#and virgil is none the wiser

[jaratedeguadalupe]

Virgil: I can’t believe we’re stuck in this room together

Janus, swallowing the key: yes truly unfortunate

[where-are-the-spooky-gays-2]

This is something I (apparently) do so I’m forcing it upon Virgil bc he’s my second favorite (they could never make me hate you Janus sanders🫶)

Whenever Virgil gets feverishly ill, he’s pretty much delirious. And on top of that he doesn’t remember it

Janus and Remus are used to it, and now the light sides are because he’s lived with them for so long. But the first time it happened?

Patton thought he was dying or something, Roman was confused and a tad bit concerned, Logan was like ‘Wtf, how are you the only one sick?? Are you good?? What the hell??’ And meanwhile Thomas is none the wiser for plot convenience

Then like a week or something later when he feels better, they are like ‘what happened? Why were you sick? Are you feeling better??’ And virgils like ‘what’

So they try and explain but Virgil’s just confused. He literally didn’t even know his ass was sick

Janus had to explain to everyone else

They’re all used to it now but GOD were they freaking out 😭

- Vee 💜

Sorry this is so long btw

Oh my god I L O V E that XD The Emo Spider is practically drunk on sickness while the Lights and neither Vee for that matter know what the fuck was going on with him at first but luckily the two people who know him the most will gladly explain XD

[i-am-bitterly-jittery]

Devoted

Word count: 1851

Rating: Teen

Pairings: Moxieceit (Patton/Virgil/Janus), Moceit

Warnings: background violence and murder, religious imagery (written by a very non religious person who’s certain that there’s better words she could have been using but she doesn’t know them and trying to google them just gets her unhelpful Bible study websites), the inherent gay hornyness that comes from the religious imagery

~~~START~~~

When the invaders came, Virgil watched from the temple steps with the rest of the priestesses. The temple of Truth and Lies sat atop a hill overlooking the city and the sea beyond; they had seen the invaders’ ships even as the watchmen sent up the alarm. 

The priestesses watched, uncaring, as the city’s ships sank under the assault of the invaders’. They watched, unmoving, as the invaders reached the ports and descended upon the city. They watched, unaffected, as the city began to burn — their duties were to their Gods, not to the city from which some of them had been nursed. Even as citizens fled the city on foot, the priestesses of Truth and Lies watched steadfast from the temple steps. Some citizens begged to shelter in the temple, but only those who bore tokens of the temple’s Gods were permitted. 

Not until the Grand Temple of The Twins in the center of the city began to smoke did the priestesses stir. In the past, invaders to the city had left the temples untouched, fearing the retaliation of the Gods, but these invaders… they were barbarians. The temple would not keep the priestesses safe. 

Some of the priestess fled, forsaking their Gods and deciding their chances would be better as blasphemers out in the wilderness. The remaining priestesses, Virgil included, retreated into the temple and shut the stone doors. 

Inside the temple, patrons and priestesses alike rushed about in panic. Some tried to arm themselves with the ceremonial armament that normally hung from the wall as tributes from the city’s greatest warriors, some prayed at the feet of the two twenty-foot stone statues of the Gods for their delivery from peril, and some drank the sacrificial wine, fermented in the temple from the finest grapes grown in the valley beyond the temple for the Gods to enjoy as they may, hoping to be so senseless by the time death came for them that they would be none the wiser at the end. Virgil watched the blasphemy impassionately. 

Unlike most of his fellow priestesses, Virgil had been brought to the temple as a babe, he had been tribute to his Gods, and he was raised on nothing but Them. He did not try to arm himself, nor did he beg for his life or defile his Gods’ tribute, instead, he wandered deeper into the temple. He ignored the sounds of running feet and the fearful yelling and came to a halt only once he had reached the mosaic tile fresco of The Snake and The Frog, there he fell on his knees and prayed. The fresco was not generally considered to be a formal prayer site, but it was where Virgil had always felt closest to his Gods. 

He did not pray for his life, for his life was worth nothing if it was not spent in worship of his Gods. He did not pray for the city, for the city was worth nothing whether it was populated by his people or by the invaders’. He did not pray for his fellow priestesses, for they had already disrespected their Gods. 

No, Virgil prayed for the temple. He prayed that no invader would defile what belonged to his Gods, that the temple would stand no matter how much fire the invaders brought with them, that the temple would stand long after the invaders perished, whether by war or old age. 

And as the invaders reached the temple’s stone doors and began to beat on them, he continued to pray. He prayed that his Gods would always have tribute and that their cult would go on long after Virgil and the priestesses were cut down. 

As the stone doors gave and the screaming began, Virgil prayed that the beauty of the temple not be diminished as it was decorated with the blood of the slain. 

Screams and footsteps echoed around Virgil, but he did not move from his supplication. He was afraid of the invaders and he was afraid of dying, but more than that, he was afraid of abandoning his Gods. He remained, unmoving before the fresco, quiet prayers falling from his lips. 

“Well, well, well. What have we here?” 

Virgil could not stop his flinch of fear as a dark voice croaked with glee behind him, but he continued his prayers. 

“Beg your false gods for their mercy,” the invader laughed, seizing Virgil by the hair with one hand and bringing his knife to his throat with the other. “They cannot save you.”

Virgil squeezed his eyes shut and added one last prayer that his blood would only add to the fresco’s beauty, if his Gods allowed it to sully Their imagery at all. 

The screams in the temple behind him seemed to change pitch as he waited for his executioner to strike. But no strike came. 

The invader’s laughter was cut off with a strangled gasp as the knife fell to the ground near Virgil’s knees with a clatter. Then the hand untwisted from Virgil’s hair, and a body fell to the ground with a heavy thump!

Virgil’s eyes snapped open as a cool, gloved hand cupped his cheek. Before him, clad in black and yellow vestments, stood a man– no, not a man. A God. His God, to whom his life was but a humble tribute. 

His God — Janus, God of lies, secrets, and selfishness — stood before him in the guise of a half-man, half-snake. The human half of His face was all sharp angles and smooth skin as though cut from the same stone as His statue in the temple’s gallery, and the snake half of His face was decorated with a mosaic of yellow and green scales that put the fresco behind Him to shame. His human eye was brown as the bark of the trees in the forest, as the jasper inset in the temple walls, as the dirt from which all life grew, His snake eye was as yellow as the sun and almost seemed twice as bright. 

A smile graced His lips as He swiped His thumb gently against Virgil’s cheekbone. 

“As stunning as your blood would look decorating Our temple,” He said in a smooth voice that was almost as mesmerizing as His eyes and was sparked with humor and affection, the source of which Virgil could not fathom. “It would not be worth even half as much as it is coursing through your lovely veins.”

Virgil blinked dumbly, awed and confused by the emergence of his God. 

The God smiled a little wider and reached for Virgil’s hands, still clasped together in prayer, with His free hand. He pulled Virgil to his feet before snaking His arm around Virgil’s waist and pulling him against the God’s stone-like body, trapping his clasped hand between them. 

“Look at you, precious,” the God cooed reverently. “So devote, even when Death has you in Her grasp.”

A scream started just down the passageway before being cut off suddenly. Unable to help himself, Virgil tried to turn to look, but his God’s hand held fast upon his cheek. 

The God’s smile lost some of its humor but none of its affection. “Now, now, precious, Patton will be done soon and then you won’t need to worry any longer.”

None of this made any sense to Virgil, he was but a speck of dust to his Gods, something to be washed away when he became too much of a nuisance, not something to be held close and called precious. 

Janus continued to smile affectionately at Virgil and pet his cheek gently as the screams and cries died down until the temple finally sat silent once more but for Virgil’s quiet breathing. 

“I hope you’re not planning on keeping him all to yourself, love,” another voice, this one light and musical, broke the silence from close behind Virgil.

Janus held Virgil’s face fast, but allowed His own eyes to lift to view the newcomer with the same affection He had been sending Virgil’s way. 

“Of course not, darling,” He answered, rubbing His hand up and down Virgil’s spine possessively. “He is Ours after all.”

Another body, softer and warmer than Janus’s pressed into Virgil’s back. “Our most devoted priestess,” the voice cooed affectionately. “Safe in his salvation.”

“I-I didn’t ask for salvation,” Virgil stuttered quietly, afraid to contradict his Gods, but even more afraid to let them misunderstand his prayers. 

“Of course you did!” Patton — God of truth, morality, and selflessness — exclaimed, turning Virgil around in Janus’s grip. Janus allowed His hand to drop from Virgil’s face, but His other hand stayed firm around his waist, resting on Virgil’s stomach as Virgil faced His Husband. “You asked that no invader defile what was Ours.”

Patton had chosen to dress Himself in full human form and blue vestments, though His height might be pushing what man could reach on their own. He chose softer lines and a fuller form than His Husband had; His eyes sparkled blue as the ocean as it melts into sky, and were twice as deep as either. His gaze, trained firmly on Virgil despite the fact that at his back was His Husband, was full of a naked affection that made Virgil’s knees weak — not that it mattered, the way Janus held him firmly. 

“You are Ours, aren’t you?” The God asked, though He clearly already knew the answer. 

“Yes,” Virgil answered. Though the appearance of his Gods confused him, of this he was certain: he was Theirs, however They wanted him. 

Patton smiled and cupped Virgil’s face in both of His large, soft hands. “Then as long as Our cult goes on, no harm shall befall you, and as long as you are Ours, Our cult shall go on.”

“I am always Yours,” Virgil swore. “My life will always be spent in devotion to Your divinity.”

Patton’s smile grew wider, and he leaned down to kiss Virgil on the forehead. 

“Our divinity now, precious,” Janus corrected him gently, though Virgil did not understand what difference there was. 

“Our divinity,” Patton agreed, leaning over Virgil to kiss His Husband. “Yours, Mine, and Our most devoted priestess’s.”

Then He leaned down once more, but instead of kissing Virgil on the forehead, He claimed his lips instead. For just the briefest moment, Virgil worried about what His Husband would do, but Janus gently thumbed at Virgil’s stomach and rested His free hand on Patton’s hip, pulling His Husband even closer, and pressing Virgil more firmly between Them. 

Only when Patton slipped one hand from Virgil’s face and used it to hold to His Husband did Virgil allow himself to sink into the kiss, to allow himself to become lost in this new form of prayer to his Gods. 

And when Janus grew impatient and turned him to face Him once more, Virgil prayed to Him as well. 

In the temple of Truth and Lies, which no power could reduce to rubble be it man or beast or time, lived a priestess who prayed to his Gods with his every breath in every way he knew how. 

~~~END~~~

It took me a real long time to find the word “vestments” cuz I wanted the word “vestiges” which is not the same, though you can have vestiges of vestments

I’ve been meaning to write this fic for a while and last night I just went feral and didn’t sleep

General taglist

@royalty-of-all-things-snuggly @pixelated-pineapple @arsonic-knight @misunderstood-shadowling

[ashs-random-writing]

A haunting melody

1/2

Ao3

—

Roman has been playing the same song since the piano had been gifted to him all those years ago. It’s the most natural thing in the world to him.

Virgil wants to not hear ghosts playing piano in the middle of the night

—

(first chapter is first person , second won’t be)

The piano is old, almost as old as me, and yet, I can still see it as the pristine, perfect thing it once was. It had not been so in years.

The house that surrounds my piano is older, the walls cracked and crumbling, but I barely notice that. The piano holds my entire attention. I gingerly sit in front of it, as I have so many times before. I sigh, memories flooding my mind as I place my fingers into the correct positions.

Even now, decades after I’d first learned the song, it is as natural to me as it is for fish to swim.

I hear all other movement and noise in the house stop, and I smile wide. My melodies had always made people stop in their tracks (though not for the same reason as they stopped now).

I imagine that the music sounds exactly how it used to, perfect and beautiful, and not the distorted mess of sound it had become

It hadn’t been tuned in years. That wouldn’t stop me playing it. I imagine that the keys are the perfect white they used to be, and not the pale yellow they had become. I imagine that the piano itself was the same shiny black it was when I first got it, and not the dull, dark grey shape it had formed into. It was still perfect

It was the best piano that money could buy, I was ecstatic once I had been gifted it. I had sat right here, playing until my fingers bled and then some. I was drawn to it, and I could never stop playing for long. I would play through hunger pains, I would play instead of sleep. My piano was a part of me, and it still feels that way now, even after so long. The feeling had only ever grown

A sudden wrong note pulls me away from my thoughts. I stare at the dust covered piano, as though it was the one that slipped up, and not I.

I take a deep breath, despite how useless it is to do so, and start again. I don’t know how long I’ve been playing. It could be minutes, hours, or even days and I would be none the wiser. I haven’t been able to leave this room since my death.

Playing the piano is all I am good for anymore; it’s all I can touch. Many people have tried to live in my house in the decades since the incident, but they all leave rather quickly. My piano playing was charming when I was living, but now I simply scare people. It’s better that way. No one to take it away

Someone tried once, to take my piano. She wanted it out of the house so I wouldn’t play it. I had heard her talking about it. I don’t remember what happened when she came in.

I do know that there were new blood stains on the floor and I never saw her again. Perhaps that would be the only time I ever touch something that’s not the piano again. It is better this way. The piano is the only thing worth touching

I wish I was not as infatuated with my piano as I am, but I can’t help it. It’s all I can think about. I don’t think I’ve looked out of the window in years. Even if I try, it is probably so dirty that I would never have a chance

I have heard the rumours about my piano. Some claim it’s cursed. Some claim it’s haunted.

No one ever stops to consider the possibility of both.

To consider the possibility that I still linger here so long after my death because the piano was slowly stealing me away each time I played. Stealing my attention, more and more, as I played longer and longer, until I died on this very seat. I didn’t even notice at first. I carried on playing.

It wasn’t until I heard my mother scream behind me that I noticed my body on the floor. They moved soon after. Me and my piano stayed here. It’s better this way. They always interrupted my playing.

I can’t help but wonder if the curse would take hold on someone who isn’t me. After all, it’s my name etched into the side.

I sigh again, and the haunting melody doesn’t stop flowing through the halls. It’s better this way.

The piano is perfect.

—

@a-chilly-pepper

[naminethewriter]

One's Hometown, One's New Home

Chapter Four: Interrupted Shopping Trip

Masterpost | First | Previous | Next | Ao3

@tss-anxceit-week

Summary: Janus’ hometown is a usually quiet place where everyone knows everyone. So when someone new moves in, they’re usually the hottest topic of local gossip. The newcomer then comes by the library Janus works at, he can’t help but chat with him a little. Doesn’t hurt that he’s good looking as well.

Content Warnings: Injuries, Blood mentioned

~~*~~

Janus did most of his shopping by foot. He lived alone and didn’t need all that much, plus the supermarket was just five minutes away. That Monday was no different. The weather had soured somewhat, dark clouds gathering overhead but no rain yet.

The encounter with the wolf the day before was still on Janus’ mind. The animal had been way too calm in his presence. It had trusted him to help with only a few words. Something itched in Janus’ brain as he paid for his groceries, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what was bothering him about it so much, apart from the general strangeness of the situation.

Though, Janus supposed there wasn’t much point in mulling it over for so long. He probably wouldn’t see that wolf again.

(His intuition disagreed.)

He was on his way home, two bags hanging from his arms, when he spotted Virgil walking a bit ahead of him.

Well, not walking but rather limping.

Huh.

Janus hurried his step, now worried.

“Virgil!” he called, but the other didn’t react.

Wrong, he did react but not by turning around or acknowledging him but by slightly speeding up.

As if Janus was going to let him get away while he was clearly hurt.

He sped up again, but Virgil stubbornly did his best to get away from him. Too bad for him that Janus knew the surrounding area a lot better than him. As the other continued down the road, Janus slipped into a small footpath that let him cut around the upcoming curve and ahead of Virgil.

Janus waited at the other end of the path for the other to get close. Virgil was looking behind him, probably to see if Janus was still following. So when he instead stepped in front of him, he was none the wiser.

Until he turned around and startled so bad that he shifted his weight on his bad leg, almost falling over. Thankfully, Janus reacted quickly and stabilized him.

“I understand if you don’t want to talk to me, but please be more mindful of your wellbeing,” Janus chided. “Has your doctor allowed you to move it this much?”

As soon as he had control over his balance again, Virgil pushed Janus away, not harshly but persistent. Janus let him, taking a step back.

“It’s fine, you don’t need to worry,” Virgil mumbled, avoiding looking Janus in the eyes. “I’ve got it under control.”

“Do you?” Janus asked with his eyebrows raised. He motioned to Virgil’s pant leg that showed a small, but growing bloodstain. Virgil cursed as he saw it.

“Why the fuck–? It was closed earlier, why is it bleeding again?”

“Probably because you kept moving it. Come on, my house isn’t far from here, I can bandage you up.”

Virgil didn’t seem to like that suggestion at all as he violently shook his head.

“No, that’s fine. I can do it myself when I get home, it’s not a big deal, so just let me—”

“Virgil,” Janus interrupted firmly. “Injuries aren’t a matter to be simply shrugged off, especially if they’re bleeding. It could get infected, just let me help you. If you don’t want me to see, at least let me drive you to a doctor or something.”

“No doctors!” Virgil protested immediately and Janus stared at him suspiciously.

“Why not? You have shown this to one already, haven’t you?”

“Uhm…”

“Virgil, you had a professional check on your wound, right?”

“Look, it’s fine, I had worse and dealt with it myself, I don’t need a doctor to ask me a bunch of questions and stuff…” He broke off, looking to the side. Janus kept his staring up. Virgil squirmed under his gaze but didn’t say any more.

With a sigh, Janus let his eyes wander back down, to the bloody pant leg. The stain hadn’t grown wider, so the wound may have already stopped again, but he still didn’t like the idea of leaving Virgil alone to deal with it.

Wait a minute, why did this situation feel so familiar.

“Anyway,” Virgil spoke up, breaking the prolonged silence, “I’m gonna go home now.” He tried to move past Janus, but the other quickly stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

“There is no way I’m letting you deal with this alone, Virgil. Believe me, the doctor’s not gonna care all that much about what happened, pretty much every second person in this town has stepped into a bear trap at some point, me included.”

Virgil stiffened.

Bingo.

“I— I don’t know what you’re talking about. What bear trap? I didn’t—”

“Oh, please Virgil, you’re a horrible liar. And I’m exceptionally good at knowing when I’m lied to.”

By that point, Virgil did look genuinely panicked. Carefully, Janus lowered his arm and gently took Virgil’s hands in his.

“It’s okay, Virgil. I’m not going to tell anyone. I just want to take care of your wound. Please? Let me help you again?”

Virgil stared at him, wide-eyed.

“How— how did you know?” His voice was small as he asked, and Janus smiled softly.

“Just intuition.”

[whatgaviiformes]

Fic: Tracy Seaside Orchard and Farm - Epilogue

Summary: Alternate Universe. Gordon is a farmer. And he seems to have nothing to do with International Rescue. Now on AO3!   Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Family.    *Warnings for previous chapters: phobias and panic attacks*

Prologue here

Chapter 1: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Ao3

Chapter 2: Part 4 | Part 5  | AO3

Chapter 3: Part 6  | Part 7 |  Ao3

Chapter 4: Part 8 | Part 9 | Ao3

Chapter 5: Part 10 | Part 11  | Ao3

Chapter 6 Part 12 | Ao3

Chapter 7: Part 13 | Ao3

Chapter 8: Part 14 | Ao3

Chapter 9: Part 15 | Ao3

Chapter 10: Part 16 | Part 17  | Ao3 

Epilogue: You are Here | Ao3 

 Tracy Seaside -the playlist here

A/N: Do me a favor and make sure you are caught up, as I did a lot of writing the past few days. I will admit, finishing this one is a special sadness.

*****

Epilogue 

As with the cadence of the tide, time ticked on, the seasons changed, and fall became winter on one side of the world while spring became summer on the other. Christmas came, went, and the folks at Tracy Seaside started their year growing anew, planting tiny seedlings into moist soil at high humidity in the greenhouses to get them started before transplanting them into the ground. 

His brothers were there through all of it, if not directly during their planned visits, at least in spirit as they continued to bridge the gaps that the years had created. With Gordon and Virgil’s reconciliation, the tenuous bonds he and his siblings had been scrambling to keep from fraying over time were reforged, rebound and continued to grow strong. As strong as the grappling cables of Thunderbird 2 with Virgil’s voice added among their chorus. 

In February, Everett and Scraps planned the surprise birthday of the century, and the speculator world went wild, imagining where Earth’s four most heroic and eligible bachelors could possibly be on Valentine’s Day, and more importantly - who with? Gordon was, of course, none the wiser, as Scraps knew her way around keeping him occupied and away from news articles that would let the cat out of the bag. It was an easy sell when Grandma had already promised to visit and had expressed the desire to make him a three tier birthday cake. Well, he didn’t leave his kitchen for the need to “supervise” his grandmother, and by the time the two made it across the estate to Scraps’ home where the rest of the Tracy’s were waiting, he was still wearing his baking apron and covered from head to foot in flour, but with one edible birthday cake.

Come spring, they added two new hens to their flock and broke ground on a new enclosure and fenced-in pasture for their future plan to bring in goats and sheep. 

There were many exciting changes around the corner, and Gordon looked forward to the longer days, the additional sun in his heart, the flutter of new life and new beginnings, this time with the tether to his brothers stronger than it had ever been. 

Yet one thing remained looming over him. The SOS. 

He was among the first to know about the possibility that their father was still alive, still out there somewhere, after Scott (in an iR submersible pod) retrieved first Brains’ old robot and then never-before-seen footage of the explosion from the Hood’s escape capsule. It was both a thrilling and terrifying truth.

 Foundation shifting. 

It colored everything, knowing that for all the home-growing he did, his father likely was somewhere out there, maybe managing to make food to sustain himself. For all the times he felt distant and disconnected from his family, his father was further. What were miles in comparison to lightyears?  

He watched his brothers fret, obsess, and make plans.  

It was a pleasant day in April when Scott pulled himself away from the technology on the Island to sit down with him and explain what searching for their father would involve: all of the Thunderbirds, and all of his brothers to pilot them. 

He knew terror, he knew fear, and they were palpable in his ears as he processed Scott's words. But there was no greater dread than the heart-dropping realization that this mission would be risking the lives of his whole family, that in a moment, they could all leave the atmosphere and he may never hear from them again and would never know what happened if that were the case. 

But if… if on a chance they succeeded, they could have Dad back. 

He wasn’t sure he had the strength to lose his family again. For a chance.

Gordon talked to Grandma for a long time that night. About her memories of her son, about his brothers, about what it meant to be the ones left behind, and what- what they would do if the worst were to happen. Neither of them closed the call feeling better, per se, but after airing their fears, it helped to know they were not alone in their grief. 

But there was also hope.

And Tmtrust in Brain’s workmanship to protect his family like he'd always done, confidence in his brothers’ abilities, and belief in that stubborn Tracy tenacity to never give up. 

They promised to return, and so it was with faith in that promise that Gordon waited for news. 

~*~

On the day of launch, minutes before countdown, Virgil sat on the floor and against the wall  of the Zero-XL to callup Gordon. There was barely a second for a breath before Gordon accepted the call, and it was apparent he was wide awake despite the dark on his side of the world. 

“Hey,” Virgil whispered, wearing his iR blues.

"Hey " The quiet sound of  Gordon's voice came through with with a low, content murmuring in the background. It was the voice he used when speaking to his animals, words disguised as a coo. 

“Are you in the coop?” Virgil's lips curled into a light smile Despite the weight of their task sitting heavily on his shoulders, the coop was a place of calm. “Is my girl there?”

Gordon’s smile twitched, but it was as if it hurt to muster. “Sue me”

He recognized now that Gordon was sitting against the back wall of the coop, and wearing a long sleeve flannel. Some of the chickens must have been resting in his lap. As he shifted to pick up Ginger to show her to Virgil, Mocha gave a small squawk of displeasure at the movement and jumped up to his shoulder.

“Gordon” - brown eyes met brown - “we’re going to bring him home.” 

For a moment Gordon considered him, continuing to pet the soft feathers on Ginger’s back while his face broke into a number of expressions before he schooled it back into calm. 

“Well, yeah,” he said. “You’ve promised my girls to swing by when you get back.”

“True. But, Gordon.” He waited until Gordon looked back up at him, eyes prickling. “I’m promising you. We’ll all come home.” 

~*~

There was a moment, deep in the Oort cloud, after Alan returned and they suddenly lost communications with Scott, that Virgil truly thought he’d have to tell his family that they’d failed. He’d have to break his grandmother’s heart at the loss of her son… again. And Scott… his own heart was thundering in his chest at his worry for their eldest brother, wondering how he could possibly tell Gordon. Wondering if Gordon would ever forgive him for losing their brother in the cold void of space. Eyes wide with terror, he found himself looking to John for answers.

And then they found lifesigns. Two of them. 

There was business to be done after that. The med bay to ready, the Zero-XL to reassemble. Home to get to. In the deep vastness of space, they reunited with their father, and the back of Virgil’s head tingled where his father’s hand had found stability within their embrace. 

It caught up to him much later, what it would have meant if the Hood had managed to leave them stranded in deep space. So quickly they had to act to halt the T-drive and to stop him, that Virgil didn’t have the time to think about just how close they were to never making it home and what that would’ve done to his brother and their grandmother.  

He secured their father’s straps for the return journey home, trying hard to find the balance between keeping him secure and taking extra care not to pull too tightly around the tender areas of his body.

His father leaned towards him to garner his attention. 

“Virgil?” His voice croaked with lack of use. “I need to know. Where’s your brother?” The grey in his father’s eyes swirled with the storm of the unknown.  “Where’s Gordon?”

“He’s safe,” Virgil assured him, knowing how their number might have looked to their father. It was a long story to tell and not Virgil's to do so.  “Funny you should ask though. I know a rather good healing retreat that would love to have you.”

“Son, I’m going to be ok.” 

“I know, Dad.” He smiled at him warmly. “We all are."

The End 🐓

[skymaiden32]

Sanctuary

Thundertober/Inktober 2022 Day 8: Forest

Wee!Tracy’s. Whenever Virgil storms off like that, Scott can always reliably find him in their sanctuary.

Continuity: TAG

Tagging: @dragonoffantasyandreality @thundergeek59 @janetm74 @katblu42 @liseylou (Please ask if you would like to be alerted when I update or write new stories)

Prompt list

------

The area around the family farm was nothing but dense forest. Lush green trees covered the sun to form a safe haven. But as beautiful and safe as the area usually was, their parents had always been adamant that none of them go in without either one of them or Scott there. This was why when Virgil disappeared into the treeline after a particularly intense argument with their mother, everyone was on edge, spreading out to cover more ground.

 The adults searched while Lucille stayed in the family farmhouse with the kids. All the kids, that is, except Scott. He’d slipped away almost the second his mother had turned her back, promising the younger ones that he’d come back, and he’d come back with Virgil.

Scott knew his immediate younger brother had just needed some time to cool off. Despite the constant warnings not to go into the forest alone, Virgil often didn’t listen to them. And the only reason Scott had never said anything was because his brother had always come home safe. Virgil valued his alone time in the forest, and what kind of big brother would Scott be if he didn’t let him have that?

Often, when their parents had been keeping a close eye on them, Scott and Virgil would go to a small clearing they had found together a few years prior about five minutes walk from the entrance. None of their other family members knew about it, so it was a space that was just theirs. Whenever one of them felt down, whenever they wanted to just talk and catch up, that’s where they could be reliably found. 

So that’s the direction Scott was headed. Because he knew for certain that Virgil would be there. And so he was…

Scott didn’t need to say anything as he wrapped his little brother up into a tight hug. The silent conversation passed through the duo easily. 

------

Years later, when they were older and hypothetically wiser, they revisited the glade with the others.

“So this was where you two always disappeared to?” Alan asked curiously, his faint memories of the area being sketchy at best.

Scott nodded. “It was nice to get away from everything, you know?”

“It was a safe haven.” Virgil folded his arms in front of him, turning to face their second youngest family member. “Which meant no trouble making brothers allowed.”

Gordon made his best effort to look insulted. “Was I really that bad?” John barely managed to stifle a giggle behind him.

“Nope.” Scott deadpanned, popping the p. “You were worse…”

“Hey!”

It was still a place to laugh. It was still sanctuary to this day…

[nightsidewrestling]

D.U.D.E Bios: Linda May

Damien's Second Queen Linda May (2020)

The second woman to marry and have children with Damian. The second woman to divorce him too, Linda's smarter than Damian says and a lot wiser than her age. Damian's biggest mistake was underestimating her.

"He calls himself 'The King of Hell' because he knows he's evil."

Name

Full Legal Name: Doctor Linda Freya May

First Name: Linda

Meaning: Originally a mediaeval short form of Germanic names containing the element 'Lind' meaning 'Flexible, soft, mild'

Pronunciation: LIN-da

Origin: English, German, Dutch, Italian, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Icelandic, French, Latvian, Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian, Czech, Slovak, Germanic

Middle Name: Freya

Meaning: From Old Norse 'Freyja' meaning 'Lady'

Pronunciation: FREY-a

Origin: Norse Mythology, English, German

Surname: May

Meaning: Derived from the given name 'Matthew', which is the English form of 'Matthaios', which was a Greek form of the Hebrew name 'Mattityahu' meaning 'Gift of Yahweh', from the roots 'Mattan' meaning 'Gift' and 'Yah' referring to the Hebrew God

Pronunciation: MAY

Origin: English

Alias: N/A

Reason: N/A

Nicknames: Linzie, Lin

Titles: Doctor, Dr, Miss, Ma'am

Characteristics

Age: 59

Gender: Female. She/Her Pronouns

Race: Human

Nationality: British

Ethnicity: White

Birth Date: July 4th 1961

Symbols: Stethoscopes

Sexuality: Straight

Religion: Christian

Native Language: English

Spoken Languages: English, Latin

Relationship Status: Divorced, Dating/Engaged

Astrological Sign: Cancer

Theme Song (Ringtone on Damian's Phone): 'Bad Case of Loving You (Doctor Doctor)' - Robert Palmer

Voice Actor: Dame Maggie Smith

Geographical Characteristics

Birthplace: Barnstaple, Devon, England

Current Location: Barnstaple, Devon, England

Hometown: Barnstaple, Devon, England

Appearance

Height: 5'6" / 167 cm

Weight: 150 lbs / 68 kg

Eye Colour: Green

Hair Colour: Ginger

Hair Dye: None

Body Hair: N/A

Facial Hair: N/A

Tattoos: (As of Jan 2020) None

Piercings: Ear Lobe (both)

Scars: None

Health and Fitness

Allergies: None

Alcoholic, Smoker, Drug User: Clean

Illnesses/Disorders: None

Medications: None

Any Specific Diet: None

Relationships

Allies: N/A

Enemies: N/A

Friends: Marion Kay

Colleagues: N/A

Rivals: N/A

Closest Confidant: Marion Kay

Mentor: N/A

Significant Other: Percival Fear (60, Boyfriend)

Previous Partners: Damian Lum (61, Ex-Husband)

Parents: Ezra May (79, Father), Dulcie May (80, Mother, Née Gary)

Parents-In-Law: None

Siblings: Cynthia Colt (56, Sister, Née May), Burgundy Cook (53, Sister, Née May), Azalea Dale (50, Sister, Née May)

Siblings-In-Law: Zephaniah Colt (57, Cynthia's Husband), Yeruslan Cook (54, Burgundy's Husband), Wright Dale (51, Azalea's Husband)

Nieces & Nephews: Virgil Colt (36, Nephew), Kenya Colt (37, Virgil's Wife, Née Dean), Undine Dane (33, Niece, Née Colt), Lyle Dane (34, Undine's Husband), Tyler Colt (30, Nephew), June Colt (31, Tyler's Wife, Née Duke), Susanna Colt (27, Niece), Ryker Colt (24, Nephew), Precious Colt (21, Niece), Otto Colt (18, Nephew), Nova Colt (15, Niece), Moses Colt (12, Nephew), Luna Colt (9, Niece), Ithiel Cook (33, Nephew), Zuleika Cook (34, Ithiel's Wife, Née Dyer), Hope Dunn (30, Niece, Née Cook), Yale Dunn (31, Hope's Husband), Grover Cook (27, Nephew), Flora Cook (24, Niece), Ezekiel Cook (21, Nephew), Dulcibella Cook (18, Niece), Cyrus Cook (15, Nephew), Bryony Cook (12, Niece), Asher Cook (9, Nephew), Xenia Earl (30, Niece, Née Dale), Percy Earl (31, Xenia's Husband), Woodrow Dale (27, Nephew), Verity Dale (24, Niece), Uzziel Dale (21, Nephew), Trinity Dale (18, Niece), Stuart Dale (15, Nephew), Rose Dale (12, Niece), Peregrine Dale (9, Nephew)

Children: Ulysses May (38, Son), Ourania Fenn (35, Daughter, Née Fear-May), Noah Fear-May (32, Son), Monica Fear-May (29, Daughter), Luke Fear-May (26, Son), Kelia Fear-May (23, Daughter), Jonah Fear-May (20, Son), Irene Fear-May (17, Daughter)

Children-In-Law: Kestrel May (39, Ulysses' Wife, Née Coy), Jett Fenn (36, Ourania's Husband), Ireland Fear-May (33, Noah's Wife, Née Gibb)

Grandkids: Earl May (18, Grandson), Jane May (15,Granddaughter), Flint May (12, Grandson), Imogen May (9, Granddaughter), Humphrey Fenn (15, Grandson), Grace Fenn (12, Granddaughter), Fulton Fenn (9, Grandson), Eve Fear-May (12, Granddaughter), Durward Fear-May (9, Grandson)

Great Grandkids: None

Wrestling

Billed From: N/A

Trainer: N/A

Managers: N/A

Wrestlers Managed: N/A

Debut: N/A

Debut Match: N/A

Retired: N/A

Retirement Match: N/A

Wrestling Style: N/A

Stables: N/A

Teams: N/A

Regular Moves: N/A

Finishers: N/A

Refers To Fans As: N/A

Extras

Backstory: Linda married Damian while attending medical school, divorcing him after giving birth to Ulysses and seeing how distant Damian had become from her. She continues to be a doctor and has since moved on with her boyfriend/fiancé Percival.

Trivia: None of note

[fakeloveaskblog]

(Hi, me again. The comment about Virgil’s thing being longer then the rest of them make me realise it’s been exactly a month since I put in an ask for him. I’m going to rectify that now.)

I’m going to make a Tupperware full of spaghetti bolognaise appear in Virgil’s fridge with a sticky note attached to it, that’s folded over so it can’t be accidentally read but has to be unfolded first. It says “Hope you are having a nice time.” He should probably know who sent it, although, wouldn’t it be hilarious with him running around madly trying to figure out who and how someone would put it in his fridge.

I tried to keep the note vague enough that even if his mum reads it she would probably just assume Virgil was given it by a friendly neighbour or something. Although she has seen me before I gave my word to stop the supernatural stuff while she was visiting and while this technically counts as ghostly interference I did try to keep it subtle. Unless Dot happens to be looking in the fridge when the Tupperware appeared she should be none the wiser.

Glow Eyes

Right around the time the pot of spaghetti bolognese appeared in the fridge Virgil got home from work. He kicked his shoes off and rubbed his tired eyes while stumbling into the apartment. The stench of mold and cigarette ash hit him.

"Ma?" He called out.

"Just finishing some dishes honey" Dot replied from the kitchen.

The kitchen sink that had been overfilled with dirty dishes had been reduced to just a cup or two. Even though Virgil was much taller than Dot by now he still leant his forehead against her arm like a little kid.

"You didn't have to clean ma"

"It's nothing sweetie! How are you going to clean up this place if you don't even have the space to get yourself a hardy meal!" She jokingly poked at his rib "Look at you! You're nothing but skin and bone!"

"You say that like literally every time you see me"

"Well then it must have some truth to it! Did you tell your therapist you haven't been able to clean lately?"

"It was a lot to go through in an hour. I think I maybe mentioned it. I'll mention it next time for sure ma"

"I think there are social workers who clean apartments for those in ne-"

"I don't wanna bother them. there are people who need it more" Virgil interrupted.

Dot put away the last cup and dish brush "If you say so honey. I'm feeling for a walk right about now. Want to come with? It's not everyday I'm in the big city!"

Virgil gave his best exhausted sigh "Woooorkkk. Tiiirreeed. Bleegh"

"Right" She patted his cheek "Well rest up honey I'll be back in an hour or so"

Soon enough Dot had left and the apartment went back to being eerily quiet. Virgil made an attempt at cleaning. He picked up some trash from the couch he was using as a bed while she was staying over. He even thought about getting a mop out. He did actually wipe the kitchen top and table down so the cigarette ash wouldn't keep darkening the wood.

It was something and he thought he deserved a break after it. He opened the fridge and found the meal you had left for him. He read the sticky note before looking around but no one beside him was in the room.

"Wow I wonder who could have left this" He muttered out sarcastically "Could it be the glowing creature who won't leave me alone. Hmm. Truly a mystery for the ages"

He grabbed the tupperware and a fork before going out to the balcony. The balcony had a lone plastic chair on it and a just as plastic table. Before eating any of your delicious food though he lit a cigarette and watched as the smoke rose up into the warming spring air.

Each year that went by it felt more and more pathetic to smoke. He wondered if he would become one of those 65 year old men smoking between breaks at work and he shuddered. He wondered if he would ever change.

"I'm just gonna assume you're here somewhere you little freak" He suddenly said "Or else I'm just rambling to the wind I guess. My ma is leaving in a few days just so you know. I guess I like appreciate you not going all ghost invasion on her or whatever. She was just here to make sure I went to my therapy session anyway. Which I have and-"

He leant back in the chair and took a long drag from the cigarette. He rubbed his eyes and dragged his fingers through his short hair.

"It feels so fucking weird that I feel all fucked up when I tell someone how I hurt Remy. That's now how it's supposed to work y'know?" He let the ash crumble down into the ash cup on the table "I've only had one session so far so my psych isn't sure 'bout it yet but she's talking about either getting me on anxiety meds or into some sort of anger management or a mix of both...which I'm not against I guess...if it helps I guess...."

He put out the cigarette and took a bite of the pasta bolognese. His eyes lit up a little from how delicious it was but obviously he didn't say anything.

"She also said" He continued with pasta still in his mouth "The psych I mean. She said it sounded like I had been 'codependent' or whatever for so long I couldn't take being lonely and she suggested I'd get like an animal? Not like a service animal 'cause those are expensive as hell my guy...just like a little dude to keep me company...I dunno...I'm not really good at taking care of myself and I'm too anxious to leave my home often...I dunno"

He took another bite of the paste before turning to where he had imagined you were sitting.

"You think I'd be good with a pet? Like honestly? Fuck which pet would I even want?"

[rosepetalgold]

all the silver stolen (will one day turn to gold) 1

Summary: Janus is an exceptionally good thief, if he does say so himself. Sure, his life of petty crime alongside Virgil and Remus isn’t ideal, exactly, but it’s good enough—until he tries to pickpocket the wrong person and learns three life-changing things: One, mages are terrifyingly real, go by the name of Logan, and do not appreciate being stolen from. Two, Remus has a twin brother. And three, Remus is actually the crown prince of the neighboring country, forced to start a new life after being framed for treason and left for dead in a brutal coup.

Whisked off to a new nation with Remus and Virgil, Janus struggles to adjust to high society and a life of court politics and intrigue, his inherent distrust of magic and his rocky—to put it lightly—relationship with Logan only complicating matters further. Trouble soon begins brewing in the kingdom as well, bringing with it whispers of old threats to the newly reunited princes, and when things go horribly wrong, Janus is forced to confront two questions with extraordinary consequences: How selfish is he, exactly? And just what is he prepared to sacrifice for those he loves?

Relationships: Romantic Loceit, background romantic Prinxiety, found family all around

Warnings for this chapter: Injury to a main character (for a full list of major warnings, check the tags on Ao3)

Word Count: 7316

Notes: My fic for the Thomas Sanders Big Bang 2022 (@sandersidesbigbang)! This is by far the longest fic I've ever written, and although it is responsible for me spending countless hours staring blankly at a google doc, it has definitely been a labor of love. I'm so excited to share it, and I hope you enjoy! Updates weekly!

A huge thank you to my wonderful beta readers Peregrin (@iclaimedtobethebetterbard) and Saphira (@dragonsaphirareads) for all their help wrangling the plot into something coherent and for all their feedback, as well as for not once complaining despite this beast of a fic more than doubling in length from its original estimated word count. They are truly amazing, and this story wouldn't be the same without them!

Also be sure to check out the absolutely stunning art from the two incredible artists I got to work with, Crow (@thecrowslullaby) and Hedgey (@hedgeyart)! I will link to Crow's work in the respective chapters, but in the meantime you can both dazzle your eyes and get a spoiler-free teaser of the later part of the fic by heading over to Hedgey's piece right here.

Read on Ao3 Masterpost

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start - previous - you're here! - next

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Janus is an exceptionally good thief, if he does say so himself. Such a claim isn’t even bragging, not when he has the proof to back it up; he knows how to slip unnoticed through empty and crowded marketplaces alike, knows how to steal coin purses and jewelry and watches right off of any unsuspecting person and leave them none the wiser of his actions, knows how to sell what he’s acquired for a fair price on the black market. He’s had to learn such things just to survive, especially given how he’d first found himself on the streets, young and frightened and overwhelmed, a life of crime the only thing standing between himself and a long, slow death of starvation.

But more than being a talented thief, Janus is a smart thief. He knows how to select the best mark while avoiding the plainclothes guards just waiting to catch an unwary pickpocket, knows how to take advantage of a distraction or create one himself, knows how to judge which risks are worth taking and which are better left unchanced. His quick fingers may be what has granted him enough food and money to keep himself alive, but it’s his even quicker mind that has allowed him to evade the common thief’s fate of a short drop and a sudden stop for so many years.

Unfortunately, Janus is also currently a desperate thief, and desperate thieves are apt to do extraordinarily dangerous things, which is how he finds himself fumbling his lockpicks into his freezing hands as he crouches outside a fancy stone building in the middle of the night, no backup in sight and only the barest bones of a plan rattling around inside his skull. Breaking into any building, let alone an apothecary, is high-risk enough that he would normally never even consider such a thing, loath to put himself in such a perilous situation when he’s perfectly content weaving through crowds as his fingers dance in and out of pockets. But Virgil had taken a nasty fall by the run-down blacksmith’s forge a few days prior, gashing his leg open on a jagged piece of metal sticking out of a scrap pile, and the wound was now clearly infected, angrily inflamed and leaking foul-smelling pus as Virgil grew clammy and delirious.

If it were anyone else, Janus would have simply told them to hope for the best but make peace with whatever gods they believed in in the likely event of the worst, but Virgil is nothing if not an exception to all of Janus’ rules. Janus had practically raised the other man despite being only a handful of years older than him, had taken him in and tried his best to keep him clothed and fed while he’d taught him how to steal, nevermind that he’d barely been able to support himself, let alone anyone else. It had taken a lot from both of them to build trust, and even more for their wary alliance to slowly bloom into genuine friendship, but somehow, impossibly, it had, the venom in their sarcastic comments and snarky remarks mellowed save for the occasional argument.

Remus had come along a few years later and fallen in easily to make their duo a trio, more because of his uncanny ability to always be around and his refusal to leave rather than because of any official invitation to join. There had been something odd about him from the very beginning, something in the hint of an accent that sometimes slipped out and the foreign cut of his clothes and the shimmering gold necklace that he always wore against his chest and refused to take off, the sum of it all enough to give Janus pause, but he’d proven himself early by getting Janus out of a bind with some guards and his eyes had lit up with unrestrained glee when Janus had begun to plot crimes with him, so into the group he’d come. Given his own undisclosed past, Janus has never pressed Remus to lay bare his secrets, content just to take any observations he makes and tuck them away to mull over when he has a spare moment, trying to tease Remus’ life story from the scraps of details he’s collected and never getting too far because really, he has better things to worry about, like where he’ll get food for the day or how to get Virgil new boots in the middle of winter.

It’s comfortingly familiar by now, the way they work together, two of them operating in tandem to distract and pickpocket their mark while the third keeps a lookout, years of practice making the three of them a formidable team. Occasionally they’ll split up to cover more ground or one of them will find an odd job and jump at the opportunity for a few guaranteed coins, but for the most part they stick together, finding safety in numbers and taking comfort in knowing that someone they trust is watching their backs.

Tonight, though, with Virgil down for the count and Remus watching over him, it’s just Janus. The pressure of potentially having Virgil’s life in his hands is doing wonders for his nerves, truly. That churning sensation in his stomach is adding a delightful bit of excitement to what would otherwise clearly be a dreadfully boring situation.

Despite the severity of Virgil’s injury, taking him to a healer had been soundly out of the question; physicians’ rates were much too high for the three of them to afford even if they cashed out their meager savings, and even if they could have somehow found the money, they couldn’t risk a doctor getting suspicious about how a trio of obvious street urchins had managed to afford his services.

So breaking into the apothecary it is.

Virgil had always been the best lockpick out of the three of them, but Janus manages to wiggle the tiny tools into the lock, biting back a string of curses that would make even Remus blush as he struggles to to maneuver the instruments properly.

Rude of people to actually lock their doors and protect their valuables. Completely uncalled for.

Finally, after entirely too many minutes of fiddling with the picks with bated breath, there’s the tiniest of clicks and the knob turns easily under his hand when he tests it. Success, and it had only taken him three times as long as it would have Virgil. Surely stealing a bit of medicine will be child’s play in comparison.

He eases the door open, wary of any squealing hinges and ready to flee at the first sign of movement, but everything is silent and still as he slips inside. There’s enough moonlight filtering in through the windows to illuminate the space in a silvery glow, and he pauses for a moment, taking stock. Off to his right, in the back of a shop, stands a tall cabinet with a multitude of small drawers, doubtless housing fresh and dried ingredients of all sorts, but although Janus is tempted, he edges past it. He knows enough basic first aid to be able to make common ointments for minor injuries and ailments, but the drawers look like they’re liable to squeak if he so much as looks at them wrong, and he doesn’t want to risk mixing up ingredients in the dark and killing Virgil with some kind of poison on accident. The other man might be just a tad upset with him if he did that.

What he’s really after are the medicines that have already been prepared, which he assumes are significantly less likely to make him an accidental murderer, and as he creeps further into the shop on silent feet he discovers there’s a whole display of them near the front windows, colorful glass jars a washed-out rainbow in the moonbeams.

Perfect. One little snatch and he’ll be gone before anyone even knew he was here, in and out in less time than it takes to brew a proper cup of tea, his extraordinary talents once again having saved the day, except—

Except the jars are labeled with small slips of paper adorned with writing instead of pictures like the cheap medicines he’s used to, and Janus—

Janus can’t read.

Shit. Of all the times for his lack of a formal education to come back and bite him, of course it would be when Virgil’s life hung in the balance. What a lovely sense of humor the universe had.

He resists the urge to swear aloud and glares at the jars instead on the off chance doing so will magically solve his problem. The jars themselves should offer some clues, but he’s not familiar with this particular apothecary, doesn’t know how their medicines are color-coded. Is the little crimson container for burns, since red was associated with fire? Or is it to stop bleeding? Or is it neither of those, representing something else entirely? Janus doesn’t know.

Time to improvise, then. He hasn’t gotten this far only to be foiled by some inky squiggles.

Casting another wary glance around the quiet shop, he shifts closer to the display and the row of jars lined up neatly atop the shelves. Samples of some kind, perhaps, but their purpose is less important than the fact that they look infinitely easier to handle without clinking together than the jars clustered together on the shelves. He goes down the line one by one, carefully unscrewing each little container’s lid and sniffing the contents, trying to recognize the scent of any ingredients that might treat infected wounds.

 Not the red, definitely not the orange, maybe the yellow?

He’s getting antsy, nerves crawling along his skin and skittering down his spine, his instincts screaming at him that he needs to get out, this is taking too long, he’s already been here for more time than he’d planned. But unless he’s suddenly been granted the ability to produce medicine out of thin air, he doesn’t have any other option than to go through the jars as quickly as possible. Taking a pot of each color and figuring out their uses later is a last resort, not only because he doesn’t have anything to wrap them in so they don’t clink together in his bag but also because he doesn’t want this to be a high-profile theft. Taking copious amounts of medicine is bound to put the guards on high alert, which is the last thing he needs when their trio is already running perilously low on food and supplies and will need to be out and about stealing to replenish them.

No, if he can only find the damn jar he wants, he’ll just take that and be gone and with any luck the apothecary owner will think they’ve simply misplaced it somewhere and not even realize they’ve been robbed.

Not the light or dark green jars, but the blue smells familiar—

A shriek splits the air, so shrill and unexpected that Janus’ whole body goes white with razor-sharp panic in an instant, his knife in his grip before he can even parse where the sound has come from or what’s happening, the purple jar he’d been holding slipping out of his hand and shattering into an incriminating pile of shards at his feet, the heady scent of lavender filling the air. No. No no no, there hadn’t been anyone else here, he was sure of it, how—who—

There’s a figure on the other side of the shop, standing in the doorway of what Janus had assumed to be nothing more than a storage closet and which he now realizes, entirely too late, is in fact a stairway to the second floor, which must serve as the healer’s residence and not an extension of the shop as he’d thought.

Apparently he needed to add ‘making correct assumptions’ to his list of innumerable talents.

He’s moving on instinct before he can even take a breath, lunging to grab the little blue jar—stars, he doesn’t even know for sure if it’s the right medicine—before he’s bolting for the exit, fear snapping in his veins, the only thought in his head run run RUN.

“No, wait! Stop!”

Right, of course he’s going to pause for the person who has just caught him stealing red-handed, just wait around to be hauled off to jail for his crimes. Why doesn’t he strike up some small talk while he’s at it?

He’s across the shop and out the back door in a heartbeat, pure adrenaline propelling him forwards as he tucks the precious jar into the safety of his bag, his footsteps echoing dully against the hard-packed dirt in the still night air as he attempts to wrangle rational thought back into his head. Getting caught by the shopkeeper was hardly ideal, but a glance over his shoulder proves they’re not coming after him, and as long as no one else has heard their shriek he should be able to make a clean getaway—

“Hey!”

His heart is pounding so hard in his own ears that he hardly hears the gruff shout, barely sees a form suddenly loom in his peripheral vision, but he certainly feels the hand that snags his cloak for a moment before he manages to wrench free. The healer, trying to cut him off? How the fuck had he managed to outpace Janus?

But when he glances backward he’s met not with the sight of pastel pajamas and blonde curls but of a dark uniform and a sword flashing as it’s drawn from its sheath.

One of the Guard. Stars, couldn’t a man just steal some medicine in peace anymore?

He forces himself to go faster, hurtling headlong down the empty street as he tries to think. He isn’t familiar with this area, doesn’t know its ins and outs like he does his own neighborhood, but if he can just find a side street he should be able to lose the guard in the labyrinth of alleys lacing the city. He veers down the first promising opening he sees, the deeper shadows welcoming him in—

—and promptly finds himself met with a dead end.

Fuck.

He whirls, his only option to backtrack to the main road before he’s cornered, only to find a broad figure already blocking his only way out, sword in hand. Janus is trapped.

Fuck.

“Come on, don’t make this hard on yourself, boy,” the guard growls, advancing forward a step, and Janus can’t help but skitter back in turn, eyes fixed on the glinting blade in the other man’s hand. He can’t get caught now, not when he still has the medicine in his bag, not when Virgil is doubtless still caught in the deadly grip of fever and infection. Janus getting thrown in jail would be nothing less than a death sentence for both of them.

And yet here he finds himself, nothing but high stone walls around him and a larger, stronger opponent he surely can’t best in a fight in front of him.

Not a physical fight, at least, but a mind game or two, a few dirty tricks thrown in to round things off? That Janus is willing to gamble on.

“Okay,” he concedes, letting his voice tremble slightly as the guard takes another stride into the alley. “Okay, just please don’t hurt me, sir.”

The man visibly preens at the honorific, sword tip lowering slightly, and Janus resists the urge to roll his eyes even as his pulse still hammers entirely too quickly in his ears. Honestly. These brutes made playing their ego entirely too easy.

“Put the knife down,” the man orders, and Janus obligingly crouches, the ground freezing even on his half-numb hands as he lays his palms flat on the dirt.

“I’m sorry, sir, please don’t hurt me,” he whimpers as he curls in on himself, the very picture of contrition.

“That’s right, you just cooperate and no one’s going to get hurt here.”

“Of course, sir,” Janus snivels as a pair of black boots come into view of his downcast gaze, followed a moment later by a sword tip. “Anything you say—”

He surges upwards, knife sweeping in front of him as he lunges past the guard, and for the barest fraction of a moment he thinks he’s made it, that his plan has actually worked, that brains have triumphed over brawn—

Pain explodes in his side, a white-hot line of fire that makes black stars burst across his vision and wrenches a strangled cry from his lips, but he has to keep moving, has to go, has to get away while he still has even a sliver of a chance, and he can’t stop, he can’t stop, he can’t stop even if it feels like he’s just been torn right in half.

He doesn’t even know how he manages to make it to the end of the alley and back onto the main road, given how blank his mind has gone with panic and adrenaline; he’s just there, in between one wave of black stars and the next, lurching for the first side street he sees and praying to all the gods he doesn’t even believe in that it’s not another dead end. If he can just make it into the twisting maze of alleyways, he should be able to lose the guard, provided he doesn’t bleed out in the process.

“Get back here, you little shit!”

The furious voice and its accompanying footfalls are far closer than Janus would like, but he doesn’t dare look behind him. If he’s going to get a sword through the spine, the last thing he wants is to see it coming.

“Guard!” Another voice splitting the air behind him. The healer? “Hey, guard!”

The guard’s steps falter, the other man clearly debating whether it’s worth it to continue pursuing a petty thief at the risk of failing to help a wealthy noble in need, and his hesitation is all the opportunity Janus needs to fling himself around a corner into another alley.

Stars above, please don’t be another dead end, please please please—

There must be some higher power after all, some deity who finally takes pity on him, or perhaps fate has simply decided to give him a fighting chance, because the narrow street tees into two at the end. He picks a direction at random, hope leaping treacherously in his chest that he’s at last found a way out of this mess, only to be dashed at the sound of footfalls picking up again behind him, the guard apparently having decided Janus is somehow more important than the healer.

Janus would be flattered if it didn’t mean he was about to either be sliced into ribbons or thrown into jail and sentenced to hang. As it is, he’s less than enthused.

Fear is biting at his heels, urging him faster, but he’s already lagging, lungs burning as he gasps for air, black and red spots encroaching on any spare sliver of vision, searing pain ripping through his body with every step as he jostles his new injury. He can’t keep going like this, not without collapsing within the next minute, and even though the guard behind him may be all brute force and no brain, Janus is pretty sure even he would notice Janus’ body sprawled in the middle of the street.

He scans around him as he flees further up the alley, searching for any place to take cover, but there’s nothing but unscalable walls around him. Nothing, nothing, nothing, until suddenly—there. A tiny gap between two buildings, cloaked in impenetrable shadows. He stumbles to a halt, blowing out whatever tiny bit of air he has left in his lungs in order to make himself as small as possible as he desperately wedges himself into the space. Even then, and despite Janus’ slim stature from years of malnutrition, it’s a tight fit, and he’s barely managed to squeeze himself all the way in before there’s heavy footsteps drawing closer, slowing to a jog and then a walk as the guard clearly tries to deduce where his victim has disappeared to.

Too late does Janus realize that if the other man had any intelligence at all, he would just go find a torch or lantern and track Janus using the bloodtrail he’s undoubtedly left in his wake, but there’s precisely nothing he can do about that now. He crams a handful of cloak into his mouth, both to muffle his pants of pain and to hide the cloud of his breath in the frigid air, turning his head away from the alleyway lest the glint of light off of his eyes give him away.

Given how his wonderful luck is going, he can only brace himself for a blade to come spearing into his ribs, easy as stabbing fish in a barrel, but the footsteps move right past him without a hitch, continuing down the street until they escape Janus’ earshot altogether. But Janus doesn’t move a muscle, despite the fact that his right foot is sinking into something squishy he does not ever want to identify and the smell of rotting food and dead animal is so heavy and cloying in his nose that he has to fight down bile.

Patience. If he can survive a sword almost making his insides be on the outside, he can survive sharing a claustrophobically small space with a few dead rats.

Sure enough, the footfalls return a few minutes later, slower this time as the guard backtracks his steps. Janus hardly dares breathe, sure his luck won’t hold a second time, but once again the other man continues past his hiding place without pause, apparently none the wiser to his quarry literally being within arm’s reach.

A flawless escape if Janus does say so himself, nevermind the fact that he’s taken a sword blade to the ribs in the process. That little detail was wholly inconsequential.

Still, it’s a long while that he bides his time, waiting until he’s satisfied the guard isn’t going to come back a third time, and even then he forces himself to wait some more, just in case. By the time he finally edges out of his little nook and back into the alley proper, his feet and hands have long since gone numb and the black spots in his vision have returned in full force, any movement that pulls at his side even the slightest bit sending ripples of agony through his ribs now that the numbing effects of his adrenaline rush have worn off.

A shame he’s neither brave enough nor stupid enough to try retuning to the apothecary, considering he could really use some painkillers right now.

He keeps his arm firmly pressed against the wound, desperate to keep as much pressure as he can stand on the injury even as a fresh line of warmth trickling down his waist informs him he hasn’t managed to stop the bleeding. He should probably check on it, he knows, try to fashion some kind of bandage from his shirt, but his stomach is already queasy enough that he doesn’t trust he’d be able to witness whatever damage has been wrought upon him without passing out, so his arm will have to suffice.

Out of sight, out of mind, he tells himself. It was fine. He was fine. Everything was fine. If he just repeats it enough times, maybe he’ll begin to believe it, despite the fact that the world tilts alarmingly when he dares a tiny step forward. He hasn’t keeled over and died yet, so the injury can’t be that bad, can it?

It doesn’t matter. Janus just needs to suck it up and get home to deliver the medicine to Virgil before the other man kicks the bucket and all of this has been in vain.

It’s a risk to return to their hideout when there’s a chance the guard chasing him might lie in wait for him to reappear and follow him back home, but it seems an equal risk to spend too much time on the streets when the other man, if not the whole of the night guard by now, is looking for him. He compromises by opting to take the long way back to the impoverished underbelly of the city, secreting himself away in the shadows of back alleys as he muffles his pants of pain into his cloak, biting down so hard on the fabric shoved into his mouth that he’s surprised he doesn’t put holes in it.

It takes him several times longer than it should to return to familiar surroundings, given that he has to pause every few steps either to listen for any guards or to wait for the world to stop spinning around him, but he never dares stop for too long, not as it grows increasingly unlikely that he’ll be able to haul himself back up if he collapses on the ground like his body is begging him to.

It’s nearly dawn by the time he finally deems he isn’t being followed and crosses the final few streets to their little hovel, and he allows himself a single moment to grimace against the pain biting into every single inch of his body, gritting his teeth against the overwhelming sensation. And then he’s pulling himself upright, schooling his features into an expressionless mask as he raps their familiar passcode rhythm on the door and pushes inside.

Virgil is just where he’d left him, still unconscious on the mattress pulled up close to the fireplace, shifting restlessly in his sleep and babbling something nonsensical under his breath, and Janus can’t help a silent sigh of relief that the other man hasn’t expired in his absence.

“Did you get it?” Remus asks immediately from where he’s trying to coax some water down Virgil’s throat, and Janus digs in his bag to hold up the little jar of medicine, careful to keep his other arm pressed securely to his side to hide his injury. He knew having a cloak dark enough to hide bloodstains would come in handy one day. “Good, cause this wound is getting nastier by the second and as fun as it would be to try out a bone saw, I don’t think little Virgie would appreciate only having one leg.”

Janus wrinkles his nose at the mental image of Remus and the havoc he could wreak with such an instrument, just the thought of such carnage turning his stomach. He’s already lost enough blood tonight for the three of them. He doesn’t even want to contemplate one of them losing any more via amputation.

“Good thing he’s unconscious; he would tear you to pieces for calling him Virgie.”

“I’d like to see him try,” Remus retorts, but his face is lined with worry as he brushes a stray lock of hair off Virgil’s forehead. Shit. Things must be going from bad to worse if even Remus is this concerned.

Janus hurries to rinse his hands off in the bowl of water on the table, making a mental note to discard the now crimson liquid before Remus can see it, unceremoniously drying his hands on his pants as he crouches next to the other man. The movement pulls sharply at his wound, sending yet another wave of black spots dancing across his vision, and he has to bite back a hiss of pain as he wavers slightly. Don’t pass out now, not now, not before helping Virgil—

Remus casts him a sidelong glance, seeming to notice something is wrong.

“You okay, Janny?”

No, Janus is about to say, not unless you want to go find a guard with a sword so we can all have matching wounds.

But then he unscrews the lid off the little jar of salve and dips a finger in to find—

Nothing.

Cold panic snaps up his spine, shot nerves surging protestingly back to life. No, there’s no way he could have stolen an empty jar. He was a thoroughly accomplished thief, and thoroughly accomplished thieves simply did not make mistakes like accidentally grabbing the wrong pot of medicine.

Unless, perhaps, they were the tiniest bit distracted by the dark and the healer screaming at the sight of them and the fear turning their mind blank.

He braces himself for the worst, to have to return to the apothecary and try to steal something else, but when he tilts the jar to peer in he’s met with the sight of a cream ointment, albeit barely enough to coat the bottom of the glass. He swears viciously as he tips the container towards Remus for him to see, and the other man wrinkles his face up in annoyance at the lack of medicine.

“That sucks,” he pronounces. “Would have been nice to have had some extra in case someone gets a hand bitten off by a pack of stray dogs or something.”

“Fuck. Fuck.” Tears of frustration are suddenly pricking at the back of Janus’ eyes and he forces them back through sheer willpower, absolutely refusing to cry in front of Remus. Just because he’s exhausted and injured and absolutely nothing has gone right tonight doesn’t mean he’s going to make it anyone else’s problem. Virgil is the one who needs attention. Janus needs to pull himself together and start being useful.

“Hey, it’s fine,” Remus says, peering into the jar again. “There’s enough here for Virgil.”

But not for me, Janus thinks, but he can’t say it, can’t reveal his own injury, not when the jar is so tiny and there’s so little ointment left and all he can remember is Virgil looking up at him that morning, dark gaze so pained and vulnerable even as he’d tried to hide it as Janus had promised that he’d find him some medicine.

No. Janus is selfish about many things, has had to be just in order to survive, but he’s never been able to be selfish when it comes to Virgil and Remus. He can’t be selfish about this.

Besides, there’s a chance he won’t even need the medicine; he’s suffered plenty of injuries before that have healed on their own, nevermind that little voice in the back of his head whispering that none of those wounds had been nearly as bad as this one.

So he dips his fingers back into the jar and carefully spreads the salve on Virgil’s wound, not stopping until the container is empty of even a speck of ointment and the medicine has been rubbed gently into every inch of angry red skin. Remus fusses over rebandaging the injury and tucking Virgil back in while Janus slips the empty jar into a basket of various other small, stolen items. They won’t be able to sell it, not right away, not with the Guard looking for anything connected to the apothecary break-in, but they might be able to trade it for something down the line.

“Did you run into any trouble while you were out?” Remus asks as he slumps back onto the floor by the fireplace, fiddling with the edge of the blankets.

“Nothing I couldn’t handle,” Janus replies smoothly, and it’s not even a lie—he had handled it, had managed to evade being caught and had made it home all (or mostly, he supposes) in one piece. What did it matter that he’d met with the business end of a sword while he was out? Give it a few months and the injury would be just another scar on Janus’ skin, one more unspoken story of a bind he’d gotten himself out of with his superior wit and talent.

Either that or he would be dead of blood loss or infection and it wouldn’t be his problem anymore. One or the other.

Remus gives him a sidelong look like he doesn’t quite believe Janus’ lie, eyes narrowing and mouth opening to no doubt ask more prying questions, and Janus hurriedly cuts in before he can get the chance.

“Will you go see what you can find for breakfast? I know Ms. Fordham at the bakery has a soft spot for Virgil, but she might give you some day-old bread for a good price if you’re there early and offer to haul in the flour deliveries.”

Remus still has that look in his eye like he’s going to push the issue, a heavy silence falling between the two of them as he locks Janus into a staring contest, an unspoken battle of wills that Janus doubts he’s going to win in his current state. The only people more stubborn than him were his own gods-damned family.

Time to play dirty, then.

“I wouldn’t want Virgil to wake up hungry with nothing to eat,” he presses.

Remus stares at him for another long moment, those clever eyes searching Janus’ for any hint of something amiss, and Janus forces himself to hold his gaze with an impassive expression. Nothing’s wrong, he tries to communicate telepathically. Nothing’s wrong, just go get breakfast and everything will be okay. I absolutely am not about to pass out from blood loss and join Virgil on the floor.

He doubts he’s giving a convincing performance of being fine, but it must be just enough, because Remus finally huffs and gives in, heaving himself up off the ground and muttering something Janus sincerely doubts is flattering as he swipes his cloak off the hook by the door.

“Don’t use the bone saw without me,” he orders, which Janus interprets as make sure Virgil doesn’t take a turn for the worse.

“Pinky promise,” Janus swears, holding out his hand, and Remus takes a moment to latch his finger around Janus’ before disappearing out the door into the dull, pre-dawn light.

Janus counts to ten, then fifty, a hundred, making sure Remus is well and truly gone, before he allows himself to double over with a strangled groan, squeezing his eyes shut and digging his nails into his thigh as the full extent of his injury finally hits him.

Fuck, this hurt. If he wanted to know what it felt like to have tongues of fire licking at his ribs, he would have just asked Remus if he wanted to practice his arson skills.

He draws in a deep breath on instinct, trying to breathe through the pain if nothing else, and the agony surges, spearing through his chest into his muscles and tendons and veins and coiling around his heart until he can barely breathe, wrenching a sound suspiciously close to a whimper from his throat, and it’s all he can do to just exist in the pain for a moment.

Okay. No deep breaths, then.

Exhaustion is dragging at him even through the pain, weighing down his eyelids and leadening his bones now that the adrenaline of being chased and tending to Virgil is wearing off, and he wants nothing more than to collapse right here on the ground next to Virgil and just sleep, slipping into sweet unconsciousness where he doesn’t have to worry about whether Virgil will get better or whether his own injury will become infected or whether the Guard will come crashing through the door at any moment to arrest all three of them.

But if he doesn’t tend to his wound before he falls into bed, he’s just going to end up in Virgil’s position in a few days when it gets infected, not to mention he’ll have to explain the bloodstains he’s leaving on the floor to Remus.

Actually, knowing Remus, he would be beyond delighted at the latter and eagerly demand to know where the blood was from, but Janus doesn’t trust his mental capacities at the moment to come up with any halfway believable lie.

“Lucky bastard,” he hisses at Virgil, who is still slumbering away pain-free and blissfully unaware of Janus’ predicament. He begins to inch himself across the floor to the table, taking tiny sips of air to try to calm the fire still battering his ribs. The world spins alarmingly around him as he uses the piece of furniture to claw himself upright, and he sways unsteadily on his feet once he gets there.

“Come on,” he mutters, some distant part of his mind whispering that he should really be alarmed that he’s devolved into talking to himself. “It’s just a little blood loss. How bad can it be?”

He keeps one hand on the wall for support as he makes his way past the curtain dividing the main living space from what serves as their bedroom. The main mattress has been moved into the other room next to the fireplace so they don’t freeze in their sleep in the colder months, but there’s a smaller bed here, salvaged off the street and put back together by Remus, and Janus eases himself onto it.

It’s a slow, agonizing process to get his shirt off, any movement or stretch pulling at his injury, and he has to stop more than once for the stars that dance in his vision, but he finally works his way free of the garment. A sharp breath hisses between his teeth as he cranes his neck down to examine the injury, nausea turning his stomach. It’s not a pretty sight, the dried blood flaking down his side disturbed by trails of fresh crimson still leaking from the wound, and Janus spits out a swear, then another, and another. If he’d known this was how things were going to go, he would have stolen everything he could carry from the apothecary instead of trying to keep a low profile by only taking one paltry jar of salve.

Next time—if he lives to see a next time—he’s taking the whole damn shelf of medicine, clinking jars be damned.

There’s a pitcher of water on the nightstand and he uses it and a rag to clean the injury as best he can, agony sparking up his spine whenever a drop of freezing water or the edge of the fabric gets too close to the jagged gash, but he forces himself to hurry, knowing Remus won’t be gone long. The bed is an absolute mess by the time he’s done, scarlet water settling into stains on the sheets, but that’s a problem for future Janus. He has bigger worries at the moment than laundry.

Between the ice-cold water and the chill in the air he’s shivering now, and he’s quick to dry off as best he can before moving on to bandaging. Their stockpile of nice bandages is almost depleted and Janus isn’t willing to take the few remaining in case Virgil needs them, so he opts for their homemade bandages instead, which is a generous term for it, considering that they’re fashioned from scraps of fabric too worn out to function as clothes anymore, but Janus isn’t in any position to be picky. As long as it stops the bleeding, it’ll do.

The pain is at least becoming familiar, if not exactly pleasant, as he winds the long, spiraling strips tightly around his ribs, even as his stomach churns at the thought that so much blood that is supposed to be inside his body is very much not. Just beet juice, he tells himself, not above lying to himself if it means not passing out on the bedroom floor. Just beet juice on your hands and the bandages and the bed, nothing more.

Almost done. He shoves his torn and bloodstained shirt under the mattress out of sight of curious eyes and forces himself up to grab another one from the pile in the corner, very nearly finding himself on the ground from the way the world tilts violently around him as he staggers upright. He’s panting with pain and exertion by the time he finally manages to get the blasted thing on, but the sense of relief that washes over him once he does is immediate. His secret is safe for now, at least. No one else needed to worry about him.

The bed is almost irresistibly tempting, but he stumbles his way back into the main room, collapsing heavily on the floor next to Virgil to sit as a guard until Remus gets back.

“You heard nothing,” he tells the other man as he scuffs at the half-dried bloodstains on the floorboards with his boot, smearing them into less incriminating streaks. “Everything is fine.”

Virgil doesn’t deign to respond beyond drooling onto his own arm, and Janus groans, tipping his head back against the wall as his eyelids drag closed of their own volition. He can’t sleep, not yet, not until Remus returns, but maybe he’ll just rest his eyes for a moment, just a few seconds…

He wakes with a heavy groan in his chest, the pain in his ribs fiercely unrelenting, and he curls in on himself instinctively, the phantom feel of a sword biting into his ribs entirely too real. Fuck, he’d really been hoping that whole apothecary debacle had been nothing more than a strikingly vivid nightmare. Apparently not.

“Nice guard job you’re doing there, Jan.”

He squints one eye open, glaring at Remus where he’s sprawled on the floor on the other side of Virgil.

“Good thing I wasn’t planning on doing anything nefarious. I could have killed both of you and you were so out of it you would’ve just floated right into the light.”

Janus scowls at him, nowhere near the mood to joke about anyone dying. The possibility hit just a little too close to home for comfort at the moment.

“Here,” Remus says, entirely unaffected by Janus’ look, offering him a slice of bread. “You were right about Ms. Fordham.”

Of course he was. Janus is always right.

He nibbles through the bread while Remus rambles on about a mishap with one of the flour bags, his stomach still roiling even though he’s ravenous. He realizes halfway through that Virgil is frighteningly still, but when he scrambles to check he realizes it’s because the other man is sleeping peacefully for the first time in days.

Last night had been worth it, then, no matter that Janus can’t breathe too deeply or move too suddenly without feeling like a knife is being twisted into his side. Janus was more than willing to be collateral damage if it meant Virgil healing.

Remus leaves before long, off in search of any other odd jobs he can do for a few coins to keep them fed, and Janus spends the afternoon on the floor, dozing on and off and trying to coax some broth down Virgil’s throat. The other wakes that evening, in pain but coherent, and Janus helps him slowly eat a real meal while Remus carefully washes and rebandages his leg. 

“How kind of you to finally rejoin the waking world,” Janus tells the younger man as he checks Remus’ progress for the third time in as many minutes, making sure he’s not winding the bandages too tightly. “I’ve so enjoyed pulling your weight around here while you indulged in a little nap, you know.”

“You could use a nap,” Virgil mutters snippily. “Although I doubt any amount of beauty sleep could fix your face.”

It’s hardly a devastating response, especially given that Janus’ face is undeniably flawless if he does say so himself, but a coil of tension unwinds in his gut at the retort. If Virgil can roll his eyes and keep up a bit of banter, he must be on the mend.

That’s the important thing, nevermind that Janus’ own injury is only getting more painful, the untreated wound a recipe for disaster. Virgil is okay, and that’s all that matters. As for himself, all he can do is wait and hope things get better.

---

Fancy starting the taglist for this fic? Let me know!

[sleepyvirgilprompts]

Virgil slumped, tension leaking from his body. Getting Thomas away from nightmares before they begun was always exhausting, and this time had been more so than usual. It was... not fun. But at least he had succeeded, and with the other Sides none the wiser, so there was no harm done. Now he just had to stay awake until he could be sure it wouldn't come back.

Easier said than done, of course.

[i-am-bitterly-jittery]

On Death's Doorstep (pt 14/?)

[<<First],,,,[<Prev],[Next>] [ODD Masterlist]

Word Count: 1267

Rating: Teen

Pairings: none in this part

Warnings: swearing, criminal activity, mentions of an abusive relationship

~~~START~~~

Janus had been preparing for this particular job for months — since before Virgil came to live in their building. It took a lot of careful observation and planning — much more than usual as it was a stealth job instead of a smash-and-grab.  

One of their legal cases was a little… lacking in terms of evidence, and Janus was certain that the government was purposefully withholding information. So they’d decided to go find it themself.  

First, they found an office building that was high security enough to have the information they were looking for while also being low security enough for them to get into without too much of a hassle (they’d really prefer to not need Logan’s assistance with this one).  

Then, they’d selected a target, one with a similar height and build to themself. They could have easily slipped the façade of a taller or shorter person over themself, but that would make physical interactions like handshakes more suspicious as their hand would not be at the angle one would have suspected — these discrepancies were subtle, but they tended to nag at people long after they’d finished interacting with the disguised Janus. They much preferred for people to forget about them after they were out of sight.  

Their target also needed to have both guaranteed access to the information that Janus was looking for, and a job that would not raise too many questions as to why they were looking for those things. Not to mention being unsociable enough to keep verbal interactions to a minimum, Janus could only use mental illusions on one person at a time, after all.  

After finding the perfect target, Janus would need to get their behaviors, mannerisms, and schedule down-pack — no one could be allowed to have any reason to think Janus was anyone other than who they wanted them to think they were.  

It was a thin tightrope that they were walking, but if they played their cards just right, no one would be any wiser.  

Once they had all their plans perfectly laid out, it was all a simple matter of poisoning his victim — 34-year-old office worker Simon Anderson — with a non-lethal drug that would take him out of commission for just one day; hacking his phone so that when he tried to call in sick to work, Janus would receive the message instead; and sending the twins out to cause a little chaos across town, just for a little added distraction.  

Simple.  

Simon Anderson took the 7:30 bus to work. While on the bus, he listened to true crime podcasts through his earbuds. He always stopped at the coffee shop between the bus stop and his office building to buy a vanilla latte. He arrived to work five minutes late every day despite having plenty of time to get coffee along the way because he was always hitting on the clearly uninterested barista.  

When he finally reached the office, he would head straight to his desk — a corner office with a south-facing window. Once at his desk, he changed from a true crime podcast to a cooking podcast, and began his job of looking at documents and emailing colleagues.  

Today was no different.  

Maybe some of the other baristas and regulars at the coffee shop noticed a change in Simon’s voice, but what did they care, he was just some stranger to them. And maybe if someone came into his office, they would find him listening to the news instead of to Francis Lam, but Gemini was attacking several stores downtown, who could blame him for being interested? And maybe a strange thumb drive was plugged into the computer, overriding the computer’s security, and enabling the download of interesting files, but it was so tiny, who would even notice? 

No, Simon Anderson was no different today than he was yesterday, or would be tomorrow — maybe he was a little bit less productive than usual, but he hadn’t slept well the night before, the chicken curry he’d had for dinner hadn’t sat quite right in his stomach.  

Office jobs were boring, and Janus hated them. They’d worn the same kind of clothes underneath their façade that Simon usually wore, and they were the stiffest, itchiest, absolute worst clothes Janus had ever worn; but they were necessary in case anyone touched them in an unexpected way — like patting them on the back, or brushing against their arm.  

They found the information they needed for the case pretty quickly — no security camera footage my ass — and they were almost tempted to leave — fake puke in the bathroom until Simon’s boss insisted he go home — but there was an email in Simon’s inbox that intrigued them.  

From: Kathy Alman 

Hey Simon,  

Can you send me the Knightcaster file? I have a new lead I’d like to follow.  

All the best, Kathy.  

Janus stared at the email.  

Knightcaster file, eh?  

Faking sick to go home early was moved to the back burner, they had a new mission now. They quickly found Knightcaster’s file, as well as files on Atlas, Serpentine, Dr. Frankenstein, and Gemini.  

How had they not thought to do this sooner? 

They also searched for all the information they could find on Kathy, and what kind of “leads” she was attempting to follow. Then, to buy time, they sent her a corrupted version of Knightcaster’s file, one that wouldn’t open, but also wouldn’t suggest that they’d done anything to it.  

Looking through their own file, as well as Frankenstein and Gemini’s, was a bit of a relief. None of the files contained any compromising information, only records of their exploits, their powers, and general observations — much like Logan’s files.  

There weren’t any mentions of public defender, Janus Ekins, or retired sociology professor, Logan Crofter, or high school dropouts, Roman and Remus Kingsley. And there was absolutely nothing to suggest that any of the three villains knew each other, or ever collaborated in any way.  

Absolutely nothing to suggest that they had anything to worry about from the government.  

They took a break from their new mission for lunch. Simon Anderson’s usual lunch was sticking a tuna melt in the microwave in the break room, and while Janus appreciated how truly human-repellent this man had made himself; their soul died a little sticking that tuna into the microwave and then having to eat it in the tuna-stinking room! 

Janus may be a supervillain, but Simon was a monster.  

After their lunch break, they were back to scanning through files — this time about Knightcaster, Atlas, and the whole Sponsored Superhero Program set up in the first place.  

It wasn’t great.  

Atlas’s file was full of, in Janus’s opinion, glaringly red flags. Covert ops, shady backroom dealings, the highly unethical experiments that gave him his powers in the first place, outright crimes committed while on duty that got swept under the rug — not to mention the power he’d held over Virgil due to his military status.  

Power that Janus wasn’t sure Virgil even knew about. Atlas got paid, Atlas could leave the building whenever he wanted, Atlas– 

If Atlas wasn’t already dead, Janus would have half a mind to kill him themself.  

Janus debated reading Knightcaster’s file for a long time, before deciding to read about the Sponsored Superhero Program first and circle back later.  

And oh boy was the SSP file juicy.  

Imprisonment of superpowered individuals, forced experimentation, the “Martyr Protocol” — the language was vague, and many parts of the files were redacted, but a plan was starting to form in Janus’s mind.  

They would need to infiltrate a more secure facility. 

~~~END~~~

Just in case it’s not clear, this chapter and the last two chapters all happen more or less concurrently

Fun fact, google docs really wanted to change "no security footage my ass" to "no security footage of my ass" and it's like no google, that's not the tone here

ODD taglist:

@royalty-of-all-things-snuggly @pixelated-pineapple @knight-shives @misunderstood-shadowling @lost-in-thought-20 @remy-the-lemon-berry @jinxcrafter @apinkline2715 @gothfoxx @donutsarepartybagels @xoaningout @meganmoneky14

[alexthefly]

Under the Painted Sky

This one is for @jbarkerstargazer , inspired by these wonderful drawings of John on a rooftop. They're all gorgeous, so I really hope you like this bit of nonsense they inspired. 😊

Part of @tagminibang2022 .

---------------------

Or read it on AO3

The air was warm and full of the sound of rustling wheat.

John blinked a few times and rubbed his eyes as he returned to the world. He’d only meant to read a chapter or two, but the book was a good one - an old favourite - and so the late afternoon light had faded to dusk without him noticing. Now the sun hung low in the sky, and the telephone poles dotted along the landscape cast long shadows across the fields. Over behind the barn, an occasional caw from the big oak tree was now the only sign of the crows he remembered flocking above him about forty pages ago.

He pinched his nose with his fingers, trying to relieve the tension in his eye muscles. He must have been squinting for quite some time without realising it, straining his eyes against the dying of the light.

The sun had not quite dipped entirely below the horizon yet though, and so glancing westwards he was treated to a glorious display of colour across the heavens. Reds, oranges, golds… Letting the hand holding his book drop across him, he reclined back against the pitched farmhouse roof, arm behind his head, and took a moment to let his mind wander as he watched the warm, changing hues gradually creep across the evening sky.

His hair, his baldric, the solar panels on Five…

It seemed strange to him how he could simultaneously think of all these different colours as separate associations, moods, entities, and yet at the same time his physicist brain told him that it was all exactly the same light, filtered through a varying volume of atmospheric particles as the sun’s relative position moved from vertical to horizontal. The rays of light currently spilling fire across the sky were precisely the same rays that glowed blue over the Earth’s horizon several times a day when he was back on Five. Nothing different about it. And yet…

And yet.

For not much reason at all he felt the sudden urge to call Virgil. Stupid - Virgil was at home on the other side of the world, probably elbow-deep in something oily and cahelium-based - but he somehow had an instinct that his artist-come-engineer brother would understand this feeling in a way that the others probably wouldn’t.

The beauty in the science.

He sighed. He should probably go downstairs and have something to eat, and perhaps a nap before the meteor shower started in earnest. (Another thing his physicist brain took issue with; the shower was already in progress - had been for several days - it’s just that the Earth hadn’t spun around quite enough for him to see it yet.)

Napping now would be the most sensible thing to do, but he already knew that he wouldn’t. Deep inside him, his ten-year-old self was hopping up and down like a cricket in a jar: It was Perseids Night; who could sleep?!

A blond head poked out from the upstairs window.

“Hey Johnny, are you still up there, or did you fall off already?”

A quiet chuckle. Right on cue, Allie.

If anybody could sleep through the Perseids, Alan Tracy could. Hell, a chunk of meteorite could literally fall through the house and onto his pillow and he would probably be none the wiser. In fact Alan had already conked out once today, on the sofa right after lunch, although John was generous enough to blame the change in timezones for that one.

His baby brother was just lucky it was only the two of them at the farm for the shower, or else he might have woken up to find Gordon had dyed his hair blue …again.

“I’m still here Allie," John replied, "no safety net required. And don’t call me Johnny,” he added, although he knew it was pointless. Alan and Gordon loved to tease him with that name, and truth be told he didn’t even really mind it any more, it had been so long; the whole thing was more ritual now than anything.

“So are you actually planning on coming up to watch, or did you travel a whole hemisphere just to stay down there all night?”

Alan rolled his eyes. "I'll be there in a minute,” he said. “D'you want me to bring anything up with me? Are you cold? I could bring blankets?”

“That depends. Are you asking for me, or so you can make a nest and fall asleep up here too?”

A baby-faced pout. "Ha ha, hilarious(!) Y'know, one day I’m gonna…" But whatever the rest of that sentence was was rendered unintelligible by an absolutely massive yawn.

John’s lips twitched. “...An excellent point(!)”

Alan looked so much like Scott when he scowled.

John’s face split into a grin. “Come on, Rip Van Winkle, get up here before you miss the show.” Then as an afterthought, “Bring some snacks too.”

There were some scuffling noises (and perhaps the odd word that Grandma wouldn’t approve of) and then his little brother was beside him, holding two large sheet pans.

“I’ll do you one better; I made pizza!” He deflated slightly. “I mean, it’s only frozen, but I figured-”

John smiled warmly. “It’s perfect, Allie.”

The next few minutes were a flurry of slice-grabbing, butt-shuffling and general getting comfortable. By the time they both finally lay back side by side, eyes raised once again to the skies, the sun had ducked down below the treeline, and all the hot colours from before had mellowed into a more delicate, pastel rainbow of purple and rose pink.

“Wow. Pretty," breathed Alan.

John smiled. “Yeah," he said, "Earth’s still pretty amazing sometimes, despite the gravity.”

“Oh yeah? So we haven’t quite lost you to Five yet then?”

John raised an eyebrow and Alan flailed.

“I mean, not ‘lost you’ lost you, but what I mean is-”

“I know what you meant, Allie.” John put a reassuring hand on his brother’s shoulder. “And you don’t have to worry. I love being on Five, wouldn’t change it for the world, but down here with you guys will always be home to me.”

In the dimming light, Alan’s eyes glistened.

John cleared his throat.

“And anyway, there’s things I can see here that I can’t see anywhere else. Like tonight for example. Dirtside is the best seat in the house for a meteor shower. And then there’s this.” He motioned towards the glowing pastel sky.

It really was beautiful.

"Actually,” he added slowly, “this is one of my favourite times to be on Earth, when the sky’s like this."

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. The colours are…” He struggled for the right word.

“Right. 'Cos lavender’s your favourite, right?”

John frowned.

“What makes you say that?”

He’d always told people it was gold.

“Your favourite bedspread,” shrugged Alan. “And the mug you like your tea in when you're sick. You always choose lavender when you want to be cosy."

Oh.

Oh.

Damn, the kid was observant.

Silence blossomed as a wash of thoughts and feelings flooded John’s brain, threatening to overwhelm him. Nostalgia, happiness, comfort, sorrow… Ever the scientist, he took his time to analyse each one, turning them over and over in his mind, distilling them down into one word:

Mom.

He breathed.

“You alright?” asked Alan quietly, worried.

“Just…thinking.”

He could feel his brother watching him. “About...?”

John ran his hand through his hair, finding words. “Not thinking, really. Remembering. Before you were born; back when it was just Scott, Virgil and me. Dad was away a lot of the time. Space, Mars… y’know?”

Alan nodded.

“Mom did her best, but I was so little, I didn’t understand where Dad had gone. Scott says I wouldn’t sleep back then, that I used to cry a lot, but I don’t really remember any of that. I just remember things feeling…wrong,” he finished lamely.

“Then one evening, a lot like this one, Mom took me outside to look at the sky. She said that Dad was up there, playing with the stars, and that if we looked really carefully, we might see him waving.”

He chuckled softly.

“It was a silly thing, but I believed it. So we went outside in the yard to wait for the stars to come out.”

He sighed.

“It wasn’t cold, but Mom brought a blanket anyway to wrap me up close to her. I remember her warmth, and the smell coming from Mom’s roses by the porch - she loved roses, pink ones especially - and the rustling from the fields, and the colour of that sky. I remember looking up at it and thinking that, just maybe, if Dad really was there amongst the stars, then perhaps he had painted those colours just for us; pink for Mom, and purple for me.

“We probably weren’t actually out there all that long, but it felt like we waited forever to see that first star. But eventually there it was, twinkling away at us. In hindsight it probably wasn’t a star at all - it was probably Venus - but we waved at it anyway, and sent our love to Dad by it.”

He looked over at Alan, who was watching him intently, taking in every word.

“That was the first time I ever went stargazing. After that, Mom and I would often go outside before bedtime so I could say goodnight to Dad. Once in a while I even caught her out there by herself, talking to him, telling him about her day.”

For a moment he couldn’t speak, lost in the image. It felt private to think about, like he was… intruding somehow. He rubbed his eyes, clearing the image, returning to the present. A breath.

“And then Dad came home and things went back to normal. He stayed down here and started Tracy Industries, and I didn’t have to wave to him anymore. But I kept looking up; looking for stars. I never stopped.”

John smiled at his baby brother.

“And then of course you came along, and I had someone else to look at them with.”

Alan returned the smile with a grin of his own, bright in the semi-darkness.

“Nowhere else I’d rather be,” he said, his voice just a little bit raw.

Seconds passed. The wheat fields breathed in the breeze.

“But then,” said Alan, a small frown developing on his brow, “why do you tell everyone that your favourite colour is gold? Where did that come from?”

John laughed. That bit was easy.

“When I first moved up to Five, I wanted to keep something that would remind me of home. Something to keep me grounded, here, on Earth. So I chose gold.”

Alan’s head tilted, quizzical; puppy-like.

“Gold is warm,” explained John. “It’s wheat fields and tropical sands. It’s summer sunshine.”

He smiled gently.

“It’s you guys.”

There was a beat, and then all the air suddenly left John’s lungs as a not-so-tiny brother launched himself into his chest.

“Woah! Allie…” he wheezed as Alan threatened to squeeze the life out of him.

Alan just held on tight.

John smiled.

“...I love you too.”

Far up above them, in the light of the dying sunset, the first shooting star of the night streaked its way across a pink and purple sky.

[thecrowslullaby]

Okay so I thought I could pick one but I couldn't

So you can pick whichever you want

(I'm asking for platonic content cause I've been craving some familial angst)

27 Gen->Virgil and Janus

40 & 41 angst-> Creativitwins

27 angst-> Roman and anyone

Thanks for the ask!!!!! Stuff has been wild over here so, while i have half of the story written I only now have gotten around to proofreading it ^^' (not that it does much since I still can't spell very well).

Hope you'll like it :D!

Pairing: none

Warnings: foul language, shouting, some crying, mention of emotionally abusive parents

Summary: Remus and Roman come to a disagreement. Roman finds comfort in an unlikely person.

Word count: 1327 (these chapters are getting longer! YAY!)

first-prev-next

Tuesday 7:15

Roman woke up to light shining from behind the curtain. hitting him square in the face. Great. The day was already off to a great start.

He reached for his phone to check if Patton was awake. He knew Janus would throw a fit if he left without his bodyguard and he didn’t need his assistant to be breathing down his neck today out of all days. There was a reason he gave the man the day off, after all. The longer Jan remained oblivious to his plan, the better for Roman.

The redhead almost dropped his precious device as his notifications buzzed off. He caught it right before it hit the floor. Unlocking the screen he smiled to himself, seeing his brother already typing the next message. Maybe the day won’t be so bad after all.

Remus was ecstatic when he learned Roman would come to Australia, already planning to meet up with Roman in secret. Not that they needed to be too sneaky. It’s not like Janus or Patton would mind having his brother around.

Evil Twin

HEY ASSHOLE!!!!

YOU DIDN’T CALL ME YESTERDAY.

I DON’T DON’T KNOW IF YOUR PLANE CRASHED OR NOT.

I’m alive

THANK GOD!

I’M TERRIBLE AT FAKING BEING SAD!

rude

I KNOW! NOT LETTING YOUR BROTHER KNOW IF YOU’RE ALIVE OR NOT!

Feeling too tired to respond, Roman pressed the call button. Remus picked up immediately.

"Hey Pissy!" Roman could practically feel the taunting grin on Remus. Somehow each time they talked his twin found a worse nickname for him.

“How’s counseling for summer-camp going for you?”

“Roman, it's winter in Australia.”

“But… it’s June.”

“I see spending time with Janus hadn’t made you any wiser.” Remus snickered. “Clearly I inherited all the smarts.”

“Hey!”

“At least you got double the sanity.”

“I’m not so sure about that lately.”

“What happene- GREG, I TOLD YOU NOT TO LICK THE FUCKING POLE-....-STEPHANIE I WOULDN’T TOUCH MY DEAD BEAT MOTHER WITH A 6-FOOT STICK, LET ALONE MY MOUTH-...-NO!-...FUCK ME YOURSELF YOU COWARD!-....-THAT’S WHAT I THOUGHT- sorry, where were we?”

"Trying to make my ears bleed, apparently."

"Pog. Anyway, When are you coming to visit?”

“That… might be a bit of a problem.”

“What? Why?”

“Well, you know how our parents are-”

“What did they do to you?” Remus was seething on the other end.

“Nothing!” Roman protested. “Nothing I didn’t agree too!”

“Oh, because you sooooo love their ideas.” Roman could practically hear the eyeroll.

“You’re starting to sound like Janus!”

“Like that’s a bad-FUCK OFF STEPHANIE, THIS IS IMPORTANT- like that’s a bad thing!”

“I don’t need two people bossing me around Remus!”

“Great! Now go and tell that to our parents!”

“It’s not that easy Remus!”

“It literally is that easy Roman!” There it was again, that annoying pitch in Remus' voice, like he would do better in Roman’s situation.

“They would kick me out of their lives if they knew Remus.” It’s not like they haven’t done that to a child before.

“Like that’s such a bad thing!”

“Well maybe I don’t want to end like you.” He whispered the last part but if the silence ringing in Roman’s ear was anything to go by Remus definitely heard it.

“I see.”

God why did he say that?

Stupid, stupid, stupid-

“Re-”

“Save it-.” He sounded bitter, like he was biting down tears. “I get it ok? Having a cushy life is far more important to you than living by your own ideas!”

“Remus I-”

“You know-.” He could feel a sob, shaky and desperate. “I actually thought you wanted to hang out with me-”

“I do Remus, I-”

“NO YOU DON’T” Remus screamed “You didn’t back then and you sure as hell don’t now!” His voice was shaky and Roman wanted to scream back, say something, explain himself but he couldn’t force himself to make a sound. “I actually thought, I actually thought you’d back me up back then! But you didn’t do it when we were sixteen and it sure as hell doesn’t look like you changed your mind for the past 5 years!”

“Remus I-”

His speech was cut short when Remus hit the disconnecting button. Roman tried calling him, multiple times, messaging, pleading, but all he got in return was getting ignored on every platform he tried.

He flung his phone across the room, the device hitting his suitcase and plopping safely to the floor. Roman grabbed the nearest pillow, screaming into it until he felt his throat burn.

Great, first his parents sent him here and he had to ruin this one thing he was genuinely looking forward to on this trip.

Why did he have to be such a fucking coward?

He wasn’t sure spent, bawling his eyes into the pillow, wallowing in self misery, until he cried himself to sleep again.

A banging knock to his dorr woke him away.

“Roman?” Great, Janus.

“Go away.” He mumbled into the pillow, his throat burning.

“Roman get your ass up and open, I’m worried sick.”

He didn’t want to. He didn’t want to see anyone, let alone Janus, who always seemed to weigh him down with those judging glances. Why was he here anyway? Where was Patton?

He could already feel his eyes stinging again.

He would murder for one of Pattons hugs right now.

Something thumbed softly against the wooden door.

“Roman, please-” there was a sudden shift in his voice, he sounded almost-sincere.”-Patton’s sick, you’re ignoring my every call, and while I hate believing rumors I just heard some horrendous news and I really need to talk to you so I can clear things up.”

Roman signed, pulling himself up and dragging his feet to the door.

He wondered briefly if Janus heard him, and was waiting patiently, or if he simply left without a warning. It’s not like he would be the first.

Groggily he opened the door, glancing down to find Janus still standing there, without a trace of annoyance on his face. Small miracles, eh?

“You look awful.” Janus said, except it didn’t sound anything like he’s usual biting self, almost caring. He wasn’t sure why the snake lost it’s venom but he wasn’t going to complain. “May I come in?”

Roman nodded, stepping aside to let the small man step in. Janus closed the door before turning towards the redhead.

“Do you need a hug?” From Patton or Remus preferably, both whom could squeze the air out of Roman and make him feel safe. But without either or them around he would have to settle for the tiny man.

He nodded groggily and the blond wrapped his short thin arms around his torso. Roman laid his head on top of the shortest man, allowing himself a moment to breathe. Janus still hadn’t let go, instead he started rubbing small circles on Roman’s back. And as odd as it was, the performer found the gesture oddly comforting.

“You’re not secretly-”His voice felt awfully raspy, he wondered how long it would take before he could sing again. A day? Two? ”You’re not secretly Patton disguised as Jan?” He felt himself relax slightly as the blond actually chuckled at his joke. Patton was a good head taller than Roman and almost as broad as Janus was tall.

“No, it’s still me, your awful assistant.”

“That’s nice too.”

“Roman?”

“Yeah?”

“I need to talk to you about Vivien.”

“Oh.” Roman swallowed hard. “Did Patton-”

“Patton knew?!” There was a flash of anger before the man closed his eyes. He could see Janus trying to even his breath, before speaking up again. “Did you plan to tell me?”

“I guess. Maybe?... Maybe not?”

Janus took a deep breath.

“I’m sorry.” Roman blurted out.

“For what?”

“Everything.”

“Roman, it’s your life.”

“Doesn’t feel like it.”

“Well.” Janus said, pulling apart and actually smiling at him. “Then I think it’s time we finally do something about it!”

[whatgaviiformes]

Fic: Tracy Seaside Orchard and Farm - Part 2

Summary: Alternate Universe. Gordon is a farmer. And he seems to have nothing to do with International Rescue Prologue here Part 1 | Part 2 (you are here) A/N: A flashback. And a familiar face...

Angst in this one

****

A few weeks earlier

He hated sleeping, but settling into his bed after a long, successful day in the fields was like sinking into a cloud after the trek from Athens to Marathon. Unlike the runner from the Greek myth who died upon arriving to his destination, Gordon sank his soul and body into the soft material and let his heart settle into a restful rhythm while his feet and leg muscles throbbed with the effects of his productivity.

His bed was custom fit to provide the most support for his back, and his sheets – only the best cotton. Because he was allowed nice things, dammit, especially when it came to his own comfort.

He’d be up again in only a few more hours to start the day again, but he liked it that way. He liked staying busy to keep his mind from wandering. Awake meant he was alive, he’d survived, and the precious time he spent among his animals and his plants reminded him of the worth of all creatures. Cherished mornings, with the glow of the early sun, and his hens who relied on him with so much trust to provide food and water and shelter and love. They were worth the twinges he felt in his body, and he’d never give up that chance to connect with the Earth that gave him life.

That night, he settled into his bed, looking forward to tomorrow, and turned on the news.

“Up next! Tragedy for International Rescue? Operative Unresponsive. Over to you Kat, who’s live on the scene.”

Horrid destruction followed, buildings fallen and collapsed, unrecognizable.

Gordon’s heart jumped to his throat, and he felt his gasping breaths choke through his growing panic. On the projection from the television, the newscaster continued dictating her headlining story from the evening’s news. A simple, yet sad, story for most, but earthshattering devastation to Gordon, as her words blended into a high-pitched buzz in his eardrums.

He caught a few words – injured, unresponsive – and flinched at “presumed dead.”

When was this? How long ago? Why hadn’t he heard anything? What if—?

What if he’d lost a brother and he’d been none the wiser?

The idea was unfathomable.

He reached for his phone on his side table, his hands fumbling and frantic as they caught the edge of the device, sending it to the floor with a solid thunk. He dove for it, toppling out of the bed and landing in a sprawl of limbs. He gripped the phone like it was a lifeline, scrolling through the list of contacts until the characters bled, the numbers blurred. Where he pressed the screen, the tip of his fingers felt huge and swollen.

This is Scott, leave a message after the beep.

This is Scott, leave a message –

“Pick up.” His voice was a pained rasp. “Please, pick up.”

You’ve reached the voicemail of John Tracy. You know what to do.

This is Scott –

Hey! It’s Alan. Drop me a line.

You’ve reached the voicemail –

This is –

Hey it’s –

You’ve rea –

You’ve rea –

Something was wrong – every single one of their phones sent him directly to voicemail, like they did when powered off during rescues.  On the television screen, the news had shifted back to the regular nightly stories, and still he’d learned nothing. Nothing about who was … hurt. Or what happened.

He needed to know. He needed –

Decisive, he scrolled for one more number, so far down the contact list it was the very last contact, and nowhere near his recents or favorites.

Virgil Tracy here. He closed his eyes. His brother’s voice was so much the same as he remembered, calming and soothing with a warm smile audible in his tone.  I can’t come to the phone right now, so –

Gordon barely managed to smash his finger on the red “End Call” button before the frustration welled and the phone found itself skittering over the floorboards. He willed himself to try breathing in slowly through his nose to combat the short, shallow breaths, but his body wouldn’t cooperate, his heart pounding.

He needed something grounding – something to bring him back to here, now. Away from what ifs, and pain, and loss. He couldn’t hear anything past his pulse racing, not the nightly news, not the door swinging open then slamming shut, not his friend’s voice calling for him.

Not until a pink mohawk whirled by, and strong arms gathered him.  He gripped her tight, his gazed centered on her tattoos where colors swam in his vision, and finally the sound came rushing back in with her touch.

“Gordon, honey.” She pressed her forehead against his temple. “You’re shaking.”

“Scraps,” he gasped. “Izzy, I—”

“I know. I saw.” She grasped for his hand. “What do you need?”

Gordon choked on his words, a short sob, before he felt a tingle in his limbs through the floor. Shortly, mere moments after, his phone’s ringtone began and he looked up at her, his eyes wide, pupils blown, and he scrambled out of her arms to take the call.

[goodieghosty]

I’m just imagining Roman pre-Orpheus-reveal talking with some other god and Virgil walks into the room and all of the sudden Roman gets these flashbacks of Orpheus’ memories of Virgil squirming beneath him as Orpheus pleasures him and Roman snaps out of it face red as a tomato thinking “oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck Virgil’s gonna kill me” even though Virgil is none the wiser cause he thinks it’s just intrusive thoughts or whatever

AHSHAHHAJA

Post-reveal Roman after he finds out they were memories "OHHHHHHHHHH-"