#ashworth college

[ashvalentine16]

Career certificate and a Kainé nendriod came in the mail today.

[oswald24ck]

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[bookrevise]

Can you claim Ashworth College on your taxes?

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[sunlightmurdock]

The Odyssey | 1.3 | Bradley Bradshaw x reader

previous chapter | next chapter | masterlist

the pain of not knowing is weighing heavily on you as you arrive to your next destination. The people around you prove themselves.

warnings: enemies to lovers, power imbalance (professor / student relationship), age gap (22 / 33), swearing, infidelity, the italics at the very beginning indicate a scene involving brief attempt at sexual assault. The chapter deals heavily with themes of SA, and its aftermath. Pls take your own triggers into account while reading and feel free to message me for further info 🫶

…

“C‘mon, man, not so much as a test drive?”

Malcolm’s not in his right mind. Finals week pushed him to the brink and beyond. He’s been killing himself proving to his father that he’s worth being taken on at the firm. College is coming to an end and it’s almost time to be a man — as it grows closer, there seem to be more and more voices in his ear telling him what that entails.

Sex. Money. Power. Everything in the world is about sex, but sex is about power. Or whatever Oscar Wilde had said — he had only enrolled in that class for the credits and the added study time with you.

“Don’t talk about her like that.” He brushes the comment off with a wrinkle of his nose, bringing the bottle of whiskey to his mouth, tipping his head and pouring it back.

You’re not a possession — he’s in good enough mind to know that much. His buddy’s test drive metaphor leaves more than a sour taste in his mouth. It also leaves a sickness in his stomach and a venom twisting through his nerves.

The mention of this is already grinding at him, his blood growing hot and his feet growing restless, tapping against the aged wood below them.

“Because she’s such an angel that she won’t even let you lay a finger on her? — Yeah, she sounds like a real prize, Ashworth.” Another guy snorts. Malcolm’s head whips around to face him, his eyes narrowed.

“Has she even let you get to second base or are her tits off limits too?”

“Damn shame that she’s got that pretty mouth and you don’t have a clue what to do with it.”

“She scared that it’s going to hurt or something? — You packing a big one, Mac?”

He pushes himself swiftly up from that stiff leather armchair despite its creaks of complaint. Damn thing is older than he is. The dark liquid swishes in the bottle as he staggers away from his so-called friends. He’s heard enough.

He knows where to find you, pushing through the sea of already drunk co-eds and wrapping an arm securely around your waist, slotting himself into your gossip session with a friend.

You’re so excited to see him, greeting him with a polite kiss to the cheek and leaning into his touch. You’re always so kind to him. He has to lean in close to whisper in your ear, his voice sullen and serious, “Could I talk to you for a minute? — In private.”

It isn’t until he closes the door to one of the guys’ rooms, that he notices exactly how drunk you are. You gasp and wobble and drop down onto the bed, bursting out laughing.

He doesn’t laugh with you. Instead, he brings the bottle of whiskey to his lips and takes a long drink. Lurking in the doorway, watching you.

As the bottle drops back to his side, Malcolm just remembers watching you. He doesn’t remember walking any closer until he’s sat beside you and holding your face in his hands.

“God, Mac — how much have,” You have to pause to hiccup, covering your mouth with your hand, unaware that you’re slurring your words too. “How much have you had to drink? — You reek!”

“Just a bit.” He mumbles, the bottle heavy in his hand as he leans forwards and kisses you. You comply happily at first. Well, you seem happy enough to him, even if he does smell kind of like a distillery.

Maybe the two of you talk more, maybe you don’t. The only thing Malcolm knows is that he has securely rounded the corner into second base before you start to fuss at him. You’ve let him get this far before, what’s the big deal now?

The dress you’re wearing is a flimsy blue satin thing, not particularly festive for the holiday party, patterned with expensive looking shimmering detailing. One of them has slipped off of your shoulder to make room for his hand to slip under the velvet fabric and cup at your breast.

“Stop it — what if someone comes in?” But you’re still kind of giggling with him, grabbing at his shoulders. If you wanted him off of you, you’d say so. You have before.

You’re not that kind of girl. Malcolm scoffs to himself at the idea. Your neck is soft against his lips and your perfume drives him crazy.

“It’s just sex, it’s not a big deal.” He mutters into the crook of your jaw, and the mood flips. He feels you pushing weakly at him, all it does is bunch his sport coat and make it fall back off of his shoulders.

“Sex? — Here?” You’re not making much sense, losing your composure and your ability to form a real sentence at once. Not so classy now.

As Malcolm sits back to shrug his jacket off and looks down at you, your chest halfway exposed and your eyes struggling to track him, he feels a pang of guilt strike him. Slowing himself, his heartbeat is in his ears as he fixes your dress to cover you once more and leans down to kiss at your lips.

“I’ll marry you,” He whispers against your mouth, pleading. “I have a ring. I was going to ask you anyway. Your father loves me, you know he does. You believe me, right, honey?”

You had said yes once before. You were going to let him. After prom night, your senior year; you were going to the same college and your families liked each other. He’d gotten too drunk and screwed it. Couldn’t even get it hard. It seemed to freak you out, after that you’ve barely let him close. Now, you’re seniors again. He just needs you to say yes once more.

“Not here.” Your face wrinkles and turns away from him, maybe it’s just the smell of whiskey but the rejection damn near makes him see white. He remembers how uncoordinated your efforts to shove at his hands were.

The next thing he remembers is Catherine stumbling in looking for you, and you trying to bolt. He had caught you the first time.

You were screaming at him, shoving him, calling him a pig. He was arguing right back at you. He’s always known exactly what to say to make your argument feel paper-thin.

The second time you had run, he had let you go, picking up his half-finished whiskey and pouring it into his mouth. He knew you wouldn’t say a word to your parents, you would be too ashamed.

The last thing that you remember from that night is being downstairs, laughing with your friends, with his arm around your waist.

The drive down to the farmhouse is a little over an hour from Florence, one of the shorter journeys of your trip. No need for stops or bathroom breaks. You had settled into your seat, covered your ears, and turned the volume on the Walkman as loud as it would go.

When you were packing tapes for the trip, you hadn’t once considered to bring Christmas music. Now, you’re wracking your brain trying to remember the song that had been playing. Remember any part of that night at all.

Once she had realized what she had said, Catherine had grown defensive and apologetic. She wouldn’t tell you much. Like she was covering something.

You’ve been staring unseeingly at the Tuscan countryside as it passes you by, Kate Bush as your soundtrack. I should be crying but I just can't let it show.

He wouldn’t hurt you. This is the same man who took you out to his mother’s rose garden and gave you the most stunning Tiffany necklace you’ve ever seen as a gift. The man who hugs you so close against him, and sits through your chick-flicks with you.

Your parents adore him, and it’s their job to protect you. Your father is a wonderful judge of character, and Malcolm won his seal of approval years ago.

All these miles of land whizzing by, outside of this ugly little minivan, are starting to make you sick. You close your eyes and listen to Kate.

Oh, darling, make it go

Make it go away

Your eyes burn under your eyelids, prickling with tears. Even worse, it makes your face burn with furious heat to think of any one of these people seeing you cry. Your stomach is trembling with unease, a static feeling in your fingers and toes is the only thing reminding you that you can feel them at all.

Breathing in shakily, you squeeze your eyes more tightly closed, gritting your teeth to will the tears away.

You just need to remember. You can’t go accusing him of something awful. He’s always been so good to you. He’s your future. You just need to get your bearings, and figure it out. Maybe you had led him on. Given him the wrong idea.

It’s such a short drive, and for once, there doesn’t seem to be any drama that requires his attention. Bradley has let himself get so behind on his work that he spends the duration of the drive with his papers sprawled out across the bench, making annotations and edits.

“Whoa, look at this place!” Zoe gasps, leaning over the seats to get a look at the sprawling driveway, lined with green trees and shrubs, marking the way toward the farmhouse. It’s an incredible building, sprawling and stone, dotted with climbing plants along the walls and planted flowers in the window boxes.

Bradley closes his notebook and looks up finally, then looks across at Pasquale with a small smile.

“Did I ever tell you guys that this is where Pasquale and I met?” Bradley announces to the group, turning around in his seat to face them.

“All the way out here?”

“Yeah. We worked here together one fall.”

Bradley had heard of Alessandro’s work early into his studies. It was Natasha who got him the job here. He arrived in September and left in December, this place gets cold as the months go on. Now, it’s warm and everything is in bloom. It smells sweet and citrusy. Sandro had always sworn that the apricots grown here were the best in the country.

“Then, when Mr. Bradshaw had been accepted for his summer work here with the university, I was the first person he called to be your tour guide.” Pasquale adds with a grin as he pulls up in front of the old house. Bradley hums. Pasquale has always been a good friend to him.

As soon as the engine stops, the heavy wooden front door is thrown open and a tall man with long, dark curls comes jogging out, grinning.

“Bradley Bradshaw!” His accent is thick, but mixed. Not entirely Italian. His cheeks dimple as his grin stretches across his olive toned skin, watching Bradley tear out of the minivan and head for him.

“Sandro,” Bradley grins, grabbing hold of the slightly shorter man by his shoulders and dragging him in for a hug before leaning in close and shaking the man a bit as he chuckles out something in Italian that makes them both laugh. You miss it, barely pulling your headphones off of your ears as you step out of the van.

“I don’t know what that means but I know it was a swear word.” Abigail announces, making Bradley laugh as he turns to her again. She’s not wrong, he had happily just called Alessandro something not too dissimilar to a son of a bitch. Endearingly.

He hooks an arm around Alessandro’s shoulders and turns him coolly towards the group. “Guys, this is Alessandro Gabris. Not quite the man of the house but a hell of a storyteller.”

Alessandro turns his head and whispers something back that can only be as filthy as whatever Bradley had said to him, because it makes them both double over laughing. Their inside joke makes Pasquale laugh along with them. That autumn had been such good fun, the three of them.

Alessandro glances behind him as an older man walks out of the building, wheeling an elderly woman in a wheelchair. He smiles as he gestures to her.

“And this is my mother, Teodora Gabris.”

“Oh, I remember,” Bradley’s lips stretch into a warm grin as he breaks the haphazard formation of the group, unwraps himself from Sandro and steps towards her, crouching in front of her wheelchair, slipping his sunglasses off. The woman’s face changes, brightening with recognition. “Don’t break my heart, Dorie, you remember me too, huh?”

The crinkles beside her eyes deepen as she lifts her hand and rests it against his cheek, tilting her head to examine his face.

“The artist.” She remembers, making Bradley laugh fondly. He’s familiar with her in a way that makes both of their grins broaden as he leans in. He’s far from an artist, and she knows it. But, he has a way with words and a way with women, and that had amused her all of those years ago.

In her youth, Teodora traveled from the Kefalonian countryside to the centre of Paris, where she had trained with oil paints. She’s the real artist.

“How have you been?” He asks.

She just looks around her, gesturing to her little slice of Tuscany, blooming into the July heat, and back to him finally. Bradley nods his head, unable to shake that smile from his face. She has her little slice of heaven already, how could she not be happy?

“You haven’t aged a day.” He tells her, his large hand resting softly against her now frail wrist.

You stare between the two of them. The affection they have for each other, and the joy on her face as she remembers the boy he was. His hand sitting so gently on her skin.

“You have.” She teases, pinching his sunwarmed red cheeks. He laughs, sharing her gaze for a beat before he stands upright once again.

Of the six places that you have visited so far on this trip, Bradley has been greeted warmly by someone who once knew him in every single one of them. Even Natasha, who hates him for his betrayal, finds it in herself to revel in the safety of still being near him.

You don’t remember your interaction with him that night either. He could have done anything. He could have left you there. You can only imagine the look your mother would have given him when he took you home. You weren’t ever even particularly nice to him, you’d talked through his class all through first semester. He took you home and made sure you were safe anyway.

“Hey, are you okay?” Suddenly there’s a hand on your wrist and it feels like scalding water. You pull swiftly away from it and whip your head around to find Abigail leaning towards you, her features creased with concern.

Your cheeks are hot, and wet. Fuck, they’re wet. Quickly, you bring both hands to your face and start wiping hurriedly at your tears. You can’t bring yourself to do anything but blink dumbly at her, your shoes dragging across the dirt below you as you stumble a step back.

As he hears the question, Bradley turns and shoots a glance over his shoulder. His face falls, turning completely to do a double take as he notices your teary face.

“Hey, hey — what’s the matter?” Bradley’s size thirteen converse tennis blancs trample across the dirt and stones, long strides and heavy footfalls. Your stomach churns at the thought of those heavy hands on your skin, of his frame up close and looming over you, of getting stuck between him and the minivan behind you.

He slows as your foot slips back and fumbles for purchase in the dirt, muddying your white sneakers.

Everyone behind him is looking at you now. You’re painfully aware of the twisted up look on your face but it’s the only thing keeping you from sobbing.

Humiliation stings. All of them looking at you like you’re ridiculous. Not being able to remember. Simultaneously wanting to throw yourself into Bradley’s chest and beg him not to touch you.

Bradley lowers his voice just slightly, also well-aware of all of the eyes on you suddenly. “Look at me. What’s the matter?”

Your lip trembles, trying not to look at anyone around you. Your eyes steady on his, your throat thick and your heartbeat thundering.

“Can I talk to you about something?” You croak out.

There’s a study downstairs, just off of the living room. Bradley clicks the door shut behind him, his brows drawing together as your pace away from him.

“Honey…” He says softly, like he’s trying to soothe a cornered animal. You round on him like one, eyes wide. He’s never seen you so spooked. “Talk to me. What happened? — I can’t fix it if—“

“You can’t fix it.” Your voice cracks and gravity grows stronger, forcing you to the ground. Crumpling like a piece of paper, you curl your knees up to your chest, a sob wracking your body.

“Okay, alright,” Bradley breathes out, clicking the lock on the door and following you to the ground. You flinch as his heavy hand comes to rest against the back of your neck, stroking softly over the top of your styled hair. “Let me hear it, it’s no good keeping it to yourself.”

“Please don’t touch me,” You whisper into your knees, squeezing your eyes tightly shut. Your skin crawls, trying to picture Malcolm on top of you, wondering how you couldn’t remember. “Could you… could you just please not.” You decide finally, wiping hurriedly at the damp spots under your eyes.

He doesn’t follow. It was just last night that you were so comfortable in his arms, staring up at him with that electric, trusting look on your face. But he gently takes his hand off of you anyway.

“Is this about that phone call?” Bradley asks gently, suddenly unsure of where to put his hands. His instinct is to hold you.

Light pours in from the tall, wide window to your side. It’s far too warm, and too sunny in here for you to be feeling this awful. It feels like the ground is going to swallow you whole, if the weight in your chest doesn’t take you out first.

“Talk to me, honey. Tell me what happened.” Bradley encourages, bracing his elbows on his knees and lowering his head to try to meet your gaze.

“I think Malcolm — that night that you found me in December, I think— I think that he—“

Bradley’s eyes go round, the concerned frown on his face falling all of a sudden. He stares at you as you sob into your hands. He remembers that night so clearly. From waking up face down in a textbook chapter about Pre-raphaelite attitudes towards monogamy, to squinting to figure out what that figure in the snow was. Seeing you there, barely conscious. Practically deadweight in his arms as he had lifted you.

A muscle in his jaw ticks.

You lift your head to look at him, the colour drained from your skin, eyes pleading.

“Did he tell you this?” Bradley asks you softly.

“No. Catherine said — she said something about finding— fuck, she said something about finding him… on top of me.” Your throat is hoarse and your words are barely coming out as you try to hold back floods of tears. If you let yourself keep crying, it feels like you might not ever stop.

Bradley lifts his hand and pinches at the bridge of his nose. He inhales for six, exhales for seven. Then, he reaches out slowly and rests the tips of his fingers against the outside of your ankle.

“I don’t remember.” You choke out. He looks across at you, thinking of how proudly you had been showing off your engagement ring. No clue what an animal your fiancé was. Your lip trembles. “I don’t remember it.”

His gaze flickers immediately to your hands covering your face as the midday sun catches the rock on your ring finger, glistening in the light. You never would have said yes if you had known.

“I’m sorry, honey, I’m so sorry,” He whispers, curling his fingers softly around your ankle. It takes everything not to wrap himself around you and shield you from everything outside of these four walls. This dusty old office, sunlight shining across ever single chip and dent in these old floor boards, just you and him.

“If I wasn’t such a mess, then—“

“Hey,” His fingers squeeze softly at your ankle, prompting you to look up at him, hot tears spilling down your cheeks. He gives a soft shake of your head. “It’s not your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

A few seconds pass between the two of you. His fingers don’t dare inch from the safety of your ankle, if that’s as much of you as he is allowed to touch, then that’s what he’ll take.

He can’t imagine the fear in not knowing.

You swallow softly and push onto your knees, crawling closer and pushing yourself into his chest. Bradley tucks one arm around your waist, doing his best not to cage you against him as you bury your face into his neck. You can feel him giving you room to retreat.

It’s such a strange thing, not wanting him to touch you but at the same time wanting to be held by him until the rest of the world stops. The thought of his hands on your skin makes you sick, but you want nothing more than to bury your face in the crook of his neck and pretend that none of this is happening. Like he’s not a separate man, not something to fear — just an extension of self, almost.

“It’s not your fault.” He tells you again, running his hand along your back, finally letting his eyes fall shut. Your breathing is jagged and gasping with the sobs, coming out quickly against the skin of his neck. “I’ve got you. You’re gonna be okay.”

“I should remember. I — I thought I’d know, or… feel… and I don’t remember any of it.”

His stomach knots, his palm resting between your shoulder blades as he cradles you against him.

It wasn’t that long ago that he couldn’t stand the thought of you. He had taken what he had seen of you in his classroom and come to the decision that you were selfish, and spoiled, lazy. He had no idea.

Since then, he has grown to know that you’re none of those things. You’re defensive, sure, he can be too. You’re a product of your upbringing, to an extent. But you’re witty, and smart, and you’re far from selfish. Bradley has seen your curiosity up close for weeks now. Your potential weighs on his mind, it keeps him up at night thinking of the future you’d have if you just had someone tell you that you could.

He hugs you against his chest and turns his face into the crook of your neck.

“You’re gonna be okay.” He promises. There’s no way around it, or over it. He couldn’t have stopped it from happening. This isn’t about him or the way that he feels for you. He holds you close, rubbing firm circles across the length of your back for as long as you’ll let him.

“I’m sorry.” You choke out, your face buried into the warmth and familiarity of his neck. “You — You should be out there with everyone. I just need a minute.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” Bradley whispers.

And he doesn’t. He sits there and holds you until he feels your breathing start to get slower and longer against him. Then, he strokes a strand of hair gently off of your face. “You feeling tired?”

“Exhausted.” You whisper.

He nods softly and kisses the top of your head. If he could, he would happily have carried you upstairs and put you to bed himself. Instead, under the watchful eye of the rest of your class, he has to point your directions from the bottom of the stairs.

“I’ll be upstairs to check on you in a bit. Get some rest.”

And he does come up a bit later. You’re not sure exactly how much later, but it’s dark when the first knock wakes you up.

See, the first knock doesn’t warrant pulling yourself out of this unfamiliar bed. The pillowcase is damp but for now, you seem to have run out of tears. The second knock is more tempting, if only to make the sound stop.

Bradley doesn’t knock a third time. Instead, he takes a quick glance at the empty hall around him and leans in close, “It’s me. Can I come in?”

You already knew it was him, there’s no real need for him to announce himself. Still, you grace him with a tired sound of acknowledgment and force yourself out of the fetal position. The old doorknob creaks and clicks, then the door itself creaks as it opens. It would be pretty difficult to sneak around in a big old house like this one.

“Hey.” Bradley greets you softly, cautiously. You offer him a tight-lipped smile. He brings a hand from behind his back and shows you a plate with roasted potatoes and vegetables — something else that you can’t quite see, a starchy baked dish.

Through no fault of his own, he doesn’t get much of a reaction from you at all. You make no effort to reach for the plate. He crosses the room and sets it down on top of the dresser.

“Brought you some dinner, and uh…” Bradley hasn’t felt sheepish since his second day of basic training, and yet, his eyes are on the floor as he pulls his other hand from behind his back. “I brought you this.”

You watch as he sets the blue fabric in front of you, folded neatly.

“Your shirt?”

He scratches at the back of his neck, walking right on by you to sit against the window ledge. Cool air bristles his nape and makes him sit up a little straighter, letting you catch his eye.

“I don’t know, I thought…” He stares at the blue fabric in your hands and gives his head a soft shake. “I don’t know what I thought, but keep it for tonight.”

He knows what his thought process was, he just can’t bring himself to say it out loud. It sounds selfish now. I thought that since I can’t be with you, maybe a piece of me might help. How ridiculous of him to make himself so important in all of this.

“Here,” He remembers, pushing himself away from the window and taking the plate in his hand again, “Come on, you should eat something, while it’s still hot. It’s good.”

You pull your knees to your chest as he perches himself on the bed beside you, setting the plate down. You settle down, crossing your legs and lifting the plate into your lap, picking up the fork.

He watches, chewing at the inside of his lip as you push the vegetables around the plate.

“How’re you feeling now?”

“Stupid for bawling my eyes out like that.” You answer him meekly, spearing the fork through a grilled red pepper, pushing it through some of the juice from the baked dish.

His eyes search across your features.

Neither one of you says anything for a moment as you shake the pepper from your fork and stab it instead through a piece of eggplant.

“You’re not stupid.” He tells you, his brows drawing together as he watches you periodically wound the food on the plate.

“He was clearly unhappy, and I didn’t even notice. My own boyfriend and I didn’t have a clue,” You jam the fork into a particularly stubborn chunk of zucchini and letting the fork clatter to the plate. Bradley stares back at you. “If he was happy then—“

”Don’t defend him to me.” Bradley interrupts you, his voice calm but grave. In a roundabout way, he understands how your thought process has led you here, but he can’t listen.

”No, I’m — I’m not. But it’s my responsibility as his partner—“

”Stop it.” Bradley deadpans. He lowers his head and meets your gaze. His tone suggests that he is growing frustrated but his eyes are another story, soft and warm, honeyed as they search across your face. “You were blacked out drunk. Whatever you think you owe him, it wasn’t his in that moment. You get that, right?”

He’s trying to help. You know that he’s trying to make it better, but it isn’t. Your nape feels hot and your throat feels sore. If he’s right, if that’s really true — if it was never your fault — then where do you go from here?

Your wedding is eighteen days after you fly home. The dress, the centre-pieces, the bridesmaids and the venue — everything is already all set up.

You suck in a soft breath and bury your face in your hands. Bradley lifts his palm and smooths a hand softly over the nape of your neck.

“Look, I just—“

“Can you go?” You breathe out shakily, dropping your hands from your face and meeting his gaze. His mouth hangs open, and you just know that he’s going to keep on talking. “Just go. Please. I want to be alone.”

Finally, he closes his mouth and gives a solemn nod.

“Okay,” He gives your shoulder a soft squeeze before standing up from the bed. “I’ll come see you tomorrow morning.”

With him gone, the quiet is worse this time. Out here in the country, there’s nothing but you wracking your brain for answers that just won’t come. At some point, you make yourself eat some of the now cold food Bradley had brought you just to settle the rumbling in your stomach.

Then, you catch sight of yourself in the mirror. It’s a tall thing with a wooden frame, angled to face the bed. Your fingers reach down and curl into the hem of your nightgown, thinking of the blue Dior dress sitting in your closet at home now. It’s around this length, one of your shorter articles of clothing. You had been so excited to find that dress.

Standing in it that day in the floor, you had felt like Cinderella, right out of the pages of a storybook. Ridiculous.

Quickly, you grab at the hem and tear it off of your body. Almost naked, you examine yourself in the reflection. Something makes you walk forwards and your eyes squint, scrutinizing the flesh before you. Wondering how much of it Malcolm has seen, really.

You wonder which parts of it come to mind, when the two men who have seen your body think about it. The softness of your stomach? The way your breasts sit? — Something different entirely, maybe. Your self-examination is short-lived and exhausting all at once.

Turning back around, you spot Bradley’s shirt sitting on the edge of the bed. It’s a soft, heavy cotton, and it smells wholly of him. It slips easily over your shoulders, your fingers working nimbly to fasten the buttons.

You tilt your head, observing the way you look wrapped in his clothes. Then, you look around the room. Without Bradley to occupy your evening, the sudden lack of television or alternate entertainment strikes you.

Stuck with little other option, you grab your walkman from the dresser and head over to your suitcase. Armed with the cassette, wrapped in Bradley’s shirt, you cross the room and settle back into this unfamiliar bed, setting the headphones over your ears. You click open the cartridge and look down at the new tape in your hand.

Written across the front of the plastic in red marker, calligraphy: Our Wedding Tape 1986. It was a parting gift. Something from your future husband to lift your spirits when you were feeling low over here.

You lay back against the pillows, closing your eyes and hitting play. Slowly, the opening chords of The Commodores’ Three Times a Lady start to play in your ears. Your stomach flips, but you inhale, squeeze your eyes tighter and it’s almost better.

It’s soft, and slow — almost like a lullaby. But, your blood is coursing so hot and fast through your veins, it feels more like you’re running a marathon. Hot tears burn behind your eyes once again, reminding you that you haven’t actually run out of them. That they might never really stop.

To touch you, to hold you, to feel you, to need you.

There’s nothing to keep us apart.

You’re once, twice, three times a lady, and I love you. I love you.

As the lyrics pause and piano chords once again fill your ears, you realize that you’re gritting your teeth. You inhale sharply and snatch the headset off of your head, tossing it harshly onto the floor and causing the walkman to bust open. The cassette falls to the floor, but at least the music stops.

You’re breathing like you’re being chased. You wipe hurriedly, wanting the tears off of you, kicking back the covers, wanting everything off of you. As you wipe the salty tears from your jaw, you remember the metal on your finger.

As with the Walkman, you tear it off and throw it. It lands atop the dresser, the light catching the diamond, it sparkles back at you like a wink.

You had been so ridiculously happy on the day that Malcolm had proposed. Surrounded by your friends and family, wearing a beautiful dress, the centre of attention. Ridiculous.

You sink back down and turn onto your side, facing away from the dresser and the winking reminder that sits atop it. Sleep comes for you quickly, taking place of the crying-induced headache and drowning out the faint Commodores chorus lurking in your mind.

You’re awoken by a soft knock on the heavy wooden door. Sunlight is already pouring in through the curtains and something tells you that you missed breakfast. This will be Bradley. You let him knock again. Then, a third time. Eyes still closed, you groan softly and press your face into the pillow as a fourth and fifth knock ring out.

Stubborn asshole. You tear the covers the rest of the way back and push up from the bed, padding across the hardwood floor and pulling the door swiftly open.

Abigail and Zoe stand outside, dressed in tank tops and shorts with bathing suit strings peaking out. Your mouth falls slack as you try to close the door to cover yourself a bit.

“Oh—“ Your eyes widen, lips parting. It’s obvious to the both of them instantly that they aren’t who you were expecting to see. “Sorry, I thought you were Bradley.”

Zoe glances at Abigail, Abigail glances at Zoe, they both look down at the slightly wrinkled blue button up that falls down to your mid thighs. Bradley wore something really similar in Venice.

“We, uh — well, we’re just heading down to the lake. We were going to swim, and get some work done. Sandro gave us some snacks and some lemonade,” Zoe has a real talent for cramming as much information into as short a breath as she can, showing you the contents of the little cotton bag on her shoulder at the same time. She stops finally, allowing herself to smile in her pause. “If you… maybe wanted to come with us.”

You neither retreat or reply. For a second too long, you just look between the two of them, completely wordless.

“Really?”

“Yeah.” Abigail answers quickly, she looks at Zoe and they both quickly offer you nods of agreement. “Don’t feel like you have to—“

“No— I-I— yeah. Thanks. That would be cool.” You shift your weight from foot to foot, balancing one one, toeing at the aged floorboards under you. It feels strange, wanting so badly to go with them.

Up until you reached this threshold, you were so certain that you didn’t give a damn about the way they felt about you. Maybe you don’t, really. You sure wouldn’t if you were back home. But here, the feeling of finally being invited is something weightless.

“Cool.” Zoe smiles awkwardly back at you. You wonder if your smile looks half as apologetic as hers does.

Abigail bristles to attention, shrugging her tote closer to her body and reaching down to take Zoe’s hand. “Well, we’ll wait for you downstairs? We can all head out there together.”

They’re wearing swimsuits. You should dig your swimsuit out of your case. Maybe they’ll be upset if you make them wait too long.

“Thanks, I’ll be quick.”

And then you’re walking around the left side of the house and heading across the fields, they’re explaining how wonderful Teodora is, how she told them about a wild swimming spot just over the hill.

They’re curious about you. You were so angry in the beginning, so restless and unhappy. That seems to have faded away now. They still don’t know a single thing about you really, not as much as they would like to.

“Are you feeling better? — Bradley said you weren’t feeling well.” Abigail is tall and dark-skinned, with round glasses and her curly hair usually in two French braids. Today, she’s wearing a Rolling Stones t-shirt that belonged to her father, and a pair of denim cut-offs.

“It’s not contagious, right?” Zoe adds as she trails alongside you. She’s shorter than Abigail, with dark hair and green eyes. She’s the only sophomore on the trip — you wonder what she had done to impress Bradley enough to let her come.

You shrug your shoulder bag closer to your body and make yourself smile. “Much better. I think I just didn’t drink enough water and I was tired. Just… out of sorts, I guess.”

“It’s good that Bradley was so kind to you about it,” Zoe hums absently, adjusting her thick-rimmed sunglasses. Red runner shorts and complimentary red and white striped adidas sneakers, and long tanned legs. She looks right out of a commercial — but one of the well done ones. Not cheesy or anything. “Called his office once to tell him that I couldn’t take an exam because I was super sick, that fucker didn’t believe me until I dragged myself in there and puked on those old Nikes he used to wear.”

You hum out an amused sound. That makes two of you who have puked on his shoes.

“He feels bad for me because my fiancé’s a jackass.” Maybe it’s a lie, maybe it’s the truth. You believe both sides of it, in part. Bradley does feel bad for you. But he would have held you in his arms yesterday even if he didn’t.

To them, it makes sense. There has been plenty of gossip about you over the last five weeks. Some of it, admittedly, they had engaged in. Everyone is pretty curious about why you’re getting married so young, and equally curious about all the time you’ve been spending with their cool, cocky professor.

Watching you stumble away from the group sobbing yesterday, there had been a few whispered rumours about the cause. Maybe Bradley dumped her because she wouldn’t put out. That one was especially cruel.

To Abigail, someone that heartbroken didn’t deserve to be made fun of. It had looked like your heart had been clean ripped out of your chest. She had whispered to Zoe about it last night in the darkness of their room, from the top bunk, and the two of them had decided to approach you today.

”How long have you two been together?” Abigail toes the line between prying and learning enough about you to potentially calling herself your friend. You probably should mind, but this is standard practice back home — girls who don’t care wanting information they don’t deserve. Something tells you she’s not like that.

”Since high school.” You tell her.

She slows slightly and turns her head to look back at you over her shoulder. You’re looking down at the dirt and grass and wildflowers, setting one white shoe in front of the other, denim shorts and a green blouse, that sad look on your face again. It’s different than the kind of sadness she saw in you yesterday — but it’s a look she has seen on you before.

A kind of acceptance to it, like you’re at peace with the sadness you’ve known.

”People grow a lot after high school.” It’s wonderful that you have managed to stay together. It’s probably time to call it quits. Her sentence seems unfinished and leaves you guessing, but it doesn’t condemn you to her own decision on the matter the way that Bradley’s black and white had.

You look up from the ground and meet her gaze. You smile and nod. People sure do.

Bradley gets caught up in the kitchen with Teodora as he is fixing you a plate of breakfast, guessing at your favourite morning foods. He only really dines with you in the evening.

“Is that for the girl?”

Bradley hums and nods, frowning at the cooked mushrooms. He can’t remember if you love them or hate them. After five dates, he should probably know that. He shouldn’t have been on any dates with you. They’re just mushrooms—

“She left already.” Dorie shrugs without looking up from the morning paper. Bradley’s fingers curl tighter around the plate. He turns slowly, to face her.

“She what?”

”Yes, the girl with the tattoo and the girl with the long legs,” Dorie tells him, glancing up and taking note of the panicked expression on his face. Abi and Zoe. He swallows a bit. They’ll be good to you. “They all went out by the lake to work. They’ll be back in the afternoon.”

The last time he had been here, Bradley had been hopelessly in love with another. He kept a picture of her in his wallet. Pretty little thing with her middle finger pointed right at the lense as she sunbathed topless on a beach in the south.

Teodora won’t pry, but she suspects there might be a new picture in Bradley’s wallet now.

“Oh. Right,” He sets the plate down and stares at it, unsure of what to do with the extra food now. “I… I guess I’ll get started with some work. I’ll be in the sitting room.”

She nods politely at him, he sets the plate in the fridge and leaves to gather his work things. God, he hopes they’ll be good to you. He had been so afraid that Dorie was going to tell him you had jumped on a flight back to the States. He has more time.

He was up practically all night, thinking of that loser’s hands on you. It makes him sick to remember how limp you had been in his arms when he had first picked you up from the snow.

The sitting room in the Gabris estate is sprawling — it’s a real space to entertain. There were a lot of parties here back in the day. Now, there’s a dust sheet over the piano and the nude portrait of Teodora’s lover is gone from above the mantle.

Bradley settles down into an armchair and pulls together his notes, sun pouring through the windows, a fog settling across his thoughts. 3pm. Three PM. That’s when he hears the eruption of laughter, bubbling up and spilling through the house. After that, comes the sound of wet shoes squeaking on the hardwood.

His chin propped against his fist, he cranes his neck as Zoe appears first in the hallway. She spots him and stops like a caught kid, her mouth falling open. Then, you. Then, Abi. All three of you are soaked head to toe, dripping water onto the floors.

You stare back at him dwarfing the patterned armchair, surrounded by papers, peering at you over the top of his reading glasses. He doesn’t say a thing, taking his time in looking the three of you over. Finally, his lips twitch.

”We went swimming.” Zoe breathes out, laughing.

Bradley hums against his hand, his eyes visibly flicker from your bare feet to the soaked clothes clinging to your body, and finally at your face. From behind his fist, a smirk toys at his lips.

He’s so grateful to see you look so mischievous. Anything but the way you were looking at him yesterday.

”I can see that,” He agrees, amusement dripping from his voice. Your smile turns sheepish as you cross your arms in front of your hips and shift your weight from left to right, and back again. “Did you get those pages that I asked you for all done.

”Most of ‘em.” Zoe nods. Eighty-percent still counts as most. Besides, you know that Bradley will listen if you plead your case. He hums again, a sound of understanding this time, and inches his knees further apart as he sits upright.

”Well, I take it that you’ll be a bit late to our study session.” He’s looking right at you with that devilishly handsome smile on his face, and a softness to his eyes that makes you want to pour yourself right into his lap.

“Shit,” You snap out of it, whipping your head around to look for a clock. Bradley glances down at his watch, already fully aware that you’re forty minutes late. He looks back to you, smiling. “I’ll get changed.”

”I’ll be here.” He tells you, looking back down to his work.

You glance down at the puddle you’re leaving on the floor, and then back up at the girls. They watch you blink like you’re remembering that they’re there.

“We’ll come up with you.” Abigail nods for you to go ahead and Zoe slips her palms into yours.

Bradley glances at the exchange over the top of his workbook, her hand in yours. The smile on your face as you peer back at them and head for the stairs. He bites the inside of his cheek and finally exhales.

His next breath in feels a little bit easier.

“So, how long do you usually have to spend with Bradley every afternoon?” Zoe asks, padding up the wooden stairs behind you. They creak with every step, but not enough for you to pretend not to have heard her question.

You shrug your shoulders, trying to at cool about it. Bradley would at cool about it. He doesn’t seem ashamed at all.

“It depends. He gives me different tasks to do. Sometimes we get through them quickly, other times he decides to be an ass about it.” That feels about right.

“Like class work?”

“Yeah,” You glance back over your shoulder as you reach the landing. “I’m not much use to him as a research assistant if I still don’t understand the class material. You know?”

“Right.” Abigail nods along with you.

“Well, I’d better go get dry…” You remember, gesturing to your door. They both nod along, but you don’t move. You hug your shoes and your bag to your chest and try to smile. “Thanks for inviting me today. I appreciate it.”

“Any time. You’re a good time.” Zoe grins, lifting her arm and draping it casually around Abigail’s shoulders.

Your goodbye is a brief nod and a pleased smile, before you turn and head back to your room. You strip out of your clothes and leave them to dry against the open window, then throw on something dry.

Bradley hears your shoes racing down the stairs and closes his book. You grab the archway and swing around the corner into the sitting room.

“Okay — ready.”

He braces his elbows against his knees and gives a small shake of his head, lips quirked. “Not here.”

The two of you walk along the dirt path in the opposite direction to the lake. Up ahead of you is a mile long stretch of trees, behind you is the Gabris’ courtyard. Bradley’s two paces in front with a cigarette dangling from his lips and his books tucked under his arm.

His shorts make his legs look even longer, up high on his thighs and stretched around the muscle. His sneakers still aren’t something a college professor would wear, but you’ve grown to like them. They’re very… him.

His oversized shirts and his white sneakers, and the gold pendant that sits between his collarbones are all parts of him that you have grown to adore. The curls at the nape of his neck and the way his broad shoulders slope down into his waist.

There are plenty of things that you could name.

The smell of tobacco that follows him isn’t one of those things.

“That’s a filthy habit.” You call ahead to him.

Bradley turns his head and looks at you over the top of his gold-rimmed sunglasses, grinning amusedly, “Yeah, I’ve got a couple of those. You might be familiar with a few.”

Your mouth twitches. You almost smile at him, briefly considering that downright awful habit he’s got of delving between your thighs. Then, your face twists into a strictly unamused scowl.

“Did you pick it up when you were in the Navy?” You ask, jogging to keep up with him.

“Kinda.” He answers you, looking down at you briefly before he checks ahead again. It’s not important to mention the cigarettes behind the science building in high school; that was more an act of defiance than an addiction.

“Have you ever tried to quit?”

“Is this you asking me to?” He replies, crossing over into the tree line, shade pouring over the two of you. You watch as he takes the cigarette between his fingers and flicks ash onto the floor, branches crunching under his feet.

You follow alongside him. “Would you, if I asked you to?”

“Would you put up with me being a lot grumpier?” He asks in return.

“Probably not.”

He huffs out a dry chuckle. Finally, he stubs the cigarette out. You follow him through the woods like his shadow until you reach a clearing. It’s a pleasant mix of sun and shade, a nice place to wait out the glaring afternoon heat. This is routine by now, you sit down beside each other and he tells you what you’re doing, then you each get to it.

He’s working on his book. His face gets real serious when he’s working on his book. Makes him look older, more mature. Almost makes you forget how deviously handsome he looks when he’s grinning at you, when he looks so handsome like this.

You’re translating prose. Poetry about lust and temptation. He would have switched out the curriculum but resources are limited out here, and you don’t say a word about disliking the work he has given you. He’s afraid to ask.

To burst this bubble of blissful ignorance you’ve got going, like yesterday never happened.

”So, Zoe and Abi — did you guys have fun today?” He asks without looking up from his work. That feels like a safe enough question. You’re laying on your stomach and don’t bother to stop working to look at him either.

”Mhm. Zoe’s clothes fell off the branch and got soaked, so we figured we’d all just jump in dressed. Cooled us off on the way home.”

He glances up, smiling softly. “Look at you — walking on the wild side.”

”I know, right?” You scoff.

He looks back down to his work, examining the artwork on the left page.

“So… how are you feeling today?” He asks cautiously. About Malcolm, of course. Bradley has noticed that you aren’t wearing your ring. You’d barely remembered taking it off. It doesn’t feel any different without it. It’s not exactly life-altering. It’s just jewellery.

”Mixed up,” You owe him honesty at least, considering your complicated relationship. You shrug your shoulders weakly and frown at the page. “Confused. Angry.”

He just nods.

She turns her head to look at him. Laying on his side, pretending to organise his notes, his sunglasses masking his expression.

”I don’t want it to change things.”

”How?” Bradley answers a little too quickly for a man pretending to be otherwise occupied. His brows draw together as he meets your gaze through those darkened lenses.

“Between us,” You tell him, resting your cheek against your hand and tilting your head just slightly. Laying in the grass, about a foot away from him. Close enough for him to reach out and trail his fingers from the centre of your back to the nape of your neck, and back again. You smile softly. “I like you, you know?”

…

Tags: @thedroneranger @batdanceq @cassiemitchele @himbos-on-ice @wkndwlff @bradshawsbaby @damrlova @fudge13 @xoxabs88xox @mak-32 @sihtricswife @callsignvenus @callsign-joyride @harper1666 @krismdavis @sheisanangell @cherrycola27@ahoyyharrington @kmc1989 @sugarcoated-lame @mshistorylover

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Potential signs of life on Mars might be easier to find than first thought

by James Ashworth, Natural History Museum December 12, 2023

The experiment rose to the edge of space before plummeting back to Earth, simulating Mars' atmosphere. Credit: Thales Alenia Space

A school science experiment is answering questions that are out of this world. While there had been concerns that any evidence of organic matter on Mars might be obscured by the planet's geology, new research suggests this might not be the case.

A group of budding young researchers has helped to demonstrate how evidence of life on Mars could be found.

Students from St Bernard's Convent High School in Westcliff-On-Sea, Essex, assisted scientists from the Natural History Museum and University College London in an experiment to see what evidence any potential ancient life may have left on the red planet.

Pupils from the all-girls school, whose alumni include Dame Helen Mirren, prepared samples of a microbial mat that were flown to the edge of space in a balloon to mimic the conditions on Mars. This allowed the researchers to examine any changes that the cold, dry atmosphere caused to the signs of life.

Connor Ballard, a Ph.D. student who led the study, says, "We wanted to get the students involved in as many aspects as possible with this research, and they were really engaged throughout."

"We know that science suffers from a lack of diversity, so being able to work with these young women was a pleasure. I know a lot of them want to pursue a science career, so we really hope this will help them in their futures."

Dr. Louisa Preston, a scientific associate at the Natural History Museum and co-author, adds, "It's really brilliant for these young women to already have a paper out with their name on to celebrate their work."

"Getting kids involved in science is really important, and so we hope this will inspire other students too."

The findings of the study were published in the journal Research Notes of the AAS.

Markers on Mars

Since the 1990s, six rovers have successfully touched down on the surface of Mars to learn more about our neighboring planet. Many of these missions have tried to answer one big question—has there ever been life on Mars?

It's not as outlandish at it might seem. While a human would not survive on Mars' surface, there are many microbes on Earth that could find its carbon dioxide rich, dry atmosphere very hospitable.

It is hoped that if it ever existed, Martian life left some traces behind in the form of physical or chemical markers known as biosignatures. But identifying these signs could prove tricky. High levels of radiation, temperature extremes and Mars' weather might have damaged or obscured the markers making them hard to detect.

To account for this, researchers wanted to know what tell-tale signs are left behind as biosignatures break down. The team were particularly interested in the effect gypsum might have on these signs.

On Earth, this mineral is found in dry lakes, and it has been suggested that on Mars the mineral might have preserved the organic molecules of any life that could have lived in any liquid water. But there are problems with this.

"While gypsum might be good at preserving organics, it might also make them harder to find," Connor explains. "Working in infrared, the issue is that a lot of the core characteristics of gypsum have absorption features which obscure organic peaks in the spectrum. It's a bit of a catch-22."

In collaboration with the students, the team decided to simulate what the signs of ancient life might look like on the red planet by making use of the Natural History Museum's collections.

Fly high

To simulate any potential Martian biosignatures, the team faced two challenges: to find a proxy for Martian life, and to simulate the conditions on the planet.

If life existed on Mars, it's thought that it might have been in the form of microbial mats. These are collections of bacteria and other microbes that created some of the oldest evidence of life on Earth, so it's not unreasonable to assume that life on Mars might have taken a similar path.

As part of her research, Louisa has been working with samples of microbial mats from the Natural History Museum's collection.

"I've been working with microbial mats collected during the Discovery expedition, led by the polar explorer Robert Falcon Scott in the early 1900s," she says. "These mats are well-preserved and, despite their age, still show strong biosignatures."

"This made them a good option to use here, and I think Robert Falcon Scott would be pleased that, over a century later, a sample from his expedition would still be breaking new ground."

Now they had found their proxy, the team needed to simulate the conditions of Mars. To solve this problem Louisa and the team turned to a company called Thales Alenia Space, which has been launching weather balloons carrying school science experiments to the edge of space since 2014.

By taking the specimens up to the edge of space, it was hoped they would experience conditions similar to those found on the red planet.

With the balloon set for launch, the school students were able to mix together minute samples of the microbial mat with gypsum in different proportions before sealing the samples into plastic containers. Half were left on Earth as a control, while the others were raised to around 30 kilometers above the Earth before parachuting safely to the ground.

The returned samples were then scanned using infrared spectroscopy, a technique that identifies the makeup of a sample by looking at how it absorbs infrared radiation. The scans of the control samples found that higher levels of gypsum in the mixture obscured the biosignatures in the microbial mat.

However, for the samples that had traveled to the edge of space it was a different picture. Exposure to high altitude had caused the gypsum to dry out, meaning that certain aspects of the mat were highlighted in the resulting analysis.

This suggests that rovers on Mars equipped with infrared spectrometers, like NASA's Perseverance and Curiosity, should be able to detect biosignatures even if preserved in gypsum.

Connor hopes that future tests might be able to shed light on how other minerals affect biosignature detection, giving researchers the best possible opportunity to find any signs of organic material on Mars.

TOP IMAGE....Rovers have been scouring Mars' surface for signs of life on the red planet. Image © NASA/JPL-Caltech

LOWER IMAGE....The experiment rose to the edge of space before plummeting back to Earth, simulating Mars' atmosphere. Image © Thales Alenia Spac

[erisluna35ocblog]

ErisLuna35ocblog Guide:

I started this blog to organize my OC lores for those who are interested and want to get to know them better. It's a little complicated as I tend to put them in AUs, and they end up somewhat different depending on the story they're in yet I try to keep the cores of their characters the same. It will take a while before this blog starts posting original content as I put a lot of stuff on main that I will reblog here for now. I will expand and update this as time goes on.

Main OCs:

Keagan Gerald "Kaji" Aurelio Ashworth

Fiona "Fuyu" Kuznetsov

Shizuke Midorikawa

Blair Crawford

Blake Crawford

Natalia Hale

Damien Guerrero

Zephyr Ryder

AUs:

OG STORY - this is the tag I use to label my original concepts for these characters. Before their better known ML AU incarnations, I pictured them in this fairytale-esque fantasy au with Keagan as the main protagonist. Prince Keagan had a leisurely life as the spare to the throne who's only responsibility is tying down the most powerful knight of their generation to stay on their kingdom's side forever through marriage. Everything was set on a track and he had no intention of fighting it. He likes his hedonistic life as a prince and he gets along well enough with his fiance, it's not worth losing over a thing called "freedom". His destiny was agreeable to him... that is, until he learns of a horrible secret that puts his fiance in danger but she can't know about it lest she dies by her own sword because she is stubborn about protecting everyone like the goddamn knight she is. The prince is forced to take matters into his own hands and run away from the capital, recruiting an unlikely group of outcasts, creating enemies from the shadows and have his fiance and his other childhood friend try to drag him back home.

ML AU - this is the tag I use to lump together all stories set in the show called Miraculous Ladybug.

BTaL - Between Truths and Lies, posted on Ao3 and FF.net. Acronym can be pronounced to sound like "Beetle" lol. The basic premise is its lowkey a future gen fic focusing on the new heroes, Shizuke Midorikawa as Ladybug and Blair Crawford as Chat Noire. Follow their journey as they struggle through superheroing, magic, love, grief and one evil butterfly lady.

N2CatS - No Two Cats are the Same, posted on Ao3 and FF.net. Acronym can be pronounced like "N-2-Cats". It's the time travel story set midway S2 of BTaL that features canon characters and how they deal with being stuck with my ocs for a week. Focused mainly on character study. It jumps off from an alternate end to Ephemeral where Sass's last resort ends up yeeting Adrien and Blair into each other's eras.

Otome Game AU - You know those manhwas where the protagonist, usually female, wakes up one day into the romfan world of the otome game or novel she was reading before she died? And she's in the body of the villainess, or the heroine or some extra? This AU, that's my entire main cast. A group of tired and stressed college students were working on a game for their thesis. They either worked themselves to death or their kidneys gave out from too much red bull or maybe they were half asleep walking home when truck-kun came for them, who knows. Thing is, they all died. Individually woke up into the body of the character that was modelled after them - which explains how none of them realizes they're not the only one who reincarnated. Chaos ensues. Can they all come to the same page before its too late?

To go directly to the most important notes, go to:

CHARACTER ARTS NOTES AND OTHER INFO

[sandersgrey]

A Study in Greys

Eventual Kit/Ty Endgame, Mutual Pining, Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Manipulation, Psychological Trauma, Kit Rook Has ADHD, Kit Rook has C-PTSD.

First / Second / Third / Fourth / Prev. / Next. Fic also available on ao3.

Wordcount: 5k.

A/N: Shout out to my beta and partner in life, @jynxlovesluck, as well as my friend @thechangeling. Also thanks to everyone commenting. I'm taking a break after this due to national college exams, but dont worry about me abandoning this fic. I'm finishing it or dying trying. TW for a mental breakdown in the latter part of the chapter.

Sixth Chapter: Carrying Water

Ty doesn’t even try to fall asleep.

Every last shred of experience earned over his years here tells him he should. Demon patrols await for no one’s sleep deprivation, and he’s been pushed to the forefront of fights more than enough times to know his colleagues won’t either.

Sleep is simply beyond his reach today. Electricity buzzes underneath his skin. A rush of giddiness bubbles up in his chest like champagne, his rib cage an unsuitable container for the sheer volume of it. 

Livy watches him flap his hands, wrist joints crackling with the force of his joy, and her entire face softens; doesn’t even complain when his elbow goes through her, a little out of control.

“You seem happy.”

Ty rocks himself back and forth on the balls of his feet, a squeak high in his throat. His mouth opens, a syllable or two dropping out before he swallows them back down, violently wiggles in place, tries again:

“Kit’s here, I was right, and we’re so close to cracking the case. I can feel it, Livy. We’re going to solve this soon. And then-”

Then things can be good again.

And, who knows, maybe the Death’s Scales aren’t the only powerful relic that has been tucked away; maybe there’s something that’ll bring Livy all the way back, too. It’s not too out of the realm of possibility. Everything could just… fall into place. 

Ty wants it all, suddenly and fiercely. There was a grain of truth when Kit said he was selfish, back then; still it’s not quite right, really. Hungry is the closest word he has for the deep pit in his stomach, wide and unrelenting, an open maw. He wants very few things, but the things he wants…

He just doesn’t know how to let go of them.

“I think we’re close, too”, Livy says, leaning forward to look around a corner before Ty turns. “We just need one last piece of evidence.”

“That’ll be much easier now.”

She looks at him from the corner of her eyes, a smile tugging at her lips. “You’ve always had a lot of faith in him.”

“He’s had Heather Ashworth letting him do whatever he wants after two days. I don’t think she’s ever smiled at us once.”

“That’s true. Do you think we can get him to help us kill her?”

“ Livy.” The door of his room closes behind him with a satisfying thump. “ ... Probably.”

Half of the room is empty, shelves and closet still left the way Anush left them; but, for once, the reminder doesn’t make him want to look away. If Kit can come back after being a much more unreachable dream for years, so will Anush. 

It’s only reasonable to not get used to the extra storage space. 

Besides, he’s not the only one living here. 

Irene sniffs around his leg, rising onto her hindpaws to bump her wet nose against his arm, and only returns to her favorite spot under the bed once given a sufficiently good scritch behind her ears. 

Shedding his jacket, he hangs it up. It’s not the one Kit has let him borrow: that’s tucked under his pillow, since no one’s asked him for it back. Ty has been meaning to wash it. 

He probably will. At some point.

Right now, though, he sits on his bed and sticks a hand under the pillow. His fingers trail over the worn material. “He cut off the tag before letting me borrow it”, Ty says. 

“I know.”

“I didn’t ask him to.”

Livy gracefully floats down until she’s sitting on the bed next to him. The mattress doesn’t shift under her weight. Her hair cascades down her shoulder, the deep brown color muted by its transparency. 

“After this is done…” Livy bites her lip. “Do you think he’ll…”

“He’ll what?”

“... Nevermind.”

Ty looks up, frowning. The look on her face is unfamiliar. “Livy.”

“When he goes back home”, she says, slowly, “do you think it’ll go back to how it was?”

Kit isn’t a centurion or a student. His time in the castle has always been limited. Ty knows this , and yet. He chews on the inside of his cheek, pensive, the open maw of his wants a new Charybdis. It could swallow the entire sea.

“It’s different now, we’re talking again. I’m sure we can just… write to each other, or even visit, now. It’ll be better.”

“Do you think,” Livy hesitates, picking at a loose thread in her dress. “Do you think you’ll stay here? Once it’s done?”

Ty frowns.

Rubbing at one of the seams of Kit’s jacket, his fingertips find it’s rougher than the rest. 

Ty turns it over, spreading it over his lap, and finds himself smiling a little at the places where it has obviously been mended. Threads of different colors crisscross everywhere, reinforcing everywhere where it could have fallen apart. 

“Kit ties his loose threads a lot of times over," he comments. “it’s like he’s afraid it’ll all come apart if he only ties it once.”

“Ty.”

“I don’t know what you mean. Why wouldn’t I stay?”

“You just… You’ve never looked happy here.”

Ty pinches one of the knots, bright blue thread a stark contrast with the duller color of the denim. A part of him expects it to fall apart on his lap. It doesn’t. The whole thing is a little messy. But the multiple knots do their job well; it had all felt very sturdy when he wore it. 

It isn’t pretty. Ty would have done a neater job, if he cared to pick up a needle often enough to develop the skill.

But he wouldn’t have thought to reinforce the seams. He would have just assumed it would be fine.

“Ty?”

“We should focus on figuring this out first.”

“Okay”, she says softly. “Okay.”

Ty folds the jacket again, tucking it back under his pillow. It should probably be hand washed. There’s a lot of tiny modifications that might come apart in a machine, so it’ll have to wait for a day he’s not busy. 

Technically, he’s not busy right now. The fizzling just hasn’t disappeared yet. If anything, it’s grown: from a champagne buzz to an earthquake.

“I don’t think I can stand around doing nothing right now.”

“Ty-”

“I know. Nothing too harsh.” Ty carefully dodges the paw Irene sticks out from under the bed frame, draping his study bag over his shoulder as he gets up. “There’s probably something we can do. I’m going to take a look at the archives.”

“You’ve already spent a lot of time there.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t know what to look for before,” he says. “That’s always the most important part.”

Her lips thin as they press together, but she offers no comeback. That’s a yes. 

Ty takes back to the hallways. 

So early in the morning, the archives are mostly empty. It tugs at something deep within Ty until tension unspools from his shoulders. 

Mayhew should be on patrol right now; he’s heard, with some satisfaction, that her request for a break got lost on its way to her superior. It’s not the first time something like that has happened, but it’s the first time it has happened to someone other than Ty.

She must’ve shirked duty somehow, nevertheless, because there she is at one of the tables. Her eyes don’t leave the text she’s focusing on. 

The tall bookshelves readily swallow him away from her sightline. Ty lingers, pondering how worth it would be to report her to Ashworth; it probably wouldn’t do anything, and is he petty enough to risk it? She carefully turns a page. 

Livy peers at the book’s cover, half hidden behind the furniture, and raises a thin eyebrow. “Treatise on the Upkeep and Transmutation of Magical Relics”, she says. “Wow, that’s a heavy one. I guess at least someone is doing their research. Wouldn’t have expected it to be her, though.”

Ty nods, a hand curling around the edge of the bookshelf. He remembers when she’d stopped coming to the library. Wasn’t it around the time Mayhew had started ingratiating herself with Ashworth and the others? 

The same way he had grown increasingly dedicated to his work after graduation, Mayhew had left any academic aspirations behind with her textbooks.

At least, it had seemed so. 

“The Careful Balance Between the Courts”, Livy cranes her neck, looking at the pile beside Mayhew’s book. “Faerie Unity: An Impossible Dream. That’s… weird. The Scales are just Unseelie, aren’t they?”

That is weird. The silence is thick enough for Ty not to risk speaking; instead, he carefully opens his notebook and scrawls a message on a random page. Stay here and monitor her?

Livy pauses for a long moment; finally, she says: “Alright. You’re lucky I love you.”

Smiling, Ty nods. He tucks the notebook back in his bag, wincing at the resistance in the front zipper, and takes one last look at Mayhew. 

In the few moments he was looking away, she had tied her long, shiny hair up in a bun and started taking notes. The glasses she hasn’t been seen wearing since her second year are folded on the table. It reminds him of a slightly younger Mayhew, back when they still had finals as their common enemy. 

It’s not quite nostalgia, this feeling, but it’s… similar.

“She’s pretty”, Livy sighs.

Ty shrugs. He supposes so. Livvy leans against the bookshelf, her position more of an affectation than actual rest, and watches Mayhew with an expression he doesn’t know how to read.

Leaving all that behind is a relief more familiar than the walls of the castle. 

Step after step, what he’s looking for is seventeen bookshelves in. Ty relaxes the further he is into the archives, right at the start of the collection, conserved by runes so strong that running his hand over the bookshelves makes his fingers tingle.

Here, the lights are dimmer. Dust motes float like ṕixies in the air. The pages are yellow, sometimes stained by unthinkable fluids, and the edges curl in on themselves.

This is the domain of battered spines. Ty does some of his best work here. 

The dry pages feel like old friends, cracked paper a beautiful reflection of what his own skin will look like if he lives to see old age. A callused fingertip traces the words he brings back to his table.

Most information on faeries that the average 19th century centurion would have considered important enough to archive is, of course, not only outdated but filled with the type of bigotry that Ty is far too tired of in his daily life. For this reason, he’s always avoided this particular subject.

Maybe Ty was wrong about that. Maybe he should’ve been putting his time and energy towards correcting those books, much as he has been trying to do with others. It’s certainly tempting to take out the red pen now.

Interestingly enough, the tome in hands is filled less with misinformation than with detached disdain. It talks about faeries as though they’re just another species of demons to exterminate: in such cases, accuracy is, of course, of the utmost importance. 

It’s slightly less blood-boiling than the rest. 

Ty will take dispassionate bigotry over incorrect information any day, even if lately his days have been quite bleak. 

He takes notes. Of course, he takes notes. Ty even uses his own personal code, digging into his bag for more pens as the first one runs out of ink. Dark blue and black ink eagerly stain the lines of his fingers. There’s a lot to write about. 

Every so often, Livy floats by with a new piece of information.

“She’s working with the Seelie Queen’s biography now. Not reading it, just… A little like how we cross reference dictionaries. That’s weird, right?”

Fact one: The Scales of Death are not, in fact, purely Unseelie. They were a gift from the Seelie Queen during a very brief attempt at reconciliation between the Courts, and are therefore one of very few relics with both Seelie and Unseelie energy. 

“Noah Jones? You know, the guy who was flirting with Kit the other day? Well, he just stopped by. She ducked under the table before he could see her.”

Fact: Due to that, it is claimed that the Scales are able to identify the First Heir when used. 

Fact: Ty hadn’t known that, which means it’s not common knowledge. 

“She has a magazine now instead of the books. Jones looks like he didn’t expect her to be here, which makes sense, but doesn’t explain why she hid her stuff?”

Inference: Whoever had both known about the Scales and been able to take them without raising any alarms, therefore, must have been competent. 

“They’re complaining about Ashworth expecting them to help with the paperwork.”

Fact: The current members of the conspiracy are visibly not.

“Jones keeps saying something about the previous leadership, then interrupting himself.” Livy frowns. “He says he wishes Ashworth would hurry up and replace Zach already.”

Inference: Either the original competent member is no longer being listened to, or they are no longer around. 

Fact: Someone died when the Scales were used. 

Fact: The paperwork overload started directly after the death.

“He says: I volunteer for puppet consort.”

Fact: They had never, as far as Ty is aware of, given any useful information beyond the location of the office when it was clear they must have known more. 

“Mayhew laughed kinda uncomfortably and said Ollie probably would have liked that. I don’t think Noah’s happy about it, but he smiled anyway. He says-”

Inference: Oliver Konman was their leader.  

Reminder: Kit is currently carrying his dagger everywhere. 

Conclusion:

“-Ty?”

He gets up and leaves.

Despite the alarm sirens blaring in his head, Ty hesitates at Zach’s door. 

This is important information, Ty tells himself, the kind of information Kit needs to know. His brain hisses back: and that’s the room where he sleeps with fucking Cross. Ty’s personal dislike of Zach aside, it’s…

There’s a few degrees of separation there that can’t be kept if he sees it. Where they sleep. Where Zach can throw an arm over Kit and pull him closer, mapping out the constellations of freckles with his lips, and Ty… can’t. He’ll never be allowed to.

His throat burns with bile.

It’s true that he’s been looking away all this time. He’ll keep looking away, for his own sanity, but. What if, when the door opens, he sees them ? Together? His entire being flinches.

“Do you want me to take a look inside?” Livy offers, kindly. “See if he’s even there?”

Without the words to express it, Ty nods. She nods back, eyebrows drawn together, and disappears.

There’s a thump and a muffled curse from the inside of the room (Ty’s breath catches with the same instinct of a prey animal hearing a growl), but, when Livy sticks her head back out, she’s laughing: “It’s safe.”

The door opens with a groan.

Kit leans against the doorway, looking as soft and malleable as a well-loved stuffed animal. (Reinforced seams and all). 

His hair is a mess. There are clear tracks where he’d run his fingers through, attempting and failing to tame it, one side flatter than the other. Pillow marks are pressed from nose to jaw.

He’s changed, at least; swapped the pajama pants with the cute helmet pattern for jeans, pulled on a dark gray hoodie that looks worn and comfortable under his signature jacket, sleeves clearly bunched around his elbows under the denim layer. 

(That’s where the dagger is stashed, Ty knows. Cold sweat pools at his nape.)

Tugging at the fabric with his free hand, tongue poking at the inside of his cheek, he gives Livy a flat look.

“I could have been naked”, Kit tells her. 

A vision of pale, smooth skin flashes in front of his eyes. Ty blinks.

“Oh, no," Livy says. “A naked male body. However shall I cope.”

“I don’t appreciate the sarcasm”, sighs Kit. With a last tug, he frees the hoodie’s sleeve and pulls it down to his wrist, rotating his hand in a stretch. “What’s up?”

Tendons pull taut under the skin of Kit’s hand, pulling at the shape of his Voyance rune and down to his arm where Ty could apply his mouth, slick against Kit’s skin, and worry at the lines with the very edges of his teeth. 

“Ty?”

“I figured it out," Ty blurts out. 

Kit’s eyebrows fly up, wrist pausing its rotation. His freckles grow starker against a paler face. “You figured it out?”

“The case.”

Understanding crosses Kit’s expression as his eyebrows relax back down.

“Of course you did”, Kit says, almost fondly. “Do we have to do this at seven in the morning?”

“I need to talk to you. It’s important.”

Livvy nods in support, even though he hasn’t explained anything to her yet. (Ty is lucky she loves him. He has always been.)

“We need to talk, huh”, Kit muses, nearly amused. “Still, probably shouldn’t do it here. Where do you propose we hold a meeting about this shit?”

“We’ll just go deeper into the castle. It’s safer.”

“Yeah, I think I’ve heard that. Fine. You better know the way, though, because I sure as hell don’t.” 

“Have I ever led you astray?”

“Now that,” Kit says, “feels like a metaphor.” But he steps out anyway.

The hem of Kit’s hoodie is half tucked into his jeans at the back, meaning he was probably already wearing it when he’d pulled his pants on, thighs flexing under the denim. It wasn’t a very long hoodie. Would the hair on the top of his thighs be blond, too? Darkening the thicker it grew?

“Ty?”

He blinks. “Mm?”

“Hurry, c’mon”, Kit tugs Ty’s sleeve carefully, pinching the fabric between his thumb and pointer. He kind of wishes he’d pull harder. 

“What, you have somewhere to be?”

Snark or not, Kit shakes his head. He lets go of Ty’s sleeve with a grimace and takes a look over his shoulder, facing the wrong direction entirely. The bedroom door gleams.

“I just really don’t want to have to explain this to-”

“Kit? Who are you talking to?”

“-him”, Kit sighs, turning on his heel. 

Zach is much more put together. Kit looks like he just got out of bed, but Zach seems like he’s been out and about for a few hours, hair combed, uniform in place, and not a single shred of the exhaustion weighing on Kit’s shoulders. Eyebags have no place in Zach’s world.

“Just talking to a friend,” Kit tells him, and a part of Ty wants to scream. “Nothing to worry about.”

If Ty has to guess, Zach looks like he’s worrying about it. “Blackthorn.”

“Cross.”

“Of course it’s fucking you. No one else in this castle is this goddamn obsessed with my boyfriend-”

“ Zach," Kit interrupts. (Even though, technically, Zach is right). “I’m just gonna step out for a bit, we can have lunch together later, okay?”

It’s the exact same tone of voice Aline and Helen use to negotiate with Tavy. 

Zach crosses his arms, biceps bulging like balloons about to pop, and scowls down at the both of them. Kit meets his gaze placidly. 

(A part of Ty indulges in rubbing his pointer and thumb together, imagining he’s rolling a needle or a toothpick between them. Anything sharp but ultimately small. Not really dangerous. Balloon-popping.)

“People will think the wrong thing if you keep going off and gallivanting with Blackthorn, babe, c’mon!”

Is it really the wrong thing, a part of Ty wonders; except, of course, it is.  

His hands close tightly around his headphones. Ty casts his eyes down. The stones in this part of the castle look darker to the eye, stained by the kind of grime centuries of footsteps will leave on you. It’s nothing new. He starts counting stones.

Kit shrugs, something a little too casual in the arc of his shoulders, arms, down to the hands in his pockets.

“People will think the wrong thing no matter what I do.”

The scowl in Zach’s face softens slightly, but doesn’t fade. There’s a brief moment where Ty is sure it will come down to a fight, and then Kit raises an eyebrow, mouth flattening into a line, and Zach sighs. 

“Fine. I will see you at lunch.”

“Not with that attitude, you won’t," Kit says, cheerfully, and makes both of them scarce before Zach can gather himself enough to reply.

Kit’s fingers form a tight band around Ty’s wrist until they turn a corner, at which point Kit lets him go and tucks his hands back into his pocket, rolling his shoulders back, and allows Ty to take the lead.

It’s an easy route. He doesn’t have to think about it much, which is on purpose. Although his spatial sense is usually very reliable, right now, his concentration is not.

“Sorry about Zach," Kit says. “He's just jealous.”

Ty blinks, a sinking, cold feeling in his stomach akin to the first step off a roof. 

“Of me?”

“Y’know, the… “ Kit gestures around his collar. “Necklace thing. Sorry if he’s bothered you about that, by the way.”

“He did,'' Livy says. She still hasn’t forgiven him for that, Ty thinks.

A muscle spasms in Kit’s jaw. “Good to know.”

“Do you… w ant it b-”

“ No . No. Even protection spells aside-” Kit shakes his head, hands bunching into fists inside his pockets, opening and closing with enough force to strain at the fabric. “No, keep the necklace. He’ll just have to get over it.”

Ty lowers his head, smiling at the floor. The pendant is warm against his skin. He hooks a finger around the chain and tugs, just a little, to feel the links bite at his nape. Wishes, briefly, that it were Kit pulling on it.

Stop that, he reminds himself. We literally just talked about Zach. 

Zach doesn’t get to wear Kit’s family crest, though. Ty does. He’ll always be a Blackthorn, down to his core, but.

But.

He’s always preferred animal motifs to the black thorns on his own family crest, after all.

(It’s true: A part of his brain wants the heron engraved like a brand on his skin. Wants it to scar into grooves he could thumb at, indented into his flesh. A part of him.)

Ty stops before they’re too deep in the castle, the areas where the dust is so thick every breath is a struggle, and pulls Kit into one of the cleaner rooms. At least, he’s pretty sure it’s cleaner. He doesn’t come here very often. No one does, these days.

The grime here is lighter, somehow, almost purer than the one in the most visited areas. Ty doesn’t claim to understand it. Less ichor spilled, perhaps.

It sticks to his clothes nevertheless.

“Okay,” Kit says, “you look a little nervous. What’s up?”

Is he nervous? Is that what the electric buzz under his skin is all about? It’s probably justified, right now; he feels a little like a bomb squad, if bombs could hear you talking about them and detonate faster. He assumes someone would have mentioned it if Oliver were present, but- 

Paper and pen will have to suffice for now. Just in case. 

Fortunately, he’s got plenty of both. Ty flips his notebook to a blank page and writes down, as clearly and precisely as possible: 

I think Oliver has been lying to you. 

Over his shoulder, Kit takes in a sharp intake of breath.

His mouth, pale and bitten to shreds, opens- before Kit takes another look down and closes it, lips pressing together until they’re as white as the sheets of paper beneath. A muscle in his cheek twitches. 

Finally, Kit reaches out and grabs the pen. Okay. Why? and relief washes over him.

Ty flips the pages back to his notes and tries to summarize them. 

It’s not an easy task. 

They were competent enough to get the Scales, and then, after his death, stupid enough not to keep things organized, he explains. He hasn’t told you anything at all except for the office. I’m surprised he didn’t let you touch the door with your bare hands and just let it kill you.

Kit makes a sound deep in his throat. Heat creeping up his neck, Ty watches him through the corner of his eyes. 

Would it have killed me?

Yes. It's trapped.

“Mm”, Kit says. Livy, hovering over both of them, makes a corresponding strangled noise.

Why lie to me specifically, then? His hand is shaky. If Oliver was their leader, why would they have sent his dagger to the London Institute. It makes no sense if they didn’t know he’s a ghost now, and even less sense if they do.

Ty shakes his head, chewing on the cap of his pen. I’m not sure yet. Can I see yesterday’s pictures?

Wrinkling his nose, Kit tugs at one of the pockets in his jeans until his phone comes loose. He types in his password- an actual password, not fingerprint or face recognition, which Ty approves of- and taps on the gallery app before handing it over. 

“Here you go," he says, voice weird. Kit’s face scrunches up and he buries his face in his elbow, a sneeze wracking his body. “You guys really should clean this place, fuck’s sake-”

The code on the photos is crystal clear once zoomed in. It’s not the easiest level of shadowhunter coding, which would have been surprising yesterday, but makes a little more sense now.  

Ty sits on the floor, notebook and pen in hand, and gets to it. 

“It’s really not worth it most of the time," he admits. “The castle is too big for that.”

“Still. I feel like I’m getting diseases that haven’t even been invented yet.”

Ty frowns down at the half finished sentence on the page, pen’s cap held between his teeth. “Diseases aren’t invented.” he says, muffled. “ At least, not most of them. You’ll be fine.”

“Don’t be such a drama queen,” Livy adds.

“I’m sorry, have we met-”

The bickering fades into the background. His teeth close around the pen’s cap, digging into the plastic as he reorganizes letters: FH seems to be a common thread, having even been written uncoded on the margins once or twice, as is Puppet King . Kieran, maybe? Were they planning to accuse him of being manipulated?

Hard plastic cracks under pressure. Ty spits it out and keeps reading, a taste of copper on his tongue. 

O.K, which he’d initially interpreted as the word, is now clearly a reference to Oliver Konman. It fits better now. O.K has given permission for the first phase of the plan, it reads, although he claims it’s against his better judgment. N.J [Noah Jones? Ty wonders] thinks we’re ready. 

They hadn’t been. The next page is charred at the corner. Experiment failed. O.K is- and a large blot of ink, as though someone had held the pen tightly enough for it to explode. 

New rumors of poltergeist movement in Devon, reads the next one, in a bubblier handwriting. It’s not the real thing, but it’s convincing. Just like our candidate. Z.C is as malleable as ever, and H.A doesn’t foresee any issues with using him as bait.

FH ready for harvest.

“Ty? Are you okay?”

Blinking down at the pages, he writes his own note. They wanted Kit.

For a long moment, all Ty can hear is the uneven tempo of his own heart. 

Her eyes leaving the page, Livy turns to look at him with a pale hand over her mouth, half through a wall. Even though there are no windows and no wind, the skirt of her dress lashes out behind her like a computer glitch.

“What do you mean,” Kit says flatly. 

Ty hesitates. He really doesn’t want to have to convey all this in writing. “Are we sure Oliver isn’t here right now?”

“That sounds like a bad start to a seance," Kit rubs a hand, hard, against the concave of his orbit. Hard enough that, for just a moment, Ty fears the pressure of his palm will pop the eye beneath. “Fuck. Okay. I mean, I can’t see him, so probably not?”

That is a very good indicator towards “no", if even Livy hasn’t been able to fully hide from Kit. He still doesn’t feel like risking it. “Can you hand me the dagger?”

Kit nods, his hand floating over the hilt of his own knife for a moment before digging into his jacket’s inner pocket. It takes a few seconds. The impression is of a very stuffed pocket, which Ty isn’t sure what to make of.

Their fingers brush in a shock of heat.

A part of Ty had expected the sheath to be colder than it should be. It’s not. The cube is, however; Ty’s grateful for the gloves he’d kept when he shoves the dagger inside its new prison. It just barely fits. The hilt is a little bit scratched, but it shouldn’t matter, not really.

“If it can keep the Scales contained even after the implosion," Ty explains, closing it with a soft click, “it will probably work fine as a temporary ghost container.”

Livy tilts her head. “Like a lead box.”

“Or those vacuum machines in Ghostbusters," Kit agrees, and nods at Ty. “ Very well done, Sherlock. Jail, jail for traitorous ghost. Now that we don’t have to have this conversation through text messages, go on.”

A little to his own surprise, and against his own better judgment, Ty finds that he’s smiling.

“The Scales are supposed to be able to tell who the true Heir is," he flips through the pages, ignoring Kit’s sharp intake of air. “We know it backfired, it killed their leader O.K-”

“Okay?”

“No, O.K , like the initials for-”

“Oliver Konman."

Ty nods up at him. “He thought they weren’t ready, and he was right. The backlash was too severe, that’s why so many ghosts acted up, it wasn’t meant to affect them. They had to run damage control, that’s why the dagger was sent to London. It was…”

“Bait," Kit mumbles. 

“They must’ve known you were going to investigate.”

Back against the wall, Kit slowly slides down to the floor. His face is white. 

“That’s why they sent Zach, of all people.” Kit puts his head in his hands. “They knew he was going to bother my friends. Heather has the ghost reports- she must have known I was helping there, that I wasn’t just going to stand by. What, did they think I’d forgive him if he was just handsome enough?”

“I mean," Livy says. “Didn’t you?”

Kit’s mouth opens and closes. “It’s… complicated.”

It’s probably not the time to ask for elaboration, but by the Angel, does Ty want to. 

“The Scales were meant to find the true heir. But it didn’t work, so they had to work out a replacement. Someone they could put on the throne without a war breaking out. Someone they could control.”

“A puppet king.”

“Not the actual First Heir, that they couldn’t be sure of finding; but someone convincing. Someone whose ancestry had already been hiding unexpected blood.”

Livy chews on the skin of her thumb. “Kit.” Then: “Christopher Herondale.”

At first, Ty assumes it’s a sob. 

He’s sent his notebook spinning across the floor, already half up on one knee, when he realizes that the reason why Kit’s shoulders are shaking so violently; 

the reason why he keeps gasping for air, breaths almost painful to hear-

 -is because he’s laughing.

Dropping back onto his heel, Ty stares. “... Kit?”

Still laughing, he bends forward until his forehead touches the ground between his knees, hands tugging hard at his hair. His knuckles are white. 

“ FH," every syllable sounds like it could be his last gasp of air. “ First Heir. Of fucking course, it’s a compelling story! The lost heir, back in place! A fucking Aragorn-”

“ Kit, I need you to breathe.” 

Ty itches to lean forward, breathe it into his lungs himself. Instead, he hovers; uniquely useless as Kit falls apart in front of him. The buzz is over. A weight sinks in his stomach instead.

“They just never thought. Zach as bait, right, that’s why they were so nice to me, they wanted me to…”

“Kit. Kit, please tell me how to help you.”

Shaking his head, Kit sinks deeper into a fetal position. “It’s not- it’s not worth it- I’m-," the word chokes him out, air too precious to waste, shoulders rising. His entire body is shaking, shaking, shaking, visible even through the layers of clothing.

Ty walks on his knees to him. 

“Kit," he says carefully, “Please tell me how I can help you. Please.”

A heartbeat. Two. And then- 

-Kit’s hand, outstretched. 

Unsure, Ty grasps between his own. It seems to do the trick: Kit’s body relaxes, just slightly, as his hand squeezes Ty’s hard enough to grind the bones together. Ty looks up at Livy. She shrugs at him, her eyes still wide. Fingers shake underneath his own. 

He squeezes Kit’s hand back.

“That’s good," Ty tries to gentle his tone. “Can you try and breathe with me?”

“I can’t- I don’t-”

Hesitantly, Ty pulls Kit’s hand up and presses it against his own chest. It rises and falls with the rhythm beneath. “Is this better?”

A minuscule nod. Ty exhales, relief deliberately drawn out: 

“Thank you.”

The hand in his twitches, just a little, as Kit scoots over (head never quite raising enough for Ty to see his face-) and lays his forehead on Ty’s thigh. The warmth of his skin is scorching. 

It feels precious, somehow, like a moment that should be caught in amber. The weight and shape of Kit’s skull against his flesh. Fingers wrapped tight around his own. The vulnerability of an exposed nape. Ty curls in on himself, too, bringing Kit’s hand up to his lips. The Voyance rune under his mouth.

“Is this better?” He asks, ever so gently.

With a long, shaky exhale of his own, Kit nods. “Sorry.”

“What for?”

Kit shakes his head, rubbing his forehead against the fabric of Ty’s pants. “I don’t know. For-For needing you to calm me down?”

“You’ve done this for me before. You still would, right?”

“Of course.”

“Then let me do the same for you”, Ty says.

A tiny huff. “I guess. It’s just-” Kit raises his head, sitting up. There are no tears tracks in his face, but his eyes are wide, the sunken bags underneath darker than ever. His lips spasm. “-I’m such a fucking idiot. Of course I did exactly what they wanted me to.”

Slowly, Ty squeezes his hand. Pink tints Kit’s face.“You didn’t.”

“I’m literally right where they want me.”

“Kit," Ty repeats, gently. “No, you’re not. Look around. Where are you?”

Nervous eyes dart around the room. Kit tugs at his own hair to move his head, holding it up instead of moving it naturally:

“The Scholomance?”

“The heart of the Scholomance, with Livy and I, surrounded by coded pages you figured out how to copy.”

“You’re the one who actually figured out the code.”

“Yes. I’m not saying you did this alone. I’m saying that I- that we could’ve only figured things out together.” Ty leans forward. “Even the Scales. I couldn’t have picked the lock. Kit, do you think they planned for you to know this? For you to help me figure them out?”

Slowly, Kit shakes his head. Ty nods.

“They never even thought it could happen, so you’re not where they want you. All we need is something to conclusively link them to these papers and they’re done. Thanks to you. ”

Kit blinks. 

“They underestimated us, huh," he says weakly, rubbing at his face with a hand. Ty’s fingers twitch. “Yeah, I guess. Thanks, Ty. That really helped.”

“I’m glad," Ty says earnestly. A rush of color paints Kit’s ears. 

(Pink, he knows now, looks prettier when framed by a constellation of freckles. He wonders how it would taste on the flat of his tongue.)

Kit shifts to stretch out his legs, leaning his head back against the wall. There are layers of dust on his sweatpants, turning the fabric covering his calves much darker and greyer than on his thighs, but he doesn’t seem very bothered by it. 

The ungainly sprawl of his limbs is a picture Ty wishes he could capture. 

“Do you think…” Livy interrupts herself. She twists her hands together, chewing on her lip.

They both jolt upward. Rolling his head against the wall, Kit looks at her: 

“Fuck, I forgot you were- Yeah?”

“Do you think Zach knows about this?”

The cold thrill of excitement pokes its ugly head from underneath Ty’s ribs. Real life isn’t like that, he tells himself firmly, but hope unfurls still. 

Pensive, Kit stretches one of his legs until the toe of his shoes poke Ty in the thigh. He captures it there, curling a hand around Kit’s ankle, keeps it safely tucked against his leg. Kit’s skin is warm. He could map out his bones by touch alone.

“No," Kit muses. “I don’t think so. He's not really good at lying. I think they just knew him well enough to know it would work.”

“Why are you dating him anyway? He’s an asshole.”

“Language," Kit says. Livy shows him the middle finger, which he laughs at. “I don’t know. Do I need a reason?”

Shifting in place, Ty traps Kit’s foot under his thigh. It struggles once, twice, until it’s in a more comfortable position; and then goes still and placid under his weight. The shadow of a smile graces Kit’s face.

Ty clears his throat, suddenly feeling a little hoarse:

“Livy is right. You deserve better than him.”

“Do I?” Kit wonders absentmindedly. “I guess. He’s nice to me.”

To his own surprise, Ty is already leaning forward again, the hand on Kit’s ankle sliding up his leg and curving over his knee. Kit blinks, eyes wide. He doesn’t pull away. 

“Kit. You deserve better than nice," Ty tells him, so earnest it borders on anger. “You deserve to be happy. Every time I see you two together, it’s like… It’s like you’re not even there. There’s only this version of you that’s never… That’s never really you . It’s this you that just always says what he wants to hear. I hate that. You should be with someone who...” Ty makes a noise deep in his throat. “Who never wants you to feel like you need to be anything but yourself.”

“Aren’t I your Watson,” Kit mumbles.

Somewhere, Livy chokes. Ty squeezes his leg. 

“That’s different. All you need to do for that is- be there. Listen to me. I don’t- I don’t want you to be anyone else. It’s a function, not a role. You are my…” You’re my Kit, he wants to say. “You are my best friend.”

The way Kit is looking at him now, a muscle jumping under his palm…

Ty doesn’t have the words for that. In a hundred years, braced over a thousand dictionaries, he wouldn’t be able to describe it. 

He wishes he could. He wishes he could bottle it up and keep it close to his heart, cradled between his lungs, in that safest of places beneath his bones. They’d have to kill him to get it. They’d have to break him apart.

Finally, Kit lays his feverish hand over Ty’s. All their fingers overlap.

“Thank you,” he says. ““I think I have a plan.”

Notes: For anyone confused by the timeline: - The conspiracy begins. Mayhew, Ashworth, and Noah Jones are involved. Oliver is the leader. - Oliver finds and takes the Death's Scales, seemingly with the objective of using it to find the First Heir, which they aimed to use as a puppet king in Fairyland. A bloodless coup. - The Scales implode, therefore killing Oliver and affecting the ghosts, such that Livy could feel it in LA. - Poltergeist levels rise. - The remaining centurions decide that a fake First Heir will do, and that Kit is the prime candidate. - They send Zach with the official goal of dealing with a poltergeist, but actually there in order to serve as bait for Kit. Zach is seemingly unaware of this. - It works. - Except, as Ty says... it doesn't.

[thecrimecrypt]

Crimes That Shook Britain (East Midlands)

Murder of Kayleigh Haywood Kayleigh Haywood, 15, met Luke Harlow, 28, online in 2015. For two weeks, with over 2,600 texts, he groomed her. Said she was beautiful, declared his love, persuaded her to visit.

On Friday 15 November, Kayleigh’s dad dropped her at Ibstock Community College, Leicestershire, believing she was staying with a friend. At Harlow’s flat, Kayleigh met his neighbour Stephen Beadman, 29, and she was abused, plied with alcohol.

Her worried parents reported her missing. At 3am Sunday morning, a neighbour saw Kayleigh flee Harlow’s flat, naked from the waist down. Beadman chased her, raped her and killed her with a brick. Harlow was jailed 12 years for sexual activity, grooming and falsely imprisoning a child.

Beadman was jailed for life for rape, murder and false imprisonment of a child.

Colin Pitchfork November 1983 - Lynda Mann, 15, was found raped and strangled in Narborough.

The case went cold until July 1986, when Dawn Ashworth, 15, was raped and strangled less than a mile away. The year before, Alec Jeffreys, a British genetics researcher, had discovered DNA profiling.

Testing semen samples found at both crime scenes, Jeffreys linked the cases. Police asked local men aged 17 to 34 to submit blood. Jeffreys tested the DNA samples.

After being overheard admitting he paid a colleague to provide blood on his behalf, local man Colin Pitchfork, then 25, was arrested. His DNA matched both samples, and he was jailed for life.

Susan and Christopher Edwards In October 2013, police dug up a garden in Mansfield and found the remains of former residents Patricia and William Wycherley, 63 and 85.

The pairs daughter Susan Edwards, 56, and husband Christopher, 57, were arrested - turned out they’d shot and buried them in May 1998. For 15 years, Susan said her parents were travelling, but after living off their benefits, a letter to William from the Department For Work and Pensions scared them to confess.

They were convicted of murder and given life.

The Philpotts At 4am on 11 May 2012, Mick and Mairead Philpott’s home, 18 Victory Road, Derby, went up in flames. Despite Mick’s apparently valiant efforts to save their kids, Duwayne, 13, Jade, 10, John, 9, Jack, 7, Jesse, 6, and Jayden, 5, all died.

Detectives found petrol inside the letterbox, and suspected arson. But while Mick and Mairead sobbed during a TV press conference, police already considered them suspects. A tangled love triangle emerged. Mick’s mistress, who’d lived with the Philpotts, had walked out with her five kids- a custody hearing loomed.

Mick planned to torch the family home, frame his ex love, and win custody. But a horrific fireball engulfed the house, trapping his and Mairead’s children upstairs.

In April 2013, Mick and Mairead Philpott were found guilty of six counts of manslaughter. Mick was jailed for life, Mairead for 17 years. A friend involved in the plot - Paul Mosley, 47 - also got a 17 year sentence for manslaughter.

Murder of Danielle Beccan On her way home from the Nottingham Goose Fair in October 2004, Danielle Beccan, 14, was shot in the stomach and killed in a drive-by.

Junior Andrews, then 24, and Mark Kelly, then 20, part of the Waterfront gang, were charged. They hated the St Ann’s area where Danielle lived and they’d wanted to ‘shoot up’ people.

When they saw Danielle, Kelly pulled up next to her and Andrews opened fire. Andrews and Kelly were jailed for life.

Beverley Allitt Liam Taylor, 7 months, was the first victim of serial killer nurse Beverley Allitt, then 22, in February 1991 at Grantham and Kesteven Hospital, Lincolnshire.

Within 59 days she’d killed Timothy Hardwick, 11, Becky Phillips, 2 months, and Claire Peck, 15 months, and tried to kill or harm nine more children. Staff became suspicious of the number of heart attacks on the ward.

Allitt was the only nurse on duty when the children were attacked. She’d given at least two of them large doses of insulin. In May 1993, Allitt was given 13 life sentences.

[evoldir]

Fwd: Postdoc: UEdinburgh.PopulationGenetics

Begin forwarded message: > From: evoldir@evol.biology.mcmaster.ca > Subject: Postdoc: UEdinburgh.PopulationGenetics > Date: 5 December 2023 at 06:32:35 GMT > To: rdmpage@gmail.com > > > Postdoctoral Research Associate Position available at the Institute of > Ecology and Evolution, University of Edinburgh, UK. > > Link below for the full advert, including a complete > job description and the application process: > https://ift.tt/eNIEtUr > > Three year position, application deadline is the 24th January 2024. Please > contact me if you have any questions. Further details below. > > *** > > Grade UE07 (£37,099 - £44,263) > College of Science and Engineering > School of Biological Sciences > Institute of Ecology and Evolution > Full time contract (35 hours per week) > Fixed Term (36 months) > > A postdoctoral research position is available in the lab group of Dr > Matthew Hartfield, funded by an ERC Consolidator Grant/UKRI Frontier > Research Grant (SelectSelf – Rethinking Evolution in Self-Fertilising > Species). I am looking for an enthusiastic and motivated postdoctoral > researcher who is interested in evolutionary genetics and mating-system > evolution. > > The focus of the project will be to: > 1) Develop stochastic population-genetic models to determine the >   signatures of genetic adaptation in self-fertilising species, >   especially when proceeding via a multi-gene (polygenic) process. > 2) Translate these models into inference methods to determine the nature >   of adaptive evolution from genome sequence data, with applications to >   a large dataset of several self-fertilising Caenorhabditis species. > > There will also be scope for the postdoc to (i) consider how these > processes are pertinent in response to anthropogenic changes; (ii) > develop their own research plans with a view to becoming an independent > investigator. > > The project will involve collaboration with partners within the UK and > overseas. There are substantial funds within the grant for computing and > conference attendance. The project will be funded for three years in the > first instance, with a possibility for extension based on performance > and financial availability. > > Your skills and attributes for success: > - Skills with theoretical and computational population genetics. > - Experience with analysing genome sequence data. > - PhD in a quantitative biological discipline (or another quantitative >  subject, e.g., computer science). > - Knowledge of computational biology tools, including R and command-line >  interfaces. > - Evidence of creativity and problem-solving to tackle scientific >  problems. > - Ability to work independently. > > Matthew Hartfield > m.hartfield@ed.ac.uk > https://ift.tt/3ilIszF > > > > > Matthew Hartfield > Room 1.19 > Institute of Ecology and Evolution > The University of Edinburgh > Ashworth Laboratories > Charlotte Auerbach Road > Edinburgh EH9 3FL, UK > > > Tel: +44 (0)131 650 8632 > Email: m.hartfield@ed.ac.uk > Web: hartfieldlab.com > The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, > with registration number SC005336. Is e buidheann carthannais a th’ > ann an Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann, clàraichte an Alba, àireamh clàraidh > SC005336. > > Matthew Hartfield

[rosieoctavius]

rosie teaches a few classes part-time at college ( aside from being otto's assistant ) and is well loved by her students. the passion for her own subject ( literature, specifically poetry ) is very contagious and she has a sway over her students with the way she teaches. her classes are always full in a matter of seconds.

don't be mistaken into thinking she's too lax, though. she requires her students to do their reading & will notice when they have not. her exams are no joke but not absolute hell either.

on top she's a very reasonable professor & has no trouble with extending deadlines when valid reasons are provided or if any other troubles arise. she even offers tutoring as well when it comes to literature in general.

it is also very well known on campus how utterly besotted professor ashworth-octavius is with her husband, as otto has been around to pick her up for lunch etc.

[northstaffstv]

Stoke-on-Trent organisations to benefit from £3.06 million to upskill residents

Eight Stoke-on-Trent organisations will benefit from a total of £3.06 million from Stoke-on-Trent City Council’s allocation of UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF). Stoke-on-Trent City Council has been awarded £9,477,820 from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) to deliver projects which support local businesses, improve local spaces and assist residents with employment and skills. The eight beneficiaries from the private, voluntary and public sectors fall under the People and Skills category; one of the three investment priorities identified for the funding. Through the people and skills investment priority, funding will be used to help reduce the barriers some people face to employment and support them to move towards employment and education.  Successful organisations for UKSPF funding for People and Skills include: - Jobs Enterprise and Training Service (JET part of Stoke-on-Trent City Council) - £ 666,346 to create an Inclusive Employability Hub, a consortium of employability professionals who will come together to provide a joined-up and holistic package of support for economically inactive and unemployed residents of Stoke-on-Trent. - Wavemaker Stoke - £552,417 to deliver DigitALL, a project with partners aimed to provide essential digital skills for life, employment, health and wellbeing to individuals. - YMCA - £491,704 to create the YES (Youth Employment and Skills) Consortium, a project aimed at 16 – 24-year olds which uses creative ways to break down barriers to learning and employment so that individuals are positively engaged and positively contributing to society. - Acacia Training - £482,528to deliver a scheme to support people whose vocation may be in care or the hospitality industries. - Staffordshire University - £257,008 to create Stoke-on-Trent Higher Skills Accelerator, which will provide flexible bitesize work-based learning options for Stoke-on-Trent residents, to upskill or reskill residents in areas of leadership and management, digital, marketing or Net Zero. - Staffordshire Chambers of Commerce - £251,600 to create a Skills and Apprenticeship Hub to promote apprenticeships to businesses in Stoke-on-Trent. - Stoke-on-Trent College - £244,882 to deliver Skills Ready Work Ready (I Am), a project which will identify and engage young people aged 16-24 not in education or training and provide the tailored wraparound support needed to progress them towards work or further training. - Disability Solutions West Midlands - £120,280 to create a project focussed on working-age adults who have disabilities or long-term ill-health in need of intensive and personalised support to move closer to employment. Councillor Jane Ashworth, leader of Stoke-on-Trent City Council, said: “The UK Shared Prosperity Fund is an opportunity for us to work together to support our local residents, communities and businesses. Through these eight projects which are forecasted to commence in January 2024, we are investing in more tailored support for residents, boosting core skills and supporting young people and adults to progress into work.” Read the full article

[webseriesviral]

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[tutorsof]

Ashworth College Semester Exam - All Subjects

A01S Introduction to Accounting A01S : Introduction to Accounting Accounting provides information to: managers. government. investors. All of the above. Which is an advantage of a sole proprietorship form of business? There is limited personal risk. The business can continue indefinitely. The owner makes all the decisions. All of the above. If total assets are $35,000 and total…

[storybroke]

PRIVATE AND DEPENDENT WITHIN THE ROLEPLAY GROUP : ENCHANTED FALLS ... this blog will be written by georgie, she / her, soon to be twenty-seven ! and is home to three characters, as listed below.

SEIGFRIED EATON, prince seigfried of swan lake ! thirty-six years old and repairman at shining armour repairs, distinctly resembling rahul kohli.

seigfried, more commonly known as seig by friends and coworkers, is a cursed occupant of enchanted falls. previously in a relationship with dia coscoroba, seig is now single but far from ready to mingle. instead, seig spends most days buried in work, burying old scars from his previous life even deeper than the curse had. seig has a weakness for the art at the gallery in town, he can also be found there on occasion as well. his hobbies include archery, hunting, and metal work.

SPOTIFY. PINTEREST. BIOGRAPHY.

JACK ASHWORTH, the protagonist of jack & the bean stalk, twenty three years old and clerk at fairest of them all flowers, distinctly resembling lorenzo zurzolo.

jack, known only by those considered family as jackie or jackie boy, is a cursed occupant of enchanted falls. attending college courses online during his off time from his job at the flower shop, jack finds himself over worked and swamped most days. yet he still makes time for his mother, whom he still lives with in enchanted falls. a bitter woman, jack and his mother do not get along, hence his avoidance of home. jack can often be found at the movie theater. his hobbies include, films, music, & greenery.

SPOTIFY. PINTEREST. BIOGRAPHY.

THEO JAKOBS, one of two protagonists of the black cauldron, twenty-five years old and server at princess and the pie diner, distinctly resembling tom holland.

theo jakobs, known to friends as teddy, is a cursed occupant of enchanted falls. with a longing for a connection that he cannot recall with the equally as cursed vivi, theo spends most of his day working tables at the town's diner where he works as a server. because of this, he can be considered a familiar face though when not at work, theo takes care of his dog: gurgi. his hobbies include, fencing, animal care, & writing.

SPOTIFY. PINTEREST. BIOGRAPHY.

[bongaboi]

San Diego State: 2022-23 Mountain West Men's Basketball Champions

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Jaedon LeDee scored 15 points and Matt Bradley added 14 to lead No. 20 San Diego State to a 62-57 victory over Utah State in Saturday's Mountain West Tournament championship game.

The Aztecs (27-6) claimed their seventh tournament title, and second in three years. This also was their conference-record 15th appearance in the title game.

San Diego State clinched the conference's bid to the NCAA Tournament, though it was never in doubt the Aztecs would be selected. What kind of seed San Diego State receives remains to be seen.

Utah State (26-8) also figures to be headed to the tournament when the selections are announced Sunday.

This was the fourth time in the last five years the teams have played each other in the Mountain West championship game. Utah State won the 2019 and 2020 title games, and San Diego State went home with the 2021 trophy. Boise State temporarily ended the monopoly last season by beating the Aztecs 53-52.

Neither team shot well Saturday, with San Diego State making 33.3% of its shots compared to 37.1% for the Aggies.

No San Diego State players reached double-figure scoring other than Ledee and Mitchell. For Utah State, Steven Ashworth scored 13 points and Trevin Dorius 12.

The Aggies were hot early, however, going on a 12-2 run in the first half to take a 26-15 lead with 6:57 left, but then went cold. They failed to make another field goal until 1:43 into the second half, but somehow didn't fall behind during that stretch.

But the Aztecs got close, and eventually went back and forth with Utah State in the second half. San Diego State nearly put away the game by going up 53-46 with 3:03 left, but the Aggies got back to within three points with 48 seconds remaining and two points with 30.3 seconds to go.

San Diego State closed out the game at the free throw line by making 9 of 10 free throws in the final 43 seconds.

THE BIG PICTURE

Utah State: The Aggies entered the game fourth nationally in 3-point percentage at 40.1, but struggled badly against San Diego State's long, athletic defense. Utah State made just 4 of 24 3-point attempts.

San Diego State: The Aztecs come in waves. Nine players were in the game, and each was on the floor for at least 16 minutes and eight at least 19. All nine scored and collected rebounds.

UP NEXT

Utah State: The Aggies have a NET ranking of No. 18, so it would be quite a surprise if they aren't selected to the NCAA Tournament.

San Diego State: A potential six seed could be coming San Diego State's way, but the Aztecs also might have worked their way into a No. 5.

AP college basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/college-basketball and https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25