#but not everyone can afford to and that's okay!!! i believe in full and equal access amongst us all

[astrovian]

if you user t/rrent there’s been a dual audio version of the man from rome out since september and the image quality is better than youtube

Thanks for the tip, anon!

I do just want to point out something though - we absolutely should be paying for RA's content where possible

Now, don't get the wrong idea that I'm preaching from up on a high horse because trust me, I have streamed (and still do) so many things in my life that may have come from uh... let's say, more *dubious* sites

Accessibility to content is a real issue for a number of us, especially because RA tends to do a lot of UK/European-centric releases. Here in NZ we can have *so many* paid subscriptions to legal streaming services and still not be able to access modern mainstream content that places like the UK & US take access to for granted

So look - I get it. I actually actively encourage it 99% of the time

But bear with me for a second:

I know it's obvious, but I think it bears repeating that paying for RA's content is the number one way we can say directly to film creators - "yes, we want you to cast RA in more things!!" and also allows us to directly tell RA - "yes, we do want to see you do more things and continue on like you are!!!"

It's that old stupid phrase that I hate for being so true: money talks

And that idea of talking with our money directly to Richard is particularly important to keep in mind, more so now than ever I think, as we look ahead to the next few years, and also back at the past few years of RA's works

I mean, look at the main types of works RA has been producing in recent years:

a) Netflix-heavy content (where most of us have subscriptions that are not solely dependent on him being in their shows)

b) Smaller, more niche productions & film markets (e.g. though maybe a bad example because it's also a Netflix film, we know for a fact RA took a pay cut to shoot Space Sweepers because he liked the idea of the film, but the film itself was intended really for more of the Korean market than the Western one) - not necessarily Hollywood blockbusters

c) Audiobook narrations & voice-over work

Combine that with the fact that he's very explicitly said that his focus for the coming years is on his fledgling writing and producing careers which he's been setting up, and I sadly do think that the time when we see him less and less on-screen is coming much sooner than any of us would really like to admit

(and I mean that in a "I'm happy for you RA for following your current passions but also depressed at the thought because I want you to continue in front of the camera for as long as you can" kind of way)

I'm not saying that I think he'll give acting up for good anytime soon (he's not THAT old, despite his complaints and talk of self-retirement 🙄) but I think it's incredibly naive for all of us to not see the writing on the wall in terms of the direction he actively wants (and is working hard to ensure!!) his career is moving in - and in particular, what that means for his on-camera career

My prediction is that we will see his narrative, writing, and producing works increase in volume and they will take over the majority of his time in coming years - we'll only get the occasional film/show from him compared to the bounty he's blessed us with in the past (keep in mind I am also really talking big, big picture here)

Which will be a bittersweet moment for us because I think we're all so happy he's following what he wants but also so sad his new acting jaunts will be less frequent for us to consume (note how I'm not suggesting he will stop acting in film/TV altogether)

((and I would could write a freaking novel on why I think he's seemingly a bit obsessed with this idea of self-retiring and getting old as an actor but that is a story for another time maybe!!!))

BUT ANYWAY, as dumb and as obvious as it is, what I'm saying is that paying for RA's new shows/films is the number one way we can get the message across to him that despite these exciting new paths that he's gonna wander down (and we will be following him down!), we still want to see him exercise his acting muscles as much as he's willing to for us!!

So, by all means, t/rrent & stream where you need to - heaven knows I do. Do it if you need or want access to his work ASAP and that's the only way you can get it. Do it if it hasn't been released in your country & don't feel guilty for it

All I'm saying is - if you are blessed with an avenue to pay for one of his works, and if you have some spare dollars at the end of a paycheck - please, please, please do so

Stream it illegally, then ALSO go buy the DVD. T/rrent it then ALSO buy it from Apple or Google Play. Stream and t/rrent it and then ALSO go see it in the cinema. Or do all of them if you really can afford to!!!

Paying to see RA's films/shows is the number one way we can ensure he makes more room in his life for future acting gigs while he also focuses on wandering down new exciting chapters in his career

[thetwelfthcrow]

Sorry that ask sent early! Also, people can be part of an industry their whole lives and have completely different perspectives than others. People can go decades believing something and then be shocked that their experience is an extremely limited one. And we know that F1 and single seater motor sports in general (and all motor sports really) are very traditional. They haven’t had the shift that some other sports have had. So it would not be surprising that a man who is the son of a former F1 driver has a very limited view even though he’s been part of that world his whole life. Especially because we have a bit of an idea about what kind of father Jos is and what kind of person he is. Despite his mother’s karting success, it wouldn’t be surprising if Max hasn’t ever had to actually learn about the institutional issues in racing and how female experiences differ greatly from male ones.

Especially since we do have women sharing their experiences and we have other F1 drivers that do (indirectly) disagree with Max. Anyway I love Max and I believe that he has the ability to really be a leader (we already see so much of it) and I hope that I get to see change in him over the next few years.

I’m really sorry about ranting in you ask box! This was not supposed to go on for this long.

(part 1) / (context) / (context)

apologies for the delay in my answer!

so yeah 1) people can be in a certain field their whole life and still be fucking wrong about things (or, the politer version: have different opinions about things).

2) people can be in a certain field their whole life and still know nothing. i doubt anyone on the grid can relate to the experiences that lewis has had, always being one of the few, or the only one, black guy in the field. someone like max can live and breathe racing from the moment he was in diapers and still have no clue what lewis went through.

3) adding to that, someone like max whose dad always had the money and time to help him out with his racing career and teach him and drive all around europe to go to karting races will likely not know what it's like when - once again using lewis as an example - there's no money on the plank and someone has to work multiple jobs and deal with the same, poor equipment time after time again bc they can't just afford a new car. all of this is the same point as above; when you've lived a rich childhood, you'll likely not understand these issues

4) similarly, someone who's had a loving childhood with patience and acceptance in the parenting-values will likely not understand the feelings and experiences someone like max could've had when his dad forced him to stay out on track even though his hands were freezing, for starters.

the conclusion of all of the above is: you may be in the same industry, in the same circles, in the same context, but you're all incredibly different human beings with different experiences and you can and can not relate to each other on certain aspects. and that's okay - because that's where empathy comes in.

i don't think max said anything about all of these topics though? i mean, from the quote i've seen, all he says is 'there are less women with racing careers so the chances for them are even smaller' true. 'physically it's tough but women can train for it just as men can' true. 'i don't think team principals are inherently misogynistic' likely very naive, but ok. 'there are less women, but if there was a woman so talented to beat everyone then sure she should get into F1' similarly likely naive, but i suppose it's a nice thought to have.

yes in the quote we've seen (i keep adding this bc i haven't seen the full interview/don't know the question asked/don't know if this is his full answer), he doesn't mention that the path toward motorsport isn't easy for women and that it is likely made so very hard for them every step of the way. he's got a bit of a naive/hopeful/optimistic worldview in that he thinks women get equal chances based on talent, but there's simply less women. he doesn't say anything about the why there's less women in motorsport, but he maybe wasn't asked. he may not have had the space for it. so we don't know his thoughts on that. maybe one day we'll get it, but for now i'd put this in line with what lando's said before about women in motorsport

hope this is coherent lmao i did not sleep a lot

[lunarfly-studios]

Katherine "Kit" Price

Okay so dA's being the usual buggy garbage site it is and won't let me upload this reference sheet there cause the submission page keeps crashing my browser

SO THIS BBY'S GOING HERE FIRST

I haven't organized/structured a reference sheet in YEARS but I'm actually really happy with how this one turned out, especially for one of my favorite characters to draw/write!

Kit would absolutely put "Eat the rich. Yes, that makes me a cannibal" on a t-shirt, and I appreciate that kind of energy.

She was conceived as both a counterbalance to the corrupt business and political climate present in Biker Mice From Mars while also giving the main cast a broader breadth of resources and putting them on a somewhat more even playing field with Limburger (considering I write him to be a way more calculating threat than he was in the show).

Plus it helps greatly expand the potential for slice-of-life stories as well as major conflicts if they can access for exclusive places or travel anywhere in the world without much hassle.

She's an ally that plays ball in Limburger's court while everyone else is outside throwing rocks and Maltov cocktails at the stadium if that makes sense. It definitely pays to have someone on your side who can afford a lawyer to keep your rebel vigilante tail out of prison.

She's just out here doin' her best to help as many people as possible, send aid, her imposter's syndrome is astronomical

~~~

Basic Introductory Info about her:

Full Name: Katherine Guinevere Price

Honorifics:

Lady or Marquess (On Venus)

Mx. or Ms. (on Earth; Mx. is by default, and she's very selective with Ms.)

Master/Madam (Li only. He uses them pretty interchangeably. Master is pretty general, but Madam is generally when she's getting on his nerves or when he very urgently needs to get her attention.)

Nicknames: Kit, Kitten, Kitkat, Princess, Katie

Aliases:

Kit's someone who tries very hard to keep her work and personal life separate. In the public sphere, she goes by the name Kathleen Victoria Moon.

LunarLight99 is her online gaming handle and her handle on most of her non-work-related social media platforms and personal e-mail.

K.V.Moonlight is her handle on her work-related platforms and her work e-mail.

As a fiction writer, she operates under the pen name Cordilea Rosewood.

Titles:

Chief Executive Officer and Executive Chairman of Lunarlight Enterprises

Co-Owner of LunarTech Industries (With her father, Cedar Price)

Founder of the Iridescent Youth and Wellness Rebahilitation Center

Pronouns: She/They (She is by default in narration. Both are equally acceptable in conversation)

Age: 26-27 Years Old D.O.B: June 20th, 1999

Species: Caucasian/Native American Human / First Colony (Butterfly/Moth) Venusian Kinkaeda

Occupation: Business Magnate, Entrepreneur, Philanthropist, Investor | Fiction Author (mostly just for fun, but it does bring in a small income too)

Economic Class: Billionaire

Personal Summary:

"Wha--No, no, listen. Listen to me. No one buys caviar because it actually tastes good, they buy it to announce to the world 'LOOK AT HOW MUCH MONEY I CAN AFFORD TO THROW AWAY'. And I'm just... not interested in food that doesn't taste good. I'd rather just get Chick-Fil-A and be done with it."

Katherine Price is a creative, compassionate, artistic, and charismatic young woman who achieved great success through unconventional means.

She wasn't born into great wealth, but she didn't work her way up from the bottom either. Her wealth, her position of influence and power, was granted to her as her grandmother's final gift in her will after her death six years ago. After spending her entire life a slave to circumstance, chained by her disabilities and her family's well-intentioned sheltering, she had been granted the tools to lift herself out of poverty. And since then, she made an eternal promise to be the same person for others that her grandmother was for her.

Kit is a firm believer that those with wealth, influence, and power are social leaders with responsibilities to their communities, even if the current sentiment among the wealthy elite feels otherwise, and that those who would horde their wealth like dragons and exploit and trample on the working class for their own benefit have no place in prominent positions of power.

One would think her unending empathy and compassion for the working class would lead to well-intentioned but irresponsible business decisions, but by surrounding herself with accomplished people and utilizing clever, outside-the-box thinking, she's created a business model that created success by putting her workers, consumers, and the public first, and her investors and board of directors second.

She's developed a brand and reputation for herself that's made reception towards her very mixed, in the eyes of the media, the public, and inner elite circles. Some criticize her for her practices being unreasonable, uncompromising, risky, and costly, others admire her for her unbending value in human life above the dollar. Some just can't bring themselves to argue with success, while others are envious of the media attention her controversial decisions generate for her.

Any PR is good PR, but she prefers hers to have positive outcomes. And if nothing else, she's become extremely popular with the younger generation.

Despite all the good she's done, though, Imposter's Syndrome is cruel and unforgiving. None of her success changed her being disabled; suffering Chronic Pain, being autistic, suffering from mental illness, and constantly having to guard her half-alien status from the public. She's created jobs by delegating tasks to those she deems more qualified, but no matter how many lives she's changed and improved, it's never enough. Never enough to justify her obscene wealth.

Despite all the personal freedom and free time and luxuries she has now, in many ways, she still finds herself beholden to others and what she can do for them.

Full Toyhouse Bio (WIP): https://toyhou.se/13050960.bmfm-kit

~~~~~

Katherine Price, Art (c) Me/Lunarlight/QueenFighterfly

Disclaimer: Please do not steal, repost/redistribute, use, edit or trace any of my written or visual works without my written consent.

I also do not consent to my art being taken and utilized for AI training.

I do not post my art on Instagram or Pinterest, so if you find it there, it wasn't me and was posted without my consent or knowledge.

[epicspheal]

Okay, a few weeks back, I posted how the success of someone trying to make a career out of Pokemon training largely depended on starting location and what their financial background looked like. So after thinking about it, you realize that of all of the regions with leagues so far, Galar is actually the fairest league as far as eliminating barriers for trainers to compete. Let's start with the money. We know at least in Pokespe that Rose has made programs in Galar to help poorer trainers get into the gym challenge (which confirms my sad headcanon that many trainers are screwed out of a traditional journey out of socioeconomic states *stares at my Trainersona and her story*). So we know Galar does make an effort to help struggling trainers. Then let's think about the sponsor system (not so much the endorsements as that just seems to be a letter of recognition and that the endorsers seem to not be obligated to give other support). We know you can gain sponsors as you become more well-known on the Galar circuit, which would mean extra monetary support. Then there's the whole starting location thing. I know many people IRL complained about the strict linearity of the gym challenge, but in universe, it makes a lot of sense. By having everyone start off with the same first gym, it's easier to accurately measure skill level. By having the opening ceremony be the send-off place, everyone is literally starting off in the same location Motostoke. That means a trainer from Wyndon isn't burnt out just trying to get to Milo's gym, and it doesn't give the trainer who already lived in Turrfield an unnecessary advantage by just hopping out of bed and mosying down to the gym. Even the fact that the gym is on a schedule helps create equality. The gym challenge is likely chosen at a time when there are no big harvests (therefore not screwing over trainers from Turrfield/Postwick/Wedgehurst who might need to help on the family farm) and when the weather is relatively mild so that trainers from say, Circhester or Wyndon aren't being snowed in and thus maybe having to halt their journeys due to a blizzard. Having a set date for the start (and thus dates for registration and endorsement) gives people the same amount of time to prepare. The watts trading system in the wild area also helps by allowing trainers to passively collect watts and can be used to buy needed Pokeballs and TRs at prices they may not be able to afford with regular money. This helps improve movesets among poorer trainers compared to rich trainers who can buy the expensive TMs from the Pokemon Center Stores early on. Now it doesn't mean Galar's system is perfect. One could argue that the endorsements (not the sponsorships) could still perpetuate class inequality because there's theoretically only a limited number of endorsements per year (as it's not realistic to expect Milo and Nessa to challenge hundreds of trainers per year in a small timeframe) and that people with more connections are more likely to rub elbows with people who could give them an endorsement. And again still coming from a rich family may give you a leg up by having Pokemon bred for you or just having extra money to spend on yourself and your Pokemon. But still, I believe the Galarian gym system sets up the fairest gym challenge for its trainer by actively attempting to reduce barriers that prevent sizable chunks of the trainer population from reaching their full potential.

[gossip-girl-of-middleearth]

The Wrong Kind of Stardust (Legolas x Reader)

Synopsis: After taking Legolas, your partner, to visit your “Stardust” addict brother, things get a little chaotic.

A/N: I’ve been thinking about Legolas a lot lately, and one thought that’s recently crossed my mind is “what if Legolas got high on crack?” and my brain ran with the rest. Sometimes you just gotta write about an elf on cocaine.

Warnings: drug abuse, addiction, peer pressure, mentions of sex, a very crazy and over-the-top elf high on Stardust.

Dismounting your respective horses, both you and Legolas dropped to the pine needles below. You had finally arrived at your brother’s secluded cottage in the forest, away from the hustle and bustle of the cities.

“I can’t believe he actually managed to afford a place to live,” you scoffed, thinking of your brother.

He had suffered many years with addiction to “Stardust”—a white powder when once inhaled, made your body react faster and more impulsively than usual.

“Try to be optimistic,” Legolas soothed. He wrapped one arm around your shoulder and kissed your head. “Keep in mind how much you want your older brother at our wedding, and that’ll put things into perspective.”

“Yeah,” you sighed, supposing he was right. “This wouldn’t be the first time Franny lied about ‘being better’, though.”

“No,” Legolas agreed, walking you both forward towards the cottage, arm around your back. “But this is the first time he’s said so upon us getting married in a month.”

The grin he gave you was one brimming in lovesickness, as he studied your eyes.

You arched a brow up at him over his words, knowing exactly how elvish marriages were undertaken, and how you technically already were husband and wife.

Catching your expression, he cleared his throat sheepishly, and responded with, “Well…married formally, at least.”

You rolled your eyes away from him, but couldn’t fight the smile on your face. However, it soon ran away, as you both arrived at the closed front door.

You inhaled tightly, and spoke aloud. “Here we are, I suppose.”

Hearing the premature disappointment in your voice, Legolas looked down his side at you. Grabbing hold of both of your hands, he gazed into your eyes and reassured you.

“Hey,” he lulled, earning your full attention. “It’s all going to be fine, all right? You needn’t worry about your family embarrassing you in front of me, like you mentioned on the road. We’ve talked about this whole ‘prince and commoner’ thing at length. I wouldn’t have…married you if I didn’t know what I was getting myself into.”

Your heart melted and your knees turned to mush, as you smiled up at him—bursting with love.

He returned the look and brought one hand up to cup your cheek. Running a thumb along your cheekbone, he began tilting your head upwards.

Still feeling your stomach flutter after all these years, you eyed him in excitement, before steadily closing your lids.

Right before his lips could brush against yours, however, the door to your brother’s cottage slammed opened.

Jolting away from one another, you both looked at Francis in shock. He looked every bit like you, but taller.

A broad grin was on Francis’ face, as he eyed his sister up.

“Y/n!” he exclaimed, rushing forwards to tackle you into a hug. “I’m so glad you made it! Oh! I haven’t seen you in years! And to think that you’re now getting married! Speaking of which—”

He pulled back from squeezing you blue, to size up Legolas instead. He strutted forwards with a low, manly laugh, and gripped a suddenly rigid and wide-eyed Legolas tight on the shoulders.

“My future brother-in-law!” he exclaimed, quickly pulling the protesting elf into a bear hug. “An elf, AND a prince! I can’t believe how well my sister scored!”

Laughing nervously, Legolas awkwardly wrapped his arms around Francis, patting him on the back. The only person he’d ever truly been skin-to-skin intimate with was you. Everyone else got a closed fist to the chest, or a shoulder clasp.

“It’s wonderful to finally meet you, Francis,” Legolas said, politely.

“Francis?” he exclaimed, pulling back and holding Legolas straight by the shoulders. “Who are you, my mother? Don’t be so formal, your highness! You can just call me ‘Franny’, like Y/n here does!”

He turned to you with a broad grin, and you returned it, though, in a lipped manner. Legolas offered a tight and confused grin back, unsure at the best of times on how to interact with humans. Francis was certainly the most bizarre one he’d met yet.

He almost regretted encouraging you to visit him, but the thought of your nearing wedding day ahead drove him forward, as well as one simple, repetitive thought.

Do it for Y/n.

Do it for Y/n.

Do it for Y/n.

“Well, don’t be strangers now!” Francis pressed on, ushering you both inside. “Can I get you anything to drink? Water? Tea? Moonshine?”

“Tea is fine, Franny,” you said in an almost scolding tone, knowing he shouldn’t drink at all.

As you stepped inside of the home, you inspected every nook and cranny with your eyes—expecting bags of Stardust to be lying around.

However, to your surprise, there were none.

“Tea coming right up!” Franny declared, whisking away to the kitchen. “Please! Make yourselves at home down at the table!”

Legolas thanked him with a smile, and sat you down in a gentlemanly manner, before taking his seat next to you.

Looking around the room, and pleasantly surprised with your brother, you voiced so aloud.

“Wow, Franny, this place actually looks amazing! I’m quite proud of you—it seems as though you’ve really cleaned up your act this time, as opposed to the last occasion.”

“I’m completely clean, sister!” his voice came from the kitchen. You could also hear the whistling of a kettle and the rattling of drawers.

You smiled up at Legolas with excitement in your eyes, as you truly believed your brother. He returned your smile, and offered a brighter one as you spoke.

“I think he’s really done it…should we invite him now?”

“Absolutely,” he encouraged. “Do you want to go get the invitation out of the saddle-bags?”

Nodding resolutely, you stood to your feet. You placed a peck against his lips, before leaving out the door again.

“Make friends with him,” you said, before leaving with a happy skip in your step.

He waved you goodbye, before Francis’ voice caught his attention.

“Y/n! Hey, do you think—oh, where’d she go?”

Legolas looked over his shoulder to find Francis’ head sticking out of the entranceway into the kitchen, as he looked left and right for his sister.

“She’s just stepped outside for a moment,” Legolas answered, politely.

“Oh, thank fuck,” Francis dropped his act, and his expression.

The change in demeanour chased the smile away from Legolas’ face, as he parted his lips in shock up at the man.

“I beg your pardon?” Legolas asked, already on the “what did you just say about my wife?” boat.

“She can be a real nagger sometimes,” Francis explained. He dropped to his knees and pulled a wooden plank out from the floorboards. Underneath, a brown bag of white powder lay.

He fetched it quickly, and came to sit on the couch next to Legolas, but a few feet away. Francis then began pouring a handful out, where he next went onto inhaling some.

“What are you doing?!” Legolas nearly squealed, jumping to his feet, as if a snake was just placed next to him.

“Elevating myself. What’s it look like, elf?” Francis sassed, quirking a brow up at Legolas.

“Are you insane?” the angry side of Legolas emerged. “Y/n just left to retrieve your wedding invitation, and you’re betraying her trust?”

“Relax, would you?” Francis complained, inhaling more of the dust from his hand. “What she doesn’t know won’t kill her.”

“Uh, I’m standing right here,” Legolas pointed out, gesturing to his body.

Looking his brother-in-law up and down, Francis replied, using a very monotonous voice. “Uh, yeah, I can see that. You’re a real stud of a stallion, so what?”

“No, that’s not what I—” Legolas went to defend himself. However, he bit his tongue and pressed both hands together in a praying motion. He brought said hands up to his face, and rested his forehead against them.

Closing his eyes, Legolas took a deep breath of his own.

“Wow, you look really stressed there, my friend,” Franny pointed out, holding the bag up next. “Would you like to try some?”

Jolted back into his senses, Legolas gaped down at the man for a minute in shock, before anger gave way again. “NO, FRANCIS! I WOULD NOT LIKE SOME OF YOUR DRUGS! Y/n will be devastated when she finds out you’re using again! And I encouraged her to give you another chance—I see why she was so against it now.”

The frown and glare of Legolas only deepened, as Franny rose to his feet, squaring up with the slightly taller elf.

“Hey, pal, you have no idea what I’m all about,” he growled, nodding his head in gesture of the elf. “And besides, who are you to judge? You’ve never even tried Stardust before!”

“Oh,” Legolas scoffed, rolling his eyes, “excuse me for having never done drugs before, what a horribly ignorant elf I am.”

“Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it,” Francis urged, holding up a handful to Legolas’ nose. “C’mon, just a little sniff! You’ll feel a lot calmer soon, I promise!”

“No!” Legolas rejected, swatting his hands. “Get that stuff away from me, Francis!”

“C’mon!” Francis drew out, trying to put it underneath Legolas’ dodging nose. “Just a little bit of Stardust won’t hurt you!”

“No, but it’ll hurt Y/n!” he protested, trying to move away from the adamant man.

“Just a little!” he urged again, chasing Legolas, as the elf was backed into a corner.

“No!”

“Yes!”

“NO!”

“YES!”

“I SAID NO!”

“Okay, you know what?” Francis rolled his eyes, now fully having the elf cornered. “Here!”

With one big puff of air, the entire handful of Stardust blew into Legolas’ face, entering his system almost immediately.

Legolas rapidly blinked his eyes open and shut, as he tried to get rid of the dust. The white powder danced between the man and elf in an equal amount, getting both high very quickly.

As the dust fluttered down to the floor, looking as though a bag of flour had just exploded, Legolas stared at his brother-in-law in shock.

“You…” he attempted to say, before he felt the pumping of his heart increase.

“Oh, yes, my friend,” Francis grinned, nodding his head. “You’re in for a good time…”

~

Outside, you had finally found the wedding invitation in your saddle-bag, now heading back on over towards the cottage.

You barely had time to announce your presence again, for the first thing you saw upon re-entering was your brother and husband kneeled on the floor, speaking fast and brooming up…flour?

“I feel like everything’s gonna work out, you know? Because I’m like clockwork!” your brother said, all in one go, to Legolas, as they quickly broomed everything up. “Look how fast I’m cleaning this mess up! Clockwork! I’m moving super-fast! Look at me go!”

Legolas nodded vehemently, and raised one finger to speak over the top of your brother, as they both continued vigorously cleaning the floor.

“Y-You know what’s funny? Can I speak? You know what’s funny?” he began, quick as a whip. “I feel like I should be panicking right now, and I am a little bit, but in a very, very good way—like a good kind of panic, because I feel like I want to die right now, but I also feel very, very good—”

“Hey!” you called, staring at them in confusion. “What on earth are you guys doing?”

“Y/n!” Legolas gasped, shooting to his feet.

Jumping over the couch in a way that made your eyes go wide, Legolas was instantly stood before you.

“I feel amazing!” he revealed, grabbing a chunk of blonde hair either side of his head, and pulling outwards. “LOOK HOW LONG MY HAIR IS! It’s growing out of my head right now—can you believe that? Isn’t that sort of disgusting? Ew, I’ve just made myself feel uncomfortable in my own body—”

Legolas gasped brightly, and met your eyes again. This was where you saw how dilated they were.

“CAN I BORROW YOUR BODY INSTEAD?” he asked, suddenly grabbing your waist. “THAT’S A BRILLIANT IDEA! And I know how to go inside, too, so it’ll all feel much better soon—”

“Are you high on…Stardust?!” you exclaimed, removing his hands from your waist.

Legolas blinked down at you rapidly for a few seconds, before slowly answering.

“No…?”

“I can’t believe it,” you seethed. Pushing past Legolas, you glared down at your laughing brother. “You’re absolutely deplorable, Francis! Don’t even THINK about showing up to the wedding!”

You tore up his invitation, and threw it down onto the ground below. You next began shoving a reluctant Legolas out of the house.

Fortunately, once he felt the pine needles on his feet (he was barefoot, for some reason), he gasped loudly and took off running.

“LOOK HOW GREEN IT IS!” he exclaimed. “HAVE YOU EVER NOTICED HOW GREEN IT IS? THE COLOURS ARE BURSTING RIGHT NOW ALL AROUND ME. I feel as though it’s sort of designed in my honour, you know? As in, nature really understands—SQUIRREL—what my name means.”

You rubbed your temples with a grinding of your teeth, as you watched your husband sprint off to climb a tree, where he beckoned you to join.

Growling, you spoke lowly under your breath.

“This is going to be a long ride home…”

Hearing a strangled yelp, you noticed that Legolas had already fallen out of the tree. You sighed, and began walking over—already knowing your words to be true.

[dakotacrisis]

Cherry Blossoms (2)

Kagami comes to a horrifying realization

Read on AO3

---

One thing Kagami did dislike about spring time was all the pollen in the air. Allergies had hit her hard these past coming weeks. Her eyes were watery, she couldn’t stop sneezing, and there was a persistent tickle in her throat that would not go away. Medicine helped but it didn’t block out everything which was a shame. Especially when Kagami was at home and trying to be quiet around her mother and she had to clear her throat every ten minutes.

She could not afford to be dogged down by allergies today though. In the days that had passed since Kagami had met Marinette, the girl that made Kagami’s world pink, they had gotten closer. Adrien was not joking about how easy it was to want to be Marinette’s friend. She was like a large blooming flower and everyone around her were buzzing bees or fluttering butterflies.

While the stand out feature about Marinette was her overwhelming kindness and positivity Kagami was noticing that there was a lot more to her. Marinette could be a bit of a dork. She made bad jokes just like Adrien and got excited about really mundane stuff. She was also incredibly smart. Not just booksmart, the girl was legitimately very clever. Coming up with new solutions to problems that work spectacularly well. She was a leader but treated everyone as equals when they worked together. She never talked down to someone, even when their ideas were stupid.

Kagami was starting to wonder if Marinette had any faults. She seemed too perfect to be real.

Then came the day that they went out to the pool. While the weather had gotten warmer everyone was impatient to get to warmer weather and summer time. So to chase away the hay fever blues Kagami and her friends had decided to go to the swimming pool at the local gym.

Kagami came out in a conservative red one piece bathing suit that was more practical than pretty. The others came out in full in their own swimming attire. Then Marinette walked into the room and all eyes turned. Kagami breathed out in relief when she saw the large yellow cover up Marinette was wearing. Maybe Marinette was one of those people that just liked to sit at the edge with her feet in the water. That would be the safest option. No need for anyone to have a sudden nose bleed at seeing her in a swimsuit.

Just as Kagami had predicted Marinette sat on the sidelines talking with her friends with her feet in the water. Kagami swam up to her.

“This was a nice idea,” Kagami said, “Getting everyone together to go swimming. Everyone seems to be having a lot of fun.”

“Some more than others,” Marinette giggled and pointed across the pool where Kim was trying to get his girlfriend Ondine on his shoulders for a chicken fight. “They do know that the lifeguard is going to yell at them for that, right?”

“The lifeguard is too busy eyeing up Juleka to notice,” Kagami said.

“Oh geez,” Marinette cupped her hands around her mouth, “She has a girlfriend! Stop ogling! She’s way too young for you anyway!”

Kagami stifled a snort. “Wow, didn’t know you were just gonna yell at him like that. I didn’t think it was possible for you to get mad anyone.”

“Oh my sweet Kagami,” Marinette said, “You don’t know how fired up I can really get. That was tame in comparison.”

“Really?” she smirked, “Didn’t peg you as the hotheaded type. What does it take to get you of all people angry?”

“Having a lack of human decency for one--gimme a second--” she shouted at the lifeguard again, “She’s sixteen, gay, and in the three foot end of the pool! How about you pay attention to the idiots on each other’s shoulders over this way!”

The lifeguard sneered but blew his whistle to get the others to stop.

“Marinette!” Alix whined from atop Ivan’s shoulders, “I was just about to win!”

“Boo!” Kim called, “Marinette’s a rat!”

“Don’t get upset at me because you were being irresponsible.” Marinette called back.

The four teenagers shared a look and as one pulled themselves out of the pool and started making their way towards where Marinette and Kagami were. What were they planning? Marinette seemed to sense what was about to happen and scrambled to her feet.

“Oh no you don’t!” Kim grabbed before she could escape, “Ivan, get her feet!”

Ivan scooped up Marinette’s flailing feet.

“Don’t you dare!” Marinette screeched but there was a playful smile on her face, “Kim, I swear if you throw me in the pool you will live to regret it.”

“I think I can live with that,” he smiled back, “On three. One...two...three!” the boys tossed Marinette into the deep end of the pool in a mass of flailing noodle limbs.

She surfaced again sputtering and coughing as she cleared the water from her nose. Everyone was laughing and having a good time.

“You okay?” Kagami swam over to her.

“I’m fine, they’re just a bunch of jokesters who are going to get their comeuppance one day. You hear me, Kim!”

“I’ll believe it when I see it, girly!” Kim cackled and took off with the others once more.

Marinette pulled herself back out of the water and stripped off her now soaked cover up. Kagami almost had a stroke. Underneath her modesty saving cover up was a black two piece that complimented her petite figure perfectly. Kagami turned away so she couldn’t see her blushing face.

Stop it! Stop getting so flustered! She’s just one girl!

Kagami glanced up and noticed that the pervy life guard that had been ogling Juleka was now looking their way. Was he mad that they called him out on being a creep? No...that wasn’t the face of someone who was angry. She looked back at Marinette who was ringing out her coverup and settling it over a chair to dry.

Not today captain pervert! Kagami climbed out of the pool and threw her towel over Marinette. She looked up at Kagami confused. “Hi there, why did you--”

“That lifeguard needs to get reported or something. His eyes were practically glued to your butt, the pig.” Kagami sneered.

“Gross!” Marinette pulled Kagami’s towel closer, shielding herself from any unwanted attention. “I was thinking about getting in the pool but I really don’t want to now.”

“There’s a hot tub in that room over there that no one is using and the lifeguard can’t see into. Did you wanna go in there for a bit?” Kagami suggested.

“Perfect,” the girls adjourned to the hot tub, all the while glaring daggers at the perverted lifeguard. Kagami was going to report him before they left today. Now safely away from the prying eyes the girls sunk into the steaming, bubbling water with sighs of relief.

“Swimming is well and good but I think there’s something very nice about just being able to lounge like this.” Marinette sunk down in her seat so the water lapped at her chin.

“It is rather nice to be able to unwind after a long day, maybe I should try to talk my mother into getting one of these at home. It’d be a god send to have it for after fencing practice.” Kagami hummed in agreement. “Hopefully the steam can also help with my allergies. They have been a nightmare recently.”

“That sucks. Medicine doesn’t help?”

“Not as well as it should.” as if to prove her point Kagami’s throat began to scratch and tickle again. “Ugh,” she coughed, “I think the steam is trying to dislodge the mucus so that’s a plus at least.”

Oh god she just talked about mucus in front of Marinette.

“Poor Kagami,” Marinette wrapped her thin arms around her. She rested her head on Kagami’s shoulder. “It’s such a shame you have to suffer during one of the most beautiful times of the year.”

“Yeah…” Kagami stifled another cough, “Really stinks…”

Marinette let go but didn’t move back to her spot on the other side of the hot tub. Instead opting to sit right next to Kagami to talk. Kagami was thankful for the heat since it hid the hot red blush in her cheeks. How could Marinette be this comfortable when Kagami was fighting to keep herself together?

A few minutes later everyone had to leave. Apparently the pervy lifeguard from before hadn’t learned his lesson and turned his gaze on Alya. Nino rightfully got pissed that this creep was eyeing his girlfriend and they got into a fight. Not the best way to end what was supposed to be a fun outing but at least the lifeguard had gotten what was coming to him.

“We should do this again when someone less creepy isn’t on lifeguard duty.” Marinette sat on the edge of the hot tub, reluctant to leave the sweet warmth just yet.

Kagami nodded in agreement. She had already gotten out and was toweling off. She was trying her best not to stare at Marinette. The last thing she needed was to get caught admiring the way the ends of her hair curled when they dried or the sprinkling of freckles along her shoulders. Or how her face was extra rosy and dewy looking from being in the steam. Or how jealous she was of the droplets of water that ran down her arms and back like a sweet caress--

Oh for the love of teenage hormones! Stop it!

“Since we had to cut this short what do you think about grabbing some juice?” Marinette swung her legs out and slipped.

“Marinette!” Kagami caught her just before she could fall and righted her back on the edge of the hot tub. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, thanks for catching me,” Marinette had settled her arms on Kagami’s shoulders for stability. It was at this moment Kagami realized that she had grabbed hold of Marinette’s waist and was now standing between her spread legs. Marinette smiled down at her like none of this bothered her in the least. It probably didn’t. Of course it wouldn’t. Why should it? She was Marinette and Kagami was just the nice friend that kept her from slipping off the edge of the hot tub. Nothing more to think of. Certainly nothing that would make one combust from raging hormones.

“Of course,” Kagami let go but stayed close enough to help if Marinette fell. She didn’t. Good. For numerous reasons.

“Now I have to insist on getting juice,” Marinette said as she started drying off, “A thank you for saving me.”

“It was really nothing. Don’t feel like you have to award me for being a decent person.” Kagami told her.

“Nonsense, besides, it’s just juice.”

“Alright then,” Kagami couldn’t say no to her, “Juice sounds wonderful.”

“Great! I’ll ask the others if they wanna come too!” Marinette bounced happily out of the room to talk to the others.

Once Kagami was sure she was alone she balled up her towel and screamed into it. This cannot be happening! She cannot be catching feelings for Marinette! Why did god have to put such a beautiful and perfect specimen of a girl in front of her and expect her not to fall? She was like the first warm breeze of spring that cut through the wintry cold. What was Kagami next to her but a chipmunk in hibernation waiting for her to return and be awoken? There were probably a million people that felt that exact same way and yet none of them probably thought of her as anything more than a friend while Kagami had to suffer with her pitched emotions. Every day since she met her those feelings bubbled closer and closer to the service and Kagami wasn’t sure how long she would be able to keep them in.

Most of the class went to get juice after they finished changing. At least in a crowd Kagami could put some distance between her and Marinette. She seated herself at the other end of the table next to Adrien and sucked down her drink to avoid talking.

“You okay?” Adrien asked, “You’ve barely said a word since we left the pool. Did the lifeguard put you off? I can understand if he did.”

“It’s not that,” Kagami sighed, her gaze flicking over to Marinette for the briefest moment, “I just have a lot on my mind.”

“Anything you want to talk about? I’m always here if you need someone.”

“Thanks, Adrien, but I don’t know how you can help in a situation like this. It’s nothing really. Just stupid teenage crap that I am terrible at handling because I have never had to deal with something like it before.”

“You unable to handle something? That’s a first. What could have the great and fearless Kagami Tsurugi so thoroughly flummoxed?”

More like who. Kagami thought sadly. This time when she glanced at Marinette she saw her and waved. Kagami swallowed back another gulp of juice before waving back.

“You know,” Adrien said, “If you don’t feel comfortable talking to me about it maybe you can ask Marinette. She loves helping her friends and she’s seen and dealt with all of our teen drama. There’s nothing the girl can’t handle.”

“I’m sure but it really is nothing. Certainly nothing to bother Marinette about.” How would that conversation even go? Hello, Marinette, I believe I like you and may even be falling in love with you the more I get to know you and I don’t know how to handle that while still remaining your friend. Thoughts? She may as well tear out her heart and offer it up on a silver platter for her to eat while she’s at it. It would certainly be less painful and a lot quicker.

The group adjourned for the day and Kagami said a quick goodbye but not before Marinette grabbed hold of her and pulled her into a hug. “Have a nice evening, Kagami. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Bye!”

“Goodbye,” Kagami whispered the word but Marinette was already huffing it away from the cafe.

“Hey! How come I didn’t get a goodbye hug?” Adrien pouted, “Lucky you, I knew you two would get along great.”

“Yep.” Kagami coughed, “Lucky me.”

She locked herself in her room when she returned home. Her cough had come back with a vengeance and no allergy or cold medicine would relieve it. Her thoughts would not still either. Every time she closed her eyes visions of Marinette from today assaulted her. It felt like she was back in the hot tub choking on the heat and steam. Marinette’s head on her shoulder, Kagami’s hands on her waist, that dazzling smile beaming down at her with gratitude.

So pure. So kind. Like a bundle of pink cotton candy that melted into decadent sugary sweetness on her tongue. Goodness, this girl was turning her into a poet if nothing else. Just saying that she was beautiful and kind and fantastic wasn’t enough. It would never be enough.

Another raucous round of coughing wracked her body and tears sprung to her eyes with the intensity of it. When it finally ended she rubbed the tears from her eyes and gazed down at the three little pink cherry blossom petals in her lap. She picked one up and inspected the delicate flower in the waning light of the setting sun. Where on earth did these…

A hand flew to her throat.

Oh...

Oh no.

For the second time that day she grabbed for something to smother the intensity of her screams.

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(Previous) (Next)

[mikkaeus]

lessons from 1000 hours of tutoring high school kids - a letter to my past self

not all those hours were maths, but this is about maths

Not in order of importance; in the order they came to my head. 

1. Do not trust a kid when they say that they understand something. They understand jack shit. Make them explain it back to you. 

2. When teaching sth new try to prod them to reaching the conclusion themselves instead of just straight up explaining it, if time permits. 

3. Things I have assumed and have been sorely mistaken:

a) If an area is identified to be an issue in the lesson, the kid will go and do some questions and revise themselves to fix it.

b) Kids take notes. (I’m still kicking myself for only realising this more than 6 months in with this kid. I get paid too much to be making stupid mistakes like this.)

c) Kids know how to take notes. (Session 1: Take notes, here is a detailed outline that you can then expand on with examples and stuff. Session 2: The kid has copied my scaffold word for word and not expanded anything on it. Me: You need to actually EXPLAIN how to complete the square for example, not just write “completing the square”. Kid: Okay yeah I get it. Session 3: For each topic he’s googled an explanation and copied entire paragraphs word for word, because he “thought they’d phrase it better than him”. He’s using terminology that I 100% guarantee he does not understand at all. I now understand why high school teachers always said use your own words when making notes - something that I had always thought should be blindingly obvious to everyone.)

4. Not everyone is as obsessed with not making mistakes or not being able to solve problems are you are. (For these kids, being stumped at a difficult question isn’t the end of the world.) They think a question ends at figuring out the answer, whether that be from the help of a textbook, the solutions, their friend, or me. You need to impress upon them that it doesn’t matter what the answer is! It’s about what you learn from the question. How was the way they were thinking about the question incorrect? How can they avoid this in the future? What general advice can they give themselves? And then they need to actually commit to reducing incidences of the same mistake in the future. Some kids I’ve been giving the same damn advice to every problem they get stuck on, and magically they can solve it after I give them the advice. Just remember the general advice!! You’re spending all this time studying but you’re running into the same wall over and over again instead of remembering to take the rope out of your bag. I’m not magic! I’m just sitting here reminding you that there IS a rope in your bag!!  (Not that my method of angry scribbling in red pen across my working and writing that I’m a fucking idiot is something I’d actually recommend, but they could definitely afford to be less laissez-faire about learning from their mistakes.)

5. Actually make good notes during the session; otherwise, the kids probably retain nothing. It is kinda awkward to be sitting there writing away but it is a necessarily evil. Also, you can write while they’re chipping away at a question themselves, and that way you don’t need to be watching them like a hawk while they do algebra painfully slowly. (I feel like kids make more mistakes in sessions than they do normally.) 

6. The key to being able to solve a problem is believing that you CAN solve the problem. I’ve been saying this a lot recently - if you follow the rules for maths, there’s no reason it should be wrong - when I have Year 11s and 12s asking me every step of simple algebra if something is correct, or asking whether you’re allowed to do something, and I ask them, “what do you think?” and they reply, “I don’t know.” (Related: Another thing I’ve been saying a lot is that algebra is about doing the same thing to both sides. They just think it’s magic!) Anyway, I brought this up because of problem solving questions actually, not basic algebra. Of course, you can teach them how to break down the question, or general processes like “if you don’t have enough information, go back and check you’ve used everything in the question”, but all that’s useless if they don’t believe that they can solve it by themselves. That means

a) You need to actually encourage them. Even though you’re not a... fluffy or particularly inspiring person, just try. 

b) YOU need to believe that they can do it too. Think of the number of times you’ve been shocked that some kid managed to make a leap of logic you thought was beyond them. Kids are better than you think (and also worse than you think, but we’ve already talked at length about that). 

7. It’s most of the time more beneficial to force the kid to go through the expanded version of the working instead of the abbreviated version. They’re not you, trying to economise as much as possible on working to save precious seconds for rechecking at the end. Don’t push that obsession onto them when their goals and skill level is completely different. Especially if they’re:

a) making silly mistakes

b) not understanding why something works and just following the pattern for a specific context, and then being completely lost in another context. (eg. not being able to use the null factor law for when the factors weren’t linear with a gradient of 1, because they always skipped straight to x= instead of actually writing out each factor equalling zero, and then rearranging). 

8. Stop lecturing for too long. Make sure you’re writing stuff down, not only for the purpose of notes for them to look at later, but because not everyone’s good with auditory learning (you’re one of those people! and yet you subject others to the same shit you rant about out length about your professors!). Make them do work through a problem or part of a problem or ask them questions or something. 

9. A lot of kids do not know how to study properly. A few important things:

a) Do not automatically look back at past questions when solving a Q. You need to treat every question as completely new, and only look back if you’re stuck. That way you force active recall every question and thus making sure you’re actually remembering what the process is. You don’t get any worked examples in your exam. 

b) I do not know how this is every single fucking kid but knowing how to use your dang calculator saves lives!! It’s literally 50% of your grade and you’re sitting there two days before your exam struggling to graph a parabola??? After all the hours you poured into studying the content? Yes your calculators are gross and unfriendly but they’re your best friend. Not only should you know how to use them, you should be fast at using them, and you should know everything it can do that could be remotely helpful. 

c) Sit full exam papers under exam conditions. That shit is like gold and kids are piddling it away by just leisurely working through one question at a time with the help of their textbook (and me). 

d) Print out the formula sheet, and use it. Know what’s on there and what’s not. 

I don’t know if this is a pretty standard experience for people with a track record of excellent academic results* (by this I mean just assuming some things are obvious to everyone) or if I’m particularly bad because I’ve always only interacted with a very narrow range of people. anyway feels fucking bad for my kids but. im trying. god knows ive come a long way since i first started.

*or as I prefer to state it, a track record of being a huge fucking nerd

[moldy-mold]

Hello! It’s already May... Life updates - a roller coaster of emotions

A tempestuous, tearful April... Aghh the struggle has not eased up a bit. Living is just too expensive to be shouldered by part-time wages, meager freelance, and fickle confidence. My parents are disappointed - I’ve always tried to dodge the questions about my uncertain future. After all, I don’t have any answers.

What nearly broke my spirit was the humiliating scolding I received on my birthday. “You’re almost 30. Stop playing around at the cafe, don’t you know your bank account is nearly empty? How will you pay for this? If you can’t afford car insurance then just bike to work!” I didn’t even have time to think about how inconsiderate that was. In a daze, I hung up and went to my second part-time job that day.

Well, Dad, those are the questions I asked myself every single day. All I can do is keep trying even if you don’t believe in me. Because, despite everything, I still believe in myself.

Nothing good will come out of asking these punishing questions. I don’t know if things will get better or worse. Just gotta do what I can to get by as a small creature existing in this universe.

I learned to stop blaming myself for not being successful. Given the circumstances, I think the odds are stacked pretty high against most of us right now.

“Banish the nonsense. Some questions will ruin you if you are denied the answer long enough.” - Annihilation

--

I’ve begun my investment journey! After studying how it all works I have come to understand the value of investing. It was one of my resolutions for this year and I’m glad I’ve achieved it.

My brother, a crypto enthusiast, knows my monetary plight and has been helping me out in the weirdest ways.

6 am text: “Hey Sis, you got $1000? Put it into Dogecoin... like NOW.”

I don’t like doing these kinds of high-risk-high-reward investments but what the heck, I was desperate. I applied for an account that can trade crypto.

In the end my account got rejected (there was no explanation) and I gave up. Because of course that would happen lol.

--

“Hey, do you have time to talk about the future?” “UM... are we breaking up???” “LOL don’t say it like that!”

My roommate / best friend decided she wanted to move to her own place and find her own way in life. Of course, my fragile heart, still tender from the previous month’s beating, took it very personally. I was reassured it wasn’t my fault - there are plenty of other valid reasons why.

We’ve been sharing an apartment for 6 years now, and although I knew it would happen someday, it was quite shocking to hear it being said to me in reality. At first, I laughed it off because I’ve been dreaming about moving out of the country anyway and it all works out. I’m an introverted, neat-freak, homebody! It’s perfect! But after a very pensive shower, I realized that I’m actually terrified to be without any companionship. Either way, I have to put my feelings aside because I don’t wanna hold her back from her dreams. I may have trouble accepting it now but hopefully I can genuinely be happy for her in time.

--

The Plant Life Please welcome Rokurou, the newest addition to my jungle.

It’s been a few weeks and he totally ate bugs already lol. Nice! I was thinking the smaller traps wouldn’t catch anything, but it turns out they’ve been doing the most work. The larger traps can’t catch ants or tiny gnats. They just crawl out after the trap snaps shut.

This venus fly trap is rather picky about what water he gets so I’ve been out there collecting rainwater in buckets JUST for him! Kind of a pain, but I will do whatever it takes to keep him alive.

It was a very tiny dream of mine to collect and care for carnivorous plants. If the shop had more varieties, I would probably buy them all.

--

I thought I was gonna die... Hostess for a day. One day while working at the cafe, this old Chinese man came in asking how much I made here. Then he told me if I work as a hostess/front desk person at his restaurant (which was next to the cafe, by the way), he will pay me more than the cafe. He slipped me $5 to go see him after my shift at 9pm. It was soooooo sketch. But I went anyway to at least hear him out after telling my roommate and my parents where I was going. You know... in case I die.

Luckily I didn’t die. It was a normal Chinese restaurant. I met the staff and they were all super cool and the mysterious old man goes by Mr. Lin.

Mr. Lin was very chill about it. He said I can have a trial run after my bakery shift on Saturday. If I don’t like it, I can just tell him no and he will pay me for my time.

I knew it was a bad idea to take another shift after a long shift at the cafe but I did it anyway. It was BUSY. Too busy for anyone to teach me how to be a hostess so I literally just had to guess what I’m supposed to be doing. It was kinda obvious though, showing people to their tables. I picked them at random bc I didn’t know if there was a method to seating people or not.

There are three different menus: Chinese, Korean and English and they’re ALL different. Depending on the nationality of who walks in, I have to decide for myself which menu to hand out. Uhhhhh despite being Asian myself, I cannot tell the difference between Korean and Chinese people lmao so I have to keep awkwardly asking people which menu they want. *screams*

The manager, Vincent, is so OP though. He knows exactly which menu to get every time. I was like HOW DO YOU KNOW?? He only responded with “working in the business for 24 years.”

Anyway, it was a long and confusing night of people thinking I am a waitress and me not knowing where the spoons are. But I don’t think this job is for me, even if it pays a lot.

There sure is plenty of demand for part-time food service workers and zero demand for full-time graphic designers... sigh. My journey doing random jobs in 2021 continues.

--

My brother graduated pharmacy school last week. In our culture, the older sibling’s shoulders is where all the expectations should rest. Maybe in another AU I would feel small and inferior to my younger and more successful sibling. But I don’t feel anything like that. In fact, if he can take care of my parents while I’m trying to figure out my own life, then I’m just more grateful to him. Maybe my parents don’t expect anything of me anymore, which is okay. Either way, my brother and I have each other’s backs.

--

Berseria I went into it with ZERO expectations because of its infamous predecessor, but I have come out pleasantly surprised. I liked it more than I thought. I’m at the end but I’m not done with the story yet.

I remember expressing my utter confusion about Zesty and everyone was like “play Berseria, it will answer a majority of your questions.” And boy, it did and I’m so glad. I loved all the throwbacks and references and lore that had to do with the previous game. Like, they really had something interesting going on here but it never quite came to fruition last time.

Is it just me, or did it take a very long time to understand all the battle mechanics? Like... I didn’t get the hang of the game until we got to Meirchio. Now I am quite good at playing Rokurou, my main. And it feels way more fun. I usually like mage characters in the old tales games but tbh I wasn’t really into it this time.

After we finish Bersy, we will be moving on to Xillia 2, our final Tales game! Gaius, I’m coming for you.

--

Xenoblade At the same time, I am also finishing up Xenoblade after spending nearly a year on it. I have weeks where I’m just grinding the side quests to unlock the skill trees. When I’m down, traveling and exploring in this game puts my worries to rest. Really though, the maps are so beautiful... And the music! T_T

This is one of the few games where I like every character pretty much equally, though Dundun and Riki win by just a little bit.

--

That’s it for now. Thanks for being here!

[soldrawss]

Ares kids giving percy shit and then they just see... luke... standing in the background... staring at them... and they suddenly decide to leave percy alone, because they 'just FEEL LIKE IT, oKAY???' jhgfgdhfdhggfjghg

Despite what everyone else thinks, Luke is always angry. He just also happens to be really good at hiding it. He probably had his dad to thank for that, being able to redirect and reassure others with a flash of a smile and a wave of his hand to disarm anyone who’d think otherwise. He hardly ever lets his temper get the best of him anymore. He’s too old for that. Too tired to let the little things get under his skin and leave bruises that the world could see. He can’t afford to wear his anger out like tattooed sleeves, the same way Silena Beauregard wore compassion on hers.

And it would be too easy. Too easy to just let his anger for the world and for the gods fuel and feed the hurt bleeding into his rationality and blaming all his problems on everything other than himself. It would be way too fucking easy to go about his days in a blinding rage that left nothing but empty holes in the places that should have held love and forgiveness and all the good he tries so desperately to instill in the younger campers. It wouldn’t solve anything. It wouldn’t help the hurt and it wouldn’t end the suffering. Luke knew this. Luke knew the world didn’t need one more angry, unwanted kid adding that kind of gasoline into the fire. Kronos was wrong, even if his tempted whispers late at night tried so hard to convince him otherwise.

So he hides his anger. Buries it under daily counselor chores and making sure the Stoll brothers don’t get too rowdy during their free time and just keeps busy enough to ignore the pounding tremor in the back of his chest. It works for the most part. It’s easier to smile nowadays, he barely even has to force it anymore, and when he laughs along to campfire stories and songs, it’s something lighthearted and genuine.

But his anger is always right there, like it’s something second hand and lingering. There without him having to reach for it. 

And when he notices Percy get dragged behind the armory by the scruff of his neck by some older kids, he lets that all too familiar anger consume him in seconds. He pushes away from the handful of campers he was monitoring by the amphitheater, ‘Activity’s over. You have free break until lunch’, he calls over his shoulder, and doesn’t wait for a response as he marches his way in the direction of the armory with a speed Hermes would probably be proud of if he ever cared enough to check-in.

Luke doesn’t have special skills or powers like other Demigods. He can’t build things like Beckendorf and he can’t charm speak like Silena and he certainly can’t summon lightning from the heavens like Thalia could. But he was respected and feared in equal measure all the same, and no one could deny that he worked hard to earn the title of the best swordsman in camp. 

His was still a presence that demanded attention and authority. Even if he lets the seven-year-old from the Haphestus cabin ride on his shoulders after breakfast most mornings, or moves over on his already tiny bunk in the dead of night so that little unclaimed Lily Anderson can sleep with him after a bad nightmare.

He was a self-designated older brother to pretty much anyone who needed one, and Luke took a quiet sort of pride to that so many people liked and needed him.

But he was still a threat when he wanted to be.So when he saw Percy on the ground, with a nose bleed that stained the front of his shirt an awful rusty color, all Luke had to do was growl a low, ‘walk away. Now’, and the three boys took off at a sprint. He only vaguely recognized two of them from the Ares cabin and one from Aphrodite, but he didn’t care enough to do more with the information at the moment because Percy was staring up at him with green eyes electric and burning. 

And Luke recognizes those kinds of eyes. They’re the same as his. There's a light like dying stars in them. Angry and terrified and burning with something terrible and so full of single-minded devotion that it has to hurt. And it leaves something aching and red hot in Luke’s stomach when he takes a step forward only for Percy to flinch away out of reflex.

“I’m fine,” Percy said like a knee jerk reaction before Luke could even ask, barking it in a mean and biting way that Luke didn’t take any offense to because he remembers what if felt like to be twelve and have your pride hurt. So Luke doesn’t question it, because Percy is scrappier and stronger than anyone probably ever gave him credit for, and offers a silent hand and the gentlest smile he can muster. Luke does his best to ignore the thumping jolt of anger that vibrates through him when Percy takes it almost immediately and so desperately, like it’s his only lifeline in the world, and wonders what kind of people were in Percy’s life before camp that made him so hungry for a positive human connection. 

Percy apologizes a second later with a horrified expression, jumping out of reach when he notices he got blood on Luke’s hand.

“Don’t worry about it. Let's just get you to the Apollo cabin. Lee keeps a first aid kit and a jar of ambrosia superglued to him at all times after Cecil Markowitz’s third greek fire burn.” The comment was supposed to lighten the mood somewhat, but Percy’s face darkens as he takes a step back from Luke.

“Um, no thanks,” Percy says in almost a pained whisper, hugging his middle and trying to wipe the continuous flow of blood from running down his chin by holding his head back. “It smells too much like the infirmary in there. And I hate the way ambrosia burns down my throat. I’m good, Luke, really.”

And that should have tipped Luke off to some bigger problem, but he can’t concentrate on it because he’s already closing the distance between them faster than Percy could object, and softly pushing the back of Percy’s head down towards the ground. “Pinch here, just above your nostrils, and lean forward unless you want the blood to go down your throat.” He instructs, guiding Percy’s bloodied hand to his nose.

Luke can’t rightly blame Percy for his hesitance. The kid’s first moments of conscious grief since his new life as a half-blood began was spent in the camp infirmary, nursing the pain of losing his mom while also nursing actual physical wounds with acidic nectar and ambrosia that even Luke can attest to growing disgust for after the first few battle wounds of his own. Anyone would have some kind of underlying trauma from that, and Percy didn’t have to outwardly admit how uncomfortable he was at the idea for Luke to understand.

Being a 12-year-old without a mom was hard enough. The problems of a half-blood added on top of that was almost a cruel joke that Luke bitterly couldn’t believe was a reality for most the kids at camp.

“Annabeth used to get into a lot of fights too, I’ve gotten pretty used to fixing noses the old fashioned way. Come on, I have a spare medkit in the combat arena,” Luke says, pressing a hand to Percy’s back, not giving him a chance to escape because dammit, someone had to care for this kid. And Percy doesn’t smile, but something in those sharp green eyes turn leaf like and muted as he lets himself get led from out from behind the armory.

No one really bats an eye towards Percy as they walked, and Luke could only assume it’s because he looks like he’s about to kill anyone that tried with a stone-cold glare that could rival Medusa’s. 

No one was is in the arena when they get there, and Luke instructs Percy to keep the cold washcloth Luke had snagged for him on his nose for about ten minutes, keeping upright to help stop the bleeding. They don’t say anything after that, they just sit on the arena steps and watch the campers from the Demeter cabin try to flip the canoes of some Aphrodite kids with little success, while they wait. 

Luke doesn’t ask any questions on what happened or why, he feels like the answer wouldn’t matter anyway, but Percy eventually softens in the silence between them. Luke pretends he doesn’t notice Percy’s eyes get red and wet as he rubs at them angrily with the palm of his hand.

After about fifteen minutes, and a fresh camp shirt that Luke had given him to replace Percy’s stained one, Percy looked no worse for wear, at least.

“Thanks,” he says softly, like he was thanking Luke for a million things at once, and Luke was all too aware of the crack in his voice and the angry hunch of his shoulders that made him look whole years to young to be angry at the world.

“Don’t thank me just yet, I need your help with something,” Luke decides as he stands up and walks back into arena, not looking back to see if Percy is following him because he knows he is.

“Alright,” he says once they make it to the middle of the dusty pit, holding his hands out in front of his chest and adjusting his stance as Percy looks at him with a doe-eyed curiosity and confusion. “Come at me with all you got.”

Percy frowns, and sniffs once before rubbing his nose with the back of his hand. “What? Dude I already got my butt handed to me, I don’t need another nose bleed on top of a few broken bones.”

Luke can’t help but smile at that. “Come on, humor me. I have a few unchecked microaggressions I need to work out and you owe me. I promise I won’t aim for your nose.”

Percy frown deepens, but he sighs like the whole world is weighted on in and gets into a fighting stance of his own, keeping his fists close to his chest.

Now it was Luke’s turn to frown. “Aww dude, you’re breaking my heart here.”

He relaxes his stance and walks over to where Percy stood, dodging the lame attempt of a punch and catching Percy’s fist in the palm of his hand, readjusting Percy’s fingers. “Thumb goes here unless you want to break it. And you wanna keep your fists closer to bottom of your chin.”

Luke uses his own foot to shift Percy’s into a more stable stance. “Feet this far apart and bend your knees, or you’re gonna get knocked down no matter what happens. Try to punch me again.”

Frowning more out of concentration then confusion, Percy took another swing that Luke caught easily and without letting go, pulled it back towards Percy’s shoulder and used his other hand to straighten Percy’s back. “Use these muscles here and punch straight out. You keep swinging too wide and putting all your force behind it, leaving you open.”

He guided Percy’s hand with his own, twisting it slowly in the form of a punch. “You’re gonna feel the bones in your arm want to move this way. Let them and you’ll get more force out of it.”

Percy hummed something like acknowledgment, so Luke let go and retook his stance in front of Percy, mimicking his same posture from before. “Try it again.”

Luke still caught Percy’s fist in his own, but a smile broke his face in two when he, not unkindly, pushed Percy back aways. “A couple more hits like that, and my hand may actually start to hurt, Jackson.”

And the grin that crept upon the twelve-year-olds face was something bright and delighted and outshining the stars as easy as breathing, and Luke soaked in every inch as they continued for the better half of the morning sparing till the lunch horn sounded.

Percy was so much like a younger Luke that is actually scared him, but moments like this, where he knew practical methods of defense would help Percy better than any reassurance that bullies would eventually leave him alone ever could. And Luke knew that Percy wouldn’t be ok with anyone fighting his battles for him, even if it would have been so easy for Luke to channel some of that unchecked rage into beating the ever-living snot out of anyone who looked sideways at Percy again. Just like he knew that Percy wouldn’t ask for help if it wasn’t already freely giving, or that trust was a hard thing to earn when your whole life was built around people burning that bridge before you could ever extend it.

But Luke was prepared for the challenge, and with Percy chatting happily away from underneath where Luke rested his arm across his shoulders as they made their way to the dining Pavillion, Luke could feel the edges of his anger slowly quiet into something barely there. And it’s a feeling that carries him throughout the rest of the day. A feeling that he wants to bottle up and keep on a shelf whenever he wants to forget what hating the world feels like.

Because if it feels like it’s worth it just to keep kids like Percy smiling for the rest of forever, well then, Luke could handle forgiving some of his anger, and letting his heart rest on his sleeves just a little bit more.

[alewyren]

I dislike redemption arc culture.

I hate seeing arguments over which characters are “irredeemable,” and this notion that every villain story has to be a morally didactic narrative in which the bad guy gets punished, the end.

I’m almost tempted to say we were all spoiled by having Zuko as a formative experience, because he’s really just the picture perfect redemption arc. He started out as a legit villain, but he never did anything too atrocious, had a tragic backstory that explained why he was like that, and went through three whole seasons of gradual character development. Like, Zuko was an amazing character. That’s the problem, though; he set our expectations too high for what “the perfect redemption arc” should be. Everyone expects their “reformed villain” characters to follow those same beats, but not every story is that cut and dry. There are lines between redemption and reformation, reformation and rehabilitation, rehabilitation and just... continuing to exist but no longer hurting anyone, and there’s a lot of nuance lost when people try to cram all that into the box of “redemption arc.”

Gonna be bringing a lot of different examples to the table here, but let’s start with Azula for ease of transition. She went through the same abuse that Zuko did, but she never got a redemption arc in ATLA proper. Some people say this isn’t fair. I disagree. This is not to say I don’t think she should be afforded the opportunity for post-canon character growth, because I absolutely do. I fully think she is capable of Getting Better, and spinoff media has consistently portrayed her as a sympathetic character. But like... she’s done some shit. She was a straight up war criminal, and emotionally abusive towards basically everyone in her social circle. I understand why. She was a 14 year old raised in an environment that rewarded that behavior, and never given a healthy outlet for her aggression.

The difference, in my opinion, is this: Zuko was fundamentally a good person from the start. Far from perfect, but he has a strong sense of values even as a child. Azula is not. Redemption for someone like Azula would look much different than it did for Zuko. Besides, in ATLA proper she was already filling an important villain role. She’d need her own show. (Which would be awesome, actually.)

But I think that’s where you have to ask the question: what even is a redemption arc? Is it any story where a villain stops being a villain? Is there a scale for like, “must do X amount of good deeds equal to Y bad deeds to qualify for redemption”? Must they be sufficiently punished for their bad deeds? What if reformation is possible without punishment--is punishment for its own sake truly justice? The focus people have on penance and atonement feels very baked in Christian moral philosophy. People don’t work like that. There’s not a cosmic scale of right and wrong, or a cosmic sin counter, there’s just... actions and their immediate impact. Bad people being let off the hook too easily can leave a bad taste in your mouth, and there are of course things with unfortunate real world implications which can’t be divorced from real-world context which are... irresponsible to allow in the hands of Certain Groups, but I hate this notion of “villains must be punished appropriately for their crimes, always, even if they have extenuating circumstances, even if they have demonstrated the capacity for personal growth, because that personal growth will never negate their misdeeds.”

In real life, it’s different. In real life, you can never be sure what’s going on in another person’s head. But the prison system of justice is fundamentally broken. People are rarely fundamentally evil, but there are some people who are too twisted and dangerous to society to be allowed to live without, at the very least, constant supervision. True evil is banal, rooted in social systems, not individual “bad people.” People have individual will, but ultimately they’re just the products of the environment and systems that fostered them. Setting aside the questions of whether people can be born evil or at what age you become personally responsible for your actions, you will get bad apples in any sufficiently large group of people. If someone has to be punished and removed from society, that’s not a success of justice. The fact that they reached that point in the first place is a failure of society in and of itself.

In fiction, technically everyone is redeemable. You can get into the heads of the bad guys and do basically whatever you want with them. Fiction should be responsible when dealing with real-world issues that affect real people, but it does not have to be morally didactic. Sometimes there just... isn’t an easy, morally didactic answer for dealing with morally complicated characters or situations. And more importantly, sometimes the morally didactic answer isn’t the narratively interesting answer. 9 out of 10 times, what’s more interesting to read about? A horrible villain being put to death, or a horrible villain being forced to live and grow?

Some hypothetical examples to ponder, purely in the context of fiction.

Horrible war criminal villain with a body count in the millions has all memories of their crimes wiped, or is forcibly brainwashed into being a better person. Setting aside the ethics of brainwashing: are they still required to “repent”? Would a victim still be justified in seeking penance from this guilt-free shell? Would this change at all depending on who was responsible for the mind-wipe?

More realistic: horrible war criminal villain with a body count in the millions straight up retires. Gets older. Bloodlust, national zeal, whatever once motivated them to do such evil loses its edge. They fall in love. Start a family. As they grow as a person, learn the value of life, the weight of their crimes starts to sink in. They atone in little ways, through little random acts of kindness and helping the people around them, but for one reason or another (not wanting to risk harm to their family, knowing they’ll be tortured for information? you decide) don’t turn themselves into the proper justice system and are never punished. Should they be punished, or allowed to continue existing? Would this change at all depending on the surrounding political circumstances, i.e.: whether their public execution would hold any symbolic value, whether affected groups are calling for their death? Does it matter at all in deciding justice whether this hypothetical villain feels personal guilt or regret over their war crimes? Why or why not?

Child villains. IRL there are documented cases of violent crime in children as young as grade school age, not all of whom had violent backgrounds. Should they be held to the same standards as adult villains, even if the scale of their crimes are the same? What’s the cutoff age? Are all villains under 18 capable of rehabilitation, no matter how horrible their crimes? How about 16? 14? 12? What about villains whose ages aren’t really clear, ie Cell from DBZ being like, six?

How much does backstory matter? Should it matter if there’s a good reason someone is Like That, or should their actions be judged as-is? It doesn’t matter to the victims whether or not the villain had a bad childhood, right? Moreover, does it matter at all whether someone is “fundamentally a good person,” at least insofar as genuinely caring about the people around them and caring about a moral code? People do evil things for reasons other than “being evil people.”

Morally bankrupt person who regularly fantasizes violent harm on the people around them, wholly selfish with no love for any other human being, fundamentally incapable of meaningful self-reflection or growth. Just a complete piece of shit all around. But they never have, and never will, commit any crimes, either due to some divine ordinance or just plain self-preservation/fear of getting caught. They might, at worst, just be a toxic asshole, but not one who holds any power over others. Should they be punished solely for their moral character, rather than actions?

There aren’t always easy answers. It’s okay to acknowledge that, and it’s okay to tackle hard moral questions like this in fiction. And I hate seeing this boiled down to “stop trying to redeem villains who are Actually Horrible People” or whatever. Especially in kids’ media which takes an optimistic stance on people being capable of change in the first place. Y’all gotta stop holding it to the same level of moral realism as gritty stuff for adults.

On the whole, I think we should do away with the term “redemption” in the context of morality entirely. Like redemption arc, redemption equals death, what does that mean? It implies one has sufficiently made up for their past deeds, that that’s the gold standard, but is that really ever possible? Like I said, there’s not a cosmic good deeds | bad deeds counter for every person, or at least not one that living people have any way of knowing about. And that’s a flawed way of thinking to begin with. Those bad deeds can never be erased, ever. There plenty of examples of villains who commit crimes they can never realistically atone for. Regardless of whether they want to atone in the first place, it’s like I said: in fiction, it’s often just... more fun to force them to live and deal with the consequences. But on the flipside, there are so, so many people who see themselves as “good” and use that to justify their own bad deeds. Which ties back into what I said about the whole discourse reeking of Christian moral philosophy, because lmfao @ corruption in the catholic church.

The point is. There are shades of grey. Not everything has to be a full-blown bad guy to good guy redemption arc. You don’t need to “properly atone for your sins” to be worthy of life or love.

Here are some better questions to ask than “is this character redeemable”:

Is it believable, from what we know of this villain as a character, that they are capable of becoming a good, law-abiding citizen?

How about capable of love?

Guilt?

Are they capable of any personal growth whatsoever?

Are they capable of being a positive impact on the lives of the people around them?

Is it actively harmful to leave them alive, even with clipped wings?

Is it interesting to leave them alive?

How morally didactic is the narrative as a whole?

How much forgiveness are they offered, versus how much could they possibly ever deserve?

How abstracted is this character from reality, ie: are there any real world parallels that make it uncomfortable to frame this character in a sympathetic light? (be careful not to fall into a black and white abuser/victim dichotomy)

Would further punishment or suffering be productive? (Productive, not justified, that’s a key distinction--punishment for its own sake is just pointless cruelty.)

Even the most vile, irredeemable bastards can still be dragged like... an inch. And that’s still a fun and valuable story in and of itself, even if it’s nothing remotely approaching a redemption arc and they’d very much still deserve to rot in Hell by the end of it. I don’t believe Hell is real, as much as I personally wish it were sometimes, but like. If it were, or in fictional universes where it is.

But also, there really are some characters and botched “redemption arcs” that just come off insanely uncomfortable. And there is a subjective aspect to that as well, but more than once I’ve seen people say “X villain did not deserve redemption/forgiveness” and 9 times out of 10 I’m like “that’s... really not what they got, though?”

It’s complicated.

[lucidpantone]

I have waited awhile to write this post but I got inspired by the question posed by @vanmqx who has stated as bi teenager they are a bit confused and wondering if other people that identify as bi feel “the attraction you feel towards a woman feels the same way towards a man”. I am 31 now and let me tell you it took years for me to wrap my brain around this question but let me explain why because it may or may not help you but I wish someone would have told me a story like this when I was a 17 year old girl who realized oh damn I think I like girls too.

When I was 17/18 I use to identify as bi mainly because of how we saw gender at that time it wasn’t as informed as it is now and also concepts of non-binary where fairly new. In present day I chose to not identify as anything because at least for me labels and how in-flux gender politics is just creates more havoc for me personally but I do identify on the queer spectrum and thats how I explain it to people. I would like to get to a point where we don’t have to identify as anything but simply humans who have the capacity to love each other and it not be tied to some form of regulation but sadly we are far from that socially. So I do indeed understand why labels support queer dialogue. So trust me, I get it. Anyways back to the original question.  I wish shows like Skam would not only explore wlw more often but attempt to inform girls who like girls about negotiations/experiences your body will have to filter through to properly answer the question posed. I myself did not get to the answer until I had several sexual partners of differing genders for it to click for me (and am sure not everyone wants to go down that path). Emotionally all humans are the same to me there is no difference in how I emotionally connect to them once I like them. Male/Female once I get the butterflies they feel identical. Now let’s discuss the physical which can be a super polarizing topic amongst people who engage in sexual intercourse with both genders and what I find is a super hot topic for varying reasons. Lets say this out loud so the people in the back can hear it. M/W SEX AND W/W IS NOT THE SAME. You will do things/discuss things you will never discuss with the opposite sex when in wlw relationship. I wish a show marketed to teenagers would have one of these discussions on camera so when young women like myself have these discussions as teenagers they don’t feel embarrassed, awkward, weird, ashamed or downright dumb. A lot of my hangs up with whether I enjoyed having sex with men or women more were because I was never afforded the tools or given any guidance on how to explore W/W sex to its full potential. It was more like I guess we do this....ummm okay cool. Because the only wlw exposure most girls get is porn (which is laughable in comparison to the real experience), threesome with guys (which great, way to alienate girls who aren’t attracted to men) and or what I call the “traditional form” of what is consider WLW sex. Also young ladies lets discuss the other thing people don’t really talk about. The psychology aspects of M/F sex and how that can sometimes be super confusing towards how you measure F/F sex because those aspect don’t materialize the same way.  My little cousin is 21 and she is dating her first girl and she came to me with one of these types of questions and I will say I personally would never ask a young woman(under 21) explicitly these types of questions because I wouldn’t want to influence their own sexual journey or probe or push but I do think its important if you have one of these questions to ask someone who may help you in filtering the answer out because once again boys/girls who have sex with both genders are not given the tools to navigate these aspects of being attracted to both genders. You literally learn everything through whispers and hand me downs and it just sucks and as a woman who experienced girlhood this way it just fucking blows that I wasted so much time having to filter out an answer to a question about if am equally attracted to both genders the same because society never gave me the tools to experience sex with women on a equal grounding to men. Or informed me that I didn’t have to feel ashamed that my instincts would react a certain way to men and not women but that that didn’t mean one was better then the other.

So yes, now after several partners and years of fumbles and laughable/frustrating experiences I can say I enjoy everything about both genders equally even though sometimes my brain still slips back into years of socializing and primal instincts that I start doing the stupid comparison dance which I hate myself for but thats because loving anyone is complicated now being a woman and loving another woman is practically war but not because your love isn’t valid or equal to how you love men but because society wants you to feel like its not and they take every tool away from you from the start line to make you try to believe it too. 

[whatifyoulivelikethat]

addiction, m | myg ending

pairing(s): yoongi x reader, mentions of past hoseok x reader

summary: Min Yoongi saves a life and then has sex. Is it the best choice? No. Does he do it anyway? Yeah.

warnings: non-idol!AU; in which everyone makes bad choices; slow burn; rated M (18+) for language, mentions of drug use, mentions of depression and suicidal thoughts, mentions of past cheating, smut (oral, m and f receiving)

--

Fuck it.

He had to do something. Yoongi stood up, grabbing his phone. His white t-shirt got caught in the chair and he stumbled, cursing at himself. He was a mess already and nothing had happened yet. He grabbed his black sweatpants and yanked them on, opening his door with purpose. Being in limbo wasn’t going to help him, so it was time to take the situation in his own hands. He strode to her door, heart pounding in his chest.

Get a grip, he scolded himself.

He tapped his knuckle against her door, saying her name loudly. Startled by his own volume, he lowered his voice, chewing on his lower lip as he spoke.

“Hey, I want to show you my mixtape. If that’s okay with you,” he finished awkwardly, wincing. He should have thought about what to say. There was a long silence. He pressed his lips together. He was losing his nerve. Each second felt like an eternity.

And then he heard the rustle of fabric. He could sense a form on the other side of the door. For some reason, he lifted his hand and touched the wood, knowing it was the only thing separating them now.

“The song… the song we worked on. I really want you to hear it.” Please.

He heard the lock turn and the door opened. The eyes that looked at him, he would remember for the rest of his life. Bloodshot, giant black pools that threatened to swallow him alive and a sadness he knew all too well. Her hands were stuffed into the sleeves of her huge grey sweatshirt and the matching long shorts made her look even smaller, a tiny thing quivering in her doorframe.

He was tall enough to see past her, into her room. It was a neat room, except for the low table at the foot of her bed. The tabletop was covered in photos that he couldn’t quite see. And in the center was a glass palette.

With ten lines of white powder.

His eyes widened. Panic shot through his veins and he grabbed her collar, inspecting her face, her nose, dragging her into the room. She didn’t even fight him, a dead weight in his hands. Her expression was lifeless, tired.

“How much?” he scowled, “How much did you take? Tell me!”

“I didn’t take any yet,” she replied calmly. Too calmly.

“Don’t lie to me,” he growled. “You’re a drug addict.”

“I am not lying.”

His panic was thinning out into anger and confusion. And then she said it.

“I’m not a drug addict, Yoongi. I’m trying to die.”

He froze.

“W-what?”

He looked down again, at the pictures. They were pictures of two people. She was smiling in those photos, eye bright and reflective with the fullness of life. She looked younger, happier. Her arms wrapped around a young man, who had an equally bright smile, heart-shaped and cheerful.

It was slowly sinking in. He let her go, eyes scanning over the photos. Pictures of them in matching outfits. Pictures holding hands. Pictures of them kissing. He looked back to her and she was staring at the photographs too.

“Aren’t they nice?” She whispered softly. “They’re such nice pictures. He always took good pictures, my sunshine.” She chuckled darkly, an ugly sound. “But photos only highlight of the good times. They don’t show the bad times.” Her eyes closed as she took a deep breath. “They don’t show his coke habit. They don’t show me enabling his habit, becoming a runner so he could have easier access. They don’t show me begging and pleading, doing degrading things so he can get another dose.”

Her hands went to head. She gripped her hair, breaking his heart with every word.

“I killed him as much as he killed himself.”

The information hit him like a truck. Speechless, he began to piece things together. The signs were there from the beginning and he didn’t even think about it because he would have never fathomed this in his wildest dreams. Guilt and comprehension hit him all at once. She could have kept the door locked and snorted the cocaine. What if he hadn’t chosen this moment? What if he had waited ten more minutes? She could have overdosed and he wouldn’t have known until days later.

But she had opened the door. She opened the door and let him see.

“What happened?” he murmured quietly.

She threw her hands out of her hair, nails raking down her face and neck. “We had a stupid fight. I told him I would be there to help him detox. We tried,” she wailed, throwing her fists against the wall. “He was shivering and pleading and exhausted. He told me he couldn’t do it. I told him he could if he actually tried and he blew up, telling me I didn’t understand.” Her voice was a panicked ramble as if she was reliving that night. He wasn’t even sure if she remembered he was there anymore. “He kept yelling at me, saying all I had to do was call Seokjin and throw myself at him. I said I was done being Seokjin’s whore just so he could get high. He stormed out, screaming that he would get his own.” She slammed her fists against the wall, screaming into it. The sound chilled Yoongi to the bone. She continued, blind to his presence. “I should have chased after him.” She slid to the floor, knees smacking the hardwood hard. “I should have gone. But I was so tired. I was so tired of it.” Her voice dropped.

“I was tired of him and it haunts me every day.”

He swallowed. It was obvious she had never said this aloud before to anyone.

“Next thing I know, he’s dead because of dirty coke.” She shuddered, arms covering her head. “I handed him a dishonorable death and I didn’t even go to his fucking funeral.”

“Why… not?” he asked softly.

She cackled, a terrible sound. “Why would I go? I never met his family. I was his drug dealer.”

He turned to the pictures. “It looks like you were his girlfriend.”

She finally looked up at him. Her glare was so sharp it could cut steel. “And what if they found out? Mom, Dad, meet my girlfriend who also gives me access to cocaine,” she scoffed.

They stared at each other, but they weren’t looking at each other. She was looking at her own demons, her own past. Yoongi couldn’t bring himself to look into pain in those dark orbs. It took him several minutes before he could speak again.

“You still deal, don’t you?”

Her voice was as distant as her stare. “You don’t get out that easily.”

They stayed like that for a moment. He had to do something. Anything.

Taking a deep breath, Yoongi sat down on her floor. She didn’t turn her head to look at him. Weirdly enough, the moment didn’t feel as alien to him as it should have. Maybe it was because he too had been at this road as well, although at that time he hadn’t quite formed a plan on how to follow though. He didn’t know what he would have done if the resources had been available.

“Do you remember,” he murmured, trying to keep the anxiousness out of his voice. “Do you remember that time where you gave me advice on what to wear for that concert?” He chuckled awkwardly, rubbing the back of his head. “You made fun of my clothes and hair back then.”

Her eyes shifted to him. He continued, voice a little stronger now that he had her attention.

“You also brought me chicken that night and left me a note, wishing me well.” He smiled at the memory, holding her gaze now. “I wanted to tell you back then.” He wanted her to know. “Thank you.”

She didn’t laugh. She didn’t make fun of him. She looked a little taken aback.

He scratched his cheek, pressing his lips together before he spoke again. “I couldn’t tell you then, but back then, I really couldn’t afford to eat sometimes.” Without realizing it, he felt his eyes water. He blinked rapidly, trying to clear his vision. “Remember that time you were making beef and my stomach growled so loud that you laughed?” He chuckled, a small smile on his lips. “It was a great laugh. I’ll remember it always.”

Her shoulders trembled with uncertainty. “Why… why are you telling me this?”

“Because I didn’t then. And I should have.” He looked deep, deep into those eyes. “I should have said something because I am grateful to you.”

She scoffed, shaking her head. “I didn’t do anything.”

“No, you did.” He caught her eye again, preventing her from looking at the ground. “You gave me a chance when no one did and I won’t forget it.”

She was silent. He hoped she allowed herself to understand. He was no knight in shining armor; he couldn’t make her mind see what he saw. It wasn’t that simple and he knew that. He also knew that humans had vices. Humans fell into patterns and they believed in them, even if they were senseless to other people. He was guilty of that too.

She was so close and yet so far. No. She was actually getting closer. Leaning towards him, looking into his eyes. Maybe her eyes weren’t so dark after all. They didn’t seem so dark when she was close like this. Her lips were slightly parted, so full and pink. He didn’t move. She stopped, centimeters from his face. She began to pull back and he grabbed her shoulder, stopping her.

It was a terrible idea. He replied before she could say anything.

“I don’t care.”

He closed the distance himself, pressed his lips to hers. You’re a rebound, this isn’t going to cure depression, this doesn’t discount the fact that she’s a fucking drug dealer – he pushed all those thoughts aside because he did not care. Her hand gripped his shirt and pulled him closer, kissing him roughly. He held her arms as she climbed into his lap, igniting him with wild kisses, stealing his breath. She sucked on his tongue, making him moan, letting him go to kiss his cheeks, his nose, his jaw. His hands slid down her arms, finding her ass and pressing his fingers into the fabric of her shorts.

“Yoongi…” His name like a prayer falling from her lips.

It was wrong, so wrong, but he wanted it so bad.

Her lips pressed against his earlobe, making him shudder. Her tongue laced around his earring, tugging lightly, making him shiver. If it wasn’t real, he didn’t want to know. If it wasn’t right, he didn’t want to believe it. Her teeth nibbling on his ear, making him moan. Her hands slid up his shirt, fingertips against his chest. Such thin hands but they seemed to feel all of him, setting his skin ablaze.

His fingers hooked the elastic of her shorts and pulled them down, dragging her underwear down with them. She kicked them off herself, getting on her knees, kissing down his neck, sucking the sensitive skin. It hurt a little but he barely registered it, cupping her bare skin with his palms.

He whispered her name pleadingly. She looked up, breathless, locking eyes with him.

“You should stop me,” he panted.

One final warning because he wasn’t sure if he could stop himself anymore. One final moment where they could turn back and maybe not do this.

She cupped his face in her hands, pressing her forehead against his.

“I really don’t want to, Yoongi.”

She kissed him, throwing caution to the wind. He reciprocated, sliding his hand up her back. Her skin was so soft, cool against his heat. He unhooked her bra with one hand, attempting to tug her sweatshirt off. She slid out of it, pushing it aside, leaving her naked over him. He looked over her body, scars dotting her skin as thin white lines. Lithe and strong, holding the weight of her past on her shoulders. He licked his lips, pulling his shirt over his head, letting it drop beside them. He looped an arm around her waist, pressing her against him, shuddering as he felt her nipples press against his chest.

“Who knew you were hiding such amazing breasts under those clothes,” he teased, voice low. Her cheeks flushed red and she gave him an indignant look.

He turned them over, putting her on her back. He kissed down her neck, licking her collarbones slowly, tongue dipping in between them. Down the curve of her breast, tongue leisurely teasing the tip of her nipple. She whimpered, one of her hands in his hair. His free hand traced her side, feeling the fullness of her hips. She tasted so good, better than his dreams, better than he imagined. He sucked, enjoying her soft mewls and cries. He dug his fingernails into her hip, holding her down as he flicked her nipple with his tongue. Her hand tightened in his hair, curling the black locks around her fingers.

He stopped, smirking above her nipple. “Is that why you said I would look better with longer hair?”

Her cheeks and ears reddened. Fuck, she was so cute. She spoke, surprising him.

“You don’t like it?” she asked, voice quivering.

He dragged himself up her body, pressing his clothed hips in between her legs, letting her feel his erection.

“I like it,” he drawled, his lips brushing against hers. “Lose yourself to me.” Let me take care of you, even if it’s only in this moment.

His hand ran down her body, grabbing her hips and shoving them against his, grinning as he felt her wetness smear against the crotch of his pants. She moaned, her back arching, a moment he burned into his mind. He kissed down her chest again, tongue lapping her nipples. Her fingers raced up the back of his neck, tangling themselves in his hair once again. He kissed down her stomach, his lips against her soft skin. He could smell it now, the heavy scent of her sex. He spread her thighs wide, fingers dipping into her flesh. He buried his nose into it, moaning as his lips tasted her, stickiness coating his cheeks and chin. A slow, languid lick of her slit made her cry out his name. He teased her lips apart with his tongue, rubbing the tip against her walls. Like honey, her taste coated his senses. He felt drunk off her taste alone. His tongue expertly traced circles around her clit, not quite touching it, but telling her he was avoiding it deliberately.

“Yoongi…” she whined. Her hand pressed against his head, trying to push him down. “Please.”

He brushed his nose against her clit, lifting his head slightly. She whimpered and he grinned.

“Please what?” he purred. His voice was deep with lust. “I want to hear it.”

He couldn’t help it. He wanted to hear her desire for him in words.

She pouted. “Touch my clit.”

He reached between her legs and pressed a single finger against the sensitive spot. She flinched, making him grin. He rubbed, slowly, slowly.

“Like this?” he teased. Her other hand was clutching in the white t-shirt. His.

She gasped as he increased the pace, not moving too widely, but concentrating the vibrations of his hand on her clit. Her hips twisted but he held them down, watching her come undone in front of him, head thrown back as he rubbed faster. Moaning his name, chasing her orgasm.

“Cum for me,” he breathed against her skin. “Cum all over my hand.”

She sank her teeth into her lower lip, stifling her scream as she came onto his hand, liquid coating his fingers suddenly. He immediately replaced his hand with his mouth, licking furiously. It was so intoxicating that he closed his eyes, moaning into her pussy as he lapped up her juices, pressing his tongue against her clit. Her hips bucked and he held her still, feverishly licking the sensitive nub. She gasped, shoving her hips against his mouth.

“Fuck, Yoongi, fuck!”

He flicked his tongue against her clit mercilessly, holding her thighs apart firmly so she couldn’t close her legs. Her back arched so high and tight he was afraid she was going to snap.

“Fuuuuck, Yoongi!”

His name punctuated her orgasm, hips shaking as she flooded his mouth. He sucked up her juices greedily, sticking his tongue inside her and feeling her walls clamp around his tongue. Sweat clung to his brow and back but he didn’t care. He lifted his head, a perverse satisfaction coming over him as he watched the string of her juices following his chin before snapping.

She lay against the floor, panting, a little hoarse. He crawled back up to her face and she kissed him without hesitation. If this was sin, he would happily go to hell.

They broke apart, his forehead resting against hers, hands on either side of her.

“Yoongi…”

Please say my name again and again. “Yeah?”

“Let me take care of you too.”

She pushed him, gently, and he obliged, taking her hand as she nudged him to standing position. He saw the table out of the corner of his eye but he looked away. She hooked her fingers along the sides of his pants and pulled them down, freeing his semi-hard erection. He looked down at her. She reached up and circled her fingers around his cock, holding it loosely. He felt it twitch at the attention of someone new.

A small smile. She leaned forward and pressed her soft lips against his balls. He shivered at the strange sensation. Normally girls would go straight for the dick. She pressed the flat of her tongue against his balls and licked him all over. His skin erupted in goosebumps, stunned by the pleasure of her tongue wrapping around his balls and taking them in her mouth. He watched in fascination as she looked up at him, balls deep in her mouth and her hand wrapped around his cock.

He breathed her name, amazed.

She bobbed her head up and mouth, slowly stroking him. Saliva dripped down her chin and onto her chest, sliding down her breasts. He could see precum leaking out of the head and she casually spread it around with one finger, making his knees weak. He moaned as she removed her mouth from his balls. She guided him to her mouth, holding him in place as she ran her tongue over the head. He shut his eyes, seeing stars.

“Shit, I’m going to fuck your face at this rate,” he hissed.

He heard her small, “Heh.” And then she engulfed him with her mouth, hot, wet, lips tightening around his cock as she took him in. His eyes practically rolled into the back of his head. She went deep, so deep the head pressed against the back of her throat. He didn’t know how she had the skill to go so deep and, honestly, he didn’t want to know. She sucked him slowly, but each time she went down, the head of his cock scraped the roof of her mouth, increasing the sensitivity each time. He kept his hands flat against the wall, not wanting to grab her head and ruin her pace. One hand held his cock steady as the other cupped his slippery balls, smearing the saliva all over them.

It was so wet, so hot that he was sure he was going insane.

She sped up, sucking harder. Groans tore from his throat, legs shaking from the intense pleasure. He tried his best to keep his hips still, not wanting to accidentally choke her and cause her to stop.

“F-fuck me,” he moaned, feeling her tongue wrap around the head and her lips tightening around him. He couldn’t think straight anymore. He gasped her name and shot his orgasm into the back of her throat, sensing her hands releasing him suddenly. They gripped his thighs as she swallowed, the sound so audible and obscene that his cock twitched with desire despite being spent.

They stayed like that for a moment, her tongue gently encircling him. His cock left her lips with a soft plop, lips shiny with saliva. He slid to the floor, their clothes a mess around them. His chest heaved with effort. She was breathing hard too, staring at him.

He licked his lips and leaned in, kissing her gently. She clung on to the kiss, inhaling his scent.

When they broke apart, they locked eyes, the obviousness of their inappropriate moment hanging between them. He was a little ashamed, sitting naked in her room, having sex after what was almost a suicide attempt. He was still breathing hard, heart beating fast from anxiety and arousal.

He wanted to hold her. He wanted to give her everything and more. He wanted to be the light in her eyes, but that was a foolish thought, a pipe dream, and a promise he didn’t know if he could keep.

Still, he wanted.

But somehow, those eyes didn’t look so dead anymore. Somehow, they were really looking at him, not just through him. She wordlessly scooted towards him and placed her head against him, ear against his chest. He wrapped her arms around her protectively, resting his head on her hair. From this position, he could see the sun tattoo that was underneath her left shoulder blade. Behind her beating heart. It was a simple tattoo, a circle with dashes around it. He traced it with his fingertip absentmindedly. He could guess who it was for.

She wrapped her arms around his waist. Held him like she was never going to let go.

--

masterpost

[justlightlysedated]

oh, i know that love is all about the wind, how it can hold me up and kill me in the end (still i loved it)

"Are you okay?" Kyle asks, breaking the comfortable silence that had fallen between them while Alex went through the decoded files and Kyle went through the video footage that they'd gotten from Caulfield.

Alex looks at him, raising an eyebrow. "I'm fine?" He says, asking more than stating, and clears his throat a little.

"That's what I mean," Kyle says like Alex did a magic trick or something. "You keep clearing your throat. Are you feeling okay? Because we can't really afford for you to get sick right now."

Alex rolls his eyes a little, and clears his throat, again, and says, "I'm fine, Kyle. Probably just the air in here or something."

Kyle doesn't look like he believes him, but it's not like Alex is hiding some secret illness from him.

His throat has been bothering him more often than usual over the past couple of days, but Alex thinks it's the fact that the air is getting colder, or he might be getting sick, but the flu isn't anything to really worry about.

Kyle gets called into work and Alex loses track of the passage of time.

He only stops working because his alarm starts beeping that it's time to wake up.

He looks blankly at his phone and then reaches out and stops the alarm.

Alex watches the lockscreen of his phone telling him that it's five thirty in the morning until the screen goes dark.

His phone buzzes at the same time with a message from Kyle, Go the fuck back to sleep.

He's about to reply that he’s feeling very well rested, fuck you very much, when he feels the need to clear his throat, and instead coughs.

He clears his throat again, and shakes his head, swallowing convulsively. It feels like there is something stuck in the back of his throat.

He clears his throat again, and then starts to cough, harder and harder, until he’s covering his mouth with his hand, and leaning over the side of the chair, feeling like he’s going to hack up his lungs.

He coughs hard enough that it feels like something rips in his throat and then he feels something wet and more solid that saliva hit his hand.

He looks down at his hand, curiously, and feels confusion, but also a terrifyingly cold fear sink through him.

There are three petals in his hands that look like they belong to a carnation, white, stained pink with blood and a thin oval shaped, no more than an inch long and a quarter inch wide.

He looks at them for a long moment trying to come up with a rational explanation, but he draws a blank.

Maybe he’s been down here to long and his mind is playing tricks on him.

He goes to the bathroom and washes his hands, looking into his reflection in the cheap bathroom mirror.

There are bags beneath his eyes and he looks really tired, and when Alex tries to remember when was the last time that he actually slept, he draws a blank.

Maybe he is getting sick from overworking himself. But something inside of him just wants to finish with this whole Caulfield mess as soon as possible. 

He pointedly keeps his thoughts away from the why, and clears his throat again before rinsing his mouth with some water from the faucet and then scrubbing his face to wake himself up a little bit more, scrubbing his wet hands through his hair.

He inhales deeply, and frowns when it catches in his throat and he has to clear his throat again.

He decides to stop at the pharmacy on his way back home and leaves the bathroom, turning the lights off behind himself. The flower petals caught in the drain, glow strangely in the dark light, but he doesn’t notice it.

* * *

Kyle isn’t exactly sure what happened, one second they were sharing a beer and Kyle was telling him one of his more raunchy medical school stories and Alex was laughing and then Alex started coughing, harder and harder and harder, until he’s leaning over in his chair, sounding like he’s gagging.

Kyle is thankful for the fact that they were at the cabin hanging out, because Alex starts to hack up mouthfuls of petals that spray out of his mouth and paint the deck in front of him in gruesome red and white.

Kyle watches him helplessly frozen for a second because in all of the things that he’s seen over the last couple of months, and even while he was in Med School, this is by far the strangest. But then his instincts kick in as Alex starts gasping like he’s not getting enough air, and he’s dropping to his knees beside Alex’s chair.

He puts his hands on Alex’s chest and pushes him back, trying to get a good look at his face.

Alex lets him and he wheezes weakly as he tries to catch his breath again. 

He’s clearing his throat, like there is something still caught there, and there are four petals stuck to chin, one brushing his bottom lip, red staining the corners of his mouth.

He swallows convulsively, and blinks his eyes several times, and when he spots Kyle leaning over him, he grimaces.

Kyle frowns at him, but since he’s not actively dying in front of him, he moves back and sits on the edge of his seat, waiting until Alex catches his breath again.

Alex leans back down to grab his beer which he had set down on the floor, and Kyle watches him with eagle eyes as he winces as he swallows.

"It's just a cold, Kyle," Kyle starts, mocking Alex's intonation as Alex lowers the bottle from his mouth and sighs, long and tired. "Nothing life threatening about the common cold, Kyle. I'm sure it will pass in a few more days, Kyle. There's nothing to worry about, Kyle. I'm fine, Kyle."

Alex just rolls his eyes up to the ceiling and looks back at Kyle with an amused, but sheepish expression on his face.

"So I may have understated the gravity of the situation," Alex starts.

Kyle scoffs cutting him off. "You're coughing up flower petals, Alex. That's not only understating, it's also highly unusual and unheard of. Possibly alien."

Alex coughs, covering his mouth and a flurry of petals fall out from the sides, these are less bloody than the ones already spread across the deck.

Kyle looks at him pointedly and Alex just drops his hand, shaking it to get rid of a few stubborn petals.

"I'm f-" he starts and Kyle glares at him.

"I'm handling it, okay?" Alex says instead, looking at Kyle seriously. "I promise that if it gets to be too much for me, I'll let you run all the tests you want."

Kyle makes a face. "How about you let me run some tests, and let me monitor your vitals for one night and my peace of mind?"

Alex rolls his eyes again. "It's just flower petals. They're annoying, but I'll survive."

Kyle gives him a look, "You do realize that that's not normal, right?"

Alex gives him a look back, "What exactly about our lives is normal anymore?"

Kyle has to concede the point, so he takes a sip of his own beer and keeps telling the story, deciding to trust Alex for now.

But if this got any worse, Kyle was going to bring in the big guns.

* * *

Michael and Maria are in the middle of a faux argument, which Liz is pretty sure counts as foreplay, when she gets into the bar searching for one of them in particular.

She stops right next to Michael, pushing him slightly, so that it knocks him off balance and he has to sit back down on the stool instead of leaning across the bar showing everyone a perfect view of his ass.

He turns to her, a pissed off expression on his face, that turns into a mock glare when he sees that it’s her.

He opens his mouth to speak, but she holds her hand up in front of his face to stop him.

“I need your help,” she says, in her most serious no nonsense voice.

Michael looks at her in confusion, which Maria shares, and Liz doesn’t blame them, really.

She also hadn’t really noticed that anything was wrong until Kyle had forcibly opened her eyes by hiding her inside the exam room while he checked Alex over.

Liz stuffs her hand into the pocket of her jacket and grabs a handful of the bloody petals that had littered the examination table when Kyle had walked Alex out of the room, probably to do more tests, and throws them down on top of the bar.

Maria makes a noise like Liz kicked a puppy in front of her, and goes to get the disinfectant spray and a rag to clean up.

Michael on the other hand makes a curious noise, since she peaked his scientific curiosity, and pokes the petals.

“You found flowers that bleed?” He turns to her raising an eyebrow to ask what this has to do with him.

She shakes her head, and tries to get her thoughts together in the right order so that she can explain without sounding like she doesn’t know what she’s talking about, but that’s the problem.

She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.

All she knows is that it's happening to Alex, and Alex is sure that there is only one way to stop it, and he's also equally sure that it's too late.

He's resigned himself to dying, and Liz refuses to accept that.

"Alex is dying," she says, when she looks at Michael to see that she's losing his attention.

Michael goes preternaturally still beside her, and Maria seems to lose all the color in her cheeks as she comes to a stop right in front of them, a dishrag in one hand and the disinfectant spray in the other, eyes wide, lips slightly parted as she stares at Liz 

"And he's refusing to actually do something about the problem-" she starts satisfied that she has his full attention, but then he moves, startling her and Maria, who jolts like she'd been shocked.

He sweeps the petals on the bar into his cupped hand, leaving behind the smear of blood and a few stragglers, and then he's stuffing his fist into his pocket and walking out of the bar without another word.

Liz watches him go, mouth hanging open, making disbelieving noises as she turns to Maria, who is looking at the space that Michael vacated with a frown.

She looks up at Liz after a long moment and tilts her head, looking at her intently before she sets the bottle and rag down on the bar and turns towards where she keeps the bottles of tequila.

Liz takes a seat on the stool she's leaning on and picks up the spray and the rag, cleaning up the bar of all traces of blood and petals.

Maria smiles in thanks and sets the bottle down and two glasses in between them before pouring the drinks and downing hers quickly.

Liz grabs her shot and follows suit, gasping wetly at the sting of the alcohol, and then she turns to Maria, who is looking at the door with an almost wistful expression before she turns to Liz and looks at her as seriously as she can manage.

"What's wrong with Alex?"

Liz licks her lips, and leans her elbows on  the table. "I'm not sure."

Maria gives her a look like she can't believe that Liz is keeping secrets from her again, but Liz shakes her head rapidly, reaching out for Maria's hands.

"I'm really not sure," she repeats, looking at Maria, seriously. Maria just nods her head and squeezes Liz's hands once. 

"All I know is what I overheard Alex telling Kyle. That there is nothing he can do, even if they had caught it earlier, and the only viable option is not an actual option. He didn't explain much more than that, so either Kyle knows what he's talking about, or Alex is deliberately keeping him in the dark."

Maria purses her mouth, and looks at Liz, expression complicated, a mixture of fear and guilt with just a hint of defiance.

"I saw Alex a few days ago, and he seemed fine," Maria says slowly.

Liz gives her a sad smile, "It looks like we're both being crappy friends now. I got so caught up in trying to get Max back and dealing with Rosa and work that I haven't talked to him in weeks, let alone seen him. And you-"

She cuts herself off grimacing, and Maria squeezes her hands again before she lets go.

"And I was too busy ignoring all of the signs that he wasn't doing well because I didn't want it to be true, because if Alex wasn't fine then that meant that I made a huge mistake."

Liz sighs and gives Maria a look, "Falling in love isn't a mistake."

Maria bites down on her lip.

"The mistake comes from letting it get in the way of your friendship."

Maria sighs, "I didn't mean to, but being around Alex made me feel guilty about being happy about being with Michael, and feeling guilty made me feel pissed off because none of this would've happened if he had just talked to me, but feeling pissed off made me feel guilty all over again, because it's not Alex's fault that he was in love with Michael any more than it's mine for falling for him without knowing about their past, and feeling guilty made me even more pissed off,  because it made me doubt that being with Michael was even a good idea, and the cycle just repeats itself, and it started to taint my feelings about being with Michael, so I just started to avoid Alex."

She blinks her eyes, and Liz can see that she's trying not to cry. 

"And I only did that because I thought all we both needed was time to get used to the new normal, but we're running out of time, aren't we?"

Liz shakes her head immediately.

"No," she says, with as much conviction as she can infuse into the word. "We're going to figure this out, together. Even if Alex is too stubborn for his own good, and doesn't cooperate. I'm not losing anyone else. And you aren't either okay? We'll fix this, and then we'll fix things between the three of us. We've been friends forever, a guy and a life threatening disease is not going to get in the way of that."

Maria is nodding her head at her, feeling Liz's confidence, and she opens her mouth to say something when Liz phone rings in her pocket.

She gives Maria an apologetic look and takes the phone out of her pocket.

She sees Kyle's name on the display, and her heart jumps into her throat.

What if it had gotten worse? What if it was already too late and Alex was-?

Before she can psych herself out too much, she answers the phone.

"What-?" She starts to say, but an explosion of noise makes her pull the phone away from her ear.

"You told Guerin?" She can just make out Kyle hissing into the phone, over what sounds like Alex and Michael arguing.

Liz looks to Maria and wonders if that's just how Michael shows his affection, by arguing with the people he cares about.

She puts the phone back to her ear, "We need all the help we can get."

Kyle exhales roughly, and Liz can just imagine him, dragging a hand across the top of his head.

"You should've told me before you did that. The last person that Alex wants involved in this is Guerin."

Liz makes a face and she doesn't look at Maria as she speaks.

"You do realize that in Alex speak, that means that Michael is most likely the one who can figure out what he's trying to hide."

Liz can just imagine the look on his face as he thinks that over.

"Once again, it was none of your business, Guerin!" She hears Alex snapping in the background.

"You're dying," Michael says, like that's all the reason he needs to get himself involved.

"We're all going to die sometime!" Alex answers back.

Michael makes an enraged noise back at him.

"Not from something that can be treated," Kyle interjects, voice sounding as pissed as Michael seems to be.

There is a perfect drop of silence over the phone, so absolute that Liz thinks that the call must've dropped, and then Michael speaks, and she can hear the glassware in the lab shaking with the effort he's exerting to keep himself under control.

"What is he talking about?" He asks.

Kyle makes a noise that tells Liz that Alex is probably glaring at him.

"Nothing that concerns you," Alex responds, sounding cool as ice, while Michael sounds like a volcano about to erupt.

"Alex, if you know how to fix this-" Michael starts.

"There is no fixing anything," Alex says, cutting Michael off. "You can't pick up the pieces and try to duct tape me back together, Guerin. It's far too late for that."

"Alex," Kyle says in a soft voice. "We're just trying to help. We care about you-"

Alex laughs a little derisively and Liz frowns at the phone, looking at Maria who is watching the phone with a furrowed brow, leaning over the bar so she can hear the conversation.

"You have a really funny way of showing it," he snaps. "I'm leaving now."

"No," Kyle starts and stops.

"You're not going anywhere until we figure out what's wrong with you and how to fix it," Michael says voice deadly serious.

"And how exactly are you planning on keeping me here?" Alex asks, like he's honestly curious how Michael would accomplish that.

"Don't think I'll have a problem with that at all," Michael drawls, voice coming out a weird mix between flirty and pleading.

"Without using your abilities?" Alex asks, and before anyone else can say anything, Liz hears the sound of glass breaking and a whoosh, and then coughing which doesn't sound like the hacking cough Alex had hacked up earlier, and someone saying Alex's name and then the call drops.

Liz looks up at Maria who is looking at the phone with a thoughtful expression on her face.

"I have to go," Liz says putting her phone back in her pocket and looking at Maria who gives her a strained smile. "I will call you as soon as we know anything."

Maria just nods her head, "I know."

Liz gives her a brief smile and leaves the bar.

* * *

Michael stares at the x-rays with a furrowed brow, darting his eyes up at Kyle, who is looking at him seriously.

Michael hasn't said anything since Alex darted out of the door. It had taken him ten seconds to realize that the vial of yellow powder that Alex had thrown on the ground, was just that, yellow powder, but by then Alex was already gone.

“This is impossible,” Michael says, because someone needs to point that out, first.

Kyle blinks at him twice and then sighs. “Okay, look. I’m going to need you to process this a lot faster. It’s happening. I’ve seen it happen. I’ve been monitoring his vitals since November-”

Michael’s head snaps up at that, and he looks at Kyle who stops speaking when he gets a good look at Michael’s face.

“This has been going on for months,” Michael says incredulous and disbelieving.

At that moment Liz walks in through the door, tying her hair up into a ponytail as she turns to Kyle and Michael, “So what’s the plan?”

Kyle gives her a look, “I’ve been trying to catch Guerin up to speed, but the alien is saying that it’s impossible.”

Michael makes a face at Kyle, making mocking noises and looking back down to the x-rays.

As impossible as it seems, there are flowers growing inside of Alex’s lungs.

Michael can see the tiny spikes of roots growing into the soft tissue inside of his lungs, growing into tangled vines that were blooming with flowers made up of millions of petals that fell away everytime they were slightly disturbed.

“Show me everything,” Michael says, turning to Kyle and Liz who both turn to him at the same time.

Kyle just nods his head and walks out of the lab, while Liz takes her jacket off and slides on her lab coat.

“This has been going on for months,” he blurts out, and Liz freezes momentarily, before turning slowly to face him. “How did I miss it?”

“Alex didn’t want anyone to know,” is what she responds with. “We all missed it. It wasn’t just you.”

Michael wants to protest that he isn’t just anyone, but he bites down on his tongue, because that’s not exactly true anymore.

“Kyle knew,” Michael says, sounding sullen, and Liz just rolls her eyes at him and walks over to the desk, where the x-rays were lying on.

She makes a face as she picks one up.

“Kyle says he found out by accident,” Liz says, as she looks at the x-ray with a thoughtful expression.

“Well then why didn’t he tell anyone?” Michael says turning towards Liz.

“Because Alex asked me not to,” Kyle says as he walks back into the room with a filing box. “And even though I didn’t agree with it, he really did have a handle on the situation. But it’s gotten progressively worse over the last two weeks.”

Michael feels his heart skip a beat in his chest, but he shakes his head and forces his thoughts to concentrate on the present.

Kyle sets the box on top of the table, and Liz and Michael immediately move to open it, pulling files out.

"Give me the x-rays," he says, "You're the only person who can read Kyle's atrocious handwriting."

Liz nods and they divide the files between them, while Kyle turns on his laptop.

Michael looks at the first couple of x-rays and he sees exactly what Kyle means immediately.

Each x-ray is dated every two weeks, and the ones from the first couple of months show small flowers, nestled at the bottom, no vines in sight, but they suddenly appear in the x-rays dated two weeks ago and Michael doesn't have to look at the exact date to know that the time matches up perfectly.

"I looked up some similar sounding stories, but the only ones I found involved people accidentally inhaling seeds, but nothing as extensive as this."

"Do you know what kind of flower it is?" Liz asks, as she pulls out a plastic bag full of petals.

"I tried," Kyle said, "but I keep drawing a blank, the shape of the petals is strange to any of the flowers I found that sort of matched, and they kind of glow in the dark."

Both Liz and Michael look at Kyle, blinking in unison before they turn to each other.

"Definitely an alien thing," Liz says as Michael nods along.

"And if Alex knows how to fix the problem," he bites out.

"Then that means that the information must be in the Caulfield files," Kyle finishes his train of thought.

Michael makes a face at that and Liz smiles triumphantly.

"You two stay here and try to find a non alien solution to the problem, I'll go check the files," Michael says and moves before either of them can protest.

He gets into his truck and just drives. 

Michael's phone starts to ring in the pocket of his jacket but he ignores it already knowing it's nor either Isobel or Alex.

His fingers tighten around the steering wheel and as much as he wants to force himself to stay in the present, he can't help but think about exactly what happened two weeks ago.

Arguments with Alex weren't a new thing. They had been getting better at actually communicating without turning it into an argument, but even sort of becoming friends hadn't stopped that particular habit from taking over.

Another habit that seemed difficult to break was the fact that when either of them got backed into a corner they lashed out with the most hurtful thing.

Michael hadn't meant to say it, but he'd spent the morning arguing with Isobel and the afternoon arguing with Maria, that when Alex appeared, Michael lashed out immediately instead of listening to what he was trying to say.

“Can we talk?” Alex had asked, voice hoarse and sounding just a little bit desperate. 

Michael had leaned back in his seat, dragging his eyes up from Alex's feet to his face in a slow deliberate crawl.

He had noted that Alex looked tired and a little worn around the edges, but there was a look in his eyes that had Michael's guard up immediately.

"We really don't have anything to talk about," Michael had drawled looking away.

Alex had cleared his throat and had sat down beside Michael, making Michael’s gaze go to him involuntarily.

“We have tons to talk about, but there’s just something I need to know, and then we don’t have to talk about anything else.”

He had cleared his throat again, and Michael remembers thinking that he had sounded like he was getting sick.

He had stayed quiet for a long moment, just staring out at the road at the odd cars that crossed the street every now and then at this hour of the night. Michael remembers thinking that it had seemed like he was savoring the moment for some reason.

“Are you happy?” he asked, turning to look at Michael, and Michael had felt the question like a punch in the stomach.

Isobel had told him that morning that while he may be content pretending to be happy, she wasn't going to spend the next ten years living in another comfortable lie like him and Maria had accused him of just going through the motions with her, after Michael had asked if they were still going to go to the Drive In that Saturday.

Michael hadn't known what to say in both instances without putting his foot in his mouth, so he'd stayed quiet, but he always knew what to say to Alex, whether it be good or bad.

“Why?” he asked Alex, the tone of his voice, caustic and mocking. “Hoping that I’m miserable so that you can come to my rescue, and fuck me up some more?”

Alex’s brow had furrowed, and had shaken his head, and he had leaned forward in his chair. “What? No, I-”

“Sorry to disappoint you,” Michael had kept going, talking over Alex. “But I’ve never been happier, and I’ve never felt more loved. I’m not pretending to be happy or going through the motions, so you don’t have to worry about me.”

Alex had just nodded his head and left soon after that, clearing his throat way too many times, and Michael had felt a pang in his chest at the look on his face.

Thinking about it now, Michael could see how someone who didn’t know what his day had been like, could take those words that he had said to mean something else. 

He could see how Alex could’ve taken the words to mean that that’s what he’d been doing with him, pretending and going through the motions, but it was too late to take it back now.

And thinking about it now also helps him see that that was Alex telling him goodbye.

His fingers clench around the steering wheel, and the engine protests loudly as Michael pushes the truck harder without pressing down on the gas.

Michael tries not to think about the fact that Alex knew that he was dying back then, and hadn't even tried to push Michael into having an actual conversation, had just accepted that Michael was happier without him and would be okay if he died.

And that’s what’s bothering him the most about this whole thing. That Alex actually thought Michael would be okay if he died.

His phone rings again, jolting him out of his thoughts and he just sighs and pulls his phone out of his pocket. 

Maria’s name flashes across the screen, and he furrows his brow, wondering why she would call, when she barely even ever calls him.

He answers the phone.

“Finally,” she says. “Jesus, Guerin. I called Kyle and Liz. Get to the cabin. Alex is getting worse.”

Michael doesn’t answer as he drops the phone and pulls an illegal u-turn and pushes down on the gas, pushing the truck even harder.

* * *

Maria barely waits before Liz is out the door before she’s calling Juniper over and leaving her in charge. She tells her that she has a family emergency and that she’ll be back in time to close down the bar before she grabs her keys and heads out of the door.

She gets into her truck and pulls out of the parking lot taking the road that will lead her out of Roswell. 

She's not entirely sure why, but she has a gut feeling that that is where Alex is going to end up, at his cabin.

She makes it there before him, and he stops walking the second he sees her.

She stands up from where she'd been sitting at the top of the stairs and Alex opens his mouth to speak, but before he can say anything, he coughs.

His eyes go a little wide, and he turns away from her. All she can see is his back shaking as he coughs, hacking painful sounding coughs that make him bend over with the strength of it. He's inhaling wheezily, like there is something stuck in his airways.

She takes one step over to him and then he coughs hard and out fly dozens of white petals, streaming out from his mouth.

Maria freezes unable to actually believe it, and only moves when Alex drops to his knees as he starts to gag.

Maria drops to her knees beside him, and rubs her hand up and down his back, trying to figure out what she could do.

Alex coughs, hard enough that it sounds painful, and out of his mouth falls a fully formed flower, just the bud, made up of hundreds of white petals.

Alex stops choking, and starts breathing easier, still a little bit wheezy, and he leans forward, pressing his forehead to the ground as he catches his breath.

Maria stares at the flower as the petals rustle in the light April wind, and she thinks about something her mom told her the last time that she visited her, the same day that she had seen Alex last week, love grows roots, and if we're not careful they could end up suffocating us.

Maria had assumed that she was being metaphorical, but Alex had apparently taken it to the literal extreme.

The thought that it being Alex's feelings for Michael that had him like that, left Maria feeling a little bit like she was the one coughing up flowers.

But no, there had to be a non Michael related explanation to this, even if it's an alien one. Whatever was going on with Alex could not be about Michael, because Maria doesn't really know what she'll end up doing if Alex isn't coping as well as he projects to be.

Alex leans back up, and seems to steel himself, inhaling deeply, and it's almost like Maria can feel a wall coming up between them.

He turns to her, and Maria can see it in his face that he's going to do his best to lessen the blow of whatever it is that is happening to him, but Maria has never been someone that needs to be protected, especially not from her own feelings.

"No," she says before he even starts speaking, and he just looks at her with a furrowed brow.

"We're going inside and you're drinking an entire bottle of water, and then you're going to tell me the truth, deal?"

Alex just stares at her for a long moment before inhaling carefully, and nodding his head once.

He doesn't protest as she helps him to his feet, and doesn't say anything as she pushes him back to sit on the couch and then gets him a bottle of water from the fridge.

She hands it over and sits down on the edge of the coffee table, staring as he swallows the water, wincing like his throat is tender.

He drinks about half of the bottle before he caps it again, and sets it aside looking at Maria.

Maria stares at him and really looks. He's pale, but more on the clammy I'm really sick side, than the I haven't seen the sun in months one. The bags beneath his eyes should have their own PO Box address, and there seems to be something permanent about the way his mouth is tilted downwards, like he's been frowning a lot.

She finds the corners of her mouth dipping even more as she studies his face, and she can feel the guilt settling uneasily in the pit of her stomach.

"I don't know what you want me to say," he says after a few minutes of staring in silence.

Maria purses her mouth and looks at him seriously. "The truth."

Alex winces and clears his throat, grabbing the bottle of water and drinking some more.

He gives her a half smile that immediately falls off his face, "The truth about what?"

Maria tries not to grit her teeth too hard as she realizes that there must be a lot of things that Alex is keeping a secret.

She had thought that after the mess that came out of him keeping Michael a secret for ten years, he would've known better.

But clearly, he doesn't.

"Are you dying?" She asks, and Alex just closes his eyes, inhaling deeply like he really doesn't want to deal with this, like he actually thought that he could quietly fade away into the night and no one would care.

He opens his eyes again, and Maria tries not to let it show how pissed she actually is right now, but she can tell that Alex can tell.

"Yes," he says, simply, like he can't be bothered with a longer answer.

Maria expels a harsh breath and resists the urge to reach out and shake him.

"Okay," she says. "I'm going to need you to stop pretending like this is normal and okay and like no one will care if you die, and tell me what the hell is going on."

"I'm not pretending anything," Alex responds leaning back in his seat. "I've stopped pretending. I'm too tired to keep going through the motions, and frankly, I'm dying so I don't need to pretend anything."

Maria furrows her brow, feeling like the words he's using are familiar but not really remembering where she's heard them before.

She understands what he's trying to say, however, which makes her pissed off, feeding into the guilt she can feel making knots in her stomach.

She just shakes her head at him, not really wanting an argument, but feeling like the only way to get through to him would be to fight, which tells her a lot more about his relationship with Michael than he ever has.

"Alex," she says, and he just blinks at her, like he's already heard all of her arguments and already has an answer for anything that she's about to say.

Which pisses her off.

"Is this about Michael?" She asks, throwing the question in his face, and watching the way it affects him before he shuts it down.

She can tell that it is, but he just lies to her face, clearing his throat slightly. 

"No."

"You're lying," she tells him through gritted teeth.

He just exhales roughly and lifts his hands to his face scrubbing his fingers across his face and into his hair before he nods his head once, like he came to a decision.

"Someone should know the truth," he tells her, leaning back in his seat and just looking so tired that she really just wants to bundle him up and put him to bed. "It might as well be you."

"Were you hoping it to be Michael?" She asks, and he just exhales roughly and gives her a look, and she just raises her hands in defense and sits up, letting her hands fall to tangle her fingers together on top of her lap.

"No," he says, answering her question, which surprises her slightly. "I don't want Michael to know about anything that I'm about to tell you."

Maria licks her lips and nods her head once, raising an eyebrow to give him the all clear to speak.

He clears his throat, and has to turn his face away from her, and he covers his mouth with his hands as he coughs, but the flurry of petals explode from beneath his hand, sending the petals everywhere, some even landing on Maria.

Maria brushes the petals away from her hair, and they feel soft and fragile, but she hisses when she feels the edges of the ones that aren't wet with saliva, giving her tiny papercuts across her fingers and palms.

She looks at the tiny cuts and then looks at Alex, who is shaking the petals away from his hands.

She opens her mouth to speak, but Alex clears his throat and starts talking.

"It started a couple of days after Max died," he starts, and Maria gets a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, vile and spiky, making the guilt feel even worse.

"I thought I was just spending too much time in bunkers, that the humid air probably messing with my allergies, so I just ignored it. Even after the first time I coughed and found flower petals on my hand, I thought that I was probably tired, and seeing things, so I ignored it."

He inhales carefully, and in the quiet stillness of the cabin, Maria can just make a sound like wind rustling through leaves.

"It got pretty hard to be in denial," he says, giving her a half smile. "But I had a handle on it. I knew it wasn't normal, and could probably be alien related, and after agreeing to let Kyle run a few tests to determine that it wasn't life threatening, I decided that it wasn't a priority."

Maria bites her tongue down on the question of what could possibly be more important than his health, but she had a feeling that she already knows the answer.

"A couple of weeks ago," he continues carefully. "I was looking through some files because Liz asked me to search for something to do with the vegetation that had been recovered from the ship when I found the picture of the flower. Confirming that at least the flower was alien in origin."

He clenches his jaw and gets that look in his eyes like he's about to tell her something that she's not going to like.

"Finding out the name of the flower, peaked my curiosity so I went looking through all the files we've managed to retrieve from Project Shepherd, and found out exactly what was happening to me."

Maria licks her lips. "That was really vague."

Alex sighs. "I know."

He inhales carefully again, clearing his throat a little, and then swallowing hard.

"The Antarians called it, veolut en carre which as far as I was able to translate, roughly means, the vines of the heart. It's the flower that is traditionally given to the one left behind. Usually used in funerals and given to widows."

Maria swallows heavily, trying really hard not to jump to conclusions, but it's incredibly difficult not to.

"In the files I found out that the scientists in Caulfield call it, the disease of the brokenhearted," he says and Maria's eyes fall shut, tight.

"And it's the only proof they have that aliens landed here before the crash of 1954, since there have been reports, that Project Shepherd made sure to have the only copies of, of people dying by suffocation, surrounded by flowers, and autopsy findings that state that the patient's lungs were entirely overtaken by a floral bush."

Maria inhales deeply and opens her eyes, to see Alex looking at her with a furrowed brow, like he's worried how this is going to affect her, instead of worrying about himself.

She feels a pang in her chest and she wonders if he would've just taken it and beared it if Maria wasn't a part of the equation.

"None of that explains much of anything," Maria tells him, and he just sighs.

"It doesn't explain why you're suddenly dying, after months of it not being life threatening."

Alex clenches his jaw again, "There are two ways to get rid of the problem. The first one isn't even an option I would consider, but the second one was doable, in a sense."

He inhales deeply, and there is something that looks a lot like guilt swirling in his eyes.

"I went to Michael," he admits. "To ask him if he was happy, because I refuse to do or say anything that will jeopardize that, and if I told him the truth, it would cause nothing but issues. So I asked and he told me that he has never been happier, and I let it go."

Maria wants to tell him that he's being vague again, but she doesn't.

"What is causing these flowers to grow inside of your lungs?" Maria asks, since it looks like she'll need to ask pointed questions for Alex to give her the answers that she wants, and she can't actually believe that that is a sentence that came out of her mouth.

"It doesn't happen to everyone who's had contact with an alien," he says quickly, trying to reassure her. "There are other things that I don't really want to get into right now, but it's caused by unrequited love."

He stops speaking, and Maria is thankful for that. She needs a few seconds to store that information for later, but at the moment there are more important things that she needs to know.

"Okay, so what's the option you wouldn't even consider?" She asks, and a small part of her hopes that it's something to do with asking Michael if he still loves him, because she would hope that Alex would at least let her know if he was going to go ask her boyfriend what he feels for him, but a much larger part of her knows that that's not it.

"An operation," he says, and Maria feels a small spike of hope, before she remembers that he has already said it wasn't an option. "You remove the flowers by the roots and that solves the problem."

"But?" She asks when he doesn't elaborate.

"But," he says, giving her a wry smile, before it falls off his face and he gives her a serious look. "If you take the flowers out at the root, it also takes with it the feelings that caused it in the first place."

Maria blinks a few times, trying to parse out how this would be a bad thing, and then the whole thing hits her like a bag of bricks in the pit of her stomach, and for a second she feels like she can't breathe.

"You're still in love with Michael," she says in a breathless voice.

Alex gives out a disbelieving laugh, like he can't believe that she actually thinks that he got over Michael.

Maria glares at him, because she wouldn't have been thinking that if he would just talk to her about the important stuff every once in a while, but she's starting to realize that Alex thinks that all of his relationships are a one way street.

She opens her mouth to speak, but the words catch in her throat, when the irritating huffs of laughter turn into a cough, and then he's gagging, leaning forward suddenly enough that it makes Maria scramble backwards, her boots dragging along the edge of Alex's wooden coffee table as she climbs fully on top.

Alex just coughs and coughs and it sounds horrible, like a sound from a nightmare, and it gets even worse when he spats out another bulb full of petals, bloody petals, and then reaches up with his hands to continue to pull the rest of the flower out of his mouth, stem and leaves and thorns and all.

Maria feels like she might be sick, but she inhales deeply, several times, while Alex pulls the rest of the flower out of his mouth and lets it drop to the ground in front of him.

It falls with a sickening thud and Alex spits out a mouthful of blood.

She stares at him for a long moment while he gets his air back.

"That looks like it hurt," she says, to break the silence.

Alex makes a noise that could be a laugh.

"I've been through worse," he responds with a groan as he leans back in his seat.

He looks a little dazed and his mouth is stained red at the corners, and he's dying, and Maria doesn't understand.

She feels helpless, and it's not like she can force Michael to tell Alex that he loves him, and it's not like she would know if he did or not.

Michael had told her once that Alex was an off limit topic between them. He said that it was in the past and he was looking forward to the future, and Maria had accepted it.

She had actually believed that they had a chance to actually be something great, something more.

But somewhere between finding out about Alex and finding out that he was an alien, something had fizzled, and no matter how hard she tried, she just couldn't get that spark back.

There were sometimes when it felt like she might, but most of the time, it just felt like Michael was following steps he found in a book on how to have a perfect relationship, going through the motions-

She stops the thought short and looks at Alex, who seems to be doing deep breathing exercises, but she can practically feel how hard he's trying not to cough.

"Is it worth it?" She asks, and his eyes snap open and he looks at her like he'd forgotten that she was there. "All that pain you're going through. Is it worth it? Wouldn't it be better to just get rid of it all once and for all?"

Alex just looks at her like he doesn't understand. "Of course it's worth it."

Maria nods her head once, and stands up, "Well, I don't accept that. I don't accept that you're just going to let yourself die like this in this horrible, painful way. It's terrible, and nothing is worth your life, Alex. You can fall in love with anyone. It's not a once in a lifetime thing."

Alex shakes his head at her, getting to his feet, and there is some color in his cheeks, and Maria swallows hard, but she doesn't back down.

"I can't," he says, voice trembling a little. "You don't think I've tried. I've tried everything. It's been over ten years, and I just can't seem to ever make it work with anyone else, not that I can manage to make it work with Michael either, but with everyone else, there's just this feeling of like, static, like they're on a different frequency-"

"Like you can't connect," she says, and he nods his head at her.

"With Michael," he says and swallows hard, wincing a little. "When it's just the two of us, and I forget that the world outside exists, everything is so clear."

He stares at her with wide eyes, and then blinks rapidly, looking away, looking to the side and shaking his head.

"But it's not like it matters-" he starts and then he chokes, and Maria reaches out to grab him before he collapses on the floor.

"You're getting worse," she said,  pulling her phone out of her pocket. "I'm calling, Guerin."

"No," he manages to get out, garbled, through a mouthful of flowers. "Kyle "

Maria is already calling Michael, but she'll try Kyle next.

Alex drops to the floor, on his hands and knees and Maria closes her eyes and looks up to the ceiling as the phone rings in her ear.

She hopes and prays that Alex will be okay.

She hopes that it's not in vain.

* * *

Michael bursts into the cabin, slamming the door open before he clears the balcony.

He stutters to a stop when he sees the macabre aftermath on the living room floor, a flower, stem and all, in a pile right by the coffee table, and even more of them leading to Alex's bedroom, surrounded by thousands upon thousands of metals.

He's not prepared for the worst and is really hoping for the best when he pushes Alex's bedroom door open, and he very nearly collapses in relief when he finds Liz and Kyle hovering over Alex, who is breathing shallowly, but still breathing.

He holds on to the doorjamb and it creaks in protest.

Maria appears suddenly in front of him, blocking his view of the bed, and his gaze focuses on her, and she looks pissed off and scared and there are flower petals caught in her curls.

"Fix this," she tells him in a no nonsense voice, and Michael really doesn't know how she expects him to do that. "You have to tell him to get the operation."

Michael looks at her blankly for a second, and he opens his mouth to speak, when he hears Alex speak.

“No,” he’s saying, and his voice sounds raw and wet.

Michael looks away from Maria, and finds Alex immediately, eyes closed as he lies back, brow furrowed like he’s in pain.

“There are no other options,” Kyle is saying. “You’re at the end of it. You told me that we could talk about it now.”

“No,” Alex says again, more firm but just as painful sounding.

“This operation is the only thing that can save your life,” Liz tries next.

“What operation?” Michael blurts out, finally finding his voice.

Alex’s eyes snap open, and they find him immediately, and he exhales, and a flurry of petals fall out of his mouth.

Before anyone can say anything, or Michael can repeat his question, Alex coughs, and makes a low strangled noise and then leans over the bed and coughs and gags and chokes and Michael stares in macabre fascination as Alex pulls the flower out of his mouth. He makes another low strangled pained sound and as the rest of the stem comes out of his mouth, with it comes enough blood to tell Michael that Alex most definitely needs to stop being a stubborn idiot and listen to the doctor.

Alex coughs and spits and more petals fly out of his mouth.

“No,” he says on a heaving gasping breath before he’s choking and dragging another flower out of his mouth.

“Are you just going to stand there and watch him die or are you going to do something about it?” Maria says, pushing him backwards and making him snap out of it.

Michael looks at her, and she looks terrified.

Michael just nods his head once and walks over to the bed, pushing Kyle aside, who protests immediately and dropping to his knees right next to Alex, barely avoiding the pile of flowers and blood.

“Alex,” he says, and Alex groans and presses his face to the side of the bed.

He’s leaning awkwardly, and looks like he just might fall down to the floor, but Michael plants one hand right by his waist, and says his name again.

Alex inhales deeply, seemingly holding his breath, before he opens his eyes and turns to Michael.

Michael lifts his hand towards him, and Alex stares at him for a long second like he’s trying to make sure that Michael is actually offering what he thinks he’s offering, and Michael just stares back at him, trying to project as much openness as he can instead of the debilitating fear that keeps paralyzing him and making him want to flee in equal measures.

They need to have a conversation, and they need to have it while Alex isn’t actively dying, and they need privacy and Michael knows only one thing that can offer both.

Alex swallows hard again and he lies back on the bed, his breaths coming in fast and short, blood dripping from his nose, and Michael knows that they’re running out of time.

Michael kneels up and takes Alex’s hand between both of his, and he exhales carefully and closes his eyes, concentrating.

With Alex it’s always so easy to connect, even easier than it is with Isobel or Max. 

Michael refuses to think about the why, and pulls Alex into his head.

It always takes him a second to get used to being in the mindscape, a second where he has to get used to the strange sensation of floating but also being trapped by gravity.

He hears Alex take in a breath, and then he gasps, a little like he's in shock, and pulls away from Michael.

Michael opens his eyes then brow furrowing in confusion and then his mouth drops open a little in shock.

Alex is covered in vines, except for his face, pressed close to his skin, like they're embedded, the leaves rustle as he moves around trying to see how far it goes, and the flower petals fall, making it look like a tiny flurry of snow.

He turns to look at Michael who doesn't know what the hell is going on, but they don't have time to figure that out.

"Why won't you let Kyle do the operation?" He asks as soon as Alex turns to him.

Alex shakes his head, and Michael steps forward, frowning when Alex takes a matching step back.

"Alex," he says. "Either give me a good enough reason not to or I will knock you out and carry you to the hospital myself."

Alex makes a low frustrated sound and takes several steps backwards and then paces in place for a few seconds where Michael can literally feel every second pass, like a loud drum banging in his ear.

Alex breathes in deeply, and then turns to Michael, locking their eyes together, making it impossible for Michael to look away even if he wanted to.

"The operation would work, taking the flowers out by the root, would fix the problem, but-" he stops and looks away from Michael momentarily, before looking back at him, expression more determined than before.

"But," he says again, and he's holding himself so still that he's actually shaking with the strain, and petals are falling to the floor, but Michael still can't look away from his face. "It would take with it the feelings that caused it in the first place."

Michael stares at Alex, and tries to figure out why that would be a bad thing.

Alex sighs and moves his hands to his face, only to freeze as he catches sight of the vines curling around his fingers.

"Alex," Michael says, and he doesn't think he's ever said Alex's name as much as he has in the last hour. "Just spit it out."

Alex laughs, a huff of laughter that makes Michael frown immediately.

"I don't think you actually want to know, Guerin," he says, letting his hands drop to his sides.

Michael tries not to get defensive immediately.

"Of course I want to know," Michael says. "I wouldn't have asked you otherwise."

Alex shakes his head. "You told me that you're happy and that you're loved, so it doesn't matter the why or the how."

Michael takes a step towards him, "I knew that that day had something to do with this. You got worse after you came to see me, didn't you?"

Alex doesn't reply, only swallows hard, looking away, but to Michael that is answer enough.

Michael tries not to tear his hair out. "I don't understand. What do I-?"

Michael stops speaking as Alex looks back at him, eyes wide and shining bright, and he feels the air catching painfully at the back of his throat, and his fingers itch with the desire to reach for him and pull him in close.

"What do you have to do with this?" Alex finishes for him, and there is something in the tone of his voice that tells Michael that he's done beating around the bush.

"Nothing," he breathes out. “And everything.”

Michael swallows hard and just looks at him, impatience making him a little jittery because they are running out of time, but he waits Alex out.

“Because you’re an alien,” he says, and Michael tries not to flinch away from the accusation. “Because you weren’t careful enough the three times you dragged me into your head. Because psychically you don’t let anyone go. Because we formed a bond that you rejected. Because I had hope for months, that maybe things between us would get better, would get to a place where we could eventually try again, but you took that away from me too.”

Michael shuts his eyes, feeling every single word like a punch in the chest. He aches with it, and he wonders if this is how Alex felt when Michael had accused him of being the worst thing that had ever happened to him.

Michael feels hands on his shoulders, and opens his eyes to see Alex standing right in front of him.

“But it’s not your fault,” he says looking at Michael seriously, and stressing every word. “You didn’t ask to be an alien, and you didn’t know what would happen, and it’s not your fault that you don’t love me anymore.”

Alex shudders, eyes falling shut, and Michael can hear the rustling as the vines move and the petals fell to the floor, and Alex gasps quietly, and Michael’s eyes drop to his throat where he sees the vines crawling higher, a flower blooming right by his ear.

“That’s what this is about?” Michael asks, and Alex’s eyes open.

“These things are killing you because I don’t love you?”

Alex shudders again, and Michael exhales roughly not really needing Alex to give him a concrete answer.

He pulls away from Alex and tries to think clearly, but he can’t, not when there is a ticking time bomb in his brain reminding him that they don’t have the time.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” he says, and Alex just blinks at him. “You’re dying, and the only way to fix the problem is for you to remove these things that are growing inside of your lungs, but you refuse to because it will take away how it feels to know that I don’t love you?”

Alex huffs out a breath, and he rolls his eyes a little, and Michael gets defensive immediately.

“For a genius, you can be such a dumbass,” he says, sounding fond for some reason, and confusing Michael enough that all he can do is stare.

“The scientists stationed at Caulfield called it, the disease of the brokenhearted,” he starts, and Michael freezes, feeling his heart stall in his chest. “It only occurs when the bond is unrequited.”

“Alex,” Michael says sounding a little breathless, and lot confused.

Alex swallows hard and looks at Michael, eyes honest, lashes wet. 

“I love you,” he says, and Michael gasps, feeling the words hit him right in the pit of his stomach. “I love you, and I would rather die than ever forget that.”

Michael blinks, feeling a little dazed, like Alex knocked him over the head with a brick.

His heart beats in his chest in time to the words echoing in his head, I love you, I love you, I love you.

Michael feels something brush against his consciousness, like someone is trying to call him back to his body, but there’s still one more thing that he needs to know.

“What was your first option?”

Alex lets out a breath and closes his eyes shaking his head, but Michael doesn’t really need an answer. He thinks that he already knows.

And it’s so crazy that Michael can’t help but huff out a laugh, smile widening when Alex’s eyes open again and he looks at Michael in confusion.

“For a genius,” Michael says a little mockingly. “You can be such a dumbass.”

Alex furrows his brow, not understanding at all, but Michael doesn’t feel like clearing anything up.

“I never look away,” he says instead, and Alex immediately takes a step back, shaking his head in denial. “I told you that.”

“No,” Alex says. “You told me that you didn’t love me.”

“I was lying,” Michael says. “And you knew that I was.”

Alex shakes his head again. “You said that I was the worst thing to ever happen to you.”

Michael nods his head. “And you’re also the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“Stop,” Alex says looking at him a little desperately, but Michael doesn’t.

He steps close again, wrapping his fingers around Alex’s arms and tugging him in close.

“You’re happier without me,” Alex whispers. “You said that. That you were happier, and you never felt more loved, and I don’t want to mess that up for you.”

“The only way that you can mess anything up is by dying, Alex,” Michael says, tone insistent as he pulls Alex in a little closer.

“You can’t do this to Maria,” he says then, looking at Michael pleadingly. “She loves you, and you’re happy with her. You’ll forget all about me eventually-”

“No,” Michael says, cutting him off, and Alex shuts his eyes. “I won’t forget about you. I haven’t been able to. I have a good woman who loves me and who makes me happy and still you’re all I think about.”

Alex shakes his head again. “You can’t.”

“But I do,” Michael says, and he waits until Alex opens his eyes again, distraught, but Michael can see the cautious hope that he doesn’t want to give into in the way he pulls his bottom lip into his mouth, staring at Michael intently.

“I love you,” he says, and Alex’s mouth falls open slightly, eyes going a little wide.

“You-” Alex starts, shaking his head, but Michael pulls him in even closer, pressing a kiss right against the curve of his cheekbone, lips brushing against the skin softly, making Alex’s words die in his throat.

“I love you,” he breathes. “I never stopped. I never will. And I promise to spend the rest of my life reminding you, over and over.”

Alex whimpers low in his throat, and he reaches for Michael, hands tangling in the collar of his shirt.

“I love you,” he says again, and Alex drops his forehead to Michael’s exhaling roughly, and he’s so close that Michael feels it when the vines start to move, seeming to shrink and shrivel like they’re dying.

“I love you,” Michael says again, and Alex makes a relieved sound at the back of his throat, and Michael closes his eyes and drags them out of his head.

* * *

Alex gasps, air flooding his lungs so fast that he almost chokes on it, moving his head to the side and coughing weakly, feeling his throat ache, but not like something was stuck.

He’d gotten so used to fighting for every breath over the last couple of months that breathing easily sends a shock through his system.

He opens his eyes and sees Liz, looking at him in shock, with tears staining her cheeks.

He smiles weakly at her, and she smiles back like she can’t help herself.

Alex feels someone squeeze his fingers and he turns to find Michael staring at him expectantly.

Alex just breathes in deeply and finds himself smiling at Michael, who just huffs out in relief and then pushes into Alex’s space, to pull him into a hug, pulling Alex to sitting position, and burying his face in Alex’s stomach.

Alex automatically places his hands in Michael’s hair, trying to soothe him and jumps a little when he feels someone wrapping their arms around him from behind.

He smells Liz’s coconut shampoo as she presses their heads together arms wrapped around his shoulders, hands clasped right across his chest.

“What?” Kyle asks sounding confused.

Alex looks at him and he gives him a half smile, and Kyle exhales roughly.

“You take decades off my life and you don’t have the decency to at least let me try to save you?”

Alex would speak, but while he doesn’t feel like he’s fighting to breathe, his throat still feels rough.

He just stares at Kyle, who rolls his eyes before he drops on the bed and pulls both him and Liz into his arms.

It’s a little awkward but Alex doesn’t say anything as Kyle exhales in relief like Alex really did scare him.

There is one person missing, and when he looks for her, he finds her standing awkwardly by the door, staring at the way Michael is holding on to him like she’s finally figured something out.

He clears his throat, and everyone reacts.

Maria’s eyes snap up to him, and Michael’s hands dig into his back, and both Liz and Kyle basically stop breathing.

“Sorry,” he says, wincing a little, but doesn’t look away from Maria.

Maria stares at him for a moment longer, before the look on her face cracks, and her eyes fill with tears and then she’s also crawling on the bed and wrapping Alex up in his arms, from his other side.

Alex feels completely smothered, and a little uncomfortable, but he knows how close it got.

He can give them this for a few more seconds. He has a feeling that they all need it after the day that they’ve had.

After a few minutes, he starts to feel more than a little uncomfortable. 

Kyle and Maria notice immediately and let him go, sitting back on the bed, close enough that they’re still touching him in some way but not smothering. Liz tightens her hold on him marginally, pressing a kiss to his temple.

“Never do that to me again,” she whispers trying to sound stern, but the relief in her voice just makes her sound fond.

“I promise,” he tells her, reaching up with one hand to pat the back of her clasped hands.

She lets him go and leans next to Kyle, dropping her head on his shoulder, and closing her eyes. “I feel exhausted even though it’s like not even dark out yet.”

Michael doesn’t let go, and Alex doesn’t know if he actually wants Michael to let him go.

Maria clears her throat, and everyone’s eyes snap to her immediately, Michael included, even though he tightens his hold on Alex even more.

“I’m okay,” she tells them, but Alex can already feel Kyle clearing his schedule for tomorrow morning so he can check her out as well as make sure that Alex is actually in the clear.

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Kyle says, and Alex can feel him moving to get off the bed. “Tomorrow,” he says pointing at both Alex and Maria. “I want the both of you in my office, ten am sharp.”

Alex shares a look with Maria and they both turn to Kyle with one eyebrow raised.

“I had no idea you felt like that, Valenti,” Maria says, and Alex opens his mouth, and closes it when Kyle glares at them both.

“Don’t you two start.”

Maria just snorts and Alex bites down on a smile.

Liz pushes Kyle towards the door, “Come on, I’m sure Alex has a secret imported vodka stash somewhere that we can raid.”

Before Alex can protests, Maria is also scrambling off the bed and joining Liz and Kyle, wrapping her arm around Liz, and she doesn’t look back as they walk down the hall, but Alex can see how tense she is.

After a few seconds, where Alex hears the shouts of triumph as they find his secret imported vodka stash, Michael finally pulls away from him, leaning back on his heels and letting his hands fall to his lap.

Alex stares at him for a second, looking at the messy, frizzy curls on top of his head, and he can still hear Michael’s voice, strong and sure telling him that he loves him, and the certainty of his face and the honesty in his eyes is enough to give Alex that hope back.

But he can still see Maria’s face as she realized that her relationship with Michael had a part to play in what was happening to him.

Alex inhales carefully and reaches for Michael, fingers curling into his hair, and Michael lifts his face to look at Alex.

Alex stares at him and very gently slides his hands down to cup his face.

Michael closes his eyes leaning into the touch, lips parting slightly, and Alex has to bite down on his lip to remind himself that he can’t kiss Michael.

At least not right now.

“We have to-” 

“Talk,” he says, blinking his eyes open and looking at Alex with an expression so soft and full of wonder that Alex feels a little bit faint. “I know.”

He shakes his head a little. “Yes, but you have to talk to Maria first, and decide what it is that you actually want, and only after all of that can you make good on your promise.”

Michael stares at him for a long moment before he kneels up, and Alex’s breath catches in his throat, but Michael just presses a kiss to his cheek, so soft and sweet, but it leaves Alex aching for more.

“I love you,” he whispers, and Alex gasps, eyes falling shut. “I’ve already made my choice.”

Alex presses his cheek to Michael’s and closes his eyes tight, before he pulls back.

Michael moves at the same time that he does and they both stop short, noses barely touching.

Alex looks into Michael’s eyes, and Michael looks into Alex’s, and he feels overwhelmed by the amount of love he can see shining out of Michael’s eyes, but he loves the way it makes him feel warm inside.

Alex doesn’t know how long they stay there, just staring at each other while Alex basks in the warmth of knowing without a doubt how Michael feels about him, but someone clears their throat, and they both flinch, pulling away and looking over to the door.

Kyle grins a little sheepish, but there is something a little disapproving in his stare.

“We’re heading out to let you rest,” he eyes him intently as he speaks. “Drink plenty of fluids and I’ll be giving you something tomorrow to help you with your throat.”

Alex nods his head, and tries not to feel too disappointed when Michael lets him go and gets to his feet, groaning a little as he walks around from kneeling in place for a bit too long.

Kyle nods back at him and turns to go.

“Wait,” he says, and Kyle stops and turns back to him.

“Thank you,” he says.

Kyle just smiles back at him. “It’s my job to keep you healthy. You have to stop making it so difficult.”

Alex just rolls his eyes good naturedly, and watches as Kyle leaves.

Liz bounces into the room, holding a fifth of vodka beneath one arm. She presses a kiss to his forehead, “I will also see you in the morning, ten am sharp.”

He smiles at her, and she just waves as she turns and follows Kyle down the hall.

Maria walks into the room, and Michael excuses himself without a word as he walks pass her and down the hall.

Maria stares at him in silence for long enough, that Alex starts to fidget. He hears the sound of Kyle’s car turning on and pulling out of the driveway which propels him to speak.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and Maria furrows her brow. “It was never my intention to do anything that would come between you and Michael.”

Maria’s face clears and she shakes her head at him. “You didn’t. Things with Michael haven’t been working out the way that I had hoped they would. I thought that maybe what we needed was time, but I don’t think anymore that this is one of those things that will be fixed by time.”

She walks over to him slowly, and sits down beside him, wrapping her arm around his waist and tucking her head into his neck.

Alex wraps his arm around her shoulders and holds her tightly, feeling tears prick behind his eyelids.

“Be good to him,” she whispers, so low that he almost doesn’t hear her. “Or I’ll kick your ass.”

Alex just tightens his hold on her, and doesn’t say anything.

She presses a kiss to his shoulder and then lets him go, getting to her feet and sending him a smile. “See you in the morning.”

Alex smiles back at her. “I’ll bring some fresh blueberry scones.”

She makes a happy noise at the back of her throat and then turns and leaves.

Alex doesn’t wait for Michael to come back and tell him goodbye.

He gets to his feet, wincing a little as he bends to release the pressure of his prosthetic. He feels like he’s been wearing it too long, but first, he needs to at least take a shower, then he’ll worry about everything else.

He takes his time in the shower, and when he gets out, and wipes the steam away from the mirror, he stares at his reflection.

He does look tired and like he could use at least three weeks of sleep, but unlike the time when all of this was starting out, he doesn’t feel like he’s at the end of his rope.

He walks out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around his waist, to get to the clothes in his dresser and when he darts his eyes out of the window, he freezes momentarily.

Maria and Michael are sitting on the tailgate of her truck, and he’s speaking, and Maria is listening to him with a serious expression.

Alex turns from the window and walks towards the dresser. 

He wasn’t really expecting Michael and Maria to have this conversation right now. He had figured that he would have to wait at least another week before Michael told him what his decision actually was, even after he said that he had already made his choice.

Alex gets dressed, and throws his towel over his shoulder, grabbing his crutch from where it had been leaning on the wall so that he can actually get to the kitchen without having to use the wall for balance.

His eyes dart back outside of the window, and this time they are standing, and Maria is placing something in Michael’s hands, before she leans up, and presses a kiss to his cheek.

Alex looks away and makes his way to the kitchen.

He jumps slightly when he hears Maria’s truck start up and leave, and goes and grabs a glass of water.

He downs the whole thing, and sets the cup down on the counter, waiting for the sound of Michael’s truck to start up, but it doesn’t.

But Michael also doesn’t appear at the doorway.

Alex worries his bottom lip and then exhales slowly.

He’ll give Michael all of the time that he needs.

Right now, Alex wants to clean up the mess on his floor and then take a nap, but not necessarily in that order.

He knows that if he leaves the mess that it will stink up the place later, but as soon as he thinks about sleeping, he starts to yawn.

He exhales and just walks towards his room.

He’ll lie down for a second and then clean up.

Alex swears that he’s only just closed his eyes, when he feels the bed dipping beside him.

He turns towards the movement, blinking his eyes open and is surprised by how dark it is.

He looks at Michael, who is settling himself beside Alex, and jolts a little when he sees that Alex’s eyes are open and on him.

Alex doesn’t say anything, and Michael just stares at him carefully, before he moves closer, sliding one arm beneath Alex’s head.

Alex turns to him, and wraps one arm around his waist, and Michael takes that as permission to wrap himself around Alex like an octopus.

Alex lets him before he tries to get comfortable and then he buries his face in Michael’s hair.

He smells faintly of sweat and slightly sweet like he uses Liz’s coconut shampoo, and also a little bit like bleach and lavender scented disinfectant.

Alex doesn’t really have to wonder why, he just wraps his arm tighter around him.

“We’ll talk in the morning,” Michael says in a low voice. “I promise. I just, need to hold you right now.”

Alex doesn’t say anything, he just inhales as deep as he can, filling his lungs with air, and he exhales closing his eyes and falls asleep.

[avinrydarchive]

hallow’s eve, saint’s day

Author: AvinRyd Fandom: The Bartimaeus Sequence Rating: G Pairing: Gen Word Count: ~8500 words

When in Prague...

--

Some lighthearted spooky shenanigans for you this October.

Written for the Bartimaeus Fic Exchange 2020. Check out the collection on AO3 to see everyone else’s awesome fics!

Read on AO3

Chapter 1: Somewhere: Sometime

 22,643

“...”

“Hello, glad to see you’re awake.”

“Um, hello. Where am I? How long was I...asleep?”

“Well, twenty-two thousand, six hundred and forty three spirits have passed by since you arrived, so I’d assume about five days on the mortal plane? Hard to say exactly, but I’ve had a while to put a model together. “As to where you are? Stuck.”

“Stuck?”

“Stuck. I have many theories as to where and how, but the fact is that we’re stuck here between the two dimensions known to my people—and yours, I’m assuming, since you came from the same direction I did.”

“Oh…

“You said you’ve been here for a while? Is it permanent, then? This being stuck?”

“In theory? No. I believe it’s possible for us to leave, should the right situation arise. However, in practice? I’ve yet to see a situation that would afford an exit so...it might be permanent, yes.”

“...”

“...”

“How long have you been here?”

“I lost count a few centuries ago.”

 1,962,573

“Hey, the gates haven’t done that before.”

“Oh, that usually means someone on the mortal plane came up with something interesting. What… Oh. That’s  very interesting. I wonder…”

“What? No. No, stop—whatever you’re ‘wondering’ it’s a bad idea.”

“Hmmm, doubtful.”

     4,747,821

    “...”

“Finally! That was way too long, don’t do it again.”

“How long?”

“Thirty thousand, six hundred and fifty seven. I didn’t think you were going to form back up that time.”

“I was  so close though. It closed just a fraction of a second too soon. Next time—”

“Next time?! Did you hear how long I said you were gone? You’re going to get yourself dispelled at this rate, and there’s no guarantee it’ll work!”

“It will.”

“Oh, so when I say stuff like that, it’s arrogant, but when you do it’s just fact?”

“It’s not arrogance when my previous hypotheses have all been correct. It’s based off the same knowledge, there’s every chance I’m right. I  know I’m right. I—

“Wait, there’s another one.”

“Ah, no. Hold on—”

“I’m going to do it. This time for sure.”

“Wait! What if it doesn’t work? What if it  does?  Will you— That is, I’ll be…”

“Don’t worry. I’ll work out the method, then come back for you. I promise, my friend.”

“Friends? Is that what we are? I—wait, no!”

“...”

“...”

“I didn’t even ask his name…”

Chapter 2: Prague: Hallow's Eve

“—so there’s no need to worry about it. Piper and Harold can badger me all they want, send all the nastily worded imp messages they like—it’s not like I’ll run out of 'fuck,no's. I’ve got an unlimited supply.” Kitty sighed and shifted, trying to ease the ache in her back without smudging chalk lines. Sitting on the hardwood floor was murder on her over-taxed body, sending sharp spikes of discomfort up the curve of her spine and into her creaking hip joints, but this circle was so fragile she didn’t dare risk throwing a chair into the mix. The ringing at the base of her skull wasn’t terribly comfortable either, but it was a side effect of this spell they’d been unable to mitigate. Over the slight resonance, Bartimaeus’s voice replied, “Alright, alright. And since you’ve left Bruges they’ll probably have a time finding you for a while, at least. How’s Prague?” “Beautiful. Old. Rainy. A bit spooky, but I suppose that’s to be expected.” The laugh ringing through their connection wasn’t just one voice, but many. That was the interesting thing about this; she was speaking to Bartimaeus, but he was only separated from the Other Place just enough to exist as “Bartimaeus”—the rest of the Other Place was nearly an equal part of their conversation, which had taken some getting used to. “See, that’s the appropriate response. Certain modern magicians I’ve known—particularly young, bratty, British ones—have no appreciation for the old magic that city is steeped in. And speaking of magical detritus from a thousand failed spells, you did bring your instruments with you when you left Belgium, right? This is the longest we’ve ever had the portal open, and—” Kitty sighed again, much put-upon. “Yes, Bartimaeus. I have them and they’re set up and everything is stable. There was a tiny spike a few minutes ago, but everything is normal otherwise. I left Bruges to get away from the hovering protective people, you know. Please don’t you start being one now.” Bartimaeus scoffed, but the humming presence behind him was at least half on Kitty’s side, she was sure. “Fine, far be it from me to care about silly humans doing insane experimental magic with minimal education. I place full faith in your absolute knowledge and will immediately cease worrying that the portal will explode in your face and leave a Kitty-sized crater in one of the oldest standing magical cities of the mortal realm. I wash my metaphorical hands of it.” It was Kitty’s turn to laugh, bright and clear in a way it’d taken years for her to get to. “You do that. Anything in particular I should know about the city: places I should go, things to avoid?” “Eh, just keep your wits.” Kitty got a strong, almost visual impression that, had Bartimaeus been in a material form, he’d be looking on with an unimpressed twist to his mouth. This was such a weird spell. “If you’ve got that aura-viewing skill on tap still, keep a sharp eye out. Avoid any bridges without auras—they’re most likely falling apart internally. And costumed men with ‘distinctive’ candles!” “O-o-okay? That’s highly specific, should I be concerned?” The suggestion of a shrug and his words came through crackled with interference. “Not really, he was just a bit creepy by human standards, and that candle… Not a thing for polite company. Thought you’d prefer to steer clear of anyone similar. Don’t go to graveyards tonight, either.” The ringing at the back of Kitty’s mind was escalating to a high whine and she reached up to massage the base of her skull. One of the glass phials outside the circle, sealed and full of swirling gas, was starting to pulse with a faint glow. “Alright Bartimaeus, we’ve got to stop. The spell’s starting to break up. I’ll try again after I’ve spoken with the print master, okay?” “Good, this was probably too much strain on you anyway. Have fun bullying old men into changing books!” The djinni’s voice sounded further away than before, and before Kitty could reply, the connection snapped off. There was a sharp pop and a flash of sparks in the air above her as the spell collapsed—another issue to work on. She’d love to reach out to Button for ideas on a fix, but that would invite more pleas to return to London and Kitty was so, so tired of those. Government was not for her, not even a little bit. Even her drive for activism had waned, though she suspected it was simply burnout—and as Bartimaeus and Jakob and everyone else had said, this was some well deserved burnout indeed. Standing up was a process for Kitty these days: gingerly uncross legs; wait for the shriek of pain to stop; get knees under herself with careful movements; press up using stiff wrists to stand with popping knees; roll slowly upright, feeling every sore vertebrate slot into place. Painkillers. She had a couple left from the drugstore in Burges, right? She hoped so. She was far too tired to be exploring the city for a drugstore—or an apothecary? Who knew what this place had. Her travel bag lay on the bed, flap sagging open to reveal her essentials. The white plastic of a drugstore bottle peeked out from under the sweater Mrs. Hyrnek had made for her, and she’d just reached for it when— “Did you know that, when a djinni is dismissed, the gates between our world and the Other Place are open for precisely eight-point-five-two seconds?” Kitty whipped around. The room was empty; the disembodied—familiar?—voice already just an echo bouncing off the window panes. Light from streetlamps flickered strangely through wavy glass and water droplets. Somewhere, thunder rolled. “Second—” There it was again, but there was nothing to see, no matter how hard Kitty looked. “—and you must know some of this, having visited the Other Place yourself—but did you know that a human soul is, pardon the pun, in essence the same composition as any spirit? Though with a deep affinity for the earth element that other spirits abhor. And that, if sufficiently stimulated and accustomed to the act, a soul can exit the body—voluntarily or not—and bridge the worlds; even following another spirit on its way away from our earthly plane?” The voice was familiar, and yet...not. Kitty could swear she’d never heard this person speak—a boy with an absolutely unfamiliar accent. And yet? And yet, in her mind she heard an echo… What do you presume…?   “And thirdly: did you know that your absolutely ingenious bit of spellwork holds the Elemental Gates open longer and with more stability than any spell used in the last two thousand years? And that, if a spirit were somehow stuck in a crevice of those gates, your spell provides an opportunity for escape not given in those same two thousand years?" The voice came from behind her now, and this time Kitty turned slowly—mindful of the crick in her neck her last turn had caused, and also not near as fearful. She knew now that there was nothing to fear from this voice. On her bed—or rather, floating slightly above it—sat a teenage boy, visible at last. Yellow lamp light and the watery orange glow of the street lights did not bring up warm highlights on his dark skin as they should have. He was nearly transparent and so washed out the ends of his curly hair faded out of sight. Seemingly unbothered by this, he grinned up at her, flush with the satisfaction of solving a millenia-old conundrum and shining with an emotion Kitty suspected might be gratitude. Cautiously, she returned the smile and—in a very steady voice, thank you very much—quipped, "Ptolemy. Are you aware you're floating three inches above the bedspread?"

Chapter 3: Prague: Hallow's Eve  

“Ptolemy. Are you aware you’re floating three inches above the bedspread?” Ptolemy’s face twisted. “Am I? Irritating. Rekyt made this material form business look so much easier than it is.” “Well,” Kitty said reasonably, moving to sit on the bed as well, “he has had quite a bit more time to practice. And human souls aren’t terribly used to having to keep themselves in a form, are they?” Brows drawn in concentration, Ptolemy drifted downwards about an inch and muttered a distracted, “I suppose so,” before managing to drop the remaining space. Now he was flush with the worn bed quilt, but didn’t make so much as a wrinkle in the fabric. Kitty watched in fascination as, with experimental movements, Ptolemy brought his hand to the bedspread, then pushed it into the bedspread, then waved it in and out a few times. In a sudden flash of mischievous inspiration, she grabbed the drugstore bottle she’d reached for earlier and turned to Ptolemy, lobbing the rattling object with a quip of “Catch!” The boy’s reflexes were not quick—even in the best of circumstances he would have ended up bonked in the nose—but it didn’t matter. The bottle phased through his fingertips, then through his face and chest to land with a clatter on the pillows behind him. Kitty met his unamused stare with a grin, absolutely unrepentant. “Had to check. Scientific method and all that.” Still looking a bit miffed, Ptolemy pulled his foot up to “rest” on the bed and wrapped his arms around the bent-up knee. “If you hadn’t built that spell, I’d be tempted to say you’re the least scientific person I’ve ever known.” Kitty rolled her eyes and leaned back to reach around Ptolemy for the bottle she’d thrown—her joints really did ache after that long conversation’s worth of sitting on the floor. Pulling herself back upright after the extension wasn’t exactly painless either, but she was very sure it would be rude to reach  through her visitor to grab something, especially since she’d been the one to throw it through him in the first place. Deftly, she twisted open the puzzle cap and tapped two tablets into her hand before closing it and trading it for a waterbottle in her travel bag. When she’d done, she met Ptolemy’s interested stare with grin. “You’ve only just met me, but you are pretty close to the truth. I didn’t do much with the technicalities of inventing that spell. It was my idea, and I know how it works and how to monitor it, of course, but the construction was a collaboration between Bartimaeus and two magicians I know back in London. They did most of the actual science.” The water tasted strongly of mineral and metal, filled at the last petrol station her bus had stopped at, but it wasn’t awful and got the job done. The moment also gave her time to consider how the hell to move on from here. There was a boy dead more than two thousand years sitting in her boarding room, and she had no idea how he’d gotten there. He seemed to have minimal purpose other than just...arriving—not indicating he had any message or any particular reason for not being able to move on. If his opening remarks were to be believed, he was back on the mortal plane because of a magical glitch in the system. He’d gotten sucked away before death had fully taken hold. Her musings were interrupted by Ptolemy moving, reaching to pull a book from her bag, then huffing when his fingers slipped right through the corner. “This is not going to work,” he muttered, focus completely on the stubbornly stationary book. He made two more swipes at it before giving up that approach and staring intently at it instead. Nothing happened and he flopped back dramatically to stare at the ceiling, hair falling right through the bed. “This is not at all workable. Kitty, I think I need your help.” “I don’t know why. You seemed to be doing quite well on your own.” “Are you always like this?” Kitty snorted in a very unladylike fashion. “Pretty much. Why do you think Bartimaeus likes me so much?” A moment of contemplation, then: “That does make an unfortunate amount of sense. Still, I really would appreciate a moment of sincerity, this is a matter of utmost importance.” “Utmost importance, huh?” Kitty laid back on the bed with a groan. “What’s that, then?” Ptolemy’s face was solemn as he looked over at her. “There’s someone else who’s stuck, and I promised I’d get them out.” “They can’t just...fall through? Same as you did?” Ptolemy snorted a laugh, serious moment broken. “They could, but they won’t. Too unsure of the results. If we’d had physical forms, I’m pretty sure they would have tackled me to keep me from doing something this reckless.” A day’s hard travel and spellwork dragged Kitty’s eyelids down—an inexorable pull. She hummed in exhausted consideration, then said through a yawn, “I don’t suppose a normal summoning would do the trick, would it?” Her jaw cracked mid-yawn, nearly drowning Ptolemy’s reply of, “Probably not…” Then, “I sense we may need to continue this conversation in the morning?” “Mmhm…” She’d given up the fight to keep her eyes open. “Well then.” His laugh was softer, almost fond. “Until the morning, Kitty.” She tugged her feed up onto the bed and shifted a bit, trying to find a comfortable spot on the lumpy mattress. “G’night, Ptolemy.” Kitty’s last thought before slumber was a deep confusion as to if this was not all just some elaborate dream, caused by magical backlash-induced unconsciousness. Quietly, she hoped not.

Chapter 4: Prague: Saint's Day  

Early morning sunlight cutting across her eyes pulled Kitty to consciousness. She’d forgotten to close the curtain before going to bed. Odd. She was usually quite conscientious about that—woe betide wherever woke her up too early, up to and including the sun itself. Still, last night had been quite strange, hadn’t it? Her fuzzy brain struggled to remember. Movement in the room drew her gaze. A boy, crouched next to the circle she’d forgotten to clean up. Habit moved her mouth before her brain caught up; she mumbled, “Bartimaeus, we don’t do magic science early in the morning, remember?” His face turned, familiar in shape but not in expression, and everything clicked back into place. Ptolemy looked rather bemused. “Does Rekyt take my form often? Or are you just so unused to any company other than his?” Oh. Right. “...both.” Kitty scrubbed at her eyes and pushed messy bedhead from her face as she sat up, the last night’s events reordering themselves in her mind. Two thousand years’ death seemed to have little effect on the boy sitting on the dusty floor of her sleepy, second-floor boarding room in the middle of Prague. He looked at her expectantly, fingers sketching circles on the floor and making no trace in the scuffed dust. With a groan, she flopped back onto the bed. Ptolemy’s intent gaze was still trained on her, she could  feel it, but her too-tired brain wasn’t up to meeting it and thinking through the morning’s problems at the same time. She stared at the cracked plaster ceiling for long moments before sighing heavily. “Alright then. We’ve got your business of ‘utmost importance’ to get to, right?” An affirmative sound, so she continued. “Well, I’ve got some business of importance to get to today as well. You’ve obviously been awake, thinking about this. What do you want to do?” A glance over at Ptolemy proved Kitty’s suspicions—the boy was practically shaking with the effort of not simply spilling all the plans he’d made overnight. Ghosts, apparently, didn’t sleep. She quirked an eyebrow and he immediately began: “We need to summon Rekyt. You said he helped design this circle, and I want to use it as the basis for mine, but I don’t understand a good third of how it’s build. Magic has moved on and—oh, but Kitty this is fascinating, I never could have dreamed—” He stopped, catching Kitty’s second raised eyebrow and pulling himself back on track. “Right. Between us and Rekyt and some intensive research, I think I can put together a spell that will do the trick. So. First: Rekyt; second: library.” Pushing upright once more, Kitty shook her head. “Other way around. Library first, Bartimaeus second.” She continued ahead before he could interrupt. “A summoning, a real one like that? That isn’t a small undertaking for me. I’ll be knackered for the rest of the day afterwards so—unless you figured out how to conduct an entire summoning while insubstantial last night?—we’ll go to the library and printers’ first, then come back with your research and summon Bartimaeus. Agreed?” Ptolemy studied her closely, quietly, and she felt a blush threatening to flood her cheeks. Ridiculous, really. He’d barely been able to  stand  after his trip to the Other Place; she had no business being embarrassed by her trip’s cost of physical stamina in front of him. A long, long staredown later, he nodded. “Agreed.” Good. She stretched and swung her legs off the bed to stand at last. There was a washroom just down the hall, communal for the boarders but Kitty was the only guest at present. She was glad of it—sharing washing up space with strangers was  not  something she wanted on top of everything else. After digging out her toothbrush, she turned to Ptolemy. “Stay here. We don’t know if anyone can see you yet. I’ll be back in a second.” Ptolemy looked just the slightest bit abashed. “Actually, I do know. A little after midnight I may have...taken a stroll? No one else can see me, or hear me.” “Oh. Well then. That’s good to know. I’ll...still be back in a second.” And she stepped briskly into the hall.

***

Ten minutes later—longer than her usual habit but hell if she didn’t need a good five minutes of overwhelmed solitude—Kitty returned to her room to find Ptolemy floating cross-legged a foot off the bedspread, exactly level with the windowsill so he could look out. At the creak of the door, he didn’t turn so much as roll backwards, ending upside down with curls falling to and fading through the bed. Inane as it was, she couldn’t help but grin. Bartimaeus held such a reverence for the memory of his old friend; Kitty wondered if that was the source of his gravitas in the guise, or if the new freedom of insubstantial spirithood was breathing new mischief into an otherwise solemn boy. The grin stayed as she moved to pack up her travel sack once more. She saw the grey chill outside the window around Ptolemy’s inverted form and tugged her jumper from the side of the bag where it’d gotten jammed. It was grey-blue wool and knitted by Jakob’s mother—a gift. She saw Ptolemy’s eyes catch on the textured fabric as she finished tugging it on and offered her arm. “Have you figured out how to touch things yet?” He shook his head but reached out anyway. As expected, his fingers swiped right through it. Less expected was the world-wringing sensation of his fingertips passing through her wrist. Early on in their experiments with the communication spell, Kitty had directly touched their “spectral conduit” to the Other Place, as Mr. Button had called it. Before Bartimaeus had snatched her back, she’d felt her self, her essence, tenuously bound to her body at the best of times, begin to be siphoned out and up and away. It felt like that, except in reverse. Connection was made and into the vacuum of her not-quite-full body flowed another gust of person. She felt him for a moment, entranced and inexorably drawn to the lure of earthen control once again before she was able to batten down all hatches and shove the presence away. With a jerk, Kitty yanked her arm back. She could feel her eyes popped wide in panic as she stared at Ptolemy, who was also wide-eyed but in fascinated joy. “Kitty,”  he breathed, wonder under his words, “Kitty, let me try that again. That. It was… I could have— we could have—”   “No!” Her voice was too loud in the quiet room and Ptolemy flinched. “What? Why? I just want to try it. If we were a bit more careful, I might be able to—” “You might be able to do quite a lot! And you won’t be trying, thank you very much.” His brows furrowed in consternation. “Alright, then. I can try it with someone else, I suppose. I wonder if you need their true name to—” “No, Ptolemy.” She didn’t yell that time—her voice was as flat and cold as London pavement. She cut off Ptolemy’s next attempt at speech with a harsh, chopping motion of her hand. “No. That is an invasion of self no commoner can even attempt to consent to, even if you did ask, which it sounds like you weren’t going to do.” Hideous silhouettes danced behind her eyes, though she tried to push them back. Glowing, demonic eyes in the faces of helpless puppets that haunted her nightmares. Breathe. She just had to breathe through it, just like she did all the other times. Through sheer force of will, her heart rate slowed down to something resembling healthy and she was able to bring her vision back into focus. Ptolemy was staring at her—very human, but also not quite. She forced down a shudder. “Come on. We’re going to the library. I’ll explain why you can never, ever do that, but I’ve only got it in me to do it once, so you’ll have to hear it along with the master printer.” She didn’t wait for an answer, just turned, snatched up her satchel, and headed out the door, closing and locking it behind her. Ptolemy was a ghost, he’d be able to follow just fine. He did. She couldn’t hear him coming behind her, but she now had a disturbingly unerring sense of his location that she hadn’t possessed a moment ago. Possessed. With a shudder, she rubbed the skin of her wrist under the jumper, trying to scrub off the sensation even as she mentally tracked Ptolemy’s progress behind her back. They went in silence like that—Kitty walking at a brisk pace with Ptolemy trailing behind—for nearly ten minutes of winding through dreary streets. Kitty had a map, and directions from the proprietor of the boarding house, which she trusted more. Concentrating on the confusing tangle of twists and turns busied her nervous mind into calm—calm enough that when Ptolemy cleared his throat, her quiet “hmm?” was genuinely amicable once more. “Where is this?” His voice was soft, awed. “I know I’ve...been gone a while, but I’m fairly sure this not Alexandria.” Kitty snorted and replied, “Prague,” before snapping her mouth shut. The street wasn’t busy by any means, but there were still people about who might look sideways at the out-of-place British girl talking to thin air. Quickly, she stepped from the sidewalk to stand under the awning of a cafe. The map made crisp sounds as she unfolded it and brought it up to her face, hiding the movement of her lips as she whispered, “We’re north of Alexandria, by a lot. Across the sea, past Rome, up where we call Eastern Europe, now. I’ll find you a map when we get to the library, yeah? For now, I can’t be talking to myself all the way across the district.” “Right.” He agreed with a quick nod, already distracted by the pastries displayed in the cafe window. Rolling her eyes, Kitty folded the map once more and headed off. The grey above threatened more rain and she quickened her pace. It wasn’t a short walk to the Holy Roman Archive and she’d rather not have to make the last third of the trek getting dripped on. Ptolemy was at her side now, gasping and exclaiming every other second at some new thing he’d glimpsed, and she had to actively suppress a wide smile. Grinning inanely at nothing wasn’t a look she wanted to project either. As they began to emerge from Old Town’s winding alleys, though, the city’s mood began to pick up and match Ptolemy’s joy. They stepped onto the larger, more toured streets around the great Charles Bridge, where tourists and business people alike made their way on foot regardless of the weather. Ahead, the bridge’s towers loomed and, just off to the left, Kitty saw the large buildings of the Klementinum. She made straight for it. The tourist traffic was, thankfully, a bit dimmed by the unpleasant weather and it was only another few minutes walk through ornate, baroque halls and courtyards blanketed in autumn-hued ivy before they reached the Holy Roman Archive. Home of what was left of Prague’s magical lore, it was  also adjacent to the most influential of the Czech Publishing Guild’s members: Petřín Printers. They handled all of the magical texts to come out of Prague; all of the magical knowledge of Eastern Europe flowed through this print house and into the Archive. Kitty stepped past the enticing hush of the Archive, hoping Ptolemy would follow since she couldn’t physically drag him like she was afraid might be necessary. A glance to the side showed the boy’s feet were indeed dragging, eyes gazing with longing at the doors. “Soon. We’ll go there next.” He followed with an insubstantial sigh. “Yes, alright.” Kitty blinked. She hadn’t meant to say that aloud. It was so quiet in these halls, anyone could hear. The lobby of Petřín’s was unassumingly quiet, but Kitty wasn’t fooled. The walls hummed with the aura of a spell, most likely a silencing charm to keep the workings of the printers from disturbing the immediately nearby library. At a desk just inside, a man sat scribbling in a ledger with a fountain pen but he looked up at Kitty’s approach. His cheerful greeting was in Czech—thankfully one of the phrases she’d picked up staying with Jakob and his family. She replied in kind, following up with a somewhat abashed, “English? That was about all the Czech I know.” The man laughed and nodded. “How can I help you?” “I need to speak with Mr. Pavel Vlastislav? I’m here on rather urgent magician’s business, as well as with a delivery from Karel Hyrnek, of Hyrnek and Sons. I think he sent word ahead that I was coming?” “Hmmm, let me take a look.” The clerk flipped through his ledger, then ducked behind his desk to grab another book. As he did, Kitty looked around and saw Ptolemy studying a world map to the left, artistically rendered and nearly as large as the wall it was painted on. She couldn’t see his face, but she had an idea as to what it might look like, and what he was going to sound like in three…two...one… Right on cue, as the clerk popped back up into view, Ptolemy’s voice flooded into her ear as if he were standing right next to her and not ten feet away. “Kitty. Kitty this is— Is this the whole world? The entire globe? Have people truly been to all of these places?” The clerk was chatting at her as he flipped through his notes with Kitty nodding along distractedly, trying to pay attention as Ptolemy continued, “—and this map! It’s nearly as good as the cartographers of Alexandria’s work! Rekyt described many of these places to me, but they were not all in places I could plot on an available map… You said we’re in...Europe? To the east—oh! Yes, this must be it! You’re right, we are much, much further north. I wonder—” “Ptolemy! A minute? I need to focus,” was what Kitty thought to herself in a moment of irritation, mouth clamped tight over the words, but the boy stopped rambling immediately. “Ah, my apologies.” Well, that was fun. Maybe that mishap back at the room had been good for something after all? It was the only thing she could think of that might have caused such a strange phenomenon… Distracted, she had to once again refocus on what the clerk, Radim, was saying. Frankly, she’d missed what he’d last said, but then he was standing and ushering her through a door on the right and chattering about the privilege of being able to see inside the prestigious print house and Kitty was tuning him right back out. She was here on business, not to see the inner workings of yet another magical publishing shop. This was her third one in the past year; they all sort of looked the same at this point. Pavel was in his office when they arrived, Radim knocking a quick rap on the doorway before entering. The man inside stood, head still tilted towards a jet black sparrow perched on his shoulder—the imp’s presence explained ease with which he greeted her, a heavily accented but cheerful “Ms. Jones!” before Radim even had time to speak. He and Radim had a quick exchange in Czech too fast to catch, then Radim stepped out and Pavel gestured her to enter. “Come in, come in, Ms. Jones. You have news and a package from old Karel in London, hm? Please, sit down and tell me why he needs send such a lovely lady friend, rather than this news in the post.” Kitty swallowed. This was the hardest part, always the hardest part, and she’d already done it twice. Out of her bag she pulled a plain book, bound in brown cloth and printed on scrap: a manuscript printed by Mr. Hyrnek. There was also a pamphlet. Assuming today went well and Pavel accepted her request, she would need write her friends back in London and request him to send her another copy before she left Prague. Hands shaking, she set the book on Pavel’s desk and took a deep breath. Ptolemy perched on the edge of the desk, invisible to Pavel and watching her intently. Another deep breath, trying to dislodge the shaking behind her breastbone. Her trimmed down, bare bones narrative of the London Disaster was practically recited by rote now. Only by keeping it clipped, clinical, and precise was she able to get through the worst of the story without stuttering, but she’d told the story before and she’d tell it now. Unfortunately, the shuddering terror of the hybrids needed to be the focus of the tale—that’s why she was here. Magicians, the humans who practiced the enslavement of spirits, needed to know what happened from a first-hand source, told with compassion and urgency, or they would simply take the whole incident as either fairytale, or use it as a way to further demonize both the British Empire and the spirits themselves. If this came out wrong, the enslavement of spirits would worsen, not move closer to eradication. When she’d finished, wrapping up with a quick note of the Interim Council’s formalization of an integrated Parliament and the supposed plans for the country, both members of her audience were silent. Staring. This was a normal reaction, she’d gotten it from the print masters in both Paris and Madrid, and she didn’t blame them or Pavel. It was a lot to hear. It’d been a lot more to live through. Eventually, Pavel spoke. “That is...a harrowing tale. We’d heard of some horror from across the channel when the empire broke two years ago, but to think…” He swallowed. “Yes, this needs to be recorded. I assume this manuscript is the account?” Kitty nodded. “Yes, originally published by Hyrnek and Sons, but we all agreed that something like this should be shared. If nothing else, please, we request you bring this to the Archivist and have it included in the archive. If you are willing to print and distribute it, that is for the best, but I understand—” “I will, of course, do my best to ensure it is placed in the archives. And we will see what can be done about distribution.” Reaching out—just missing Ptolemy, who jumped away before his arm could be brushed—Pavel picked up the pamphlet. “And this?” “A list of the spirits who perished in the disaster, to update the newest editions.” And maybe a few others, but who was to know? Pavel flipped through it and Kitty stood, scooping up her satchel once more. Alarmed, Pavel stood as well. “Ms. Jones! Surely you don’t mean to leave so soon?” Exhaustion weighed her voice, two haunted years dogging her steps. “I’m sorry, Mr. Vlastislav, but I need to be going. I’ll leave the address I’m staying at with Radim and I’ll be in town for a few weeks. Find me there if you need anything.” That was the nice thing about her situation—after all the horrors and all the insanity and quite literally visiting another plane of existence, social niceties were near the bottom of her priority list. With a parting nod, she let herself out of the office without another word. Ptolemy was silent as she retraced their steps back to the lobby, still silent as she left her contact information with Radim, silent all the way until they’d reached the Archive once more. He didn’t suggest a book to start with, so Kitty made her way to one of the study tables and pulled another book from her satchel, rather than any of the shelves. Delicate pages with scorched edges crinkled as she turned them, scanning the handwritten translations in the margins. She’d been offered a fresh copy of Ptolemy’s Apocrypha with an English translation printed in, but Button’s book was special, and translating it with Bartimaeus’s help was a good memory. Credit to his perturbation, when Ptolemy finally spoke it wasn’t about the book she held. “I’m sorry. What happened… I can’t imagine. I didn’t realize the kind of trauma what I did would cause you.” “You couldn’t have,” Kitty replied diffidently, blithe tone slicking her thoughts to icy smoothness. “Like I said, it’s something no commoner would be able to understand, and most magicians too. The only ones who could come close are those of us who were there, and even then… The one who would best understand the bond you were trying to attempt is— Well, he’s dead.” Silence again, then: “And you? Would that make you the closest living authority?” “Actually, no.” She was able to look up and smile. “That would be Bartimaeus, so let’s hit the books and then you can ask him yourself, yeah?”

Chapter 5: Somewhere: Sometime 

 4,752,256

Dread emptiness pressed in around him. Is this how his friend had felt, all those years alone? When the spirits passed—back and forth and back and forth—he could sense their movement, know their passing, but there was no sound to hear, no sight to see. Even this place he was stuck, a place he felt should have something of substance to perceive was just...nothing. To stave back the madness, he began to study the passing spirits with whatever senses were available to him. Thousands upon thousands passed before his examination, and on every few he focused his attention. Going one way, they seemed to mournfully coalesce from liquid freedom into a speeding, aerodynamic form to rocket through the other side of the gate; coming the other, solid misery flared and flittered out in joyous reaching for the far bank. Nowhere did the strange, fluid channel appear again. Only cold, clinical, slippery-walled openings to pull the beings to and from. He’d reached out to one once, only to find himself sliding off, lacking whatever was needed to be included in the transference. Probably for the best. Once the temporary madness left him, his logic reasserting itself over the crushing loneliness, he drew away from the traffic in fear. To be loosed in the fearful current without anchor or guide? No, he couldn’t… Or at least he thought that. And thought that. And thought that until he came to the point—singular and horrifying—that he could.   His watching took on a new edge: analytical, searching. Time barely existed here, but some amount of it had passed before something caught his attention. Another direct stretch, calling for a specific being, but something about it was...softer. It was inviting but wary, familiar but fearful, like a stranger singing a long-buried song from childhood. Carefully, not flinging himself with abandon like someone had, he approached. It was tenuous, as all of these were—temporal and not meant to last long, unlike the fluid path they’d seen before—and this one was even more ephemeral than most. Holes in the weave, it could have been described. From one end, movement came, barrelling closer and closer and...familiar. Yes, the being speeding down was definitely a construction of substance he recognized but couldn’t put a name to. Names were hard here. Names were hard, but suddenly decisions were not. As the spirit sped past, he impressed some effort upon the pulling force, imposing himself on the construct until he fell through in a flurry of movement that he could suddenly feel, not just perceive in an abstract sort of way. He could feel it and he still felt it as he tumbled through. The portal did exactly as all the others did. He felt himself being compacted and compressed, separate from the being it was actually meant for thankfully, as he’d hopped in a good moment past it, but the bonds were ill-fitting. A familiar word that wasn’t his word. And so, when both he and the other tumbled out the other side, he felt himself spinning and drifting, formless and dazed as his traveling partner took form in a circle.

Chapter 6: Prague: Saint's Day  

In a brilliant bit of foresight, the first thing Kitty asked Bartimaeus to do once he’d arrived was cast a nexus about her room to silence all noise coming from within. A good move, as her explanation of the situation first garnered her a bemused “what?” Followed by some silence. Then some contemplation of the figure who was making a concentrated effort to appear on the mortal plane to more than just Kitty. Then followed by a roar of the same word that had come before. There was a lot of yelling for a short time. Possibly some crying as well, not that Kitty would ever tell. But when it was done, and all explained and settled and understood, she might have asked Bartimaeus to remove the nexus. Absentmindedly, she forgot. This turned out to be a good thing as, five hours later, both she and Bartimaeus stared at Ptolemy over their sketches of runes, figures, and half-circle diagrams in consternation. Together, their query was definitely loud enough to have been heard by the good matron downstairs. “You don’t have their name?! ” Kitty groaned and set her pencil aside. They’d been at this for hours, and only now did Ptolemy mention he was lacking this key piece of their puzzle? Bartimaeus looked just as crestfallen in his guise of a young, dark skinned man, wearing a traditional desert kilt and bedecked with a necklace of amethyst, but also not terribly surprised. “Ptolemy, my friend. I always knew your disinclination for names would come back to bite us in inconvenient places. Admittedly, this is the furthest situation from what I could have imagined, but still.” The ghostly boy in question was not meeting either of their gazes. He was staring at the bedspread he sat on, stunned silent. Then quietly, obviously not in reaction to what either of them had said, he breathed a word Kitty had never heard in her life. Bartimaeus, however, choked on his non-existent spit, indicating that it was probably something foul. After a few more moments of unintelligible invective that had Bartimaeus’s jaw on the floor, Ptolemy muttered, “I can’t believe I forgot. We were there for what must have been years, how did I not ask? I promised. I’m a magician, I know how important names are. How could I have forgotten?” Kitty winced. They had maybe been a bit harsh. “It’s alright, I’m sure we can figure something out…” Ptolemy stood up and began to pace, making circuit after circuit of the tiny room. Amusingly, every time he turned a corner, he also stepped upwards about an inch, beginning to spiral upwards as he muttered to himself. Kitty glanced over at Bartimaeus, who shrugged, leaned over and whispered, “Don’t look at me, this is new. He didn’t used to pace.” “Hmm…” A ghost pacing was a strange phenomenon in that you couldn’t hear them, the fact that they were pacing of above your head at this point notwithstanding. It was painfully quiet. Kitty and Bartimaeus went back to fiddling with their designs, pencil and quill scratching loudly in the silence, but still working around a glaringly blank space where, in all of them, a name had to be placed. “I need a calendar!” Ptolemy’s voice, loud in the room, had Kitty jumping nearly a foot out of her chair. He was suddenly right next to her, face intent and determined. “I had a formula, I just need to do the calculations and we can figure out when my friend arrived. From there— Well, only a few specific circumstances could cause this, so maybe someone will have heard about it happening?” “Well, it’s somewhere to start…” Bartimaeus hedged, and Kitty agreed with the hesitant tone. How on earth were they going to sus out a single death of magical happenstance, even if they could narrow it down to an exact date? Kitty caught Ptolemy’s gaze again. There was a light, one she felt mirrored in her own past. Hope. And hell if she could ignore that. She’d wrestled demons, ransacked governments, and crossed dimensions for a hope like that, and well—Ptolemy had been the source of a lot of that hopeful vision. It was the least she could do to try and help him in turn. As Ptolemy still hadn’t managed enough substance to actually touch anything, Kitty was the one to walk to her duffel and dig out yet  another   book. She was becoming quite the librarian herself, these days. This one was worn, thick, full of cramped handwriting with a ribbon bookmark between the last few pages. Returning to the small table, she set it down. “Not a calendar, but close. My journal goes back two years, almost. Think your friend showed up in about that timeframe?” Ptolemy nodded firmly. “It couldn’t have been longer than that. Now, let me just…” He trailed off, fingers tracing invisible numbers on the table. With his brows drawn together in a focused frown, Kitty thought privately that he’d never looked less like Bartimaeus’s replication. Similarly, the fond expression Bartimaeus watched him with was a brand new thing to see on the spirit’s face, and something warmed in her. For the span of about an hour, a long time ago, Kitty had cared about a djinni and a boy more than anyone else in her probably-about-to-end life. This wasn’t the same, couldn’t ever be the same, but she liked it anyway. Across the table, Ptolemy was now rattling off numbers to Bartimaeus, who flipped through the journal pages—first in large swaths, then fewer and fewer at a time. Closer and closer to the front cover until— “That’s the end of it.” Both of them were staring down at the first entry on the first page of Kitty’s journal—a date, five words, and a tiny shard of glass taped to the paper. Bartimaeus continued, “How much further back?” “Two days.”   Kitty looked at them blankly. They both looked back—Ptolemy glowing with the triumph of a puzzle solved, Bartimaeus with...something. Probably the same something building somewhere in the pit of Kitty’s stomach. “There’s no way,” she managed eventually, voice hoarse, throat suddenly dust dry. Bartimaeus’s reply was just a nervous chuckle while Ptolemy glanced between them, his high fading into confusion. “What’s the matter?” It took Kitty two tries to clear the lump from her throat. “Erm, well. You remember what I said about the only person who would understand possession by a spirit being dead? And what Bartimaeus said about the Glass Palace?” “Yes?” “That all happened two days before my first journal entry. I didn’t think to start recording events until— I was a right mess, basically, until then.” Understanding dawned on Ptolemy’s face and brought a smile to his face. The smile grew, bit by bit as he looked between his two friends. “Well then, shall we try? It’s our best guess, and the worst that will happen is it doesn’t work.” They both watched as he breezed over to where Kitty and Bartimaeus had left their sketches. A moment of careful study, then he pointed to Bartimaeus’s page—the djinni smirked at Kitty, who stuck out her tongue. “This one. Let’s try this one.” He bounced on his toes, each bounce taking him higher into the air. “Come on! I still can’t hold the chalk, help me draw this!” So they did. The dingy, dusty boarding room was a flurry of activity for long minutes. Bartimaeus did most of the kneeling and drawing while Kitty held the string guides and lit the few candles they needed for the spell. Ptolemy supervised, directing them in drawing a half-circle diagram. Lines stretched out from it in rays, similar to Kitty’s communication spell, but with a few slight adjustments. More geometric than ornate, the completed spell was chalked innocuously on the floor as Bartimaeus scratched out the last few runes. At the apex of the arch, a blank space had been left. Almost reverently they all knelt, Bartimaeus handing Kitty the chalk as she regarded the bare patch of floorboards before bringing the chalk down. Her handwriting was nowhere near as calligraphic as Bartimaeus’s—her chicken scratch legible but not beautiful as she spelled the name out: Nathaniel   Chalk still in hand, she traced under the letters with a finger, the spell still cold and not yet activated. Together, Ptolemy and Bartimaeus reached out as well—and then another transparent finger traced along the top of the word. Glancing up, her gaze met with blue eyes, happy and calm in a way she’d never seen them while he was alive. “That’s what it was. I guess I just needed someone to write it down before I could form up properly. Took your time about it, didn’t you?” Surprise jerked her hand and brought her in contact with all three of the other beings in the room. Her vision spun and everything was very mixed up for a very confusing moment. Kitty was, for seconds or hours, not just Kitty anymore. Four souls rushed around and around in a feedback loop, bringing nausea to a body that wasn’t even really hers to experience it. It was like being back in the Other Place. Actually, it felt exactly like that, and the similarities echoed through their loop loud enough to bring the chaos to a balance. Carefully, they all extracted themselves from the morass—all but Nathaniel at least understanding the mechanics of the feat—and another moment brought Kitty solitude in her mind once more. She had fallen onto her backside, legs twisted awkwardly, and three beings of unearthly substance lay sprawled nearby. On seeing their mess, pushed up on her elbows, a giggle bubbled up from her throat. Then another, and another, until she couldn’t hold them back and collapsed onto the dusty floor, laughing until their was no more breath in her body. Around her, Ptolemy joined in first, then Nathaniel, then Bartimaeus, until they were all cackling like maniacs for long minutes.  Good thing the silencing nexus is still still up, Kitty thought faintly, which sent her and her friends off into more gales of laughter. They laughed until all their surprised energy had been spent in joy. Jittery adrenaline rush settled to a wondrous warmth in Kitty’s chest as she looked at her friends. There was no telling what they would need to do now. But as far as she was concerned, it didn’t matter. They were together, no one was dead in the traditional sense of the word, and the world hadn’t tried to end for two whole years. She didn’t get sappy often, but today seemed like the day to try—the most pleasant Hallows Eve and Saints’ Day she’d ever experienced, by far.