#better world thing for centuries... Beliefs that old are hard to get rid off.

[kaluawoo]

Okay I know we're all still upset about the Happenings this chapter, but one thing I don't think I've seen anyone mention yet (spoilers, I'll try to add a read more once I'm not on mobile anymore bc idk how to do it in the app):

Mikuni's thoughts after the flashback. "I wonder if it's really true that [no one] could put him back together again if [he] fell from the wall" (the kanji for he was the one for Egg, and the ones for no one were the ones for iirc "even the king", because Mikuni was thinking about the Humpty Dumpty thing).

Mikuni is imo planning something with Tsurugi's "broken"/dead body, something that probably involves trying to "put him back together", because that'd make the little flashback scene make the most sense. (Or it was just general foreshadowing that he may come back, but I'm willing to bet that Tanaka Strike put "Is it really true that no one could a broken Tsurugi together again?" right before Tsurugi losing a very vital body part with at least some intention to follow up on that.

I'm still gonna cry about it until we finally do see Tsurugi get put back together, though.

... also, that implies Mikuni was thinking about chopping off Tsurugi's head and sewing it back on, or some equivalent, since he was a teenager. Classic Mikuni tbh.

[classic80sand90smovieloves2]

Meeting and Dating Thackery Binx

(My alright gif)(Requested by anonymous)

(I wasn’t entirely sure how I would work this one out but I think I came up with a pretty cute concept)

- When you first met Thackery, you certainly weren’t thinking of him as a future boyfriend. You’d just moved to Salem, something you; a baby witch, were particularly excited about.

- It was a night like any other, but you’d decided that tonight would be the night that you’d perform your first ritual. So you went down to the Sanderson house late at night, sneaking inside though it wasn’t like anyone really cared what happened to the place.

- Thackery took immediate notice of you, watching from behind a few corners as you walked around and examined the place. He figured you were just a stupid teenager; albeit a very pretty one, and would leave any moment. That was when you settled down on the floor and opened your bag, lighting a few candles before getting all your things situated.

- You closed your eyes, beginning your chant as you held your hands out. The room around you was dead silent as you focused on what you were doing, willing your ritual to work. That was when you nearly had a heart attack as Thackery lunged onto your back.

- You scrambled to stand, gasping for breath and nearly knocking over the flames you’d lit as you searched the area, laughing breathlessly once you saw the black cat a little ways away from you. You cursed at him half heartedly, pressing a hand to your beating heart as you crouched down to his level.

“Are you my familiar? Huh?” You whispered sweetly. He watched you intently but didn’t move, letting you reach out slowly and scratch behind his ears.

- You looked around the room, sighing softly as you leaned over and blew out your candles, gathering your things to leave. So much for tonight being the night.

- Perhaps nothing happened that night but you would try again. You kept returning to the place, sometimes bringing your things, sometimes just bringing food for the cat that was always there. After a while, the mangy feline began to follow you around even outside of the house, always showing up as you went outside or arriving at your window mewling to be let in.

- It was a few weeks after you first encountered the cat that you’d come to realize just who you’d encountered. You’d had a rough day and just wanted to get away for a while, so you’d went back to the Sanderson house, knowing no one else would bother you there. Well, no one but your furry friend.

“So we meet again.” you smiled, watching as the familiar feline stalked towards you and nuzzles into your outstretched hand.

“I should give you a name, shouldn’t I? I can’t just keep calling you kitty. If you’re my familiar then you need a sophisticated name. Are you my familiar? ...Or are you Thackery Binx.” You’d joked, remembering the tale of the boy and the witches.

“So glad you’ve finally realized.” Your mouth nearly dropped to the floor.

- Well now that the secret was out, Thackery explained everything and enlisted your help in trying to turn him back into a human, and potentially to get rid of the Sanderson sisters for good. And so, you began your search for the solution to his century old problem.

- It took a while but you thought that you finallly figured it out, so you brought him into your room, set everything up, and began the process. The candles were lit, the herbs were placed down, the runes were written, and... nothing happened.

- You were dissapointed upon opening your eyes and seeing nothing but the usual black cat sitting before you. But then, the candles blew out and you were plunged into darkness.

- You gasped, looking around wildly as though you’d be able to see anything in the dark. You were just about to get up and turn on the light when all of a sudden, the candles were lit once more. You blinked a couple times as your eyes adjusted to the light ...and there he was.

Okay, so why the fuck is he hot. “Wow. You’re like handsome. I mean you’re a boy and you’re like seventeen. I mean you’re not old, you’re ...you’re you...again.

- The boy smiled, glancing down at his hands and then the rest of his body in awe before he surged forward and wrapped his arms around you, bringing you into a tight hug.

“You’re brilliant, y/n! Absolutely brilliant!”

- Well, time would reveal that you weren’t as brilliant as you or him thought. Yes, technically you did turn him human again, but only in certain places and only while you were alone.

- For instance: your property; where he was turned human again, the Sanderson house; where he was turned into a cat, and the graveyard; where he should have been all this time. Anywhere else and he was just a wittle puddytat.

- But Thackery was more than grateful. He’d been a cat for so long that being human for any length of time felt like a miracle. And now that he was partially human, he felt that he could finally try to do something about his growing feelings for you.

- Over time, the two of you grew closer and your will they, won’t they relationship began. He came so close to confessing to you; more than once, but you were always somehow interrupted or you said something that threw him off.

- Then, after nearly half a year of him falling more and more in love with you everyday; he finally confessed his feelings to you.

- You arrived home one day, only to find a piece of paper folded neatly on your pillow. You opened it and found a long letter detailing everything he loved about you and telling you exactly how he felt. Believe me, you’ll never read anything more romantic in your life.

- Like a rational person who was just told how much their crush likes them in the most beautiful way possible, you ran off to find him. You had a good idea as to where he was hiding out: the Sanderson house.

- Once you got there, you burst through the doors, prompting him to stand up nervously, awaiting your reaction. He was just about to try and say something before you strode over to him and pulled him into a kiss. After he got over the initial shock, he smiled and kissed back, pulling you closer as his hands found your waist.

- Alright, so maybe he’s just an ...indoor boyfriend, but you love him all the same and he loves you with all his heart.

- Pda? He’s a cat in public so it’s a bit hard to do, but you can pet him, hold him in your arms or kiss his fuzzy little head; people will just think he’s your pet.

- Nose kisses. They’re perfect for cat Thackery and normal Thackery, and for you at any given time.

- Soft, gentle kisses.

- Innocent and sweet touches. Sometimes he just touches you for the sake of touching you, there’s no real reason behind it besides the fact that he never wants you forget how nice you feel.

- He was a Puritan so; while he definitely has a bit more modern ideas from living through the years, he most likely has a few prudish beliefs that you may need to pull out of him.

- Like making out: something you had to persuade him into trying but something he is very glad that you showed him.

- Playfully chasing each other in your backyard or around the house. It’s very fun to tease him and then run off as he happily gives chase.

- He likes to pick you up at random; spinning around with you in his arms and swinging you softly.

- He tends to just use your name rather than nicknames or pet names, but when he does use them they’re old fashioned. Things like: dearest, beloved, and darling.

- Cheek kisses.

- Handholding, Hand kisses, playing with your hands, anything having to do with hands just please let him touch your hands like the repressed Puritan that he is.

- He’s touch starved and you can pry that from my cold dead hands. He’s been alone for centuries, there’s no doubt in my mind that he’s forgotten how good it feels to be touched.

- Any kind of cuddling is fine by him, as long as he can wrap his arms tight around you. Most of the time, you wind up laying on top of him, head on his chest with his hands tangling through your hair. He’s very good at putting you to sleep like that.

- Waking up to soft kisses or him jolting awake in a cold sweat, calling your name and squeezing you tightly once he sees that you’re still there.

- Comforting him when he thinks about his sister and the life he had to leave behind.

- Getting to hear stories about the world throughout the years. Ever wondered what it was like in the 1800s? Well he’s lived through them, just ask him.

- He’s completely adamant about taking care of you when you get sick. He rushes over to you the instant you seem slightly under the weather, forcing a hand onto your forehead, and asking you a million questions. He’ll refuse to leave your side until you’re completely well again.

- He cannot stand seeing you cry; it tears him apart every time you get misty eyed. He’d do anything to make you feel better, asking if this or that would help or trying to get to the bottom of what's making you so upset.

- Compliments said in such a sincere and serious tone that they make you flustered and unsure of what to say. So, the best kinds of compliments. 

- Buying him some new and different clothes. 

- Want to give him a bath, you temptress? You want to see him in the nude, you meddling seductress? Hmmm? Perhaps he’ll allow it, just this once. 

- God, do you know how flustered he’d get when you have to get changed in front of him? He’d be trying his best to look away and give you privacy yet fighting the urge to peek at you, red in the face and stiff in his place. 

- He really wishes that he could help you with your homework and things of that nature but …what the fuck is calculus and what monster created it. 

- If you place a hand on his face or rub his shoulders, he’ll close his eyes and literally purr in delight. 

- Playing with his hair. He used to let Emily braid and/or tie it for him so it always gives him this melancholic feeling of joy whenever you do it.

- Can you please feed him something. Please, just give him a sandwich. He’s been eating mice all these years; he deserves some good food.

- Your family is definitely going to wonder why the cat is so attached to you. They’ll probably make jokes every time he hops on (only) your lap or completely walks past them to get to you.

- He’s slightly clingy; there’s only so much time when he can be human and hold you like a real man so he never wants to waste a moment when you’re together.

- Ever just want to be greeted with complete enthusiasm when you get home? As and you shall receive! He’ll lunge at you the instant you get step inside; if you have to leave him at home, or pull you into a kiss the moment the door shuts behind the two of you.   

- He loves when you sit on his lap but in that innocent old fashioned lovers sort of way. He usually pulls you onto his thigh whenever you’re sitting and talking, resting his chin on your shoulder while he listens intently. 

- Most of your dates are going to take place inside your house. You can’t exactly go many places besides your home, unless you want to go on a date with a cat. 

- Dates usually consist of just sitting together and talking, watching movies, reading books; things like that. 

- Candlelit hang outs at the Sanderson house. You’re never disturb and don’t have to worry about your parents or anyone else hearing you talk to him. 

- He’s determined to improve his storytelling skills just because you look so adorable hanging on the edge of your seat while listening to the folktales and old town gossip that he knows. 

- You’re definitely going to be roped into the Halloween adventure. He’ll literally just show up on your doorstep with Max, Dani and Allison, and you’ll just think to yourself “dammit new kid”. 

- Sarcasm and passive aggressive comments. They never actually hurt your feelings but they may make you send him a dirty look.

- You get back at him by calling him an adorable little kitty cat and just overall treating him like a pet. It’s very satisfying to see him get all broody as you ruffle his hair and babytalk him. 

- Having to lay down the law. 

“Thackery, you just killed a mouse like thirty minutes ago. I’m not kissing you.”

- He’s incredibly protective of you. After losing Emily and facing the Sanderson sisters, how couldn’t he be?

- Jealousy? He’s had to watch guys hit on you while being in the form of a cat; unable to deter them or prevent them from even approaching you in the first place. Of course he’s gotten jealous before. He does make sure to get his revenge on/chase people away though, jumping on or swiping at people on more than a few occasions.

- He’s definitely tried to get the scoop on your virginity and ex boyfriends by talking about the candle. Like “well maybe you could light the candle and we can just defeat them. Unless~”

- He can get a bit snappy at times so you’ve certainly had some arguments though he rarely stays mad for very long. Usually, he’ll apologize right after and try to use his words instead of just getting upset with you, like he’ll say snap and then say “I’m sorry but x”. 

- He’s a bit paranoid about not saying he loves you enough so he tries to say it as much as he can. He doesn’t want you to ever think that he doesn’t, especially if something happens to either of you.

- The future is certainly not set in stone but you’re hoping to stay by each other’s sides for a long time. Either way, he promises to always be with you. 

[dwellordream]

“…Many parents of all classes sent their children away from home to work as servants or apprentices - only a small minority went into the church or to university. They were not quite so young as the Venetian author suggests, though. According to Barbara Hanawalt at Ohio State University, the aristocracy did occasionally dispatch their offspring at the age of seven, but most parents waved goodbye to them at about 14. Model letters and diaries in medieval schoolbooks indicate that leaving home was traumatic. "For all that was to me a pleasure when I was a child, from three years old to 10… while I was under my father and mother's keeping, be turned now to torments and pain," complains one boy in a letter given to pupils to translate into Latin. Illiterate servants had no means of communicating with their parents, and the difficulties of travel meant that even if children were only sent 20 miles (32 km) away they could feel completely isolated.

So why did this seemingly cruel system evolve? For the poor, there was an obvious financial incentive to rid the household of a mouth to feed. But parents did believe they were helping their children by sending them away, and the better off would save up to buy an apprenticeship. These typically lasted seven years, but they could go on for a decade. The longer the term, the cheaper it was - a sign that the Venetian visitor was correct to conclude that adolescents were a useful source of cheap labour for their masters. In 1350, the Black Death had reduced Europe's population by roughly half, so hired labour was expensive. The drop in the population, on the other hand, meant that food was cheap - so live-in labour made sense.

"There was a sense that your parents can teach you certain things, but you can learn other things and different things and more things if you get experience of being trained by someone else," says Jeremy Goldberg from the University of York. Perhaps it was also a way for parents to get rid of unruly teenagers. According to social historian Shulamith Shahar, it was thought easier for strangers to raise children - a belief that had some currency even in parts of Italy. The 14th Century Florentine merchant Paolo of Certaldo advised: "If you have a son who does nothing good… deliver him at once into the hands of a merchant who will send him to another country. Or send him yourself to one of your close friends... Nothing else can be done. While he remains with you, he will not mend his ways."

Many adolescents were contractually obliged to behave. In 1396, a contract between a young apprentice named Thomas and a Northampton brazier called John Hyndlee was witnessed by the mayor. Hyndlee took on the formal role of guardian and promised to give Thomas food, teach him his craft and not punish him too severely for mistakes. For his part, Thomas promised not to leave without permission, steal, gamble, visit prostitutes or marry. If he broke the contract, the term of his apprenticeship would be doubled to 14 years. A decade of celibacy was too much for many young men, and apprentices got a reputation for frequenting taverns and indulging in licentious behaviour. Perkyn, the protagonist of Chaucer's Cook's Tale, is an apprentice who is cast out after stealing from his master - he moves in with his friend and a prostitute. In 1517, the Mercers' guild complained that many of their apprentices "have greatly mysordered theymself", spending their masters' money on "harlotes… dyce, cardes and other unthrifty games".

In parts of Germany, Switzerland and Scandinavia, a level of sexual contact between men and women in their late teens and early twenties was sanctioned. Although these traditions - known as "bundling" and "night courting" - were only described in the 19th Century, historians believe they date back to the Middle Ages. "The girl stays at home and a male of her age comes and meets her," says Colin Heywood from the University of Nottingham. "He's allowed to stay the night with her. He can even get into bed with her. But neither of them are allowed to take their clothes off - they're not allowed to do much beyond a bit of petting." Variants on the tradition required men to sleep on top of the bed coverings or the other side of a wooden board that was placed down the centre of the bed to separate the youngsters. It was not expected that this would necessarily lead to betrothal or marriage.

To some extent, young people policed their own sexuality. "If a girl gets a reputation of being rather too easy, then she will find something unpleasant left outside her house so that the whole village knows that she has a bad reputation," says Heywood. Young people also expressed their opinion of the moral conduct of elders, in traditions known as charivari or "rough music". If they disapproved of a marriage - perhaps because the husband beat his wife or was hen-pecked, or there was a big disparity in ages - the couple would be publicly shamed. A gang would parade around carrying effigies of their victims, banging pots and pans, blowing trumpets and possibly pulling the fur of cats to make them shriek (the German word is Katzenmusik). In France, Germany and Switzerland young people banded together in abbayes de jeunesse - "abbeys of misrule" - electing a "King of Youth" each year. "They came to the fore at a time like carnival, when the whole world was turned upside down," says Heywood. Unsurprisingly, things sometimes got out of hand. Philippe Aries describes how in Avignon the young people literally held the town to ransom on carnival day, since they "had the privilege of thrashing Jews and whores unless a ransom was paid".

In London, the different guilds divided into tribes and engaged in violent disputes. In 1339, fishmongers were involved in a series of major street battles with goldsmiths. But ironically, the apprentices with the worst reputation for violence belonged to the legal profession. These boys of the Bench had independent means and did not live under the watch of their masters. In the 15th and 16th Centuries, apprentice riots in London became more common, with the mob targeting foreigners including the Flemish and Lombards. On May Day in 1517, the call to riot was shouted out - "Prentices and clubs!" - and a night of looting and violence followed that shocked Tudor England. By this time, the city was swelling with apprentices, and the adult population was finding them more difficult to control, says Barbara Hanawalt. As early death from infectious disease became rarer the apprentices faced a long wait to take over from their masters. "You've got quite a number of young men who are in apprenticeships who have got no hope of getting a workshop and a business of their own," says Jeremy Goldberg. "You've got numbers of somewhat disillusioned and disenfranchised young men, who may be predisposed to challenging authority, because they have nothing invested in it."

How different were the young men and women of the Middle Ages from today's adolescents? It's hard to judge from the available information, says Goldberg. But many parents of 21st Century teenagers will nod their heads in recognition at St Bede's Eighth Century youths, who were "lean (even though they eat heartily), swift-footed, bold, irritable and active". They might also shed a tear over a rare collection of letters from the 16th Century, written by members of the Behaim family of Nuremberg and documented by Stephen Ozment. Michael Behaim was apprenticed to a merchant in Milan at the age of 12. In the 1520s, he wrote to his mother complaining that he wasn't being taught anything about trade or markets but was being made to sweep the floor. Perhaps more troubling for his parents, he also wrote about his fears of catching the plague. Another Behaim boy towards the end of the 16th Century wrote to his parents from school. Fourteen-year-old Friedrich moaned about the food, asked for goods to be sent to keep up appearances with his peers, and wondered who would do his laundry. His mother sent three shirts in a sack, with the warning that "they may still be a bit damp so you should hang them over a window for a while". Full of good advice, like mothers today, she added: "Use the sack for your dirty washing."

- William Kremer, “What medieval Europe did with its teenagers.”

[melmoths]

james and thomas can build a happy life together post-canon.

i'll go out on a limb and say that it's the only plausible scenario for them - and not simply because i feel like they deserve it, but because i feel like their narrative arcs lead to that conclusion no matter what. 

of course the road to recovery would be long and hard, considering how deeply traumatised they both are, but once you accept that james mcgraw and james flint are not two separate people, that both james and thomas knew this, and that thomas is not a static character, no other future makes sense for them - whether they choose to retire and live a cosy domestic life or to dedicate themselves to another cause bigger than them both.

first things first: when silver claims that the man who reached savannah was not james flint, but james mcgraw he's lying. it's a lie! and not in the sense that it's something that he knows "deep down" even if he wishes things were different: it's a plain, old-fashioned lie, and he doesn't believe in it, not even for a second! he stands in front of madi, after having destroyed everything she's ever worked for and condemned her people (and many others) to centuries of oppression, and he lies.

'cause if he truly thought james was out of control and blinded by his rage over losing thomas, if he truly thought that getting thomas back would "kill" flint and his desire for revenge, if he truly thought thomas' death was the only reason he was fighting england, why bring james to savannah in the first place? why sell him into slavery? silver could have simply freed thomas (a man that he knew was innocent, by the way!) and let the two of them start a new life together wherever they wished - but he didn't, because he knew that james was truly fighting for the cause at that point, that he would have finished what he'd started because it was the right thing to do (and that thomas would have probably joined his efforts). killing him would have turned him into a martyr for the cause, so he had to remove him from the action entirely and spread the rumour he'd retired, and the fact that he chose for james the prison thomas was already in doesn't make it any better (eat my whole entire arsehole if you think otherwise).

i also want to stress the fact that not even james thinks james mcgraw and james flint are two different people. sure, james talks a lot about creating a persona that he later wants to get rid of, but he never truly believes he can separate himself from his own actions; that's why carrying their burden becomes harder and harder as time goes on. and on top of that, an element of performance is always present in the way he thinks about himself: he's a closeted gay man in XVIII century england! he's forced to live in a state where he has to lie constantly if he doesn't want to experience systemic violence. 

but he's always fully aware of who and what he is (despite being ashamed of it, at least before meeting thomas). he knows he's got a tender, gentle side and a much more violent, flawed one: he knows he possesses the potential for great violence - maybe he's not aware of how far he can go, but he knows he's capable of causing great harm, although it doesn't necessarily bring him joy (in fact he tends to opt for violent solutions only when he feels trapped, but changes his mind when shown another way that might lead to his desired outcome). james flint is his persona in the sense that he's a version of james mcgraw in which his "good" side isn't allowed to exist - a hyperviolent façade that doesn't fully match his true self, and a façade he has to keep up almost everyday until he's done what he needs to do (i know people like to call him "unhinged" a lot, but if you exclude his mental breakdown after miranda's death he's always in control of his actions).

and again, i think thomas and miranda were aware of james' violent side. miranda might have seen it first-hand, but i do think thomas knew about it as well. their connection is so deep ("my truest love," hello?) and they seem to know each other so fully that i don't think a relationship between them could have worked otherwise. maybe thomas heard of the fight that broke out between james and the officer that insulted him and miranda, and that got him thinking; maybe he worked it out otherwise (although i do believe they eventually talked about the fight, and about hennessey's weirdly protective attitude); but the fact that he's the one to come up with the pardons, unbeknownst to james, is pretty telling. it shows that despite his privilege thomas is instinctually more capable of understanding why disenfranchised people might turn to violence (i.e. piracy). and if he's ready to forgive all the pirates, all the violent men, why would he not extend the same courtesy to the one he loves? 

when he wrote "know no shame" he wasn't simply telling james not to be ashamed of being gay; he was telling him not to be ashamed of any part of himself, including the one that's more prone to violence, because at that point i don't think james truly believed himself worthy of being loved in his entirety, and thomas felt he had to fix that. and he succeeded - not immediately, of course, but by the time he'd come back from nassau james had fully internalised his message, based on the way he talks about his relationship with thomas to miranda and his wish to get away from london with the both of them (and ten years later, when james and miranda fight, he tells her that he does not feel ashamed of having loved thomas, but only of his inaction once thomas had been locked up in bedlam).

for this reason i don't believe that thomas would be "disgusted" by james' actions when they eventually reunite in savannah. i'm not saying he would enthusiastically condone all of them - he wouldn't go "hey, darling, good job on snapping your quartermaster's neck!", for example - but he would understand the motive behind them. he would understand why james - james who believed him dead, james who'd been stripped off the career he'd worked so hard for, james who had truly lost everything - felt like he had no other choice and put himself through so much pain. when james arrives in savannah i don't think thomas believes in reconciliation with england anymore.

i've noticed a weird tendency in this fandom to idealise thomas, to deny his growth in order to present him as flawless, as exclusively kind and "good" and stuck in time (often in opposition to post-london james). i hate it! 

first of all, i feel like this angelic persona does not fit his characterisation at all. he is a good man, but when his father says he's impertinent and self-righteous, or when miranda talks about how he'd basically make people wish they were dead during his salons, i don't get the impression that thomas is a tall giant who simply smiles at everyone and can do no harm. he's an extremely opinionated man that wants to do the right thing even if that makes him unbearable to the people in his proximity because, as james says, he truly believes in what he's saying and, just like james, he's shown to change his mind when presented with new facts; he's open to new ideas, and that's why he comes up with the pardons. 

second of all, we're talking about a man who's been betrayed by those closest to him, who's been imprisoned, tortured and dehumanised to the point that no one questioned his apparent suicide, who's been enslaved for ten years and subjected to yet more and more horrors. why would he not be a changed man, in the same way james is? why would his own ten years of hell not have stripped him of any trace of naivety he had left (the naivety inherent to his privilege and that had led him to believe that gradual change was the best solution), in the same way james was stripped of his after learning of peter's betrayal and seeing miranda killed in front of his eyes? just because this change happens offscreen for thomas it doesn't mean it doesn't happen at all. 

if anything, i would say that the conceptual passage from gradualism to revolution might have happened sooner for thomas than for james. let's also remember that when silver asks james if he'd trade the war to have thomas back again, james says thomas wouldn't want him to. he believes him dead, but he knew him well enough to be certain that if he were alive he'd agree with him that no compromise can be made with a colonial empire.

i'm also convinced that thomas always knew (or at least very strongly suspected) james was captain flint. he was imprisoned and isolated from the rest of the world, sure, but plantations didn't exist in a bubble where no news about the outside world could reach them (and the show makes it clear so many times). thomas is an extremely intelligent man. i doubt he would have had a hard time connecting the murder of his father, the rise of captain flint, the events of charlestown, the existence of an army of people still willing to follow a pirate captain in battle despite the pardons and tom morgan coming to look for him in savannah (although i suppose he thought james had found out he was alive and was going to get him out). when james shows up looking very much like a pirate, thomas is clearly happy beyond belief - but he doesn't strike me as someone who had no idea james might come to him someday.

that's why i think that any scenario in which james and thomas drift apart is not only completely unjustified, but extremely cruel and partly motivated by a desire to justify silver despite all evidence of him being a massive piece of shit. and justifying silver is justifying the english empire and all the atrocities it has inflicted - and i can't stand for that. in truth, i can't stand for any scenario in which two people who loved each other so dearly and were so harshly punished for it and for wanting to better society, even if just a little bit, don't get some measure of peace and happiness in which to heal together.

on a side-note, all the people who claim thomas was exactly like woodes rogers and that james' war was not really revolutionary because he was only waging it for selfish reasons fail to understand that:

1) thomas was trying to challenge the status quo and to defend a group of disenfranchised people in an age where criminals were seen as less than human and death sentences were extremely common, while woodes rogers was trying to preserve the status quo and to get rich in the process without giving much of a shit about pirates at all; 

2) every revolution or civil rights movement is at least partly motivated by selfish reasons: people don't want their loved ones and future generations to go through what they've gone through, and often seek some form of retribution in the process. and frankly, i don't care how "selfish" someone's motivations are as long as their actions lead to a more equal world and to better conditions for the people who inhabit it - and i'd rather fight alongside those who try to challenge hegemonic powers, whatever reasons they might have to do so, than be a passive observer of all the horrors that happen around me as long as they don't affect me directly.

anyway, love is real, james and thomas burn that plantation to the ground and silver sucks me good and hard through my jorts 

[youcantkillamutant]

The Advocate: Three Weeks Before Finals

Author: youcantkillamutant

Fandom: Marvel (Black Panther)

Pairing: Erik Stevens/Killmonger x Black!OC

Summary: Lex is just trying to get through senior year without failing anything massive, so when she sees a lamb on her running route she ignores it, mostly.

Warnings: Cursing, Mention of Death (Human & Animal)

Words: 3K+

A/N: Hi….Remember me? Yeah. I’m still here, this time with a God!Erik AU. *shrug*. I only own my original characters of course, Marvel don’t sue me I’m broke.

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3 Weeks Before Finals

“Get out!”

“I am. I just wanted to check my—” Flashcards. One can never over-prepare. Right?

“No. Non. Nope. No m’am.” Ruby turned Lex by her shoulders. “You promised last week that you would relax. Pinky promised! So go have your weird picnic.”

“But—”

“No buts! I’m leaving you a bath bomb by the tub, and you better use it when you get back.” Lex felt a wave of affection for Ruby. Over the years she had surpassed roommate status and built herself a home in Lex’s heart. Lex opened her mouth to thank Ruby, but Ruby had already opened the door.

“I know, I’m the absolute best and you love me most. Now go!” With a shove, Lex was out the door and Ruby slammed, screaming a muffled ‘love ya!’ through the wood.

“Love you too Ru.” Shaking her head, Lex made her way to the stairs, sliding on a pair of cat eye sunnies and adjusting the basket on her arm. Today is going to be a nice, wonderful even, but most importantly relaxing, day. Hopefully.

*^*

“So how exactly are you getting out of this Cousin?” Erik was sat in the dungeons of Eko, where the sky meets the earth in a clash of thunder and splash of waves. It’s probably the closest he’s been to the earth below in a few dozen decades. Glossy and clean, the cell wasn’t uncomfortable, especially not for a God, but it was annoying. His prank was harmless, and suddenly the Elders are yelling at him about ���disrespect’ and ‘ineptitude’.

“First of all, this is ridiculous. It was one prank!”

“One out of a billion.” Shuri noted sharply.

“Exactly! What makes this one so special? Why are the Elders mad about this? They hardly pay attention to us nowadays. Since when are they sticklers for the rules Shu?”

“It is…strange that they’re truly upset with you.”

“See! You know I’m right. Something is going on.”

“You may be right, but you can hardly prove it.”

“Yet. I can’t prove it yet.” Erik’s face had twisted into something fierce and contemplative. Shuri shook her head.

“You know, your scheming is what got you into this mess in the first place. Besides, mother and I have a plan for you. One that the Elders have already approved.” Shuri handed him a file. Erik’s eyebrows shot up, They hadn’t bothered with paper in a few dozen centuries. Then he opened the file.

It had the picture of a girl, cute, but unknown to Erik. She had a warm smile and dark circles under her eyes, wide lips and a button nose. Her name was on the next file, along with her date of birth, age, height, blood type, lineage and even her weight. Apparently, she was a student descended from good stock. If Erik thought back hard enough, he might have remembered fighting with the girl’s great-great-grandfather in some unholy war.

“Who the hell is this?”

“Your Advocate.” Shuri shrugged when Erik recoiled.

“She’s human. She doesn’t even have a degree. Or a drop of godly blood.”

“Actually we’re still running the tests on that one, but that’s not the point. She doesn’t know much about us, but she’s smart and fair. The Elders have approved her. They believe she’ll be unbiased with…everything.”

“Everything? What do you mean everything?”Erik figured he’d be out in a years time, five at most. No longer than a blink for a god his age. The Elders rarely bothered to hold grudges with Gods like him. He was too important for the balance to be indisposed for too long.

“There’s to be a trial.” Shuri could literally see Erik’s anger as veins of gold rose up his arms, trailing towards his neck. “Before you get upset! It was either a trial or immediate exile.” Shuri had expected this to blow the wind out of his sails, but Erik only grew angrier.

“So my only chance of coming out of this is a little human? I’ve never even met the girl!” He pounded on the bars of his cell annoyed that he was beginning to feel the chill of vibranium bars.

“Exactly. I’ve convinced the Elders that if you can convince the Advocate to help you, you deserve a trial. Led by Wakandan law and defended by her of course.” It was actually the most she could get the Elders to agree to. Even as she sat pleading on her knees, the Elders merely raised a brow and nodded in irritated acquiescence.

“Well where is she?” Erik looked around Shuri, but knew his ‘Advocate’ wasn’t around. He would have noticed a human on Eko. He wasn’t the Gatekeeper, but he knew energies.

“Erik, you don’t actually think the Elders would allow her into Eko without you convincing her first.” Erik rolled his eyes ad let his head fall against the wall.

“Now how am I supposed to do that from a cell Shuri?”

“You and I both know you can be resourceful. Pranking is not your only skill.” Erik stared up at the ceiling as Shuri walked away, wishing for the first tie since his imprisonment that his father was still around. At least he could give him some strength. Unfortunately, Erik would have to bolster himself.

“Good luck Cousin!” She didn’t bother saying anything else as she exited the cell. If Erik couldn’t get his Advocate on his side, then those might be the last words she ever said to him. Better to keep them jaunty rather than grave.

*^*

It was hot. Not unbearable, but not ideal either. The sun wasn’t shy today, finally breaking through the clouds that had been hanging over town. Still Lex trundled her way towards her favorite running path on campus. Huge shades covered her eyes, lips pursing in the heat and a wicker basket swinging on her arm. She’d borrowed the basket from the only pair of her friends that she classified as adults: Tom and Lucie. Though they were all around the same age, the couple had a nice little apartment, and emanated an air of togetherness that Lex couldn’t imagine having as a scattered grad student.

Lex pulled out her phone to share her location with Ruby at the entrance to the running path. Nothing had ever happened to her, but plenty of people had plenty of stories. The path was attached to some National Park and so long as you had your university ID, you could get into the thick of it for free.

On a running day, Lex found herself going ten or so miles, but today she just wanted to make it to her favorite little meadow. She wasn’t completely stressed, and so she didn’t need the run to get rid of excess energy pulsing through her. Today was a day to relax. Wiggling her toes in her shoes, Lex set off along the path.

It took nearly an hour, but she made it. By now, sweat made her skin sticky and the breeze came and went every now and then wrapping her tight and releasing her to the relentless heat of the sun. The meadow was just as nice as it always is, quiet and simple. A bed of grass dotted with toadstools, wildflowers and shrouded in peeling sycamores. The sun filtered through the leaves and the wind enticed them to dance, like a nature-made disco ball.

There was a vignette of three old tree trunks, stripped white and smooth. There was one in the center, nearly half her height, and some days, Lex could see bunnies and birds flitting around the area. Not today it seems. She shrugged, pushing away the irrational sadness at not seeing her usual gaggle of woodland creatures today, and shook out her blanket.

Lex kept her head low while pulling out her lunch letting the sun warm her neck for a bit. Remnants of fresh brie cheese were wrapped in kente printed beeswax, water crackers, a freshly chopped apple and another for the road. A turkey and swiss stacked with tomatoes, onions and lettuce on beautifully brown rye bread; fresh bread being one of the only things Lex splurges on weekly. A bottle of tea completed the setting, glass bottle winking in the sunshine.

Lex sank into the blanket, feeling a few blades of grass poking through the soft blanket as the tree roots cradled her. Eyes closed, she inhaled deeply, letting the exhale force any tension out of her body. When she blinked her eyes open, ready to eat, there was a brown lamb next to the tree stump, not even a breath away.

*^*

“I suppose you’ve heard the news Auntie. I’m to convince an ‘Advocate’ to help me.” Erik let out a bark of a laugh. “Can you imagine, the life of a God in the hands of a human. A tragedy for the storybooks, huh?”

“As far as I remember, you’re meant to be convincing that human to help you, so instead of belittling her, why don’t you get to work?”

“I already have. I’m just waiting to see if she bites.” And to see if she’s as ‘fair’ as Shuri says.

Ramonda raised her left brow tempted to ask more of her nephew. Did he not see that his place in the Godly court was at stake? Instead he lazes around in his cell waiting for a human to what? Rise to his bait? Briefly she wondered if this was something he learned from his time in the human world. They had lost track of him when he was small; Chaos and Kindness searched high and low for the little God. Still it took them a decade or so to find him and when they did…Ramonda shook the thought from her head as Erik spoke.

“What are you doing here, my dear Auntie?”

“Since you asked Nephew, I’m here because the Advocate was my idea. And I fear I would be remiss in my duties as your family if I did not help.”

“You’re helping me?” As the Goddess of Order, Ramonda had curled her lip at Ertumke the day he was born. A child born of Chaos and Kindness was never bound to be her favorite. Still she did her duties as a Godmother, not that the child seemed to care.

“Contrary to popular belief I do care about you Ertumke. You’re my nephew. Though irritating and often ridiculously dramatic, you are family. And you were the first to put a smile on T’Challa’s face when his father left.” There was a wave of silence as the sentence settled, but Ramonda breathed life into her body again in an instant. “Shuri did the hard work of getting the Elders’ approval. Now I’m happy to induct the girl but please Ertumke, no games.”

He seemed to think about this for a while, tapping his chin and studying his Aunt. They’d never been particularly close, Erik had always favored Shuri out of the lot of them, but then again, Ramonda had never done him harm. Even now she looked uncomfortable in his presence, but I suppose that makes sense. He is the child of Chaos. Order never sat well with him.

“I asked for Shuri and they sent you.” Erik had clanked an empty cup against the glass of his cage, barked a few orders at a Dora and waited. He should have known they weren’t going to get Shuri. Those demigods never get anything right.

“She’s been in the lab for a while, I wouldn’t want to break her concentration.” Ramonda knew just about everything of Shuri’s life except what happened in her lab. As far as she was concerned it wasn’t her business, or her speed. She’d much rather influence a few architects than spend her time trying to understand Shuri’s latest invention for the world below.

“Oh, Shuri couldn’t help her big cousin cause she’s in the middle of an invention orgy? Good for her.” Erik smirked and stroked his chin.

“That is my daughter you’re speaking about Ertumke.”

Erik shrugged. It’s not like he was actually talking about sex, which would have actually been normal for Gods like him. No, Shuri spent hours and hours in a lab, inventing and came out looking like she had just rolled through sheets with some of Eko’s finest. Still, he said nothing more on the subject, knowing that he should be grateful anyone came down to the dungeons at all. It was such an odd temperature here for Gods. Nearly cold enough to raise goosebumps.

“I would greatly appreciate your help Auntie.” Erik’s voice was more of s rumble than a clear sentence, and Ramonda’s mouth fell open in shock. There is a first time for everything she supposed. Even Ertumke asking another for help.

“Would you like some water? I thought you were choking on your pride for a moment there.” Erik cut his eyes her way with a minimal amount of heat and she laughed.

“I wish you had called for us earlier. You’ve already sent out your, bait?” Erik nodded though Ramonda barely paid him any mind, releasing a heavy sigh. “I’ll be late.” this time Erik really did choke on a laugh.

“You’re worried about being late? You’re a God. We invented time.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being prompt Erik. Especially in a situation like this.” Besides, the Goddess of Order absolutely despised tardiness.

*^*

The lamb merely blinked at Lex. She froze, wondering what the hell was going on. Sure she’d seen rabbits and a few deer on the running path, it was a national park after all, but she’d never seen a lamb. She’d actually never really seen a lamb outside of a petting zoo, and that was ages ago.

This lamb, brown and unmoving, glowed gold in the sun. It’s fur had hints of red and curled like hers, in tiny kinky knots. It’s ear twitched as Lex exhaled and she froze again. The next time she breathed out, it tilted its head towards her.

“Uh…hi.” An ear twitched at the sound of her voice, but that was it. Still, she couldn’t pick up her sandwich, not while that little lamb sat there, looking at her.

Scooping the extra apple out of her basket, Lex approached the tree stumps. The lamb gazed on, black eyes unblinking. She’d taken off her shoes and socks and the grass beneath her feet was warm. The weeds circling the stump of the tree gave way the Lex’s knees as she knelt down to drop the apple before the lamb.

When she glanced up, just for a second, she saw the lamb dripping golden ichor from a crown of black thistles. Surrounded by torches and granite, the lamb was on an alter. But then she blinked, and the image was gone. Shaking her head, Lex wandered back to her blanket and ate her lunch. She was probably imagining things anyways, breakfast had slipped through the cracks in favor of another few hours of studying before Ruby woke up and berated her for it.

Lunch was delicious, the bread and brie especially. As she ate, Lex could feel tension slipping from her shoulders. She’d been coming on this path for years, and there was nothing like sitting out here. The natural sounds coaxed her worries away, and her eyes slipped closed under the sun.

When she woke an hour or so later, the apple was gone along with the beautiful brown lamb.

*^*

“Hallelujah!”

“Ruby, Jesus!”

“You look relaxed! You actually chilled out!” Ruby let out a whoop in Lex’s ear. “Though I see you haven’t used the bath bomb yet.” Ruby leaned into her neck for a whiff. “And you really should.”

“God okay, I just got back Ru.”

“I know, I know. Okay,” She plucked the basket from Lex’s arm and turned her towards the bathroom. “Go take a bath and soak in all of the serenity you found today. I’m ordering us takeout and then we’re watching crap TV!” Lex rolled her eyes as she stumbled to the bathroom.

The sunny day had taken more out of her than she imagined. She could still feel the heat on her skin as she undressed, and couldn’t stop thinking about that lamb. Sure she’d seen bunnies on the trail before, but never a lamb. Turning the hot water on, she let the tub fill as she grabbed her speaker and phone.

Light synth beats and soft piano chords filled the bathroom along with the steam, and Lex twisted the water off. Sitting on the floor, leaning over the edge of the tub, she let the bath bomb plop into the water. Closing her eyes as the bomb fizzed away, her mind drifted. She slipped into the glossy purple water absentmindedly relishing in the heat that prickled every inch of her skin.

This is always the best part of a bath. When the day is done, chores and homework taken care of, and you have to do is let the water ground you. Any movement, even your breath creates a soft current in the tub, encouraging the water to lap at your skin in a continuous embrace. Lex loved this moment, letting her head fall back as her eyes drifted shut.

When she blinked her eyes open, the album was drifting to a close and the lamb was back. In her apartment. In her bathroom. Lex jumped and water sloshed over the tub, crawling towards the lamb. She thought the steam was crafting illusions, but when she rubbed her eyes and blinked them open again, the lamb was still there. Steam swirled through the air as the lamb stood unblinking.

On a whim, Lex reached out a hand, palm open, water dripping from her fingers onto the mess on the floor. There was no way this was actually happening. Ruby would have noticed a lamb walking through the apartment, right?  

“Hey, little one. What are you doing here?” Just like earlier, the lamb cocked its head at her words. Then it stooped down and licked a bit of water from the tiles. When Lex blinked again, the lamb was gone. Lex sat back gazing at the ceiling and wondering what the hell was happening.

It must be the heat. After napping out in the sun, and then a warm bath, she must just be experiencing some extreme heat exhaustion. Or some—

“Lex!” Ruby’s voice was higher than she’d ever heard it before, which raised an alarm. Ruby hated sounding shrill, she said it reminded her too much of her mom. Wrapping herself in a towel Lex hustled out of the bathroom and stopped short. Ruby was sitting on the couch in front of a woman. A woman in glowing robes.

“Um…hi?”

“Hello, Alexandra. I trust you are well.”

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A/N: *peaking out from behind a luscious palm* Hi everyone! I hope you’re all doing well! I never meant to leave things this long, but I got distracted with building stuff to redo my room and then starting a new job just as Rona got her feet on the ground. 

I’ll admit I’m pretty nervous about posting this story. After being away for so long, it feels like I should just dip my feet back in and start slow. I’ll be honest I haven’t written in a WHILE. I’m kind of afraid I forgot how to write? lol *yikes* I’d love to know what y’all think, and I’m going to try to be a little more active in posting this story. 

As I said before, I’ve had this idea rolling around in my head for a year and some change now (I think), and I was inspired by Champion by killmongersgurl.

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Let me know if you’d like to be added or taken off the taglist :)

Taglist: @princessstevens @muse-of-mbaku @k-michaelis@queenamaniii@dreadedphilosphy@killmongurl@thelovelyliterary@elaindeereads @thedom223 @muse-of-mbaku@bidibidibombaclaat@panthergoddessbast @writingmarvellousimagines@someareblindtoitsbeauty@jozigrrl@iamrheaspeaks @purple-apricots@thadelightfulone@janelledarling @killmongersgurl

[rosesisupposes]

Destined, part 25

aka Confessions, Vol. II

Character Tags: Virgil/Anixety ; Patton/Creativity ; Patton/Morality ; Logan/Logic ; Remy/Sleep ; Dante/Deceit

Chapter Pairings: Loceit

Chapter Warnings: Sympathetic Deceit, implied relationship that starts with an imbalance of power, character death (old age)

Reader Tags: @residentanchor @royally-anxious @bewarethegrammarpolice   @nightmarebeforevirgil @jemthebookworm @arandompasserby  @sparkly-rainbow-salt @astral-eclipse​

Summary: After centuries of acting as an oracle to heroes, quest-seekers, and villains alike, Virgil just wants to live as a normal, modern human. For someone who can see infinite probabilities, you’d think he’d know better.

<<Chapter 24 | Masterlist | Chapter 26>>

read on ao3

“Wait!”

Dozens of glowing forms turned to face Virgil, to the extent that they had faces. His yell was still echoing through the endless void.

“Before you decide on my judgment, can I get an answer a different question?”

Cassandra huffed, but Agnes nodded.

“When I sent the sorcerer back in his own timeline, it had an effect on my nonmagical friend Logan who was just... standing there. And it was definitely Sage magic, nothing of his own or even of the sorcerer’s,” Virgil said nervously. “Did I… did I hurt him, somehow?”

Agnes came to sit beside him on a chair that had appeared just for her purpose. “I noticed that, too, and did some digging before everyone else finally caught up and brought you here. It turns out, Sages aren’t actually that different from humans. Physiologically, in fact, we’re identical, when we manifest. We are just able to collapse the growing up process to the juncture of our choice when we emerge from the ether, and our consciousness remains past the limits of the body. Humans are technically just as immortal as we- their essence remains the same through lifetimes, even when their consciousness and body are lost. All that separates a human from a sorcerer from a Sage is the degree of connection to the ether. I have been exploring the ethereal world since I relinquished my last mortal form, and I have found the inert former consciousnesses of sprites, and fairies, and all manner of magical creatures here in the ether. A genetic lottery determines what form that essence will inhabit upon its descension, but as the years have passed, less and less connection to the magic of the ether remains.

“I believe your friend was affected by a dramatic change in the life of his essence. The sorcerer Dante’s choice had a profound effect on the being-that-was-Logan’s essence before Logan the human came into being. This is what I theorize, at the very least. Before we Elders confer, I’d like to test my theory. Join me in looking back at the moment of the sorcerer’s choice, won’t you?”

The older woman offered her hands. Virgil hesitated, wary of yet more Sage magic, but his need to have answers was stronger than his fear. Two pairs of glowing hands clasped and light surrounded them both as the two Sages looked back in time together.

Dante slips up the steps of the Tower silently, his feet shod in soft cloth to avoid detection. He uses the key he’s had since the second month of his apprenticeship to open Septimus’ workroom door.

It is pitch black in the foyer, but Dante has no need of witchfire to navigate. He knows this room better than any place in the world, better than the house of his parents, far better than that horrible ‘foster home’ with its unfeeling stones and isolated chambers that held trapped whispers of past screams.

He sneaks confidently past stacks of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves into the study. A very dim glow from the banked fireplace outlines the dark shadows of desks covered in books and scrolls, the chairs where Dante had spent so many hours studying, and Septimus’ ridiculous but brilliant reading contraption.

Dante’s heart twists the slightest bit as he notices the dim outline of Septimus’ tea mug precariously perched atop at least four books and three manuscripts. Such disarray only ever happens when Timus is diving particularly deep into his studies, usually because he is trying to quench some emotion or other. He’s always so timid and scared of letting any feeling affect him, but he still manages to be so kind and supportive of Dante himself.

Shaking his head to rid it of thoughts that could cloud his resolve, Dante proceeds to the back room. The light of the shield spell is more than bright enough to see by. Under the royal blue glow of Septimus’ magic lies the staff. The Staff of the Sprites, created in a grand ceremony honoring the four tribes’ old gods. All it waits for is to be brought to the old gods’ altars to lock in the power of the tribes and their magics. Dante has already made a plan to proceed directly to each one, and thanks to the Sage, he knows that once the wood of the staff is in union with the stone of the Fire Altar, he will have the power he craves. He will be able to eliminate the threat of humans from the magical world. He’s been judged as a threat, as a powder keg about to explode, for his whole life. Why shouldn’t he prove them right if he can save all magic folk while doing so?

About to collapse the shield spell, he pauses. He knows exactly how to do so from all those times Septimus released the spell so that Dante could study the staff for his research. The complex gesture is so familiar to him, he knows he could perform it in his sleep. But just now, the lack of Septimus’ presence makes him doubt.

If he goes through with this, he’ll never be allowed or able to see his mentor and friend again. Not that the man will even want to see him, he’ll be so disappointed. Why does that thought hurt so much? He is resolved, isn’t he? He’s going to save the magical world, damn the consequences. Why would this tiny thing, this friendship with a fellow sorcerer, overpower all his reasons to act?

He lifts his hands to begin the counterspell, but memories flood in. Septimus looking up from his desk, interrupted for the first time in hours, with his hair askew and glasses almost falling off his nose. Timus greeting him without a word, just a silently-handed mug of Dante’s favorite tea. Late-night laughter as Dante describes his fieldwork struggles, Septimus urging him to tell him everything, commiserating and teasing in turns. Blue-and-gold eyes catching his for the first time as the university’s most famous young scholar finds a frustrated teenager hiding in the library stacks, trying to cry off his latest rejection in private. A warm hand shaking his as suddenly, he has a master in his studies, only seven years old than himself. Septimus and his support throughout the political maze that had been his experience at the university. Septimus and his willingness to fight the headmaster and the faculty on Dante’s behalf. Septimus and his unconditional belief in Dante’s abilities and knowledge.

Dante can’t go through with this. It is no tiny thing, this friendship. It never has been. It has been everything. It is everything.

His hands fall to his sides, and he turns and leaves the backroom. Back through the study, through the dark library, back into the black corridor. He walks a path almost as familiar as the study through the tower to Septimus’ sleeping quarters, but hesitates at the door. It is so late - will Timus even want to see him? He knocks quietly, figuring he’ll leave when it fails to wake the scholarly sorcerer.

Footsteps sound. The door opens. Septimus is holding blue flames in his free hand as he blinks through hastily-donned glasses at his late-night visitor.

“Dante, you’re back! Are you… are you quite alright?” he asks softly.

Instead of answering, Dante realizes there are tears welling and spilling out of his eyes. “Timus, I am so sorry,” he chokes out of a suddenly-tight throat.

Septimus immediately pulls Dante into his quarters and closes the door behind him before hugging him tightly.

“You’re here, and you’re safe, Dant. You have nothing to apologize for.”

“I do though, I almost did it, I wanted to-”

“But you didn’t,” Timus interrupts him. His voice is thick. “You came back. You came here. That’s all that matters.”

“I don’t know how you can say that. You don’t even know what I’m talking about…” 

“Don’t I?” Two pairs of gold-streaked eyes meet in the scant light of the living room hearth. “The staff, and your research on it… you’re a brilliant scholar and sorcerer. You figured out the exact steps of the final ritual. Or, if I suspect correctly, the four final rituals.”

Dante gasps, pushing himself out of Septimus’ hold. “You… you knew? And you let me leave?”

“Dant, I didn’t let you do anything. You were always going to leave the university at some point. All I could do was hope you’d come back, and not just for the staff.”

“I… was going to. Just now. I was going to steal it and never been seen again until I had all the power it could offer,” Dante says, walking over, away from that painfully-understanding gaze, and staring out the chamber window. “I was going to leave this place forever. And everyone in it.”

“Why didn’t you?” Septimus asks softly. The scholar refuses to be hopeful. He refuses to let himself wish for the answer he wants to hear.

Dante quietly regards the sleeping university sprawled out below the window. It all looks so much more peaceful at night. Just smooth stone and dark tiles lit by moonlight. The night shows none of the daytime imperfections of prejudice and politics.  “I would have been abandoning you,” he replies at last. “After all we’ve been through together, and all you’ve done for me, that was what stopped me. I couldn’t bear the thought of knowing I’d betrayed your trust.”

The hard knot of emotions threatens to loosen itself in Septimus’ chest. “I… I am glad you decided to refrain. And I’m gladder still that you’re here now.”

Dante turns to look at him, raw and vulnerable. “Timus, can I sleep here, or in the study? I don’t think I can handle the dormitories tonight.”

“Of course, Dant. You’ll stay here, not the study. You’ll hurt yourself trying to sleep in those chairs.”

Septimus leads Dante to his bedchamber and gives him an extra nightshirt. They settle on their own separate sides of the sorcerer’s enormous bed.

As he’s about to drift to sleep, exhausted by the day, Dante hears Timus’ soft voice, and feels a gentle hand on his shoulder. 

“Dant, I’m so glad you came home.”

Later, Dant will blame sleepiness for his response. “It’s not the university, you know. This place has never been my home. No place has ever been home, not since I was a child. It’s you, Timus. With you, I’m always home.”

Later, Septimus and Dante will talk about this moment. Later, they’ll ask each other how they feel about their relationship that started as mentorship but became so much closer. Later, they’ll carefully discuss how they might navigate the implications of two sorcerers, two faculty members, and the appearance of impropriety if they were to pursue this further.

For now, though, Septimus pulls Dante into his arms and holds him tightly, and Dante wraps his arms around him in return. In the morning, neither will have let go.

Pearly light swirled in Virgil’s vision as he was dragged a bit forward in time, following the thread of new choices that began that night in the university tower all the way to its new conclusion.

Septimus dies an old, old man. He has become headmaster of the university, and the school has increased its reputation despite, or perhaps because of, the massive influx of socereri of any, all, or no genders. His essence, lighter and easier now than in any other possible timeline, fades from his physical form as it ascends into the ether. The Sages are able to watch the pale nimbus of blue light rise into the queue of essences waiting to reform, with a pale yellow light joining mere moments later. When the light-that-was-Septimus reaches its turn to manifest once more, the consciousness and memory have faded entirely, and the connection to the ether too. But the spark remains, that burning desire for knowledge. It will serve well in its next life.

Agnes released Virgil’s hands. Virgil felt his cheeks - they were damp. He had done that. He had made a positive difference, by giving Dante a true second chance. And he had saved Logan- someone whose essence became Logan - from the loss of one for whom he had cared deeply. That whirlwind of magic that had surrounded Logan after Dante’s disappearance, and the heat accompanying it, had been the lost years and potential returning to their essence.

He had saved Roman from harm, and he had helped create a more positive outcome in the past that spilled into the present. Even if the Sages decided on a death sentence, Virgil was content.

“If you are quite done coddling him, Agnes,” Cassandra barked out. “We have a punishment to decide on. As much as I would like to exclude you, we need all of us to deliberate, or we will all be just as guilty of breaking our Law as this one is.” She gestured to Virgil, glaring.

Agnes patted Virgil’s shoulder. “Take heart from your deeds, dearie. I’ll be fighting for you.” She smiled, and walked back to join the group. A haze surrounded them as they all faded into incorporeal forms, become a single entity with hundreds of minds that could debate as quickly as thought.

Virgil conjured a couch from the floor of the ether and settled in to wait. There was nothing more to do, now. Whatever the Sages decided for him would be final, and he wouldn’t get to hear a word of their argument until their decision was reached.

Hope for the future and worry for the outcome were equally useless.

author notes: The minute I realized I’d created the chance for Dante to have an  alternate timeline, I knew I had to give both my magic nerds a happy ending.

Anyway, just one chapter left to wrap this thing up. Are you ready?

[monabela]

eyo @aziraphalestudiedtheblade I know this took like a century buT third time’s the charm right?? I started this over a couple times,, ri p. I hope you like it! this is named after [drumroll] Wildfire Pt II by Sonata Arctica, but the subtitles and main inspiration are from Deathaura. anyway, for the @aphgenficexchange, presenting Romania and Moldova as brothers and uhh mainly angst,, but also some ridiculous back-and-forth between them because that’s what you get

(for the sake of) my name

characters: Romania (Alin), Moldova (Andrei)

word count: 2865 summary: Andrei never believed his brother when he said their family was cursed. He should have. It’s too late to stop it now.

warning: (off-screen) character death

[The Premonition]

“Remember when I told you that our family is cursed?”

It’s the first thing Andrei’s brother says when he gets home, his cloak still wrapped tightly around his shoulders to ward off the chill. His eyes are weary, his shoulders sagging. It’s been a harsh winter in the mountains where they live, and spring seems a long way off yet.

“I remember,” Andrei says, standing up to help Alin with the supplies he brought in from the town’s market.

Honestly, his brother has always been prone to dramatizations, so he’s never thought much of the supposed curse. While it’s true their parents have both died before their time, and their mother’s parents went too early too, that’s, unfortunately, how the world works sometimes. They aren’t rich, never have been; there simply wasn’t a way to take care of them, to protect them.

But Alin is sitting down on a rickety wooden chair heavily and pushing a hand through his wispy hair.

“I thought I could do better,” he says, seemingly directed at the small fire in the hearth. Andrei settles on the ground next to it, trying to warm his toes.

“What are you talking about?”

Chewing on his ragged lower lip, Alin is quiet for a long while, which is worrying in and on itself, so Andrei scoots closer and reaches for his brother’s tunic, tugging on the edge of it.

“What are you talking about?” he asks again. He knows Alin keeps secrets from him, it isn’t hard to guess, and he doesn’t begrudge him that even if he feels he’s old enough now to handle practically everything—he could be a squire if they were of higher status—but Andrei’s always thought that it was a scandalous love affair he was hiding, maybe, or just some kind of deal he made to make more money trading fabrics in town. This doesn’t seem like something so inconsequential.

“Listen, Andrei,” Alin starts, “I swore to Mother I would be different, and I’ve tried. But the townsfolk will never see it that way.”

“You’re going to need to start at the beginning,” Andrei says feebly, because he has no idea what he’s talking about. Should he go get the local medic? Well—he knows the man would just say his brother is insane without even coming over, so that’s probably not a good idea.

Alin smiles humorlessly. Clasps his thin fingers over Andrei’s bony hand, his skin equally pale and cold.

“Alright, I’ll start at the beginning.”

  [The Witch-hunt]

“Our mother was a witch.”

“What?” Andrei bursts. He almost yanks his hand free of his brother’s grip, but Alin doesn’t let go. No, his mother can’t have been a witch. He knows about witches. He knows how twisted their minds are, that they are incapable of love; he’s heard all of that and more around town his whole life through.

“A natural witch,” Alin says, as if that should make it clearer. “It’s… A gift, she’d say, passed down through generations. But one that inevitably corrupts.”

The only thing Andrei can do is shake his head, his long hair falling into his eyes. No, no, he refuses to believe that this is true. If it is, then why didn’t he know? Why would she have shared this with Alin and not with him? Was he too young? Didn’t she trust him?

“Why…” he starts, but he isn’t sure what he wants to ask. Alin chews on his lip again, and his thin eyebrows make complicated leaps on his forehead.

“You’ve never needed to know. I’ve never wanted you to know, and neither did Mother, because you don’t…” He trails off, eyebrows now drawing together. Andrei raises his.

Because he doesn’t what?

“Look, remember that time you went out to help find the neighbor’s goats? And you—”

“Got lost in the caves and you didn’t get me out until two days later? It’s hard to forget.”

Alin grimaces. “I would never have gotten there in time if I had to find you all by myself.”

“But you did. You said no one wanted to help.”

“Oh, no, no one did, bunch of morons.”

Andrei isn’t sure why he thought the secret might be a scandalous love affair again. It’s difficult to forget that the whole town despises Alin, that they barely stand him. To be fair, Alin doesn’t exactly do his best to endear himself to them most of the time either. He’s unhesitatingly Alin all the time, and Alin is just… Strange. It’s why Andrei loves him, but he understands why it has the opposite effect on the townspeople.

“I got to you because I was led to you by the same thing that killed our family. I thought that maybe I could be different. That we could be different.”

“Wait, what are you—”

“I’m saying…” He takes a deep breath and wraps his hand tighter around Andrei’s. “I’m saying that that gift, that curse, was passed down another generation. To me.”

“You’re a witch?” Andrei’s heart leaps into his throat.

“I…” Alin frowns. “I suppose so.”

“Wait, is that why everyone hates you?”

Now, his brother gives him a flat look.

“You’re saying that as if there are other reasons for people to hate me.”

Andrei shrugs, trying to put on an innocent face.

“Andrei, come on! I’m a nice—I’m a nice person!” Alin waves his free hand around, deep brown eyes wide. “They’d love me if they didn’t know who my mother was!”

“Ehh,” Andrei says, because he doubts it.

“Anyway, what I’m trying to say is, I’ve always kept this hidden from you because you aren’t cursed, or gifted or whatever—”

“You mean I’m not a witch.”

“I mean you’re not a witch, yeah.” He scrubs his hand over his angular face. “And you should be grateful for that. It can be useful, it’s helped me to take care of you more than you could understand, but if the slightest rumor of it gets out, there’s no escaping from that.”

  [Exposing the Heathen]

To say Andrei is confused would be an understatement. He’s shocked beyond belief, he’s angry somewhere, and he’s a little scared of why Alin is telling him this now, when he’s always been so vague about why he thinks their family is cursed. But more than anything, all those feelings amount to confusion. There must be more to this story. He feels like he’s missing so many parts.

“Why are you telling me now?” he eventually asks, shifting to sit on his knees on the straw mat in front of the fire. That feels like the most important part of it, the one that will perhaps explain some of the rest.

“Because it’s always just been rumors, until today.”

“What did you do?”

Alin throws both his hands up, finally freeing Andrei. “Why do you think it’s something I did?”

Andrei pulls a corner of his mouth up and draws his eyebrows together in a quasi-apologetic look, shrugging. His brother just presses his lips together, obviously doing his best to look disapproving, and failing as always.

“Wasn’t it something you did, then?” Andrei asks.

“Well, no, it was, but… You insufferable child.” Alin sighs, rolling his eyes fondly before quickly turning serious again. “It’s not just rumors anymore because I was caught performing some magic. I couldn’t deny.”

They’re both silent for a while. Andrei knows what the punishment for witchcraft is in the mountains. Of course, he never thought any of it was real—has always thought that the burnings were just an easy way to get rid of unwanted people—let alone that his own brother could end up on the pyre for it.

“Show me,” he eventually says.

  [Envy]

“Show you,” Alin repeats flatly. And then incredulously, “Show you? Have you any idea what you’re asking of me?”

Andrei stands, suddenly fed up with the whole situation, and starts pacing around their tiny house. His brother rises too. The flames from the hearth cast flickering shadows on his face, turning him into someone Andrei barely recognizes, so he closes his eyes against it. What this amounts to is that everything he’s been told is, if not a lie, then at least the truth with so many omissions it may as well be. He runs his hands through his hair, working out tangles. If only the metaphorical tangles were as easy.

“I deserve to know,” he whispers into the darkness. Alin doesn’t respond. Andrei opens his eyes as he breathes in deeply. “I’m your brother, I deserve to know. I’ve always deserved to know.”

“It’s better if you don’t—”

“Then you shouldn’t have told me!”

Alin turns his head away, jutting his sharp chin out. His irises are dark in the low light; it’s turning into night fast, and their fire is small. Shadows fill the corners of the wooden house.

A sharp knock against the door. They both jump.

  [The Fear]

They’re here. The townspeople, or their leader or whoever—Andrei can see it in his brother’s eyes. They’re here for him.

“We need to leave,” he whispers. Alin visibly grits his teeth, screwing his eyes shut.

“You need to leave.”

“What?”

He turns to Andrei, and his eyes are their normal brown again, like the rust-colored water of the brook behind their house in summer.

“There’s nowhere for me to go.”

“You’re a witch! Don’t have a—a broomstick you can fly somewhere?”

“That’s… That’s kind of insulting,” Alin says, almost as if to himself.

There is a bang on the door again, more insistent now, and then a man shouting to let him in.

“I don’t have a broomstick, Andrei, I’m sure you would have noticed.”

“Yeah, it’d be a lot cleaner around—”

“Andrei!” Alin is in front of him now, gripping his shoulders with a glint in his eye Andrei isn’t sure is caused by the fire, and suddenly his traveling cloak is hung around them and there is a satchel strapped across his chest. “I just want you to be safe. Everything I have ever done since our parents died has been to keep you safe. Please understand that.”

Andrei shakes his head furiously, attempting to rip the cloak off his shoulders. He’s either leaving with Alin or staying here with him, because even if he’s not all Andrei used to think he is, he’s still his brother and the only person in this world who matters to him. He tells him as much, and his face softens for a second. He blinks, presses his lips together. Then shakes his head too, sadly.

“I’m so sorry about this.”

“About wh—”

“Remember that I love you, Andrei,” Alin says, and then his eyes flash a very definite red while he brings his hand up to Andrei’s forehead, and everything goes dark.

  [The Grudge]

By the time Andrei makes it out of the cave where he came to—the cave, of all places, Alin knows he’s gotten lost in there more than just the once—he isn’t sure how much time has passed. There was some food in his satchel, which is gone now. He hasn’t got anything else now but his cloak and his best boots, which is something, at least.

But then he walks up the road back home, and there is no home.

There’s no house there, the field wiped clean as if there never has been. The bend in the road is deserted, the earth of their little plot turned over, and Andrei has no illusions that the ground there is still fertile. The townspeople would have salted it.

His hands shake uncontrollably when he realizes there is nothing here for him, because if it was just the house, just the land, that would be one thing, but his brother, his only family, left him to build a life from the ground up on his own, knowing everything belonging to him would be regarded as cursed and destroyed, knowing that Andrei would never be certain of his life as long as he stayed here.

Tears burn behind his eyes, and he grits his teeth against them. The air burns in his throat when he takes harsh breaths.

If their family is cursed, Alin has only proven it.

Andrei is strung tight and almost can’t move when someone moves up the path, but he hides away just in time.

This will be his life from now on if he stays.

So he needs to go.

  [The Curse]

He can’t go.

He wants to, he does, but the thought of Alin waiting somewhere in town for his own inevitable death pulls at him, won’t let him go until he turns back in the dead of the night with frost clinging to his eyelashes and looks for him.

It’s surprisingly easy to find him.

Andrei has never frequented the town. He always preferred to stay at home and weave fabrics Alin could sell or work on their small patch of land, or help the neighbor with his stubborn goats. Yet, he finds his brother quickly, aided only by the weak light of a half-moon in a cloudy sky, at the edge of the city square, where light flickers through low bars and casts elongated shadows on the muddy ground.

Alin is awake in his cell below, and looking up before Andrei has even made a sound.

“Andrei,” he breathes, casting a weary glance over his shoulder at the door before walking over to the bars and standing on the bench below them so his face is just above ground level. His hair is matted, but his eyes are familiar, the warmth in them reassuring as it’s always been. Andrei feels like he’s six years old again for just a moment when he kneels on the cold ground and reaches for his brother’s bony hand to tangle their fingers together.

“I wish I could get you out.”

“I know.”

A thought occurs to him. “Can’t you get yourself out? You sent me all the way to the caves. Thanks for that, by the way.”

Alin smiles sadly and shakes his head.

“Those things, I don’t know, they seem to work only on you. And you’re welcome.”

“I was being sarcastic.”

He huffs a laugh that seems genuine, and Andrei can’t help but smile a bit as well. It’s something.

“I’m sorry I was so…” He gestures vaguely in the gloom.

“I did deserve it, I suppose,” Alin replies. “Listen, Andrei. I know, it all seems difficult now, but I promise, I promise, I’ll watch over you until you die.”

Without warning, the tears Andrei has been holding in for the past days spill. It dawns on him, with startling clarity, that his brother is about to die, that he’ll never hear his dumb jokes or his reassurances or his terrible singing voice again, that the sparkle in those brown eyes will dim forever, and he isn’t sure how to deal with that. If he can at all.

“You can’t say things like that,” he hiccups. “Alin, you can’t promise that.”

“I can. I love you, Andrei, and I always will.”

Andrei just nods, his hands shaking against Alin’s. He can’t find the words to say what he wants to, to express the sadness and the gratitude and the lingering anger.

“You should go.”

“No, I—”

“They’ll be here come first light.” Alin sighs. “Please, I don’t want you to be here when I…”

He opens and closes his mouth, but no words come out. Andrei nods.

“Alright.” He sits forward in the mud and hugs his brother as much as he can, trying to imprint the memory in his mind.

“I’ll see you again someday, Andrei,” Alin whispers. He tugs him towards the bars and kisses his cheek. “I promise.”

  [The Flames]

Andrei does leave, then.

He walks down the mountain with a heavy heart while the sun rises to an unfairly clear sky, marred only by the heavy black smoke rising from the town square.

  [Endless Inquisition]

There is no safety to find in the next town over, where people have heard his name as well as his brother’s, so Andrei keeps going, carving a lonely path between the mountains until he reaches the cliffs by the sea, weary and exhausted but free.

Not free of the past, which he carries on his shoulders so plain to see that people ask about it in the town where he settles, but free of the infamy his name now brings at least. He never gives clear answers when people ask; it’s not as if they really want to know anyway. It’s not as if Andrei wants to talk about it.

He builds a life there in the face of storms the likes of which he never experienced in the mountains, of the sea whipping at the houses, the people. It’s something of his own, yet something that he wishes his brother could have seen.

  […Together, Today, For All Eternity]

Sometimes, in reflections in the windows of the city hall or the water of the river, Andrei sees his own eyes flash red, and he smiles.

[bamf-alec]

All Things By A Law Divine

Chapters 11-15

Artist: Lady Koalart (who did an absolutely incredible job)

Beta: @jeanboulet​

Pairings: Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood, various background pairings

Summary: Magnus had waited a long time for his soulmate to be born. Fate must have had a sick sense of humour, though, because after all these centuries, it had handed him a Shadowhunter. Magnus didn’t know who this Shadowhunter was, or how they could possibly be meant for each other, but he did know that this story wouldn't have a happy ending.

Alec also knew all about fate's sense of humour. He had known this his whole life. But the ground was coming up from under him and everything he knew was being turned on its head, systematically picked up and pulled apart and handed back to him looking nothing like it did before. Valentine was alive. His own parents had been members of the Circle. The Lightwoods’ grip on the Institute was slipping. And, through all this, his siblings had found their soulmates.

Alec had found Magnus. But that didn’t mean anything, did it?

Link to AO3:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/33515842/chapters/83272549

** I would really prefer you read it on AO3! **

This fic was created for the Shadowhunters Mini Bang 2021: Presented by the @malecdiscordserver

Chapter 11

Alec could not believe that he was here. He wasn’t sure that he was, actually. The crumpled address in his hand didn’t feel real. Neither did the door in front of him.

This was stupid. This was pointless. 

Valentine was alive and sending Forsaken into the Institute. Valentine’s daughter was sleeping in the room across from Jace. Alec’s family was in very real danger of losing control of the Institute. Lydia had politely asked him if getting married might save it. Alec had nearly said yes, and then he had said no, and then he had said that he needed a minute to think about it.

In that minute, he had gone through the Institute database and found a warlock that specialized in souls, and the bonds between them. Then, he had taken a second minute. In that minute, Alec had taken a page out of his siblings’ book and snuck out of the Institute before anyone was awake enough to notice.

This would lead nowhere. Alec would reaffirm what he had always known, the voice of doubt Izzy had infested his mind with would quiet, and that would be that.

The door swung open so swiftly that Alec felt his hair move. A very pixie-like woman stood in front of him, barely coming up to the top of his ribcage. Her hair seemed like an entire other person, stark white, long, and massive. It looked like it was floating more than sitting on her head.

“Um,” Alec said, because the reason he was here had suddenly escaped him.

The woman sighed breathily, like she was quite tired or perhaps like she was bored of this plane of existence. She said, “Yes.”

Alec thought it was meant to be a question, but it didn’t sound like one. He shook himself. He glanced behind him at the street, which looked perfectly normal. Roses were dying in pots that went all the way around the house.

“You’re the Diviner?” he asked, despite how stupid it felt. The Diviner. Like it was pulled from a fairytale. A cliché one at that.

“Oh my,” she said, inexplicably. “You’d better come in. Yes, you’d better.”

Alec wasn’t sure all of that had been directed at him, but he stepped inside nonetheless. As the door closed behind him, most of the light in the room was shut out. Everything was cast in dark shadows. The winding staircase seemed to reach into oblivion, and he wasn’t certain that if he stepped forward there would be a floor there to catch him.

There was. She led him down the hallway to a sitting room, which had large bay windows that let in giant swaths of sunlight. Lace curtains did their best to temper it, to no success. When prompted, Alec took a seat on one of the floral couches. The Diviner sat across from him, a coffee table between them with an old-fashioned tea set on top.

“Tea?” she asked. He shook his head. She sighed that same, breathless sigh. “All the better. I only have mint.”

Alec sat on her couch, trying to figure out what to do with his hands, while she drank her mint tea and watched him. She didn’t blink.

He cleared his throat. It took him two attempts to get out the words, and even he could hear the reluctance in his tone.  “I’m here about soulmates.”

“Yes,” she said. Again, it wasn’t a question. Alec thought it was probably because most people who came to see her were here about soulmates. He waited to see if she would say anything else. She didn’t. 

His fingers only shook a little, not noticeable to anyone but him (he hoped), as he rolled up his sleeves to show her his wrists. Bare, as they had been for as long as he could remember. 

“Blank,” she noted, unhelpfully. She took another sip of her tea. “They said it means you’re alone.”

It still wasn’t a question. She seemed to know everything about him already. He couldn’t decide if it was a relief or unnerving.

Alec frowned. Self-consciously, he tugged his sleeves back down. “They did.”

“You believe them?” she asked, but didn’t wait for an answer. “It’s a tricky thing, belief. Sometimes it makes things true. What’s that called again? Plack… Plum…”

“Placebo effect,” Alec offered. “Are you saying I don’t have a soulmate because I don’t believe I have a soulmate?”

She sighed again. She drank her tea. She looked out the large, bay windows. “Did I say it was your belief?”

Alec blinked. She waited for an answer. Uncertainly, he said, “No?”

 She leaned forward to reach across the table with an impatient flick of her fingers. The tea had vanished and, now that he thought about it, Alec couldn’t remember her ever having brewed it. It had just appeared, cup full in her hands, despite the teapot between them.

It took him a moment to understand what she wanted, and then another to roll his sleeves back up and offer her his wrist.

Her fingers were cold when they closed around it. Dainty. He watched her face instead. Her eyes were very dark, or maybe very bright. It was hard to tell. She pressed her nail into his skin until it bled, and he winced, resisting the urge to snatch his arm back. She seemed pleased by this.

“The other,” she demanded. He gave her his left wrist. She dug her nail in again. She seemed more pleased. “What a neat little lie. The sort we’re not supposed to tell.”

Alec felt dizzy. He stared at her very strange eyes and her nail, still digging through the first couple layers of his skin, and his wrist, blank. Not even a rune trespassed on it. “What?”

“Barbaric,” she continued, as though he hadn’t spoken. He did not interrupt her look of deep thought to tell her that ‘neat’ and ‘barbaric’ were two things that tended not to describe the same entity. 

She dropped his arm. “Do you like stories, Mr. Lightwood?”

“No,” he said, because he had a feeling she wanted to tell him one, and he could feel his skin crawling all over with the need to just know, already. He ignored the fact that he had never given her his name. She was in the business of souls, and it seemed unsurprising that she would have some magic way of finding it out.

She looked a little disappointed. “Oh. Well, then I will just tell you. Your mark’s been erased.”

Alec felt like he’d been punched in the chest. He struggled, for many long seconds, to recover his breath. Fucking Isabelle, he thought, but the thought barely reached his conscious.

“Erased?” he repeated, urgently. “So I had one?”

She nodded. “So you had one. This kind of magic’s been outlawed since… Well, for quite a while. One of the few things that nearly everyone can agree on is that it's....”

“Barbaric?” he offered, but he wasn’t looking at her. He stared down at his hands, the two half-moons on his wrists. He ran his fingers over the left one, like he would feel whatever had been there, but of course he could not. So many emotions warred for dominance inside of him that instead he felt numb. He swallowed. “Can I get it back?”

“No,” she said, putting precisely zero effort into softening the blow. Alec had only an instant to feel both crushed and weightless at the same time before she continued. “But just because the mark is gone, doesn’t mean the bond is. Like ridding you of the symptoms, but not the disease. Denial is not as strong as belief, you know. It always falls apart.”

Alec ignored that she’d just compared having a soulmate to having a disease. He scrubbed his hands down his face and breathed in and out. He wondered if his siblings knew. He wondered if his parents knew.

And then he immediately felt stupid because of course his parents knew. Who else could have done this?

“I think I’ll take that tea now,” Alec muttered.

.

There was a knock at Alec’s door.

Please, Alec thought desperately to the ceiling, sprawled out on his bed. Please, Jace. Go save the world by yourself today.

Jace knocked again. When there was still no response, he opened the door to peer inside. It was the middle of the day and his room had two windows, but Alec had turned the light on anyway. He could feel the frown from across the room as Jace picked his way through scattered papers to the side of the bed.

“Dude,” he said, poking Alec’s foot. “What’s wrong?”

“Everything,” Alec replied despairingly. Alec was not usually melodramatic, and he was not being melodramatic now. It was very possible that, in fact, everything was wrong.

Jace said agreeably, “Okay,” and then yanked on Alec’s feet until Alec’s knees slid off the end of the bed and he was forced to sit up.

Alec glared at him. “What?”

Jace had been Alec’s parabatai for too many years not to be immune to his glare. “Come with me.”

Alec laid back down. “No.”

Witheringly, “Alec.”

Also witheringly, “Fuck off.”

Jace sighed. He looked over Alec, assessing the damage, then patted his leg. “Wanna go kill some demons?”

Alec considered it. “No,” he decided. 

Enticingly, Jace said, “There’s a whole nest of raveners at the docks.”

Less certainly, Alec repeated, “No.”

Jace seemed to realize the gravity of the situation, then. The bed dipped under his weight, his knee knocking into Alec’s. When Alec glanced up to see what he was doing, he found Jace watching him with a concerned expression. “Are you okay?” he asked. “For real?”

Alec looked at him. He swallowed. He was running his fingers over the blank skin on his wrist. It was going numb, and it was definitely red, but he couldn’t stop. Even when he knew that Jace had noticed.

His voice was very small when he admitted, “No, I’m really not.”

Jace, who had never heard him sound so lost in all the years they’d known each other, looked alarmed. He cast a glance at the door, probably wondering where Isabelle was, because usually she was the one that coaxed the truth out of Alec. But Jace knew that Isabelle was with Clary, and so did Alec.

Jace hesitated to ask, “Is this about Magnus?”

Alec didn’t react. He wanted to be surprised, or to be terrified that Jace had picked up on this thing that he had never told him. He could feel it, too, the shame and the fear and the knowledge that if he blew Jace off, he wouldn’t ask again. But it was so distant, so buried, beneath this numbness that had settled over Alec this morning and not gone away since.

“He seems nice,” Jace offered. When Alec looked at him, he looked supremely uncomfortable, because they both knew that this was not a thing they talked about. Jace didn’t talk about girls with Alec, either.

To spare him the awkwardness, Alec snorted. “Nice,” he repeated. “Yeah, he’s nice.”

Jace nodded. He looked away, around the room, seeking a change in subject.

Alec dug his fingernail into his wrist, right beside where someone else had done so already. “Did you feel it?” he asked. “Clary. If you hadn’t seen the mark, would you have known?”

Jace turned back to look at him again. His brow furrowed, but he gave the question real thought. “Maybe,” he replied. “Maybe not. I wanted it to be, and I felt connected to her, but I think… I don’t think, without the mark, that I would’ve been sure enough to act on it. I would’ve had too many doubts.”

It was not the answer Alec would have hoped for, if he’d been accustomed to hope. Of course Jace would have had doubts. Of course anyone, with no mark, would have doubts. The mark was a confirmation, a reassurance, a certainty. They existed for a reason.

This one, it said, with no room to question it. This is the one.

He thought about telling Jace about his stolen mark. He couldn’t find the words. What could Jace say that would help, anyway?

Nothing. There was nothing. The mark was gone. It would never not be gone. Alec would live in doubt for the foreseeable future. Maybe forever.

I suppose, the Diviner had told him when he’d asked how he would know the bond when he found it, you will just have to ask around.

Alec thought about asking Magnus about his soulmark, and shivered. There was absolutely no universe where he could be that brave.

Did he have to ask? Or would he know if he saw it, on Magnus’s wrist?

How foolish and naive to even consider that Magnus Bane could be his soulmate.

But doubt — stupid, niggling doubt — gave him pause. Alec wanted to know. He wanted to be certain.

He knew where he needed to go.

Chapter 12

“Hey,” said Alexander Lightwood, standing in front of the door to Magnus’s loft in jeans and a t-shirt. He scratched the back of his neck. He didn’t have any of his regular shadowhunter gear with him, nor were there any obvious wounds to tend to. He didn’t sound like he was here with urgency, so no one must be dying. “Can I come in?”

Delighted but trying not to show it, Magnus stepped aside to let him through. He watched Alec, hands tucked in his pockets, inspect his living room like he’d never seen it before. Magnus had only swapped out a few statement pieces since the last time he’d been here.

Magnus shook himself. “Drink?” he asked, gesturing to his drink cart. It was his favourite part of the loft, and he was not ashamed of it.

Alec gave him a dubious look. “It’s five in the afternoon.”

“Suit yourself,” Magnus shrugged. He tapped his fingers on the back of his couch, a plush green velvet. His rings clicked against each other. “Not that I’m complaining, but what brings you here this fine evening, Alexander?”

Alec frowned a bit at the use of his full name, but he didn’t say anything. His eyes flitted over Magnus, and then over his bookshelf, and then back over Magnus. They stayed just a second too long on his wrist, covered by his silk dress shirt.

Oh? Magnus thought, a thrill running through him.

“I wanted, um,” Alec paused. He looked away. His brow furrowed in distress. Adorable. “Actually, I didn’t really think of an excuse.”

Magnus laughed. “You could just say that you wanted to see me.”

He’d meant for it to ease the tension Alec was clearly feeling, but it seemed to have the opposite effect. Alec’s jaw tightened, and he looked out the balcony doors at the city.

So maybe he hadn’t just wanted to see Magnus. He was here for a reason. A reason that had him pretending not to be looking at Magnus’s wrist again. Magnus’s heart tried to pick up its pace, but he stopped it before it got too carried away.

Alec let out a frustrated breath and shook his head, but it was directed at himself. He inspected one of the couches, debating if it was safe to sit on. Magnus threw himself onto one to demonstrate, and Alec gingerly took a seat. Across from Magnus, further away than he’d hoped.

Alec was looking at his hands when he said, “When you did the autopsy, and you came in while I was training. Did you see…?”

“Your mark?” Magnus finished for him. Alec looked immediately relieved, like that was answer enough, which confused him. “No. Why?”

“No reason,” Alec said too quickly. He leaned back on the couch, much less tense. He looked around, obviously trying to change the subject as fast as possible. His eyes lit up a bit when he found something. “Books. You have so many. You read?”

Magnus did not laugh, even though he wanted to, because it might’ve been strange when Alec didn’t know that Magnus had read more pieces of literature from his wrist than from any book in the last two decades. He also did not laugh at the desperate, stilted attempt at small talk, because Magnus was nice and he found the awkwardness endearing. 

“I used to,” he offered conversationally. “Not so much anymore. I think I stopped around the… 20’s? 30’s? I had enough stories of my own, and I was growing bored of reading other people’s made-up ones. You?”

Alec hummed thoughtfully. “I used to,” he echoed. “It’s hard to find the time, now.”

Magnus was reminded that the boy across from him had many things on his shoulders, probably more than Magnus knew about. “Would you like to borrow something? I can think of some recommendations I might have.”

“Oh,” said Alec, a bit taken aback, but in a good way. “Yeah, sure. That’d be… That’d be nice.”

Smiling amiably, Magnus set about retrieving the books he was thinking of. He passed them each to Alec, who had followed him into his study where he kept most of them, and gave him a brief synopsis of each. Because he was Magnus, most of the synopses were inaccurate and consisted more of jokes than any valuable information. Alec only smiled, amused.

At six, Alec finally allowed Magnus to make him a drink. They drank them on the balcony. It was winter, so the sun was already starting to set, and it cast an orangey-pink hue over the city.

At eight, Alec’s phone went off, and he made an unhappy face at whatever name was on the screen. He looked at Magnus, stuffing it back in his pocket. His eyes followed the length of Magnus’s arm to the glass he was holding, but stopped just a bit short.

“I should go,” he said. “Institute things to take care of.”

He’d waved a vague hand around to indicate the things that needed doing. It was charming.

Magnus sighed, softly, so that Alec wouldn’t hear. “Of course. You’ll tell me what you think?”

Alec looked confused for a second before he followed Magnus’s gaze to the short stack of books on the coffee table inside. “Oh!” he said. “Right, yeah. I’ll text you?”

“Or you could come over and tell me in person,” Magnus offered, but he also shrugged to indicate that both were equally sound options.

Alec met his eyes. “Yeah. Maybe.”

He looked like he’d gotten a bit lost in space for a second, but then he smiled. He politely handed Magnus his empty glass, retrieved the books, and let Magnus walk him to the door.

Magnus waved him off when the door opened, already beginning to tidy up the mess he’d made while mixing their drinks. He looked up in confusion when he didn’t hear the door shut.

Alec had stopped in the doorway, his hand on the knob. He turned back to Magnus, and his expression was steeled. Magnus raised one questioning eyebrow at him.

“I don’t have one,” Alec said suddenly. He sounded very decisive. “I asked if you’d seen my mark, because I don’t have one. I think my parents probably figured out it wouldn’t lead to someone they approved of, so they got rid of it.”

The door shut behind him, the sound infinitely louder than it should’ve been, and Magnus could do nothing but blink.

Chapter 13

It took Magnus a very long time to process the information he’d been given. It grew dark outside while he sat on his couch. He’d collapsed onto it a while ago, when his knees had gone a bit weak.

Magnus considered the facts.

Alec was his soulmate. He was certain of it, now. The marks matched too well, and he had felt it with his magic.

Alec did not know that he was his soulmate, because Alec didn’t have a soulmark.

Alec didn’t have a soulmark, because someone wretched had wiped it away.

Magnus had been waiting impatiently for Alec to just figure it out already, because surely the mark couldn’t be that difficult to interpret, while Alec had actually not been figuring anything out, because bare skin was quite difficult to interpret.

No, he’s definitely figured something out, Magnus amended.

He replayed the words again. He brought up Alec’s face, and his tone, and how he’d looked when he’d first gotten here, too.

It seemed like this was new information to him, too. And if that was true, then Alec’s bare wrist must have meant something different to him before. Then Alec had spent his whole life thinking there was nothing there because there was noone for him.

Now, Magnus remembered that Izzy had texted him to ask about his mark, and he realized she had been asking because she had been hoping this wasn’t true. Had Alec? Or had he just accepted it and resigned himself to being alone forever while everyone around him found love?

Magnus was beginning to get to know Alec, and he thought the latter was much more likely.

He looked at his mark, now.

Fearless.

Magnus was probably reading too much into it, but it seemed darker than it had the last time he’d seen it, years ago. More certain. Conviction, rather than desperation.

Magnus leaned back until he could look at the chandelier above him. It was a magnificent thing. It wouldn’t be allowed in his loft if it wasn’t.

Very, very slowly, in the manner of dread and things much more awful, something crept up on him. He remembered a woman at his doorstep, the rain, and the circle carved into her neck. The tiny little thing in her arms, the only reason she would have ever put aside her uncompromising beliefs. The memory had been gone for years, buried because it was insignificant to him and his own life.

He reached for it now. It came back, some pieces so vivid he thought he could smell the rain in the air, and some pieces still blurry enough that it felt like a disc in a record player, skipping.

Nothing matters but protecting them, Maryse Lightwood had told him, holding her son in her arms. She had seen his eyes, cat-like. One of a kind.

Magnus did not let himself wonder if that was what had done it. He did not let himself wonder if this was his fault, if she might’ve been oblivious before she met him and left her son’s soul alone. He wouldn’t have been able to close his eyes ever again, if he did.

Magnus did let himself wonder how it had happened. Who had done it? It took magic — the dark, twisted kind — to bury a soul inside itself.

Could it be undone?

Magnus’s eyes cast into his study, where he knew he had a book on soulmagic. He stared at where he thought it might be on the shelf. He twisted his rings around and around.

No. He shook himself. Alec hadn’t asked for that. Alec hadn’t asked for anything. Magnus didn’t know what he wanted, and it wasn’t right to assume that he might.

He didn’t know how much Alec already knew.

Did he know Magnus was his soulmate? Or had he told him for some other reason, because it was a magic kind of curse and Magnus, too, was magic? Because it was a very different kind of thing and Magnus, too, was a very different kind of person? Because Alec’s only friends were his siblings, and his family was too caught up in it already?

Magnus wanted to call Catarina or Ragnor to say all of this out loud, but he couldn’t do that, either. Alec had trusted him, and he couldn’t break that.

So Magnus sat, and he drank, and he avoided looking at any of his spellbooks, and he wondered when it would be appropriate to ask Alec if they could see each other again.

Chapter 14

Alec couldn’t stand to be in the same room as his parents, and his mother was beginning to notice. Maryse was working up to confronting him about it, her frustration rising each time he left the room shortly after she entered it. It was frustration born mostly out of confusion, but also out of the fact that Alec had yet to give them an answer on his hypothetical impending nuptials.

Alec did not want to be confronted, so he avoided the Institute in general as much as he could. Thankfully, Maryse hadn’t been on active duty for pretty much as long as she’d lived in New York, so she kept mundane hours. When it was dark and she was most likely asleep, Alec was free to roam the Institute as much as he wanted. Most of his roaming ended in the training room.

“So,” Jace said. He was cut off briefly by Alec’s fists pummeling the punching bag he held steady against his chest, knocking some of the breath out of him. Jace shifted his feet to brace himself better. “You want to tell me what’s up or am I going to have to guess?”

Alec didn’t look at him or stop pummeling the punching bag. “You’re going to have to guess.”

“Okay.” Jace shrugged. He squinted like he was really assessing his parabatai. “A ravener demon snuck into your room last night and poisoned you, and now you are both suffering from, you know, being poisoned, but also not getting enough sleep. Because of the ravener demon. Am I close?”

Alec snorted. “Yes,” he said, taking a step back. He wiped the sweat from his brow and pushed the hair that was clinging to it off his face. “You got me, Jace. That’s exactly what happened.”

“I knew it,” Jace agreed happily. He patted the side of the punching bag as he stepped up to see Alec without having to crook his head around it. “For real, though. I can feel when something’s wrong, Alec. And lately the parabatai bond’s been… a mess. I let you have your moment the other day and gave you time to sort it out yourself, but now I’m worried, man.”

Alec clenched his jaw, inspecting his knuckles. Bleeding, ripped open where they hadn’t had a chance to heal from yesterday, or the day before, or the day before that. He barely felt it.

He shook his head. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not.”

“Okay. Then how about it’s none of your business?”

“Alec,” Jace sighed. He gave Alec a longsuffering look. Alec gave him the same look back, but more surly.  They stared each other down for a minute, both too stubborn to look away and admit defeat.

Finally, Alec let out a long breath. He scraped his fingers through his hair, wet from the hour he’d been in here before Jace showed up under the guise of helping him train. He should’ve known. Jace was nowhere near as bad as Izzy, but he, too, was a nosy dick who couldn’t leave well enough alone. Not when it came to Alec.

Alec had been tired of his siblings always having something to say about his personal life years ago, and since then it had only gotten worse. It was only ever getting worse because in their eyes Alec was never getting better. How many times had Izzy made unsubtle comments about cute boys he might like to go out with? How many times had Jace slapped his shoulders and asked if he needed a wingman?  How many sad, pitiful looks had they given him and his blank wrist and his nonexistent love life?

Like he could hear what Alec was thinking, Jace glanced around quickly. He leaned in closer and lowered his voice when he said, “Is this about your soulmark thing?”

Your soulmark thing.

That was what Jace had always called it, ever since Alec had fessed up and told him that he didn’t have one. Jace hadn’t believed him at first. Everyone had a soulmark. He’d turned both of Alec’s arms this way and that, like it was hiding in there somewhere, before he’d finally given up and accepted that Alec was telling the truth. Then he’d shown Alec the easel that spread across his entire wrist with a grim expression and admitted that he thought his soulmate might be a mundane. Shadowhunters didn’t have time for such hobbies, unless they were retired. It was doubtful a fourteen year old’s soulmate was in their sixties.

Alec wondered if it was strange for warlocks who had to wait centuries just for theirs to be born. How much life they had lived before them, how much they knew, and how little their soulmate would when they met them. Even if it were someone who shared their immortality, another warlock or a vampire or a seelie, they would have lived a dozen lives before the one they eventually shared with their soulmate.

It sounded lonely.

Did Magnus seem lonely?

Alec pursed his lips and burned the thought from his head, with fire. He shook his head at Jace. “It’s not about ‘my soulmark thing’.”

It was, of course.

Jace eyed him suspiciously. “Are you sure? Because the other day you were asking me about Clary, and I thought that maybe it sounded like you’d found someone you liked, and that maybe you thought they could be the one.”

“I don’t have a soulmate, Jace,” Alec told him, even though he knew now that it was a lie. The lie came off his tongue as easily as breathing, because it had sounded like the truth for so many years now. 

“But you found someone?” Jace asked. It was much gentler, quiet and hopeful, hesitant. Even more so when he ventured to add, “Maybe someone like Magnus Bane?”

Alec’s throat closed. He dug his fingers into the knuckles on his other hand. He looked his parabatai dead in the eyes, steadied himself, and said, “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Jace looked back for a very long moment. Then, he looked past Alec, out the archway that led into the hub. It had been a quiet night so far, so there were only two people watching the screens for signs of activity.

“Yeah,” Jace sighed eventually. He clasped Alec’s shoulder and gave him a wry smile on his way out. Jace waited until he was halfway out the door to turn around and add, “By the way, Lydia called Magnus in to fix the wards. From the Forsaken attack. I think he’s coming tomorrow.”

That fucking… Alec didn’t finish the thought. He made a frustrated noise, combing his fingers none too gently through his hair, digging them into his scalp. The frustration swelled quickly into anger, overwhelming only because he’d never felt it like this before. It was an all-encompassing anger, extending from his absent soulmark and his parents to Jace and Izzy and his expected marriage and Valentine and Clary and—

And…

Alec went back to his room. He peeled off his clothes, damp with sweat, and splashed water on his face. In the mirror, an unhappy face looked back at him. He pursed his lips and looked away, left the bathroom to sit on the edge of his bed.

He played with the bracelet on his wrist. Leather, worn over the years but still strong. A thin, intricate braid that must’ve taken weeks of work for someone so young, but so determined to make sure it was perfect.

Isabelle had given it to him when she was eight. She’d said that this way, just like everyone else who had a soulmark, if he looked at his wrist he would always know there was someone who loved him unconditionally.

It took a moment for Alec to realize he was crying. A sob ripped out of him before he could stop it. He dug the heels of his palms into his eyes and bit down hard on his lip. Minutes passed. He breathed deeply, in and out, until it felt like he was getting enough air again.

Then he dropped his hands. He twisted Izzy’s bracelet around his wrist, smoothing his thumb over the familiar pattern.

He glanced at the short stack of books on his desk, one finished and another bookmarked halfway through, and then at his phone on the nightstand, and then at the door. Somewhere, Izzy was probably taking off her makeup or picking out which heels she should slay demons in tomorrow. Jace was probably either with Clary or pretending he didn’t want to be. Magnus was probably… Doing whatever warlocks did. Brewing potions? Casting spells? Mixing drinks?

The thought of being alone when his head was such a mess sucked, but the thought of talking to any of them also sucked, so Alec chose what was most familiar. He turned the light off, kicked off his boots, and went to lay in bed and stare at the ceiling for hours, praying for sleep but knowing it likely wouldn’t come.

Chapter 15

Magnus, though he did fix the Institute’s wards, ended up overstaying his welcome. He was pulled into some intricate plot to smuggle the mortal cup out of the Institute. Alec was notably absent for the entire process of retrieving it from some super special Shadowhunter storage box, but neither Jace nor Isabelle volunteered any information as to his whereabouts. When Magnus tried to ask, Izzy pursed her lips.

“I haven’t seen him all day. He’s probably…” She shared a look with Jace, who didn’t mask his concern in time. Izzy turned back to Magnus with a decisive nod. “Busy. He’s busy.”

Magnus frowned, but he let them be mysterious. “Well then, I suppose I’ll leave you to it. Give Biscuit my best.”

He saw Jace mouth ‘biscuit?’ to Isabelle, who shrugged. She smiled at Magnus. “Thank you so much for your help. We’ve got it from here. We’ll walk you out.”

“Actually,” Magnus interrupted. He looked between the two of them, the duffle bag Izzy was holding with the mortal cup, and the hub full of busy Shadowhunters. Robert Lightwood, who’d accompanied him while he reinforced the wards, was conspiring with a group of people at one of their holographic tables. Alec was still nowhere in sight. He turned a charming smile on the remaining Lightwood children. “I should check the wards again. Make sure everything’s in order. Don’t want any more Forsaken finding their way in.”

Jace shrugged and left, off to bring Clary the mortal cup. Isabelle stuck around for another moment. She watched Jace’s back until it disappeared through the door before she took a deep breath.

“He’s probably on the roof,” Isabelle told Magnus. She held his gaze, unwavering. “He was injured in the Forsaken attack. Maybe you could speed up the healing process for him.”

“Ah,” said Magnus. He rested a hand on her arm, squeezing. “Thank you.”

Isabelle smiled. It was tight and sad. Then she left, and Magnus immediately regretted not asking how to get to the roof. He sighed and braced himself for a long journey navigating the maze that was the Institute.

It did not take as long to find the access to the roof as it had to find the morgue, thank God, but it was still at least fifteen minutes before Magnus could breathe a sigh of relief and stop feeling dizzy at the endless identical hallways. It was only when he found the stairwell up that he paused.

Magnus hadn’t spoken to Alec since he’d paid Magnus that visit. It’d been well over a week. He’d hoped for a text or a call or another impromptu knock at his door, some sign of life, but received none. Magnus had questions and he had worries, and he had things that were both, but he also had no idea what was going on in Alec’s head. Would he want to talk about it? Or had he said what he’d said only to say it, to have it be said, and then to never have to bring it up again?

Magnus didn’t know. He liked to think he was starting to understand Alec, but clearly not well enough. Perhaps the best thing was just to give him space and wait for Alec to come to him. He must’ve known Magnus was coming. If he’d wanted to see him, he would have. The sensible thing was to leave.

Ah, well. Magnus had never been one for sensibility.

Alec was, in fact, on the roof. He was in a t-shirt that couldn’t possibly be warm enough for the windchill up here, but it gave Magnus a nice view of his arms and his shoulders. He had very nice, strong, Shadowhunter muscles, and was using them to draw back the string of his bow and fire arrows into the abyss.

Magnus stopped a few feet away from him. “Did the Institute run out of training dummies?”

Alec started, his fingers slipping on the arrow he’d been about to draw from the quiver. He spun with a frown that only deepened when he saw Magnus. Then he seemed to shake himself. Alec lowered the bow. “It’s quieter up here.”

Magnus hummed in agreement. He played with the insides of his pockets. He would never admit that he had spent twice as long as usual picking out what to wear, but he felt overdressed now. His cashmere, printed suit jacket blocked out most of the wind, but it didn’t compare to Alec’s t-shirt and jeans, both of which he could now see were full of holes.

Magnus’s brow furrowed. “Your arm,” he said. He waved a hand at the bandage around Alec’s left bicep. “May I? Free of charge.”

Alec shifted his jaw. He looked down at his arm. He shook his head, dark hair a moving mess. He made a ‘go ahead’ gesture and extended his arm to Magnus when he stepped forward to take it.

Magnus peeled the bandage back gently. The wound was deep and angry red, made an even angrier red by its contrast to the fresh iratze beside it. Magnus poked the rune. Alec hissed, jerking his arm a bit, and looked at Magnus like he’d been horribly betrayed.

“Sorry,” Magnus murmured. More carefully, he moved his hand over the wound and reached for his magic. It danced into his fingers and twirled into the space between his and Alec’s skin, and then vanished into the wound. The cut stitched itself shut in a blue haze and then smoothed itself over until it was like nothing had ever been there to start with.

Involuntarily, Magnus’s gaze dropped to Alec’s other arm. His wrist was still bare. Magnus shouldn’t have been surprised, but he was still finding it difficult to get used to the idea of someone just… not having a soulmark. This someone in particular.

Alec caught him looking and gently tugged his now healed arm free, pulling Magnus’s attention away. “Thanks.”

Magnus took a half step back and smiled. “My pleasure. As I said, if you ever need anything, I’m here. You could’ve called.”

“Yeah.” Alec shifted uncomfortably, not looking at him. He touched the top of his bow where it rested against the roof’s ledge. “I could’ve. Sorry, I… I didn’t text you. About the books. They were good.”

Magnus continued watching Alec’s face, even though it was turned away from him. “That’s alright. I’m glad you liked them. If you want, you could come over and I could lend you some more.”

Alec met his eyes, then started a bit like he hadn’t expected to. He rubbed his neck where the deflect rune was impossible to miss. He opened his mouth and closed it a few times, his frown many meters deeper than when Magnus had first stepped out onto the roof. Then, he shook his head and met Magnus’s eyes again. The smile he offered was small and private. “I’d like that.”

Magnus offered the same kind of smile back. They looked at each other for another long moment while Magnus decided whether this was the time and place to have a real conversation.

It wasn’t. They were in the Institute, for one. Alec’s siblings were doing something that would no doubt get them into monumental trouble any minute now. Magnus needed to send a fire message to the warlock community with an update on the Valentine situation. Alec was bleeding, still, but from his hands. Magnus had felt it when he’d healed his arm, and he could see it now where it dripped between his fingers. He’d been up here a while, no protective gear while he fired arrow after arrow until every pull of the string dug into open wounds.

Magnus let out a breath. “Right, well. Call me? Or just stop by. Whenever you have the time. I’m usually around, and even more so after dark. I can make you a drink that you might not hate this time, and we can just… talk.”

He watched Alec swallow. He watched him inspect the cuts on his hand, poking at them until all of his fingers were bloody. When it didn’t seem like he was going to say anything, Magnus put his hands in the pockets of his jacket and said, “Okay. I’ll be seeing you, then. Take care of yourself, Alexander.”

Magnus only hesitated for a second before he gave Alec’s now healthy arm a squeeze. He turned away immediately after to go back the way he came. Not that he knew what way that was. He should’ve drawn a map.

Alec stopped him before he’d left the roof. “I’m sorry,” he said. He waited for Magnus to turn back around before he repeated it. “I’m sorry. For last time. Just dumping that on you. I know it’s a lot and it doesn’t really have anything to do with you.”

Magnus looked at Alec. Alec dug his bloody nails into his wrist. His bow rattled against the ledge with the wind.

“It does,” Magnus stated. He offered nothing else.

Alec looked at Magnus. Magnus let him, waiting patiently. He had centuries of experience in patience, despite what his friends might think.

Alec looked away, shaking his head. When he kept not looking at Magnus, Magnus accepted that that was that. He nodded, and turned around again to leave. This time, Alec let him.

He had wondered if Alec knew. He had wondered it as soon as he’d met him, and more when he’d realized it for himself, and more still after the last time they’d seen each other.

Alec did know. Magnus was certain of it now. It’d been written all over his face. He’d known when he’d showed up at Magnus’s door, and he knew it now, too. 

Magnus knew from personal experience that accepting it was another story.

[7r0773r]

Why Fish Don’t Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life by Lulu Miller

Specifically, [Louis] Agassiz believed that hiding in nature was a divine hierarchy of God’s creations that, if gleaned, would provide moral instruction. This idea of a moral code hidden in nature—a hierarchy, a ladder or “gradation” of perfection—has been with us for a long time. Aristotle envisioned a holy ladder—later Latinized to Scala Naturae—in which all living organisms could be arranged in a continuum of lowly to divine, with humans at the top, followed by animals, insects, plants, rocks, and so on. And Agassiz believed that by arranging these organisms into their proper order, one could come to discern not just the intent of a holy maker but perhaps even the instructions for how to become better. (p. 25)

***

There’s an idea in philosophy that certain things don’t exist until they get a name. Abstract things like justice, nostalgia, infinity, love, or sin. The thinking goes that these concepts do not sit out there on some ethereal plane waiting to be discovered by humans but instead snap into being when someone invents a name for them. The moment the name is uttered, the concept becomes “real,” in the sense that it can affect reality. We can declare war, truce, bankruptcy, love, innocence, or guilt, and in so doing, change the course of people’s lives. The name itself is a thing of great power, then, the vessel that drags the idea from the imaginary to the earthly realm. Before the word, however, the thinking goes, the concept is largely inert. (p. 63)

***

So there it was. As David swept up the glass in his lab, as he began to try to piece his life back together, the thing he was whispering to himself was a lie.

It is the will of man that shapes the fates.

It was shocking to see, a surprise based on everything he stood for. But considering the fact that David ultimately ended up being able to salvage so much of his collection, considering that thousands of specimens remain today over a century later, considering that by so many measures David Starr Jordan’s life turned out to be one of unusual success—the wives, the presidencies, the awards, the Garden of Eden complete with dog-riding monkeys and Latin-speaking parrots and taxonomy-loving children—I was beginning to wonder if self-delusion was such a bad thing. Maybe he and my father didn’t need to be so moralistic about it, calling it a sin to avoid at all costs. (p. 97)

***

And then there was that key point in On the Origin of Species. That crucial point that somehow both David and before him Francis Galton had missed. What does Darwin say is the best way of building a strong species, of allowing it to endure into the future, to withstand the blows of Chaos in all her mighty forms—flood, drought, rising sea levels, fluctuating temperatures, invasions of competitors, predators, pests? 

Variation. Variation in genes, and hence in behavior and physical traits. Homogeneity is a death sentence. To rid a species of its mutants and outliers is to make that species dangerously vulnerable to the elements. In nearly every chapter of Origin, Darwin hails the power of "Variation." He marvels over how diverse gene pools are healthier and stronger, how intercrossing between different types of individuals gives more "vigor and fertility" to their offspring, how even worms and plants that can produce perfect replicas of themselves are equipped for sex, for introducing variety back into the gene pool. "How strange are these facts!" he cries. "How simply are these facts explained on the view of an occasional cross with a distinct individual being advantageous or indispensable!"

"Diversify your genetic portfolio" would be another way of saying it. You never know which traits could prove useful as conditions change. Darwin even goes out of his way to warn against meddling, The danger, as he sees it, is the fallibility of the human eye, our inability to comprehend complexity. Traits that might seem "abhorrent to our ideas of fitness" could actually be beneficial to a species or ecosystem, or could, in time, become beneficial as conditions change. It was that ungainly neck that gave the giraffe an edge over its competitors, the seeming deadweight of blubber that allowed the seal to thrive in the advancing cold, the divergent human brain that might hold the key to inventions, discoveries, and revolutions that the majority is unable to fathom. "Man can act only on external and visible characters; nature cares nothing for appearances. . . . She can act on every internal organ, on every shade of constitutional difference, on the whole machinery of life." 

Consider the case of the cyanobacteria. A tiny green speck in the sea, so insignificant to the human eye that for centuries we didn't even have a name for it. Until one day in the 1980s when scientists accidentally discovered it was producing a significant portion of the oxygen we breathe. Now we revere it, this tiny green speck, Prochlorococcus marinus; we fight to protect it. This was the kind of scenario Darwin prophesied. Why he warned, so unambiguously, against attempting to rank Earth's bounty: "Which group will prevail, no man can predict." 

And this wariness, this humility, this reverence for an ecological complexity that defies human comprehension is, in fact, a very old idea. It's a basic philosophical concept sometimes called the "dandelion principle": in some contexts a dandelion might be considered a weed to be culled; in others, it's a valuable medicinal herb to be cultivated. 

The eugenicists failed to consider this very simple principle of relativity. By trying to cull the gene pool of its "indispensable" variety, they were in fact foiling their very best shot of building a master race. (pp. 133-35)

***

I had been fashioning myself after a villain, after all. (p. 143)

***

"I just wish he had considered what Oliver Cromwell once said," Luther Spoehr told me on the phone one June morning, as he tried to make sense of this man he had studied for so many years. "I beseech thee in the bowels of Christ, consider that thee might be mistaken.'" 

"Are you saying you wish he had more doubt?" I asked. 

"Yup." 

But he didn't. Despite his prophet's warning that "science, generally, hates beliefs"—David held fast to this idea of a ladder. He clung to it, in the face of waves of counterevidence that should have eventually eroded it. 

When Darwin came along, debunking the idea of a divine plan, David accepted that Earth's creatures had come about accidentally. But he somehow found a way to preserve the idea of a hierarchy of perfection. He told himself that time, not God, had forged its shape—the slow tick of time forming fitter, more intelligent, more morally advanced forms of life. 

When he encountered the growing chorus of opposition to his eugenics agenda, when judges and lawyers and governors began trying to overturn eugenic laws, he wrote them off as sentimental, unscientific. When scientists began to question eugenics, to point out all its shoddy assumptions about the heritability of morality, about the concept of degeneration, he questioned their courage, their commitment to the cause of bettering society. 

But perhaps the most damning argument came from nature herself. Had David followed his own advice to look to nature for truth, he would have seen it. This dazzling, feathery, squawking, gurgling mound of counterevidence. Animals can outperform humans on nearly every measure supposedly associated with our superiority. There are crows that have better memories than us, chimps with better pattern-recognition skills, ants that rescue their wounded, and blood flukes with higher rates of monogamy. When you actually examine the range of life on Earth, it takes a lot of acrobatics to sort it into a single hierarchy with humans at the top. We don't have the biggest brain or the best memory. We're not the fastest or the strongest or the most prolific. We're not the only ones that mate for life, that show altruism, use tools, language. We don't have the most copies of genes in circulation. We aren't even the newest creation on the block. 

This was what Darwin was trying so hard to get his readers to see. There is no ladder. Natura non facit saltunt, he cries in his scientist's tongue. There are no "jumps." The rungs we see are figments of our imagination, more about "convenience” than truth. To Darwin, a parasite was not an abomination but a marvel. A case of extraordinary adaptability. The sheer range of creatures in existence, great and small, feathered and glowing, goitered and smooth, was proof that there are endless ways of surviving and thriving in this world. 

So why was David unable to see it? This mountain of counterevidence stacked up against his faith in a ladder. Why would he protect it, this arbitrary belief about how plants and creatures should be arranged? When challenged, why would he only double down and use it to justify such violent measures? 

Perhaps because his belief gave him something more important than truth. 

Not just that first spark of purpose as a young man on Penikese, not just a career and a cause and a wife and a cushy life. But something even more profound. A way of turning that roiling morass, of the sea, of the stars, of his dizzying life, into clear, shining order. 

To let go, at any point—from his first read of Darwin to his last push for eugenics—would have been to invite a return to vertigo. He would have been transported back to being that lost little boy, shaking before a world that had just taken his brother. A terrified child, powerless before the world, with no way of understanding or controlling it. To let go of that hierarchy would be to release a tornado of life, beetles and hawks and bacteria and sharks, swirling high into the air, all around him, above him. 

It would have been too disorienting. 

It would have been Chaos.

It would have been—

—the very same vision of the world I myself had been fighting so hard not to look at ever since I was a little girl. That sense of falling off the edge of the world, plummeting alongside ants and stars, with no purpose or point. Of glimpsing the glaring, relentless truth so clear from inside the swirl of Chaos. You don’t matter.

That’s what the ladder offered David. An antidote. A foothold. The lovely, warm feeling of significance.

In that light, I could understand why he clung to it so tightly, this vision of a natural order. Why he protected it so ferociously—against morality, against reason, against truth. Even as I despised him for it, on some level I craved the very same thing. (pp. 145-47)

***

And that’s when it hit me. That it was not a lie to say that Anna matters. Or that Mary matters. Or that—hold on to your seat—you matter, Reader.

It wasn’t a lie to say so, but a more accurate way of seeing nature.

It was the dandelion principle!

To some people a dandelion might look like a weed, but to others that same plant can be so much more. To an herbalist, it’s a medicine—a way of detoxifying the liver, clearing the skin, and strengthening the eyes. To a painter, it’s a pigment; to a hippie, a crown; a child, a wish. To a butterfly, it’s sustenance; to a bee, a mating bed; to an ant, one point in a vast olfactory atlas.

And so it must be with humans, with us. From the perspective of the stars or infinity or some eugenic dream of perfection, sure, one human life might not seem to matter. It might be a speck on a speck on a speck, soon gone. But that was just one of infinite perspectives. From the perspective of an apartment in Lynchburg, Virginia, that very same human could be so much more. A stand-in mother. A source of laughter. A way of surviving one’s darkest years.

This was what Darwin was trying so hard to get his readers to see: that there is never just one way of ranking nature’s organisms. To get stuck on a single hierarchy is to miss the bigger picture, the messy truth of nature, the “whole machinery of life.” The work of good science is to try to peer beyond the “convenient” lines we draw over nature. To peer beyond intuition, where something wilder lives. To know that in every organism at which you gaze, there is complexity you will never comprehend.

As I kept driving, I pictured all the dandelions in the whole wide world nodding their heads in unison at me finally getting it, waving beyond my wheels, shaking their yellow pom-poms, cheering me on. At long last, I had found it, a retort to my father. We matter, we matter. In tangible, concrete ways human beings matter to this planet, to society, to one another. It was not a lie to say so. Not a sappy cop-out or a sin. It was Darwin’s creed! It was, conversely, a lie to say only that we didn’t matter and keep it at that. That was too gloomy. Too rigid. Too shortsighted. Dirtiest word of all: unscientific. (pp. 162-63)

***

. . . . “Fish,” in a certain sense, is a derogatory term. A word we use to hide that complexity, to keep ourselves comfortable, to feel further away from them than we actually are. (p. 181)

***

Now when I l ie in bed next to my emerald-eyed wife, and the gun comes—and it still comes, will probably always still come—I consider its offerings. The relief it could bring. The solution to that day’s stresses and messes I have made. An end to shame.

And then I consider the fish. The fact that fish don’t exist. I picture a silvery fish dissolving in my hand. If fish don’t exist, what else don’t we know about our world? What other truths are waiting behind the lines we draw over nature? What other categories are about to cave in? Could clouds be animate? Who knows. On Neptune, it rains diamonds; it really does. Scientists figured that out just a few years ago. The longer we examine our world, the stranger it proves to be. Perhaps there will be a mother waiting inside a person deemed unfit. Perhaps there will be medicine inside a weed. Salvation inside the kind of person you had discounted. 

When I give up the fish, I get, at long last, that thing I had been searching for: a mantra, a trick, a prescription for hope. I get the promise that there are good things in store. Not because I deserve them. Not because I worked for them. But because they are as much a part of Chaos as destruction and loss. Life, the flip side of death. Growth, of rot. 

The best way of ensuring that you don't miss them, these gifts, the trick that has helped me squint at the bleakness and see them more clearly, is to admit, with every breath, that you have no idea what you are looking at. To examine each object in the avalanche of Chaos with curiosity, with doubt. Is this storm a bummer? Maybe it's a chance to get the streets to yourself, to be licked by raindrops, to reset. Is this party as boring as I assume it will be? Maybe there will be a friend waiting, with a cigarette in her mouth, by the back door of the dance floor, who will laugh with you for years to come, who will transmute your shame to belonging.

I am not saying I'm always so good at looking at the world in this way. I cling to my certainty—teddy bear that it is—and my grudges stay intact; my fear stays charged, the earth flat. But then I read a news article about, say, a new organ discovered in the human body called the "interstitium." There all along but somehow missed by millennia of humans. And the world cracks open a bit. I am reminded to do as Darwin did: to wonder about the reality waiting behind our assumptions. Perhaps that unsightly bacteria is producing the oxygen you need to breathe. Perhaps that heartbreak will prove to be a gift, the hard edge off which you reluctantly bounce to find a better match. Perhaps even your dreams need examining. Perhaps even your hope . . . needs some doubt. (pp. 190-92)

[nico-nightingale]

Summary: Following an accident that involved her beloved younger sister, the crown princess of Arendelle grew to believe she was born cursed. At her eleventh birthday, however, she receives the visit of a man in strange robes, who invites her to study at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. This story follows Elsa's life in Hogwarts as she discovers that magic is no curse and starts learning how to love herself.

Rating: T (ages 13 and up)

Also found on: FF.net, AO3, Wattpad

Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling. Frozen belongs to Disney. The cover photo belongs to Nico Benedickt and the font belongs to Naharstd.

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Chapter I: The Welcoming Hat

When, on her eleventh birthday, the crown princess of Arendelle walked into the throne room to discover an elderly man standing in front of her parents, she hadn't thought much of it. Although he was dressing in strange robes and wearing the longest beard Elsa had ever seen in her life, a great number of eccentric characters often came to see the King and Queen. As they had been speaking in English, the girl first regarded him as an ambassador.

However, when the man, Albus Dumbledore, turned to look at her for the first time, Elsa knew right away that she had been wrong. There was something in his eyes—something magical—and, trying to decipher it, the girl barely listened to his very first words to her, much to her parents' exasperation. “You are a witch,” he repeated, much to the princess' astonishment, and proceeded to tell her about how she got a place in his school of magic, located in Scotland.

Elsa was, perhaps, the only muggle-born in Hogwarts at that time who had tried to reject the invitation. All the stories she had heard from other students told her astonishment was a rather common feeling at the discovery of a magical world just within their grasp, but it was always followed by wonder and joy. The princess of Arendelle, however, felt only shame and disgust; ever since the accident, three years prior, she had decided she wants nothing to do with magic.

If it weren't her parents, she would have never set her feet on the castle. Upset about her response and eager to have someone teaching her how to control her magic, they were adamant about her enrollment in Hogwarts. It was the answer to their prays, her father had told her. They were lucky that Dumbledore had taken notice on her, considering that Arendelle was far from the school's territory and foreign students were rare enough in there even among magical families. 

Helpless against her parents' demand, Elsa had seen no option but to do as she was told. The girl didn't doubt that she would soon be back, however. Her parents' advisors—clueless about her magic and the nature of Hogwarts—were outraged by the notion of sending their young crown princess to a foreign school when they had very good schools and tutors within the kingdom. They were still to find a law that allowed them to interfere with Elsa's education in that particular situation, but the girl had no doubt they would soon figure out a way to bring her back.

“Why are you so against it?” Her mother asked her once with a frown; neither she nor the king could understand the reason Elsa wasn't excited about meeting boys and girls who were just as magical as she was. The girl, however, just shrugged. The thought of nurturing the exact thing that had her little sister, the person she loved more than life itself, almost killed was incomprehensible to her; she would much rather eradicate it.  

Elsa couldn't understand why her parents were in favor of the study of magic when it had brought them nothing but sorrow. She still remembered the deep concern and sorrow in her mother's eyes as the royal family stood in front of the trolls, praying that they would be able to help Anna. The crown princess had never seen her bubbly five-year-old sister so still, frail, cold. No, the only knowledge Elsa wished to acquire at that point was how to get rid of her magic.

Anna. As the girl entered the grand entrance doors of the castle, it was all she could think about. She would love it here. Because the younger princess had adored magic from the day she was born. Elsa was only three years old by then, but she would never forget the wonder in her sister's eyes when she looked at the tiny snowflakes the girl had created just for her. 

Yes, Anna would have loved studying at Hogwarts. She would have appreciated every single one of Elsa's school books; not only the content in each chapter, but its entire craft. The dim light of the candles—because there seemed to be no place for electricity in the school—wouldn't have been intimidating at all, she would have thought of them as an invitation to an adventure. And the moving and talking paintings— if Anna was indeed an art enthusiast, like her tutor and her parents had told her, Elsa was sure she would be beyond words if she set her eyes on them. 

While the other students seemed to grow unease and excited as they approached the teachers' table and stopped in front of a singing hat, Elsa was deep in her thoughts. She had to stop herself from giggling at the thought of Anna's reaction to the great hall, a place that screamed “magic” more than anything she had ever done in her life. Perhaps, the girl mused, she could send a letter to her sister telling her everything about Hogwarts. Perhaps—

“Kyrre, Elsa!” Startled, the crown princess looked at the stern-looking teacher she thought to be called Professor McGonagall. Elsa could sense in the tone of her voice that this hadn't been the first time the woman had called her, much to her embarrassment. Being a good multitasker, there weren't many occasions she had been caught not paying attention to a teacher. 

The problem, and she knew it would come back to bite her again, was the name. Technically, she had been named Elsa Iduna Solveig Kyrre, but people had always called her either “your royal highness”, “princess” or simply “Elsa”. Therefore, even though her father had warned her that would be the name they would be using, the girl couldn't help but being irresponsible when referred to as Miss Elsa Kyrre. No matter how much she rehearsed it in her head, it would be a problem.

However, as the hat covered her eyes, shielding her from the view of the giggling faces of the other students, such thoughts vanished immediately. “Ah! What do we have here?” A voice—the hat's voice—whispered in her head. This time, was she the only one listening? “Quite an interesting mind, I see—” A dreadful thought popped into Elsa's mind: if the hat could read her mind, it would be able to see and tell others about her mistake, her shame. The girl gulped, vær så snill, ikke fortell noen— jeg mener— please, don't tell anyone! God, please! “A worrier, huh?” 

A pause followed as the hat seemed to contemplate, and Elsa felt the cold slipping from the tip of her fingers to the cloth of her white gloves. She swallowed hard once again, trying to control her magic. Please, don't tell— “a hat never tells,” the girl's erratic thoughts were suddenly interrupted by the amused response; “now, where should I put you?” Once again, it seemed to be contemplating her. “What a mind! And in all these centuries— I have rarely seen such raw talent! In Ravenclaw, you shall find your equals. However— such extreme beliefs for a young mind. No, I believe—”

Another pause. Elsa wondered how long has it passed since the hat was first placed in her head. It mustn't be too long, otherwise, people would become agitated. Wouldn't they? “I can see wit, strong loyalty and the burning desire to succeed. Perhaps— you might find kinship in Slytherin.” For a reason, the hat didn't seem too sure, and the girl had a hint on the true reason. While she didn't want to attend Hogwarts, the crown princess knew better than going with no knowledge of the place. The chapter about the house of Slytherin in “Hogwarts, a History” told her about its founder's firm belief that no muggle-born should be taught magic in Hogwarts. The hat would know better than placing one there, right?

“That leaves us— HUFFLEPUFF!” The last word came out louder than the previous and Elsa took a few seconds to realize the other students were clapping, which meant she had been sorted. Hufflepuff— a warm feeling filled her chest at the remembrance of an excerpt in “Hogwarts, a History” about the house. 

Hufflepuff is, perhaps, the most misunderstood of the Hogwarts houses in the modern age. Designed by the Welsh witch Helga Hufflepuff during the earliest days of the school's foundation, the house acquired the reputation of forming weak and dull wizards and witches because of its overall approval of students regarding their background or personal skills. 

Helga Hufflepuff valued fairness and loyalty, which she aspired to teach the new witches or wizards. Her lessons have been passed from generation to generation of Hufflepuff students, strong enough to create a tradition of acceptance, honesty, kindness, and communion within the house. To this day, it has produced the lowest number of dark wizards and witches of all the four houses of Hogwarts.

Elsa didn't feel particularly accepting or kind at that moment, but the judgment of something—or someone—that could see the darkest corners of her mind filled her with joy like she hadn't experienced in many years. Besides, if Hufflepuff didn't bring up as many dark witches and wizards as the other houses, perhaps there was hope for her magic, for herself. Perhaps she wasn't so bad, after all.

With a smile of relief on her lips, Elsa carefully took off the hat and placed it back on the stool she had been sitting. After a glance through the hall, the girl walked towards the closest table on her left, where the applauds were coming from. For once, being at Hogwarts didn't seem too bad; too far to hurt her sister and surrounded by people who knew about her magic, things might turn out fine.

[footbaliimagines]

cynical (a calum chambers imagine)

Summary: love at first sight is all well and good if you believe in that kind of thing; Calum realises he’s a massive cynic- until he meets her

Calum never used to believe in love at first sight. In fact, he dismissed it as a pile of shit. A colossal, steaming pile of shit designed to sell romantic comedies and cheesy Valentine’s day gifts and false, unrealistic, unattainable promises. 

But when she walked in, shook his hand, smiled at him and introduced herself, he knew, deep down, that he was somewhat screwed. And whenever her jumper slipped down her shoulder as she moved and revealed an inch of her skin, or her scent of her perfume drifted over in his direction, he realised he wasn’t screwed, but fucked. Absolutely, utterly and royally fucked.

 "You’ll like her, I promise.“ Hector had stated after telling him her name, with a self-assured nod.

He’d shrugged it off and sipped his beer instead of replying, beads of condensation from the glass wetting his fingers. He was a footballer, for God’s sake. He met lots of pretty girls, and had come to realise that it was just part of the job. 

Often, girls would fancy him, and make the first move, and Calum, similar to the majority of twenty-something year old men, would go along with it. A few dates, probably a lot of sex, a few photos that would definitely turn up on their Instagram months after their fling had fizzled out, and then eventually a chat in which Calum would discover that they had different priorities. They wanted a relationship, he didn’t. They wanted commitment, he couldn’t give it to them. They wanted Arsenal season tickets and the chance to gain a few thousand Instagram followers, he realised he’d rather just stay at home and play FIFA.

Tiring and repetitive, like an endlessly recurring cycle. 

"She’s funny. And smart! Like seriously smart.” Hector had added, nonchalantly. 

And then he went off on one about Scarlett again, his new girlfriend, for the tenth time in the space of approximately twenty minutes, Calum noted. He told him that when she smiled, he felt like the sun was blinding him, and that whenever he saw her, a feeling of complete and utter calmness washed over him. To Calum, number one cynic and the ever-present voice of reason when it came to love, this was just meaningless drabble. Hector had fallen for a girl far too quickly, things would inevitably turn sour and it would all end in tears in a few weeks. As per usual.

“Scarlett is the most beautiful woman on the entire planet, probably. And the funniest too.” Hector rambled. “She’s the one, I’m telling you." 

Calum couldn’t stop himself from choking on his beer. "Fucking hell mate, calm down. It’s been, what, 4 months?”

“Whatever. You’re just cynical. Ever since you and Becca broke up-”

“Please don’t,” Calum groaned and winced, leaning forward on the table and resting his forehead on his palms.

“Sorry, sorry.” he shrugged. “Anyway-” he deliberately dragged out his words. “I can’t wait for you to meet my Scarlett. And- don’t argue- I can’t wait for you to meet someone as right for you as she is for me.”

“I can’t wait to get tonight over and done with so I can go home and watch Game of Thrones instead.”

“I can’t wait to prove you wrong.”

“Fuck off, mate.”

That exchange had taken place fifteen minutes ago. Now, he was sat opposite a girl whose smile lit up the entire bar and whose presence left him giddy. Calum looked across the table at her, at the way her eyes were crinkling up at a shitty joke Hector told and a dimple formed on her right cheek, and felt a weird feeling pass through him- a bizarre mixture of excitement and calmness.

 (As well as an ember of annoyance when he realised that he totally owed Hector an apology for mocking his declarations of romance and belief in love at first sight).

It was a strange feeling. That was one thing that Calum could agree on, as his head spun a million miles an hour.

(And though it made him extremely dizzy, and he was pretty sure that if she smiled at him like that one more time he would fall backwards off his chair, it was a feeling he didn’t feel like getting rid of just yet).

“So, did you watch the game at the weekend?” He had to play it safe. Had to go for the usual, fool proof first line he would use to woo a girl, make sure that he impressed from the get-go so that when he would undoubtedly get flustered and trip up on his words in a few minutes he had something to fall back on.

“I did. You got seriously lucky with that penalty, and I hope the result gives you a kick up the arse because something clearly needs reworking and I’m not sure if anyone has any clue what it is.”

His face falls, he sees Scarlett laugh and Hector roll his eyes, and then he quirks his eyebrow at her in amusement. “Not an Arsenal fan, I gather?”

“Spurs born and bred.”

“Ah. Makes sense.”

“I think you’re dead good, though. Just because I’m a Spurs fan doesn’t mean I’m entirely delusional.”

She’s smiling at him with a teasing glint in her eyes, giving him a hard time with funny little sarcastic comments and not caring at all about trying to impress him. It makes him all the more intrigued; it’s rare that he would meet a girl who wouldn’t simply bat their eyelashes at him and laugh at his (often crap) jokes in an attempt to spend take him home.

Not only that, but she’s funny and confident and her wit is quicker than he knew was possible. She even likes the Kooks.

“How can you say you support Spurs and then claim you’re not delusional in the same sentence?” Hector pipes up.

“Oh, Mr Bellerin, how funny you are.” She rolled her eyes before her straight face faltered and returned to the grin that had sent Calum reeling.

“Play nice.” Scarlett chides.

“Don’t make me play nice with your boyfriend when he’s being a dick to me.” She fires back, before elbowing Hector and crossing her arms in a huff. “I’m the reason you guys met in the first place, Hec. Don’t be a twat or I’ll make her dump you.”

“And I don’t want you coming to my house in the middle of the night crying, so on behalf of my sanity and well being, please stop.” Calum jokes and she laughs, louder this time, and it rings like a symphony to his ears.

It’s carefree and light and melodic, better than any of that Mozart’s shoddy work that he’d been forced to play on the piano as a child, sweeter than Beethoven’s 1st symphony (which he found out was her favourite symphony of his.) and more addictive than Chance the Rapper’s new album (which he truly believed was the greatest album of the 21st century.) 

The night goes by quickly (far too quickly, for Calum’s liking) and before the barman had even shouted last call, Hector and Scarlett had quickly word vomited out hasty goodbyes and capered off out the back door. “I should probably get going, too.” She glanced down at her watch and frowned, picking up her handbag.

“Yeah, same.” He scrambles to his feet and waits for her to stand up before walking with her to the door of the pub.

It’s a lot cooler outside and there’s a breeze causing her hair to fly manically around her face, strands (that Calum desperately wants to reach over and tuck behind her ear) falling loose from her messy ponytail. “I’m just going to wait for a taxi.” She says, as he offers his arm to her and she takes it with a small smile as they begin to walk down the street.

He’s pretty sure that the feeling of her hand hooked into the crook of his elbow is the greatest feeling on the planet. Better, he found himself thinking, than anything that could take ever place on a football pitch. Than scoring a penalty in a World Cup final, than lifting the Premier League trophy in front of tens of thousands of loyal supporters, than making a goal line clearance.

And his jacket hanging off her shoulders, doing a pretty shitty job of protecting her against the wind, was also a pretty great sight.

(Plus, if better views existed, Calum certainly hadn’t seen them.) 

“You know, I’m pretty sure Hector was trying to set us up.” She states, breaking the silence.

Feeling his hands grow sweaty, he croaked out a nervous, “Yeah?”

He feels her nod beside him. “Didn’t do a bad job, for once. Better than last time, when he tried to set me up with some Brazilian guy from his team despite knowing that I can’t speak a single word of Portuguese. It was a very long night.”

“Hector’s like that.” He chuckles. “Bit of a sop. A hopeless romantic”

“I can’t be arsed with that. I mean, I’m happy for him and Scarlett and everything- but she’s told me they’ve discussed marriage and it makes me feel a bit nauseous. I mean, I don’t even own my own kettle and there they are making these big decisions at 21 years old.”

He can’t think of anything to say in response and nods instead, and while he wishes he could come up with some witty or smart or insightful comment to elicit a smile or a laugh he’s pretty sure she just wants him to listen. “I know what you mean.”

She proceeds to ask him if he believes in love at first sight, and to his immense surprise, he finds himself nodding confidently. She laughs in his face. "God, you’re delusional.” she teased, laughing that pretty laugh of hers that Calum found himself getting hooked on, again and again.

“Ah, I would say romantic, but you do you.”

She scoffed. “I’m plenty romantic. Super into grand gestures and soppy films and all that. Doesn’t mean I’m dippy enough to believe in love at first sight.”

“Oh, so cynical.”

“That’s precisely how Hector described me to you, as a matter of fact.” She muses, as a cab pulls up at the curb beside her. “I guess I’ll be off then.”

(Maybe he’s reading the situation completely wrong, or he could be looking at everything through pretty hazy rose tinted glasses, but he’s pretty sure he can detect a hint of disappointment in her voice.)

He unlinks their arms and the sudden gap between them feels like it could separate continents.

“Thank you for tonight, Calum. I had a lovely night.” She flits her gaze between the cab, pavement and his face, smiling up at him. “You’re so lovely.”

He feels himself turning beetroot red. “So are you. Lovely.”

Calum kicks himself for coming out with such an infantile response, wanting to vocalise his blossoming feelings for her more succintly (fucking hell, anything would be better than sounding like a 8-year-old and calling her ‘lovely’, he thinks, as if that word would do her justice) but she’s grinning again regardless and the next thing he knows, she’s on her tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek. 

And he’s stunned, paralysed for a moment and unable to think straight or put 2 and 2 together. It takes him a good few seconds to register the fact that oh god, her hair smells like vanilla and coconut and when she reached up her hand rested against his chest and surely if her lips felt that good on his cheek, they would feel even better on his lips, right?

“You better call me.” She leans back in her cab seat, going on to rattle off her address to the driver before leaning back to look at him through the open window.. “I’ll hopefully see you soon?”

He doesn’t tell her that he would quite literally jump into the Thames in the middle of January in his underwear if it meant he could see her again. “Definitely.” He nods quickly. “Goodnight.”

“Night.”

And as quickly as he had fell for her she was gone again, her cab whizzing off down the street and leaving Calum stood alone, a wide grin plastered on his face, reeling and approximately ten degrees colder than usual thanks to the fact that she had taken off with his jacket still swaddled around her shoulders.

Calum realised he had mocked Hector for the exact same thing he was currently experiencing, and for once, despite his usual stubbornness, didn’t give a shit in the slightest.

(Cynical, he thought, thinking back to what Hector had called him earlier. Cynical my arse.)

A.N.: I know I said I wanted to work through some of my requests but I just love calum sooooo much and was itching to write something else about him considering how great the feedback was last time on ‘the first time’ (what a mouthful)

(also I know I mentioned calum being at arsenal despite him being on loan at boro but lets just look over that. and the stuff about arsenal needing reworking was bullshit so pls dont read into it i just needed the character to show that she was a spurs fan lol) please carry on sending requests and I really hope you liked this because I spent quite a lot of time on it and I think it’s my fave imagine so far :+) xxx

[accidentaldeath3-blog]

Masturbate and Feel Good

Masturbate and Feel Good

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[myj0k3r123-blog]

Masturbate and Feel Good

Masturbate and Feel Good

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Fleshlight offers absolutely no impact on how the penis appears.