Acaster fans!

So this was an idea I have had in mind for the last few months and I finally finished the first chapter of my story!

Just so you know, the first chapter does not include James, but be patient as he will appear soon (but maybe not quite as soon as you hope). I do reckon it will be worth the wait for his appearance, or at least I hope the story is still enjoyable! It is a slow burn so if you are an inpatient person, then this story might not be for you ;)

You can read this chapter below or if you prefer, there is also the link to the chapter posted on Ao3 right here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33748507

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Rating: M

Chapter 1 word length: 2326

Characters: James Acaster (duh), Original Female Characters(s), Original Male Character(s), Rhys James, Ed Gamble, Nish Kumar, Josh Widdicombe

Relationships: James Acaster x Reader/you, Original female character/Original Male character

Story tags: Romantic comedy, domestic fluff, slow burn, fluff and smut, British comedy, eventual relationships

Tagging: @laurabeech @rilannon @jasclearwaters @marklily @queensantiagoofthe99

Chapter 1 - Summer 2019

You were sitting at your desk at your mundane job, practically ready to blow your brains out on the usual, dull Thursday afternoon. It was really warm and stuffy inside the fifteen story office block building situated in Canary Wharf. This was a place you found yourself five days a week, doing the typical 9 to 5 hours. A usual day for a usual person.

Your job wasn’t a particularly riveting one. As an underwriter for an insurance company, some days could get especially boring. You knew how to do the job well, but it was not something you really loved. It involved all kinds of clients and claims in paperwork and it sometimes felt tedious and unfulfilling. But hey, it still paid your share of rent and bills. At least you could say you could manage in the hustle and bustle of the London lifestyle.

It was nearly hometime and you were itching to get home and relax. But before that could happen, there were those last set of insurance cover forms you had to copy to get sent to the HR department. And so you typed away on your laptop, clickety clack, clickety clack… the minutes went by like a chalk on a blackboard, scraping away at a snail’s pace.

You put your full force of concentration on the documents on the screen until it was finally done. A sense of achievement was necessary in these moments despite your lack of enthusiasm. It was in the little victories you reminded yourself. You rubbed the sweat from the July heat off your forehead.

* * *

The last 2 hours eventually passed by and it was soon the rush to get out of the door before you got held up by your colleagues. They were nice enough, but sometimes they could hold you back for half an hour chatting when you just wanted to get home, or your manager might try and get you to stay an hour overtime.

Thankfully you did get out promptly, and as you ran and dashed out of the office building saying brisk goodbyes to coworkers, you managed to make it to the tube with the train just arriving on time. But not without being moderately sweaty and hot though. Bloody stuffy platforms.

As expected it was still a busy train with plenty of 5pm finishers getting themselves situated on the half crowded carriages, but as it was only 10 past, it wasn't the worst time of day for commuting yet.

You perched yourself on one of the tube’s seats and let your shoulders drop, having held the tension in your body from sitting at a desk all day. You placed your head slightly back, balancing it on the window of the train. You looked up momentarily above you and then lifted your head back up to look at your phone and choose a song to listen to on Spotify through your wireless earphones.

The streams of sound from one of your favourite songs began to play softly in your ears and you smiled, knowing that the song gave you a little bit of wistful joy. You started mouthing the words.

Call it all for nothing, but I'd rather be nothing to you. Than be a part of something, something that I didn’t do (Best to You - Blood Orange).

The words half mean something but not necessarily anything. You began to wonder about being part of something that you’re not.

I just wish I could float away from my unexciting existence… you thought to yourself.

It sometimes occurred to you that you might have wanted something more out of life, but weren’t entirely sure what. It doesn’t make you dreadfully sad, but you know that life for you hasn’t exactly been the best it could be, and that perhaps something was missing. You wish you knew what it was.

You sighed, ignoring the feeling of sorrow wash over you momentarily and propped yourself back up in the uncomfortable seat of the train. You tried to keep yourself awake so that you wouldn’t miss your stop. The music continued through your ears.

* * *

You opened the door of the three bedroom flat that you had been residing in for the last two years with your flatmates and sighed with relief that you had finally reached home. You hurried to get your handbag off your shoulder and your shoes off, placing them on the rack next to the front door and walked through the hallway.

The minute you poked your head through to the lounge, bellowing a faint hello to whoever was around, you were suddenly greeted by one of your best friends and flatmates, Grace.

“Ahh Y/n! You’re home. Thank christ!”

She grabbed you and reached her arms around to embrace you tightly. You were perplexed by this gesture as it was so random and unusual given that Grace lived with you and saw you everyday of the week. You frowned and reluctantly placed your arms around her to return the hug.

As she then let go, she looked at you with urgency in her eyes and shrieked with excitement, “Oh Y/n guess what? It looks like I’m up for a promotion! Can you believe it?”

Now processing the reason for such an embrace, you raised your eyebrows in glee and smiled proudly, gushing back to your best mate who was obviously chuffed by the matter.

“Oh wow Grace, that's fantastic! I mean, finally. It is about bloody time!”

She smiled, “Yes I guess it is. But I mustn't get too excited. I haven’t officially got the promotion yet.”

“Ah but no. I’m not having any of that. You will get that promotion. It is a guarantee. They would be idiots to not give it to you.” Grace rolled her eyes and bit her lip. She reluctantly nodded and agreed.

The smell of food distracted you momentarily from the conversation. It was a particularly appetising smell.

Grace uttered, “Yes that smell is good isn’t it? Theo insisted on cooking us a nice meal for me as a celebration.”

You smiled knowingly, having known about how Grace and Theo had been in relationship limbo ever since you three became close friends at university. You knew they both had feelings for each other but often danced around the subject, completely oblivious to one another’s obvious attraction to the other. You reckoned they had to do something about it one day.

“Thank fuck. I wasn’t prepared to make dinner tonight. I am too tired for that.”

Grace then had her worried face on. She instantly knew, as she knew you too well, but funnily enough never picked up on Theo’s emotions despite constantly wondering about them, that something was wrong.

“Are you ok babe?” she asked with a look of pity that you scornfully resented.

You sighed, half lying, “Yes. I’m fine. Just tired is all.”

You made a beeline for the couch knowing full well that you were going to talk about it whether you liked it or not. You knew that Grace would see right through your dishonesty and insist that you told her the problem.

So you waited until Grace inevitably sat next to you and gave you that sympathy look she always gave you before coming out with the concerns that were floating around your brain.

“OK fine. I know you won’t leave me alone unless I tell you.”

“Ahh, you know me so well…”

“Yes, just as you know me. I’m just- I’m fed up. Work was slow. I don’t really feel like I’m associated with my life. I feel... disconnected, I guess.”

“Do you have any idea why?”

You shrugged and looked down at the floor and then back at Grace smiling sheepishly, “I don’t know. Maybe I’m not- not fulfilled? I just don’t thoroughly enjoy my life right now.”

Grace nodded and put a hand on your leg. You twitched your face in slight discomfort. You hated it when you were given sympathy for something that seemed so miniscule. It wasn’t like you were dying.

It was times like this when you just wanted to curl up in your bed, eat a tub of ice cream and watch your favourite comedy programmes. 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown sprang to mind.

As you sat in momentary silence for a bit, Theo came waltzing through from the kitchen with his silly apron on that had a naked man’s body printed on it, and a spatula in his hand. He smiled at you.

“I thought I heard your voice. I hope meatballs for dinner are good tonight. Not mine of course,” gesturing to the apron as he said it.

You shook your head at Theo’s poor dad joke and stood up to hug him. You realised that you must be really down in the dumps to be hugging Theo. It was his turn to be confused. He looked towards Grace wide eyed.

“She’s had a particularly tough day. But mind you babe, you’ve kinda been like this for weeks now.”

You let go of Theo and turned to Grace, frowning and feeling slightly defensive. You placed a hand on your hip.

“Been like what? I’ve just been a bit fed up, that's all.”

“Yes but it’s not just a bit fed up. You said so yourself you feel disconnected. We’ve been waiting for you to say it.”

You looked to Theo and he nodded gently in agreement.

“Ok… but, nothing is really wrong exactly. My life is fine.”

“Fine, yes. But not amazing. We know it’s getting you down. And the job is the problem.”

“But I’m good at it. And it pays the bills. What else am I supposed to do?”

Grace then looked away from your eyes then, twitching her lip and looking as though she was holding something back. She then sighed and began to admit something you had not been expecting.

“OK look. We know what you can do. Theo and I have figured it out. We can manage money wise. It will be tight, but if you quit your job we should be able to help you out for a little bit.”

Your eyes grew wider than large saucepans. You were totally bewildered and your mouth slightly agape.

“What? Quit my job? Why? What work would I get instead?”

“Well, maybe you won't quit your job yet. Maybe you’re right, that's too hasty. Perhaps what I’m trying to say is-”

Theo then chimed in, “-what Grace is trying to say is…”

You smirked to yourself. How do they not realise that they’re already a couple but without the sex? They’re practically married for christ sake.

“...we reckon that you need to pursue your passion. Perhaps stop wasting your talents in an office job that you hate.”

Grace continued, “yes exactly. We have had an idea in mind. See, we want you to go to this thing… it’s no biggie but well, we’ve already booked it for you.”

Your mind was racing. You couldn’t understand anything that they were saying to you. It was all too much for you to manage.

“Booked what for me? What the hell are you both going on about?”

They both looked at each other with reluctance, pondering the moment and whether to tell you the whole truth. They both shrugged and Grace was then pulling her phone out, this whole conversation beginning to appear as though they had been trying to practice it.

Suddenly Grace’s phone screen was wavering in your face. You moved your head closer to see a photo on the screen. It was a comedy club night poster. Incidentally, it was an open mic night event happening on Saturday night. You began to then put the puzzle pieces together. You folded your arms and frowned heavily.

“What the fuck have you two done now?”

Theo softly spoke, “We… booked you a slot to do that comedy open mic event thing, on Saturday night.”

“Wait. As in to perform? You can’t be serious-”

Grace tried to reassure you and grabbed your arm.

“Look, we know it might seem daunting, but we just wanted to see you happy again. It’s been two years since we graduated and you haven’t performed since then. We thought it might be good to encourage you to perform again. You were always funny to us. And people at uni thought so too. You have the stand up talent, Y/n.”

You could not process anymore. You shook your head in disbelief and placed your head in your hands, rubbing your eyes from sudden exhaustion. You then threw your hands up in exasperation. It was not possible. You could not do that again.

Fucking no way. I can’t be on stage again! It’s too scary. University pub nights are one thing but a comedy club?

You shook your head again and placed your hands on your hips. Grace tried to speak up again seeing the frustration painted across your face. In fact it was anger that your friends chose to do this without your say so.

“Y/n…”

“No. Nope. I’m not doing it. No.”

“But Y/n, we were also going to tell you that Theo is also thinking of doing the same thing! He wants to do his music again. What harm would it be for you to rejuvenate your comedy skills? Surely you can write a quick couple of gags. Nothing strenuous. You have your old material from university, right?”

You had to get out of the room. Nothing that they were saying to you could be fully accepted at that moment.

You then gave them no choice but to let you go with your head in a flurry. They both watched you leave the room, mumbling something along the lines of I’m not really hungry anymore, I’m going to bed. Soon after, you darted across the other end of the hallway, ill-tempered and almost seething, and slammed your bedroom door shut.

[goggles-mcgee]

Too Late: Tom & Sabine (Commission for miner249er)

This is a sequel to Revolt of the Akuma, also a commission from @miner249er this will be multichaptered! 

Summary: Sequel to Revolt of the Akuma. How Paris and everyone there deals with Marinette’s akumatization and the many things born from it.

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Business was slow but that somehow became the normal for Tom and Sabine, at first they resented it, they truly were busy bodies and they loved to work, needed to work, but then Marinette was akumatized and disappeared. Their baby girl was gone and it felt like there truly was nothing they could do about it. The worst part was they hadn’t even realized she was the akuma at first, they didn’t know things at school had been so bad that Hawkmoth was able to take advantage of their little Baguette’s emotions, and they hadn’t been there to help her through it. Their days seemed routine now, they would wake up at 3 AM instead of their regular 4 AM because of the guilt and the nightmares, they would prep the kitchen then Tom would start on the bread with his father Roland helping out since everything had taken its toll on Tom and he started to become forgetful in things to do with the bakery, even his timing was off. Meanwhile Sabine would attempt to do her morning meditation. The meditation was never successful nowadays because she truly could not clear her mind or calm her heart and memories of Marinette both good and bad would surface and she would be thrown into a fit of sobs that Gina tried her best to help calm. 

Roland learned the hard way that he no longer could hum his and his son’s song while making bread as it had reminded his son too much of Marinette and the larger man would break down in tears if he even heard the slightest bit of the song. He would call out for his daughter while hugging whatever he had in his hands close to his chest. Roland had never been the most affectionate of father’s, he wasn’t even affectionate with his wife, but when he broke down like that, Roland felt the urge to just hold his boy and comfort him. It pained him to see his son in so much pain, but Tom and Sabine were strong people and they picked themselves up in order to get through the day. 

Well, they tried their best and really that’s all anyone expected of the grieving parents. The day Marinette was akumatized and disappeared had been a normal day for them and maybe that’s what filled them with so much guilt. Their bakery was always busy and that was something they took pride in, before Marinette was born, the bakery had been their baby. They made it, helped and watched it grow, and they got to see it flourish. It was a lot of work and sometimes they would just get into this work zone where nothing else could grab their attention. Working with so many ovens and having to prepare so many things, there was only so much you could multitask before your brain felt full. Though those were only excuses, they had been neglecting their daughter and hadn’t realized it. Marinette knew how much they loved their bakery and how busy it could get and she always seemed to understand but now looking back on it maybe she had just pretended to be fine with it all. They tried their best to always ask how her day was when they would all have dinner together, but Tom would be the first to admit that sometimes even that just became routine rather than actual curiosity about their daughter’s day. 

They had deluded themselves into believing that Marinette’s world was rose tinted, and they had taken comfort in the lie. Maybe they truly just wanted to believe that Marinette was their always smiling baby girl and she had no problems to worry about because it would be easier to deal with than the reality. When Marinette had become fascinated with fashion and that fascination grew, Sabine and Tom had been happy and supportive of their daughter, yes their hearts hurt a bit since they had hoped that maybe she would take over the bakery for them, but then they noticed how much time her designing took up. It hurt to think about now but Sabine could remember thinking that it was a blessing that Marinette was distracted and busy because it meant they had more time for the bakery. The more they remembered their shortcomings, the more they felt. They felt too much now after not being able to for so long because of Hawkmoth.

After having to shut down any and all negative emotions, finally being able to express them was like breaking a dam. Crying was never just a little tears, it was always these heart wrenching sobs and it could be for the littlest of things like a broken toy or missing a bus. Anger, now anger was the scariest in everyone's opinion, once someone started yelling it was like they couldn’t stop, they would break things, maybe hoping to see a butterfly, then there was the crying. Everything ended in tears. Anger came quickly nowadays, more so than sadness, though maybe they worked hand in hand now. Tom had found himself more on the depressed side of things, everything made him miss his little Baguette, sometimes he still expected to hear her footsteps racing down from her room and out the door with a shout because she was running late. Sabine on the other hand, everything just made her angry, every little thing. She would even snap at Tom but she would immediately apologize because she knew it wasn’t his fault. If anything she was angry at herself, angry at the school, at Hawkmoth, Hell, even at their bakery.

 Some days she hated waking up to the work and the mingling, there were times where she was so close to just begging her husband to closing the shop for a while and taking a break or maybe closing it permanently. She hadn’t decided yet, but she just told herself to hold on, just hold on till their closing period or ‘vacation time’ as Marinette would say. Perhaps that was the reason why she wasn’t really giving it a serious thought, the whole giving up their boulangerie idea. It held memories, both good and heart-aching, of Marinette. Sabine would never talk about those memories with anyone but family now, but everytime she was working she couldn’t help but look over at their ‘Artisan Boulanger’ sticker at their storefront that was slightly crooked because Tom had been putting it on when Sabine had told him she was pregnant and he had slipped in shock and the sticker was forever a bit crooked. She couldn’t help the way her hands would clench over a box or bag when giving a customer their things, Marinette had designed them and each time she handed them over it felt like she was giving away a little piece of her daughter each time. 

“Have a wonderful day.” Sabine muttered to the latest customer of the day not even caring that her voice came out monotone.

“You as well! Merci Madame.” The young boy who had come in thanked her but Sabine just watched impassively as he hurried over to his friend. “Dude can you believe it? We get to eat pastries that the Protector ate!”

“Correction, we get to eat pastries that Ladybug ate.” His friend responded.

“That hasn’t been proven yet. That’s all just speculation man.” The first boy laughed as they made their way to the door and Sabine had to take in a deep breath or else she might have thrown something. How dare they come into their shop and talk about their daughter as though she wasn’t a person. How dare they treat her akumatization as some spectacle for them to worship and admire. How dare them all.

“Speculation? You are sorely mistaken bro, look at all the evidence! I’ll send you all the links then you’ll see.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Sabine just stared at the young men even after they had left until she no longer could make them out. This. This was why she no longer wanted the bakery, it no longer held the same joy it had when Marinette was there and Sabine and Tom hadn’t even known it until she was gone. 

“Bonjour Madame.” Sabine was ripped from her musings by another customer walking in, a regular in fact, Mlle Josephine Bernard. She had been coming to their boulangerie since they first opened and had always been very kind to Marinette. In fact, she commissioned Marinette a few times as well.

“Bonjour Joséphine." Sabine greeted with a small smile, the most she could manage.

“One rhubarb tart please and a pain de campagne. I’m making stew tonight and my fiance loves when I pair it with your bread.” Joséphine said with a kind smile as she took out her money and change and placed it on the saucer on the counter.

Sabine couldn’t help the soft chuckle that escaped, Joséphine always had exact change and honestly it was a welcome habit to Sabine. “Are you going to share the tart for dessert? It is small, are you certain you would like just one?”

“Oh no, that’s just for me. Our little secret okay?”

“Your secret is safe with me.” Sabine promised as she swiftly gathered Joséphine’s order, once she made her back to the counter to hand everything to the woman she was caught off guard when said woman placed her hand on top of Sabine’s.

“How are you holding up Sabine?” 

First instincts were yelling at her to lie, to say everything was fine despite everyone knowing it was not, but another part of her was yearning for reassurance that wasn’t from her husband or his parents. “I...I’m trying. But it’s hard. It’s hard when people come in and talk about my daughter as if she’s this thing that is more than human, more than just a teenager. They don’t even say her name anymore. Tom and I have had to move and lock away her things because...because people have broken in and stolen her belongings in order to steal or collect them. The police have been no help on that front. They told us to just get better locks. As if it is our fault that people are breaking in.” Sabine took in a shaky breath before continuing, “We get people who leave “gifts” instead. They are letters to Tom and I, accusing us of abusing Marinette...of neglecting our baby. They seem to think we don’t care about what happened to her Joséphine. We’ve had to replace some windows after one incident with a rock and some spray paint.”

“Oh my goodness Sabine! I’m so sorry. You and Tom don’t deserve any of that.” Joséphine gasped out, but Sabine wanted to argue that maybe they did. “That is just cruel and disgusting. If you two ever need anything please don’t hesitate to ask, or if you just need to talk or get out of the house for awhile, call me okay? Things...things will get better.”

“Merci Joséphine...maybe I’ll take you up on that. Enjoy your treats and tell me how Stephan likes everything okay?” Sabine responded after a while.

“I will...I will keep you and Tom and Marinette in my prayers. Merci Madame.” Joséphine said before leaving. 

Sabine’s movements felt robotic as she walked over to the door, locked it, and flipped the sign letting everyone know they would be closing for lunch. It was a small mercy that they were already at the middle of their day. Thankfully Roland and Gina would have lunch ready for them, they had been so helpful through everything but sometimes Sabine couldn’t help but feel like even they blamed Tom and Sabine for what happened to Marinette. Sabine knew how much Gina adored Marinette and she could see how much getting to know Marinette had meant to Roland, to have their granddaughter gone so all of a sudden, they too were grieving in the way they best knew how. They parented and distracted themselves with helping out Tom and Sabine as much as they could, that would be why they were staying with them. She knew how Roland was about them being late to lunch so Sabine made her way to the kitchen to see Tom baking but it looked like he was doing everything on autopilot, she wouldn’t be surprised if he hadn’t even heard Joséphine come in. 

“Tom. Sweetheart. It’s lunchtime, let’s go eat with your parents.” She mumbled as she placed a soft hand on Tom’s shoulder stopping him from decorating the last of the cupcakes he had made. 

“Oh...Lunchtime already?”

“Yeah. Here let me put those on display then we’ll head on up.” She took the tray of cupcakes gently from him and went out to the front again to put them on display where she saw several people looking in their shop. She decided to just ignore them...and the camera flashes, though maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to pull the security gates down just while they were upstairs for lunch. In fact that’s exactly what she did. “Ready to head up dear?”

“Hmm? Oh yeah, ready. Let’s go eat. It’s been a long morning.” Tom said with a small smile. She felt like it was more for her benefit but she still appreciated it all the same. Once they went upstairs they went through the motions of eating lunch and if someone asked Tom and Sabine what they had eaten, they wouldn’t have been able to answer, but they gave the obligatory remarks of, “This is so good thank you,” and,” So good. Maybe you can make it again sometime.” Maybe Roland and Gina saw through them, they probably had and the fact they made no comment about it truly was a blessing. As a way to avoid conversation if they needed to Sabine turned on the television and it just so happened to be the news.

“And as promised viewers video footage of The Protector in action. This footage was donated to us by an anonymous source who had happened upon The Protector out in the open when she was akumatized. I want to warn everybody, the footage may be shocking to some viewers. Roll the clip please.” Nobody spoke. How could they? Sure they knew people still had some weird fascination with their daughter and granddaughter’s akumatization but the news stations had stopped reporting on it or at least they thought they had. Nadja certainly hadn’t given them a heads up about this little ‘special’ of theirs like she had done previously, and yet here they were watching her and Alec talking about their daughter and they wouldn’t even say her name. She has a name. Sabine robotically pressed on the remote to see more info on the program and had to swallow back bile, ‘The Protector Really Paris’s Protector?’ that was the title and already Sabine could feel her anger rising. She didn’t bother reading the summary, she already knew what this special was about.

 She watched as her daughter, her baby girl, bent down in a patch of butterfly bushes crying her eyes out, sobbing out her hurt for anyone and everyone to hear. Her baby, even in the distance of the camera, looked so angry, so torn, she should never had to have felt like that. The video continued on with this person slowly zooming in on Marinette and Sabine had to wonder why this person was recording at all. She could never understand people’s obsessions with filming akumas, at least many filmed from a distance other than Alya and sometimes Nadja but it was always after the fact the person was akumatized. Maybe that’s why this particular video was bothering her so much, this person, whoever they were, they were filming her daughter breaking down because they knew at any moment she would be akumatized or, and the idea made her sick to her stomach, they were hoping she would be akumatized. They were hoping for a chance to have a video go viral, maybe they weren’t  but that’s the only thing that Sabine could rationalize why they would be filming her teenage daughter in the first place.

The video was a bit shaky as it seemed like the person filming didn’t want to be seen even though there was no one else there. Sabine hadn’t realized she started crying until she felt the tears hit her hand. She hated seeing Marinette in pain and her not being able to comfort her. She, her husband, and his parents watched with bated breath as they saw an akuma finally fly into frame and slowly make its way towards Marinette. Sabine wanted to shout out a warning, do something, but she  knew it was pointless and that just made the tears fall more. Everyone watching could tell that Marinette hadn’t noticed the akuma at all as she was still sobbing and wailing, Sabine could feel Tom squeeze her hand and she squeezed his right back. Then the akuma landed and merged but that wasn’t the shocking part, they had to watch their daughter stare at nothing with too-wide eyes and the familiar symbol of Hawkmoth over her face sit there as dozens...no, maybe hundreds of butterflies, white butterflies surrounded Marinette and landed on her body. 

Then a bright light flashed, it was so unlike any akumatization anyone had seen, the butterflies were gone but if you looked closely at the fading light surrounding Marinette you could see the faint flutter of wings. Then she stood up, the Protector stood up. Sabine sobbed and not for the first time cursed at her daughters classmates, they had been around Marinette the most, they knew her daughter, she did everything for them and yet they treated her like that. To the point of akumatization. Sabine prayed that her little girl wasn’t actually Ladybug like it was speculated, even if it made sense, because that would mean her daughter had been suffering through more than just everything going on at school and really, Sabine wasn’t ready to face all of that just yet.

“Now before we discuss everything in that video I will say we do have many more to share so stay tuned Paris!”

Next Chapter

[makeroomforthejolyghost]

In Search of Lost Screws (RQBB '21)

Here at last is my entry for the 2021 Rusty Quill Big Bang!

Fandom: The Magnus Archives Rating: T Word count: ~30k Warnings: Chronic Illness, Mild Body Horror, Internalized Ableism, Canon-Typical Spiders, Mention of Canon-Typical Suicidal Ideation, Alcohol Other tags: Cane-user Jon, EDS Jon, Canon-compliant, Season 5, Set in 180-181 (Upton Safehouse period) Characters: Jon Sims, Martin Blackwood, Mikaele Salesa (secondary), Annabelle Cane (secondary) Relationships: Jon/Martin Summary: While staying at Upton House, Jon and Martin accidentally break their bedroom’s doorknob, and can’t get back into the room until they fix it. Meanwhile Jon tries not to break into literal pieces without the Eye, and also to pretend he’s having a good time as he and Martin lunch with Annabelle, parry gifts from Salesa, and quarrel about whether Jon’s okay or not. He's fine! It's just that the apocalypse runs on dream logic, and chronic pain feels worse when you're awake. Excerpt:

“Have I mentioned how weird it is you’re the one who keeps asking me this stuff?” “I’m sorry. I’m trying to help? I just…” Jon closed his eyes, which itched with the warehouse’s dust, and rubbed their lids with an index finger. “I can’t seem to corral my thoughts here.” “Don’t worry about it. It’s actually kind of fun, it’s just—I’m so used to being the sidekick,” Martin laughed. “Besides, I miss my eldritch Google.” “Should I go back out there, ask the Eye about it, then come back?” Another laugh, this one less awkward. “No. That won’t work, remember? This place is a ‘blind spot,’ you said.” The words in inverted commas he said with a frown and in a deeper voice. “Right, right. I forgot,” Jon sighed. He lowered himself to the floor and examined the finger he’d felt snap back into place when he let go his cane. During the five seconds he’d allowed himself to entertain it, the idea of heading back out there had excited him a little. A few minutes to check on Basira, verify what Salesa had told them about his life before the change, make sure the world hadn’t somehow ended twice over. Give himself a few minutes’ freedom of movement, for that matter. Out there he could run, jump, open jars, pick up full mugs of tea without worrying a screw in his hand would come loose and make him drop them. He could stand up as quickly as he thought the words, I think I’ll stand up now, without his vision going dark. God, and even if it did, it wouldn’t matter! He would just know every tripping hazard and every look on Martin’s face, without having to ask these clumsy human eyes to show them to him. “Honestly, it’d almost feel worth it to go back out there just to formulate a plan to find them. At least I can think out there.” “Hey.” Martin elbowed him slightly in the ribs. Jon fought with himself not to resent the very gentleness of it. “I think I’ll come up with the plan for once, thanks. Some of us can think just fine here.” Was it just because of Hopworth that Martin’s elbow barely touched him? Or because Martin feared that Jon would break in here, in a way he’d learnt not to fear out there?

Huge thanks to @pilesofnonsense for hosting this event; to @connanro for beta-reading; and to @silmapeli for their amazing illustration, whose own post you can find here.

If you prefer, you can read this fic instead on Ao3. I won't link it directly, since Tumblr has trouble with external links, but if you google the title and add "echinoderms" (my Ao3 handle), it should come up!

Crunch. “Oh god. Shit! Oh god, oh no—”

“What’s wrong? What happened?”

A clatter, then a noise like a small rock scraping a large one. Jon’s heart plunged; halfway through his question he knew the answer.

“I—I broke it? Look, see, the whole thing just—take this.” Martin tore his hand out of Jon’s and dropped the severed doorknob in it instead. Then he dropped to the floor, diving head- and hands-first for the crack between it and the door as if that crack were a portal between dimensions. Jon closed his eyes and shook this image away, hoping when he opened them again he could focus on what was real.

He should have known this would happen from the moment they left for breakfast. Every time he’d opened that door its knob felt a little looser. Why hadn’t he warned Martin? Well, alright, he didn’t need powers to know that one. He just hadn’t thought of it. Been a bit preoccupied, after all. And even if he had thought of it, that was exactly the kind of conversation he’d been shying away from all week. Watch out for that doorknob; it’s a little loose, he would say, and yeah, probably Martin would answer, Oh, thanks. But there was a chance Martin would say instead, Why didn’t you tell me?—and all week Jon had obeyed an instinct to avoid prompting that question. All week he had made sure to enter and exit their room a few steps ahead of Martin, and hold the door open for him. Martin probably just saw it as Jon’s way of apologizing for their first few months in the Archives together, and once that thought occurred to him Jon had started to look at it that way himself. Maybe that’s why he’d forgot this time.

“Nooo-oooo, come on come on!”

“I don’t think you’ll fit,” Jon said, when he looked again and found Martin trying to wedge his fingers under the door.

(Martin used to leave Jon’s office door open behind him—perhaps absentmindedly, but more likely as a gesture of friendship and openness, which the Jon of that time would not suffer. Sasha and Tim, n.b., only left his door open on their way into his office, when they didn’t intend to stay long; Martin would leave it gaping even if he didn’t mean to come back. Every time Jon had sighed, pulled himself to his feet, and closed the door behind Martin, drawing out the click of its tongue in the latch. And a few times he’d closed the door in front of him, so as to exclude him from a conversation between Jon and Tim or Sasha that he, Martin, had tried to weigh in on from outside Jon’s office.)

“What are you looking for?”

“The—the screw, I saw it roll under there. It fell down on our side. Oh, my god, it was so close—if I’d reacted just half a second earlier, I could’ve?—shit.”

“Oh.” Jon huffed out a cynical laugh.

“I can’t believe it. I broke Salesa’s door! He welcomes us in to an oasis, and I break the door. Oh, god—I’ve broken an irreplaceable door, in a stately historic mansion!”

A few more demonstrative huffs of laughter. “No you didn’t.”

Martin paused. He didn’t get up, but did turn his head to look at Jon. “Yes I did. It’s right there in your hand, Jon—”

“I should’ve known. Check for cobwebs, Martin.”

“Oh come on.”

“This can’t be your fault—it’s far too neat. This is all part of Annabelle’s plan.”

“Do you know that?”

“W-well, no. I can’t, not here. I just—”

“Yeah, I don’t think so, Jon. Pretty sure it’s just an old doorknob.”

“Did you check for cobwebs?”

“Of course there are no cobwebs. A spider wouldn’t even have time to finish building the web before somebody wrecked it opening the door!”

“Then what’s that?” With the tip of his cane Jon tapped the floor in front of a clot of gray fluff in the seam between two walls next to the door, making sure not to let it touch the clot itself.

Martin rolled over to see where he was pointing, and almost stuck his elbow in it. “Ah. Gross. Gross, is what that is.”

“Christ, I should’ve known this would happen. I did know this would happen,” Jon reminded himself—“just ignored the warning signs because I can’t think straight here.”

“It doesn’t mean anything, Jon. It’s a corner. Spiders love corners. I mean, unless you can prove the corner of our doorway has more spiderwebs than anywhere else in the house—”

“Well, of course not. You forget she’s got her own corner somewhere, which we still haven’t found by the way—”

“So, what, you think Annabelle Cane lassoed the screw with a strand of cobweb.”

“Not literally? She could be sitting on the other side of the door with a magnet for all we know!”

Martin peered under the door again with an exasperated sigh. “She’s not.”

“Not now she’s heard us talking about her.”

God, what a delicate web that would be, if all he had to do to avoid the spider’s clutches was reach a door before Martin did. Perhaps if he’d knocked first that’d have saved him. Maybe Martin was right. How could Annabelle know him well enough to foresee this mistake? Most of the time he hated people opening doors for him, after all.

Why do people see someone with a cane and think, Only one free hand? How ever will he open the door!? They don’t do that for people with shopping bags—not ones his age, at least. Letting another person open a door for him felt to Jon like… defeat, somehow. Like admitting the dolce et decorum estness of this version of reality all nondisabled people seemed to live in where he couldn’t open doors. And that version of reality horrified him. Not so much the idea of being too weak to open them—that sounded merely annoying. Like knocking the sides of jar lids on tables and swearing, only with doors. He had beat his fists against enough Pull doors in his time to figure he could live with that. It was more the idea of becoming that way. Letting his door-opening muscles atrophy ‘til it became the truth.

But sometimes you just let a thing happen, and forget to hate it. That was the thing about pride. Sometimes your convictions and your habits stop fitting together—you believe Fuck this job with all your heart, but still tuck in your shirt when you come to the office. And then you fly back from America in borrowed clothes, and pop in at the Institute like that on your way to Gertrude’s storage unit, and that’s what changes your habits. Not the knowledge you can’t be fired; not your now-boyfriend’s plot to put your then-boss behind bars. A thirdhand t-shirt with a slogan on it about how to outrun bears.

On his way out this morning the doorknob had felt so loose in Jon’s hand he almost had told Martin about it. But Martin had been full of let’s-go-on-an-adventure-together-style chatter—like when they’d left Daisy’s safehouse, only, get this, without the dread of entering an apocalyptic wasteland—and listening to him put the door out of Jon’s mind before he’d had time to interject.

Their first day here—or at least, the first they spent awake—Jon had inadvertently taught Martin not to accept invitations from Salesa. The latter had bounded up after Martin’s lunch in linen shirt and whooshy shorts and was, to Martin’s then-unseasoned heart, impossible to deny. So Jon had spent thirty minutes on a creaky folding chair, lunging out of his seat on occasion to collect a ball one of the other two had hit wrong, and trying to keep Salesa’s too-bright white socks out of sight. He’d pretended he preferred to sit out, knowing Martin would worry if he tried to play. But he hadn’t done as good a job hiding his boredom as he thought. “Thanks for putting up with that. Sorry it went on so long,” Martin had said as they re-entered their bedroom. “I just couldn’t say no to him, you know? For such a cynical old man he’s got impressive puppy eyes.”

“It’s fine? You know me, I don’t mind… watching.”

“I just mean, I’m sorry you couldn’t play. How’s your leg, by the way? Er—both your legs, I guess.”

“It’s fine. They’re both fine. I didn’t want to play anyway, remember? I don’t know how.”

“Sure you don’t,” Martin replied, words tripping over a fond laugh.

“I don’t!”

“Come on, Jon. Everyone knows how to play ping-pong.”

Martin had turned down Salesa when he showed up the next day in khaki shorts and a pith helmet with three butterfly nets, without Jon’s having to say a word. More emphatically still did he turn him down when Salesa mentioned the house had an indoor pool, and offered to lend them both antique bathing suits like the one he had on, “Free of charge! A debtor is an enemy, after all, and in this new world I have no wish to make an enemy of” (sarcastic whisper, fingers wiggling) “the Ceaseless Watcher who rules it. I have nothing to hide from you,” he’d alleged, for the… third time that day, maybe? Each morning Jon resolved to count such references; he rarely missed one, as far as he knew, but kept forgetting how many he’d counted.

But Salesa was a salesman, and over time his efforts had grown more subtle. He stopped showing up already dressed for the activity he had in mind, and instead would drop hints at meals about all the fun things they could do if only they would let him show them. Martin loved how the winter sunlight caught, every afternoon around four, in the branches of a tree visible outside the window of their bedroom. “Ah, yes,” Salesa had agreed when he remarked on it one morning. “Turning it periwinkle and the golden green of champagne.” (He poured sparkling wine—the cheap stuff, he said, not real champagne—into an empty juice glass still lined with orange pulp. Over and over, without once overflowing. The oranges weren’t ripe enough to drink their juice plain yet, he said. But they’d still run out of juice first.) “If you think that’s beautiful”—he paused to swallow bubbles come up from his throat, waved his hand, shook his head. “No. On one tree, yes, it is beautiful. But on a whole orchard of bare trees in winter”—he nodded in the direction of Upton’s orchards—“the afternoon sun is sublime. You can see how the twigs shrink and shiver under its gaze; the grass rustles with a hitch in its breath as if it fears to be seen, but with each undulation a new blade flashes gold like a coin,” &c., &c.

“Wow. Sounds like you really got lucky, finding such a nice place to, uh. Sssset up camp?”

Jon knew Martin well enough to hear the judgment in his voice; if Salesa recognized it then he was an expert at pretending not to. “And it's only a two-minute walk away,” he’d said, instead of taking Martin’s bait. “It would be such a shame for my guests not to see it.”

“Oh, well. Maybe in a few days? It’s just, we’ve been outside nonstop for ages. It’s nice to be between four walls again. Besides, we don’t know the grounds as well as you do—and the border isn’t all that stable, you said? Right?”

“It is if you know how to follow it! I could accompany you—show you all the best sights, with no risk of wandering back out into the hellscape by mistake.”

“We’re just not really ready for that, I don’t think. Right, Jon?”

“Mm.”

“Are you sure? If it were me, a foray into a beautiful natural oasis would be just what I needed to convince myself that my peace—my sanctuary—is real.”

“If it is real,” Jon couldn’t stop himself from muttering.

Salesa remained impervious. “You would be surprised how difficult it is to feel fear in a place like that. I don’t think that is just the camera.”

“We‘ll think about it,” Martin conceded.

“Yes—you should both think about it. I am at your disposal whenever you change your mind.”

And so on that morning they had narrowly escaped. Would they had fared so well today. The problem was, on these early occasions Jon had interpreted Martin’s No thankses as being, well, Martin’s. But after a few more of Salesa’s sales pitches Jon began to second-guess that.

“Is it warm enough in here for you both?” Salesa had asked them last night at dinner. “I worry too much, perhaps. I only wish the place took less time to warm up in the morning. At breakfast time, in sunny weather like we've been having, I’ll bet you anything you like it’s warmer out there than in here.”

“It’s alright; we’re not too cold in the mornings either. Right, Jon?”

“Hm? Oh—no.”

“Perhaps we three could take breakfast out there, before the weather changes.”

“Ha—that’s right,” Martin had laughed. “I forgot you still had that out here. Weather changes. Brave new world, I guess.”

Salesa smirked and shrugged. “Well, braver than the rest of it.”

“R…ight. ‘We three,’ you said—so not Annabelle?”

“Mmmmno, probably not her. I have tried taking spiders outside before; they never seem to like it much.”

Nearly every day, here, Jon found a spider in their bathtub. The first time Martin had been with him. Martin had picked the thing up with his fingers and tried to coax it to leave out the window, but by the time he got there it’d crawled up his sleeve.

“Excuse me.”

Martin pulled back his own chair too and frowned up at him. “You okay?”

“Just needed the toilet.” He tried to arrange his mouth into a gentle smile. “Think I can do that on my own.”

The other two resumed their conversation the moment Jon left the dining room. Before the intervening walls muffled their voices Jon heard:

“I suppose that does sound pretty nice.”

“Pretty nice, you suppose? Martin, Martin—it’s a beautiful oasis! What a shame it will be if you leave this place having done no more than suppose about it.”

“It is a bit of a waste, I guess.”

“You wouldn’t need to sit on the ground, if that’s what concerns you. There are benches everywhere.”

He’d been just about to cross through a doorway and out of earshot when he froze, hearing his name:

“Oh, ha—not me, but, Jon might find that nice to know,” Martin said. “Thanks for.” And then silence.

Was that the whole reason he kept declining invitations to explore the grounds? To keep grass stains out of Jon’s trousers? Martin was the one who’d sat down on that godforsaken Extinction couch; why did he think—?

Not the point, Jon told himself as he sat on the toilet and set his forehead on the heels of his palms. He tried to watch the floor for spiders, but his eyes kept crossing. The point was that if—? If Martin was lying about wanting to stay inside—or, more charitably, if he was telling the truth but wanted that only because he thought Jon would have as dismal a time out in the garden as he had at ping-pong—then…?

He imagined holding hands with Martin while surrounded by green. Gravel crunching under their feet. Martin smiling, with sunlight caught in the strands of his hair that a slight breeze had blown upright.

“And if you get too warm,” he heard Salesa tell Martin, as he headed back into the dining room, “we can move into the shade of the pines! You know, they don’t just grow year-round? They also shed year-round. The floor under them is always carpeted in needles, so you need never get mud on your shoes.”

“Huh,” Martin laughed. “Never thought of it that way.”

“But of course there are benches there too,” Salesa added, his eyes flickering up to Jon.

As Jon hauled himself into his seat he asked, in a voice he hoped the strain made sound distracted ergo casual, “So, what, like a picnic, you mean.”

Not a fun picnic. Not very romantic, since their third wheel was the first to invite himself. Salesa neglected to mention how much wet grass they would have to trek through to get to his favorite spot; that there were benches everywhere didn’t matter since they couldn’t all three fit on one, so they ended up sat in the dirt after all—and n.b. it required a second trek to find a patch of dirt dry enough to sit on at this time of morning. Jon was so sick with fatigue by the time they sat down he could barely eat a thing, though he did dispatch most of Martin’s thermos of tea. His hands shook and buzzed, and felt clumsy, like they’d fallen asleep; he ended up getting more jam in the dirt than on Salesa’s soggy, pre-buttered toast. He felt as though the rest of his flesh had melted three feet to the left of his eyes, bones and mind. Eventually he elected to blame his dizziness on the sun. When his forehead and upper lip started to prickle, threatening sweat, he stood up and announced, “It’s too hot here.”

Or tried to stand, anyway. One leg had oozed just far enough out of its joint that it buckled when he tried to stand; indigo and fuchsia blotches overtook his sight. He pitched forward, free arm pinwheeling—might have fallen into the boiled eggs if Martin hadn’t caught him. “Jon! Are you okay?”

God, why was Martin so surprised? This must have been the fifth or sixth time he had asked him that question since they left the house. One time Jon had bent down to brush dirt off his leg and Martin had thought he was scratching his bandages. So he asked him were they itchy, had they started to peel, did they need changing again, were they cutting off his circulation (no, not yet, not yet, and no). How could someone be so attentive to imaginary ills and yet miss the real ones? At another point, an enormous blue dragonfly had buzzed past, and instead of Did you see that? Martin had turned around to ask Are you okay. Now, on this fifth or sixth occasion, for a few seconds of pure, nonsensical rage he wondered how Martin dared stoop to such emotional blackmail. Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies, Jon thought; aloud he snorted, as in malicious laughter. His throat felt thick, like he might cry.

“Fine, I’m just—sick of it here.” He pulled his arm free of Martin’s and overbalanced. Didn’t fall, just. Staggered a little.

“Should we move to the shade? We could try to find those famous pines, I guess.”

Jon sank back to the ground. “What about Salesa? Do we just leave him here?”

“Oh. Right,” said Martin. Salesa had eaten most of Jon’s share, and drunk both Jon’s and Martin’s shares of wine. Now he lay asleep in the dirt, head pillowed on one elbow, the other hand’s fingers curled round the stem of a glass still half full. “I guess, yeah? I mean he seems to know the place pretty well, so. It’s not like he’ll get lost out here.”

“We might, though.”

Martin sighed. “True. Should we just head back to our room, then? Maybe get you a snack.”

“Not hungry.”

“A statement, I meant.”

“Oh. Alright, sure,” Jon made himself say. “That sounds like—sure.”

So then they’d headed back, and only Martin had a free hand, and Jon was too tired by that point to distinguish his mind’s vague warning not to let Martin open the door from his usual pride on that subject—and that kind of pride never does seem as important when it’s your boyfriend offering. So he’d dismissed the warning and, well, look what happened.

When he got up from his knees and turned round Martin frowned at Jon. “Are you alright? You’re sat on the floor.”

Jon frowned, too—at the seam between the floor and the hallway’s opposite wall. “I was tired.”

“You hate sitting on the floor.”

“I sat on the ground out there,” Jon said, with a shrug that morphed into a nod in the direction they’d come from.

“Yeah, under duress,” Martin scoffed. “In the Extinction domain you wouldn’t even sit on the couch.”

There was something odd in Martin’s bringing that up now; somewhere, in the back of his mind, Jon could hear a pillar of thought crumbling. But he lacked the energy to find out which of his mind’s structures now stood crooked. “I think this floor is a lot cleaner than that couch,” he said instead, with an incredulous laugh.

“Even with the cobwebs?” Martin didn’t wait for Jon’s answering nod. “Fair enough,” he said, one hand on the back of his neck as he twisted it back and forth. He dropped the hand, sighed, cracked his knuckles. Looked at Jon again. “Yeah, okay. Guess we don’t have to deal with this right now. Let’s find you another bedroom first.”

“Maybe that’s just what Annabelle wants,” Jon muttered, deadpanning so he wouldn’t have to decide whether this was a joke.

Martin snorted. “I’ll risk it.”

Find was a generous way to put it; in fact there was another bedroom only two doors down. By the time Jon got his legs unfolded he could hear the squeak of a door swinging open down the hall. When he looked up, Martin said as their eyes met, “Nope—bed’s too small. You good there ‘til I find one that’ll work?”

“Seems that way.” Jon tried to smile, relief warring with his usual If you want something done right urge. In the quiet moment after Martin neglected to close that door and before he swung open the next one, Jon made himself add, “Thank you.”

“Of course. Oh wow,” Martin said of the next room, in whose doorway he’d stopped. “This one’s a lot nicer than ours. It’s got a balcony. Wallpaper’s pretty loud though. D’you think that’ll keep you awake?” Laughingly, “I know you don’t close your eyes to sleep anymore, so.”

“How loud is ‘pretty loud’?”

“Sort of a… dark, orangey red, with flowers?”

Jon shrugged. “I won’t see it at night.”

“Oh, god. I hope it doesn’t come to that. Should we do this one, then?” Instead of closing the door, Martin swung it the rest of the way open, then strode back to Jon’s side of the corridor, arm already outstretched. Jon managed to stand before Martin could reach him, but, as it had done outside, his vision went dark for a few seconds. He felt Martin’s hand on his shoulder before he could see his frown.

“You alright?” Martin asked yet again.

“Yes. I’m fine.”

“It’s just—you don’t usually blink anymore, except for effect.”

“Oh.”

Out there, none of the watchers blinked. At first, soon after the change, Martin had asked Jon to try, “Because it just feels so weird. Like I’m under constant scrutiny. Literally constant, Jon. You get why that feels weird, right?” (Jon had agreed—sincerely, though he wondered why Martin needed to ask that question in a world whose central conceit was that being watched felt weird. He’d also chosen not to point out that his scrutiny, like that of Jonah Magnus, was not, technically, constant, since he did sometimes look at other things. But he still rehearsed this retort in his mind every time he remembered that conversation.) Turned out it was hard to time your blinks properly when your eyeballs didn’t need the moisture. He’d forget about it for who knew how long, then remember and overcompensate by blinking so often Martin at first thought he was exaggerating it on purpose as a joke. It got old fast, in Jon’s opinion, but even after he learnt Jon didn’t intend it as a joke Martin still found it funny. “You’re doing it again,” he’d say every time, shoulders wiggling. Eventually Jon had asked him,

“You know you don’t blink anymore either, right?”

“Oh god, don’t I?” When Jon shook his head, with a smile whose teeth he tried to keep covered, Martin squeezed his own eyes shut and pushed their lids back and forth with his fingers. “Ugh—gross!” And for the next half hour he’d done the whole forget-to-blink-for-five-minutes-then-do-it-ten-times-in-as-many-seconds routine, too. After that they had both agreed to pretend not to notice the lack of blinking. Jon figured he couldn’t hold it against Martin that he’d broken this rule though, since Jon himself had broken it first, on their first morning here:

“You blinked,” he had informed Martin as he watched him stir sugar into his tea. Martin, who had not only blinked but broken eye contact to make sure he dropped the sugar cube in the right place, replied with a scoff,

“Didn’t know it was a staring contest.”

“No, I mean—”

“Oh! I blinked!”

“…Right,” Jon said now. “I’m—it’s nothing.”

Martin sighed. He closed his eyes, but probably rolled them under their lids. Jon used the inspection of their new room as an excuse to look away, but took in nothing other than the presence of a large bed and the flowered wallpaper Martin had warned him about.

“‘Kay. If you’re sure.”

Taking a seat at the foot of the bed, Jon looked down at his grass-stained knees and prepared himself to ask, Look, does it matter? I’m about to lie down anyway, so, functionally speaking, yes, I am fine.

“So, you’ll be okay here for a bit while I go figure out what to do about the door?”

“Sure.”

“Okay. I’ll come check on you as soon as I know anything, yeah?”

“Of course.”

“Although—if you’re asleep, should I wake you up?”

“Yes,” Jon replied before Martin had even got the last word out. He heard a short, emphatic exhale, presumably of laughter. “Wait—how would you know, anyway?”

“Oh. Yeah, good point.”

Jon looked down at his shoes. His fingers throbbed in anticipation, but he figured he should spare Martin the horror of getting grass stains on a second bedroom’s counterpane. The first shoe he pulled off without untying, since he could step on its heel with the other one. But he had to bend over to reach the second one’s incongruously bright white laces, biting his lip when he felt his right femur poke past the bounds of its socket as between a cage’s bars. On his way back up his vision quivered like a heat mirage, but didn’t go dark. He scooched himself up to the head of the bed. Made sure to face the ceiling rather than the red wallpaper.

A few months into his tenure in the Archives, Jon had discovered that if you close your eyes at your desk, even just for a minute, you can trick your whole body into thinking you’ve been gentle with it. But that trick didn’t work anymore. Out there, this made sense; interposing his eyelids between himself and the world’s new horrors couldn’t push them out of his consciousness, any more than it had helped to close the curtains at Daisy’s safehouse. Martin’s sentimental attachment to sleep had baffled him, as had his insistence on closing his eyes even though they’d pop back open as soon as his body went limp. Here, though, Jon sympathized with Martin’s wish. He too missed that magic link between closed eyes and sleep. Probably he should just be grateful for this rest from knowing other people’s suffering? The thing he had wished to close his eyes against was gone here. But now that most of his bodily wants had synced up with his actions again, it felt… wrong, like a tangible loss, that he couldn’t assert It’s time for rest now by closing his eyelids. That it took effort to keep them joined. Jon even found himself missing the crust that used to stick them together on mornings after long sleep.

That should have been his first sensation on waking, their first morning here. After seventy-one hours his eyelids should’ve been practically super-glued together. Instead, they’d apparently stayed open the entire time. It wasn’t uncomfortable—he hadn’t woken up with them smarting or anything. Hadn’t noticed one way or the other; after all, when not forced awake by an alarm, one rarely notices the moment one opens one’s eyes in the morning. He just didn’t like knowing that he looked the same waking and sleeping. It didn’t make sense. The dreams hadn’t followed him here, so what was he watching? He could see nothing but the ceiling.

He rolled over, hoping to look out the window. Doors, technically. Between gauzy curtains he could make out only wrought-iron bars and the tops of a few trees. A nice view, he could tell; when he got his second wind he was sure he’d find it pretty. For now he wondered how much more energy debt he had put himself in by rolling over.

Drowning in debt? We can help!

How had he not foreseen how horrible it would be inside the Buried? The inability to move or speak without pain and loss of breath—“Just imagine,” he muttered sarcastically to the empty air, as though addressing his past self. “What might that be like.” He’d lived for years with the weight of exhaustion on his back—heavier at that time than it’d ever been before. And he knew how it felt to risk injury with every movement. What an odd frame of mind he must have lived in then, to think his magic healing wouldn’t let him get scratched up down there. Had he thought it would protect him from fear? I must save my friend from this horrible place! But also, If I get stuck there forever, no big deal; I deserve it, after all. There seemed something so arrogant about that now, that idea that deserving pain could somehow mitigate it. That because monsterhood made him less innocent, it would make him less of a victim. How could he have thought that, when he’d known pulling her out of there didn’t mean he forgave her? He should apologize to Daisy for—

Right. Nope, never mind.

He began to regret rolling over. If he planned to stay on his side like this for long, he shouldn’t leave his shoulder and hip dangling. He could already feel their joints beginning to slide apart. But his body had started to drift to that faraway place from which no grievance ever seemed urgent enough to recall it—neither pain now nor the threat of greater pain later. Nor the three cups of tea he’d drunk.

After he and Martin had fallen asleep on Salesa’s doorstep, Jon had vague memories of being led up the stairs to their bedroom, though he remembered neither being shaken awake nor getting into bed. Just a seventy-odd-hour blank spot, followed by pain of a kind he had thought he’d left behind.

It wasn’t that watchers couldn’t feel pain, after the change. They could, but it was like how real-world pain felt through the veil of a dream. Your actions didn’t affect it as directly as they should. In the Necropolis Martin had asked him, “How exactly does a leg wound make you faster?” If he’d had the courage to answer, at the time he would have said something about his own wounds not seeming important now that he had to tune out those of the whole world. That wasn’t it though, he knew now. Pain just worked differently out there. When Daisy attacked him, it had hurt—but the wound she left him hadn’t protested movement. Not until he and Martin entered the grounds of Upton House. You could bear weight on an injured leg just fine out there, because it wouldn’t hurt more when you stood on it than otherwise.

Sometimes, when his joints slid apart while he slept, he could still feel it in his dreams. Up until 13th January 2016 (for months after which date he dreamt Naomi Herne’s graveyard and nothing else), his sleeping mind used to craft scenarios to explain its own pain and panic to itself. Running from an exploding grenade, staying awake through surgery, that sort of thing. But over the years, as the sensation grew familiar, his dreams about it became less urgent, their anxieties more mundane. He’d shout for help from passing cars, then feel like he’d lied to the stranger who opened their door to him when it turned out running to get in the car hurt no more than standing still.

Even before the change, it’d been ages since he’d had to worry about that. Since the coma, Beholding had fixed all these accidents, the way it’d fixed the finger he tried to chop off. They wouldn’t reset with a clunk, the way they had when he used to fix them by hand. It was more like his body reverted to a version the Eye had saved before the moment of injury. When he tried to pull open a Push door he’d hear the first clunk, followed by about half a second of pain, then after a gentle burst of static—nothing. Just a door handle between his fingers that needed pushing. If he tripped on uneven pavement he might still go down, but his ankle wouldn’t hurt when he stood back up, and the scrapes on his hands would heal before he could inspect them. Here, though, in this place the Eye couldn’t see, Jon lacked such protections. He didn’t have the dreams either? And that was more than worth it as a tradeoff, he was sure. But it still smarted to remember that pain had been his first sensation waking up in an oasis. Not birdsong, not sunshine striped across linen, not the warm weight of another person next to him. He knew he’d come back to a place ruled by physics rather than fear because he’d woken up with gaps between his bones.

“Jon? Are you awake?”

“Hm? Oh. Yes.”

“Cool.” Martin sat down on what felt like the corner of bed nearest the door. “I think I know how to do this now.”

“How to put the doorknob back on?”

“Yeah. God, I still can’t believe it twisted clean off in my hand like that. With no warning—like, zero to sixty in less than a second. I mean, can you believe our luck? The thing’s perfectly functional, and then suddenly it just—comes off!”

“Er…”

“Oh, god, sorry—I didn’t mean—”

“What? Oh—hrkgh”—Jon rolled around to face Martin, hoping the little yelp he let out when his leg slopped back into joint would sound like a noise of exasperation rather than pain. He found Martin sat looking down at the severed doorknob which poked up from between his knees. “No, Martin, of course not, I know—”

“Still, I’m sorry about—”

“No, it’s—it’s fine?”

On that first morning, Jon had managed to get his limbs screwed back on properly without making enough noise to wake up Martin. He’d limped out of their room and down the hall, pushing doors open until he’d found a toilet, whereupon he sat to pee and marveled that the flush and sink still worked. It was bright enough inside that he hadn’t thought to try the light switch on his way in—too busy contorting his neck to look for the sun out the window. On his way out, though, he flicked it on, then off. Then on again and off again. How could it work, when there was no power grid the house could connect to? Automatically Jon tried to search his mind’s Eye for a domain based in a power plant or something. Right, no, of course—that power did not work here.

When he got back to their room he found Martin awake. “Oh—morning,” Jon told him with a shy laugh.

“It—it is morning, isn’t it,” Martin marveled. Then he asked if Jon could hand him the map sticking out of his backpack’s side pocket. (What good are maps when the very Earth logic no longer applied here, after all. But Martin was rubbish at geography, so Jon still had to provide the You Are Here sign with his finger for him.) Jon grabbed the map on his way back to bed, and was about to tell him about the miracles of plumbing and electricity he’d just witnessed—not to mention the bathtub he’d admired on the long trek from toilet to sink—when Martin frowned and asked, “Why are you limping?”

“Am I?” Jon had shrugged, then cleared his throat when the motion made his shoulder audibly click. “Daisy, must be.”

“No, Jon. That’s the wrong leg.”

He slid both legs out of sight under the blankets and handed Martin the map. “It’s nothing. It just… came off a bit. Last night."

Before Jon could add It’s fixed now though, Martin said, “I’m sorry, what?”

Jon had assumed Martin understood the kind of thing he meant, but that he’d misled him as to its degree—i.e., that Martin objected to his talking about a full hip dislocation like it mattered less than what happened with Daisy. So he’d said,

“No, sorry, not all the way off—”

And Martin just laughed. “What, and you taped it back up like—like an old computer cable?”

“Sort of, yeah? It—it does still work, more or less.”

“Right, of course. No need to get a new one, yet; you can just limp along with this one. No big deal! Just make sure you don’t pull too hard on it.”

“I mean.” By now he could sense Martin’s sarcasm, his bitterness; that didn’t mean he knew what to do with them. So he'd said with a huff of laughter, “I can’t just send for a new one. That’s—that’s not how bodies work. You have to….” Wait for it to sort itself out was the natural end to that sentence. But he hadn’t been sure he could say that without opening a can of worms.

“Wait so… what actually happened? Are you okay?”

Only at this point had Jon recognized Martin’s response as one of incomprehension. What happened exactly? he had asked, too, when Jon told him the ice-cream anecdote. Did no one ever listen when you told them about these things?

“Nothing. Never mind. It’s fine.”

“Oh come on.”

“It’s. Fine! It’s not important.”

And then for days Martin kept alluding to it. Like some kind of reminder to Jon that he hadn’t opened up, disguised as a joke. Every time something came out or fell down he’d mutter, “So it came off, you might say.” Eventually they’d fallen out over it, and now neither one could come near the phrase without this song and dance.

“Don’t worry about it, Martin,” Jon assured him now; “I’m over it.”

“…Uh huh. Well, putting that to one side for the moment—I think I can fix this?”

“Oh? Great!—”

“—Yeah! It should be simple, actually. I think I just need to replace the screw that fell out? I mean, there doesn’t seem to be anything actually broken, just, you know,” with an awkward laugh, “the screw lives on the wrong side of the door now. But if we can just put a new one in the door should be fine.” He looked to Jon as if for help plotting their next steps.

“I—I don’t, um. Think we have one.”

Martin’s shoulders dropped; the corners of his mouth tightened. “Yeah, I know we don’t have one, Jon. I just mean, we need to find out where Salesa keeps them.”

“Oh!” Jon replied, in a brighter tone. Then he registered what this meant. “Oh. Right.”

“Y…eah.”

“Any idea where to look?”

They checked what seemed to Martin the most obvious place first. Salesa used one of the ground-floor drawing rooms as a sort of repository for everything he’d left as yet unpacked—all the practical items he hadn’t been able to repurpose as toys, plus some antiques he’d been too fond of or too nervous to part with. Two nights ago, Salesa had noticed the state of Jon’s and Martin’s shoelaces, and insisted they let him replace them with some from this little warehouse. “Please, come with me; I’ve nothing to hide. You can have a look around, see if I have anything that might help you on your journey….” As he said this he’d counted to two on his fingers, as though listing off attractions they should be sure not to miss.

Jon watched Martin perk right up at this. All week Salesa had kept pleading with them to tell him about any luxuries they had wanted while touring the apocalypse, so he could try to find something to fulfill those wants. “Well, I—I don’t know about luxuries,” Martin had ventured the third time this came up. “But I do think we might run out of bandages soon, so. If you’ve any extra?”

“Of course, of course, yes, how prudent of you, always with one eye on the future. Must be the Beholding in you.” (Neither Jon nor Martin knew what to say to that.) “But there will be plenty of time for that. I meant something for now, while you are here, while you don’t need to think of things like that.” And sure enough, each time Salesa had come to them with presents from his little warehouse (booze, butterfly nets, more booze, antique bathing suits, &c.), he’d forgot about Martin’s homely request for gauze and tape. Martin insisted they change the dressing on Jon’s leg every day; by now they’d run through the bandages he brought from Daisy’s safehouse. So when Salesa suggested they accompany him to his repository, Martin said,

“Sure, yeah! That sounds really helpful.” (Salesa clutched his heart as though he’d waited all his life to hear such praise.) “Er. The things in your warehouse, though. They’re not L—um.” Leitners, Martin had almost called them. “You don’t think they’ll develop any… strange properties, when we leave here, do you?”

“Of course not,” Salesa had answered, stopping and turning all the way around in the corridor to face Martin with a frown. “Martin, I promise, only my antiques are cursed—and even then, not all of them.” He’d resumed the walk toward his little warehouse, but turned around again and held up a hand, as if to preempt a question. “There are, indeed, yes, some items out there, touched by the Corruption, which can pass their infection on to other things they come in contact with. But, no,” he went on, his voice fighting off a joyous laugh, “no, the only item I have like that does almost the opposite.”

“Oh.”

Salesa nodded, but did not turn around this time. “Strange little thing. It’s an antique syringe that, so long as you keep it near you, repels the Crawling Rot. I like to think it helped dispatch that insect thing Annabelle chased away. But if you try to get rid of it,” he added in a darker tone, “all the sickness, the bugs, the smells, even stains on your clothes—everything disgusting that it’s kept away—they remember who you are, and they hunger for you more than anyone else. The man who sold it to me….” He shook his head ruefully, hand now resting on the door.

“Was eaten alive by mosquitoes,” Jon muttered.

“Something like that, yes,” said Salesa, as he jerked open the door.

Jon hated the way his and Martin’s shoes looked now. He hadn’t had to put new laces on a pair of old, dirty shoes since he was a kid, and the contrast looked wrong—the same way starched collars and slicked-back hair on kids look wrong. Jon’s trainers were gray, their laces a slightly darker gray, so these white ones wouldn’t have looked quite right even without the dirt. Martin’s had once been white, but their original laces were broad and flat, while these were narrow and more rounded. The replacements’ thin, clinical white lines looked something between depressing and menacing. Too much like spider web; too much like the stitching on Nikola’s minions. When they came undone on this morning’s walk, Jon had made sure to tread on them in the mud a few times before tying them back up. Poor Dr. Thompson’s syringe must have retained some of its power here, though, because they still looked pristine. Jon wondered if it had no effect on spiders, or if without it this whole place would have been draped in cobwebs.

Martin seemed pleased with their haul, though. Despite Salesa’s amnesia on the subject, his little warehouse held more plasters, gauze, medical tape, antibacterial ointment, alcohol wipes—the list went on—than one man could ever use. In a strange, raw moment Jon liked to pretend he hadn’t seen, Salesa had wrung his hands as his eyes passed over this hoard. His lip had quivered. He’d practically begged Martin to take the whole lot away with them. “What harm will come to me here? And if it does come, what good will it do, protecting one lonely old man from skinned knees and paper cuts? The two of you—where you are going—the gravity of your mission!” At this point he’d seized one of each their hands. “Everything I have that even might help, you must take it. Please.”

“I—yeah,” Martin stuttered. “This is—really helpful, yeah. We’ll take as much as we can fit in our bags.”

Salesa had let go their hands by this point, and crossed his arms. “Right, yes, bags, of course, the bags. Are you sure you don’t want my truck?”

“Oh, well, thanks, but I don’t think either of us knows how to—”

“To drive a truck?” Salesa uncrossed his arms and began to reach for Martin’s shoulder. “I could teach you—”

“It won’t work without the camera anyway,” pointed out Jon. “We have to walk.”

Martin sighed. ”That too. ‘The journey will be the journey,’ as Jon keeps saying.”

“I said that once,” Jon protested.

No such success on this return visit. They found a small pile of miscellaneous screws, one of which Martin said would work (though it was the wrong color, he alleged, and had clearly been meant for some other purpose), but the screwdriver they needed remained elusive. “I mean, I can’t be sure they’re not in here—the place is as bad as Gertrude’s storage unit. We could spend all day here and still not be sure—”

“Let’s not do that,” said Jon, pushing an always-warm candlestick with a pool of always-melted wax out of Martin’s way with his sleeve for what felt like the hundredth time.

“No arguments here.”

“Where to next?”

“I guess it makes sense that they’re not here. This room’s all stuff Salesa brought, and why would he bring home-repair stuff when he didn’t even know where he’d wind up.”

“Except for the screws.”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t look like he keeps screws here, remember? There’s just a couple random ones lying around, like he forgot to put them away or something.”

Jon peered between the clouds in his mind, trying to catch sight of Martin’s thought train. “So you’re saying the screwdriver should be…?”

“Somewhere less… frequented, I guess? They’ll probably still be wherever they were when Salesa found the place.”

“Not somewhere that was open to the public, then.”

Martin sighed. ”I mean yeah, probably. Not that that narrows it down much.”

“Somewhere… banal, less posh.”

“Not sure how much less posh you can get than this place. But yeah, I guess. Have I mentioned how weird it is you’re the one who keeps asking me this stuff?”

“I’m sorry. I’m trying to help? I just…” Jon closed his eyes, which itched with the warehouse’s dust, and rubbed their lids with an index finger. Odd that his eyes weren’t immune to dust, when leaving them open for seventy straight hours hadn’t bothered them. And why didn’t the syringe keep dust away? In Dr. Snow’s day (not far removed from Smirke’s, n.b.), Jon seemed to recall that dust had been used as a euphemism for all waste, including the human kind Dr. Snow had found in the cholera water. It was like how people today use filth—hence the word dustbin. And hadn’t Elias once called the Corruption Filth? Jon opened his eyes and watched Martin swirl back to full color. “I can’t seem to corral my thoughts here,” he concluded.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s actually kind of fun, it’s just—I’m so used to being the sidekick,” Martin laughed. “Besides, I miss my eldritch Google.”

“Should I go back out there, ask the Eye about it, then come back?”

Another laugh, this one less awkward. “No. That won’t work, remember? This place is a ‘blind spot,’ you said.” The words in inverted commas he said with a frown and in a deeper voice.

“Right, right. I forgot,” Jon sighed. He lowered himself to the floor and examined the finger he’d felt snap back into place when he let go his cane. During the five seconds he’d allowed himself to entertain it, the idea of heading back out there had excited him a little. A few minutes to check on Basira, verify what Salesa had told them about his life before the change, make sure the world hadn’t somehow ended twice over. Give himself a few minutes’ freedom of movement, for that matter. Out there he could run, jump, open jars, pick up full mugs of tea without worrying a screw in his hand would come loose and make him drop them. He could stand up as quickly as he thought the words, I think I’ll stand up now, without his vision going dark. God, and even if it did, it wouldn’t matter! He would just know every tripping hazard and every look on Martin’s face, without having to ask these clumsy human eyes to show them to him.

“Honestly, it’d almost feel worth it to go back out there just to formulate a plan to find them. At least I can think out there.”

“Hey.” Martin elbowed him slightly in the ribs. Jon fought with himself not to resent the very gentleness of it. “I think I’ll come up with the plan for once, thanks. Some of us can think just fine here.”

Was it just because of Hopworth that Martin’s elbow barely touched him? Or because Martin feared that Jon would break in here, in a way he’d learnt not to fear out there?

“Oh—I know,” Martin said, clicking his fingers and pointing them at Jon like a gun. “We passed a shed this morning, remember?”

Jon squinted. “Not even remotely.”

“No yeah—on our walk with Salesa. I tried to ask him what it was for, but he kept droning on and on. By the time he stopped talking I’d forgot about it.”

“Huh,” said Jon, to show he was listening.

“That seems like a good place to keep screws and all, right? If it’s so nondescript you can’t even remember it.”

“Sure.”

“Great! Are you ready now, or d’you need to sit for a bit longer?”

“I’m ready.” This time he accepted Martin’s hand, not keen to trip on something cursed.

“Anyway, if we don’t find them and Salesa’s still out there, we can ask him on the way back.”

Jon’s heart shrunk before the prospect of inviting Salesa to be the hero of their story. Please, Mr. Salesa, save us from our screwdriver-less hell! They would never hear the end of it. It would inevitably remind the old man of the countless times in his youth when he’d been the only man in the antiques trade who knew where to find some priceless treasure. Let Salesa open their stuck door and they’d find Pandora’s bloody box of stories behind it. He winced and let out a grunt as of pain before he could stop himself. “Let’s not tell him, if we can help it.”

“Of course we should tell him,” Martin protested. “We can’t just leave it broken like this.”

“But if we can fix it without his help—?”

“What? No! Even then, he’s our host. We have to tell him. It’s his door, he deserves to know its—I don’t know, history?” Martin sighed, shoving one hand in his hair and holding out the other. “If he’s got a doorknob whose screw comes loose a lot, he should know that, so he can tighten it next time before it gets out of hand. I mean, we’re lucky it only chipped the paint when it—when it fell off, you know?” (Jon, for his part, hadn’t even noticed this chip of paint Martin referred to.) “And—and suppose he’s only got this one screw left,” tapping the one in his pocket, “and the next time it happens his last screw rolls under the door like this one did.”

“And what is he supposed to do to prevent that scenario? There aren’t exactly any hardware stores in the apocalypse.”

Big sigh. “Yeah, fair enough. I still think we should tell him. It just feels wrong to hide secrets from him about his own house, you know?”

“Fine,” sighed Jon in turn. ”Should we tell him about the scorch marks on the window sill as well?”

“No?” Martin turned to him with an incredulous look. “Tell me you’re joking.”

“I mean—I was, but—”

“Please tell me you get how that’s different.”

“Enlighten me,” Jon said wearily.

“Seriously? Of course you don’t tell him about the?—those were already there! If we’d put them there, then yeah, of course we’d need to tell him.”

“So it’s about confessing your guilt, then. Not about what Salesa makes of the information.”

“I mean, I guess?” Martin looked perplexed, lips drawn into his mouth. “Actually, no. Because those are just scorch marks, they don’t—you can still get into a room with scorch marks on the windowsill, Jon.”

“And yet if you’d left them you’d tell him about it?”

“Well yeah but if I told him about it now it’d just be like I was—leaving him a bad review, or something. It’d just be rude. ‘Lovely place you have, Salesa. So kind of you to share your limited provisions with us refugees from the apocalypse. Too bad you gave us a room whose windowsill could use repainting!’”

Jon laughed. “Yes, alright, I get it.”

Martin’s sigh of relief seemed only a little exaggerated. If he hadn’t wiped pretend sweat from his brow Jon might have bought it. “Okay, that’s good, ‘cause”—when Jon kept laughing, Martin cut himself off. “Hang on, were you joking this whole time?”

“Sort of?”

“Were you just playing devil’s advocate or something?”

“I mean—not exactly? For the first seventy or eighty percent of it I was completely serious.”

“And then?”

“I don’t know. It was just—fun. It felt nice to take a definite sta—aaaa-a-aa.” Something in Jon’s lower back went wrong somehow. An SI joint, probably? The pain caught him so much by surprise that when he stepped with that side’s leg he stumbled forward.

“Whoa!” Martin’s hand closed around his upper arm. Jon yelped again, from panic more than hurt this time, as his shoulder thunked in its socket. “Jon! Are you okay?”

“Don’t do that,” Jon hissed, trying lamely to shake his arm out of Martin’s grip. It didn’t work. The attempt just made his own arm ache, and produce more ominous clunking sounds.

“I—what?”

“It was fine. I don’t need you to catch me.”

Martin let his arm go. “You were about to fall on your face, Jon.”

“I’d already caught myself—just fine—with this.” He gestured to his cane, stirring its handle like a joystick.

“How was I supposed to know that?”

“I don’t know, look?”

“It’s not—?” Martin scoffed. “Look when? It’s not like a rational calculation. I can’t just go ‘Beep. Beep. See human trip. Will human fall on face? If yes, press A to catch! If not, press B to’— what, stand there and do nothing? It’s just human nature; when you see someone falling that’s just what you do. I’m not going to apologize for not calculating the risk properly.”

“Fine! Yes, okay, you’re right. Forget I said anything.” Throwing up his free hand in defeat, Jon set off again—tried to stride, but it was hard to do that with a limp. Even with his cane, he couldn’t step evenly enough to achieve a decisive gait.

It was fine, Jon reminded himself. He’d had this injury (if you could call it that) a thousand times before. When it came on suddenly like this it never stuck around long. Sure, yeah, for now every step hurt like an urgent crisis. But any second it would right itself as quickly as it had come undone.

“No, no, I understand! Point taken! Note to future Martin,” the latter shouted from behind Jon, voice troubled by hurried steps; “next time let him fall and break his bloody nose.”

Trusting Martin to shout directions if he went the wrong way, Jon pressed on, rehearsing comebacks in his mind. Is this not a boundary I’m allowed to set? You don’t let me read statements in front of you. Isn’t that part of human—isn’t that my nature, too?

Oh, yes, human nature, that must be it. You didn’t lunge after Salesa at ping-pong the other day, did you? I saw you opening doors for Melanie when she got back from India. You stopped for a while, did you know that? You all did, everyone in the Archives. And then—it’s the strangest thing!—you all started up again after Delano. Maybe you lot don’t see the common factor here; people always do seem to think it’s more polite not to notice.

So what if I had broken my nose? You nearly broke my shoulder, catching me like that. Does that not matter because you can’t see it? Because it wouldn’t scar?

They were all too petty to say aloud. Too incongruous with the quiet. He could hear his own footsteps, and Martin’s, and the clank of his cane’s metal segments each time it hit the ground, and a few crows exclaiming about something exciting they’d found on his right. Nothing else.

“Looks like Salesa went inside,” Martin shouted from behind him.

Jon stopped walking and turned around. “What?”

“Left a couple things out here, but yeah.” Martin jogged to catch up with him, from a greater distance than Jon would have expected given how much limping slowed him down. He must have veered off course to inspect the clearing Salesa had vacated. In one hand he carried an empty wine glass by its stem, which he lifted to show Jon.

“Huh.”

“Yeah.” When he caught up with Jon, Martin stood still and panted. “Guess it won’t be as easy to ask him about it as we thought. If we don’t find what we need in there,” he added, glancing demonstratively to something behind Jon.

Following Martin’s eyes, Jon finally saw the shed. Nondescript boards, worn black and white by the elements. Surrounded by hedges three months overgrown.

Turned out it wasn’t a shed anymore, though—Salesa had converted it to a chicken coop. “Explains the boiled eggs,” shrugged Jon.

“God, they’re adorable. Do you think it’s okay to pet one?” Martin crouched in front of a black hen with a puffball of feathers on top of her head. (Martin called her a hen, anyway, and Jon trusted his authority on animals other than cats). “I don’t really know, er, ch—hicken etiquette,” he mused, voice shot through with nervous laughter.

The black hen sat alone in a little box, and didn't seem to want attention. A little red one they’d found strutting around the coop, however, ventured right up to Martin and cocked her head, like she expected him to give her a present. While Martin cooed over her and the other chickens, Jon went outside and laid flat on his back in the grass under a tree. “Take your time,” he shouted. “I’m happy here.”

Sure enough, when Martin emerged from the coop and helped him stand back up, whatever cog in Jon’s pelvis or spine he had jammed earlier was turning again. And by the time they got back to the house, Martin had talked himself into the idea that maybe all the house’s doorknobs that looked like theirs came loose a lot, and Salesa had taken to keeping the screwdriver to fix them in, say, the hall closet, or in their toilet’s under-sink cabinet.

“I think we’re gonna have to find Salesa and ask him about it,” concluded Martin, when these locations turned up nothing they wanted either.

“If you’re sure.”

Jon sat down on the closed toilet seat. Hadn’t that been what he said just before the last time he sat down on the lid of a toilet before Martin? He’d dutifully turned away, that time, as Martin undressed, wanting to make sure he knew he’d still let him have some privacy. But then, of course: “Where should I put these, do you think? —Er, my clothes I mean.”

“Oh. Um.” Jon had turned his head to look at the stain on Daisy’s ceiling, for what must have been the tenth time already. “I can hold onto them if you like.” Which then meant Martin had to get them back on before Jon could undress for his own shower and hand him his clothes. As he’d piled his trousers into Martin’s hands a tape recorder fell out of one pocket and crashed to the floor, ejecting the tape with Peter’s statement on it. “Shit,” Jon had hissed and ducked to the floor to pick it up, trusting the slit in his towel to reveal nothing worse than thigh.

“Shit,” Martin echoed. “I hope that wasn’t your phone.”

“No—just the recorder.” Still on the floor, Jon clicked its little door shut and pressed play. Sound of waves, static, footsteps. He switched it off. “Seems alright.” Thank god, he stopped himself from adding. Jon didn’t want to lose this one, this record of how he’d found Martin, in case he lost him again. But he didn’t want Martin to hear the sounds of the Lonely again so soon, either. That was why he’d stayed with Martin while he showered, rather than waiting in the safehouse living room. He wouldn’t have insisted on it, of course. He didn’t exactly believe Martin would disappear again? But long showers were such a cliché of lonely people, and steam looked so much like the mist on Peter’s beach, and when Jon asked how he felt about it, Martin said that thought hadn’t occurred to him,

“But as soon as you started to say that, I.” He’d stood with his teeth bared, half smiling half grimacing, and bringing the tips of his fingers together and apart over and over. “Yeah, I think you’re right. Heh—it scares me too now, if I’m honest. That’s… a good sign, I guess, right?”

They had come a long way since then, Jon told himself. They were more comfortable with each other now. On their first morning here, they’d showered separately, but after (Martin’s) breakfast Jon’s irritation had faded and he had resolved to pretend along with Martin that this was a holiday. So they’d got to use the enormous bathtub after all— the one at whose soap dish Jon now found himself staring as he sat on the lid of the toilet. When the heat made him dizzier, as he’d known it would, he had relished getting to rest his cheek on Martin’s arm along the rim of the tub, where it had grown cool and soft in the few minutes he’d kept it above the water.

“Let’s have lunch first,” Martin said now; “you’re getting all….” While he looked for the right word he dropped his shoulders and jaw, and mimicked a thousand-yard stare. “Abstract, again. Distant. People food should help a little, yeah? Tie you back down to this plane a bit?”

“Probably,” Jon agreed, smiling at Martin’s tact.

But to get to the kitchen they had to pass through the dining room—where they found Salesa snoring in a chair at the head of the table. “Let’s just ask him now before he gets up and moves again,” maintained Martin. Jon shrugged his acquiescence and leant in the doorway, shifting from foot to foot. Why hadn’t he used the toilet before letting Martin lead him here?

”Um, Mikaele?” Martin inched a few steps toward him, but a distance of several feet still gaped between them. “We have something to ask you, if that’s—hello? Mikaele?”

A likely-sounding gap between snores—but nope. Still sound asleep. Salesa sighed, licked his lips, then began to snore again.

“Mikaele Salesa,” called out Jon from his post at the door, rather less gently. “Mikaele Salesa!” He turned to Martin, meaning to suggest that they eat now and trust the smell of food to wake Salesa, but stopped himself when he saw Martin creeping timidly toward Salesa with his hand outstretched.

“Sorry to disturbyouMikaele,” Martin squeaked out, so quickly that the words blended together. He gave Salesa’s shoulder the lightest possible tap with one fingertip, then snatched his hand back with a grimace of regret as Salesa’s own hand reached up, belatedly, as if to swat Martin’s away. “Oh, good, you’re—”

Salesa interrupted with a snore. Martin sighed and turned to Jon. “What d’you think? Should I shake him?”

Jon pulled out a neighboring chair and sat on it. “No need for anything so drastic. Try poking him a few more times first.”

“Right.”

Once he’d tired of rolling his cane between his palms Jon bent down to set it on the floor. He’d learnt his lesson about trying to hang it on the back of these chairs, though in this fog it had taken several incidents to stick. Every time it ended up crashing to the floor, when he scooched his chair back or when Martin tried to reach an arm around him. Then again—he conjectured, bent halfway to the floor with the cane still in his hand—if he did drop it, that might wake Salesa.

Two nights ago Jon had got up to use the toilet, and knocked his cane down from the wall on his way back to bed in the dark. It crashed to the floor; Jon swore and hopped on one foot back from it, imagining the other foot’s poor toenail smashed to jagged pieces as it thumped to life with pain. Meanwhile he heard rustling from the bed, and Martin’s voice, querulous with sleep. “Jon? Jon, what’s—happened, what—are you.”

“Nothing it’s fine go back to”—he’d hissed as his knee decided it had enough of hopping—“don’t get up, just. I’m gonna turn on the light, if that’s alright.”

“What fell? Are you okay?”

“The cane. I knocked it over in the dark.”

“Oh.”

He got no verbal response about the light, but guessed Martin had nodded.

From a distance his toe looked alright—no blood, anyway, so he could walk on it without risking the carpet. Jon picked his cane up from the floor and steered himself to the foot of the bed, where he sat down. His toenail had chipped, it looked like—only a little, but in that way that leaves a long crack. If he tried to pick it straight he’d tear out a big chunk and it would bleed. But if he left it like this it would snag on the sheets, on his socks, until some loose thread tore the chunk of nail off for him. What could he do for this kind of thing here? At home he’d file the nail down around the chip, then cover it in clear nail polish, and just hope that’d hold out until the crack grew out and he could clip it without bleeding. But here? A plaster would have to do, he guessed. They had plenty of those now.

Jon hated bandaging, ever since Prentiss—in much the same way that Martin hated sleeping in his pants. He’d had time to learn all its discomforts. How sweaty they got, the way they stuck to your hairs, the way lint collected in the adhesive residue they left. Didn’t help he associated them with that time of paranoia. They didn’t make him act paranoid, understand; he just habitually thought of bandage-wearing as what paranoid people do. It made an echo of his contempt for that time’s Jon cling to his perceptions of current Jon. On his first morning here, when the ones on his shin where Daisy’d bit him peeled off in the shower, he hadn’t bothered to replace them. After all, the bite only hurt when something pulled on it or poked or scraped against it, so he figured his trousers would provide enough protective barrier.

“That healed fast,” Martin had remarked, when he noticed the undressed wound in the bath—and then, when he looked again, “Yyyyeah I dunno, I think you might still want to bandage that. We don’t want dirt getting in there.”

“Do I have to?”

“Humor me.”

When they got back to their room he’d let Martin dress it himself. Martin had sucked air through his teeth. “This is days old—it shouldn’t be all hot and red like this.” According to him these were early signs of infection, which would get worse if they didn’t take better care of it—i.e., keep the wound freshly bandaged and ointmented. Jon refrained from pointing out that when the cut on his throat had got like that he’d left it uncovered and been fine. But he did ask what worse meant. “Really bad,” testified Martin. “I had a cut on my finger get infected once. Really disgusting. You don’t want to know.”

Jon smiled at him, raised his eyebrows. “After Jared’s mortal garden I think I can handle it.”

Martin smiled too, but wrinkled his nose and shook his head. “There was pus involved.”

“Oh, god! How could you tell me that!” gasped Jon, hand to his chest.

“Yeah, yeah. Anyway, it also hurt? A lot? And it can make you ill. So we should try to avoid it, yeah?”

He’d tried to disavow the disappointment in his sigh by exaggerating it. “Yes, alright.”

“Don’t know why you’d want to leave it exposed anyway. Doesn’t it hurt?”

“Well, sure, when you do that,” Jon had muttered, flinching away. As he asked the question Martin had lightly tapped the skin around the gash through its new bandage. A second or two later Jon added, “Less than when I got it? It’s hard to tell; it’s… different here.”

With a sigh that caught on phlegm and irritation, Martin asked, “Different how?”

He hadn’t been able to answer then, but he knew now, of course. It hurt the way things do when you’re awake. Not with the constant smart and throb it had when he’d first got it, but, it snagged on things now. Had opinions on how he moved. When he bent his knee more than ninety degrees, that stretched the skin around it painfully. Also if he knelt, since then the floor would press against it through his trousers. And stepping with that foot felt odd. Didn’t hurt, exactly, but sort of… rattled? Like a bad bruise would. This all seemed so small, compared to the moment of terror for his life that he’d felt when Daisy bit into him—that gaping wound in his new self-conception, which his healing powers had sewn up so quickly. The ritual of bandaging it every evening seemed so otiose, so laughably superstitious. He despised the thought of adding another step to it.

While Jon went on examining his toe, Martin asked, “What was the... thumping. It sounded like.”

“Oh—no—I didn’t fall; it’s fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“No—yes—stop, it’s nothing, don’t get up. I just forgot I left it on the—leaning against the doorwall” (he hadn’t decided in time whether to say doorway or wall and ended up with half of each) “so I walked into it, er, toe first.”

“Oh,” Martin said again. Jon could hear him subsiding against the pillows behind him. “It came down?”

Big sigh. Jon’s fingernails met his palms. He set his foot back on the floor, and when his hip whined in its socket he clenched his teeth and kept them that way. In his mind he heard days’ worth of similar jokes. When he couldn’t get a jammed jar open: So you’re saying it wouldn’t… come off? When they got back their clean laundry: Can you believe all those grass stains came out?—oh, sorry: that they came off, I meant. Always with an innocent laugh, like Jon’s original phrasing had been just, what, like a Freudian slip, rather than something perfectly comprehensible that Martin had refused to engage with, taken from him, and rendered meaningless on purpose. “No it did not,” he snapped, “and I would appreciate it if you’d quit throwing that back in my face.”

“Whoa, uh. O…kay. What’s… going on here exactly?”

“You—?”

His heart plummeted; his face stung with embarrassment. Came down, Martin had said—not came off. He’d just been confirming that Jon’s cane had fallen down.

“Oh, god—nothing, never mind. You did nothing.”

“Well that’s obviously not true.”

“I just—I thought you’d said ‘came off.’ I thought you meant, had my toe ‘come off.’”

“Oh,” said Martin, yet again. When Jon turned to look he found him still blinking and squinting against the light. “Do you… need me to not say that anymore?”

“Not when I—?” Not when I’ve hurt myself, Jon meant. But Martin hadn’t done that, so this grievance didn’t actually mean anything. He’d been seeing patterns where there were none, and now that he’d seen through the illusion Jon knew again that Martin never would say it like that. “No, it’s fine. Do whatever you want.”

Martin turned the tail end of his yawn into a huff of false laughter. “Nope. Still don’t believe you.”

“Everything you’ve said makes perfect sense with the information you have. It’s all just—me. Being cryptic again.”

“Okay, uh. Are you waiting for me to disagree? ‘Cause, uh. Yup—you’re still being cryptic. No arguments there.”

Jon just sighed, really scraping the back of his throat with it. Almost a scoff.

“Sooo do you wanna fill me in, or.”

“No?” With an incredulous laugh. “Well, yes, just.”

He hadn’t known how to start from there, while so tightly wound and defensive. It seemed cruel to raise such a sensitive subject when Martin sounded so eager to go back to sleep. Or maybe he just didn’t want to hear Martin whimper apologies. Didn’t want to deal with how fake they would sound. They wouldn’t be fake; he knew that. But they would sound fake, which meant it would take an effort of will, a deliberate exercise of empathy, to accept them as real. He wasn’t in the mood to hear yet another person say I’m sorry, I didn’t know; much less to respond with the requisite It’s okay; you didn’t know. It would take a strength of conviction he didn’t have right now.

“Y—you don’t have to explain it tonight? I’ll just, I’ll just not use that phrase anymore, and maybe in the morning you’ll be less in the mood to lash out at me for things that don’t make sense.”

And what was there to say to that? It had taken Jon three tries to force out, “Okay. I’m sorry.”

“Good night, Jon.”

“Good night. I still need the light, for.”

“That’s fine. Just turn it off when you come back to bed.”

“You won’t wake him up,” a new voice interjected.

Annabelle. Jon couldn’t see her, but he had learnt by now to recognize that voice, with its insufferable upbeat teasing inflection like every sentence she said was a riddle. He caught a glimpse of movement, then heard the click of her shoes on the floor. She must have poked her head round the doorway at the far end of the table while she spoke, then scuttled off again. At last he got a good look at her, as she put her blonde-and-gray head through the closer door.

“He’s a very heavy sleeper,” she informed them, with a smile and a shrug. “You can shake him all you want; it’s not going to work.”

Martin cleared his throat—trying to catch Jon’s attention, presumably. But Jon feared Annabelle would vanish again if he took his eyes off her. Not that he wanted her here, either, but?—he at least wanted to know which direction she went when she disappeared.

“What are you doing here, Annabelle.”

She shrugged two of her shoulders. “Just offering you some advice.” Then she used the momentum from the shrug to push herself backward, out of the doorway back into the corridor. Before the last of her hands disappeared off to the right, she waved to both of them.

“Well, how about some ‘advice’ about this, then—”

“She’s already gone, Martin.”

“Seriously? God—which way did she go?” Jon pointed; Martin bolted down the hallway after her. “Oi! Annabelle!”

“Shhh!”

“Annabelle! Do you know where Salesa keeps the—”

Jon did his best to follow him, praying all his limbs would go on straight this time. “Don’t!”

“What? Why not?” he heard, from the other side of the wall. Thankfully he could no longer hear Martin’s pounding footsteps. He overtook him in the hallway, just about able to make out his face around the dark swirls in his vision. “She’s as likely to know as Salesa, right?” Martin continued. “And it’s not like she’d lie about it. I mean, what would be the point?”

“I just don’t think we should give her any kind of advantage over us,” Jon snarled. The attempt to keep his voice down made the words come out sounding nastier than he intended.

Martin scoffed. “You don’t think maybe this is a bit more important than your stupid principle about not accepting help from her?”

“Is it?” Jon took hold of Martin’s sleeve, having just now caught up to him. “The new room’s fine. It’s even nicer than the old one, right? We could just stay there.”

“I already told you, Jon. I’m not just gonna leave it like this.”

“’Til Salesa sobers up, I meant.”

“If we have to, yeah, but—? All our stuff’s in that room. The statements’re in there.”

“I just don’t think we should show her that kind of vulnerability,” Jon hissed, shifting from foot to foot in his eagerness either to sit down or go somewhere else. “I don’t want to give Annabelle something she can use over us.”

“How does this make us more vulnerable than we are eating her food?”

“It doesn’t, alright? That doesn’t mean we should add more to the pile!” He watched Martin shrug and open his mouth, but cut him off in advance: “Last time we had this argument you were the one maintaining she was dangerous.”

It was on their first night here—their first awake here, anyway. They’d been heading back to their room, Martin lamenting that he’d not packed anything to sleep in when they left Daisy’s safehouse. “Won’t make much difference to me,” Jon had shrugged at first.

Martin had shaken his head, grimaced at something in his imagination. “I hate sleeping in my pants. It’s just gross. Dunno why anyone would choose to do it.”

“How is it gross?” Jon had laughed. He’d expected to hear some weird thing about its being unsanitary for that much leg to touch sheets that only got washed every two weeks, and to argue back that in that case shouldn’t he sleep in his socks. Disdain for the body seemed damn near universal, and yet manifested so differently in each person whose habits Jon had got to know up close. Georgie had heard that underarm hair helped wick away the smell of sweat—so she let that hair grow out, but shaved the ones on her stomach for fear they’d smell like navel lint. And Daisy, a woman who used to sniff her used-up plasters before throwing them in the bin, would spray cologne in the toilet every time she left it. Jon had enjoyed getting to know which of bodily self-contempt’s myriad forms Martin subscribed to.

But this turned out not to be one of them. Instead Martin explained, “It’s so sweaty. Like sitting on a leather couch in shorts, except the leather’s your other leg? Ugh. I hate waking up slippery.”

“That’s why I put a pillow between mine,” laughed Jon. “Suppose I will miss Trevor’s t-shirt, though. Now that I don’t have to worry about showing up in people’s dreams like that.”

“Oh, god, right—what is it? ‘You don’t have to be faster than the bear’—?”

“‘You just have to be faster than your friends,'” Jon completed, in the most sinister Ceaseless-Watcher voice he could muster. Martin snorted with laughter.

And then they’d opened the door to discover Annabelle had done them a fucking turndown service. Quilt folded back, mints on the pillows, and a pile of old-timey striped pajamas at the foot of the bed. “Huh. Cree…py, but convenient, I guess. Least they’re not black and white, right?” Martin unfolded the green-striped shirt on top, then handed it with its matching trousers to Jon. “These ones must be yours.”

“Mm.” Jon let Martin hand him the pajamas, then tossed them onto the chair in the opposite corner of the room (from which chair they promptly fell to the floor). The mint from his side of the bed he deposited in the bin under the bedside table.

“So who’s our good fairy, d’you think? Salesa, or.”

“Annabelle,” Jon hissed. “Salesa was with us all through dinner.”

Martin nodded and sighed. “Yeah.” He sat down on the bed, still regarding the other set of garments—these ones striped yellow and blue—with a puzzled frown. “God, I’ll look like a clown in these. You sure I won’t give you nightmares about the Unknowing?”

But Jon said nothing, still hoping he could avoid weighing in on Martin’s choice whether or not to accept Annabelle’s… gifts.

“It’s probably Salesa’s stuff, at least. Not Annabelle’s. I mean,” Martin mused with a brave laugh, “he’s got a lot of weird outfits on hand apparently.”

“Unless she wove them out of cobwebs.”

“That’s not a thing,” Martin groaned, making himself laugh too. “Spider webs aren’t strong enough to use as thread.”

“Not natural ones, maybe,” Jon said with a shrug and a careful half smile. With no less care, he turned the sheets and counterpane back up on his side of the bed, restoring the way it’d looked when he and Martin made up the bed that morning. Stacked the frontmost pillow back upright against the one behind it. Punched it a little, more as a way to break the silence than because it looked too fluffy. Then sat down in front of them and put his shoe up on the bedside table so he could untie it—glancing first at Martin to make sure he didn’t disapprove.

“I mean, I guess,” Martin mused meanwhile. “Not sure why she’d bother, though. Maybe it’s”—with a gasp and a smile Jon could hear in his voice—“maybe she’s put poison in the threads, and that’s why yours and mine are different. Mine’s got—I dunno, some kind of self-esteem poison, like, a reverse SSRI, to make me feel like you don’t need me, so when she kidnaps you I won’t try to save you. And yours….”

As Jon pulled off his now-untied shoe one of the bones in his hip jabbed against some bit of soft tissue it wasn’t supposed to touch. He gasped and dropped his shoe. It thudded on the floor.

“You alright?”

“Fine. Some kind of dex drain, probably.”

“Ha.”

After a silence, Martin spoke again: “Are you sure you’re okay staying here for a bit? Sorry—I kinda bulldozed over your objections earlier.”

Jon finished untying his other shoe, then paused to think while he shook the cramp out of his hand. “No,” he decided. “You didn’t bulldoze, you just…questioned. And you were right to.”

“Still, I mean. It might not be a great idea to stick around here with the spider lady who’s had it in for us since day one. Have you re-listened to the tapes from the day Prentiss attacked, by the way, since you got them back from the Not-Sasha thing?”

“Right—the spider, yes.”

“Yeah, exactly! You wouldn’t even have broke through that wall if it hadn’t been for the spider there!”

Jon nodded and scrubbed at his eyes, trying to muster the energy to match Martin’s tone. This was an important conversation to have, he knew. And a part of him shuddered with recognition to hear Martin talk about those tapes. He had re-listened to them—first at Georgie’s, one night in the small hours as he cleaned her kitchen, thinking clearly for the first time in months and trying to pinpoint the exact moment his thoughts had been clouded with paranoia, so that he might know what signs to look for if something else tried to infect his mind like that. And then again after Basira found the jar of ashes. That time he’d just wanted to suck all the marrow he could from the memory of Martin with his sensible corkscrew and his first answer to Why are you here, even if it did mean having to hear himself ask if Martin was a ghost. A few weeks later, however, after Hilltop Road, he’d done a fair bit of obsessing over the spider thing with Prentiss, yeah. He just wished he could remember what conclusion he’d come to.

All he could remember was going for those tapes yet again only to find them missing from his drawer. But he’d been chasing phantoms all day; it was late at night by then, and when he’d dashed out to tell Basira his fear Annabelle had stolen them, stolen his memories from him just like the Not-Them had, he’d stood there over her and Daisy’s frankenbag for what felt like an hour, mouth open, unable to utter a sound. It felt too much like going to wake up his grandmother after a dream. So he’d told himself to sleep on it—that he’d probably left the tapes in some other obvious place, and would find them in the morning. And when he remembered his panic, the next day at lunch, and checked his drawer again, the tapes were back, right where he expected them. He’d dismissed it as a dream after all. But no—Martin must have borrowed them. He must’ve been worried about the Web, too.

“It’s… it should be okay. I don’t think it’ll be like that here.”

Martin sighed. “Don’t do that.”

“What?”

“That thing where you just—decide how something is without even telling me why you think so. I mean it’s one thing out there, when you ‘know everything’” (this in a false deep voice) “and can’t possibly share it all, but here? When you’re just guessing, like everyone else? Why don’t you think it’ll be like that here? And what does ‘like that’ even mean?”

“I'm sorry—you’re right—I just mean, I don’t think she has her powers here. Based on what Salesa said about the camera, and on what happens when I try to use my powers….”

“Salesa just said the Eye can’t see this place, though. What about that insect thing he said found its way in?”

“I mean.” Jon shrugged. “We managed to find our way here without the Eye’s help.”

“Yeah, but if the Web has no power here then how could she have called me on a payphone? She had to have known where I was to do that, yeah? And she couldn’t know that from here unless the Web told her to do it, right?”

“Maybe? We don’t even know if the Web works like that.”

“Told her to do it, made her want to do it, gave her the tools to do it, whatever. You know what I mean. Look—we know the Eye’s not totally blind here, since it can still feed on statements. Right?”

Jon wondered now how either one of them could have been so sure of that. “Apparently,” he liked to think he had said—but more likely he’d replied simply, “Right.”

“So then by that logic the Web still probably likes it when she—I don’t know, when she manipulates people here. It probably still gets, like, live tweets from her about it. How do we know it can’t use that information to weave more plots around us?”

“If that’s even how it works,” Jon had replied again. “The other fears don’t work like that—they don’t plan, they just.” He tried to sort his intuition into Martin’s live tweet metaphor. “The fears just like their agents’ tweets, they don’t… comment on them, o-or build new opinions on what they’ve read. It boosts the avatar's… popularity, I guess? Their influence?” Jon hadn’t even logged into Twitter since before the Archives. “But unless the Web is different from all the other fears, it doesn’t—it’s not her boss. It doesn’t come up with the schemes, it just.”

“Isn’t it literally called the ‘Spinner of Schemes’, though? The ‘Mother of Puppets’?”

And Jon couldn’t remember what he’d said to brush off that one.

“Of course she’s dangerous,” Martin said now. “I just don’t see what sinister plot of hers we could possibly be enabling by asking her where to find screwdrivers.”

Jon scoffed. “She’s with the Web, Martin! The ‘Mother of Puppets,’ the ‘Spinner of Schemes’? You’re not supposed to be able to see how the threads connect. Anything we ask her gives her another opening to sink her hooks into.”

“So what, you just don’t want to owe her a favor?”

“Yes?” Jon blinked—on purpose, needless to say. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. I mean—why do you think she’s here, Martin, ingratiating herself with us?”

“Gee, I don’t know. Maybe because it’s the one place on Earth that hasn’t been turned into a hell dimension?”

Jon snarled and set his head in his free hand. The dizziness was coming back. “In her statement Annabelle said the trick to manipulating people was to make sure they always either over or underestimate you.”

“Okay,” granted Martin, as though prompting Jon to explain how this was relevant.

“She’s trying to humanize herself,” he maintained, scratching an imaginary itch behind his glasses. “We shouldn’t let her.”

“I mean, she is physically more human here.”

“Is she? She doesn’t seem to be withdrawing from the Web; she’s not—like this.” Jon turned his wrist in a circle next to his head.

“Yeah but she’s been here for months, right? Maybe she’s passed through that stage.”

A bitter huff of laughter. “So you’re saying she’s reformed.”

“No. I’m saying the fact she’s not all—loopy here doesn’t necessarily mean she still has any power.”

“She’s got four arms and six eyes, Martin!”

“And you sleep with your eyes open and summon tape recorders, Jon!”

“Well,” mused Jon with a wry smile, “not on purpose.”

“That’s my point! You’ve only got—vestiges here, yeah? I’m not saying we should trust her; I don’t wanna be friends or anything. I’m just saying I don’t think the actual concrete danger she poses here is what’s making you hate the idea of asking her for directions.”

“What about that insect thing Salesa said she chased off. Does that not sound spidery to you?”

“We don’t know that! Maybe she waved his syringe at it.”

Jon took a deep, shaky breath through his nose. He’d hoped he wouldn’t have to bring up this next part; he feared it might make Martin too afraid to stay here any longer. “I think she’s plotting against us.”

Blink. “Well, yeah. Of course she is. She’s been plotting against us for—”

“Here, I mean. I mean, I think that’s why she’s here. She’s been hiding from the Eye on purpose so she could lure us into her trap with her spindly little”—Jon thought of the earrings that dangled from Annabelle’s ears like flies, swinging with her every sudden movement. Unconsciously he struck out with his hand as if to catch one, closing his fist around empty air. “Without my being able to see either her or the trap. At best, she’s here gathering information about us so she can report it back to her master.” He pictured the thousand spiders he’d seen birthed during Francis’s nightmare crawling back and forth with messages between here and the nearest Web domain—

“I thought you said the fears didn’t work that way,” pursued Martin—

“And every little thing we tell her is one more thread she can use to pull on us.”

“Okay, but, even if you’re right, ‘Hey Annabelle, our doorknob’s busted, can you help us find the tools to fix it’ isn’t actually a fact about us.”

“But that’s just the best-case scenario, Martin! The worst-case scenario is that she predicted we’d get locked out of our room, or even loosened the screw herself—”

“Not this again—”

“—because she knew we’d have to ask her for help, and wherever she tells us to look for the screwdriver is where she’s laid her trap! Think about it—this couldn’t happen outside the range of the camera, right? It would only work in a place where I can’t just know where to find something. That’s the only scenario where we’d ever ask her for directions.” Martin sighed, crossed his arms, rolled his eyes. Jon looked right at him, hoping to catch them on their way back down. “What if her plan is to trap us here forever so we can’t go stop Elias? What if by trusting her with this, we give her the tools to keep the world like this forever?”

Again Martin sighed. He bit his lip, at last seeming not to have an argument lined up already.

“I can’t actually stop you from going after her”—Jon heard Martin scoff, but pressed on—“but I can’t take part in this.”

“You sort of already did stop me, Jon.” He lifted his arm, pointing vaguely in the direction she’d gone. “We can’t catch up with her now.”

That wasn’t quite true, Jon knew; Martin had chosen to stop and listen to him. Instead of pointing this out in words Jon smiled, meekly, and reached for Martin’s hand. “Guess that’s true. Are you, er, ready for lunch now?”

His answering scoff sounded fond, indulgent, rather than incredulous. “Yeah, alright.”

With Martin’s hand still in his, Jon turned around—an awkward business, while holding hands in such a narrow passage—and began to walk back towards the dining room. At the end of the corridor stood a tall, thin, many-limbed figure, holding a water carafe, a stack of glasses, and four steaming plates of food.

“You boys getting hungry?” As she stepped toward them her shoes clacked against the floor. How had they not heard her approach? And what was she doing back at that end of the corridor?

“How did you—?”

“I have my ways. I’ve brought lunch for you both, if you’re amenable.”

“Oh—well, thanks, you’re, you’re just in time, actually.” Jon didn’t dare look away from Annabelle Cane long enough to confirm this, but suspected Martin had directed that last bit at him as much as her. “Can I help you with those?”

Annabelle managed to shrug without dislodging anything from the four plates in her hands. “You can take the napkins if you want,” she said, extending toward Martin the forearm from which they hung.

Jon sat back down in the chair he’d left at a haphazard angle—though it felt weird, since he usually sat on the table’s other side. He thanked Martin when he handed him a napkin, and allowed Annabelle to set an empty glass and a plate of food in front of him. It was a pasta dish, with clams—from a can, he reminded himself. A can and a jar of pasta sauce. Couldn’t have taken more than twenty minutes to put together.

“Salesa’s still out of it,” observed Martin. “Don’t think he’ll make too much of his.”

“A shame,” Annabelle agreed. She set a plate down in front of the sleeping Salesa anyway. “Maybe the smell of food’ll wake him up.”

“Are you going to eat with us?” Martin asked, as he and Jon both watched her deposit a fourth plate across the table from them.

“I may as well. We do still have to eat to live here, don’t we?” Jon could tell she meant this comment as an invitation for him to join their conversation, but he didn’t intend to take her bait. “Besides,” Annabelle went on, “this way you’ll know I’ve not saved the best for myself.” With one hand she picked up her own plate again; another of her long, thin arms reached out to take Jon’s plate.

He dragged it to the side, out of her reach. “No, thank you.”

“Alright. Martin,” she said, looking over at him with a patient, patronizing smile. “Will you switch plates with me?”

“Oh, my god,” Martin groaned into his hand. “Sure, why not.”

Something small and gray skittered across the table toward her. For half a second Annabelle took her eyes from Martin. Her nostrils flared; one of her eyes twitched; Jon heard a stifled squawk from behind her closed lips as she swept the skittery thing over her edge of the table. He made no such effort to hide his scoff. Did she think she could play nice, by declining to hold little spider conversations in front of them? That they’d think she was on their side as long as they couldn’t see her chatting to her little spies?

“Thank you,” Annabelle sing-songed meanwhile, returning her gaze to Martin. “You’re sweet.”

On their first morning here, after showering and then shuddering back into their filthy clothes, Jon and Martin had barely left their room before Annabelle dangled herself in their path, with cups of tea (Jon refused his) and an offer to show them to the pantry. From this tour Jon had concluded that all food in this place was tainted by her influence. And he didn’t actually feel hungry at that point? He remembered Martin remarking on his hunger before they’d both fallen asleep, but Jon had felt only tired. Surely that meant he still didn’t need food here, right? It’d been like that before the change, after the coma—he’d needed sleep and statements to keep up his strength, but could function just fine without… people food. So he’d resolved to accept nothing offered him here—or at least, nothing Salesa and Annabelle hadn’t already given him and Martin without their consent. No tea, none of Salesa’s booze, no use of the huge industrial washing machines, no food.

That resolution lasted about nine hours. He knew because on that first day time still felt like such a novelty he and Martin had counted every one. Once he’d tried and failed to compel Salesa—once he’d heard him give a statement and managed to space out for half of it, rather than transcending himself in the ecstasy of vicarious fear—Jon started to grow conscious of his hunger. After two hours he felt shaky; after four he started picking quarrels, first just with Annabelle when she showed up with snacks, then with Salesa, and then even with Martin; after six he felt first hot, then cold. Finally around the eight-hour mark he was hiding tears over an untied shoelace, and figured it was worth finding out how much of this torment people food could solve. He sat through dinner, flaunting his empty plate—then stole to the pantry for something he could make himself. Settled for dry toast and raisins. “Couldn’t you find the jam?” Martin had asked him.

“Didn’t think of it,” Jon lied, once he’d got his throat round a lump of under-chewed toast.

“You want me to get some for you? That looks pretty depressing without it,” Martin said, with his eyebrows and the line of his mouth both raised in a pitying smile.

“Better make it one of the sealed jars.”

“What, so Annabelle can’t have got to it?” Jon nodded, chewing so as to have neither to smile back nor decide not to. “You know she made the bread, right.”

Of course she had. Jon dropped his head onto his fists. “Fuck.”

“What did you think?” mused Martin with a laugh. “That Salesa just popped down to the supermarket?”

“I don’t know—that they’d taken it from the freezer, maybe?”

“I mean, that’s possible,” Martin granted with a shrug. “Should I get you that jam?”

Big sigh. “Fine.”

In reality he’d stared up at the row of jam jars in Salesa’s pantry for a full ten seconds before deciding not to have any. He feared spiders would spill out of the jar onto his hand as soon as he got it open. But he also feared he might not be able to open it at all—only hurt himself trying. Way back in their first year in the Archives together, Martin had once seen him struggling to get open the jar where he kept paperclips. Jon hadn’t realized he was being watched—or, that is, that Martin was watching him. In the Archives the sense of someone watching was so omnipresent one soon lost the ability to distinguish Elias’s evil Eye from other, more mundane eyes. Anyway, after three minutes’ effort and nothing to show for it but a misplaced MCP joint in his thumb, Jon had given up on paper-clipping the photos Tim had pilfered for him to their relevant statement and begun hunting through his desk drawers for a stapler instead. And then a high-pitched pop above his head made him startle so badly he gasped, choked on his own spit, and flung the picture in his hand across the room like a paper airplane.

Around the sound of his own cough he could hear Martin shouting Sorry, and Tim and Sasha laughing on the other side of the wall. Martin’s laugh soon joined theirs, though it sounded desperate, sheepish. He dove after the photo Jon had dropped, and then, when he came back with it, explained, “Got the paperclips for you.”

Jon frowned. “This is a photograph, Martin.”

“No, I mean—?” His laugh came out like a whimper; he picked the unlidded jar up an inch off the table, then set it back down. “Here.”

Okay, so, not exactly an auspicious start, but, it still became a thing? Martin opening his paperclip jar. At first he’d wished he could just remember not to seal it so tightly; he could get it just fine when he stopped turning it earlier. At least when the weather hadn’t changed since the last time he opened it. But then when they all started leaving the Archives less often, and the break-room fridge filled up with condiments that all seemed to have twist-off lids… he’d kind of liked that? Martin would hand him the peanut-butter jar, with its lid off and pinned to its side with one finger, before Jon had even finished asking for it. This seemed to be the pattern behind all his early positive impressions of Martin: the jar lids, the corkscrew, the way he managed to make mealtimes at the Institute feel like proper breaks. Martin had seemed like such an oaf to him at first—clumsy, absent-minded, always seeming to think that if he professed enough good will with his smiles and cups of tea and I know you won’t like this, but, then no one would notice his impertinent comments and all the doors he left wide open. All the dogs and worms and spiders he let in. He’d seemed to Jon the human embodiment of a fly left undone—more so than ever after the morning he’d walked in on him wearing naught but frog-print boxer shorts. But he had this easy grace with things that needed twisting off. Banana peels, bottle caps, wine corks, worms.

And then when he came back after the Unknowing Martin was never around. Jon and Basira and Melanie all lived in the Archives, like Martin had two years before, but by that point he wasn’t on Could you open this for me? terms with any of them. But he hadn’t needed people food anymore, and if he subluxed a joint it would heal instantly anyway. So he’d just struggled and sworn, feeling stupid for shrinking from the pain even after having chopped off his own finger. And it got easier with practice. By the time he and Martin reunited, he’d got so used to it that sometimes he’d hand jars to Martin already unlidded. Martin hadn’t seemed to notice. Finally, one evening a day or two after that row they had over the ice-cream thing, Jon had opened a jar of pasta sauce (he’d taken up people food again at Daisy’s safehouse, if only to make their time there feel more like a regular holiday), and reached out to hand it to Martin—then paused and retracted the hand that gripped the jar, remembering his promise to be more open about.

“This is, um.” He’d glanced up at Martin, then back to the floor as the latter said,

“Huh?”

“This is one of those things that’s got better since the coma. Since I became an avatar. I can, um. I can open jars now? Without.” He’d almost said Without hurting myself, then remembered that wasn’t technically true. Deep breath. “Without lasting harm. It—it hurts for a second? But the Eye heals it instantly. That's why I’ve been.”

“Oh,” Martin said, seeming to stall for time as he absorbed this information. He accepted the jar which Jon again held out to him, and turned it around in his hands, eyes on its label. “Yeah, I—I noticed, you’re really good at opening jars now,” he went on with a laugh. Again he paused, and blew a sigh out of his mouth. “Right. Okay. Thank you for telling me?”

“I’ll try and be better about….”

Martin nodded, turning back to the stove and beginning to stir sauce into the pasta. “Yeah. I, uh—I didn’t know that was why you used to need me to open them for you?” Since the other night’s argument, Jon had gathered as much. He nodded too. “I thought you were just, heh, you know. Weaker than me.”

“I mean, I am—”

“Well yeah but you know what I mean.”

“I do. I should’ve told you.”

“No, I—actually I think you’re in the clear on that one, if I’m honest. I just—it’s just weird? I thought I was done having to” (another blown-out sigh punctuated his speech) “having to reframe stuff I thought was normal around some unseen horror. Sorry,” he added when he’d finished beating sauce off Daisy’s wooden spoon; “that’s probably not a great way to.”

“No—it’s fine?”

“Suppose it sounds like an exaggeration, now, after all we’ve.”

Mechanically, Jon nodded, without deciding whether he agreed or not. Around an awkward laugh, he confessed, “‘Unseen horror’ might be the nicest way I’ve ever heard anyone describe it.”

“Er. Yikes? That sounds like you might need some better friends, Jon.”

“Maybe,” he conceded, laughing again. “I—I just mean, it’s nice to hear something other than?” Jon paused and pushed his little fingers back the hundred or so degrees they each would go. First the left, then the right. Other than what? Well, doubt, for a start. Though most of the doubt he heard from outside himself was implicit. Careful silence from people he told about it; requests people made of him seemingly just so he’d have to tell them he couldn’t do that; impatience, bafflement, suspicion from strangers. Why are you out of breath, the woman behind the Immigration desk had asked him at O’Hare, as if breathlessness incriminated him somehow. But that wasn’t the response he’d subconsciously measured Martin’s phrase against. What he had in mind now was more like… bland support. Hurried support. Assurances quick and dutiful, yet so vague he could tell the people who gave them were thinking only of the mistakes they might make, if they dared to acknowledge what he’d said with any more than half a sentence. The I’m sorry you’re in pain equivalents of Right away, Mr. Sims.

That was it—unseen horror was an original thought. Martin had put it in his own words, rather than either borrowing Jon’s or using none at all. “Other than a platitude.”

So at Salesa’s when Martin came back with the jam jar he handed it to Jon. Jon made a show of trying to open it, but could feel his middle finger threatening to leave its top half behind. It frightened him, in a way he’d forgot was even possible. For such a long time now, pain had just been pain? He’d grown so unused to the threat it held for normal people. The threat of actual danger, of injury. He’d set down the jar on the table in front of him, and crossed his arms in front of it.

“Can’t get it, huh?” Martin asked; Jon shook his head.

How much danger, though, he wondered. Earlier that day, after he and Martin got out of the bath, his left index finger had popped out while he was buttoning his shirt. It still ached when he used the finger, or thought about the cracking sound it had made—but didn’t throb anymore without provocation. Not much danger there; not even much inconvenience. He supposed if he hurt his middle finger too then he might have some trouble with his trouser button the next time he had to pee? Right, yes, what a cross to bear. I hurt myself doing x; now it hurts to do x. But it already hurt to do x, didn’t it? Didn’t x always hurt, before the change? Why did he so fear to face an hour or a day where it hurt more than usual, but not so much I can’t do it?

“So you’re saying it won’t… come off?”

“Ha, ha.”

“Sorry. Couldn’t resist.”

“What if I open it and it’s full of spiders?”

Martin had smiled, rolled his eyes, pulled the jar toward him, and twisted its lid off with a pop. “See? No spiders in this one.

“While you’re here, Annabelle,” Jon heard Martin say, “I don’t suppose you know anything about where Salesa keeps his screwdrivers?”

Annabelle tapped her chin and said, very pleasantly, “Hmmm. Perhaps they’re where he left them after the last time something broke.”

Martin’s lips drew closer together. “Yeah,” he nodded, “probably. Any idea where that might be?”

“Perhaps he keeps them next to whatever screw comes loose most often.”

“And do you know which screw that is?”

She shook her head, though who knew whether that meant she didn’t know or merely that she didn’t mean to tell him. “Perhaps he only uses the item when he’s alone,” she said, with a shrug and a sly smile.

“…Ew.” Annabelle cackled like a school kid pulling a prank. “Right, great,” sighed Martin. “Thanks a lot. Forget it. You done, Jon?”

Jon glanced sleepily down at his plate. Only half empty, but cold by now. “Yes.”

“Nice of you to grace us with your presence, Annabelle,” Martin said, sliding his and Jon’s plates toward her side of the table.

Instead of energy, lunch gave Jon only a slight queasy feeling—like one gets from eating sweets on an empty stomach.

“God”—hissed Martin, with clenched fists, as they ambled back to their room—“‘Perhaps he keeps them next to the screw that gets loose most often.’ Yeah, figured that out already, thanks! Can you even believe her? Sitting down to eat with us, as if she’s all ready to help, and then the best she can do is,” he paused and straightened, then said with a finger to his chin in imitation of Annabelle, “‘Oh, hm, guess he only uses it alone. Oh well!’”

“Don’t know what else you expected.”

Martin sighed, his arms crossed now. “Guess I should’ve done what you asked after all, since that accomplished nothing.” After a moment he went on, “Least it wasn’t a trap, right? I tried not to give her anything she could use against us.” With a smile Jon could hear without looking at him, “You notice how I pointedly didn’t offer to help clean up?”

“No, I didn’t,” Jon confessed, laughing a little.

“No?!” Again Martin paused on his feet, frowning, incredulous. Jon wished he wouldn’t; standing still made him dizzier, took more effort than walking, like that poor woman in Oliver’s domain. Daniela? Martin shook his head at himself. “Ugh—then who knows if she noticed, either. I thought I was being so obvious!”

“I mean—”

“Wait, hold up, let’s double back.”

“Are you going to go back and tell her it was on purpose?”

“No, just”—he echoed Jon’s laugh—“no, of course not. I just wanted to try that wing’s toilets next. Didn’t want her to see which way we were going.”

“Oh.” By this time Martin had turned around and started to walk the other way; Jon hung back. “Er. I thought—I thought we were going to our room first.”

“What, the new one you mean?” asked Martin, turning his head around to look back at him.

“…Yes,” Jon decided. Until this moment he’d forgot about that, and been daydreaming of their original bed.

“Sure, if you want. Do you need a break?”

“I… I think so, yes.”

Martin turned the rest of the way around, shuffled toward Jon and looked him over, with a concerned frown. He took his free hand between his fingers and thumb, brushing the latter over Jon’s knuckles. “Yeah, okay. You still seem pretty out of it. How are you feeling?”

“Not great,” answered Jon, though he smiled in relief at Martin’s willingness to change the plan for him.

“Food didn’t help?”

His stomach seemed hung with cobwebs; his mind, like a large room with half its lights burnt out. His light head seemed attached to his heavy, aching body only by a string, like a balloon tied to an Open-House sign. He still needed the toilet. “Not really?”

“Yeah, thought not. You need a statement, huh.”

Jon shrugged, avoiding Martin’s eyes. “Probably.”

In the interim bedroom Jon sat down at the edge of the bed, bent down over his legs, and untied his shoes, wondering why his life always came back around to this. His hip got stuck like a drawer that’s been pulled out crooked, so he had to lever himself back up with his arms, trapping fistfuls of counterpane between thumbs and the meat of his palms. It made his hands cramp, but that helped—the way it would have helped to bite his finger. When he’d got himself upright again he sat and blinked for a few seconds, hoping each time he opened his eyes that his vision would’ve cleared.

Martin sat down next to him and put his hand on Jon’s arm. “You’re blinking again. You okay?”

“Just… kind of dizzy? It’s an Eye thing.”

He let Martin pull him towards him until their shoulders touched. “Yeah. Makes sense. Nap should help. Statement’ll definitely help.”

“Right.”

They agreed to lie on the bed rather than properly in it, not wanting to have to put the covers back together afterward. Jon set his head on that squishy part of Martin’s chest where it started to give way to armpit, knowing to angle himself so the scar tissue pressed the hollow part of his cheek rather than anywhere bonier. It was normally dangerous to lie half on his back, half on his side like this, but he’d lately discovered he could use Martin’s leg to keep his hip from falling off. He could feel the muscles in his shoulder twitching and cramping, whether to pull the joint out or keep it in who could tell. But it’d be fine as long as he shrugged the arm every few minutes.

All the ways they knew to spend time in each other’s company had come together in Scotland, where he’d had none of these worries. Even after the change, on their journey, with nothing but sleeping bags between them and desecrated earth, he’d borne only the same aches he’d been ignoring since he read the statement that ended the world. Jon imagined lying next to Martin like this on the cold stone of a tomb in the Necropolis, surrounded by guardian angels’ malicious laughter. Not feeling the cold, or the grain of the stone against his ankles and the bandage on his shin—just knowing it was there, like when you watch someone suffer those things in a movie. Less vivid even than a statement about lying on a tomb; in Naomi Herne’s nightmare he’d felt the stone in her hands.

“Hfff, okay—ready to get back to it?”

“Mrrr.”

“…Jon, are you asleep?”

He shrugged his hanging shoulder. “No.”

Nose laugh. “Come on, wake up.”

“Mmrrrrrrr.”

“My arm’s asleep.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It won’t wake up ‘till you get up off of it, Jon,” said Martin, gently, between huffs of laughter.

“Hmr.” Jon rolled away to face the wall with the window, freeing Martin’s arm.

“Do you want me to go look without you?”

“Okay.”

“Are you sure?”

“Mhm.”

Cold air washed over his newly-exposed arm, ribcage, side of face, the outside of his sore hip. It was cold on this Martinless side of the bed, too. He rolled back over into the shadow of his warmth, but that still wasn’t as good as the real thing. Maybe he could pull the covers halfway out and roll himself up in them.

“Aaagh, no—Jon”—Martin’s cool hand on top of his as he tried to hook his fingers round the counterpane— “we’re trying to leave the room the way we found it, remember?”

“Hmmmrrgh.” He consented to leave his hand still when Martin’s departed from it. A few seconds later, a rustle against his ear, the smell of smoke and old clothes.

“Here.”

Jon crunched the jacket down so it wouldn’t itch his ear. “You won’t need it?”

“Probably not.”

“Hm.”

“I’ll be back for it if I have to go outside again, yeah?”

“Okay.”

In his mind’s eye they trudged into the wind, hand in hand. It blew Martin’s hood off his head, and inverted Jon’s cane like an umbrella. He shrunk himself further under Martin’s jacket, relishing the new pockets of warmth he created as his calves met his thighs and his hands gripped his shoulders.

“Ooookay…! Wish me luck?”

“Good luck,” managed Jon around a yawn.

Martin had been right about the wallpaper. Not only was the red too bright to look at comfortably; it also had the kind of flowered pattern just complex enough that every time you look back at it you’re compelled to double-check where it repeats. Every fourth stripe was the same as the first, right? Not every second? And that weird little scroll-shaped petal—he’d seen that one too recently. Was it the same as?—No, that one was a bud. He pulled Martin’s jacket up so it covered his eyes.

They’d put their jackets through the laundry with everything else, their first day here, but that hadn’t got the smell out. Enough time had passed between the burning building and their arrival here for the smoke to embed itself permanently into their jackets and shoes, like how duffel bags once taken camping always smell like barbecue. And everything they’d ever shoved in those backpacks still had some of that odd, sour, Ritz-cracker smell of clothes left unwashed too long.

Daisy used to smell like smoke and laundry, too, once she quit smelling like dirt. It was the smell of the old green sleeping bag she’d zipped up to Basira’s. She said she’d have showered it off if she could; she didn’t like it. To her it was a Hunt smell—it reminded her of her clearing in the woods. But there weren’t any showers in the Archives. She’d point this out every time, in the same wry voice, so Jon was sure she’d intended the metaphor. No showers in the Archives: you couldn’t hide your sins in a temple of the Eye. This had comforted Jon—or maybe flattered was the word, though he knew her better than to think she’d have done so on purpose. He just wasn’t sure he agreed. He’d hid his sins pretty well from himself, after the coma. It was easy; you just had to lose track of scale. No one could remember all of them at once, after all. Others had had to point the important ones out to him.

Were those footsteps he could hear out there? Not Annabelle’s—? No; her clicky shoes. These were blunter. Could be Salesa, awake at last, come to invite them to play a game with him. “How do you two feel about… foosball?” he would say, drawing out the last word in a husky whisper. Only then would he swing the door wide open to reveal himself in a shiny jersey, shorts, and studded shoes. He set his fists out before him and turned them in semicircles, pretending to manipulate the plastic rods of a foosball table. Jon curled still more tightly into himself at the thought of Salesa’s face, how his showman’s grin would crumple like a hole in a cellophane wrapper when he realized the fun one had gone and that he faced only the Archivist. “Oh—hello. Jon, is it? Where has your lovely Martin gone?”

“Oh, uh. Martin needs a screwdriver to fix our door, so I.”

He watched Martin march his silent way slowly, solemnly down a corridor that grew darker, grayer, vaguer with every step until the webs that lined its every side and hung in laces from the ceiling began to catch on his shoes, his belt, his glasses.

“I let him go off alone.”

Jon’s whole body flinched. He gasped awake—oh shit. How had he just let Martin go? He had to—couldn’t stay here—find Martin—keep him out of Annabelle’s clutches—

Stick-thin bristling spider legs tapped the floor of his mind like fingers on a table. Find Martin. Jon instructed himself to sit up, swing his legs over the side of the bed and reach down to grab his shoes. He twitched one finger. See? You can do this. In a minute he’d try again and be able to move his whole arm, push himself up onto one hand. Find Martin.

Also probably go to the toilet. With an empty bladder his head would be clearer, he could figure out which direction to look first.

After Hopworth, while he laid on the couch in his office waiting for the strength to throw himself into the Buried, Jon had imagined Martin and Georgie and Basira and Melanie all stood around that coffin, wearing black and holding flowers. Denise? No, it definitely had three syllables. A scattered applause began as Jonah Magnus emerged from his office, closed behind him the door printed with poor dead Bouchard’s name, and stepped up to the podium. Georgie, not knowing his face, began to clap; Melanie stayed her hands. Elagnus’s shirt, hidden behind suit except for the collar, was striped in black and white. A ball and chain hung from his sleeve like an enormous cufflink. He opened his mouth to speak, and a tape recorder began to hiss.

“What are you doing here?” asked Basira.

“Never underestimate how much I care for the tools I use, Detective. I wouldn’t miss my Archivist’s big day.”

“So they just let you out for this.”

Elias shrugged with false modesty. His chain jingled. “When I asked them nicely.”

“How did you even know he was dead?” interposed Melanie. “Basira, did you tell him about the—”

“She didn’t have to,” said Elias, raising his voice to cut Melanie’s off. “Nothing escapes my notice, and I like to keep an eye out for this sort of thing.”

“Well—it’s—good to see you.” Tim’s voice. Unconvincing, even then.

Jon steeled himself to hear his own voice stammer out, “Yes—y-yes!” but heard nothing except the hissing of the… tape. Yes, that was the wrong tape—the one from his birthday.

“Anyway. Somebody mentioned cake.” Elias jingled as he arranged his hands under his chin.

Tim scoffed. “They didn’t serve cake at my funeral.”

“I preferred going out for ice cream anyway,” pronounced Martin, his arms crossed and his nose in the air. Jon pushed himself up on shaking hands. Find Martin.

They had gone for ice cream at John O’Groats before the change, while living at Daisy’s safehouse. Martin had apologized on behalf of the kiosk for its measly selection—no rum and raisin. Jon pronounced a playful “Urgh,” assuming Martin had cited this flavor as a joke. “I think I’ll manage without that particular abomination.”

“Wait, what? Why did you order it at my birthday party then?”

Jon stood still with his ice cream cone, squinted into space, and blinked. “I did?”

“My first birthday in the Archives, yeah!”

“Huh. That’s… odd.” Martin placed a gentle hand on Jon’s back to remind him to resume walking. “I suppose I must have been—huh. Yes,” he mused, nodding slowly as his hypothesis came into focus between his eyes and the ground. “I must still have thought I was tired of all the good flavors at that point.”

He heard Martin scoff a few steps ahead of him. “What, and now you’re happy with plain old vanilla?” Then he heard arrhythmic footsteps thumping toward him from Martin’s direction; he looked up to find Martin reaching his napkin-draped free hand out toward Jon’s ice cream cone. “You’re dripping again,” he explained.

Jon mumbled thanks and shrugged a laugh. “I-I’ve, uh. Come back around on most of them.”

“Except rum and raisin?”

“No—I’ve come around on it, too, just, uh.” He tried to make the shape of a wheel with his ice-cream-cone-laden hand. It flicked drips of vanilla across his shirt. Martin came at him with the napkin again. “Thank you. I just disliked that one to start with.”

“…Right. Okay, so what revolution occurred in your life before the Archives that overturned all your opinions on ice cream flavors?”

So Jon had told Martin about that summer when his jaw kept subluxing. He’d used that word, assuming Martin was familiar with it already—incorrect, as he knew now. Presumably Martin had gathered from context that Jon meant he’d hurt his jaw, in some small-scale, no-big-deal way whose specifics he’d let slide as an unimportant detail. But then as the anecdote wore on he must have begun to feel the hole in his knowledge. And lo, at last Martin had invoked that dread specter the clarifying question.

“Okay but so your grandmother had no problem with you basically living off ice cream all summer?”

“Well, she did when I could chew. But not when it was that or tinned soup.”

“Ah—right. ‘Cause you hurt your… jaw, you said?” Jon nodded. “What happened exactly?”

“Oh. Uh. Happened? Nothing, just my—I was born, I guess. Just part of my genetic condition; I happened to get it especially bad in the jaw that year. I-it’s much better now, though,” he hastened to add when he noticed Martin’s frown.

“What genetic condition? You never told me you had one.”

“Didn’t I?”

At the time, the anger in Martin’s answering scoff had surprised him. “No, Jon, you never said.”

“Oh. Sorry? I—I mean, you’ve seen me with this for years—I just?—thought you knew.”

“Seen you with—what, the cane, you mean? I thought that was Prentiss!”

Jon glanced to the doorway to double-check that was where he’d left his cane.

“What? No,” he had mused. “Of course not. I’ve had this since….”

“But you never used it.”

“No—surely, I—”

“Not once before Prentiss.”

Even as he’d said the words, Jon’s memory of that time had returned to him and he’d known Martin was right. Before Prentiss attacked the Institute he’d brought his cane with him to work in the Archives every day, and every day left it folded up in his bag. All out of an obscure notion that if he’d used it before Elias and before his coworkers, they’d take it as a plea for mercy, an admission of weakness or incompetence. God, he was naïve back then. He’d used the cane often enough back in Research; why hadn’t he worried Tim and Sasha would find its new absence conspicuous? That they’d worry just as much about his refusal to use it? The whole thing seemed even more stupid, too, now that he knew Elias must have noticed the change. How it must have pleased him, to see his shiny new Archivist so obsessed with proving he was fit for the job.

“Yeah but,” Jon pursued, instead of voicing any of this, “Tim never—?”

Martin nodded and shrugged. “I don’t know; I figured Tim didn’t get them in the legs as much as you did. I didn’t see you guys after the attack, remember? Not ‘til you got out of quarantine.”

“Right, no, of course you didn’t. I’m sorry,” said Jon mechanically, already consumed with the question he asked next. “Martin—did you think it was the corkscrew?”

From Martin’s sigh Jon figured he’d been expecting this question. “Kinda? At first, yeah. Half for real, half just—you know, as a habit? Like, ‘Look, a way to blame yourself!’” He splayed out his hands, rolled his eyes.

“Yes—I do that too.” Jon barely got the words out above a whisper; he couldn’t not smile, but fought to keep it from showing teeth. A muscle under his chin spasmed with the effort.

“But then I noticed you switching sides with it a lot, so, yeah. I knew it couldn’t be just that.”

“Really?” He waited for Martin’s answering shrug. “You’re the first person who’s ever noticed that. Or at least commented on it.”

“Sorry?”

“No—it’s.”

This attempt to communicate a similar sentiment, Jon recalled as he reached for his shoes, hadn’t gone as well as the one a few days later (over unseen horror &c.). Beholding had at that moment presented him with the image of a fat, hunched woman in shorts. She shuffled forward a few steps in a queue at Boots, next to him, and shifted her weight so the cane in her right hand supported her nearer leg. He felt a strong impulse he knew wasn’t his own—one born partly of resentment, part exasperation, part concern—to tell the woman that was bad for her shoulder, that she should switch hands too. But knew if he tried she’d either pretend she hadn’t heard it, or tell him off for criticizing her. Jon didn’t know what she would say more specifically; the Eye didn’t do hypotheticals. It had given him no more than this single moment of preverbal intuition. After the change he could have sought out other conversations Martin had had with his mother, and they might have given him a pretty good idea. But he’d promised Martin not to look at things like that.

He managed to dislodge a finger while tying his shoe. The other shoe he’d pulled off without untying; in a fit of impatience he tried now to shove his foot into it as it was. No good—he got the shoe on, but it just made the other index finger, the one he’d hooked into the back of the shoe behind his heel for leverage, pop off to the side too. Jon was afraid to find out what shape it would end up in if he pulled his finger back out of the shoe like that, so he had to untie it after all, one-handed. Then carefully extract his finger. It sprung back into place as soon as he removed the offending pressure (namely, his heel), but he still whimpered and swore. The corners of his eyes pricked with indignation when he remembered he still had to pee.

In this case, for once, Beholding had told him the important part: that that was why Martin had noticed. Had he noticed Melanie, too, Jon wondered, when she got back from India? She would switch hands sometimes, too—but, of course, without switching legs. He wondered if that had picked at the same unacknowledged nerve of Martin’s that his mother’s habit had. It had bothered Jon, too, but in a different way. He’d resented it a little, but also felt humbled by it, the way he always did by others’ discomfort. Getting shot in the leg seemed so big? Like such an aberration. So uncontroversially important—probably because it was simple, legible. Georgie could convey its hugeness to him in three words. She got shot. Obviously there was more to the story than that; there were parts he could never…

Well, no. There was a part of it he felt he should say he could never understand: that she’d kept the cursed bullet because she wanted it. In fact he was pretty sure he did understand that. But he didn’t have the right to admit it, he didn’t think. And no reason to hope she would believe him if he did. The second he’d learnt the bullet was still in there, after all, he and Basira had rushed to dig it out. Surely, from her perspective that could only mean he didn’t and could never understand. Or maybe he just wanted her to see it that way—wanted her to get to keep that uncomplicated resentment of his ignorance. It made his perspective look stupid and ugly, sure. But the truth made it look self-absorbed and pitiful. The truth was that until Daisy insisted otherwise, he’d assumed only he could see his own corruption and assent to it: that the others must not have known what they were doing.

Then again, maybe even if Melanie knew that, she would see only that he had underestimated her. Maybe it didn’t matter how much she knew.

Melanie switched off which hand she held her white cane with now, too. But that was probably healthy? Jon knew no more than the average person about white-cane hygiene. He just remembered feeling the floor drop out of his stomach when they’d got coffee together during his time in hiding and he had seen her switch her original, silver cane from hand to hand. Part of him had wanted to scoff or rationalize it away. How much could the shot leg hurt, really, if she still noticed when her arms got tired? But another part of him shuddered at the thought one arm alone couldn’t compensate for the weight her leg refused to take—that she had to keep switching off when one arm got weak and shaky from supporting more weight than it should have to. It wasn’t that he hadn’t experienced pain or impairment on that scale. He had, though the thought of a single injury sufficing to cause it still made him feel cold inside. It was that he kept seeing proofs, all over, everywhere, that the parts of his life he’d only learnt to accept by assuming they were rare weren’t rare.

Leitner hadn’t made the evil books; he’d just noticed they were there. And then had his life ruined by their influence, like everyone who came across them. Jon had had no time and no right to deplore the holes Prentiss had left in him and Tim, because on the same damn day he learnt someone had shot the previous Archivist to death. Alright, so it was him, then, right? Him and Tim—just doomed, just preternaturally unlucky. Tim, handsome face half-eaten by worms, estranged (as Jon then assumed) from a brother who seemed so warm and accepting in that picture on his lock screen; Jon, saved from Mr. Spider only by his childhood bully, now fated to take the place of another murder victim—and also half-eaten by worms. But no; he and Tim had got off lightly. Look what had happened to Sasha the same fucking night. The very thing whose influence convinced him the world had it out for him? Had killed Sasha. Literally stolen her life. How many lives around him got stolen while he mourned his own?

“I want you to comment on it,” Jon had managed to clarify. But Martin had scoffed as he stood in the foyer of Daisy’s safehouse, hopping on one foot to pull off the other shoe:

“Yeah, well. You haven’t exactly led by example on that one.”

“How could I?”

He accepted Jon’s scarf and long-discarded jacket, hanging them up beside his own. “Gee, I don’t know—commenting on it yourself?”

“On… switching which side I used the cane on.”

“Don’t play dumb, Jon. On this ‘genetic condition’” (in a deep, posh voice, with a stodgy frown and fluttering eyelashes) “you’ve apparently had this entire time. Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

“I thought you knew, Martin! Why would I mention it in a childhood anecdote if I didn’t think...?”

“Well I didn’t know, okay? You never told me. You never tell anyone anything about what’s going on with you, you just—you just make everything into another heroic cross to bear.”

“That’s not—?” He wanted to tell Martin just how little that made him want to say about it. But he guessed Martin was really talking less about the EDS thing, more about how he’d spent their whole first year in the Archives pretending to dismiss the statements that scared him. How he’d sent Tim and Martin home when he’d found out about Sasha. How he’d stayed away from the Institute even after his name got cleared for Leitner’s murder. “What do you want to know.”

“Why you never—?” In a similar way, Martin seemed to reconsider his initial response. “Yeah, okay, right. Object-level stuff, yeah?” Jon nodded and wanly smiled. “Okay, so. What’s it called?”

After taking a minute to ditch his shoes, wash the sticky ice-cream residue off his hands, and drink some water, he’d sat down on the couch with Martin and told him its name, what it was, what it did. What does that mean, though, Martin kept asking, so he’d explained how it applied to the anecdote about his jaw. Martin asked why it meant he needed a cane.

“Be…cause all my joints are like that.”

“Yeah, but why does it help with that? What is the cane actually for, is what I’m asking.”

Jon hated being asked that question. “It—it means I don’t fall over when one of my joints stops working? A-and… also makes walking hurt less. I suppose.”

“So, when they’re working right, that’s when you don’t need it?”

“No—yes?—sort of. Now sometimes I just need it when it’s been too long since I had a statement. I get sort of. Weak.” Quickly Jon added, “But I don’t need it for stability so much since the coma.” He’d shown Martin how now, when he pulled out his finger, the Eye would just sort of erase that version of reality—how the dislocation wouldn’t snap back, but simply cease to exist. As if his body were a drawing on which the Beholding had corrected a mistake. He put his palms together behind his back, in the way he’d been told one couldn’t without subluxing both shoulders, and told Martin to watch how the hollows between his shoulder bones vanished. He opened his jaw ‘til it jarred to the side, and told Martin to listen for the static.

But Jon had never shown Martin how these things worked before the coma. Martin had no reference for this kind of thing; he understood only enough to find the sights unsettling. “That’s—no, that’s okay, I’ll”—he stuttered as Jon fumbled with his kneecap in search of a fourth example—“I-I get it. I’ll take your word for it.”

“I just thought.”

“No, I—? I don’t need you to prove it to me, Jon.” (The latter nodded, blushing, trying to smile.) “I get… I’m sorry. I guess I get why it’d feel easier not to say anything if? If you think it’s either that or have to convince people it’s a thing.”

Again Jon nodded. He suspected Martin wasn’t through talking yet. But Martin still wasn’t looking at him, eyes squeezed tight against Jon’s party tricks. So, to show he was listening, Jon said, “Yes. Er—thank you, Martin.”

“I just don’t like it when you hide things from me.”

“I wasn’t—”

“You could at least ask if I want to know about them, yeah?”

Even at the time, Jon had doubted this. If they’d had this conversation after the change, he might have pointed out to Martin that when you mention something the other person has no inkling of, you make them too curious to decline your offer of more information, even if afterward they’ll admit they wish you’d never told them.

“Or ask me if I even recognize what you’re talking about, the next time you start going on about some childhood anecdote where you incidentally had a dislocated jaw. Honestly, would it kill you to start with, ‘Hey, did I ever tell you about x’?”

“No, it wouldn’t. You’re right. I’ll try. What… kinds of things did you—? For the future, I mean. What kinds of things did you want to make sure I tell you about.”

Martin sighed, in that way he did when he thought Jon was going about something all wrong. But after a pause to think, he did ask, “About this, or in general?”

“Either—both—first one, then the other.”

“Okay. I guess… I want to know when you’re hurt, mostly. Like—I can’t believe I even have to say this—that’s kind of important, actually? How am I supposed to know how to behave around you if I never know whether you're secretly in pain or not?”

This seemed weird—both now and at the time. Jon figured he must be missing something. If Martin thought he only needed the cane because of Prentiss then, sure, that might have affected how he imagined Jon’s discomfort to himself, but? Wasn’t the cane itself an admission of pain? Why did Martin think he owed him more than that—that he had owed him more than that at the time, no less? Did he not realize how fucking private that was? What a surrender of privacy the cane represented?

But, no, he reminded himself now; nondisabled people don’t realize that, unless you tell them about it. Repeatedly. Over and over. It only seems obvious to you because you lived it already.

“Er.” At the time he’d just shown Martin his teeth, with the points of his left-side canines joined. Nominally a smile, but more like a show of hiding the grimace beneath than an actual attempt to hide it. “That’s harder than you might think? Technically I’m always….”

“Oh.”

“Sorr—”

“—What do you mean, ‘technically’?”

“I’m—not always aware of it?” He disliked that phrase, in pain—how it implied a discrete and exclusive state. One could not be in Paris and at the same time in London; similarly, most people seemed to assume one could not be in pain and also in a good mood. In raptures. In a transport of laughter. That when one admits to being in pain, one implies that’s the most important thing they’re conscious of.

“Well that doesn’t make sense.”

“Yes, I know—‘if a tree falls down in a forest’—blah blah blah.” With a gentle smile to acknowledge he’d picked up this mode of speech from Martin. He turned his wrist in circles so it clicked like an old film reel. “Philosophically speaking, if you’re not aware of pain, you can’t be in it. Maybe ‘technically’ isn’t the right word.”

“Oh yeah ‘cause that’s the angle I want to know about this from.”

Jon sighed. “I know. I’m sorry. I just mean, it doesn’t always matter to me.”

“Well it matters to me,” Martin scoffed.

“Yeah—I’m getting that. Is there any way I can explain this that you won’t jump down my throat for?”

Martin sighed, groaned, pulled at his hair a little but made himself stop. (He doesn’t pull it out, Jon knows—he just likes having something to grab onto during awkward conversations. Usually emerges from them looking like a cartoon scientist.) “Okay, yeah,” said Martin. “I get it. I’m sorry too.”

“I mean—when you get a paper cut, that hurts, technically, right?”

“Well yeah, a little, but that’s not the kind of—”

“But just because you notice that hurt doesn’t mean?” He paused to rearrange his words. “You’re not going to remember it later unless someone asks why you’ve got blood on your sleeve.”

“Y—eah. Sure.”

“Is that…?”

“When you’re suffering, then. I want you to tell me that. And—whenever something weird happens? Like, before it stops being weird and you talk to me like I’m stupid for not already knowing about it.”

“What if”—this far into his question, Jon worried it might come off as a smart-alecky, devil’s-advocate thing. So he paused, pretending he needed time to formulate its words. “What if I haven’t decided yet whether it’s weird or not.”

“That in itself is pretty weird, Jon.”

“Fair enough.”

“I want to be part of that conversation. I want you to trust me enough to bounce ideas off me! It’s not like—? I mean why wouldn’t you do that?”

Jon had shrugged and grimaced, hands in his trouser pockets. “Not to worry you?” he’d suggested. But as he bit his lip and shimmied down from the bed Jon knew now that that was the sanitized version—and probably, if you’d asked him a day before or afterward, his past self would have known that too. Most things you told Martin, he’d either ignore them completely or latch onto them, refuse to let them go, and interpret everything else you said in the light they cast. Jon had learnt not to raise any given topic with him until he was sure he wanted to risk its becoming a long, painful discussion. This was part of why he hadn’t kept his promise, he told himself as he turned their interim bedroom’s doorknob. Why he’d said so little about anything weird that had happened to him at Upton House.

“Martin?”

“Oh hey, Jon—you’re awake.” Martin glanced in his vague direction but stayed bent over his work, so Jon could not meet his eyes.

“You found the screwdriver.”

“Yeah! And a screw that matches better, see?” He fished the first one they'd found out of his pocket and held it up next to the door for comparison. Jon supposed they looked a little different—bright yellowy gold vs. a darker gold. “They were in the library, of all places. There’s a little box full of ‘em that he keeps right next to his reading glasses, apparently. Guess he must break them a lot. How are yours, by the way? Any bits feel loose?”

Dutifully, trying to keep his dazed smile to himself, Jon pulled off his glasses. Folded and unfolded each arm, jiggled the little nose pieces. He shook his head. “Don’t think so. You can have a look yourself though, if you like.”

“Remind me later. Should’ve brought the whole box, probably,” Martin said, voice strained as he twisted the screw that last little bit. “There!” His open mouth broadened into a smile. “Time to see if it worked. You wanna do the honors?”

Jon shook his head, breathed a laugh through his nose. “You should do it. You’re the reason it’s fixed.”

“I mean, yeah,” shrugged Martin as his hand closed round the doorknob, “but I’m also the reason it broke.” It opened with a click. “Ha-ha! Success! Statements—our own clothes—our own bed! Er. Ish.”

Something tugged in Jon’s chest; he’d forgot the statements were why Martin thought this quest so urgent. He lingered at the side of the bed while Martin rummaged in his backpack, remembering for once to toe his first shoe off while standing.

“Man. Looks sorta underwhelming now, after the other room, huh?”

“Least our wallpaper’s better.”

“Tsshhyeah, and our view.”

Jon didn’t turn around, but surmised Martin must be looking out at that tree he liked. “Is it four already?”

“Uhh—nearly, yeah. You were out for a while; took me ages to find that damn thing. Here you go,” announced Martin as he slapped a zip-loc bag full of statement down on the bed.

(“So they won’t get water damage,” he had answered a few days ago, when Jon asked him why he’d individually wrapped each statement like snacks in a bagged lunch. “What? It’s not like we have to worry about landfills anymore. If I put them all in the same bag, you’d take one out and not be able to get it back in.”)

“What happened to my jacket, by the way? And yours?”

“Uhhh.”

“Right, okay,” Martin laughed; “I’ll go get them before I forget. I’ll put this away too, I guess” (meaning the screwdriver still in his hand). “Don’t wait for me, yeah? I don’t mind missing the trailers.”

Jon smiled. “Sure.”

As Martin hurried off, Jon sat down to untie and pull off his other shoe, threaded the lace back through the final eyelet from which it’d come loose, picked up the first shoe and untied that one, then stood up and set them by the door next to his cane. Both hips and all ten fingers behaved themselves throughout. As he walked by the vanity he grabbed the coins he’d removed to do laundry the other day and stuck them back in his trouser pocket. Useless, of course, but he’d missed having something to fidget with. He squatted down and peered under the vanity for the hair tie he’d dropped, for the fifth or sixth time since he’d misplaced it. Didn’t find it. That was fine; he had another one around his wrist. His knees felt weak, so instead of standing back up he crab-walked to the foot of the bed and sat down with his back against it. Straightened his legs out before him on the floor. Then he dug the coins from his pocket and counted them. Yup—still 74p.

Danika! Not Daniela—Danika Gelsthorpe. God, he would never forget one of their names out there. Never underestimate how much I care for the

“I'm back. What’s down there? Did you find the screw?” asked Martin as he hung their jackets up behind the door.

Jon shook his head. “Forgot about it. I was looking for that hair tie.”

“Well you’re on your own there; I’m done finding things today. The screw can wait,” Martin laughed—“he’s got a whole bag inside that box in the library. Do you need a hand getting up?”

He let Martin help him. Both knees cracked; the world’s edges went dark for a second. “Thank you,” he said, and it came out more peremptory than he’d meant it.

“Statement time?”

“Right. You don’t mind? I can wait ’til we’ve both had a rest, if you don’t want to be in the room while I.”

“No, I’m alright; I’ll stay here.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“I thought you hated statements.”

Martin shrugged. “Not these ones so much, now that. Heh—they’re almost nostalgic, if I’m honest. ‘Can it be real? I think I’ve seen a monster!’”

“They are a bit,” agreed Jon, looking down at the plastic-sleeved statement and making himself smile.

“Go on. Seeing you feel better will make me feel better too.”

That made it a bit easier to motivate himself, Jon supposed. From the moment he’d lain down on the bed he’d felt like he was floating on gentle waves—like if he let himself listen to them he could fall asleep in seconds. But that wouldn’t make Martin feel better. And no guarantee it would him, either, once he woke up again. He rearranged the pillows behind himself so he’d have to sit up a little; this might help keep him awake, and it meant he could rest his elbows on the bed while he held up the statement, rather than having to lift them up before his eyes. It made his neck sore, a bit, this angle, but that was fine. That might help keep him awake, too.

He sighed, readying himself for speech. Then heard a click, and felt a familiar buzz and weight against his stomach. The tape recorder had manifested inside his hoodie’s kangaroo pocket.

“Statement of Miranda Lautz, regarding, er… a botched home-repair job. Heh. Seems appropriate. Original statement given March twenty-sixth, 2004. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, the Archivist.”

[Image ID: A digital painting of Jon and Martin on an old-fashioned canopy bed with white sheets and orange drapes. Jon sits on the near side of the bed, reading a paper statement. He frowns slightly, looking down at the statement in his hands; he wears round glasses perched low on his nose. He’s a thin man, with medium brown skin dotted by scars left from the worms, and another scar on his neck from Daisy's knife. His hair is long and curly, gray and white hairs among the black. Jon sits supported by pillows—several big, white, lace-trimmed ones behind his back, and one under his knees. His right leg is slightly crossed over his left ankle, on which a clean white bandage peeks out beneath his cuffed, dark green trousers. He wears an oversized red hoodie and red-toed brown socks. Sat on the far side of the bed, next to Jon but facing away from both him and the viewer, is Martin—a tall and fat white man with short, curly, reddish brown hair and a short beard. He has glasses and is wearing a dark blue jumper and gray-brown trousers. Past the bed on Martin’s side, the bedroom door hangs ajar; in this light, it and the wall glow bluish green. On the near side, though, the light grows warmer, the orange canopy behind Jon casting pink and brown tints onto the white pillows and sheets. End ID.]

It seemed to be a Corruption statement, or maybe the Spiral. Possibly the Buried? A leak in Ms. Lautz’s roof caused a pill-shaped bulge to appear in her kitchen ceiling, about the size of a bread loaf. Water burst from it like pus from an abscess (as she described it. Nothing else Fleshy though, so far). Ms. Lautz repaired the hole in her ceiling, but every morning a new one reappeared somewhere else. Sometimes they appeared bulging and pill-shaped like the first one; other times she found them already burst, covering the room in water shot through with dark specks like coffee grounds.

Jon wished he’d refilled his empty water glass before starting to record. His mouth was so dry that every time he pronounced an L his tongue stuck to its roof. At this point he’d welcome a hole to burst in it and flood his mouth with water. Then again, he did still have to pee.

Eventually she and her spouse hired someone to find out what was wrong with the roof. She described hearing boots tramping around up there for half a day while they checked out all the spots where she and Alex had reported leaks. The inside of Jon’s trouser leg pulled at the bandage on his shin, making it itch. The repair men told Ms. Lautz it’d be safer and barely any more expensive to replace the whole thing. The ring and little fingers of Jon’s left hand were starting to go numb from having that elbow too long pressed against the bed. Miranda and Alex thanked the roof people and sent them off, saying they’d think it over.

He began to regret crossing his legs this way. He’d balanced his right heel in the hollow between his left foot’s ankle and instep, and in the time since he’d arranged them that way gravity had slowly pushed his foot more and more to the side, widening that gap. By this time he was sure it was hyperextended—possibly subluxed? It hurt already, and, he knew, would hurt more when he tried to move it. This rather ruined his fantasy of heading straight for the toilet when he finished reading.

Martin was right; these old statements seemed positively tame, now. He knew he owed it to Ms. Lautz to engage with her fate, but?

No. No buts. Whatever hell she lived in now, it looked just like the one she was about to describe for him, only worse. You can’t even pretend you’re sorry she’s living out her worst fear if you stop in the middle of reading that fear’s origin story. Never underestimate how much I

Once the repair men had left, Miranda Lautz wandered into her kitchen for lunch. She found her ceiling bulging halfway to the floor, with the impression of a face and two twisted arms at its center. Like someone had fallen through her roof, head first. Jon’s stiff neck twinged in sympathy. Miranda screamed and strode to the other side of the house in search of beer, figuring she'd find better answers at the bottom of a bottle than in her own head. When she got back to the kitchen with them, the beer bottles didn’t know what to do either, but said—

“God damn it. Not ‘ales’—‘Alex’. Obviously.”

He let the statement’s pages flop over the back of his hand, let his head tip backward until the top of it bumped against headboard and his eyes faced the ceiling. That settled it, then, didn’t it. If he had the Ceaseless Watcher looking through his eyes, he wouldn’t make a mistake like that—and he certainly couldn’t change position while recording. On top of his more substantial regrets, Jon had spent their whole odyssey before they came to Upton House ruing that he’d sat at the dining-room table to read Magnus’s statement, rather than on the couch or the bed. The chairs at that table had plain, flat wood seats—no cushion, no contouring for the shape of an arse. When he opened the door to the changed world, the cataclysm had preserved his bodily sensations at that moment like a mosquito in amber. He’d had a sore tailbone and pins and needles down his legs for untold eons. Right up until he and Martin crossed from the Necropolis onto the grounds protected by Salesa’s camera, where his tailbone faded out of awareness and his head filled up with cotton.

“Ohhh. ‘Alex’. Okay, that makes a lot more sense,” laughed Martin meanwhile. Jon could feel Martin’s shoulder bouncing against his. “She must’ve written it in cursive, huh.”

“I can’t do this right now, Martin.”

“Oh—okay, yeah. You rest; I’ll finish it for you.”

Jon closed his eyes and let air gush out from his nostrils. But you hate the statements, he knew he should say. Wouldn’t this make it easier, though? To let Martin have out this last bit of denial first?

The tape recorder in his pocket still hissed, still warmed and weighted down his stomach like a meal.

“Thank you,” he said.

The operator on the phone said she and Alex should wait for the ambulance to arrive, rather than try to free the man in the ceiling by themselves. Jon turned his neck back and forth, hoping Martin couldn’t hear its joints’ snap/crackle/pop. He picked his elbow up off the bed and shook out his hand. But when the paramedics cut the ceiling open, only a torrent of water gushed into their kitchen—water flecked with a great deal of what looked like coffee grounds. A day or two later the roof people called, to ask if they’d decided whether to have the roof repaired or replaced. They assured her none of their employees had gone missing. At the time of writing, Miranda and Alex still hadn’t decided what to do about the roof. A week ago, they’d found a squirrel-shaped bulge in their bedroom ceiling; they’d packed their bags and come to stay with Alex’s sister in London.

“Right! That wasn’t so bad.” Martin set the statement down and stretched his arms over his head. “Huh.”

“Hm?”

“Oh, I don’t know, just—it’s been a while. Thought it might feel, I don’t know, worse than that? Or better, I guess, since the Eye’s so ‘fond’ of me now.”

“I don’t think they work here.”

“What?”

“The statements. The Eye can’t see their fear.”

“Oh.” Jon could feel Martin deflating. He let himself avalanche over to fill the space. “You don’t feel better, do you.”

“No.”

“Maybe it’s just—slower here, like it’s taking a while to load or something. Remember how long the tape recorder took to come on last time? It was like—you were like— ‘“Statement of Blankety Blank, regarding an encounter with”—Oh, right,’ click.”

That was true. The tapes had known Salesa would give a statement before it happened, but with these paper ones they’d seemed slow on the uptake. Martin had also sworn the recorder that manifested to tape Mr. Andrade’s statement was a different machine than the one Salesa’d spotted that first morning. Jon wondered which machine the one in his pocket was.

Not relevant, he decided. He shook his head in his palm, stroking the lids of his closed eyes. “No—if they worked here I wouldn’t be able to stop in the middle of one.” As soon as he said it he winced, bracing himself for argument.

After the change he remembered wailing to Martin about how he couldn’t stop reading Magnus’s statement—how its words had possessed his whole body, forced him to do the worst thing any person ever had, and forced him to like it, to feel Magnus’s triumph as they both opened the door. Martin had pressed Jon’s face into his clavicle, rubbed his nose in the scent of Daisy’s laundry soap, covered the back of Jon’s head with his hands. Tried to interpose what he must then have still called the real world between Jon and what he could see outside. He’d said over and over, I know, and We‘ll be okay. Jon had known that meant he wasn’t listening, and yet still hadn’t been prepared for the argument they had later, when he mentioned in sobriety the same things he’d wailed back then.

“Hang on”—Martin had pleaded—“no, that can’t be true. I’ve been interrupted in the middle of a statement loads of times—and I know you have too.”

“By outside forces, yes, but you can’t decide to stop reading one. Believe me, Martin, I wouldn’t have—”

“Tim did.”

“No, he didn’t—”

“Yes he did! He was gonna do one and then Melanie—”

“No, Martin, I’ve heard the tape you’re talking about. Tim introduced the statement but didn’t actually start—”

“He did so! He read the first bit, and then stopped. ‘My parents never let me have a night light. I was—’”

“‘Always afraid, but they were just’....” Behind his own eyes he’d felt the Eye shudder and throb with gratitude. Just that sort of stubborn, it had seemed to sing, in a bizarre combination of his own voice with Jonah’s with Melanie’s, which doubled down when I screamed or cried about something, instead of actually listening.

“Yeah,” said Martin, forehead wrinkling. “And then he said, ‘This is stupid,’ and stopped.”

“You’re right.”

Jon still had no satisfying answer to that one, and cursed himself for having opened that can of worms back up again. It had been Tim’s first-ever statement, he reminded himself, and maybe Tim had never intended to get even that far. Maybe he’d been waiting for someone to interrupt him, as Melanie eventually did. Even out there, the Eye couldn’t really show him things like that. He could find out what Tim had said—could look it up, as it were—and what he’d thought, but motivation was a bit too murky, multilayered, complicated. It wasn’t real telepathy? The vicarious emotions the Eye gave him access to worked in broad strokes, generalities—just like common or garden empathy. Sure, he could imagine other people’s points of view more vividly, now that he could see through their eyes. But he still had to imagine them to life, based on the clues around him and what emotions those clues stirred in him. It didn’t work well for situations like this; he could hear Melanie’s footsteps and feel Tim’s reluctance to read a statement, but that was it. Enough to concoct plausible explanations; not enough to pick out the truth from a list of them. Plausibilities were too much like hypotheticals.

In the timelessness since that argument with Martin, though, Jon had also wondered whether it mattered if Tim had read the statement before recording it. He didn’t have footage, as it were, of Tim doing so; either the Eye had more copies of the statement’s events than it needed already and so had deleted that one from storage, or, conversely, perhaps it could no longer see versions of it that relied too heavily on the pages Mr. Hatendi had written it on, since Martin had burned those. But Tim’s summary, before he started reading. Blanket, monster, dead friend. It was bad, sure (like the assistants’ summaries always were, a ghost of past Jon interposed). But it sounded like the summary of a man who’d read it with his mind on other things. Inevitable and gruesome end. How he tried to hide; he couldn’t. Not at all like that of someone skimming it for the first time as he spoke. He did rifle through the papers though? So Jon couldn’t be sure. The suspicion ate at his mind, especially here. Could he have kept the world from ending just by—reading Magnus’s statement, before he went to record it? The way he used to way back at the start, before he trusted himself to speak the words perfectly on the first try? You didn’t mean to record it, did you? No, I’m sure you told Melanie and Basira you were just going to

“Guess that makes sense,” Martin said now. “So, you’re still feeling…?”

“Not great?”

“Yeah.”

“I… I feel human, here.”

“Oh wow. That’s—”

Jon told himself to put the hope in Martin’s voice to bed as soon as possible. “I know I’m not—not fully.” He allowed a smile to twitch the corners of his lips, flared his nostrils around an exhale that almost passed as a laugh. “Most humans don’t spontaneously summon tape recorders. Or sleep with their eyes open.”

“Yeah, but still, you don’t think maybe—?”

Again Jon hastened to cut Martin off. “A-and even if I was, it’s. I know that should be a good thing? But—”

At this point Martin interposed, “Should be, yeah! You don’t think it might mean you could—I don’t know, go back to normal? If we stayed here for a while?”

“Maybe? I-I might stop craving the Eye so much, but we’d still have to go back out there eventually, to face Elias, and. To be honest with you, Martin?” He huffed a laugh out, bitterly. “My ‘normal’ wasn’t exactly...”

“Right.” Martin sighed. “So you mean you feel like you used to, as a human. Which was…”

“Not great.”

“Right.”

“I haven’t been very well, here.” Jon shrugged for the excuse to duck his head. He could feel himself blushing, the heat spilling from his face all down both arms. Good thing the tape recorder in his pocket had gone cold.

Next to him, Martin puffed air out of his cheeks. “Yeah, I know.”

“I’m dizzy and confused without the Eye, and it—it can’t fix me here? When I.” He drew in breath, lifted his heel off his ankle and set that leg to the side, letting its foot roll into Martin’s shin. Bit his lip and scrunched his nose in preparation. Flexed the other foot’s toes, trying to isolate the lever in his ankle that would—there. Clunk. Then a noisy exhale: “Jyyrrggh. When that happens,” he choked out, voice strained by both pain and nerves. “It’s like before I became an avatar. I have to fix it myself, and it doesn’t just.” Magically stop hurting, he hoped went without saying; already he could hear Martin sucking air through his teeth. It made Jon’s cheeks itch. “Shouldn’t have let myself get used to a higher standard, I suppose.”

“What? No—of course you should have. Did you think I was gonna say that?”

“No, of course not; I just meant—”

“You deserve to feel healthy, Jon.”

“Do I? Health is clumsy, it’s callous, it, it lets terrible things happen because they don’t feel real—it can’t imagine them properly, can’t understand what they mean….”

“Okay, first of all, ouch.” Jon snarled a laugh at that, without knowing whether Martin meant it as a joke. “Second of all, that is not why you—why the world ended, okay? Especially, ‘cause, you weren’t ‘healthy’ then. You read Elias’s bloody statement because you were starving, remember?”

“Hmrph,” pronounced Jon, to concede he was listening without either confirming or denying the point.

“And thirdly, you’re not ‘callous’ out there? You don’t”—a scoff interrupted his words. “You don’t ‘let things happen because they don’t feel real’—that’s sure not how I remember it. Okay? I remember you crying for—god, I don’t know, days, maybe? Weeks?—about how you could feel everything, and couldn’t stop any of it. That’s the thing we’re hiding from here, Jon, so if you don’t actually feel any healthier here then what even is the point?”

In a voice embarrassment made small Jon managed, “I mean? I’m still kind of having fun.”

“Really? You don’t seem like it—”

“Not today, maybe—”

“Right, yeah, no; spending all day trying to fix a doorknob isn’t exactly—”

“But I don’t want to leave yet. I should still have a few good days left before the distance from the Eye gets too….”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.” For a few seconds he tried to think of something better to say, then gave up and told the truth, though in a jocular voice to hide his self-consciousness. “Always was the person who got ill on holiday.”

“Oh, god, of course you were—”

Voice growing higher in pitch, Jon pleaded, “It didn’t usually stop me from enjoying it?”

“What about America?” laughed Martin. “Did you still enjoy that one?”

“Of course not—I got kidnapped.”

“I mean, yeah, but you were pretty used to that too by then, right?”

“God.” Jon sniffed, crunchily, reeling back in the snot he’d laughed out. “Besides. That was a business engagement.”

Martin acknowledged this comment with a quick Psh, as he turned himself around on the bed to face Jon a little more. “Can I trust you to”—he stopped.

“Yes.”

“No, let me—that wasn’t fair; I can’t ask you that yet.”

“Oh. I’m sorry, Martin; I didn’t—”

“Of me, I meant, it wasn’t fair.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. I’ve been ignoring your distress all week because I wanted it not to matter.”

“I don’t know if I’d call it ‘distress,’” pointed out Jon. “Plus, I have been sort of, er. Secretive, about it.”

The exasperation in Martin’s sigh was probably meant for him, not for Jon, the latter reminded himself. “Yeah, but you’re not subtle. I can tell when you’re hiding something. It wasn’t exactly a big leap to figure out what. But I told myself it was temporary, and that you were acting like.”

Jon laughed preemptively. “Yes?”

“Like a little kid in line for a theme-park ride.” Again Jon laughed—less at the comparison itself than at how much Martin winced to hear himself say it. “I’m sorry. I should’ve taken you more seriously.”

“And I should have told you what was going on with me.”

“Yup,” concurred Martin at once.

“I know you hate it when I keep things from you.”

“I do—I hate it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m sorry too.” Martin waved this away like a fly. “I just—you said you think we’ve got a few more days, before it gets too much or whatever.”

“Yes.”

“Can I trust you to tell me when we need to leave?”

Jon tried not to answer too quickly, knowing vaguely that that might sound insincere. “Yes,” he said again, after pausing for a second. “You can trust me.”

“Okay? Don’t try to spare my feelings, or anything like that. Like—don’t just go, ‘Oh, well, he’s having a good time. That’s fine; I don’t have to.’ Yeah? ‘Cause I won’t have a good time if I’m worried you’re secretly suffering.”

This Jon did know; it sent a thrill of recognition down his spine, as he remembered their first day’s ping-pong adventure. “Right. I’ll do my suffering as publicly as possible.”

“Uh huh.” Martin’s arm tightened around Jon’s shoulder. “Just don’t worry about disappointing me? I mean, sure, I like it here, with the whole ‘not being an evil wasteland’ thing, but I’d much rather be out there with you happy than with you than spend one more minute in paradise with her.”

With a smile, Jon replied, “That might just be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“Yeah, yeah. Come on. We’ve got a job to do.”

“I suppose we do.”

As they walked on out of the range of Salesa’s camera, Jon glanced backward one more time and thought, Yes, that makes sense—but couldn’t quite recall what he had expected to see. It was like when you look at a clock, and tick Check the time off your mental to-do list, then realize you never internalized what time it was. “Pity,” he mused.

“What?”

“It’s, er, going away. That peace, the safety, the memory of ignorance.”

“That’s… Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Do you remember any of it? W-What Salesa said? Annabelle?”

“Some, I think. It’s, uh… do you mind filling me in?”

“Wait, you need me to tell you something for once?”

“I guess so. It’s, er… it’s gone. Like a dream. What was it like?”

After a pause Martin said, “Nice. It was… it was really nice.”

“Even though Annabelle was there?”

“I mean, yeah, but she didn’t do anything,” shrugged Martin. “Except cook for us. That was weird.”

“She cooked?” Jon watched Martin nod and smile around a wince. “And we let her do that? I let her do that?”

With a scoff Martin answered, “Under duress, yeah.”

“Huh.” Jon twirled his cane in circles, wondering why he’d thought he would need it. “Well, she didn’t poison us, apparently.”

“Nope. And believe me, we had that conversation plenty of times already. Er—maybe just let me put that away for you before you take somebody’s eye out, yeah?”

Jon nodded, folded his cane and handed it to Martin, then made himself laugh. “Was I… a bit neurotic about it.”

“About Annabelle?” Again Jon nodded. “Oh, we both were. We kept switching sides—one day I’d be like, ‘But she’s got four arms, Jon!’ and the next you’d be like—”

“She had four arms?”

“Yup. And six eyes. But your powers didn’t work there, so we thought maybe hers didn’t either? Never did find out for sure. God—you remember the day we got locked out of our room?”

“Er….”

“So that’s a no, then.”

“Sorry.”

Martin’s lips billowed in a sigh. “No, don’t be sorry. It’s not your fault.”

“So… what happened? Who locked us out? Was it Annabelle?”

“No, no, no one locked us out. It was just me, I uh—I sorta broke the doorknob? God, it was awful. Went to open it and the whole thing just came off in my hand, like” (he made the motion of turning a doorknob in empty air, and imitated the sound Jon figured it must have made coming off) “krrruk-krr.” Jon fondly laughed; he could imagine Martin’s horror at breaking something in a historic mansion. “It was just one screw that came loose, though, so you’d think, easy fix, right? Except the bloody screwdriver took forever to find. Turns out Salesa kept them in the library, of all places.”

“S-sorry—what does this have to do with Annabelle?”

“Oh—nothing ultimately, just.” Martin grimaced at his own recollection. “God, we had this whole argument over whether to ask her about it, and when I finally did can you guess what she told us?”

“What?” managed Jon; his throat felt small and weak all of a sudden.

Martin put a finger to his chin, and blinked his eyes out of sync. “‘Perhaps he keeps them next to something that breaks a lot,’” he recited, with an inane, self-congratulating smile. For a fraction of a second Jon could recognize it as Annabelle’s I’ve-just-told-a-riddle expression. But the memory faded and he could picture her face only as he’d seen it in pictures before the change.

“O…kay. And was that… true?”

“I mean, yeah, technically. Useless, though. And after we spent so long agonizing over whether it was safe to ask her….”

Jon allowed himself a cynical laugh. “Are you sure she didn’t orchestrate the whole thing?”

“Ugh—no, it wasn’t her. We had this conversation at the time. You made me check for cobwebs and everything.”

“And you… didn’t find any?”

“Of course not, Jon; it was a doorway.”

“Right. Doorway, yes.”

“Are you sure you’re feeling better? You still seem a bit….”

“No, I’m—I feel fine, I just can’t seem to. Retain anything concrete about… where did you say it was? Upton House? God that’s strange, that it would just be….”

Part of Jon felt tempted to deplore it as a waste of space, on the apocalypse’s part. These stretches of empty land were one thing, but a mansion? Couldn’t they at least get a Spiral domain out of it?

“I mean, not really. He told us all about it, remember? With the magic camera?”

“Right, yes,” Jon agreed.

“Well, we got it all on tape, if you want to listen to it later.”

“Yes, that sounds—all of it?”

“Well not the whole week or anything. It just came on whenever it thought it was important, I guess.”

“So not the part about the doorway.”

“Nope.”

“Pity.”

[where-theres-smoak-2]

The Bonesmith, Baghra and Aleksander

So here’s the next instalment of I noticed something interesting during my rewatch of S&B that nobody else likely cares about but well I’m sharing it with you all anyway. Also there are some book spoilers in here so tread careful if you haven't read them and don’t want to be spoilt.  

So whilst rewatching ep 3 I caught onto something the Apparat said that I thought was kind of interesting about the Bonesmith, something that I think can tell us alot about Aleksander and Baghra’s relationship but also Baghra’s motivations for separating darklina in episode 5.

 Anyone who has read the books will know that the Bonesmith is actually Ilya Morozova who is Aleksander’s grandfather. He was one of the first grisha and a very powerful fabrikator who created the amplifiers. What I thought was interesting was that the Apparat explains why the Bonesmith created the amplifiers in the first place which I don’t believe this is explained in the books but correct me if I am wrong as I am only half way through the third book. The apparat says ‘He (the bonesmith) knew that the grisha would always be prosecuted and so he worked on a plan to magnify their power.’ This obviously suggests that Ilya Morozova saw the grisha’s suffering and wanted to do something about it, in fact he becomes obsessed with it, with creating the amplifiers. I can’t help but wonder if this is why Aleksander is so convinced that its Morozova’s amplifiers that will help make grisha safe. Why he is so obsessed with them and finding them because he knows that protecting the grisha is exactly what they were made for in the first place.

 It could also explain why Baghra is so against Aleksander finding them and his obsession with them, also why she is so against Aleksander wanting to help the grisha and why she has much more of a just leave them to it you’re more important anyway, kind of attitude about the grisha’s plight. Her father’s obsession with the amplifiers is what lead to Baghra feeling so isolated in her childhood and also what lead to her family being torn apart. Baghra’s story is just as tragic as Aleksander’s and has some eerie similarities. She grew up feeling ignored and neglected by both her parents, her father was too obsessed with creating the amplifiers to pay his family much attention and her mother was so afraid of Baghra’s powers that she kept her distance and paid alot more attention to Baghra’s younger sister. Until one day her sister broke one of her toys and in anger and jealousy Baghra lashed out with the cut and killed her sister. Her father was able to use his fabrikator abilities and merzost to bring her sister back from the dead. The villagers upon seeing this miracle decided to chain up her father and sister and throw them both into the river to drown. Baghra and her mother flee but her mother was too traumatised by the events to keep going and in the end Baghra abandons her in the woods out of desperation to survive and finds her way to a farm. The people there took her in and put out a search party for her mother but they never found her and it is assumed she starved to death in the woods. Even with her feeling neglected by her family this is still a very traumatic thing for Baghra to go through and it all happens when she is a young girl. Unfortunately I do believe she passed her trauma onto her son and in the end she ends up becoming the neglectful parent herself and makes her son feel as isolated and alone as she did growing up. Also don’t know how relevant it is but both Aleksander and Baghra used the cut for the first time as a child and in both instances it was against another child/ children which you know tragic, just loads of tragedy in the lives of the Morozovas. 

I really do think that alot of the reason why Baghra acts against Aleksander so much in his pursuit of saving the grisha is because of her experiences with her father. In episode 7 when Aleksander talks about using merzost to create an army to protect the grisha from the old king just like Morozova used merzost to create, Baghra tells him he’ll die just like Morozova did. This is obviously something she fears. If you look at it from her perspective at this time she was watching her son being hunted by the king, a king who wanted her son dead because he was afraid of how powerful Aleksander’s powers were. This is very similar to what happened to her father, the people feared his power and they killed him for it. In R&R she tells Alina ‘Ravka was different then. Grisha had no sanctuary. Power like ours ended in fates like my father’s.’ Whilst Baghra was often cold towards Aleksander I do think she loves him and he is the most important thing to her so seeing her son seeming to follow in her father’s footsteps terrifies her and so she decides to do everything in her power to stop him.   

However this just drives a wedge further between them. Protecting grisha is something that Aleksander cares deeply about. Whilst Aleksander might be the most important thing to Baghra, the grisha are the most important to Aleks. And Aleksander believes two things, that the answer to protecting the grisha lies in Morozova’s amplifiers and Alina. They together are the key. I do find it very interesting that Morozova’s and Aleksander’s goals were very similar, they both want to make things better for the Grisha. They both also become obsessed with this goal and the amplifiers as a solution. Aleksander has that added level of obsession with the sun summoner, maybe he believes this was the missing piece to the amplifiers, the amplifiers have been created and now they need someone to wear them, the sun summoner. I think Aleksander sees him being the one to find the amplifiers and along with the sun summoner using them to protect the grisha as a way of completing his grandfather’s work. Also its worth noting that Aleksander never knew his grandfather who died before he was born and he also never knew his own father, his mother never even tells Aleks his father’s name the only thing that is known about him is that he was a powerful heartrender. From reading Demon in the Woods its obvious that Aleks feels this void of his absent father. He never really has a father figure in his life. Back then sons would often following in their father’s footsteps, would go into their father’s trade, inherit their farm, or blacksmith shop etc. Those same trades were likely the trades of those boys’ grandfathers as well and so those boys grow up to continue on the family legacy. But Aleks has no trade or skill to inherit because he has no father. That is until he learns of his grandfather's plans. I think Aleksander sees his search for the amplifiers and making sure they are used for what they were intended to be used for as him kind of going into the family trade. Its a weak link but it is still a link to a male family figure and that makes him feel more like the other boys he grows up around. As isolated as he is from them, as different as he is from them, in this way he is the same because he too is continuing his family’s legacy. Also slight side note here but another thing I noticed that I thought was quite telling is that there are two grisha that Aleks seems to respect and admire for their skills and who he kind of defends against others, Ivan and David. When he senses disdain from Alina towards Ivan he makes that joke about how he is actually quite funny when you get to know him, essentially defending him and it is obvious that Ivan is Aleksander’s righthand man and that Aleks has alot of respect for him. Also when David says he can track Alina using the ring, Aleks says he’s proving the many uses of a durast. More so in the books than the show but the other grisha do consider fabrikators to be somewhat useless and the weakest of the grisha a view that Aleksander doesn’t seem to share. What I find interesting about this is that the two grisha he seems to admire (outside of Alina obviously) are a heartrender and a fabrikator the two ‘trades’ of his father and grandfather.    

But I also think  Aleksander has some complicated feelings about his grandfather. I do think he admires Morozova but I think a little part of him also resents being his descendant. I said in my Darkling Analysis post that when Aleks was talking at the fountain about being the descendant of the most hated grisha in all of Ravka he might not have been outright lying to Alina. That he might have been talking about someone else not the black heretic (obviously because he is the black heretic). At the time I wrote that analysis I hadn’t read the books but now that I have I think I might have been on to something. I think in that moment he was talking about his grandfather who before the black heretic was the most hated and feared grisha in all of Ravka. It’s because of this and because of the nature of their powers that Baghra forces Aleks to hide his true identity to the point where he begins to worry he’ll forget his own name. I can well believe that as a boy he would run away and hide there and throw a coin to wish he could be anyone else, someone who wasn’t Ilya Morozova’s grandson, someone who didn’t need to hide all the time and could just be a normal boy. 

Next I want to talk about episode 5 and Baghra’s motivations for separating Aleks and Alina. As I’ve mentioned above I really do think that Aleks believes Alina is the key to the amplifiers and that they were meant for her. I also think that Baghra knows this too. But I also think the books can give as another clue into her motivations. In S&S when Alina meets Baghra again Baghra is very angry with Alina because instead of running and getting on the ship Baghra organised for her, Alina went after the stag and got caught and collared. Obviously in the show it happens slightly different and the thing that Alina does differently is running on her own instead of waiting in the store room for others like Baghra told her too, but its still the same idea of Alina not following Baghra’s plan. But the reason why she is angry is because she feels like because of Alina he has lost his humanity. In the books Baghra explains her actions by saying: 

Baghra pounded the floor with her stick. “I wanted to keep him from becoming a monster! It’s too late for that now, isn’t it? Thanks to you, he is further from human than he’s ever been. He’s long past any redemption.” 

“Maybe,” I admitted. “But Ravka isn’t beyond saving.” 

“What do I care what happens to this wretched country? Is the world so very fine that you think it worth saving?”

Baghra’s goal was to stop her son from becoming a monster and I again think this stems from what the villagers did to her father and just the attitude others, including other grisha, have had towards her and her son because of their powers. The villagers saw her father as a monster because of the power he possessed and how he was able to bring his child back from the dead. Pretty much everyone saw her and her son as monsters because of their powers, including Baghra’s own mother. I do think because of her trauma she has come to associate being a monster with their powers or having alot of power. Also the passage above shows that she doesn’t really care about Ravka so that’s not what is driving her. I think she has been let down and mistreated so many times by the people of Ravka, both otkazat'sya and grisha alike, that she has the attitude of they never helped me so why should I want to save them. I think her experiences have made her very angry at the world and so she doesn’t think it is worth saving. So in episode 5 when she says that they cannot let Aleksander obtain that kind of power I don’t think its because she is worried what it will mean for the world. It’s because she fears two things, one that if he obtains that power people will become more afraid of him and want to kill him like the old king did in the past and like the villagers did with her father. The other fear is the one she talks about above, she’s afraid he’ll become a monster and that he will lose his humanity. I think she fears this because on some level she feels like that’s what happened to her. That she became so detached and angry at the world that she stopped caring about anything but Aleksander. I mean she has done some monstrous things in her life, for example in Demon in the Woods she helps slaughter an entire village of innocent people including woman and children because she wants to protect her son. I think she knows how good intentions can lead you down a dark path and she doesn’t want that to happen to her son. Ironically I would actually argue that its her interference in separating Alina and Aleks that helps push him down that path. 

We know that Baghra thinks its Alina that is pushing Aleks further from humanity and I can’t help but wonder why she would think this. I mean in my opinion Alina is what pulls him back to his humanity and I’m pretty sure this is book canon too. I haven’t read it but I’ve seen this quote from ROW going around “Why did you go to her?" Because with her he was human again.’  I think the reason why Baghra thinks Alina will push Aleks away from his humanity partly stems back to this idea Aleks has of using the sun summoner and the amplifiers together to expand the fold in an attempt to keep grisha safe. I think she fears that Aleks will keep doing more and more monstrous things in an attempt to reach his goal because she knows that teaching him that he was the most important and the only one that matters and by teaching him to stay isolated and separated by society she has made him less caring, less empathetic and therefore less human. She also knows that Aleks believes the sun summoner is the key so she thinks without Alina he can’t go through with his plans and so she attempts to remove Alina from the equation by convincing her to run. 

Obviously Baghra’s version of how and why the fold was created is very different than what happened and I think the reason why is because she knows that Alina cares about Aleks and so in order to convince her to leave him she decides to try and scare her in to it. If she tells Alina that Aleks accidently created the fold whilst grieving for his lost love and trying to protect his people who are being hunted and killed and now he wants to expand the fold because he thinks that will scare their enemies into not killing and torturing grisha, well it might not be enough to get Alina to leave. Alina might decide that Aleks’ aim is a sympathetic one and that there is still enough humanity in him to try and save him. Instead she tells Alina that her son is a power hungry monster who created the fold for his own gain, who is going to enslave her and expand the fold, who doesn’t care about Alina at all and who has spent an eternity manipulating girls to his scandalous whims and dark desires. The image she paints of Aleksander is much more frightening and plays into all of Alina’s fears and insecurities. Look I really hated that Baghra did this but I also think it is important to remember that Baghra really does believe that she is protecting and saving her son. I don’t think she’s doing it out of maliciousness or because she wants her son to fail and doesn’t want him to be happy. She just believes because of her own experiences that if he continues the path he’s is taking then the world will turn against him again and he’ll be brutally killed. She knows that Alina is a powerful weapon and so to her the logical step in preventing her son from going down this path is to take Alina away from him. 

As to whether Baghra knew how much Aleks cared about Alina before she intervened, I’m not sure. I’m in two minds on it to be honest because a part of me thinks she was really convincing when she told Alina that Aleks was manipulating her and had done so with other woman in the past, which makes me think maybe she really did think Aleks was just manipulating Alina and was only interested in her for her power. But then on the other hand during their conversation in episode 5 when Aleksander says that Alina is all that matters now and that she is the one, Baghra doesn’t seem surprised by this which would suggest that she knows that Aleks’ feelings run deeper. I will say that even if she did know that Aleks cared deeply for Alina, I mean personally I think it was pretty obvious that by the time of the winter fete he’s head over heels in love with her, it wouldn’t have mattered a great deal in regards to her plan. In fact I think it might even have made her even more determined to separate them and I think this is because of Luda. As mentioned above Baghra fears her son will lose his humanity and become a monster. Aleks loved Luda very much and it was losing her that was the catalyst, or part of it, that lead to the creation of the fold. Therefore I think Baghra would consider Aleks loving anyone a danger. It’s all very good and well her son knowing the delights of love but what if he loses that person? What monstrous thing will he create next? Baghra has always believed that keeping her son isolated and hidden is what will keep him safe which is why she tells him to run and hide and get a new name in the flashback in episode 7. Just as protecting the grisha is what drives Aleks, protecting Aleksander is what drives Baghra.             

So yeah that’s my I've thought waay too much into this analysis of the Morozova family and its effect on why darklina were torn asunder. At least until the next instalment of ooh that’s interesting I never spotted that before.