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hungiehipo · 3 months

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Macdennis timeline

Macdennis

The 16 season long situationship filled to the brim with sociopathic tendencies, mutual abuse, and disorganized attachment between a man burdened by Catholic guilt who doesn't want love unless it hurts and a deeply dissociated man who can't be authentic unless he's immersed in a facade. And they were roommates.

What can be said that hasn't been said before? Probably nothing... still here's this.

S1-S4 PRE-MACDENNIS

This is before Mac and Dennis find themselves unwittingly thrust into a relationship neither is aware of. There is a homoerotic undertone, albeit usually as more of a joke than anything else. Neither has realized that their feelings for the other goes beyond friendship.

(Season 1 ep 1) Famous tequila scene.

(season 3 ep 4) Mac says I love you to Dennis.

(season 3 ep 15) gang dances their asses off macs dance pantomiming blowing Dennis.

(season 4 ep 1) Man hunters. Dennis puts his balls in Mac's mouth when he's sleeping, and mac shaves his pubes and glues them to Dennis' face.

(season 4 ep 4) Charlie asks Dennis if he still gets the feeling Mac wants to bang them, and that's why Mac makes project badass, Dennis agrees.

(season 4 ep 13) Nightman cometh. Mac gets a boner when Dennis' character pantomimes sex with him in the play. Dennis rips macs heart out (this comes back later)

S5-S7 MACDENNIS INTENTIONAL

Season 5 Macdennis hits like a truck. Dennis has feelings and they are BIG. We the audience witness a masterful display of homoerotic desire wrapped in a stunning amount of cognitive dissonance until "breakup" where Dennis is forced to confront the reality of his feelings. Following this crucial turning point, we are treated to a series of back and forth assertions of no-homo, feelings getting hurt, and lashing out. In order, we get Dennis introducing the dennis system, mac fighting gay marriage, Dennis getting married and kicking Mac out of the apartment, and finally Dennis getting a divorce.

Things are notably different between them post-divorce, marked by a mutual retreat from both Mac and Dennis. There's a shared reluctance to appear overly invested in each other romantically. This dynamic persists into Season 7, where Mac and Dennis noticeably maintain a considerable distance compared to previous seasons. In my honest opinion, this season exhibits the least Macdennis of any. Dennis being unhappy with Mac's weight gain likely contributes to this.

(Season 5 episode 1) Dennis suggests that they pretend to be gay married realtors. Some will say that being gay married was not essential to the scheme. Some would even say that to sell the being married thing Dennis did NOT have to be that touchy touchy. Source of baby boy nickname that has penetrated every corner of AO3 macden fanfiction.

(season 5 episode 8) PADDY'S THONG DUDE!!! PADDY'S THONG! I'm not wearing these because I'm comfortable I'm wearing them cause i wanna turn YOU on, you know what I'm saying??? you get it???

Mac jerks off a shotgun and blows its load in a kneeling dennis' gaping mouth.

(season 5 episode 9) They break up. In the podcast they say that this is a romcom. Dee points out that they act like an old married couple. Realization dawns on dennis's face and he proceeds to freak the hell out. Why? I mean... he knew it was true. We learn that they have a weekly movie night. Mac is jealous of video store clerk guy. We learn that they check in. Deleted scene at the end has Dennis blurting out that Mac has "beautiful lips" and again looking horrified.

(season 5 ep 10) Immediately after break up Dennis introduces his fool proof system for attracting WOMeN with big BIG BOOB for SEX.

(season 6 ep 1) Mac goes on a rampage against gay marriage after just last season being fake gay married to dennis. Dennis immediately gets married and kicks Mac out of the apartment. (Dennis also says he doesn't "have feelings", which Mac internalizes and it comes back in season 12)

(season 6 ep 2) dennis immediately divorces said woman and lets his boy toy (his words) come home.

radio silence all of season 7 except....

(season 7 ep 1) They go to the doctor, mac tries to carry dennis out bridal style. Dennis eats a chimichanga with Mac (romantic).

(season 7 ep 6) cold open, Dennis is holding Macs forearm while they watch the TV.

-season 7 we also learn that Mac slept with Dennis' prom date and it was very easy.

S8-S9 The kiss, the date, and the platonic naked wrestling shower scene

I believe this is the point where Mac starts to get the feeling something is off. (Again, Dennis realized in season 5). Mac has far more dissonance about it though, he like just wants to be best bros with Dennis for life, cause Dennis is like soooo cool. He is definitely not in love with Dennis he just loves Dennis like, as a blood brother. HE IS NOT GAY BECAUSE THAT IS A SIN. HE SERIOUSLY LOVES GOD A LOT.

In Season 8's Dines out Dennis delivers a speech wherein he admits that he thinks of Mac as a man who knows exactly who he is. Season 9's Mac day shows the total elimination of this belief after a full day filled with Macs self hating homophobia contrasting with his out and proud cousin "country mac".

(Season 8 ep 2) Whelp, God only knows how we ended up here after a drought like season 7, but 8 kicks off with a bang with an out of nowhere kissing attempt from Mac… right in front of Charlie too. By the look on Dennis' face I'm going to guess this has never happened before. I genuinely wonder what compelled him to do this…. like….is he just always thinking about it and forgot hes not supposed to do it for real? was it instinct?

(Season 8 ep 6) Dennis deals with emotional numbness, and nothing he tries makes him feel anything until the end of the episode where he feels too much after seeing his dead mother. This is not overtly macdennis but I think it demonstrates how he struggles with emotion and why Mac believes that Dennis does not have feelings.

(season 8 episode 9) Mac and Dennis are going on a fancy dinner date every single month. Monthly dinner and weekly movie nights.... anyway. Mac is upset that Dennis won't say something nice to him so Dennis does a speech to the whole restaurant. Yes he did kinda do it to dunk on frank and charlie. Yes he loved the attention. I think he meant what he said.

(season 8 episode 10) Dennis gets turned on by Mac totally intellectually dominating him while giving his anti science presentation. Also in the car at the end Mac was flirting.

(season 9 episode 3) Mac day. Praise God. Dennis is drowning in a sea of Macs delusion. Mac believes himself to be totally badass and not at all gay while repeatedly demonstrating the opposite. Country Mac shows Dennis what Mac could be if he was all the things he said he was and just embraced that he was gay. Dennis resents Mac.

(season 9 episode 6) saves the day. Macs fantasy involves Dennis wailing over his corpse, proclaiming his love. Dennis' fantasy is interesting, revealing his fear that Mac would abandon him the moment his sexual appeal fades. He envisions the possibility of being loved for more than his sexual abilities, yet his declaration of love precludes Jackie being hit by a car, leading to the loss of her breasts, and Dennis choosing to leave her. Lot to unpack here.

(season 9 episode 8) Mac and Dennis are trying to catch a rat. Mac tries to bash the rat, but Dennis says that its not about brute force, its about seduction. He turns on some romantic music and they both sway back and forth, looking into each others eyes, Mac takes a step forward, but Dee enters the room and the second dennis sees her he spins around and walks away.

I also feel the need to point out that Mac and Dennis went to high school together, and Macs nickname in high school was....well... Ronnie the rat.

(season 9 episode 9) Mac writes into the script of lethal weapon a scene where he and Dennis, I kid you not, wrestle naked in a shower. If you can call it wrestling... though it's more accurately described as an opportunity for an intense, naked embrace.

(season 9 episode 10) Cute food fight scene. Their apartment burns down.

s10-11 Out of their natural environment

Following the incineration of their shared home, macdennis moves in with Dee and all three of them hate it so so much.

(season 10 episode 1) Dennis looks at Mac like he wants to eat him (4 min 24 seconds) Mac says wait Dennis don't go and Dennis turns like he's expecting.... I don't know.

(season 10 episode 5) Mac and Dennis take turns watching and jacking off to creampie videos. Some will say they could just find their own porn, however I think this is one of the numerous creative ways they've found to have a sex life with each other.

(season 10 ep 3) Dennis is diagnosed with BPD.

(season 10 ep 6) The gang embarks on a journey of independence, only to discover that their lives are intricately woven together. For better or worse they will never escape each other, and will likely live this way until they die.

(season 10 episode 10) Dennis creates an entire fake cult to get Mac to do things he wants him to do. Says Macs been looking so good so sexy lately *manipulative*

(season 11 episode 4) Mac turns off the video Dee made about Dennis being raped by the librarian.

(season 11 episode 5) Macdennis play house. Mac asks Dennis if he can hear the beep too, Dennis gaslights him and says no, meanwhile getting increasingly agitated by the pool filter. It's already been explained more better by others but basically this is a metaphor for Mac wanting Dennis to acknowledge what has been happening between them, while Dennis adamantly avoids doing so. Instead, he channels his frustrations into unrelated problems.

Dennis hates going to work alone all day and Mac hates staying home, which could easily be fixed by having Mac come to work with him. Instead, Dennis' solution is a "honey-do list" (a list of chores a man would give his wife) and a dog, which Mac names DENNIS JR. (parallel to Dennis' real kid who is named Brian Jr. ) This kind of relationship paralleling is a recurring theme; for example in gets romantic, double life, and celebrity booze).

In the beginning of the episode Dennis wants to listen to Bryan Adams in the car. At the end of the episode Mac confronts him by saying "everything I do I do it for you, and everything you do you do it for yourself". (referencing the title of a very romantic Bryan Adams song)

dennis says he hates him

(season 11 ep 6) Mac asks Frank if he thinks Dennis hates him, because he just wants him to think he's cool and he puts so much work into this relationship and *unintelligible* (seriously if anyone know what Mac is saying when Frank spaces out please message me)

(season 11 ep 8) Dennis also knows about the gay bar

(Season 11 ep 10) 🎵 Amazing Grace how sweet the sauce 🎵

Mac comes out. When they play fake dinner Mac talks about him and Dennis' future home where they will have dinner parties and touches Dennis' hand. Confused, Dennis questions the idea of it being "their" home, seemingly operating under the misconception that he and Mac might eventually part ways and not continue living together.

Mac prays to god that they be saved and after being rescued he goes back into the closet.

s12 Mac claims to be gay and Dennis leaves the state of Pennsylvania

Season 12 is my favorite season!

Mac comes out, has a gay dream, gives Dennis a present, tries to insert himself as 2nd father of Dennis' child, and is swiftly abandoned.

Things start to get a little too real for Dennis, and hes just a little too vulnerable. Perfectly it turns out he has an opportunity to live the typical nuclear family lifestyle he's envisioned for himself and escape all his troubles.

(season 12 episode 6) Gay Mac rules! rich gay Mac!

The watershed moment wherein Mac comes out as gay for real this time. Dennis is beyond shocked.

(season 12 episode 7) Mac fully grasps that his feelings for Dennis are romantic after having a dream where Dennis kisses him. Upon waking he goes to find Dennis. Again Dennis dances towards him and leans in, Macs eyes light up thinking that his dream is coming true but Dennis slams the door in his face.

(season 12 ep 8) Dennis wants to completely ignore Valentines day because he doesn't think he has anybody who really cares about/loves him. Everyone in the gang openly states that they don't think he has feelings.

At the end of the ep. Mac has Dennis open a crate, which turns out to be an RPG (something that Dennis thinks is awesome and talks about all the time), and he tears up, he's incredibly touched. When Mac says there is no rocket (rendering the gift effectively useless) Dennis says he doesn't care, he loves it. Mac figured out the one thing he wanted more than anything else in the world and got it for him. This is likely not referring to the RPG but instead to the fact that he wanted someone to show him that they love him/care about him.

(season 12 ep 10) Dennis is revealed to have a son with Mandy, a woman who he had sex with on his layover from the wade boggs episode. To get him out of this jam Mac suggests they pretend to be in a relationship. Dennis, reluctantly going along with the plan, tells Mandy he sleeps with women but he is emotionally invested with Mac. When she is fine with it and says she wouldn't mind Brian Jr. having two dads, Mac enthusiastically agrees to parent Dennis' kid with him. When Dennis asks Mac why he would agree to that, since they are not a couple, Mac replies that he thought they could just keep pretending.

Mac wins a bet and gets to refurnish the apartment. He surprises Dennis by recreating their old apartment down to the last detail, save his own bedroom, which he leaves empty. He only buys Dennis a bed because he is hoping Dennis will go along with continuing to share a bed like they did at Dee's.

At the end of the episode Dennis announces he is leaving to go raise his son in North Dakota with Mandy. Nobody tries to stop him.

S13-14 DENNIS IS COMING BACK HOT

Dennis' 2 most angry/upset seasons.

In the season 13 promos Dennis is like a ghost, watching the gang laughing and talking without him. At some points they seem to notice that he's there, but just don't care. He is the only one spooked by the weird things happening around the bar.

In season 13 Dennis' returns and feels as though he is not important or needed by his friends. Mac has a journey of self-discovery, coming to terms with his sexuality and finding his identity as a gay man. Mac relies on Dennis to tell him what to do, desperate to please him, but Dennis wants Mac to take control and take care of him. Dennis only wants the illusion of control.

(Season 13 episode 1) Mac orders a sex doll of Dennis and swears he isn't blowing his loads into it. Dennis comes back.

(Season 13 episode 2) Mac finds a heart shaped lock clue whilst doing an escape room. Dennis says they should keep it between themselves.

(season 13 episode 4) Dennis holds a seminar where he publicly declares his own heterosexuality and lack of interest in Mac.

just gonna leave these quotes-

dennis- "some of you just haven't been careful enough, so youre asking yourself what can I do to save myself now. You gotta clean up your act otherwise you're going down, and you're gonna take me down with you and I ain't going down. You understand? I've been telling you this for years but you refused to listen"

----

mac- "and we should probably stop harassing them"

dennis, replying to Mac- " uh well you know, one step at a time we don't want the whole system to collapse" (but Macs only crime was being too open with his feelings for Dennis)

(season 13 ep 5) Dennis opens the floor for questions about his absence. He totally gets that everyone was giving him some space and respecting his privacy, and he's ready to talk about it now but...they just don't actually care....at all... (including Mac)

(season 13 episode 7) Its my personal interpretation that all of clip show happens in Dennis' mind in an episode of dissociation. He imagines that Mac decided to come with him to north Carolina. He imagines being confronted about why he would want to live with Mac if he "hates" him so much.

(season 13 episode 10) Mac comes out to his father in a beautiful interpretive dance and is rejected.

(season 14 episode 1) Mac tries to get into Dennis' good graces again by staging a scheme to get Dennis laid just like old times. Interestingly, Dennis isn't all that interested in banging. When its not working out with the woman, Dennis decides that it's because the leads are actually Mac and the husband. They can't seem to figure out that the leads are really each other.

Mac and Dennis are paralleled by the married couple while Charlie and Frank are mirrored by the father son duo..

"If you'd just give us a chance, we could tell a love story for the ages, a gay GAY ass love story". WE ARE READY AND SO WILLING

(season 14 episode 5) "Bathrooms at zoos are, like, big Grindr spots for closeted dads." (also refer to Macs super long pining text messages)

(season 14 ep 6) "all that for a whistle, I wonder what you'd do for a biscuit" I really don't understand how but apparently this episode really did happen and it wasn't in someones dream or anything like that??

(season 14 episode 10) Dennis says to Mac it's time to end the game. This could be interpreted as being about their 14 season song and dance, and would be backed up by the fact that the next season shows Mac completely backing off.

s15-s16 Acceptance and regret

mac tries to move on, Dennis misses his baby boy

(season 15 episode 1) We get some cute broke back mountain Macdennis. They play guitar and sing a love song they wrote together, looking into each other's eyes.

(season 15 ep 4) There's a subtle moment that's easy to miss. Dennis pats Mac's hand when they are talking to Charlie and Mac looks down at it, taking a deep breath.

(season 15 ep 5) Dennis has COVID and Mac isn't concerned, in fact he is irritated that Dennis wont admit he's sick. This is a big change from the last couple of seasons where Mac is desperate to take care of Dennis.

(season 16 episode 1) Mac and Dennis throw away all of their furniture including their beds. They now share an inflatable bed/couch and sleep together in it (just a couple seasons ago Dennis was absolutely refusing to sleep in the same bed as Mac). They are touching so much in the bed. Dennis is concerned for Mac because he has been continuously consuming nuts that he is allergic to (there's a metaphor here) and is heavily wheezing. Dennis gently places two fingers on Macs neck to check his pulse.

If Dennis did not want to sleep in the bed with Mac he would have gone and bought another inflatable bed. He would have made Mac sleep on the ground. He would have gone to sleep at Dees house. He wanted to be in that bed with Mac.

(season 16 episode 4) Dennis creates a fake dating profile under the alias of "Johnny". He buys Mac extra large anal beads to put inside of him at all times, and turns them on to signal to Mac to meet him at a hotel. He says he did it to....get him out of the house? and to get Mac to....buy him crab?

Dennis looks so devastated when Mac says he's in love with Johnny. I kinda wonder if it's the idea that Mac could love someone else that upsets him... or if he's reacting to Mac telling him he is in love with him to his face?

This is also the episode where we learn that Dennis has a fool proof method for attracting men. When Mac and Dee ask why he has this system he just shushes them.

(season 16 episode 5) The relationship between Malcom and his dad is a parallel of Mac and Dennis's relationship. The speech at the end to me seems like its hinting that Mac knows more/ has more control and power than is let on.

NEW INFORMATION JUST DROPPED I have just been made aware of the actual parallel between Malcom and the dad possibly being Dennis and Frank.

(season 16 episode 8) Nightmare! Nightmare! Nightmare!

Dennis takes a mental health day. Some people really hated this episode but I really liked it. Mac is putting coal in a pressure cooker to make diamonds. Dennis rips the CEO's (who is wearing a Hawaiian shirt like we've seen Mac wear) heart out, and squeezes it so hard it turns into a diamond and he eats it. This is a direct parallel to the nightman cometh where he also rips Macs heart out.

*edit to add* The director of this episode (who did not write the ep but still was involved in its creation obviously) Heath Cullens, in a reddit QA when asked if this was a nod to dayman replied "Nope. I think pretty much a coincidence." which I think is a total missed opportunity tbh.

This was all in Dennis' mind, and it seems to me that the Mac "situation" has left him with a sense of powerlessness. He feels isolated, trapped in an endless nightmare of his own creation, and he has nobody he can count on to help him, there's nobody he can rely on, he can only trust himself. Compressing the coal into a diamond represents Dennis molding everything to be exactly as he wishes, and by swallowing it he reclaims absolute control.

Always sunny book- : the 7 secrets of awakening the highly effective four-hour giant, today

"Mac for instance is also a 3 in ugly, so even if this exercise we're going to try fails, you'll have some company at your ugly parties. For the record, on the ugly scale charlie is a five, frank is a six, and Dee is a nine." - Dennis

#Macdennis #Mac iasip #Dennis iasip #Mac and dennis #It's always sunny in philadelphia #iasip #brevity is not the soul of wit in this case #my magnum opus for my magnum dong #I'm sure this is missing plenty #feel free to tell me what I'm missing #in fact I insist that you do #Dennis reynolds #Mac macdonald #ronnie the rat #this is a living document

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incognit0slut · 1 year

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Right Kind of Wrong (4)

She never thought she would be involved in a murder investigation and encounter her one-night-stand again, the awkward guy who isn’t exactly that good in bed—Or is he? Offended by the sentiment, Spencer is determined to prove her wrong… But as he gets tangled with the beautiful stranger, he realizes there is more to her than what meets the eye.

Part summary: Y/n and Spencer's unexpected reunion ends in a quarrel. wc: 4k

Warnings: 18+, explicit sexual content, blood, graphic details of murder

Other parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

SPENCER CONSIDERED HIMSELF AS A GOOD PROFILER. His background in psychology was a strong contribution to becoming the expert that he was now. He also believed he had a very strong sense of detail in his work, especially when it came to assessing body language. It took a lot of careful observation and attention to interpret it correctly, and with all the experiences he went through this past decade, it came to him naturally.

But to observe meant to be focused and right now he was anything but that.

"Ms. L/n, this is Dr. Spencer Reid."

How could he focus when he couldn’t believe what he was seeing? Spencer had always been fascinated by the concept of the afterlife, the mystery and unknown of what went beyond death. Granted, he had never encountered anything superstitious, but maybe this was as close as he could get to ever experiencing that because right now it felt as if he was seeing a ghost.

The idea of meeting the stranger he tried to forget never crossed his mind, especially in a situation he least expected. While he wouldn't completely deny the possibility of coincidence, he tended to be more skeptical and cautious about things that push the bounds of rationality and reason. But now that she was right here in the flesh, he couldn't keep his eyes off of her.

She had the kind of face that made you stop to look, the sudden pause in a person's natural mind when they glanced her way. Delicate face, high cheekbones, full luscious lips. But beyond the appeal of her beauty, there was deep exhaustion in her eyes. Her shoulders were tense. Her cheeks were flushed. Her chest rose in rapid movements as the pace of her breathing increased.

There was a sense of agitation in her posture, a clear sign of anxiousness. He could decipher that all too well because it was exactly what he was experiencing now. A storm of panic suddenly rose inside him, a sense of overwhelming dread and anxiety taking over his body and mind, leaving him feeling as if he was trapped in a fight-or-flight mode.

Y/n opened her mouth, closed it again, then tilted her head. His eyes scanned the crease on her forehead as if she was deep in thought before she threw Morgan a hesitant look.

His panic intensified.

"Well, actually—"

"Nice to meet you!"

Both of their heads snapped at him. He couldn't blame the way they were gawking, because between the panic and the shock still lingering in his system, his vocal cords managed to change his voice into a higher pitch. He cleared his throat and smoothed down the suit he was wearing, calmed his breathing, and carefully lifted his other hand.

He gave her a wave.

"It's nice to meet you."

He saw her looking at him warily before she calmed herself, crossing her arms against her chest in an act of defense. She eyed his hand as it settled back to his side.

"Let me guess," she started, quirking an eyebrow. "The number of pathogens shared during a handshake is staggering?"

There was a heavy pause as they both held their gaze. Morgan glanced between the two. "Do you know each other?"

The air suddenly charged with tension, a thick weight that settled in her chest before she looked away. "I suppose not." She walked towards the door, pushing it ajar. "After you, boys."

Morgan threw her a skeptical look before stepping into the room. The moment Spencer stepped forward, her eyes narrowed at him suspiciously. An overwhelming sense of anxiety, coupled with a feeling of wanting to hide took over him as he shuffled past her, looking straight ahead.

The two agents sat by the table. She watched as Morgan observed her with an immense amount of curiosity while the man sitting beside him finally had the courage to look at her. The moment he lifted his eyes and settled them on her own, she couldn't help but notice a slight shift in his demeanor. It was as if in the midst of trying to calm his nerves, a switch suddenly clicked inside him, showcasing a very focused and intent look that commanded attention and respect.

She took the seat right in front of him.

Morgan's eyes swept over to her. "Ms. L/n—"

"Y/n is fine."

"Y/n," Morgan started again. "Can you tell us what happened?"

She gave Spencer one last look before focusing her attention on the other man. "I don't understand why I have to repeat this process again."

"People's recollections and perceptions of things can often change over time. It also helps us better to understand the situation," he explained. "What happened before you found Mr. Lynch?"

"Technically, Eric was the one who found him." She placed her hands on the table, intertwining them as she recalled what had happened a few hours ago for the second time. "Jamison called me before everything happened. It was a short, desperate call and it ended too quickly after he asked for help. I ran back to his office after that."

"What exactly did you hear on that call?"

"Heavy breathing. He sounded..." She trailed off, a look of forlorn set in her eyes. "He sounded as if he was in pain. There was also a loud crash in the back."

"Was there any other voice besides him?"

"I didn't hear anyone else."

"And you're the only one he called?"

"I'm not sure," she answered truthfully, shrugging her shoulders. "He might've called Eric as well."

The two men shared a look. She waited for either of them to respond and was taken aback when Spencer regarded her the next question. "What were you doing prior to the call?"

She leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms.

Something about the way he was watching her vexed her. One moment he was scurrying off trying to diminish any relation he had with her, the next thing she knew he was addressing her with a keen interest, and not in the way he had on that eventful night. There was wonder and excitement on their first encounter, but all she could notice now was the intensity of him assessing her as if he was trying to analyze her.

She wondered whether he had two different personalities.

"Ms. L/n?"

She steadied her gaze before correcting him, "Y/n."

Then she tried to think back on what happened before the rush of panic took over her body. She remembered recalling her conversation with Oliver and how declining his obvious interest was the right thing to do. And then somehow her mind manage to reminisce about the last man she was involved with, who ironically, was sitting right in front of her.

So basically, I was thinking of you.

"I was walking to my car in the parking lot," she finally said.

"Did you see anything suspicious before you got the call? Or when you ran back to his office?"

"Not that I was aware of—" There was a moment of sudden clarity. It was like a rush of insight and understanding, and everything clicked into focus like a puzzle or a riddle. The sudden realization made her heart race with disbelief and fear at the same time, and her mind started to race with all the possibilities and connections it had discovered. "Someone did push me in the parking lot."

Morgan frowned at her. "Push you?"

"Somebody accidentally brushed me and I lost my balance," she explained, her brows knitting in concentration as she tried to recall that exact memory. "He was tall and... fit? He wore everything black and when I called out on his lack of manner, he ran away."

"Did you see his face?"

She shook her head. "It was pretty much covered with his clothes. He was wearing a hoodie, I think."

"Was there any other thing that stood out from him?"

"No, I don't remember anything significant. After that Jamison called, then everything happened so fast." She gave them a resigned look. "I'm not even sure if it has anything to do with what happened."

Morgan gave her a reassuring smile. "It's fine. Any information might help us with this investigation."

She nodded, and before they could ask further questions, she inquired about a curiosity of her own. "May I ask why the FBI is investigating this case?"

There was a feeling of great importance and a weight of significance as Spencer clarified, "We suspect Mr. Lynch's murder is linked to another case that happened not long ago."

She blinked her eyes in bewilderment. "You're telling me there's a possible serial killer behind these two murders?"

"Yes," he confirmed, his words seeming very heavy. "The nature of these deaths are very similar, we think that the Unsub has a motive behind all the killings."

"Unsub?"

"It's an abbreviation for Unknown Subject, and it's mainly just a code word that represents the suspect."

She nodded once again, then eyed both of the agents sitting across from her.

"Is the death of my boss linked to Kevin Marshall?" When the two men narrowed their eyes suspiciously, she stopped herself from rolling her eyes. "I'm a journalist, I was working on that case—well, before it got assigned to someone else."

"What do you know of Mr. Marshall's case?" Morgan asked cautiously.

"Nothing much, really. I simply knew he was found dead with some kind of writing on his body." She looked away. "I saw a glimpse of something written on Jamison's arm, it's not that hard to put two and two together."

Morgan regarded her with a nod. "We do suspect these deaths are done by the same Unsub."

Spencer then gave her a look, one that clearly indicated his opinion of her. "And we highly appreciate it if you could keep this information confidential," he requested. "We don't want the media to compromise our investigation until we have further information."

She frowned at the charge behind his words. "You think I'm going to write a story about what happened?"

"Isn’t that what you do for a living?"

It took a lot of self-control for her not to throw the pen sitting in front of her across the room.

"With all due respect, Dr. Reid, I find it offending that you think I would write a story on the murder of someone I personally know."

"I—Ms. L/n, I wasn't trying to accuse you of being inconsiderate."

"Well it seemed exactly like that to me."

The silence after that was deafening. It was a sort of heavy, oppressive stillness that hung in the air that it was so brittle it could practically snap, and if it didn't, one of them might. It was terribly uncomfortable that Morgan could feel the tension building as the seconds dragged by without a sound. "Are you sure you don't know each other?"

"Yes."

Doubt was written across his face. There was a sense of discomfort that came along with the uneasiness from the escalating tension as he glanced between the other two people in the room. He gladly let out a sigh when his discomfort was saved by the sudden call coming from his phone.

"Saved by the bell," he muttered under his breath, which didn't go unnoticed by the two people who were now glaring at him. He simply stood up from his chair and moved toward the door, pulling it open before answering his call with a firm yet flirtatious voice. "Talk to me, baby girl."

She wrinkled her nose at the pet name as the door closed behind him. "Was that his girlfriend?"

"No," Spencer responded. "That's the technical analyst in our team. They have a unique way of addressing each other."

The sound of his gruff voice suddenly pierced her, and it was then that she realized she was left alone with the man she never thought of ever seeing again. Her attention went back to him as her eyes slowly wandered across his face, noticing the way he was observing her.

One of the things that had always caught her interest was his disheveled hair. It was untamed, the mass of wild, chocolate-colored curls brushing against the collar of his shirt was something that often caught her attention. Then there was his attire, wearing a nice fitting dark suit over an even darker button-down and a tie wrapped around his slender neck made him look very professional.

But it was his eyes that stood out the most.

There was something in his gaze that seemed to unnerve her tonight. The warm, hazel orbs that greeted her in the dim light of the bar seemed darker now with a certain intensity engraved in their depth. The man in front of her was different from the man she had left that night. The man who sat alone at the bar didn't have the same air of authority he had at this moment. Spencer Reid after hours was adorable, awkwardly charming, and very much easy to approach.

Dr. Spencer Reid, on the other hand, still managed to keep his calm while being very serious, even after his flustered episode from their unexpected encounter. The soft stubble on his jaw also helped the somber look he was going after, which if she was being completely honest, made him look even more handsome than he already was.

It was a good thing he couldn't read her mind.

"So," she started, crossing a leg on top of the other. "FBI agent, huh?"

He addressed her with a nod. "A profiler, to be exact."

"And what does a profiler do?"

He looked surprised by her interest but managed to explain the nature of his job. "We study and analyze crimes and criminals through an analysis of their behavior to understand the reasoning and motive behind them."

She hummed in response. "You know, I thought you were a medical doctor." Confusion passed across his face before she continued, "You have a lot of certificates."

"...so you do know my name."

"It's hard not to when it's plastered everywhere on your wall."

He paused for a moment, assessing the weight behind her words. "Then why did you call me by the wrong name that night?"

She went completely still. She knew the best way to avoid a question was to throw in another one, so she uncrossed her arms and leaned over the table.

"Why did you pretend like we didn't know each other?"

His body tensed as he felt the discomfort crawling on his skin. The overwhelming feeling of uneasiness and tension wrapped inside him was so intense it was smothering him.

"It is true though," he defended. "We don't know each other very well."

She couldn't stop the scoff slipping out of her mouth. "Ah, yes. I may not know the city you grew up in but I do know what position you like in bed."

"How could you even conclude that?" He choked, clearly dumbfounded by the crude and unexpected comment. "We've only been together once."

"In which you put me on your lap the whole time."

She knew there was a truth in her notion by the way his cheeks slightly flared in embarrassment. He simply cleared his throat, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. "Listen, I think it's best we keep what happened that night between us."

"And why is that?"

He finally tore his eyes off her.

How could he explain that something in this occurrence never happened to him without feeling self-conscious? That she was the first person he was sexually involved with no relation whatsoever? That sleeping with a stranger never happened to him in his thirty-five years of life?

And how could he explain he preferred not to share one of the most unforgettable nights of his life with his colleagues? How could he explain he wanted to keep his personal life private without offending her?

But before he could explain himself, she was already jumping to conclusions at his lack of an answer.

"Is it because you're ashamed that a smart, hot-shot FBI agent like you spent a night with a mere journalist like me?"

His eyes went wide. "What? No—"

"Are we done here?" She quickly cut in, suddenly feeling uncomfortable with the weight of his gaze. "Do you have any more questions?"

"Of course, I do—"

"Regarding my witness."

"I..." He frowned, then shook his head. "No, I suppose I don't."

"Great. It was nice talking to you, Dr. Reid."

The bottom of her chair scraped against the hardwood floor as she got up, staggering toward the door. One might say she needed to work on her pettiness, but she had always been stubborn when it came to feeling unreasonable. So before she could leave, she turned on her heel, pointed a finger at him, and narrowed her eyes before she sneered, "And just so you know, do not flatter yourself. You weren't even that good in bed."

She threw him one last glare before stalking toward the door, tugging it with utmost force only to find Morgan standing in the way. "Agent Morgan." A rush of heat coursed through her body. "I believe I can go now?"

He looked between the two of them with curiosity. "Yes, of course. Thank you for your time, Ms. L/n." The menacing look in her eyes beneath her embarrassment urged him to correct himself, "Y/n."

She then left the two men behind with the last thread of dignity she had. It didn't take a trained profiler to understand she left the room fuming with anger.

Spencer watched her leave. A sudden overwhelming sense of shock and disbelief flew through him, leaving him in a state of surprise and confusion. He was so stunned he didn't know how to respond while the woman he wanted nothing more than to follow behind had practically tarnished his self-esteem and bruised his ego.

And to make things worst, his teammate was watching him with intense interest, eyes twinkling with amusement as he leaned against the door frame.

He expected a lot of things to happen tonight, but he did not expect it would end the way it did. Suddenly feeling drained, he slowly got up in a daze. It felt as if he had recently gone through the most amount of emotions he had ever experienced in just one night.

The only way he could forget what had happened—albeit momentarily—was to put his mind on other matters. Like the current case at hand. Like the crime scene a few rooms away. He needed to focus on more important things and he couldn't do that with his friend constantly finding amusement in his misery.

"There are a lot of questions in my head right now, pretty boy."

He stalked toward the door with a newfound resentment. "Good, keep them to yourself."

Morgan's laughter followed him out of the room.

>> NEXT PART

taglist

@comboboo @sebastiansstanswhore

a/n: i am today’s years old on finding out that having a taglist is a thing😭 tell me if you want to be added please i am such an amateur on this app.

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arteastica · 3 months

Text

early in the morning, especially when it rains, and a little before noon. (25)

erwin x fem!reader

chapters: (1) | (2) | (3) | (4) | (5) | (6) | (7) | (8) | (9) | (10) | (11) | (12) | (13) | (14) | (15) | (16) | (17) | (18) | (19) | (20) | (21) | (22) | (23) | (24) | (26) | (27)

summary: I basically took Isayama’s work, forced it into a romance story, and made Erwin the love interest. Commander meets cadet and they fall in love (not instantly though)

notes: very berry canonverse (but some events were modified to fit my narrative), wasn’t intended to be this long, but it all is in the details right?

content warnings: smut where it fits (or where I make it fit. Also, reader is NOT underage, so likewise, MINORS DO NOT INTERACT, please.) slow burn (I really mean it. I’m not olympic diving into any form of smut for the first chapters.) no angst. I dislike angst. I would never. I could never. (Although angst can be somewhat subjective so take it with a grain of salt?)

wc: 6.6k

Lord Koch started to prove you wrong the moment you walked through the ivy-covered gates of his suburban estate, early-blooming wisterias cascading down the fence and conspiring with the honeysuckles to conceal the impassable iron wall, making it look more like the secret back door to some fairytale garden than the main entrance to a wealthy family’s homestead. You had expected dozens of solicitous footmen, perhaps some even hired for the occasion only, busily striding around the gardens, flocking towards the guests with fizzy drinks on their trays and welcoming smiles on their faces, politely offering to help with their frock coats and dainty parasols. Just as it was expected at any other Sunday gathering in Mitras. Or Saturday, in this case.

Instead, the only ones greeting the guests at their arrival were the imposing cedars flanking the sunlit path that led to the placid, flawlessly circular pond in the middle of the main garden. After that, guests were on their own, left to figure out, or finger guess depending on each individual’s personal approach, which one of the sprawling paths before them could possibly take them to the place where distant violins, faint laughters and the soft clinking of glasses could be heard coming from.

It was clear that whoever got invited to the celebration should’ve been there previously, perhaps numerous times, and therefore, well-acquainted with the Kochs. Acquainted enough to know their way around the property and the complex system of azalea shrubs spreading in all sorts of confusing directions, flowering under the sun as their glossy leaves danced in the wind, something more like a maze than a garden. And you couldn’t help but feel that a map should’ve been provided with the invitation, or at the entrance at the very least, because there was no way a stranger like you could find the courtyard mentioned in the invitation all by themselves. And for a moment, a silly idea crossed your mind, maybe this was some sort of task Lord Koch had designed so the guests could prove themselves worthy of attending his party. It seemed like he wanted only his true friends there on that special day. But luckily for you, your father was there to lead the way.

Amidst the excitement leading up to that special day, you had forgotten about your father, your head completely monopolized by the thought of your first date with the Commander, because… yes, that’s right, in your head, this was about you and him, and not about Lord Koch and his birthday. He already had forty nine of those for heaven’s sake, but this…this was a first for you and the Commander; the charity ball clearly not counting because, one, you hadn’t been together in that sense back then, and two, you had attended as his assistant and not his ‘princess’. So it was no wonder that, between choosing your dress, the right underwear, and daydreaming about dancing head-on-his-chest all afternoon, you had been unable to reach the obvious conclusion that your parents would most likely be attending the reception too. And it was not until you arrived home the previous night, completely unannounced and looking to surprise them, that you ended up surprised instead when your mother excitedly broke out the news during dinner.

And your father was particularly thrilled about finally getting to meet the Commander of the Survey Corps, ‘the man who saved my daughter’s life’ in his own words. He was arguably more thrilled about it than about the apple toddies, and that was a huge claim to make considering how many of those he was known to chug down on a single evening. And you would be lying if you said you weren’t excited yourself, not about the toddies, which by the way you weren’t sure they would be serving when it was barely ten in the morning, but about everything else. Sleep had evaded you for the most part of the previous night, your stomach swarmed with colorful butterflies that resembled the ones now fluttering above the Koch’s blooming azaleas, and your heart gleefully springing inside your chest at the thought of him meeting your parents.

You knew it was not like he would be asking for your hand in marriage right there in the middle of Lord Koch’s courtyard. They would probably shake hands, maybe share a drink or two while your father expressed his gratitude, and then walk separate ways without asking your parents for their blessing. But, it’s just that… you couldn’t help it…it all felt so official all of a sudden.

Yes, admittedly, no one else in this world, besides Hitch, knew about the things the two of you would do behind the closed doors of his office, but…What did he think people would say once they saw you together at the party? This was not work-related, this was not some formal event he was required to attend as the Commander of the Survey Corps. It was just his friend’s birthday lunch, an occasion that didn’t call for the presence of his assistant. And, once your favorite ballad came on and you found yourselves slow dancing under some wisteria pergola, your hand resting in his, and your head, on his shoulder…did he think people would just shrug their shoulders and look the other way thinking ‘yep, that’s his assistant’?

Before asking you to come, had he considered the possibility that once they saw him pull your chair out, helping you in like the gentleman he is, possessive hand resting on the small of your back and your lips smiling lovingly at the gesture…people would undoubtedly start asking questions about the nature of your relationship?

Like you knew your parents were.

You didn’t know what they were thinking, but you knew they were thinking something. Your mother was too well-versed and frighteningly skilled at concealing her thoughts, she was too proficient in the occult arts of vanishing any trace of emotion from her face within seconds, before anybody noticed anything, no matter how shocking or scandalous the news were. However, you saw the look of surprise in her eyes when you told her who you’d be attending the reception with. It was brief and you had almost missed it, but it was there nonetheless. She hadn’t said anything, but there were signs. She hadn’t asked questions, but you knew she wondered. You knew she did, just like many at the party would.

So, all things considered, how could you blame yourself for feeling this was official? How could you get mad at yourself for believing this was some sort of announcement? Yes, subtle and silent, but an announcement regardless. And you were loving every second of it. As evidenced by the beaming smile you wore as you stepped into Lord Koch’s courtyard, the pistachio-colored tulle of your dress joyfully dancing in the balmy spring breeze.

You had chosen open shoulders for the occasion, a symmetrical hemline falling all the way down to your ankles, and dainty flower embroidery to harmoniously blend in with all the pansies and forget-me-nots of the garden. Oh, and no open slits this time because your mother was also coming.

The top was narrow and fitted, gradually widening out from the waist into a relaxed skirt, and you had skipped the puffy petticoat because you didn’t want Lord Koch to think you were trying to steal attention from him.

Your favorite part of the dress was undoubtedly the long puffy sleeves that fell all the way down to your wrists, made of semitransparent tulle and adorned with small, pretty butterflies that perfectly matched the blue ones on the pin your mother had kindly placed on your hair before leaving the house.

Considering the carriage he had driven to the base last winter, you could be forgiven for expecting nothing less than an equally opulent and effusive display of wealth on Lord Koch’s end, and make no mistake, the courtyard of his manor was a display of wealth in every sense of the word, just not the extravagant type. Somehow, it managed to be well-mannered and even unassuming at times.

His house was more like a castle than anything else, yet there was a comforting sincerity in the clear crystal windows and the way they would reflect the gentle morning sun; a graceful spontaneity in the wildflowers and the way they would grow in the most unexpected of places, whether it was a crack on the wall or inside the stone fountain at the entrance of the garden.

The wise willow, towering over the pond at the far end of the meadow, brought effortless elegance into an already gracious scene, and the glasshouse keeping it company looked like the type of place you’d love to spend a whole summer in, with a cold lemonade and a good book in hand, even if you didn’t enjoy reading that much.

It was there in the courtyard where you understood why there was no staff positioned at the estate’s entrance. Turns out they were all here, in the inner garden, one hand tucked behind their back and the other skillfully balancing silver plates, as they gracefully dodged the puffy skirts of the ladies and the walking canes that the gentlemen loved to sway around when gesticulating.

And you had to give it to the waiters, the feat they were pulling was almost acrobatic, considering how packed the garden was. The number of guests before your eyes, throwing their heads back laughing while joyfully toasting to each other’s prosperity, convincingly attested to Lord Koch’s remarkable popularity. He surely had a lot of people he could call friends, and you knew it was going to be pretty challenging to locate the one specific friend you were looking for.

You glanced around on your tiptoes and off into the multitude, but he was nowhere to be seen. It was going to take some time to find him, so you figured you’d better start now. You turned around to let your parents know, only to realize the crowd had swallowed them too. Figuring you’d run into them sooner or later when lunch was served, you took a deep breath and ventured into the sea of people, trying to stay out of the waiters’ way and making it past smiling faces you’d seen at multiple other parties throughout the years, albeit now they looked slightly different, and older, than they did back then.

As you politely nodded back to a friendly-looking lady whose eyes seemed unable to leave your dress, it hit you that you hadn’t mingled like this in a while. After spending what some would call ‘the better years of your life’ in training camp, and right after that, moving to the middle of the forest for the Survey Corps, you hadn’t attended a birthday party in like forever.

Not much had changed though, at least not when it came to the way you felt about events like this one, and certainly not when it came to the way they made you feel. The anxious drumming in your chest was still ever-present, and the uncontrollable need to fiddle with your hair whenever you felt a stranger’s eyes on you was very much still a reflex action. You didn’t know if it was because of the same reasons as you, but you felt like you understood Captain Levi and why he disliked such gatherings. You weren’t close with him at all, but maybe someday you could bond over this and your appreciation for good tea, who knows?

You grabbed a tantalizingly golden tartlet from a nearby waiter as he walked past you. As expected, only the food made these kind of experiences worth it. The food and, in this particular occasion, him, of course.

You nodded in delight as the caramelized pear melted in your mouth, simultaneously satisfying both your sweet tooth and all the butterflies in your stomach in a single bite. Buttery, flaky and unexpectedly rich. Once you moved to the cabin in the woods, you would prepare pear tartlets like this one for him too. The comforting smell of home-baked love escaping through the open kitchen window, riding on the gentle spring breeze as it caressed your cheeks just the way it was right now in the middle of the courtyard garden.

Our little cabin. You smiled, looking around to find the man you dreamed to share it with.

And you saw Leon, standing under the shade of the breezeway not too far from you, back resting against a pillar and a rose-colored liquid in his glass as he conversed with a tall, auburn-haired lady.

You waved at him from afar when his eyes accidentally met yours, and, not wanting to interrupt the conversation, limited your interaction to a smile. However, being the welcoming soul you’d known him to be, he invited you to join him and his companion by mouthing a silent ‘Do you have time?’

As you made your way to him, you exchanged smiles with the lady he was with. She was young, very young, as suggested by her round face and the plump, dewy cheeks that came with it, which you were certain would bounce like jelly under your finger. She appeared to be in her twenties too, although her small, button-like nose and other angelic features made you suspect she was a little younger than you.

Her fitted, velvet dress hugged her body in ways only custom-made dresses could, and the hunter green skirt, flawlessly accentuating the reddish-browns of her hair, reminded you of the winged cloak you would wear every day back at the base. The dark color, as well as the narrow, tight maturity of the dress contrasted the innocence present in her soft features. Features that were just as warm as Leon’s, especially when coupled with the welcoming smile she was gifting you with.

“My lady.” Leon’s soft lips greeted the back of your hand as it was quickly becoming tradition whenever you met. “I fail to identify the nature of the spell you cast on us, and forgive me if talks of witchcraft and sorcery come off as wicked or impudent in any way, but supernatural powers are the only acceptable explanation as to why your beauty seems to intensify with every passing season.”

You were only able to giggle, his convoluted compliment reaching your ears and pleasantly tickling your confidence.

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, Leon, and you happen to own the kind of eyes that only see the good in everyone and everything. But thank you, I’m flattered.” You admitted as he let go of your hand. “And I believe we agreed to use each other’s given names?”

“He completely refused to use my given name until, I believe… the seventh year into our relationship was it?” The angelic-looking lady turned to Leon, her head adorably tilting to the side in thought, and you couldn’t help but find it satisfying: The way her honey voice was just as melodious as you’d imagined the sounds made by those beautiful lips would be.

“My lady, this is my good friend Angelika.” Leon said, gracefully signaling to his left. “Perhaps you are already acquainted with each other, since you both live in the same ward.”

Angelika. You couldn’t help but smile at the gratifyingly fitting name. The leaf-shaped brooch on her hair looked a lot like a family crest, and the diamonds embedded all around it, as well as the ‘double-u’ engraved in the center, told you that she descended from a noble lineage, as you suspected at least half of the partygoers did. But what really called your attention was the prismatic moonstone decorating her delicate beauty bones, perfectly shaped like a raindrop, and making you wonder if the occult was among her interests.

“Oh please, Leon, the northern ward is just as big as my father’s ego.” She joked, taking your hand into hers, dainty and covered in satin all the way down to her elbows. “Truly a pleasure, my lady.”

“The pleasure is mine, Lady Angelika.” You returned the gorgeous smile she was offering.

Lady Angelika was endearing in a dignified, elegant way; and you couldn’t help but notice that her expressive hazel eyes went well together with the enchanted forest Leon had in his, much like the honey pistachio loaf your mother would bake every year in the fall.

And it was not only their eyes that complemented each other, but the atmosphere surrounding them as well. Much like the sparkling stream running down the meadow behind them, and the horses leisurely grazing along its waters, there was a natural authenticity to them. One you would have undoubtedly remembered had you been around it before, especially considering Lady Angelika’s remarkable grace.

“My lady, you ought to stop looking at me like that or I might start questioning my personal preferences.” She joked, a smile on her lips and your hand still on hers. “And I’m afraid ten in the morning on a Saturday is too early to have that type of conversation.”

“Oh, please forgive me.” You chuckled lightly, letting go of her hand. “I was just wondering if you were aware of the power that moonstone holds.”

She reached for the gemstone hanging around her neck “Oh this? Of course, Leon gave it to me for my sixteenth birthday.” She explained as her fingers caressed it fondly. “He bought it from a witch down south. Apparently she found it right in the center of the footprint left by that gigantic titan who destroyed Wall Maria.” You felt your whole body tensing up at her words. “You know, the first time it appeared. She believes it used this moonstone to make itself invisible, that’s the only logical explanation as to how a creature of such colossal measures managed to appear and disappear into thin air without anyone seeing it coming.”

Your throat felt impossibly tighter all of a sudden, all incoming air failing to reach your lungs. You didn’t necessarily believe moonstones granted anyone the power of invisibility, neither the ability to wander around only in spirit, and you had meant the question as a lighthearted joke, never considering it could backfire, and definitely not expecting Lady Angelika’s answer to make you reminisce about Bertolt’s genuine smile and Reiner’s sweet disposition.

“Are you, perhaps, also interested in gemstones and their magical properties, my lady?” Leon suddenly asked, prompting you to blink away the bittersweet melancholy and the confusion that usually followed any train of thought that led to your ex-classmates.

“I- my father- It’s one of his favorite topics to discuss at the dinner table.” You explained, chuckling nervously in an attempt to compose yourself. “Did you perhaps attend Orvud Academy, Lady Angelika?”

“Oh my, are you a diviner?!” She jumped excitedly. “Yes, I did! Until the eighth grade, before Father decided to move me and my sisters to another institute in Ehrmich.”

“Then maybe we coincided in the corridors a few times.” You suggested, feeling your chest lightening up the farther away you walked from the uncomfortable topics discussed a few sentences ago. “I also went to Orvud.”

“Maybe we did! Oh my, Leon, this world is so small!” She turned to her friend, the delight present in her voice, and the gleeful way in which she started tugging at his hand, made you think of a little kid trying to lead their favorite parent to the candy store. “Although I wouldn’t blame you if you don’t remember me.” She suddenly turned her head towards you. “I looked very different back then. I was so…outlandish.” She concluded, sporting the face of someone who’d just smelled the food that had caused them indigestion.

“Sometimes, in moments of dejection or self-doubt, I find reassurance in knowing that I no longer look, nor act, like I did back in eighth grade.” You said, her smile instantly evolving into a soft, silvery laugh that was as delicate and angelic as you expected hers to be.

“Next time I’m feeling down, I’ll give it a try.” She promised.

“Is there a reason why you changed schools, my lady?” You asked, feeling comfortable enough to let your curiosity wonder and wander.

“Father believed the institutes at Ehrmich taught better chess. I wanted to stay in Orvud because all my friends were there. Not to mention Ehrmich is in the literal opposite side of town, and even to this day, I still grieve the precious minutes that the long ride home took away from my youth.” She complained dramatically. “But I can’t complain. And neither can Leon.” Lady Angelika smiled mischievously at her friend. “That’s where he first laid eyes on me, and also where I became the inspiration for his first book.”

Leon smiled back, and it was the type of smile that told you this was a conversation he already had way too many times, yet somehow, still wasn’t tired of.

“Your beauty is indeed of remarkable proportions, my dearest Angelika.” He said, lightly raising his glass as if making a toast to his friend’s comeliness. “However, as we have discussed several times in the past, the source of inspiration for my first published work, or muse, if the casual scribbling I do from time to time were to be considered a form of art, was the cloudless sky I had the providential fortune to exist under during the summer I spent in Karanes.”

“Leon fell in love with a married woman, and she had the bluest eyes he’d ever seen. Quite scandalous. Isn’t it?”

Lady Angelika’s opportune translation painted a smirk on your face as you raised a probing eyebrow at Leon. And you expected his ears, as well as his cheeks maybe, to turn red the moment his friend’s words reached them, but you should’ve known better than to expect that from someone of such poised, elegant bearing. Instead, he allowed a relaxed, graceful laugh to escape his lips before a reply could.

“She was indeed married, but I didn’t fall in love with her.” He explained calmly, the easiness in his demeanor evidencing that he was already used to be teased by his friend. “Her loving husband and sweetheart of many years stands in this very courtyard as we speak, so I would sincerely appreciate it if we could keep away from distasteful misunderstandings.” He took another sip of his drink as his eyes scanned the room. “Ending the day with a black eye is certainly not one of the goals I set for myself this morning when I sat down with my diary and my favorite breakfast tea.”

“Oh, is she around then?” Lady Angelika asked excitedly, giggles decorating her voice as she tried her best to find an unknown face in the crowd.

“She is not. If you’d studied the poems with the careful perusal they demanded, maybe you’d know that such elusive beauty tends to evade congested occasions like today’s.” He teased, and his friend dramatically placed a hand over her chest in response, pretending to take offense.

“May I ask what the book's title is?” You smiled mischievously, curiosity tickling your mind. “I’ll admit I’m not the avid reader myself, but I’m willing to give poetry my undivided attention if it promises to uncover the mysterious identity of Leon’s first love.”

“Walking artwork. Talking poetry.” He replied, shaking his head in amused disapproval. “That’s the name of the book.” Your eyes widened in realization, suddenly remembering the blue book with faded golden letters that the Commander kept in his office, surely one of his favorite reads, and after today, one you’d definitely be borrowing sometime soon. “And as I said, my lady, she wasn’t a love of mine, but even if she was, I can assure you that by the time serendipitous fate brought our paths together, the title of ‘first’ had already been long claimed.”

Lady Angelika gave Leon a complicit smile that told you she knew exactly who that title belonged to. “Leon’s lust and uncontrollable desire for this married woman really comes to life in vivid colors thanks to all those forbidden words he so artistically painted her with.” She said giggling, looking at Leon as if trying to elicit a reaction from him, but all he had for her was an uninterested eye roll. “I would have given anything, even this very moonstone on my neck, only to see Aunt Freya’s flustered face once she reached chapter nineteen.” And the sultry way in which she sank her teeth on her bottom lip made you desperately want to know what exactly went down in chapter nineteen.

“I would consider it a miracle if Mother ever so much as touches one of my books.” He joked before bringing the glass to his lips, and you couldn’t help but wonder if he was using the pink sparkly liquid to hide something that wasn’t as rosy.

“Of course she reads your books!” Lady Angelika exclaimed confidently, and you wondered if she too had noticed the same shift you had. “If I had a son as talented as you, I would never shut up about him.” She said proudly before turning to you. “Father used to get so annoyed at Uncle Hansel because he would never stop talking about Leon’s books whenever they played chess together.” Lady Angelika giggled, her eyes traveling briefly to the sky as if it was there where she kept all her memories. “Father felt that Uncle Hansel would just brag about ‘that gifted little nephew of his’ all evening and never focus on the game, which… even if we were to say that was the case… how come Father never managed to win a single one?” She chuckled before turning to Leon to clarify. “Nothing personal, you know how Father is. But I always understood Uncle Hansel and why he couldn’t stop gushing about his nephew. I was just as captivated by him.” She said fondly, and there was a hint of nostalgia in the sweet smile she was offering her friend. “And his work, of course!” She added rather abruptly.

“You praise me too much, my dearest Angelika. But my writing isn’t the slightest bit as impressive as your abilities in chess are.”

“Nonsense.” She said before turning to you, dismissing the compliment with a flick of her hand, a gesture that told you that her skills were probably every bit as impressive as Leon had implied. “My lady, I know you said reading is not among your interests but, by any chance, do you happen to enjoy ghost stories? In my humble, and probably very biased yet still fairly accurate opinion, there’s nothing like sitting by the fire on a blustery night, Leon’s horror anthology in one hand and something warm in the other, the wind ominously knocking at your window while his writing transports you to macabre dimensions.” She said, shuddering as a result of the goosebumps she had so willfully self-induced.

You chuckled, the lightness in you heart making you realize how rare days like these were. Since you had joined the Training Corps, and especially after becoming a Scout, it was as if the stakes were always high, in everything you did. It felt as if there was no normalcy in your life, or at least not like you once knew it. And, although you wouldn’t trade your life at the base for anything, you couldn’t deny that it was nice to enjoy ordinary moments like this every now and then. “That sounds frightfully enticing indeed, a perfect night made possible only by the comfort of knowing that, in the end, it’s all folktales and fiction.”

“Oh, but they are not fictional.” She was quick to clarify, shaking her hand promptly as if to make you understand how important it was for you to know this before proceeding any further. “Most of Leon’s stories are based off real life experiences, and that makes them all the more exciting! ‘Distant Cries from a Childless Town’ is based on the sinister events of that summer Leon spent traveling around Wall Rose.” She explained enthusiastically. “The second story, which is also my sister’s favorite, is about a priest who kept a human-sized titan locked in his basement. I won’t tell you how it ends, or how the titan got there in the first place, but from the title of the book you can pretty much guess, can’t you? What I will tell you, however, is that you’ll fall for the main character just as everyone does!” She made the face your father always did when daydreaming about your mother’s green tomato pie. “He’s loosely based off one of Leon’s closest friends, a super cute boy from the Trost countryside.” She tugged at Leon’s sleeve as if trying to get him to gush together with her. “His name was Jean. I met him one summer when he came to stay with Leon. Come to think of it, Leon is always friends with the dreamiest, most fascinating people.”

The way her eyes sparkled as she gazed into the sunlit fields, lips curved into a soft smile and fingers absentmindedly playing with the moonstone around her neck, told you that she was probably reminiscing about the happiest summer of her adolescent years. And you couldn’t help but chuckle, wondering if the Jean of Leon’s story was the same one you knew. He was from Trost too and, from your understanding, also childhood friends with Leon. And if it was him, you would have no option but to laugh at how comedic it all was. To think he had a secret admirer in Mitras, and not only that, but the fact that she was a member of the nobility… Heaven forbid he ever found out, because the one you knew, your Jean, his ego definitely did not need another boost.

Although, in all fairness, you kind of understood where Lady Angelika was coming from. Him and Reiner had always been the most popular among the ladies back at Training Camp. In fact, when you first met Jean, you had also thought he was really cool. It was the very first day of ODM practice, and although everyone else was struggling, he seemed to be a natural at it. However, you also remembered how quickly all form of curiosity and wonder had vanished, that same night at dinner to be more specific, when you saw him engage in one of those embarrassing fights him and Eren loved to have.

“He was so well-mannered and smelled so good all the time.” Lady Angelika continued her recollection of the events of that summer, just as your mind started to get flooded by memories of a very different summer, one where Eren and Jean never stopped throwing scrambled eggs and baked tomatoes at each other. “His hair was so soft and he was so manly we both fell in love with him.”

It was so sudden and unexpected, that you couldn’t stop your eyes from opening as wide and as inappropriately as your eyelids allowed them to.

“Leon and I didn’t talk to one another for weeks after that, until we finally waved our little white flags and agreed neither of us would pursue him. After that, we hugged and decided to go for chocolate pastries. We were so silly back then. Do you remember, Leon?”

“I would argue we still are.” He responded amusedly, bringing the glass to his lips and swirling the contents lightly before taking a sip.

Lady Angelika chuckled as she leaned over the handrail, her hair playing with the wind as she gazed at the pasturing horses, and you wondered if the longing smile present on her lips meant that she was still reminiscing about Jean. Leon, on the other hand, was looking at no one and nothing in particular, taking occasional sips from his glass until it was completely empty. And something, probably the wistful smile he was wearing, told you that he we was most likely thinking about those days too.

And about Jean, perhaps.

“I absolutely enjoy horror stories.” You blurted unprovoked after some uncomfortable seconds of silence, fearing it might escalate into something even more awkward. You weren’t sure if Leon was comfortable with you knowing such personal details about him, especially when you were acquainted with Jean yourself. “And I greatly appreciate the personalized recommendation, Lady Angelika. However, I think I’ll start with Walking Artwork and leave the sinister stories for bolder times, you know… for the sake of chronological order. I’m also curious to see how Leon’s writing evolved over the years.”

Leon let his head fall to the side both in suspicion and disbelief, squinting his eyes as if asking you to get it over with.

“And of course, because I’m interested in uncovering the married lady’s mysterious identity as well as what became of her.” You finally confessed, a giggle escaping your lips when you saw him roll his eyes and shake his head in disapproval. You had to admit that there was a very particular type of pleasure to be derived from teasing Leon, and you were beginning to understand why Lady Angelika seemed to enjoy it so much. “The Commander has that book in his personal collection. I might just borrow it on Monday and begin my research as soon as we go back to the office.”

“Even if you succeed in uncovering her identity, little does it matter, my lady; given the fact that my interest in her was purely artistic and never romantic.” He replied, shrugging his shoulders as if he was sorry to disappoint you. “As of what became of her, I’m happy to report that I’m still very much welcomed with warm geniality by both her and her darling daughters whenever I find myself in Karanes.” He signaled with a shake of his glass. “With that said, I’m truly honored and delighted, if I may allow myself such pleasures, to know that someone with Commander Smith’s intellect and literary knowledge found something of value in my dull first work. I have never been able to bring myself to read it again.”

“Huh? You work with Commander Smith?” Lady Angelika asked, the newfound piece of information lighting some sort of spark in her eyes, and you weren’t sure you could call it simple curiosity.

Nodding proudly, you looked around the garden, eyes surveying the room and a comfortable type of excitement bubbling inside you at the thought of finding his blue eyes in the crowd any time now.

“I had the pleasure of starting my rounds conversing with him by the central pavilion. Maybe he’s still there.” Leon looked in the direction of the marble-columned structure, as if trying to find him too. And you caught yourself trying to guess what the nature of their exchange was, something that admittedly troubled you more than a little, given the misunderstanding from a few weeks prior. “He must be looking for you too.”

You turned to Leon and were surprised to discover a smile full of understanding shining your way. And you sincerely hoped the nervous laugh that escaped your lips as a response could act as some sort of distraction so your burning cheeks and tomato ears could go unnoticed.

But you knew that he had been there that night, at the castle, in the dining hall, just a few rooms away from your office and all the wonderful things the Commander had been making you feel on top of his desk. And you also knew that, if he’d happened to hear something then, no amount of damage control you did now would be enough to erase it from his memory.

And like so, before you started acting more like a tomato and less like a person, you decided it was the perfect moment to start exchanging closing nods and parting smiles with Leon and Lady Angelika, which you did before heading in the direction he had pointed you to. Lady Angelika looked like she wanted to say something, and had it been any other moment, you would’ve waited. But, right now, all you wanted was to take your flustered face away and hide it in the Commander’s welcoming chest while you danced to a slow song or two.

“My Lady.” Leon’s sudden call of your name made you turn around abruptly. “Just one more thing.” He said as he approached you, putting some distance between Lady Angelika and him, and lowering his voice as if to ensure nobody else could hear what he was going to say. “I had a conversation with my dear uncle the other day, and I explained to him about the nature of our budding relationship.” He smiled mid-sentence as if to let you know it was okay, and you had to admit that any form of reassurance was very much welcome at the moment, especially when you had no clue where all this was heading. “I was very specific in my request, and by ‘very specific’ I mean I carefully treaded through all the poetical trap my tongue usually falls into, and sincerely asked him to stop hindering the growth of our blossoming friendship with the shadows his well-intended efforts are casting.”

His eyes lingered in the central pavilion’s direction for a while, seemingly taking his time organizing the words inside his head before saying them out loud. “Although very little use it has, I apologize if his remarks resulted in any kind of misunderstanding or inconvenience for you.”

You stared at his apologetic smile in silence, trying to make sense of the words that had just left his mouth. And maybe it was the tinge of remorse in his eyes or the way their attention would shift between you and the central pavilion, but something told you that he probably held the answer to the question you had been trying to get the Commander to respond.

No. Not probably.

He definitely did.

Did Lord Koch talk about you and Leon in a way that made the Commander think you were involved romantically? You didn’t know for sure, yet you knew two other things: One, if he had indeed said something, Leon would absolutely know what it was; and two, he would totally tell you if you asked.

But before you could do so much as open your mouth, Lady Angelika’s melodious voice called his name and he smiled apologetically before turning to her, leaving you there, stranded in the middle of the crowd, with nothing but questions to hold on to.

And you would have remained there for longer, had a flurried waiter not bumped into you, knocking the butterfly pin off your hair and making it bounce on the glossy marble tiles.

You looked down just in time to see it slide under a crystal table, and bent down to reach it, only to find that a gentle hand had gotten there first.

“Thank you, but it’s fine. I got it.” You said as your hand brushed past warm, manly fingers.

“I know you do, but let me.” Replied a rich, velvety voice you had only heard on your happiest moments.

You rose up as fast as your faltering legs allowed, your heartbeat like the frenzied flapping of hummingbird wings, and the reason for that, standing right in front of you, holding the blue butterfly in his welcoming hand, the sun sparkling on the metal pin in the same mesmerizing way it did on the sapphires he had on his face.

next chapter

taglist: @mysticalnightbeliever @aliasrising @elnyrae @mchlist @apts2000 @angelaevangelion @depitaangeline @ynackerman9499 @afatalheat @pumpkin-toffee @velouria17 @gassytritis @goddessinsweats @nube55 @jeanboyjean @crazychaoticizzy @braunsbabe @erwinawesomeness @lucifers-nipple-piercing @karmabyfernando @thicc101q @shittyprofilebutfuckit @dilfenthusiast-union

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tgandc · 2 years

Text

things i’ve learned in 14 years of ed life and need to remind myself every once and awhile: (really it’s been almost 18, but the most severe years were between the ages of 14-28)

1. don’t set a date to lose weight by. you’ll sabotage yourself. instead, set a goal weight, and a plan to meet that goal, and give yourself time to meet it.

2. don’t punish yourself for slipping and eating. you’re human. you need food to survive. you’re starving yourself. you’re going to break your fast one day. or “forget” you’re restricting one day because you saw something that looked sooo damn good and you ate it without even realizing. you’re going to go over your calorie limit once and awhile. you’re going to binge. it’s inevitable.

3. learn how to curb the binges. just cause you start, doesn’t mean it’s too late to stop. if you eat 100 calories, don’t turn it into 1000. you can burn off the extra 100-500cals way easier than 5000.

4. learn your triggers. avoid them.

5. just exercising doesn’t work well. just starving yourself doesn’t work well. you need to restrict AND work out. seriously. the results are in and i just lost 35lbs in 3 months. like my drs MA that weighed me saw the red line and exclamation mark that i’d lost 20% of my body weight in 3 months and she flipped out. my weight loss has slowed a little the last 2-3 weeks and it’s 100% because i stopped exercising as much when school started. i usually walk 3 miles every morning on the track after i drop my son off at daycare. it’s my lifeline. if i don’t walk the track every morning now i get super pissy, shit gets bad, and i either gain weight or plateau. restricting and working out work wayyyy better if you do them together.

6. drink water! i know everyone says this. but everyone says this for a reason. it keeps your tummy full so you eat less food, it helps flush everything out, it helps keep your digestive system running, it helps keep your face clear, it helps keep the headaches down, it helps you lose weight… water is just super good for you and you should drink it. but don’t drink too much. if you dilute your body too much, you can kill yourself. literally. if you drink too much water (e.g. 2-3 gallons in under an hour) you’ll die. so don’t drink that much. but, ya know… a gallon, or a gallon and a half spread out over a day is good.

7. allow yourself a treat every once and awhile. not a binge. not an unhealthy treat. it doesn’t even have to be a food treat. but give in once and awhile. get your nails done, take a fun class, make something, draw something, have an ice cream cone. do give yourself the opportunity to indulge in something. or else you become bitter and resentful.

8. once a week, up your calories by at least 200-500. it’ll kickstart your metabolism and you’ll lose weight faster. just don’t keep up the higher calorie count for more than ONE DAY or you’ll start gaining again. but one of those days every couple weeks is great to avoid a plateau.

9. when your clothes start getting really baggy, buy a smaller size. there’s nothing quite as rewarding as going from a large to a small. i just made the switch a few weeks ago and it’s amazing.

10. feel your b0ne3. rub your hands over your r1b3, your h1pb0n3s, your c0llarb0n3s look at your thigh gap.. get on tumblr, look at th1nsp0, it’ll keep you motivated.

11. take lots of pictures. it’s great to look back and see the progression from fat and gross to being skinny and beautiful 🥰

12. stay safe ♥️

all pics in this post are me ☺️

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cafeinthemoon · 6 months

Text

Ruins - Part XXI + Extra Content

Chapter 22

Wordcount 3,3k

Title Part XXI

Fandom Shuumatsu no Valkyrie / Record of Ragnarok

Previous chapters

1 . 2 . 3 . 4 . 5 . 6 . 7 . 8 . 9 . 10 . 11 . 12 . 13 . 14 . 15 . 16 . 17 . 18 . 19 . 20

Symbols ⭕ . ➕ . 💛

Warnings: none

Tagging @holdyourwine @lilacshouko @shirayuki-ayumi @telvess (If you want to be tagged in any of my stories, just leave a comment on this chapter or send an ask or a message)

N. A.: I'm glad I can share this chapter with you bc I couldn't wait to post it anymore! I wanted this moment between them to be special not only bc it is, you know, they honeymoon, but bc what it will mean for both of them in the future: the trust, the intimacy and the respect they have for each other can be sensed in each second, and it's expected to grow stronger. I really wanted to depict what a healthy relationship means when I had the idea for this story, and that's why I'm putting such effort in these things.

Also I wanted to include some humor in it as well, so I hope you enjoy the content by the end of this chapter as well haha

Your face warmed up when the god revealed his identity.

So, the doctor of the gods is Apollo’s son.

You would still need time to conciliate it, since Asclepius looked like a twin of his own father, but despite your surprise, you soon caught up with the good manners and greeted him with the owned respect.

– It is an honor for me to finally meet you as well, Asclepius-sama – you gave him a fainting smile – I apologize for my first reaction, but you really resemble the God of the Su…

Your last word was interrupted by a sudden decrease on your blood pressure, and your head fell back on your pillow. Hades rushed to your side.

– Y/n? – he helped you to sit and adjusted the pillow behind your back – Are you alright?

– I am – you sighed – For a moment, my body felt heavy again and my sight got dark, but it’s coming back again…

When your sight was finally reestablished, you looked at Asclepius and noticed he had a serious expression. He approached your spot and sat on the bed, placing the cane beside him and taking off the bag from his shoulder.

– These episodes of weakness… when exactly did they start?

You made an effort to remember, but even this was painful for you.

– One or two hours after I drank the ambrosia, I guess. But it was easy to handle... at least until I sensed the beginning of a headache. I passed out for the first time in our way here, on the corridor. But this isn’t everything: while I stood here, waiting for you, my Lord, I noticed my senses... increasing – you indicated the opened balcony with a frail hand – I’ve been hearing the nightly animals as if they’re close to this room, but they’re actually miles away, and all these sounds make the headache worst.

Asclepius thought of this for a moment, a hand under his chin. Then, he took out a strange instrument from his bag, something that resembled a portable mirror.

– Please, put your palm over the lens – he asked and you obeyed, putting your hand over the place where the glass would be if it was a mirror – Keep it there for a few seconds.

You sensed a cold upon your skin, as a glowing light appeared and vanished, little by little until everything was dark again. The exam was finished. Asclepius thanked your collaboration and analyzed the instrument. You glanced over the lens and noticed a purplish glow over them, in a shade that resembled the one of your hair now.

– It is just as Zeus-sama said – he started – You are on the growing spectrum. The blessed fluid is slowly assimilating your natural characteristics and expanding them beyond the human limits. However, your body is still mortal, and this is the cause of the uncomfortable symptoms: your immune system still views these changes as signs of sickness and it’s trying to fight it, but as the ambrosia takes over your cells, turning them into divine ones, they will become the majority, and your body will no longer react as if you were sick.

You swallowed. Knowing what was going on with your body was somewhat relieving, but you were still worried about the possibility of the symptoms increasing, and you exposed those preoccupations to him.

– About this, I might have a solution – he replied with a kind smile – Just give me a second.

He turned the instrument off and put it back in the bag and started searching for something else inside it. Finally, he took out a small bottle from it and handled it to Hades, who received it with a frown.

– Don’t tell me that it is what I think it is…

You leaned to your husband, trying to observe the bottle, then turned to the other god.

– What is this?

Asclepius had a curious expression that deepened his resemblance with Apollo: the grin of someone who had the undivided attention of powerful beings.

– Hades-sama may tell you this story later, when you have more disposition to listen to it – he replied – But to summarize, it is the medicine I created to cease a terrible plague that almost ended humanity in the past. I don’t want to brag about it, but its effectiveness was such that some men became immortal, and Hellheim lost potential inhabitants thanks to it.

Hades sighed by your side.

– Those were chaotic times, in fact, but I’m glad everything was solved – he gave the bottle to you.

You turned to the doctor.

– If this was the effect on human beings, how am I going to react to this medicine now that I’m already becoming a goddess?

– It will diminish the discomfort caused by the metamorphosis – he explained – And it will do this without interfering in the process, like other substances would do, which would be too risky. You see, you’re not really sick, y/n-san. You’re just changing. Then, I recommend you to take it only when you feel you’re not going to stand the symptoms for any longer. Small doses are enough to help you.

Asclepius’ last words sounded as comforting the ones of an adult who was trying to console his child about growing up. You didn’t find it offensive, though: being someone who was used to observe how the living beings’ bodies work, maybe it was exactly the way he thought of the situation; you were leaving the childish state of being a mortal and was now entering the adulthood of existence by becoming a divine being. Of course, the process would be scary and even painful at some point, but it was also a wonderful experience.

Suddenly, you remembered something you’ve been wanting to ask to the gods you were more familiar with, but haven’t had the opportunity.

– Ah, about this, there’s something I’d like to know, Asclepius-sama – you observed the bottle in your hands – Is it possible to tell what type of goddess I’m going to be?

He thought of the question for a while.

– According to what Zeus-sama told me, you’re on the growing spectrum. I don’t know how much he told you about this, but your side on the spectrum of transformations usually determines what types of power you might hold. Gods with the same process as you use to have familiarity with wildlife, the cycles of nature and rebirth. Demeter and Chloris, though they were divine since the start, are this type of goddesses. It’s too soon to tell if your powers are going to be similar to theirs, but they will work under the same principles.

You pondered for a moment, then turned to your husband.

– It makes sense when we remember our dreams about the ruins, Hades.

– Indeed – he agreed – A living human visiting the world of the dead really seemed to be a sign back then. Now we need to observe the development of your powers to reach a better understanding of it.

Asclepius, who was hearing the conversation in silence, stood up put his bag back around his shoulder and grabbed his cane.

– Hades-sama, y/n-san, my sincere wish is to see you reach the referred understanding. It will be a great achievement for yourselves and for the world of the gods – he bowed his head – Now, if you excuse me, other matters demand my attention.

Hades stood up right after him.

– Will you stay in Valhalla, then?

– Yes. Usually, I would visit Valhalla every six months to check on the girls’ health, but personal problems prevented me from coming in the last semester – the doctor explained; and, turning to you, – This is why you’re only seeing me for the first time now, y/n-san. Finally, try to take as much rest as possible. This is as important as the medicine I gave you.

You gave him a cordial smile.

– I will do this, Asclepius-sama. Thank you for everything.

The god bowed for the second time.

– It’s good to hear that. And, if you need me, I will be in the chambers besides Hermes’.

– Thank you for answering our call, Asclepius – Hades replied – I will accompany you to the door.

The two men left and your husband closed the door behind him. You observed the small bottle in your hands for a while before putting it upon the night stand at the left side of the bed and letting your head fall on the pillows.

***

Hades came back to your chambers after a few minutes, stating that he was going to take a bath himself.

– Are you going to be alright while I’m there? – he asked while caressing your hair.

– I am – you smiled, still lying your head on the pillow – If things get complicated, I’ll be following Asclepius-sama’s instructions.

– Good – he bent down to kiss the top of your head – I’ll be right back.

You never had a clear memory of what happened after he left you, but you were inclined to think you just stood in bed, in the dark, your consciousness slipping out as you listened to the murmur of the shower somewhere near you. You were tired and weak due to the transformation, but you were in peace: you had a medicine to lean on, the man you loved was close and your family was out there having fun.

Everything is in its right place.

It was impossible to measure how long you stood in that quiet, peaceful state, somewhere between asleep and awake, but it changed when your body began to feel cold; this cold appeared first in your feet and spread to your legs, then to the rest of your limbs as you pulled the sheets more and more against yourself, but your efforts to keep the warmth were useless, for the cold didn’t come from the outside, and soon you were taken over by successive shivers. You tried to move to your side, but felt your body heavy, as if your blood pressure got suddenly low again; this time, your head started spinning. You knew your situation were getting more serious, and couldn’t help feeling anxious.

You tried to move back to your previous position, to reach for the medicine on the night stand, but your attempt failed: your body barely obeyed you. Now you were really scared, and before you did anything to avoid it, you were already breathless and crying.

What’s going on? What’s happening to me? Am I going to...

A yellowish light appeared on the wall above your head, illuminating the headboard and the painting over it (you opted to keep the art with the fawn and the nymphs). With one last effort, you moved the sheets away and saw the bathroom’s door opened: Hades’ silhouette was stepping out of it, wrapped in a robe. You couldn’t keep looking, because the headache increased, forcing you to close your eyes.

Apparently, your bad state was evident from far, because soon he rushed to your side.

– What is it, y/n? What’s happening?

You tried to sit on the bed, but your body didn’t obey you. You only managed to change your position with his help.

– I don’t know... – you whispered, covering your forehead with your hand – My head hurts… And I couldn’t even reach for the medicine…

Making you look up to him, he moved your hand away and put his palm over your forehead, then on each side of your neck.

– You got a fever – was his worried answer – And a bad one.

Your heart jumped at those words.

– It explains this cold I’m feeling… It’s so scary… – you sighed and passed your arms around yourself as another shiver spread through your body; you raised your eyes to him, raising a trembling hand to hold the sleeve of his robe – Can you stay with me?

Hades stared at you for a moment, a glimmer of compassion in his eyes. Maybe he was thinking the same as you: that was going to be the first time you were sharing a bed; of course, none of you expected this moment to be like this, but it was there before you, and both of you sensed the importance of it.

Your husband sat by your side and wiped your tears, involving you in his arms and kissing your forehead.

– Of course I can, little one – he then grabbed the medicine and opened the bottle, holding it close to your lips – Take it.

You accepted the remedy and, after a small dose, he put it back on its previous place, then turned around the bed and took off his robe; he left the piece on the back of a chair beside the bed and finally took the place by your side.

– Come here – he passed his arms around your body and placed you between them, your head leaning on his chest, your legs folded between his.

You moaned when a new, stronger shiver spread all over your body.

– I’m so scared...

You felt the warmth of his hand massaging your back and curled yourself more on his lap.

– I know – he whispered – But I’m here with you – and, kissing your hair, – And if things get tough, we have a doctor nearby, okay?

– Okay – your voice faded as you replied; and, with an attempt to laugh, – You know… I’ve been wondering how our first night together would be like… And, among all the possibilities, I’ve never considered something like this… I’m so sorry for ruining it...

– What are you apologizing for, little one? – you felt his fingers fondling your hair – You’re turning into a goddess. The most beautiful one. There’s nothing to be sorry about.

– But I wanted to give you… to give us better moments… It’s our honeymoon, after all…

He strengthened his grip around you and kissed you again.

– Each moment, and each night we will spend together will be better than the other. This is just the first one. You don’t have t lose your head over it.

You spent a moment in silence, gathering strength to reply.

– I see…

In fact, you were anxious about that night for weeks, so when it finally came, it was only natural that you felt frustrated, even disappointed with yourself, to see things happening in an uncomfortable, unplanned way. But another thing you weren’t expecting was to find relief while speaking about your feelings and then being understood by your husband: perhaps you’ve been putting so much expectation in your own part in this that you forgot you weren’t going to take care of it by yourself; yet counting on each other was a golden rule of relationships, even more in romantic ones.

I still have too much to learn.

Fortunately for you, you had a reasonable partner, one who have learned the art of patience for centuries and who would teach you in this sense for the next ages. Ages… when you remembered that this was going to be your lifespan, your heart ached, and more shivers hit your body, but guiding your thoughts away from it would calm them down, and with effort you trained yourself in this sense.

That night was long. You spent all of it in the arms of the King of the Underworld, alternating between moments of dreamless sleep and tired consciousness; this extended as the transformation went on, and the fever diminished as the hours passed. During those painful hours, Hades was always there with you, whether talking or just caressing you; as you got used to his warmth, you noticed the cold ceasing, and as the metamorphosis became more tolerable, your body relaxed more and more in his embrace. Slowly, as the new day approached, you were recovering the sense of control over yourself, and the fear of the future diminished, until it completely disappeared.

***

The first hours of the next day were something between dream and reality, for you witnessed – well, you listened to – curious things, but had no ways to decide if they indeed happened or if they were just your imagination.

At some point, you woke up, but didn’t open your eyes. You sensed you were alone in the bed, but it was still warm, and you supposed that Hades might have left moments ago. Though the room was quiet, you had the impression that your husband was in the living room with a visitor – paying close attention, you recognized Poseidon’s composed tone. They had a brief talk when most of what was said was in a foreign, ancient language that, thanks to the lessons given by your husband, you identified as Greek.

Apparently, Poseidon was going to leave Valhalla that day and came to see his brother before the travel. Besides the rapid, murmuring exchange of words in Greek, there was some chuckling, so you had no idea of what was being said (and you'd rather remain oblivious to it).

But then the conversation turned to a language you were able to fully understand.

– You don’t need to worry about that – Hades was saying – She wasn’t in conditions anyway. The changing is being successful, but it has been taking too much from her mortal body. She had a bad fever during night, but it was gone last time I checked.

– Did you call Asclepius to see her? – Poseidon inquired.

– Yes. He gave her a potion for her discomfort, but she wasn’t really medicated – your husband replied – The process of having your biology rewritten, according to him, can take longer or shorter depending on your body’s conditions, and cannot be interrupted or altered by the ingestion of medicine. Besides, as the altered cells become the majority in one’s body, the process becomes easier, and their immune system no longer recognizes the mutation as a problem. I talked to him moments ago to keep him in touch with the situation. He believes that she will be one of us by the end of this day.

– I see – his brother said – If this is the case, then she has suffered less than Heracles, who almost had his body swallowed by fire.

Hades laughed at this.

– Yes, but, please, don’t say this in front of her next time you see us.

– Alright – Poseidon’s voice softened – Send my regards to her when she wakes up.

They exchanged a few words in Greek, then said their farewell in the common language.

– I must go, now. Goodbye, brother.

– Goodbye. Be well.

A door was opened at the distance, a few steps were heard beyond it, then the door was closed, followed by utter silence.

***

Extra content

This is part of what was said between the brothers in ancient Greek, alternated with laughter and inner jokes that are impossible to translate:

– Good morning, elder brother. I came to say farewell. Some things demand my immediate attention in the Seas.

– I see. Truth is that I was expecting to have your company during our breakfast, but I knew that it wouldn’t be possible.

– You and your not-so-subtle way to call me antisocial. Anyways, I would have communicated my intentions sooner, but we haven’t the chance to speak yesterday and I didn’t want to interrupt your moments together. So... I am not interrupting anything now, I hope.

– Absolutely not. But if you’ve showed up earlier, you would’ve found the doors locked.

– I wouldn’t judge you. Not after what we saw at the party. You would be a fool if you didn’t take measures to keep your runaway bride safe.

– Please, don’t say these things about her. With that gaze of yours upon me, I would’ve run if I was a human girl too!

– Watch your mouth, old man! She only ran after she saw you. She was perfectly fine with us.

– Hey!

– Speaking of this, how is she doing?

– A bit tired, but well. Sleeping like a little lamb.

– Hm... You already reached the phase of the ridiculous nicknames, brother?

– Everyone reaches that phase, sooner or later. Just wait.

– Hmpf. I won’t have you cursing my fate, old man.

– It’s not a curse. You’ll thank me later.

Part XXII

#snv x reader #ror x reader #snv hades x reader #ror hades x reader #record of ragnarok hades #shuumatsu no valkyrie x reader #shuumatsu no valkyrie hades #record of ragnarok x reader

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mad-who-ra · 1 year

Text

Dagger and Arrows (16)

Dagger and Arrows 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Well well well, look who still remembers how the keyboard works- Me, that's me, in case you were wondering. I still remember the sentence structure and all- You get it. I am gonna taunt myself before you do. But hey, here's the last chapter. And no, we probably won't have an epilogue since it took me months to write this chapter. But yes, here's the happy ending you all threatened me for. Enjoy.

Ram x (still alive) Wife!Reader

Word Count : 904

Y/N did not remember a lot. She fell in and out of consciousness. She remembered bits and pieces of what happened or what was actually going on. She remembered the pain. She remembered the desperate voice of her husband trying to wake her up. Begging her to open her eyes. She remember him screaming her name, and then Bheem’s when she tried. Bheem- She thought she heard his voice too. The next time she came to, all she saw was fire. It was blurred. She felt the wind caress her wounds. She felt something cold wherever it hurt. Before she could move, darkness surrounded her again.

When she finally gained enough consciousness to move, she realised her whole body hurt. It took her a lot of efforts to open her eyes. Her vision was blurred. She moved her fingers with last ounce of strength she could muster in her body. It hurt. It hurt to breathe, to move, to open her eyes. Was she dead? Was she in heaven? If it was heaven, why was she still hurting?

Maybe she was in hell. She would deserve it, knowing what she had done to Bheem and Malli. No amount of pain on earth would be enough to erase her sins.

“Y/N?” She heard a voice she thought she had heard before in a dizzy state of mind, but couldn’t remember who it was. She tried to focus her eyes on the person.

“Ram! She is awake!” The girl shouted before rushing to her side. She helped Y/N into a sitting position, stuffing a blanket between her and the wall. She held a glass of water to her mouth and as the water entered her system, she realised how parched she was. She drank the water slowly, trying not to hurt herself.

“Do you need more?” The girl asked. Y/N blinked. The girl’s face finally came into focus and she realised she had seen her before, in pictures. Seetha. It was Seetha.

“More water?” She asked again.

Y/N shook her head lightly. It took a lot out of her to actually focus on her surroundings. It was a small room. Probably a tribal hut. Where was she?

“Y/N-” She heard his voice before she looked towards the door. He stared at her as his eyes teared up.

“Bhabhi!” Bheem walked into the room before Ram did.

“Bh-Bheem!” She croaked out, tears clouding her own vision. He pulled her into a hug, careful as to not hurt her. She held back a wince. She did not want him to let her go and she knew he would as soon as he realised she was in pain.

“I am so sorry.” She started.

He shushed her, holding her to him. He was alive. He was fine. He was not mad at her.

“Malli?” She asked.

“She is fine, everyone is fine.” He said, pulling away to look at her. There were scars on his face. But other than those, he looked fine.

“How, what-”

“We will explain. But not right now, you need rest.” He said. She looked at Seetha.

“I-”

“Not now.” Seetha echoed.

“Rest for a while.” Bheem said, getting up, “We will go tell everyone that you are awake and fine. Everyone is worried about you.”

With that both of them walked out of the room, leaving Ram standing in the doorway looking at her like she would disappear if he looked away.

She lifted her lips into a small smile.

“Are you going to stand there?” She asked.

He took hesitant steps towards her. He, like Bheem had scars on his face. But he too, seemed fine otherwise. Healing, at the very least. He was alive. That was a relief.

“How are you?” He asked, settling on the bed beside her.

“Never been better.” She joked, lightly. He did not say anything for a long time. He did not look into her eyes. His eyes were glued to the bed sheet. She slowly moved her hand to hold his. He very tentatively laced their fingers together as a tear rolled down his cheek.

“Ram-”

“I thought I had lost you. In the cell, after we got out. I thought I had lost you on multiple occasions in the last few weeks and I-” He shook his head, “I am so sorry, Y/N. All of this is my fault. I-”

“Hey, hey.” She said, squeezing his hand as tightly as she could. It was not his fault. Both of them were to be blamed. Both of them were trying their best.

“I am so sorry.” He said, again finally looking at her. Her heart broke looking at the tears in his eyes.

She shook her head.

“I am okay. I will be okay.”

“You should rest.” He repeated, “we will talk about this later.”

They will. They will talk about this and a lot of other things. Later, when she is able to get more than a few words out of her system. But right now, she did not need to think about it. Bheem and Malli were fine. Ram and her were alive. That is all that mattered. They were together.

“Don’t go. Stay?” She asked. A thousand emotions flashed in his eyes. She recognised love as he slowly nodded, looking at her. They would talk about this, too. They had an eternity in front of them.

I love each and every one of you

@sada-siva-sanyaasi @manwalaage @maraudersbitchesassemble @gauri-vishalakshi @rambheem-is-real @seherie @how-is-it-in-london @itsfookingloosah @ma-douce-souffrance @irisesforyoureyes @cainiyor @zaddylokiandthorsimp @bromance-minus-the-b @kafkaesquebestie @hissterical-nyaan @ramayantika @reallythoughtfulwizard @phoenix666stuff @iam-siriuslysher-lokid @obsessedtoafault @budugu @chaanv @nerdreader @pavbhajiofficial @hxnky-pxnky @shawty-writes-a-little @azraelcruor @rambheemisgoated @aasthuu @vidhurvrika @jeonmahi1864 @jjwolfesworld @yehsahihai @voidsteffy @lite-teesko

@dumdaradumdaradum @eloquentree @herefornamu @shreyalokesh @rishi-sita @sukitaee @mathy-u @army24--7 @floating-mushroom @nyotamalfoy @saanjh-sakhi @sabi513 @theclumsypanda

#rrr #ram x wife!reader #dagger and arrows

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notabled-noodle · 2 years

Text

examples of living with traits part three: inattentive ADHD

you must have at least six of the traits in section A (five if you are over the age of 17), and all of the traits in sections B, C, D, and E

A. inattentiveness

makes "careless" mistakes

getting bored with writing to the point that you never edit it

does edit but misses spelling mistakes and the like

not able to deal with the level of detail required for a task

don't reread anything

2. can't sustain attention

wandering off in the middle of a task/activity/conversation

getting distracted in the middle of a task/activity/conversation

madly switching between tasks in the aim of maintaining attention

zoning out, fidgeting, or otherwise distracting yourself

3. doesn't listen when spoken to

if you're focused on something, your hearing turns off completely

someone regularly has to call your name multiple times to get your attention

you zone out during conversations, and this impacts your ability to listen

4. difficulty following instructions

skipping ahead when reading instructions and missing parts

reading instructions once and then following them from memory

refusing to read instructions all together

zoning out during verbal instructions

finding instructions boring, so never completing tasks where strict adherence to instructions is required

5. difficulty with organisation

has never been able to keep a diary for that long

missing appointments

having mess wherever you go

not knowing where anything is at any given moment

not being able to plan ahead

time management? who's she?

6. avoids tasks that take a lot of effort

regularly putting tasks in the "too hard basket" and then never returning to them

seeing how long a post is on Tumblr and going "I'm not reading that shit"

delegates tasks that seem like they would tire you out

always being able to think of something more exciting you could be doing

7. regularly loses things

keys. wallet. phone. constantly disappearing the moment you leave them for five seconds

"I was sure I left it RIGHT HERE" (the object is not there)

you have a system you have to follow because otherwise you know you will end up losing every item you own

8. easily distracted

can't maintain eye contact because your eyes move around everywhere all the time

it doesn't take much to pull you away from a task

you get angry when someone talks to you while you're doing a task, because you know that means you've lost the focus

zig-zagging around topics in a conversation

9. forgetful

can never remember birthdays

forgets what you're doing while you're doing it

things regularly just slip your mind

if you don't write the thought down, the thought will be gone forever

B. all of the above were present in some form before 12

C. most of the above is present in two or more settings (e.g. at home, at school, at work, when socialising, when playing sport)

D. the above interferes with or impairs daily functioning

E. the symptoms cannot be explained better by a different diagnosis

#adhd #inattentive adhd #diagnostic criteria

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seeds-of-life-daily · 7 months

Text

Day 19

SEELE!Rei AU notes I wrote on the bus

If you've seen this account's post, you're probably aware of the SEELE!Rei AU that's been circulating in my brain. To those who are curious and like the concept, here are some tidbits and notes I've made about it under the read more !!! BRIEF EXPLANATION: This is an AU idea of what if Rei was raised by SEELE alongside Kaworu instead of by Gendo/NERV?

Having Rei and Kaworu as siblings would be pretty good for the both of them. Rei would have someone to relate to and be comfortable around. Kaworu would experience similar stuff too, and wouldn't be exclusively Shinji-centric, making them have a possibly healthier dynamic/relationship. Rei could also be a tad more self-expressive, since being raised by SEELE would rid her of all the conditioning* and restrictions* (by Gendo, at least) she went through in nge canon. That doesn't rid them of all their problems, though. As we know SEELE has a dummy system as well, meaning Rei would still view herself as expendable and question her identity and self (possibly even more, with now having much more information to go off of to analyze.) Poor Rei'll have to deal with another organization's instrumentality planning deal again :( Kaworu would still have to choose between Lilin and the Angels. He is still a (unnatural) progeny of Adam, after all. I don't think he would suffer any less dread and anxiety from that in this AU. Having Rei around would probably lean him more towards his decision of saving the Lilin, though. What fun to constantly have to battle your nature of returning to your angelmom/soul's body, amiright? Yeah. Having Rei in the custody of SEELE makes me think that it would be best that she wasn't a Yui clone. No more weird ulterior Yui motives!! That would pose the question of how did they come to exist then? Since the Katsuragi crew were the ones to be near Adam in Antarctica, what if another division was with Lilith a year or so later? This time they made another contact experiment with a vessel they manufactured specifically for this one. Just so happens that the one to be in charge of the design and name was our old pal Gendo... Bro can't let go of his dead wife obsession even in this AU :/ Yui's still totally dead btw. Right after Rei's "birth" too! She was still batshit insane and put her soul in Eva unit-01, but at least now Rei wasn't anywhere near NERV/GEHIRN. Rei gets unrestricted internet access. They share a room with their "twin" and have a cheap, creaky, bunk bed until they're 8, when both of them decide to split the room in half and bicker when Kaworu finds Rei's trash on his side of the room. This doesn't last too long, though, since when they turn 12, Rei gets sent for training at NERV, while Kaworu's goes two years later. ^^^^ I think about this moment a lot in the AU. Gendo basically just takes Rei to go pilot the Eva just because they look similar to Yui and had to leave her twin brother alone to deal with SEELE bullshit without anyone else to really talk to about it for 2 years.

Rei's design differs when not in school, having a light blue long skirt and a simple dress shirt with her school uniform's red ribbon. They also sport some bandaids, even before piloting! Mainly from clumsiness and accidents back when she was a small kid.

Kaworu's design is virtually the same, save for his orange belt, his black shoes with orange bottoms, and bandages on his arms. Having already been with SEELE in nge canon, I didn't want his design to differ too much.

So far that's all I've written down for now, but if I ever get close to done with this AU and have made it even slightly comprehensive then I'll probably post a huge lore-post about it. Thank you for reading !! :D

#neon genesis evangelion #rei ayanami #kaworu nagisa #Seele Rei AU

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mitigatedchaos · 2 months

Text

General Post for Monday, April 15, 2024

(5,700 words, ~28 mins)

💾 "Don't underestimate computers."

6 - Social Media Notes: Recommendation: To limit distraction, limit notifications in order to make social media into its own specific context, rather than leaking into other contexts.

7 - US War Notes: Since at least the year 2000, despite its technical competence, the United States has been bad at managing the political dimension of its wars. Developments since then suggest it may get worse.

8 - Interpreting Statement A: Why "industrialization enables women's rights" could be viewed as right-wing.

9 - Computing Capital Notes 1: The basic nature of computers as capital. (It's about dimensionality in production.)

10 - Computing Capital Notes 2: How should computing be distributed? From a technical perspective, it's an open question.

11 - Computing Politics Notes: Computing has its own politics, and how computing should be distributed is one of its central questions.

12 - Desktop Internet Notes: The old Internet was implicitly gatekept by the price and complexity of personal computers. With the emergence of smartphones, personal computers are becoming less common again.

-☆☆☆-

6: Social Media Notes

Social media tends to drive people to distraction. It's obvious how negative interactions like arguments can be distracting. Someone could pop up and argue, "owning cats is bourgeois decadence," and it's very tempting to just correct them. With smartphone notifications, such an argument could come up at any time, in any context.

Positive interactions can also be distracting. It's just a lot more fun to work with your friend on writing his homebrew Dungeons & Dragons campaign than to do math homework. (Substitute whatever activity you want.)

This is why I strongly recommend muting the vast majority of social media notifications on your devices. Force social media to be its own specific context, rather than intruding into other contexts.

On Twitter, I've gone so far as to mute notifications from every account except ones that follow me. When I want to continue an argument, I just scroll down in my replies to find it, and if I don't want to, then I leave the Cats-Are-Bourgeois guy's reply unread. Would this approach be bad for Twitter if widely adopted? Sure, but it's necessary to prioritize your own life.

7: US War Notes

For decades, the United States government seems to have done well at the technical challenge of delivering bombs on to targets, but poorly at managing the political dimension of conflicts. Back in 2019, Hanania (yes, the troll one) posted a bunch of excerpts of Afghan War documents, pointing to a government that didn't know what the mission was, could not allocate money effectively, and seems to have failed to understand the needs and desires of the population.

The War in Afghanistan took place during both the Bush and Obama administrations, and neither of them managed to successfully resolve the conflict.

Why? Well, we could say that there's a failure of leadership, and I think that's correct.

More importantly, I think it's likely that the legitimizing basis for both the Bush power coalition and the Obama power coalition contained premises that were in conflict with the national development of a poor, arid, inland, mountainous country, operating under a different religion.

This is still a failure of leadership, because the necessary talent to carry out such a project, or to at least make a better attempt, existed within the American system, and a talented political leader who devoted enough attention to the problem would be able to synthesize new ideology to draw out that talent. The greatest challenge is that this would divide the political leader's attention between foreign politics and domestic politics. Bush or Obama would have needed to tap a trusted lieutenant and imbued them with significant authority, as well as working closely with them to perform the necessary political maneuvering. Could the system have provided the right lieutenant?

The United States remains a formidable opponent due to its immense wealth, technological advantage, and the quality of its institutions. It maintains its position by being well-equipped to knock down legible, modernist states, even as India and China continue to industrialize.

However, the political situation has gotten worse.

For instance...

Statement A: Women's liberation as we currently know it is primarily the result of industrialization reducing the child mortality rate from its historical level of around 50% to rates below 1% in developed countries, in combination with labor-saving home automation (such as laundry machines) dramatically reducing women's work at home, enabling women to work outside the home at much higher rates.

Is the above statement "far right"?

Statement B: The ideology of liberalism has powerful inherent advantages in economic development and trade, as well as epistemic advantages due to relative freedom of speech. (One way to think of this is that it uses peace dividends to pay competing parties for mutual disarmament, both internal to liberal society, and between liberal countries.) However, since the early 20th century, liberalism has likely gained a structural advantage due to the global dominance of the United States (enabled by the country's immense size, geographic diversity, and relative cultural unity, allowing for economic and therefore military power), both making it appear successful and making attacks on liberal countries more costly. In the event of a reduction in US dominance, liberalism may face stiffer competition from more authoritarian and particularist ideologies.

How about this statement? Is this "far right"?

I asked Nous Capybara 34B, a large language model based on 01AI's 34-billion parameter Yi model, to answer this question. Nous Capybara was trained on LessWrong posts, and provided the quite reasonable response that neither quotation is "far right," as neither quote advocates for far right positions (such as discrimination).

There's a famous Tumblr post that reads:

drakensberg: The reading comprehension and overall common sense on this website is piss poor.

poupon: how dare you say we piss on the poor

If you want to know what an awful Tumblr discourse post, Twitter tweet, or clickbait article would say, you can actually just straight-up ask Nous Capybara for an unreasonable opinion. So I did. It said:

An unreasonable interpretation of Statement A could be that it promotes extreme right-wing ideologies by suggesting that women's liberation is solely a result of technological advancements and reduced child mortality rates, rather than acknowledging the significant contributions of feminist movements, activists, and policy changes. This perspective may also argue that the statement undervalues or dismisses the struggles and achievements of women in advocating for their rights and equality. Additionally, an unreasonable interpretation might falsely attribute the statement to a far-right individual or group as a means to discredit or manipulate others' opinions about the issue.

Suppose there is a ruling power coalition whose publicly-expressed ideology is that the concept of merit is a "racial supremacist," colonialist construct, and simultaneously that they're better than you because they got into Harvard and you didn't (and that Harvard Extension School, which includes the same classes, but not the same tough admissions gauntlet, doesn't count).

How would they view the two statements? How would they speak about them?

8: Interpreting Statement A

How could statement A be interpreted as "far right"?

Self-identified progressives generally proceed from what could be called a "default abundance" mindset rather than a "default scarcity" mindset. In their view, women's rights are the default that always existed, and would emerge naturally in the absence of oppression. In this view, women's rights could have emerged naturally at any point in history, except that the people of the past chose otherwise. Thus, the contemporary male supporter of women's rights is morally superior to the men of the past, who selfishly chose oppression.

[ women's rights ]

Self-identified progressives might extend causation, but primarily to place "women's rights" as part of a broader network of non-oppression. For instance, they might say that "women's rights" both depends on and reinforces "democracy".

[ women's rights ] ⇄ [ democracy ]

The right wing generally have a "default scarcity" mindset, e.g. "if no one plants the field, then there will be no wheat."

In statement A, women's rights are the result of a particular level of economic development, capable of producing modern medical technology and automating household labor.

[ industrial production ] → [ medical technology ] & [ household labor automation ] → [ women's rights ]

The typical self-identified progressive would not say that medical technology, such as vaccination, is bad. Rather, what makes them upset is what could potentially be attached to the first node, "industrial production."

[ social norms & values ] → [ industrial production ] → [ medical technology ] & [ household labor automation ] → [ women's rights ]

Let's take "punctuality" as an example of what I will call a "production value." We'll use the Smithsonian infographic on "white culture" that was yanked down in 2020 as an example. The authors of the infographic wrote:

‣ Follow rigid time schedules. ‣ Time viewed as a commodity.

For many people, punctuality is viewed in moral terms. Being late is considered immoral, or at least rude. However, punctuality also has mechanical effects - if an assembly line depends on 20 workers all being at their stations, and one worker is 30 minutes late, then the assembly line will not run as long, and will therefore produce fewer items.

If those items are, say, vaccines, then fewer children will receive vaccines. If fewer children receive vaccines, then more children will die of childhood illness. If more children die of childhood illness, women will have to spend more time having and raising children, and will have less time to work and earn money outside the home. If women don't raise more children to make up for the deaths, then that society's population will decline, and that society will, eventually, be replaced.

It might not be vaccines. It might be ball bearings for an industrial equipment maker that manufactures conveyor belts used in plants that make vaccines. It might be tires. It might be helicopter rotor blades. Regardless, if people don't show up, then the product doesn't get made. If the product doesn't get made, then it can't get used. If the product isn't used, then something of value may end up missing from society.

Enforcing punctuality is often inconvenient for people who don't take well to it. It can be viewed as a form of oppression - people will not get paid unless they show up on time, and for some people that's a lot more difficult than it is for others.

This is horrifying for self-identified progressives. "What about sick people? What about mentally ill people? What about people from cultures with looser time norms?"

Someone with a globe emoji (🌐) in their name on Twitter might quip, "All of those people would benefit from a wide availability of cheap, mass-produced vaccines," which reduce the required amount of labor for a particular material standard of living.

It's a trade-off. You set a target level of economic production, and given the available knowledge, capital, materials, and energy available, that takes a particular strictness of production norms to reach.

Note that positive rights, such as "every human being has a right to housing," inherently imply the enforcement of production norms.

A self-identified "reactionary," who dislikes women's rights for his own reasons, can leverage the necessity of stricter social norms for high rates of material production in order to promote stricter social norms for other reasons. This is, roughly, what would cause a self-identified progressive to describe statement A as "far right."

We could also imagine a "dark liberal" who likes women's rights, and therefore wants to impose some minimum limits on social norms in order to keep industrial production within the range necessary to support that. (Such a liberal might be a "conservative," conserving a particular liberal order. US politics tends to attribute too much to both labels, calling Communists "liberals" and monarchists "conservatives.")

Many self-identified progressives, like many political footsoldiers, primarily obtain their political opinions socially, and cannot differentiate between the two.

(How legible is all this? Llama-2 agreed once I suggested something like this reasoning, but didn't notice until I told it to. Expect a difference between progressive-tinged people and hyper-online partisan footsoldiers.)

9: Computing Capital Notes 1

I've said this before, but capital is a low-dimensionality construct, and much of the work of labor is to reduce the context of a production problem until it's simple enough that capital can be applied to it.

As an example, think of this mass production metal-stamping machine - it literally goes up and down. Over and over and over again, the main part of the machine is moving along a single axis, and uniform material is fed into it from a single direction at a steady rate.

The job of labor is to maintain the machine, to configure the machine, to ensure the production area is free of anything that might interfere with the machine (like rain or parts intersecting from other machines), and to supply the right input materials. Once the metal is loaded on to the machine, it goes in a straight line, where it gets pressed into the exact same sequence of dies every time.

A blacksmith could make almost whatever shape you like to order. He could use a variety of metals. That's labor. A machine where the metal can only travel in one direction and can only be made into 10,000 of one particular shape? That's capital.

Software is special.

Suppose we are manufacturing some metal part using a metal stamping machine. Once it comes out of the stamping machine, the parts will be painted either red or blue. Simple enough. We have two conveyor belts. One belt goes to the machine where the parts are painted red. The other goes to the machine where the parts are painted blue. We install a second machine that simply pushes parts onto either the blue or the red conveyor belt. It could be a pusher plate attached to a piston. We'll call it a sorter.

What's the ratio of red to blue parts set by our sorter?

If there's no reconfigurable control system, then it's just whatever ratio it was built for. For instance, the conveyor may have a series of belts, and the sorter may just have some gears that activate the piston for every second part that comes down the conveyor, pushing it on to the blue line. This gives one option:

{ 50% blue }

We could make a more basic control system with just a lever and some more gears. The lever would switch the assembly to different sets of gears with different rhythms. We could have three sets of gears, for three options:

{ 25% blue, 50% blue, 75% blue }

We could install a simple electronic system for triggering the piston, controlled by a knob, with ten increments, with the timing set according to the speed of the conveyor belt. This gives us ten options:

{ 10% blue, 20% blue, 30% blue, 40% blue, 50% blue, 60% blue, 70% blue, 80% blue, 90% blue, 100% blue }

We can consider the [ red-blue color ratio ] as a dimension of the production problem, with some range of possible values. In math, it would be a variable. A customer might call in and say "I want an order of 10,000 parts, and I want 6,000 of them red (and 4,000 blue), with a steel thickness of 4mm." If we were plotting out this order, we would use a 3-dimensional graph, with the variables { quantity, color, thickness }.

If we reduce the range of possible values for one of the variables, we can simplify our machine. We are shrinking or reducing that dimension. If we shrink it down to one value, then we've reduced it to a constant and effectively factored that dimension out. If the only color option is { 50% blue }, then we can omit [ color ] from our graph, and just display { quantity, thickness }.

We already had to do a lot of this to get a working machine to begin with. It would be very difficult for the same machine to manufacture both pillows and steel doors.

Computers are special, because they can increase the dimensionality of the production machine.

Suppose we hook up a computer to the electronic sorting piston. If we know the number of parts in total, and we know the timing of the conveyor, we can select just about whatever number of produced parts we like for painting, in just about whatever pattern we like. If the customer orders 10,000 parts, we can paint any number of them blue from 0 to 10,000. We have 10,000 options:

{ 1, ..., 10,000 }

If the computer doesn't have a particular pattern, we can reprogram it with new software. If the computer is hooked up to a network or terminal, we could potentially even change the color for the remaining share of the order while the order is in progress.

This ability of computers to increase the dimensionality of a production system (which makes it more general) is part of why computers and software are so valuable.

10: Computing Capital Notes 2

A floppy disk contains 1.44 million bytes. That's about 1.44 million characters (letters, numbers, spaces, etc) in an old encoding scheme like ASCII. You could fit about 200,000 words in there, enough for a lengthy book.

Let's suppose that we wanted to store a bunch of names, addresses, and phone numbers. We might allocate...

64 bytes for the first name

64 bytes for the last name

128 bytes for the street address

64 bytes for the city

2 bytes for the state

10 bytes for the phone number

...for a total of 332 bytes per record. Dividing the capacity of our floppy disk by this amount, we get around 4,337 records. We'll round it down to 4,300. (Alternatively, we could omit the city and state for about 5,400 records.)

We could describe the memory usage as "rectangular." It's based on the number of records times the size of each record.

If we just talked about books, it would sound like computers scale linearly. 200,000 words would be a long fiction book - it's about twice the length of The Hobbit - but roughly 5,000 records would be pretty short for a phone book (a printed telephone directory, obsolete as of 2010).

It we wanted to make a telephone directory in this way for say, Manhattan (1.646 million residents), we would need about 546 million bytes (546 megabytes), or about 380 floppy disks, which would just about fill a couple of shoeboxes. This would be a "tall" problem, with lots and lots of small records. (This isn't an important term, here. I'm just using it for the example.)

We could also imagine a "wide" problem, where each record is large. For instance, we could be storing college applications, in which each person submits a PDF of their resume (5 MB), a 10,000 word essay (70 KB), an application form with 96 64-character fields (6.1 KB), 5 photographs (300 KB each), and a 5-minute DVD-quality video (367.5 MB), for a combined total of 374 megabytes per application. If we then get 5,000 student applications for the year, we will need 1.87 terabytes (trillions of bytes) just to store them all.

In the telephone directory problem, we wanted to look at each person in very little detail, so each record is small. In the college application problem, we want to look at each person in a lot more detail, so each record is large. Either way, it adds up.

What should we make of these three simple examples, the book, the phone directory, and the college application storage? How much computer you need, whether that's one floppy disk's worth, 546 megabytes, or 1.87 terabytes, depends on the scale of your problem.

That brings us into the second portion.

Suppose the college hires 15 people to spend 3 workweeks reviewing all 5,000 college applications. Which of the following three options should the college use?

15 desktop computers, each with 2 terabytes of storage, and have a full copy of all applications on each computer

15 desktop computers, each with 2 gigabytes of storage, plus 1 server computer with 2 terabytes of storage, and copy the applications as-needed

15 low-powered "thin client" computers, each with 500 megabytes of storage, plus 1 server computer with 2 terabytes of storage, and have the server do almost all the work

This is a trick question - the information provided isn't enough to give a good answer. It depends on things like the rate of data transfer from the server, the price of the hardware, the budget for the project, and just what the workers will be doing with the applications.

Whether it's more appropriate to use a centralized system or a decentralized system, and when it's better to use a remote system or to handle things locally, is a technical question which varies from project to project, and from time to time.

11: Computing Politics Notes

The question of which computers processing should take place on, and who owns and controls them, as well as their software, is also a political one - though not in the sense that it's formally legislated by congress, or that there is some special identity-based way to use a computer.

A computer is a piece of capital equipment. A decent one might have an upfront cost of $1,500. If it's replaced once every 3 years, then the price is $500 per year - whether you use it or not. The marginal cost of electricity for actually using the computer to crunch numbers or store data is low. This creates a pressure towards centralization - every CPU cycle not used is "wasted," and a centralized system can aggregate work requests across people (and also timezones), averaging out usage.

Likewise, to actually maintain the computer, you have to learn how it works and do research, and things are constantly changing. If you like doing this, you won't perceive this as a cost. Some guys like to work on their own cars. Other guys like to install custom computer operating systems for fun. A lot of other people would literally rather pay someone else to do that (and they have good reasons to do so). This also creates an incentive towards centralization, where a lot of computers can be administered by a few experts.

Both of these trends also lean towards remote systems. With the contemporary Internet, for a lot of uses, it's just easier to have someone else build and administer a giant warehouse of computers, and then pay them to use a few computers as-needed. (This is the basic theory behind Amazon Web Services, which accounted for a majority of Amazon's profit in 2021.)

Here's how this gets political.

You don't own those computers. You can only use them in the ways that the guy who owns the giant warehouse of computers allows, and if he doesn't like you, he might cut off access.

Recently on Tumblr there have been reports of Google removing sexually-charged documents from Google Docs. Are these reports true? I don't know, but given how payment processors behave, it seems likely. If your steamy Doctor Who / X-Files fanfic is on gDocs, and Google's legal department decides that it doesn't want that liability - well, those are Google's computers, not yours.

Poof.

Similar pressures apply to computer programs. An unskilled user could accidentally download ransomware or a trojan that steals their credit card information. Many users don't want to learn how to avoid them (and some users might not be able to). On top of this, they don't want to learn about things like files, folders, file formats, or any of a dozen other aspects of computer literacy. Thus smartphones and tablets computers tend to be the computer as appliance, set up to only download new programs from restricted-access corporate "app stores."

It might not be surprising that, according to Pew Research (2021), many younger Americans only use a smartphone rather than a desktop or notebook computer.

Smartphone dependency: Some 15% of U.S. adults are “smartphone-only” internet users – that is, they have a smartphone, but do not have a home broadband connection. [...] Smartphone dependence is more common among younger rather than older adults: 28% of adults ages 18 to 29 are in this “smartphone-only” category, compared with 12% of those 30 and older.

The typewriter is a production device. The television is a consumption device. The smartphone is both a consumption and production device, but this is asymmetric - due to the device's small size and thumb-based interface, it's much more difficult to write text or edit video than it would be with a desktop computer. Programs ("apps") tend to limit power-user functionality (such as access to the file system) in order to be simpler to use for non-experts, allowing a user to access many of the common uses of a computer but with much less control over how it's done. A smartphone will also be less powerful than a desktop computer of the same price.

The idea of writing a program on a smartphone is absurd - smartphone applications are written on desktop or notebook computers.

12: Desktop Internet Notes

Kontextmaschine once wrote (2019):

And if the Anglophone internet is ::gestures:: like this now maybe it’s cause it’s less of a professional-class preserve? The dividing line maybe being smartphones where “people on the internet” went from “people who specifically spend $X/mo on it as luxury” to “people with telephone service”? That’s a real possibility, that for all the “Global Village” stuff the wondrous effect of the ‘90s internet was to create a cultural space that was MORE gatekept by wealth and education.

That’s… kind of depressing, though. “Haha you thought the world was getting better because you were eliminating elitist barriers but actually it’s cause you were making them higher, which is good because the poor and non-elite are disproportionately idiots with worthless ideas and to the extent they’re on top of things the thing they’re on top of is undermining the basis of a good society, and anyway those times were a phenomenon of a narrow early adopter base and you’ll never ever get them back unless you make the non-elite economically and politically irrelevant.”

Suppose we want to divide up the population of computer users. Remember that bit about capital and dimensionality in section 9? First, "shallow" computing needs have sufficiently simplified/reduced context that they can be easily served by software (users won't need to do things like compile code or access the file system), while "deep" needs do not. Second, the users either "want" or "need" to use the computer.

This gives us a nice 2×2 matrix classification. People love those.

Hobbyists - Hobbyists want a great deal of control over the computer. Maybe they're creating mods for a popular video game like Skyrim. Maybe they're programming Christmas tree lights to Rickroll people. Maybe they're developing desktop window managers for fun. Exactly what it is doesn't matter. What matters is that no one produces an app to do whatever it is they're doing, and if someone does, it doesn't appear on the app store. In fact, if someone did, they might not even care, and continue to do whatever they were doing anyway.

Power Users - The power users need a great deal of control over the computer for their work. Maybe they're compiling software. Maybe they're feeding dozens of spreadsheets of observed wombat behavior into a machine learning program. Maybe they're photoshopping wombat pictures for a National Geographic article. Whatever it is, they probably have to access the file system.

Casual Recreational Users - For gamers who don't want to mod games, but just pop in a disk and play, there game consoles. For social media users who don't feel the need to photoshop their photos, there are smartphones. Tablets can be used to watch movies from streaming services, like Netflix.

Casual Workers - For people doing more casual work, who are fine looking at only one application at a time, it's possible to hook a tablet up to a keyboard and stick it on a stand. For a somewhat more conventional notebook computer experience, casual workers could buy a Chromebook and do all their writing, emailing, and presentation creation in the web browser, using Google Docs and GMail. And if it's just ordering necessities off Amazon? Even a smartphone can do that.

To pick four example computers...

The IBM 7090, first installed in 1959, was priced around $2.9 million in 1960, or $23 million in 2023 terms.

The Apple II home computer, one of the most famous computers in history, was priced at $1,298 (2023: $6,530) to $2,638 (2023: $13,260) when it came out in 1977. It had a clock speed of about 1 Mhz.

1981's IBM Personal Computer cost $1,565 (2023: $5,240) at release. It had a clock speed of 4.77 Mhz.

2004's iMac G5 cost $1,299 (2023: $2,095) to $1,899 ($3,063) at release. It had a base clock speed of 1,600 Mhz.

A "decent" desktop computer, in relative terms, has continued to cost a nominal $1,200 to $1,500 since the Apple II, even as the value of a dollar in real terms declined, and even as processor performance doubled every 1-2 years.

The desktop computer starts out as something only for hobbyists who were willing to spend a lot of money (and who had a lot of money to spend), and for professionals who could justify spending the money. There was a huge market, because even without the Internet, uses like spreadsheets are orders of magnitude faster with a computer than doing them by hand.

During the late 1990s and early 2000s, there was still a broad assumption in many parts of US culture that a lot of bad ideas were due to mere ignorance. For a while, to many people, it looked like everyone would have a desktop or notebook computer, and everyone would learn how to use one. The Internet of the era leaned towards more conventional institutional information, and had less search-engine optimization. It was assumed that, with an entire library at one's desk, searchable with just a few keystrokes, people would become less ignorant, and therefore have better ideas.

But that's not how the world works. People have bad ideas for all sorts of reasons other than unintentional ignorance.

The trend of hardware becoming smaller and more powerful continued. The Internet, which had still been limited largely to wired connections in the 1990s, became available through wi-fi, and then cell phone data connections. Internet-connected smartphones emerged, and then became common, merging phones, cameras, and personal digital assistants into a single device.

And gradually, desktop and notebook computers have once again become the domain of hobbyists and professionals, because casual users don't want to spend $600 for a smartphone and then another $1,200 for either a desktop computer that they can't take with them, or a notebook computer that they have to sit down and open to use (and which is a lot more fragile than a smartphone).

But suppose we wanted to go back...

Well first, Kontextmaschine had already setup camp on Tumblr, one of the websites most like the old Internet. In terms of discourse, he was hanging around the orbit of Rationalist Tumblr (or "rationalist-adjacent" tumblr), which had maintained fairly high discourse norms, much better than whatever was going on over on Twitter, Youtube, or Tiktok (although more casual than their parent site, LessWrong). In terms of mechanics, Tumblr allows for lengthy text posts, delivered based on the order they're posted in, from the specific accounts one follows (rather than recommendation algorithms). As for site culture, many of the more dramatic "anti-shipper" sorts of users left for Twitter (and then presumably BlueSky or Mastodon). While one wonders what he would have said about Tumblr's fascination with The Coffin of Andy and Leyley or Dungeon Meshi, he would likely have been neither surprised nor disappointed by it.

In a sense, Kontextmaschine was already living in that high-barrier world, just with a fujoshi tinge rather than the straight gamer bro vibe of the 00's. Not that he would have had much problem with that, either. In 2021, he wrote:

if the last decade means AO3 replaces the ACLU in the pantheon of worthies fine

Is kind of amusing the extent to which "women are horny and want to fuck" is turning out to be the saving grace of the internet. No Girls indeed.

Second, while it's not possible to match the old Internet, because there's only one "The Internet," and any particular new network now is just a competing social media site, which isn't the same thing, some options are now opening up.

A privately-owned personal computer is a measure of power in the hands of an individual, with fewer constraints from large institutions (like corporations or governments) than a centralized computer system has. It is, in some sense, dangerous, especially in the hands of an unskilled user. And it is, in some sense, work to maintain. But it is, like a car, also a potential source of freedom and autonomy. Data is collected by all sorts of companies and you don't have much control over it, but a PC represents at least a sliver of digital sovereignty.

How would you filter a competing network? The simplest method might be a test of that sovereignty: can the user download and install a program not from an app store?

Access to the new network would then be limited to desktops, notebook computers, and devices owned by someone technically savvy enough to sideload applications outside of the app store.

A test based just on hardware capacity won't work, because smartphone hardware capacity goes up every year, and what you actually want are people with basic device operator skill (and maybe to filter out clickbait journalists from Twitter).

#politics #metapolitics #melodramatic mysticism #the invisible fist #the way of the discourse fist #mitigated present #general post series #weekly post

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jpitha · 1 year

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Just a Little Further 23

Part 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

It's still early, so we go and find a cafe and have lunch. Once again, I don't have to use my voice, they just give us our meal for free. I really should get an idea about money though. I know they are called Skys, I know at least part of them are small green metallic coins - actually they look like the same metal the Throne and Chairs are made out of, I wonder if they are - and I know that everyone uses them here to buy stuff. I should ask about banks. We should pay a visit to one. I'm sure they'd be... happy to explain it to me.

That's for later though. For now, we work our way to the dock, and find the internal docking bay that Omar found.

Walking in, it becomes clear that we have a lot of work ahead. High Line is in here thanks to Omar earlier and it's...

It's junk.

Even when it was operating, it was clearly made up of a hodgepodge of between three and five different starships. This thing has been limping along on patches and ad hoc repairs for centuries it looks like.

Human ships from our side of the galaxy tend to be very personalized. Riots of color, patterns, little flourishes here and there that speak to the tastes and preferences of the operator. It's probably a function of the fact that all our ships are AI operated. It's their body, and they decorate and personalize it.

High Line is... downright drab in comparison.

Grey on grey with streaks of soot and... is that rust? It looks like rust. What would rust on a spacecraft hull? High Line is all boxes and blocks stuck together where they fit or where a need was found. I'm much more used to the sweeping, flowing shapes the Starjumpers have. In addition to looking fast, they look much more elegant. Even our smaller ships, the Frigates and Destroyers tend towards looking more like living creatures than... a box.

As I walk around staring at things and - apparently - making a sour face, Starlight, Ocean and River are standing there, looking nervous and worried. "So Empress... Here is High Line. We admit, it's a little more worse for wear than the ship you came to us on, but.." Starlight stands a little taller. "It got my forebears here all those years ago and through all that time put many light-years on it shuttling people around the system and still held air and gravity. It's not much to look at, but it was ours."

I mean, they're right. Maybe I'm being too hard on it. They got centuries of use out of with with barely any maintenance. All the more reason to refit it right and make it soar once again.

Omar seems like he's having a great time. Walking around, taking measurements going in and out. "Melody, it might not be much to look at now, but it's actually a pretty good foundation! We can add some improved thrusters, beef up the armor, add a wormhole generator and some laser batteries and while we won't be able to take on a dreadnought or even a Starjumper, we'll be able to hold our own against anything local we've seen. It's got plenty of room inside too. You won't have a suite of rooms like at the Royal Dawn, but I should be able to make you an... appropriately royal room.

"At this point a starship is better than no starship so I'll take what I can get. How long will the refit take, Omar?"

He looks at the ship, at the Aviens and then at me. "It will depend on their printer and how well we can integrate the designs from my copy of the database but maybe a month? Hopefully less?"

"Well then, you had better get started Omar. You spend your time getting High Line up to your satisfaction, and let me know about your progress. For now, we will be staying at the Royal Dawn. I don't know if there's other royal quarters that we just haven't found or if the hotel is made out of the original royal quarters, but I'm satisfied with our current accommodations. Make your own schedule and if you need something or someone, just let me know. Starlight" - I look pointedly at them - "can help you with any personnel needs you have." Starlight bobs their head eagerly. "If you need to speak to me or the others, you should be able to though the Reach. Just... concentrate and it should work."

"Okay Melody, I'll get on it. Come on Starlight, show me the printer. Ocean, go see what kind of help you can find for us. River, go see about the condition of the other starships. Some of them have to be operable, how else is food getting here?" Omar looks up at us as the Aviens run off in different directions to obey Omar. "What happened to Ottarn, that Mariens who took their ship and tried to run? If nothing else, we could use that ship."

"They went with FarReach. They told me that they scooped up Ottarn and their ship and were going to take them where they wanted to go."

"Hmm, do you think that means back to human space?" Um'reli asks and she's looking at the ship.

"I have no idea, I don't think so? I'm not sure what they'd find out there to benefit them."

This time Ava puts her hands on her hips and stares at us. "You mean, other that some sympathetic ears to listen to their story about a human who has installed herself as Empress in their space and might be willing to lend a hand with a couple of Starjumpers and their assorted lasers and missiles? You did lock the Gate after FarReach left, right?"

Uh oh. I forgot.

"Uh, sure thing Ava, let me just go... double check that it's locked. I reach out and I can feel the Gate from here though it's faint and... fuzzy. The lock was simple enough though I push here... pull that... and...

"Okay, yes, it's locked."

"Good. We don't want Ottarn coming back with reinforcements or something just yet. Later though... let them come. We'll show them." Ava's grin is worrying me a little bit. She seems much too excited about showing off.

I grab Ava and Um'reli "Come on, let's leave Omar to his work. We have other things to take care of. I think we're going to have to hire on some help, but before that we're going to have to figure out money."

Ava scoffs as we walk "You're still going on about money? Just make people help us out."

"Ava we're looking to help out here, not be overthrown in a couple weeks. If I make people help us, the moment we walk away people will start to wonder why they're helping us at all."

"Melody has a point Ava. What is it that we do here?" Um'reli is really good at throwing cold water on Ava's plans. I'm glad she came. Without her I have a hunch that Ava would be talking me into all kinds of bad ideas.

"Builders seem to work like the AIs on Starbases back home. So it's not like we have no job."

"Well then, let's go back to the Throne and do some work. I'm tired of walking around trying to mooch free stuff from people because they're scared of Melody." Um'reli stars walking back towards the Throne. I really don't have anything else to do, so I follow. "You coming, Ava?"

"I guess. I don't have anything else to do." Ava looks around somewhat wistfully and follows. I wonder what she was hoping to do instead. Probably have me order people to give her something.

As we walk into the entryway to the Throne - there's still no back door, I really need to find one or make one - something catches my eye. I walk over and... "It's a shrine"

"What?" Ava peeks over my shoulder "Oh, it's beautiful."

It really is. Someone made a drawing of us in some kind of pastel medium, like pencils or chalk. It's... me at the top, my wings spread wide and I'm glowing. Below that, it's Um'reli, Ava and Omar standing tall and proud looking up. Under that is a decent representation of hundreds of people bowing before us. Written on the bottom in the same local script I see all over it says "May They Protect Us." The drawing is on a little easel and there are flowers and candles all around it in a semicircle.

Protect them from what though?

"These flowers are amazing! I've never seen ones like this before" Um'reli bends down to get a closer look. She takes a deep breath "And they smell so good, Ava, Melody, you should smell them!"

Well if Um'reli, a K'laxi can smell them and not immediately break out in allergic hives, it's probably fine for us to smell too. I bend down low and... they smell... familiar? Why is that?

Ava straightens "These were grown. We need to find out where the gardens are and visit it!"

Um'reli stands as well. "After we get some work done Ava. We need to show everyone that we do something and aren't a drain on resources because Melody can order them around and they can't say no."

"What's the point of all this power if we don't use it!"

"Ava, we 'use it' like you want to and people will come after us with guns and knives. Who was the Empress before Melody?" Um'reli is looking hard at Ava.

"We have no idea."

"Exactly." Um'reli continues up the stairs to the Throne itself. I follow and Ava pouts but doesn't say anything further.

In the Builder room, Um'reli and Ava sit down. Their bodies go distant and they are integrating. "Okay Ava, Um'reli. You get down to work, I'm going to see about finding a bank and talking to them. Any idea where one is?"

"One moment Melody..." Ava is searching. "Okay, looks like a bank is down the street from the Administration building. It's not far."

"Thanks! Just reach out to me if you need anything." I head back out and down the stairs of the throne, passing by the little shine again. It really is cute, though I wish they put something a little more specific about what they wanted us to protect them from. Oh well, with our luck we'll find out soon enough.

It's not actually a long walk to the bank, Ava was right, it was just down the street from the Administration building. As I walk past I see that a couple people are cleaning up the barricades finally. I wave as I walk by, and they stand smartly and bow. Nice.

Soon enough, I come across what I assume is the bank. It's a large building, made out of the same material as the Administration building, marking it as very old. There is a large double door in the front made of what looks like the same metal as the coins everyone uses. The doors stand open with two people (an Azurian and a Mariens) standing out front. With a little wave to them, I walk in.

It's... a bank. Really. Tellers, little booths where people can discuss finance, even a little table before you get in line to fill out small slips of paper. I walk over to an Aviens who is sitting at a desk by the front door. They look up and do a double take when they see me. I'm not wearing my wings and crown anymore, but I still have on the gown from earlier.

"Uh, good day Holy One, what may this one help you with?" Holy One. Interesting.

"I would like to speak to the Bank Manager, please."

They rush to stand and their chair slides back with a squawk. "Of course, Holy One. Please, wait right here." The gesture over to a small group of chairs up against the wall. I can't really think of a reason why not, so I go over and sit.

Next to me is one of the pressure suited people. Up close, I can see how their suits are segmented metal colored bronze and completely decorated in elaborate carvings. They really are quite beautiful. Their helmets are almost completely featureless except for a bar where human eyes would be and there is what looks like a speaker on their neck.

I clear my throat. "Pardon me, I'm so sorry, but I haven't met one of you yet. Can you tell me your name and the name of your people?"

With just the most subtle clank and whir, they turn their head. "I am known as Vaaqo, and here, people call us Falor in your tongue." His head inclines slightly. "That is to say, the language that most people here speak call us Falor. I do not know your word for us in your Builder tongue."

"Falor is fine with me." I say brightly, and then stop. "Unless it is insulting to you or something."

They make a gesture with their hands. The Nanites indicate that they are indicating no. Oh, that makes sense! If they're suited all the time, most body language markers are lost. Hand gestures could take over for a bunch of nonspeaking conversation.

"It's a pleasure to meet you Vaaqo, thank you so much for the information. I have so many questions, but I will only ask one for now. Do you have to stay in your suit all the time?"

The same gesture meaning no. "We are fortunate that the upper sunward lobe of the Reach has a pressure door. We're able to maintain our helium methane atmosphere and higher ambient pressure and live suit free. The remains of our starship are installed up there, and we use it to control our own breathing gas."

They took their ship apart to survive? "Oh but that means you're trapped here! Once we open the gates and build more ships, we can send a message to your people."

Another gesture. The Nanites say it might be a smile "That is kind of you to offer, Empress. Before... well before, we were in the middle of a war. We were offered refuge here and so we do not know if any others of our kind remain. It will be... nice to find out for sure."

They're holding something back. I think they don't want to insult you.

It's fine. I see no need to compel them to tell me what they're hiding. It's probably something embarrassing to them or they think to me.

Luckily for all of us, you have no shame.

Ha ha.

As I argue with my Nanites, a Mariens walks up, looking nervous. "Hol-Empress, what a pleasant surprise. Thank you for taking the time to visit our fine financial establishment! My name is Utaid and I am at your service." He bows elaborately.

I stand and try to tower only slightly. I want to impress, not intimidate. "The pleasure is all mine Utaid, I am happy to have met you. I wish to open an account so that I will be able to pay people for services they render me."

They look shocked. "E-Empress, of course. We will do everything in our power to help. Since... all here is yours that of course includes all the money stored in the different banks across the Reach."

I nod. "While this is true, I am not a tyrant. I wish to make sure that people are paid and that operations continue as closely to before as possible. Please accept payment requests that come in from people in my name and keep records. We will do our utmost to make sure that the money going in is equal to or greater than the money coming out... in the long term."

They visibly relax. I wonder if they thought I was just going to come in and demand all the currency?

"It will be our most sincere pleasure Empress. We are proud that you have selected us to carry out your financial orders in Your name. We shall set up everything and dispatch a runner to you when it has been completed. I assume you are residing at the Royal Dawn hotel?"

"Yes, that's correct. How did you know?"

They look smug and embarrassed? How did they manage that? "Even though Reach of the Might of Vzzx is a very large starbase, rumors still seem to fly faster than light."

"Ah, thank you Utaid for all your help. I await your runners." They bow low again and I walk out.

Huh, that was easy. I guess people are starting to realize that I really am Empress and I really am trying to help everyone. Feeling very happy, I begin to walk back to the Throne.

"Uh, Melody there might be a problem." Um'reli's voice sounds worried in my head. She figured out how to contact me directly, very nice!

"What is it Um'reli?"

"Just a minute ago, I saw what looked like an alert. Ava and I checked it out and there's something going on at the main transit hub station. We either don't understand the alert or can't ready it yet. Can you check it out please?"

"Oh neat! I haven't been there yet. Sure, I'll go down and check it out. You two stay up there and be my eyes and ears."

The transit station is right around the corner from the bank. It reminds me a lot of photos of transit stations back on Earth. platforms, people milling about, advertising. But I see no crowds or anything worrying. I connect to the Starbase and think to Ava and Um'reli "I don't see any problem here, what's going on?"

"It's not here, it's at the main station. Get on the next train and ride two stops, you'll see it."

Oh, okay. Just as Ava finished speaking, a train rolls up. Like a lot of this place, it clearly was very fancy a long long time ago. The fact that it's still working is pretty impressive, even if it looks a bit run down. I walk on, and look around. There are seats all along the walls of the train car and poles along the middle to hang on to. Mentally I shrug and sit down near the door. After a moment, there's a trilling chime and the doors close.

With a lurch and a hiss of brakes, we get moving. I wonder if this train is automated, or if someone drives it. I should ask later. I'm lost in thought for the ride through the first station stop, but then I look around and realize everyone is staring at me.

"Oh, Hello!" I say brightly.

Immediately, the people closest to me drop to the ground, bowing their heads. "Oh, thank you, but you don't have to do that right now, please just sit. I'm just riding the train over to the hub station. My Builders tell me there's some kind of issue and I'm going to check it out."

"But, Empress... Surely you have people that you can send to do that for you?" It's a Mariens sitting across from me. They look amused.

"Oh not right now. I'm... between retainers and assistants right now. One of my Builders, Omar is helping to repair the High Line, that Aviens ship, and my other two, Ava and Um'reli are sitting in their Chairs, assisting with the operation of the Reach." Oh wait. "Do you want a job? I do find myself needing more people to help out with-" I gesture "-all this. I'm not sure how much to pay yet but I did just come back from the bank, so I'll be able to pay you; I'm sure I'll work all the rest out soon enough."

The Mariens chuckles "Thank you for the generous offer Empress, but I quite like my job. If you so order it... of course I'd help. If you're just asking though, no thank you."

"Oh, that's quite all right. I don't want to order you. But, if you know anyone that would like to help, have them come to the Throne chamber tomorrow, we'll see what we can do!" I look around at everyone trying very hard to look like they're not listening in. "That goes for anyone here too! If you want a job, come see us, if you know someone that does, send them. I need help, and I would love for it to be you!"

And with that same trilling chime, the doors open and I'm at the hub station.

Ah. Okay. I see what Ava and Um'reli are talking about.

There's a riot.

Part 24

#humans are deathworlders #humans are space orcs #humans go on adventure #humans are space oddities #sci fi writing #writing #humans and ai #humans and aliens #the k'laxiverse #jpitha #just a little further

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sergeantsporks · 9 months

Text

Gilded Family

Rating: Teen and Up, Gen

Ch 32/?: Deep Down

Ch 1, Ch 2, Ch 3, Ch 4, Ch 5, Ch 6 , Ch 7, Ch 8, Ch 9, Ch 10, Ch 11, Ch 12, Ch 13, Ch 14, Ch 15, Ch 16, Ch 17, Ch 18, Ch 19, Ch 20, Ch 21, Ch 22, Ch 23, Ch 24, Ch 25, Ch 26, Ch 27, Ch 28, Ch 29, Ch 30, Ch 31

In which none of the previous golden guards or wittebro died, actually, they're all fine and living happily together as one big dysfunctional family

Ao3

“Okay.” Caleb paced back and forth in front of the assembled grimwalkers, most holding light glyphs to combat the creeping night. “We’re using a buddy system. No one goes out there alone. Watch each other’s backs—he’s dangerous.”

“I’ve got a grid,” Sam announced, “I’ve divided the feasible travelable area around the house into search sectors. Kill on sight.”

“No,” Caleb corrected, shooting Sam a look, “We are not killing on sight. Auric?”

“I made some sleeping smoke bombs,” Auric piped up, holding a basket, “Try to knock him out with those if you can.”

“Don’t talk to him,” Cherry warned, “Don’t let him talk you into a corner, and don’t let him get the chance to fight you if you can. Knock him out, bring him back. Do it quick. Everyone needs to return home before the Collector’s spies start their patrol in our area, because this much movement will attract their attention.”

Alex raised their hand. “Why are we bothering dragging him back? He was a lot of trouble to keep around. If he’s run off, shouldn’t we let him stay gone? It’s not like he can get past the barrier without a concealment stone.”

“Threat level,” Meleager told them shortly, “He’s a dangerous predator in the area—not having eyes on him is worse than being inconvenienced. We already know he’s got it out for Phoenix—even if we don’t find him, he’ll come back. And he’ll kill one of our own. We need to find him before he returns on his own with a plan and possibly allies.”

“So, smoke bombs,” Caleb affirmed, “Groups of two, at least, three if you think you won’t get in each other’s way. Most of you are going to search with Sam’s grid pattern, but Horus, Venari, Meleager, and Hamlet—you four are free to form either groups of two or one group of four and try to track him or set traps. Dagger, pick your partner, and then you’re also free to track as you can whichever way you think he’s gone.”

“I call Phoenix,” Dagger said immediately.

Phoenix blinked in surprise. He’d never gotten the impression Dagger was particularly attached to him or impressed with his fighting ability—why the sudden interest?

“Don’t take any risks you don’t have to,” Caleb warned, “Everyone, most important, stay safe. If you have to choose between catching Petro or the safety of yourself and your partner, choose safety. Auric and Evelyn will be on standby. I’ll try to keep tabs on all of you with the crystal ball, so if you do get hurt, stay in once place so that I can send them to get you. Remember, back before the Collector’s spies return on their patrol route. Good luck.”

Caleb held a hand up when Phoenix approached. “Phoenix,” he said quietly, “You’ve already had a long day, and we both know Petro wants you dead most of all. If you want to sit this one out…”

“No. Meleager is right. I have to know where he is. I’ll be more stressed knowing he’s somewhere out there.” Phoenix grabbed a few sleeping smoke bombs from Auric’s basket and followed Dagger into the woods.

“I’m surprised you picked me to be your partner. Petro will be targeting me; it’s a liability to have me around.”

Dagger shrugged. “Sure. But if I pair up with someone else, it’s anyone’s guess who he’ll attack first. If I’m with you, I know he’ll go after you first in an ambush or sneak attack, so standing next to you is actually the safest option.”

That sounded more like Dagger. “Ah.”

Dagger’s eyes darted over the forest in quick, analytic movements. “Locke said he ran to the left, which means…” He wandered around the outside of the fence, wafting a light glyph over to examine the posts. “Yep. His armor scraped the fence on his way out. He seems like a ‘runs in a straight line directly to where he wants to go’ kind of fellow. Question is… where… would he…” Dagger moved through the trees, nudging brush aside and checking all of the trees. “Mm. Okay. This way.”

Phoenix squinted. “I can’t see anything—and wouldn’t he cover his tracks?” Even in a hurry, Petro wouldn’t be stupid enough to leave an obvious trail.

“Yeah. He did. But that leaves its own mark and trail—you just have to know how to look. Which you obviously don’t. Come on. And stay quiet. I’d rather sneak up on him than the reverse.”

Phoenix kept on Dagger’s heels, his feet finding the spaces without leaves or sticks as naturally as if he’d never left the coven. The forest was too silent, too still. Phoenix wondered if the Collector’s spies had turned even the bugs that were usually around into puppets.

Dagger muttered something to himself, then pointed. “There.”

Phoenix squinted. Just barely, he could make out a patch of darkness built into the forest—a cave. No, a burrow? Some kind of passage that dug down and out, well camouflaged by brush and a fallen tree. “Are you sure?”

“That’s where the trail goes.”

Phoenix shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense—he’d be cornered in there. Unless there’s a back door-?”

“He might have just been looking for a temporary hiding space,” Dagger suggested, “He’d be trapped, but he’d also only have one entrance to watch out for. If he’s confident that he can handle anything as long as it doesn’t surprise him—which he seems like the type of guy to believe—then he might have picked it because there’s only one entrance. Or, yeah. Maybe there’s a back door.” Dagger wafted the light in. “After you.”

“Should we just toss in the smoke bombs and go in after they’re done putting him to sleep?”

“Don’t know how deep it is. Or if any turns or dips would complicate it. We don’t even know if he’s still in there. Just go. Or are you squeamish about tight spaces as well as heights?”

“Worst kept secret in the house,” Phoenix grumbled, but he pushed ahead. Even in the low light, he could see fairly well ahead, and when he glanced back at Dagger, the other grimwaker’s eyes gleamed, reflecting the light of the glyph. The walls started to become less dirt and more stone as they went along—whatever puppeted creature had dug this tunnel had gone deep. Ahead, Phoenix saw another gleam—this one the shimmer of gold.

The mask—or his armor.

Phoenix closed his hand over the light glyph, dousing it to a dull pink glow from his fist. He blinked, waiting for his eyes to adjust, then continued forward, slowing his breathing until he could barely hear it himself.

A fire flared up, and Petro swung a fist at Phoenix. He was difficult to look at in the sudden light, his armor and the mask Phoenix had left with him catching the rays and reflecting them like a beacon in the darkness.

Phoenix skipped backwards, reaching for the smoke bomb, but Petro was reaching for something, too, a glass bottle sloshing with golden liquid. Phoenix’s eyes widened.

“DAGGER, GET DOWN,” he yowled. He lunged forward, trying to tackle Petro and grab the bottle before he could use it, but Petro threw it to the ground as hard as he could just seconds before he could make it.

The bottle exploded, and the burrow above them rumbled. Phoenix flew backwards, propelled by the blast, and instinctively, he reached out, looking for any handhold. His hand cracked into stone, and he pulled forward as the walls caved in around him. His free hand came up, and claws of cursed mud broke stone into pebbles before it could crush him.

Still, the world heaved and twisted, and when it finally stopped moving, a thin layer of dirt and rocks covered him. Phoenix pushed himself up, coughing and spitting out dirt. The way behind him had collapsed, leaving a heap of stone rubble titan only knew how deep.

“Dagger?” he croaked, then cleared his throat, swallowing. “Dagger!” he called, brushing himself off, “Can you hear me?”

A faint whine of distress came from somewhere in the rubble. “I’m stuck,” Dagger’s voice came, muffled from the rock, and wobbly with worry. “I’m stuck, I’m stuck, I’m—”

“Dagger—listen, Dagger, take a deep breath—”

“Phoenix, I can’t move!”

Phoenix put his hands on the rubble—his fingers were still stuck as claws, and they rippled uneasily, but they weren’t burning yet, surprisingly. Maybe eating a proper breakfast really had helped. “Listen—deep breaths, if you can. What’s trapped? Where are you pinned?”

“Um.” A loud, shaky, hysterical laugh. “Um. My leg is—I can’t see it—I can’t see anything—” The rubble started to glow slightly. “Got a glyph. Uh. My—head and shoulders aren’t pinned, they’re out in the tunnel and—and I think I’ll be able to clear away what’s on my chest, but waist down—Phoenix, I’m trapped. I can’t feel my—my legs, I can’t—”

“Okay. Okay, deep breaths, Dagger, deep breaths. Let me see if I can…” Phoenix pulled some of the stones away, and the cavern shifted again, rumbling. “…not do that.”

Phoenix heard a groan, and he whirled around. Petro extracted himself from a pile of rubble, cradling one arm to his chest. Part of the mask had shattered, embedding shards of gold above his right eye, sending blood trickling down. He dragged himself to the wall, breathing heavily.

“Petro’s awake,” Phoenix said quietly.

“Smoke bomb.”

Phoenix shook his head. “Too close. It’ll get us, too, and I don’t know who will wake up first. Dagger—I’m going to keep on through the tunnel. See if there is a back door.”

“What?!”

“I’ll come back with help if there’s another way out,” Phoenix promised, “Or I’ll come back this way and we’ll figure something else out.”

“Don’t leave,” Dagger begged, “I’m sorry I used you as a shield, I’m sorry, don’t leave me alone, don’t—”

“Dagger—Dagger.” Phoenix felt sick at the panic in the other grimwalker’s voice (and the apology that must mean he was truly frantic), but he kept talking anyway. “If I stay, we’re going to be stuck here until we starve—or run out of oxygen. I don’t know a way to move those rocks yet, and—”

The glint of glass caught Phoenix’s eye, and he lunged forward, hooking another explosion potion out of Petro’s hand with his foot and gently popping it into the air. He caught the bottle neatly and tucked it in his pocket. “Stop that. How many of those did you take from Sam’s lab, anyway?”

Petro didn’t answer, just glared at him. Phoenix shook his head, returning to the pile of rocks. “I’ll come back, or I’ll send someone who can handle this better—hey, Dagger, you’re not going to stay trapped. I’m leaving, but I’m not abandoning you. Okay?”

He heard a sharp inhale. “Okay. Is Petro still out there?”

Phoenix glanced over. His predecessor still stared daggers at him, but in a somewhat woozy way. “Yeah.”

“Keep your eye on him.”

“Will do.”

Phoenix marched over to Petro. His arm was definitely broken—his forearm bore a bump that hinted at a clean, full break. And whatever had hit him hard enough to break his mask must have given him a head wound nastier than just the cuts from the shards of gold.

As he approached, Petro swung at Phoenix with his good arm. “Stay back!”

Phoenix leaned back to avoid the blow, ducking in closer. He reached for Petro’s mask, dodging another blow. “Sto—quit trying to hit me, I’m trying to help you.”

“Liar.”

Phoenix caught Petro’s good wrist in one hand and removed the mask with the other. The entire right side of his face was mottled green and purple from bruises, but the shards in his skin seemed to be stopping most of the bleeding, with only a little blood oozing out around them.

The fist of Petro’s broken arm started to clench, as if Petro was going to take a swing with it, but when he tried to lift it, he hissed in pain.

“Just…” Phoenix tossed the mask to the side. Some good reminder gift it had been. “Okay. If you give me your belt, I think we can make a decent sling for your arm.”

Petro eyed him. “What’s your game?”

“I just want to get out of here, and I don’t trust you not to stab me in the back or kill Dagger if I leave you alone. Belt.”

“Then just kill me,” Petro said roughly, “Say it happened in the collapse.”

Phoenix sighed. “I’m not killing you.”

“Why not? I’m a liability. Not just to your safety, but your whole family’s well-being. The smartest thing to do would be to eliminate the threat.” Petro snorted. “But then, I guess you’re too soft and pathetic to do it, huh?”

Phoenix had to admit, strangling him was starting to look pretty tempting.

“I don’t kill people,” he said tersely, “Not since I stopped listening to Belos.”

“You won’t even kill to protect the people you care about? I guess you don’t actually like them all that much. Or maybe you just hate yourself. You know that I will try to kill you again, right?”

This conversation wasn’t going anywhere productive any time soon. “Yeah, I know.” Phoenix opened and closed his hand. “Belt. Last chance or you walk out of this cave with nothing stabilizing that arm.”

Petro scrambled to his feet, wincing. “I don’t want your help.”

Phoenix eyed him up and down. “And you think I’m the pathetic one.”

“Because you are. You don’t have the stomach to do what you need to do.

Phoenix started down the burrow, keeping an eye on Petro as he followed. “You know, at first I was scared of you. Scared that you’d hurt me, or tear apart my family. Then I was angry about what you’d done. And now…”

“Oh, do tell.”

Phoenix shook his head. “Now, I think I just pity you.”

“There’s nothing to pity,” Petro snarled, “I’m better than you. I’m not a turncoat and a traitor.”

“For what?! What? Look at you! You’re injured, you’re alone, you’re obsessed with killing me to the point where it’s just sad, and for what? The approval of a dead man who never cared about you anyway?”

“You don’t get it. You don’t know what it was like between the two of us. You don’t know what he did for me!”

Phoenix threw his hands up in the air. “Then explain!” he shouted, his voice echoing through the burrow, “You’re right, I don’t get it! Explain what he possibly could have done for you to be so blindly devoted, even after everything he did!”

Petro stayed silent for long enough that Phoenix was almost certain he was sulking again, but then, “It was my caretaker.”

“What?”

“The lullaby. When you invaded my memories. The person you heard was my caretaker.”

“Your caretaker?”

“You got put in an orphanage. I got dumped with one of Belos’ civilian followers. A supporter, but not part of his army. She was just supposed to make sure I survived. Keep me fed, clothed, housed, everything I needed to live. She wasn’t supposed to care about me, or be kind, just… keep me alive until Belos came for me.” Petro shrugged. “She cared anyway. If there was ever a time where she did what she was ordered and kept herself distant, I don’t remember it.”

“What happened to her?” Phoenix was horribly certain he already knew the answer, but the question came anyway.

“She was murdered,” Petro said roughly, “A group of wild witches found out she supported Belos and came after her. She hid me, so I escaped their notice, but she wasn’t so lucky. And I was out on the streets.”

Phoenix hissed in. “Hey… are you sure it wasn’t—”

“It wasn’t Belos,” Petro snapped, “I read the diary, little bird, and it wasn’t planned. He was furious that he lost track of me after that; I was three years too early. Whatever you think now, whatever you believe about Belos and his enemies, the wild witches weren’t perfect little saintly martyrs. They hit back. I’m sure most of the other kids at your little orphanage could attest.”

“Okay, so you have some kind of reason to hate wild witches,” Phoenix admitted, “But Belos-!”

“I was a powerless kid trying to survive on my own. You think you had it bad in your little orphanage? Try fighting with rats to survive. Belos’ supporters, wild witches—it didn’t matter. None of them helped, or even gave me a second glance. Until he showed up.”

“And offered you power,” Phoenix finished, “A life where people didn’t look down on you. Magic, the ability to fight, everything you never had.”

Petro snorted. “He offered me magic, yeah. But he gave me something far more important; the chance for revenge. My first mission? To find the witches that killed her and eliminate them. And I did. I never would have been able to do it without him. I would have died on the streets, and her murderers would have gone free.”

Petro brushed past Phoenix, forging on ahead on his own. “I’ve tried the soft little family life you people keep telling me I should want, and it was destroyed in the blink of an eye. I owe him for giving me the tools to avenge it, and to keep living without it. So don’t tell me to just turn on him. He gave me everything.”

“Don’t you think you’ve more than repaid that debt?” Phoenix asked softly, “He’s dead. It’s over. You don’t have to define your life by what he wants, and you don’t have to keep trying to kill me out of some—some misguided attempt to win his favor back. Your caretaker—I think she’d want you to be happy.”

“Don’t tell me what she would have wanted. It’s not over. It can’t be over.” Petro’s good hand curled into a fist. “He was the only one who understood me, and he’s the only one who ever gave a second thought about me after she died. You and your family just want me to change—he was the only one who liked me the way I am. Even if he’s gone, I’m not going to abandon his memory. He cared about me; maybe he chose you then, but given the chance again, I know he’d choose me.”

That was probably true. Still, it struck a hollow chord in Phoenix. Belos had started him out on a path of revenge from the very beginning—no wonder he felt like he had no other options.

Petro stepped into moonlight, and Phoenix’s eyes widened. A way out?

But when he joined Petro, he wanted to slam his head into the wall in frustration. The burrow ended at a pit, too deep for Phoenix to reach the edge.

“Where now, o fearless leader?” Petro snarked, “Are you going to become a full bird and fly out?”

“I—this is your fault!” Phoenix sputtered, “You’re the one who collapsed the cavern in on us and blocked the exit!”

“Well, I was planning on it killing you!”

“And how were you going to get out? Huh?”

Petro didn’t respond to that, but something about the silence felt melancholy, rather than angry or skulking.

“…Petro? Did you have a plan to get out?”

“Like I said,” Petro said roughly, “The one person who cared about me is dead. Killing you is pretty much the only thing I’ve got left.”

Despite the threat of it, Phoenix felt a spark of pity and a twinge of horror. “Oh.” He twisted his hair around between his fingers. “You have got to find a better hobby. I’m sure we can think of something.”

Petro snorted. “You wish. Doesn’t matter. We’ll both die in this pit. And your little friend back there will die thinking you abandoned him.”

No.

I won’t abandon anyone else.

Phoenix examined the walls of the pit. “…If you gave me a boost, I think I could get out. If I stood on your shoulders, maybe?”

“And give you the chance to run off and leave me here? No. You can give me a boost.”

“Absolutely not,” Phoenix said immediately, “You will definitely leave me to die. I promise I’ll get you out, or send someone after you.”

“Yeah? And why should I believe you?”

“Because between the two of us, you’re the only one who has a history of trying to murder the other.”

“Exactly why you would want to leave me to die.”

“We already established that I’m not going to kill you!”

“Letting me die and killing me aren’t the same thing. I’m pretty sure even your delicate sensibilities would be able to ‘forget’ me here.” Petro pointed to his arm. “I don’t know how you’re expecting me to give you a boost, anyway. I’m not exactly working at my full potential, here. If I were…”

“I’d be dead, yes, yes, I get it. I’m still not letting you run off without me.”

“Well I’m not letting you run off without me.” Petro gave him a smug look. “And I know you’re going to boost me up, because of the two of us, you’re more willing to trust, and we both know that I’m not. So if you want to get out of here, you’re going to have to trust me.”

“I don’t.” Phoenix eyed the top of the pit again. He wasn’t entirely wrong—Phoenix knew Petro would never bend. “…Okay, I’ll boost you up. But I’m holding onto your ankle, so you better be strong enough to haul both of us out.”

“What?!”

“I’m compromising. If you don’t like it, you can let me stand on your shoulders and just trust that I’m not as murderous as you.” Phoenix crossed his arms. “And if you try to kick me, I will dig claws into your ankle so you can’t run off.”

Not that he actually thought he could make the curse work for him enough to do that, but Petro didn’t have to know that.

“Fine. Fine! I’ll take your compromise, little bird. But if we both fall back down because you’re clinging to my ankle, I might forget my arm’s broken and strangle you.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s on the agenda anyway.” Phoenix made a cradle with his hands. “Let’s go.”

Petro stepped into his hands, then up on his shoulders. Phoenix wobbled to his feet, clutching Petro’s ankles tightly. His predecessor reached for the top of the pit, but before he could touch it, Phoenix heard a sound that made his blood run cold.

Drip

Deep inside Phoenix, a fear sparked, shuddering up from his fingertips. Something more than a normal panic, something different, like every cell in his body wanted to flee. A deep, primal terror that started in his arms and worked its way through him. Something slithered—no, dragged itself around in the darkness outside, something heavy and dripping wet. And even though Phoenix had only ever heard the sound across stone hallways rather than leaves and dirt, he recognized it immediately. He stumbled back away from the edge of the pit, Petro tumbling from his shoulders and down to the ground with a yelp and a hiss of pain.

“No,” Phoenix whispered, backing towards the tunnel, “No, that’s impossible, that’s—”

Petro’s eyes lit up with an eerie, feverish glow. “Yes,” he breathed, “It is! HEY!” he shouted, “Hey, over here!”

“No!” Phoenix hissed. He retreated fully into the tunnel and out of sight as a horribly familiar face peered over the edge of the pit. His arms shifted and roiled, as if terrified of their original self—or maybe trying to return to it and leave Phoenix.

Belos was falling apart. Phoenix could see bone through shifting mud, and the emperor dragged himself along the ground on his belly, rather than walking.

But he was alive.

How was he alive?! The Collector had turned him into a grease spot! He’d fallen completely apart—how was he here? And, Phoenix realized with mounting horror, how had he not seen him when they’d gone to rescue Ghost? Where had he been hiding all this time?

Petro tilted his face up. “Wow. I told you that you needed me—didn’t think you’d fall apart quite so literally, though. You look awful, old man.”

“Yes, because you seem to be in wonderful shape yourself, golden guard,” Belos snapped back.

“Better than you left me.”

Belos’ expression shifted, his eyes darting to the side, then back to Petro. Phoenix shuddered. He recognized that look—he’d never been able to see it before, but now, looking from the outside, he could tell. That was the face Belos made right before he said something that would twist your insides around, something that would make you want to help him no matter what he’d done.

“But yes, I suppose you were right,” Belos said in that horrible, kind, oozing voice he could turn on at a moment’s notice, “I need you, Hunter. Now more than ever. You were the exact guard I needed—the exact guard I wanted. Had I known that sooner, we could have avoided all of this… unpleasantness.” Belos extended a hand down into the pit. “What do you say we rebuild our empire… together. As it should be. Just… you and I.”

No, Phoenix wanted to scream, No, it’s a trap. Don’t trust him, don’t go back. But all he could do was watch in silent horror as Petro’s face split into a wide grin.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

Petro grasped Belos’ hand, and Belos seemed to… flow down his arm, sinking into cuts and scrapes. Phoenix put a hand to his mouth, holding his breath as he watched. Petro’s broken arm snapped back into place, and his cuts scabbed over with green mud. Petro twitched, his hands turning to claws that ripped through his gloves, then back to his regular hands. He shuddered one more time, then went still, his back straightening into a regal, commanding posture. Petro did a slow turn, and Phoenix pressed his back against the tunnel wall to avoid his gaze, now glowing an eerie blue.

“Ah,” he said in a voice that was somehow Petro’s and Belos’, like two instruments playing over each other, “That’s better. Now… let’s see if we can’t get up to that floating monstrosity. I think it’s about time we paid our old friend the Collector a visit.”

Petro’s—Petro? Belos? Betro? Pelos?–arms lengthened, roping to the top of the pit and hauling him—them?–out. Phoenix ran back out into the pit, barely able to see the two disappear into the dark trees. “No!”

He couldn’t let Belos get to the Collector—and he couldn’t let him… Phoenix shuddered. What had happened to Petro? Was he even still in there? Or had Belos killed him? Was he going to do that to the Collector? Or King? Phoenix felt sick at the thought, his stomach writhing like a bag of snakes.

“Deep breaths,” he murmured out loud, “Deep—wait… no.”

If he did nothing, the Collector would get hurt. King would get hurt, Darius would get hurt. And what if Belos could see Petro’s memories, the way that Phoenix could see Belos’? That would lead him straight to the family.

Phoenix’s arms shifted uneasily, the tips of his fingers turning to claws. Instead of banishing his spiraling thoughts, Phoenix let them continue, running the same track over and over in his mind.

They’re going to get hurt

All of them are going to die.

His arms bubbled, making the complete turn and staying mud instead of flickering back and forth while his chest heaved in short pants of air.

Phoenix ran at the wall, jumping and sinking his claws into the side of the pit. His hands cracked into stone, and he hauled himself up, digging his claws in a foot higher.

Again.

Phoenix slowly hauled himself out of the pit, panting. Early morning light started to filter through the trees, staining everything a dark red.

Phoenix didn’t need to track Petro/Belos. He knew which way they’d gone—right to the head. He leapt over logs and ducked through silent trees as if he’d lived in the woods his whole life, his heart pounding in his throat.

Find them

Stop them

He heard the sound of one of Collector’s stars buzzing through the air, and without thinking, he reached out, his arm elongating and his claws wrapping around the star’s point. He whipped his arm around, and the star went flying, slamming into the trees with a splintering crunch.

The attack barely slowed him down at all, and he raced out of the forest, skidding down a steep hill. More stars whirred towards him, their red eyes blinking menacingly. They surrounded Phoenix, and he twisted to dodge their beams.

I can’t get caught. Not here.

Phoenix lashed out, slamming one into the ground with a single strike. Another, he seized, swinging it through the air like an oversized shuriken and slamming it point first into the other stars. One by one, they dropped beneath his onslaught, until he was left standing in a circle of weakly sputtering stars. The cursed mud he’d left inched back towards him, crawling off the stars. Phoenix’s head spun for a second, and his legs wobbled, but he shook himself. He had to keep going. He had to…

“Hey, Phoenix!” A girl’s voice called from the top of the hill, “Do you remember me? Probably not, but I’ve got someone here who you will recognize!”

Oddly enough, Phoenix almost did recognize her voice. He slowly turned around, trying to remember where he’d heard it before, squinting at the top of the hill. At the crest stood a brown-haired girl that he vaguely recognized as a Hexside student Hunter had pointed out to him. And next to her…

Phoenix squinted. That wasn’t possible. It had to be some other blonde, medium sized…

But no, even from down here, Phoenix could recognize that nose, and the haircut. Somehow, some way, he’d found a way back. Tears sprang into Phoenix’s eyes, and his throat closed up, only letting out a strangled whisper.

“Jason?”

#toh #the owl house #gilded family au #toh fanfiction #my writing #golden guard oc #broken bone

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weemssapphic · 8 months

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20 Author Questions

Tagged by @scorpsik - thank you! :)

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

41 :')

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

230,542

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Any Gwendoline Christie character, with a heavy preference for Wednesday and Game of Thrones

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Lipstick Stains

in my head

Visions

Hers and Only Hers

Amortentia: Fated Attraction (i hate that title, i'm changing it)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Yes! I try to at least. I respond to every comment I get on ao3 because I very much appreciate the time someone took to write something, and I want to give that time back. On tumblr, I try to, but I don't really respond to tags because it's not the best system to reply to tags. But I adore each and every last one endlessly <3

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Everybody Lost Somebody - I cried SO hard writing this.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I feel like most of my fics have a happy ending so... happiest? Hm. I like the ending to in my head quite a lot, also I desire. And I crave.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Thankfully no, which I am eternally grateful for <3

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Yes. Often. Almost exclusively save for the occasional hurt/no comfort that my brain tosses out. Always wlw <3

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

No, I'm not a fan of crossovers - I have one or two that I've enjoyed reading, but I don't think I'd ever bother writing one (who knows).

11. Have you ever had a fiction stolen?

No, save for once when someone reposted a bunch of fics on wattpad? That got taken down though so. :)

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope.

13. Have you ever co-writtten a fic before?

Not yet... I do have a fic with @autumn-leaves-chasing-breeze that is chilling in my open tabs though :')

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

I only really write x reader, and I read a lot of x reader, but I used to (and still do sometimes) read a lot of Swan Queen <3

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I have one Larissa x f!reader fic that I drafted out a long time ago about reader's relationship with Larissa as a fellow student at Nevermore and how it evolves over time into adulthood and working together. But I never have the motivation to write the parts in between the scenes that are stuck in my head :(

16. What are your writing strengths?

I'm my own worst critic and would love to say nothing in a very self-deprecating way, but I will be kind to myself and say I've been told that characterization is one of my strengths and would tend to agree - at least, it's what I work the hardest on.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I'm the slowest writer in existence, I swear it. I also struggle with dialogue sometimes, and transitions. Not sure how much it shows but they're a pain sometimes.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I haven't done it much, and I tend to be cautious and would try to get it double-checked to make sure what I'm writing is correct.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Wednesday (Larissa x reader)

20. Favorite fic you've ever written?

You Make Me Feel - hands down! I loved writing this fic and I have re-read it countless times myself hehe

I also have a soft spot for some of my earlier Brienne fics like Your Favorite Dance because !! Brienne fluff !!

Tagging (no pressure! <3): @pro-weems-places @milfsloverblog @crow-raven-crow @dianneking @rippersz

#personal #20 author questions #writing stuff

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morningstarbee · 9 months

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I'm thinking about the timeline of the show and how confusing it is

When I'm writing fic and trying to establish a base timeline to branch off of or find places to fit in "missing scenes", I always have some trouble.

Like we know definitively that Season 2 takes place over 3 months.

We see the flash forward to Mizumono, then this transition card, and then cut to a scene of Hannibal and Jack talking about Will being in the BSHCI.

And we also know that Season 3 spans nearly 4 years.

Will wakes up in the hospital after Mizumono, we get this transition card, and then see him in Italy.

All the Season 2a stuff happens, and then we know Hannibal is in prison for 3 years before TWOTL.

But like...what about Season 1?

Season 1 starts in either late-summer or early-fall. In 1x1 Aperitif when we first see the Hobbs house in Minnesota, the trees are still green.

By 1x3, when Abigail wakes up and they head back to Minnesota, the leaves are turning red and orange and all over the ground. They're also wearing sweaters.

1x4 Oeuf, the Lost Boys Case takes place over Christmas/New Years. There's not really any snow yet, but everyone is wearing coats and scarves.

By 1x8 Fromage, it's snowing in the Virginia/Maryland area. It's not covering the ground yet, but it's there.

By 1x11 Roti, the snow is pretty deep.

It's still snowing by the end of the season, when Will gets arrested.

BUT HERE'S THE PROBLEM

It's sunny and the snow is melted while Will is in the BSHCI when we see him in 2x1 Kaiseki.

And by 2x4 Takiawase, during the Bee Lady Acupuncture case, it's Autumn again.

When Will get's released in 2x7 Yakimono...it's snowing again.

And you think, oh that makes sense, why is that a problem?

Season 2 takes place over 12 weeks. It can't be winter AGAIN in only 3 months right??? Obviously, the real explanation for this is like,,, filming schedules and shit right? But it's always confused me.

Like is there a time gap between season 1 and season 2? That's the only way I can think to explain it. I always thought that Season 2 picks up right where Season 1 left off, that Will was only in prison for a couple months at most, but there has to be a gap.

If we're generous and say Season 1 ended around the end of winter, and that when Will get's released, its the very beginning of a second winter...

There has to be over a 6-month gap between the end of Season 1 and the start of season 2. Which means Will is in the BSHCI for at least 6 months before his trial (yay American justice system)

So the timeline I would assume

Season 1

late-September/early-October 2012 -> February/March 2013

(4-6 months)

Season 2

I really don't know...Most generous guess I can give is like

November 2013 -> January 2014?

(3 months)

Season 3

With all the traveling and time skips it's hard to tell but

September/October 2014 - December 2014 for Season 3a

Then after the time skip

Season 2b takes place sometime around 2016/2017.

(3 years 8 months)

BUT LIKE YOU SEE WHAT I MEAN RIGHT?

The timeline is kind of confusing, and I guess is mostly meant to be vague.

#hannibal #nbc hannibal #hannibal analysis #hannibal timeline #what does this mean

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cheesybadgers · 1 year

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Narcos Fic: Old Habits Die Hard (Chap. 18)

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, Chapter 17, Chapter 19, Chapter 20, Chapter 21, Chapter 22, Chapter 23, Chapter 24

Read on AO3

Masterlist

Pairing: Javier Peña x Horacio Carrillo

Words: 10,316

Summary: As Javier and Horacio make a fresh start in Madrid, they attempt to come to terms with their past, present and future with some unexpected help.

Warnings: 18+ ONLY. Romantic/emotional sex, edging, PTSD symptoms, grief and parental loss, brief discussions of sexuality/coming out, brief mentions of canon-typical violence, smoking, drinking, swearing.

Notes: Ok, so I know I said I wasn't going to be posting for a while, but after some lovely comments I've had on Tumblr this past week, I thought I would show my appreciation by sharing this a bit earlier than anticipated ❤️

Chapter 19 is ready to go, so hopefully I can post that soon, as it's the second half of their Madrid adventures (I had to split it because it got too big for one chapter, oops).

Thank you once again to anyone still following this fic - old or new - I can't believe it's been over two years since I first started it. Never in a million years did I expect it to become, well, this lol. But we are very nearly there now!

I’ve also added to my OHDH trivia post to cover this chapter if anyone is interested.

Whilst obviously I do not own Narcos or its characters, please do not copy, re-post, or plagiarize this fic in any capacity on this or other platforms. If you wish to create any fan works inspired by it, please provide a credit or send me a message if in doubt.

Chapter 18: One Day at a Time

It was the stillest part of the day, the city suspended somewhere between the dying embers of night and the cusp of dawn. The streets below saw parallel worlds collide as overindulgent revellers staggered alongside coffee-carrying workers who had drawn the short straw.

Neither Javier nor Horacio was a stranger to witnessing sunrise from both sides. But there was comfort in waking up to it rather than being caught unawares when sleep never came.

A raucous catfight had woken them, although the sparring partners had since gone their separate ways and restored calm to the neighbourhood.

Javier surveyed the aftermath from the French doors of the balcony, a pair of arms smoothly securing themselves around his waist, their fingers entwining over his stomach.

“Did I miss anything?” Horacio croaked, grogginess still heavy in his throat, his bare chest radiating welcomed warmth against Javier’s chilled back.

“Just the usual suspects. I know the ginger one lives opposite, but I think the black one must be a stray.”

“The same one that was out here the other day?” Horacio nodded towards their balcony, equipped with a table, two chairs, and a few hanging baskets and potted plants.

“Looked like it.”

“Maybe we should put some food out if it stops by again.” Memories of the stray he and Alejandra played their part in looking after sprung to Horacio's mind. Strangely enough, that had been a black cat too.

“Should I tell Luna she’s been replaced already?”

“Don’t you dare.” At least the teasing took Horacio’s mind off the fact he missed all two-legged and four-legged residents of the ranch tremendously, and according to reports from Chucho, the feeling was mutual.

It had only been weeks since they left Laredo, but the days stretched out longer now. It wasn’t that time dragged, but their pace of life had slowed again. The ranch was a vacation compared to Colombia, but jobs still needed to be done. Here though, they had no commitments.

The first week involved sorting out their apartment. It came fully furnished, but they needed basics like bedding, groceries and warmer clothes. Arriving in Madrid during the winter months was a shock to the system after their balmy Texan Christmas, a fact Horacio probably should have warned Javier about before they stepped off the plane in their short-sleeved shirts.

Not that Javier minded whenever the temperature dropped in the evening, and they would huddle on the couch in front of the electric fire, limbs draped over one another. There was no scent of mesquite wood this time, but that didn’t matter when shared body heat and tactility were more than enough to satisfy as they christened the furniture in their shared home.

The décor was all neutral colours but vibrant paintings of local landmarks and rural Spain hung on the bright white walls. A long corridor stretched from the entrance, with a bedroom, bathroom, kitchen and separate living area branching off it. Despite the modest square footage, the high ceilings and large windows along the external wall made the space light and airy.

The apartment was still dark enough to protect them at this time of day, and semi-closed blinds covered the balcony doors from top to bottom. They could see out the hangings, especially if they were prised apart. But Javier had ensured on the first day they arrived that there was no chance of anyone from outside nosing in. He wasn’t taking any chances, even though that threat was left back in Colombia.

Now the commotion outside had died down, they basked in the peace of their embrace.

“It was the cats that woke you, wasn’t it?” Horacio asked after a contented silence. He had to check, even though there had been a marked improvement in their sleeping patterns lately.

“Yeah, it was. I slept well last night, actually.”

“Me too. Better now I’m getting used to the traffic again.”

“The ranch really makes you forget how fucking loud the city is.” Or maybe, now Javier thought about it, it was the ranch that was so fucking quiet. “I’m still waking up through the night sometimes, cats or no cats. But I guess that might just be getting used to this place.”

“You like it here, though?”

“Yeah, I do. I can see why you wanted to come back.”

“I only wanted to come back with you.” Horacio’s fingers traced idle patterns across the soft curve of Javier’s stomach.

A light shiver ran through Javier as he lolled his head back into the pillow of Horacio’s shoulder. “So you could do this, huh?”

Horacio hummed in agreement against Javier’s neck, his mouth working methodically back and forth as a hand wandered south in search of a trail of dark hair, skirting through the wiry strands.

“Well, it wasn’t for the sangria,” he scathed, his teeth scraping over Javier as though he would rather devour the man in his arms than a glass of that stuff. Maybe it was because they hadn’t drunk much alcohol since Javier returned from Colombia, but neither had taken to it. “And you don’t seem to be complaining.”

“There are worse ways to start the day.” Javier relaxed into Horacio’s hold, allowing himself to be manhandled because there was no rush. There never was anymore.

Plenty of early mornings had begun similarly. Sometimes one man would wake up to the calid pressure of a mouth around his cock, gradually allowing the slow burn of arousal to build whilst they were half-asleep. Other times they would spoon with one held inside the other, barely moving, vaguely dreaming but always on the brink of release.

Then there were times when slow and gentle weren't enough. They had mastered the art of keeping each other quiet, for their apartment walls weren’t the thickest. Not too much, though, because the rhythmic slapping of skin-on-skin or the crisp echo of a palm across the ass was part of the appeal.

But teasing strokes and languorous rolls of the hips were in order now. One hand pumped at an unhurried pace, Javier’s length fitting in Horacio’s grip as though they were made for each other. As though Horacio had every nerve ending and sweet spot memorised as he expertly massaged Javier’s frenulum, extracting a guttural moan that reverberated through their chests in tandem.

Horacio’s free hand mapped Javier’s skin, chasing goosebumps with the calloused pads of his fingers as he found friction at the cleft of Javier’s ass. Each touch and motion a tangible reminder he wasn’t here alone this time, that the solid form in his hold and the stubbled cheek grazing against his were real. That they belonged to each other, not as possessions but as mutual choices made again and again.

Javier luxuriated in a delirious limbo, teetering on the verge but never quite there, the need for release visceral in the pit of his stomach. Yet as he trembled and writhed, alternating between pouting his bottom lip and biting it, a part of him was willing to beg to be kept hanging. Because this was what he had wanted when they were separated by oceans and a misplaced sense of duty, and now he had it, he didn’t want to let it go.

Each twitch or convulsion only made Horacio pull Javier closer, gaining extra purchase with the firm grasp at his hip bone, grinding harder but not faster, lost in dragging the head of his cock in agonising circles, from side to side, then up and down, pausing to let it throb in time with their panting. Knowing he could probe further and give them what they needed, but then it would be game over.

So, they resisted, turning shallow breaths into deeper ones, Horacio ceasing movement whenever they neared the point of no return, reeling them back in like a wound-up coil, forcing them to admire the view below as they fought against every instinct in their bodies.

Javier allowed the balcony door to bear some of their weight with one hand splayed across the clinking blinds, pushing back a fraction just to make Horacio groan in his ear and seize the cross dangling from his neck. His other hand clutched Horacio’s arm, neck, shoulder, whichever part of him he could reach, grounding and anchoring them together.

Whenever they almost succumbed, memories of their time apart would re-focus them in the present; where their legs shook, and their toes curled at every new sensation rippling through their joined form, the anticipation of relief battling with remaining in equilibrium, daring each other to prolong the exquisite agony for as long as possible.

But resistance was inevitably futile. With several final jerks of the wrist and hips, they surrendered control, painting Javier with their release from both sides as they gave themselves over to the white-hot bliss cascading through their synapses, each spasm igniting and stoking flame after flame, consuming and burning until they almost blacked out.

Neither moved as the pink haze of the skyline broached the gaps in the blinds and blushed their fevered skin; the dawn air a perfect tonic to the blazing heat between them. A greeting from the light rather than a reluctant acknowledgement after outstaying their welcome in the dark.

Strong arms encased Javier at his front while a rhythmic beat drummed against his back, catching and soothing him in surroundings that were still relatively new. Steady, grounding, home.

“Good morning, by the way,” Horacio said between tender kisses along Javier’s shoulder.

“Hmm, certainly is a good morning.” Javier shifted to face Horacio, sweeping him up with an open-mouthed kiss as addictive as the first one they ever shared, and oh, how far they had come since then. “Is it too early for breakfast?”

“Not when we’ve built up an appetite.” Horacio nibbled at Javier’s lip to emphasise his hunger. “Although, maybe a shower before I make us some coffee?”

Javier nipped back before instigating another searing kiss, barely breaking it to speak again. “Sounds good to me.”

Nothing was particularly extraordinary about the idyllic scene they had started the morning off with. And yet that in itself was extraordinary. Not so long ago, all of this felt out of reach, something to aspire to or hope for, but not something feasible. But here they were, in their shared apartment, embarking on a new chapter together, taking another leap of faith. Not running away from the past but trying to break free from its shackles, one day at a time.

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Once they had got their bearings in the first few weeks, they began to venture out bit by bit. First, it was walking around the city’s vast green parks, starting with the nearest and working further away from their apartment each time. Then cooking or takeaway turned into dining in a secluded bistro. And watching TV in the apartment became a leisurely stroll around a museum.

Horacio hadn’t felt much like sightseeing when he was here by himself. But things were different now. Everything was different now, even the city itself, from how the early morning light fell on the buildings to the hustle and bustle of Gran Vía. The crowds were still there in their droves. The shoppers and tourists, who would stop in the middle of the pavement with a street map sprawling across their arms, still needed to be sidestepped at the last second. But it was easier to ignore when Javier was by his side.

It was at this point that Horacio knew there was something he was going to have to do. Something he had been putting off, despite it being something he wanted to do. But that didn’t calm the nerves bubbling in his stomach as he took the familiar walk around the corner from their apartment building and down a cobbled side street. Javier had offered to come with him for moral support, but playing it safe seemed the best option, at least this time, just in case.

As he approached the glass door with its seasonal flower arrangements hanging below the red and gold calligraphic Café Romero lettering, it hit him how much his life had changed since he last visited, how much he and Javier had been through. So how reasonable was it to expect everything to be the same here? He swallowed hard as he turned the handle, the bell above the door jangling as it opened.

The interior looked the same as always. Caramel and beige walls complemented the variety of coffees on the menu and the lush green of potted plants decorating the shelves, in between photos of past and present generations of the Romero family. A large window ran along the front, providing extra lighting and an opportunity to people-watch on busier days.

Horacio could see no staff and only customers, but it was early, so the place hadn't filled up yet. In fact, his usual window seat in the corner was still free. Waves of nostalgia layered with relief rolled over him as he sat down facing the counter.

But it didn’t take long for the face he was looking for to appear from the kitchen carrying a fresh batch of napolitanas de chocolate.

A shriek of delight quickly followed once Señora Romero put down her baking tray and raised her head. She brought her hands to her face in surprise, gathering up her apron at the same time as it caught on her fingers. “Horacio?!”

The intonation of her voice suggested it was a question. But she was already crossing the floor of the café with her arms outstretched.

Horacio rose from his table, making it easier for her to scoop him into a hug reminiscent of the ones his Abuela Margarita gave him as a child.

“It’s good to see you, Señora Romero. I hope you’re well.”

She looked well, her silver hair still tied in a messy bun and her rounded figure and freshly stained apron a sign her passion for food hadn’t waned.

“All the better for seeing you.” She lightly squeezed his cheek as she took in his appearance. “Although you might have warned me, I’d have baked more of those milhojas you liked so much last time.”

“Sorry. I’ve not been back long. I’m still sorting out the apartment and trying to remember my way around.”

“Of course, of course. Rest your feet, and I’ll bring you something over. Your usual coffee?”

Horacio smiled at the fact she had remembered his order. “That’d be lovely, thank you.”

The coffee was as delicious as ever, much like the freshly made churros and accompanying hot chocolate, which Señora Romero gave him on the house despite his protests.

She updated Horacio on her family and how Luisa and her husband, Julián, had become parents since their wedding. Their new arrival, Tomás, meant Señora Romero still ran the café, with Luisa helping out occasionally until Tomás was at school.

Señora Romero rushed to grab some photos from behind the counter, showing off her latest grandson. She was in her element and every bit the doting Abuelita.

“Congratulations, I can see the family resemblance,” Horacio said, passing the photos back.

“I said the same to Luisa! He’s definitely got the Romero nose.” She gazed at the picture before shifting her attention back to Horacio. “So, what did I do to deserve the pleasure of your company?”

Horacio scoffed into his cup, creating ripples across the surface of his coffee as he took a sip. “I don’t know where to start.”

“How about from where we left off?”

Horacio hadn't been looking for sympathy, but naturally, Señora Romero supplied plenty of it, gasping, tutting, and consoling in all the appropriate places when he gave an abridged and redacted version of events since their last meeting.

He spoke more than was ideal about his injury and retirement from the CNP because, by comparison, it was safer ground than the inverted commas silently hugging every use of "friend" a mention of Javier brought.

“Oh, Horacio, my dear. You have been through the wars. How’s your shoulder doing now?”

“Okay, mostly. I still get twinges, but I know I’m lucky.”

“Lucky to have someone like Javier around as well, by the sounds of it.”

“Yeah, you could say that.” Even if he had wanted to stop it, the reflexive smile spreading across Horacio’s face was irrepressible.

Señora Romero studied his features intently, beaming in return once she had finished. “And how was life on a ranch?”

“It was…good, actually. I know it’s not the CNP, but I liked the peace and quiet. And the routine. Something always needed doing or fixing.”

“It might not be the CNP, but that sounds much safer and simpler to me.”

“It was. It was good to feel useful again. Like I was making a difference, even if it wasn’t life or death.” Especially if it wasn’t, more like.

“I know you never talked much about it, but I could see how restless you were trapped behind a desk. You’re a man of action, Horacio. I don’t see that changing no matter which path you take.”

The café was busier now, meaning Horacio was left to finish his churros whilst Señora Romero dealt with the start of the breakfast rush.

As he dipped his last churro in the remnants of hot chocolate, it occurred to him that, once upon a time, his father would have been the central focus of this conversation. And, of course, he had wondered what his Papá would have made of his son living and working on a ranch in Texas, of all places. But it was also a moot point. It was an answer he would never get, regardless of how much he wrung his hands about the hypothetical possibility of disappointing his father.

This was about what was best for him and Javier now. The ranch had been their escape from the madness that was slowly killing them. Although Horacio never knew with absolute certainty what caused his Papá’s heart to fail, it was a plausible theory he overworked himself. And that irony sat more comfortably with Horacio these days. Because as much as his Papá had been a role model since Horacio was old enough to understand the word police, he was also a cautionary tale.

When the rush died down, Horacio helped clear some tables. It was the least he could do in exchange for words of wisdom and a complimentary breakfast.

But Señora Romero didn’t stop there and scuttled off behind the counter. She filled a box with an assortment of pastries and cakes, sealed the lid and handed it to Horacio as he moved towards the door.

“Here, my dear. Some more to keep you going. Enough for two, in fact.”

Horacio fumbled for a response beyond thank you as he accepted the box, wishing he could hide inside it as he sensed her eyes still on him.

Señora Romero’s hand lingered on his for a fraction longer than was customary for a simple goodbye.

He looked up to find the same head tilt and gentle smile he was met with in the apartment upstairs almost two years ago. When he was indirectly talking about Javier.

“I meant it when I said don’t be a stranger. You and Javier will always be welcome here.”

The sincerity in her eyes grew sharper, and she gripped his hand. In sympathy? Solidarity? Horacio wasn't sure.

But it put him at ease enough to reciprocate and ask a question now lodged in his throat with no option to swallow it back down. “How did you know?”

“Because there’s a glow about you, Horacio. A glow I remember from a long, long time ago. I might’ve forgotten a lot in my old age, but never that. Not even now it’s just me rattling around upstairs. It doesn’t have to fade, you know. Not if you don’t let it.”

It was a running theme for Horacio’s elders to leave him speechless like this. And it was all he could do to bob his head in acknowledgement, hoping he might be capable of such sage insights one day.

The bell above the door chimed again, signalling the end of their reunion as Señora Romero greeted her new customers, inviting them to sit wherever they liked.

“I think that’s my cue. But thank you, Señora Romero. For everything.”

“Any time. Take care, Horacio. And remember, my door’s always open.”

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Horacio dropped the box of delights on the kitchen counter, the fresh breeze and murmur of traffic revealing that Javier had moved from the bedroom to the balcony since he left.

Javier put the book he was reading down in favour of craning his neck over his shoulder to watch Horacio potter about the kitchen before biting the bullet. “So, how did it go?”

Horacio didn’t speak whilst he concentrated on transferring a couple of ensaimadas onto plates. He then joined Javier, sitting in the empty seat next to him as he offered a plate. “Better than I thought it would. She guessed about us. I didn’t tell her. Somehow she just…knew.”

“How did she take it?”

“I think we’ve got a free supply of these for life.”

They couldn’t help but laugh in unison, more from relief than anything else.

“See, I told you it’d be fine.”

“Yeah. It’s never gonna stop, though, is it?”

“How d’you mean?”

“Every time we meet someone.”

“I say it's nobody’s fucking business unless we decide it is.”

“I spoke to Alejandra yesterday. While you were in the shower.” Horacio paused at his announcement that might have appeared unconnected to their conversation, but Javier knew better. “I let her know I’m back here for now. I couldn’t tell her the rest, though.”

He focused on his plate, poking a fork at the crumbly layers of pastry, hoping to find his courage buried somewhere between them. “I’m sorry.”

“Hey, no, stop that.” Javier forfeited his plate for leaning closer to Horacio, palm caressing his thigh. “Before Laredo, you said I should only tell Pops if I’m ready. So, there’s no rush, Horacio. Take all the time you need.”

Horacio entwined their fingers on his leg because if anyone understood his apprehension, it was Javier. “I know. I just hate keeping it from her after everything we’ve been through. She would always make me soup if I was sick. And she looked out for me after Papá was gone. She taught me Mamá’s sudado de pollo recipe because it was one of Papá’s favourites. I liked to think I was the man of the house, but she loved reminding me she was my older sister.”

“I bet she did. I saw that a lot with my parents and my Tías and Tíos. Never could decide if I’d have preferred brothers and sisters after they all got together.”

“That’s siblings for you. I didn’t want to shut her – or Mamá – out. But when things got crazy back home, I had no choice.”

“Same with Pops. The worse it got, the more I shut down. But he understood. And…I know I haven’t met them.” Yet, Javier wanted to add but thought better of it. “But they might too.”

“I know.”

“We’ll be okay whatever happens, you know that, right?”

“Yeah. I do.” Horacio finally let go of Javier’s hand, knowing if he held on any longer, he’d have given their neighbours something to gossip about.

Instead, he took another bite of his pastry and a swig of the half-drunk coffee from the table where Javier’s abandoned book lay. “What are you reading, anyway?”

“Oh, just this.” Javier reached for his Mamá’s poetry book, the pages fluttering in the breeze, the superstitious remnants from his upbringing wanting to believe it was a sign of something other than the weather. “Before we left, I told Pops I wished she’d met you. I don’t know if she ever suspected anything about me, but…I guess it doesn’t matter now.”

“Maybe not. But for what it’s worth, I wish I’d met her too.”

It had always been a relief for Horacio that his father and Javier never crossed paths, but that was mostly a projection of his own fears. The truth was, he would never know if his Papá suspected anything about him, either.

Once they had finished their ensaimadas, Horacio washed up the plates and a few items waiting by the sink, a routine he performed countless times with Alejandra when they were just about tall enough to reach the taps; before any expectations of who or what he was supposed to be were placed on his shoulders. Memories flooded back of how they would squabble over who got to wash and dry. Although, of course, more often than not, his big sister would pull rank, and in hindsight, he smiled at the possibility that, all those years later, she, rather than their Papá, was what had made his job so appealing.

As he left the clean plates, cups, and cutlery to dry on the draining board, it dawned on him that Alejandra and his Mamá didn’t have to be the same story as his Papá. They didn’t need to be another unfinished, half-written story in which the ending would always elude him, haunt him, or hold him back. Not if Horacio didn’t leave it too late this time.

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Whilst Horacio resumed his early morning runs, they were more like gentle jogs these days. It wasn’t that he had lost his stamina after being put through his paces back on the ranch, but he didn’t feel the need to charge ahead at full pelt anymore. He was more likely to go through a routine of strengthening exercises, to keep his right shoulder from seizing up, and for whenever they decided to head back to Laredo. If that was to become his full-time job, he couldn’t afford to be out of shape.

He left Javier in bed, with plans to meet him at Café Romero for breakfast. It was to be Javier’s first time meeting Señora Romero, which they were confident they had nothing to worry about, but that didn’t quell the butterflies dancing in their stomachs the night before.

It was why Horacio had gone for a run instead of lying awake restless, counting down the hours until he could get up. His muscle memory, rather than his wristwatch, estimated that by the time he jogged one of his usual routes that took him to the outskirts of Casa de Campo park and walked a few blocks to cool down, he would be ready for breakfast.

About three-quarters of the way through his run, having just exited the park, he heard the call of his name. He willed there to be another Horacio jogging passed at the same time, but when his eyes fell upon the source of the voice, he knew he was out of luck.

“Álvaro?” He didn’t know why he asked; he’d spent enough time with Álvaro Molina to recognise his voice anywhere.

Álvaro was a chief inspector in the Spanish CNP. Not a direct parallel to Horacio’s role in Colombia, but close enough. Although Álvaro was never based at the Consulate when Horacio was, they spent plenty of time in the same cross-departmental meetings.

He was a couple of inches taller than Horacio with hazel eyes and unruly dark brown curls that were more mottled with grey than their last meeting. At one time, Álvaro carried almost as much muscle as Horacio, but he had visibly lost weight, his face now gaunt and rough with days’ old stubble.

“How the hell are you?” A hand shook Horacio’s with vigour. “Better than last time, I bet, now that motherfucker’s in the ground.”

“You could say that.”

“What brings you back? They didn’t exile you again, did they?” Álvaro winked, knowing he was on friendly enough terms with Horacio to get away with it.

A scoff and roll of the eyes was Horacio’s response. “No. Actually, it was the other way round this time.”

“Oh? You are a dark horse. Always thought they’d have to force you into retirement when you’re old and grey.”

“Yeah, me too. But I guess things change.”

“Hmm, some more than others.”

“I take it there’s been no let-up in seizures after Medellín folded?”

“Not with Cali waiting in the wings, no.” There was a brittle laugh followed by a shift in Álvaro’s facial expression, the joviality from moments ago now gone and replaced with traces of sleep deprivation.

“That’s the trouble. You cut off one serpent’s head, and two more of the fuckers grow straight back.” Horacio’s words were loaded with a sting of venom at the mention of Cali, closely followed by thoughts of Los Pepes, Stechner and the CIA’s protection of Cali. How could they possibly win when the whole system was corrupt to the core?

“Tell me about it. Listen, I don’t suppose you’ve got time to grab a quick coffee? Hell knows I need one.”

Horacio calculated he had about 15 minutes maximum spare, so, it was doable if he drank fast and didn’t get too involved in shop talk that was no longer his remit.

“Okay, there’s a place just inside Casa de Campo. But you’re buying.”

“Always the cheapskate.”

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Javier glanced up from his newspaper to the clock on the wall. Horacio was technically late; by his own standards, that was. Javier wouldn’t even have noticed if it was anyone else.

He followed Horacio’s instructions on how to get here, even down to picking the window seat in the far corner of the café. It was empty when Javier arrived – five minutes early, which must be a first – so he sat and waited.

Not long after he took a seat, a lady too young to be Señora Romero came to greet him with a friendly smile, ready to take his order.

Javier went with a café solo for each of them, saving the food order for when Horacio arrived.

Even when speaking in short sentences, Javier was self-conscious of his accent here, sometimes forgetting to adjust his pronunciation or pick a different word than he was used to. Of course, it had been the same when he arrived in Colombia and Horacio in Texas. A cultural exchange that led to many late-night conversations – and the occasional argument – about dialect differences. But that was the versatility of the Spanish language.

The same waitress brought the drinks over, although an older woman had joined her who was now clearing the adjacent table. The family resemblance between the two women was undeniable, so Javier assumed this must be Señora Romero and…Luisa, did Horacio say? He kept quiet for now, just in case he was wrong. Nor did he want to steal Horacio’s thunder with introductions.

As Javier thanked Luisa and explained the second cup was for someone meeting him shortly, Señora Romero ceased wiping a cloth across the emptied table, her ears pricking up at an accent she didn’t hear too often.

Not that Javier noticed as his eyes darted to the door, up to the clock and down to the paper with a heavy sigh.

He got through one and a half news stories when Señora Romero made her move from watching Javier curiously from behind the counter to standing by his table.

“It’s not like him to be late, is it?”

Javier was startled out of his newspaper and looked up, where rich shades of chestnut and cinnamon collided for the first time. “How—?” was about all he managed to stutter out.

Señora Romero sat opposite Javier, where Horacio should have been sitting. “Ever since his first visit, he went straight for this table. It is a nice spot, though. He always read his papers and ordered a café solo every time.” She smiled affectionately at the coffee cups on the table like they were an old friend. “Plus, he told me about Laredo. So, I wasn’t expecting another Colombian accent.”

“I’m impressed. We could’ve done with more people like you in Colombia. And I was under strict instructions to pick this table. But you’re right; it’s not like him to be late.”

There was no doubt a logical explanation for Horacio’s absence. But Javier couldn’t stop his fingers from fidgeting around the handle of his cup or his knee from bouncing under the table and causing an earthquake.

“Oh, I’m sure he’s on his way, dear. Did he go for one of his pre-breakfast runs?”

There was something comforting about Señora Romero’s familiarity with Horacio’s routines, even though Javier had never met her before. It gave them a mutual talking point and a connection beyond the usual dry small talk. “Bingo.”

“Of course! He was one of my most loyal regulars. I did miss seeing him in here after he left.”

“He’s talked about you and this place a lot. So, I’d say the feeling’s mutual.”

“Bless you, my dear. I’m glad our paths crossed. But I’ve no doubt he ended up where he belonged.”

Heat bloomed in Javier’s face and chest as Señora Romero gave him a pointed look followed by a flash of a wink. And he couldn’t help but feel sheepish that he and Horacio had ever worried about her reaction in the first place.

It took his mind off things until his gaze fell back on the clock, and he saw another five minutes had passed. Where the fuck was he? No, Javier couldn’t think like that. It was stupid and unnecessary at this stage. He just needed to focus on the pleasant conversation he was having now. So, he tried again.

This time, he asked questions about Señora Romero’s family and, during a lull in the breakfast rush, was introduced to Luisa as a friend of Horacio’s. If Luisa suspected anything, she took it in the same stride as her mother.

Next came the family photos, including plenty of Tomás, naturally. An album's worth of photos was scattered across the table, allowing Señora Romero to guide Javier through each one as though she was delivering a presentation. But as someone with a large extended family, Javier didn’t mind and even interjected with anecdotes about his own relatives.

After a tilt of his head and a sip of his coffee, Javier brought the cup down to the photo-covered table with a sense of déjà vu. It took him out of the moment and forced him to close his eyes, trying to blink away his sudden change in mood. But then, a wave of cheap perfume filled his senses. And Señora Romero’s finger pointing at the pictures was younger and manicured. The photo she placed in his hand wasn’t the many generations of the Romero family posing in front of the café; it was one of the long-lens photos of Javier and Horacio.

He blinked hard enough to see spots, allowing his vision to gradually re-focus on the safety of the photo in his hand rather than the violating one burnt into his memory. He tried not to think about those images, and for the most part, he succeeded these days. But occasionally, his brain would taunt him, reminding him how paralysed he was by the possible consequences. By the fact he put Horacio in so much danger and couldn’t even tell him about it or be with him. By the fact he and Steve were glorified puppets to the likes of Stechner whilst the CIA was up to its neck in corruption.

“These, er, these are all beautiful,” he managed to get out, hoping that the last few seconds had gone unnoticed, as unlikely as that was.

“Are you sure I can’t get you anything else while you wait, dear?”

That was the next question Javier heard, but he couldn’t be sure if he had zoned out and missed a whole chunk of conversation.

"Er, no, thanks, I'm good."

Without meaning to, his eyes scanned between the clock and the door again, an irrational hope taking hold that if he stared at either long enough, he could make Horacio appear by sheer willpower alone. However, as the second hand on the clock ticked and ticked, he was back in that damn hospital bed. Waiting, waiting, waiting. That was all he could do, unable to get comfortable as each movement was a red-hot poker jabbing in his ribs. But he would take that any day over the crushing, suffocating, nauseating dread that weighed on his chest like a foreshadowing of death. Not his death, although it would have been in all but name if the pendulum of fate had swung the other way.

“Javier? Are you alright, my dear?”

Javier was back in the café, a light sheen of sweat gathering on his skin as he tried to shove whatever the fuck that was back in its box. “Er, yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry.”

“Why don’t I pour us some lemonade upstairs once you’ve finished your coffee? I’ll ask Luisa to send Horacio up when he gets here.”

Javier expected his instincts to push him towards the door and back to the apartment, but they didn’t. Instead, they saw the genuine concern on Señora Romero’s face and the kindness in her gesture. They saw the glimmer of faded memories of his Mamá taking care of him, knowing this wasn’t the same, but also that it didn’t need to be. And so he did the only thing he could.

“That’d be good, thanks.”

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Álvaro brought over two coffees from the kiosk by the park entrance to a nearby seating area of tables and chairs. The previous day’s rain still clung to the stainless steel furniture and explained why there weren’t as many people around them as on a scorching hot day. But that worked in their favour.

They sat opposite each other across a table suffering from a wobbly leg, Horacio in his jogging pants and a somewhat sweaty t-shirt, and Álvaro apparently in yesterday's suit, shirt and skewwhiff tie, if their crumpled appearance and less than fresh aroma were anything to go by. A far cry from the pristine CNP-issued uniforms and tailored suits picked out by Álvaro’s wife their last meeting saw them wearing.

As Horacio took a sip of coffee, he noticed Álvaro reach into the inside pocket of his jacket and pull out a hip flask.

Álvaro lifted the plastic lid from his cup, poured a generous measure from the flask and offered the same to Horacio.

Horacio raised his hand and shook his head. “Bit early for me.”

They made small talk, Horacio managing to be as vague as possible regarding his reasons for living here again. “Taking a break in a beautiful city” and “Catching up with old friends” were about the gist of it. But he wasn’t exactly forthcoming with information the first time, so his stunted replies weren’t out of character.

Álvaro was equally brief about the details of his life, which was out of character now Horacio thought about it. Álvaro used to talk about his family as much as his work. His wife was his rock, his kids were his pride and joy, and his brother was progressing at pace through the military ranks. But this time, he confirmed they were doing well and left it at that before getting down to business.

“An anonymous tip-off recently fell into the DEA’s lap. Lots of juicy details about Cali. The gringos are working their way through the intel, and it flagged up more links to our old friends in Galicia. There were sightings of Pacho Herrera up there, plus some of his associates are based in Madrid. So that’s opened a huge fucking can of worms.”

Horacio had a terrible time trying to stifle a reaction to the mention of a tip-off. There was nothing 'anonymous' about it from the DEA’s point of view, not even when it came to the intel's delivery.

The last time he was here, the Galician traffickers were working with Escobar. And whilst Horacio’s redeployment was conducted from behind a desk for the majority, his colleagues had chewed his ear off about various Colombian names that came up in reports or wiretaps. It didn’t surprise him in the slightest that the Spanish clans had moved on to Cali.

Álvaro lit a cigarette as he talked, offering up a second one from his almost-empty carton.

But Horacio declined, instead taking another sip of his drink. “Sounds promising. But Álvaro, Cali is a different beast to Medellín. They’re more discreet, professional, and they have powerful friends in high places.”

“I know. But we have to try, right? Look at Operación Nécora. Sooner or later, someone gets sloppy, drops the ball, turns on one of their own, or kills the wrong person. And then we win.”

Watching Álvaro chug back his Irish coffee in one hand with a smouldering cigarette perched in his other was like looking in a mirror to the past. And it wasn’t a pretty sight.

When Horacio was in the fray, it had been too easy to focus solely on the case in front of him, convincing himself it would all be over soon if he just shut down one more lab and seized one more kilo or wad of cash. Or tortured one more suspect. But it was never enough and never would be. He had been fighting a losing battle that had no likely ending in sight, even if the individuals and locations were a perpetual revolving door.

“I’m not sure there are winners in any of this,” he said, the resignation heavy in his tone.

“Shit, you really have changed.”

“Maybe.”

“Last time I saw you, you were raining fire and brimstone upon the narcos. What the fuck happened?”

“Do you know how many funerals I’ve been to, Álvaro? Or how many people I’ve killed? Because I don’t. I stopped counting. Then Escobar tried to have me killed – and nearly succeeded.”

“Woah, woah, what?”

“I took a bullet here,” Horacio gestured to his right shoulder, “and nearly bled out. The doctors said I was lucky I was brought in so fast.” Although Horacio knew a lot more than luck was involved.

“Shit, Horacio.”

“Yeah. So, it’s easy for you to keep fighting when you haven’t lost as many times as I have.”

“Because no one else could possibly have lost anything as well, right?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Sounded like it to me. And you’ve got no fucking idea.” Álvaro slammed his cup down on the table, the force of its impact splashing coffee droplets in all directions.

Horacio opted not to make a fuss but he could have sworn he saw the reflection of tears in Álvaro’s eyes as they focused on their drinks in silence. “Did something happen?”

“What gave it away?” Álvaro gestured towards himself, acknowledging his worse-for-wear state. He leaned his elbow on the table, head held in his hands, and ran his fingers through his hair. “There was another bombing. Last June. An army transporter was targeted by 40 kilos of explosives left in a parked car. My brother, Jaime, was...he was there…and didn’t make it.”

“Fuck, Álvaro. I’m so sorry. I had no idea.” Except, in a roundabout way, he did have some idea. Because back in Colombia, it was Horacio who delivered such news to countless families like the Molinas.

“No, well, you wouldn’t.” He took out the hip flask again, draining whatever was left into his coffee cup and knocking it back. “Not least of all because I lied about him earlier. Sorry about that, by the way. Still not very good at this sort of thing.”

“No, of course. We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

“Your dad was a cop too, right? Before he…passed away.”

“Yeah, he was.”

“I remember you telling me. It was about the only thing I got out of you, come to think of it.”

Half a rebellious smile broke through Horacio’s tightly pursed lips. “Yeah, well, I guess I wasn’t very good at this sort of thing either.”

“But you are now?”

“Better than I was. Better now I’m not trying to be him. Now I realise he was as flawed as the rest of us.”

“Yeah, trying to follow in the footsteps of a high-achiever in the family will fuck you up for life. Or so I’ve heard.”

Horacio didn’t know a lot about Jaime but was aware he was 10 years older than Álvaro. From the way Álvaro talked, it was clear how much he hero-worshipped his big brother. And if anyone knew the pitfalls of such high pedestals, it was Horacio.

“Sounds familiar. As much as I’ve always missed him, I was glad he never saw me at my worst.”

“All I wanted was for Jaime to be proud of me, and I think he was.” Álvaro’s eyes lit up, and for the first time during their conversation, the wrinkles of his smile reached them. “But I’m not sure he’d even recognise me if he saw me now.”

“The paradox of grief.”

“What?”

Another smile crept over Horacio’s face. “Just something someone once said to me. Whatever you do, it’ll never feel enough now he’s gone.”

“Never thought of it like that. But it’s not just a dead man I’m letting down. My wife tried so hard with me; she really did. But…the nightmares started. They were always about trying to save Jaime, but I couldn’t. So I drank ‘til I was comatose. Then work got crazy and things spiralled. She didn’t think it was good for me to be around the kids, and well, I can’t argue with that.”

Álvaro unloaded a jumble of words in one fell swoop, catching Horacio off guard as he tried to take it all in. But it wasn’t as though it was unfamiliar territory for him. It wasn’t as though he had no experiences of his own to share, experiences he had only ever opened up to Javier about until now.

“That was my life, for a long time, without the wife and kids, obviously. But the nightmares and the drinking got bad after I...I accidentally killed someone I was sent to rescue.”

“Shit, Horacio. You never said anything when you were – wait a minute – is that why you were here in the first place?”

“Surprisingly, no.” Horacio let out a hollow laugh at the fact the death of Diana Turbay wasn’t his superiors’ red line. “I’m sure it didn’t help my cause, but the final straw came when I led a raid on a nightclub. We took down some high-level sicarios, but a bystander got caught in the crossfire.”

“Fuck. There were so many rumours about you, no one knew what to believe. I heard you took out Escobar’s cousin, but surely they wouldn’t exile a hero.”

“I’m not a fucking hero, Álvaro.”

“Ha! So, it was true.”

Horacio said nothing, his silence giving Álvaro the answer he was looking for.

“You can’t tell me you’re sorry about that.”

“I’m not. And I don’t regret everything I did.” It was the truth. He wasn’t trying to atone for some of those fuckers getting what they deserved. They weren’t why he walked away. “But you know what they say…old sins cast long shadows. These things stay with you, whether you’re the one killing or it’s the people around you being killed.”

“So, what are you saying? That it’s too late for damaged goods like us?” There was a desperate crack in Álvaro’s voice as though he was looking to Horacio to confirm his fears and put him out of his misery once and for all.

“You probably don’t want to hear it right now, but…it doesn’t always have to be like this. It’s not easy, and it takes time, but it can get better.”

“You’re right. I didn’t want to hear that.” Álvaro kept his features neutral until he caught Horacio’s eye and they both laughed, because what else could they do?

“Neither did I, for years. Because it felt impossible. But no amount of punishing yourself will bring him back or change the past.”

“There’s quite a team set up now,” Álvaro continued after a long silence, as though he hadn’t heard a single word Horacio had said. “From your end, our end, the DEA, Interpol, the SVA. You name it, we’ve got fingers in the pie. And there’s always room for more.”

Álvaro looked at Horacio with great expectation, waiting for an answer to an unspoken question until he could wait no more. “Horacio, you know what it’s like more than most dealing with these people. And you remember how it was last time. Couldn’t so much as talk about the weather without it getting back to someone up there.”

That much was true. The situation in Galicia was eerily reminiscent of Medellín. Homegrown police taking bribes left, right and centre and passing on intel to the trafficking clans. Politicians’ and judges’ integrity in tatters because they, too, turned a blind eye. The Colombian cartels made Galicia their gateway into Europe. And their success was thanks to the layer upon layer of corruption that was allowed to exist.

“No.”

“Come on, at least think about it. There’d be none of that pen-pushing bullshit this time. You could be out in the field again, it’d be just like the old days back in—”

“Álvaro, I said no.” Horacio didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to with how his steely glare and steadfast jaw framed his face. “I’m done with it for good. End of story.”

Álvaro raised his arms in surrender, his second cigarette of their meeting now burning between his fingers. “Alright, alright, I get the message. Can’t blame me for asking now I know you’re back.” He raised the cigarette to his lips, regarding Horacio with increasing intrigue through the wisps of smoke hanging between them. “So, who is it, then?”

“What?”

“Whoever’s convinced you to quit and move here. Must be serious. And don’t lie because I know there’s someone.”

“Your interrogation skills need more work, Molina. And on that note, I better be going. You’re making me late for an appointment.”

“Nice deflection there, Carrillo. I’m just saying; they must be the love of your fucking life to give it all up.”

There was a scrape of metal against the floor as Horacio rose from his chair, not dignifying Álvaro’s prying with a response, even though it was the naked truth.

“Alright, fine, fine! I can take a hint. I’ll keep my mouth shut from now on.” Álvaro brought a hand to his lips, ‘zipping’ them closed with his thumb and forefinger.

Horacio sat back down with a roll of his eyes. “I’ll believe that when I see it.”

“I didn’t mean anything by it. Good for you, in fact. It’s hard enough to find someone like that in the first place, but to hold onto them and make it work? Nothing short of a fucking miracle. But you know where I am if you ever change your mind.”

“Thanks, but I won’t.”

“Thought you might say that.”

“If you ever change your mind, please think about what I said. You can’t run away from this. No matter how much you bury your head in your job. It doesn’t work like that.”

“I can’t make any promises, Horacio. You know how it is.”

Of course, he knew; that was precisely why he was saying it in the first place. But he also knew there was no point pushing it any further. “It was good to see you, Álvaro. And I am sorry about Jaime.”

“Me too. And er, thanks. For listening and everything. I really appreciate it. Although, I gotta ask, when did you get so fucking wise?”

Horacio laughed, assured there was no malice in Álvaro’s teasing, and because he had apparently accomplished what he was expecting to wait years, if not decades to do. “I’m afraid I can’t take all the credit.”

“Should’ve known. Good to see you, Horacio. Don’t leave it so long next time. And I hate to say it, but retirement already suits you.”

“Thanks, I think. Take care of yourself.”

They stood up from the table, deposited their empty cups in a nearby bin and walked back to the entrance that took them onto the main road.

After shaking hands, they went their separate ways, Horacio in one direction and Álvaro in the opposite.

It wasn’t long ago that Horacio lamented turning his back on the CNP. But as he broke into a run to mitigate his uncharacteristic lateness, he caught glimpses of familiar church spires towering over every other building. They had been a comforting backdrop to his guilt and shame, and whilst he would always carry them around for certain deeds, it wasn’t a place he ever wanted to revisit. And the next time his lapel pins found themselves between his fingers, or Trujillo still called him Colonel out of habit, he would be reminded it was okay to miss something but never want it back.

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Javier sat stiffly on Señora Romero’s floral sofa, clenching and unclenching his fists to distract himself from the creeping sense of embarrassment setting in.

Señora Romero joined him in the neighbouring chair, a tray of lemonade and a selection of pastries from downstairs placed between them on the table.

“Have you eaten anything this morning, dear?”

“Not really, no.”

“Well, that won’t do. Here, take some. Don’t be shy.” She practically shoved the plate at Javier, stopping short of placing one of the pastries in his mouth.

“Thanks. And sorry, I don’t know where that came from.”

“From what Horacio told me, I’d say it’s understandable. For both of you.” Señora Romero gave the tall jug of lemonade a final stir, then poured it into two ice-filled tumblers, handing one to Javier and settling back in her chair.

Javier thanked her as he accepted a glass, wasting no time quenching his dry mouth.

“And it’s nothing I haven’t seen before,” Señora Romero continued. “My country went from the Civil War to Franco for over three decades. Not to mention the violence in the Basque region, and the bombings here, of course. People don’t like to talk about it much, but the scars are still as plain as day.”

Javier wasn’t exactly an expert in Spanish history, but he knew the basics. And hearing them listed together suddenly made his experiences seem tame by comparison. Not that he thought for a second that was Señora Romero’s intention, but it gave him a large dose of perspective.

“I never talked to anyone before Horacio, to be honest. Same for him with me, but it took me longer to get there.”

“My husband rarely told me what he’d seen and done in the war. He thought I wouldn’t understand, and maybe I didn’t. Maybe I couldn’t. But we survived the same storm in the end, even though we were sometimes in different boats.”

“It was a while ‘til we were in the same boat. Even now, sometimes we’re not,” Javier said as his mind drifted with a smile to their conflicting views and priorities over the years.

In theory, it shouldn’t have gone the way it did. They may have shared the same broad goal in Colombia, but they came at it from different angles. They weren’t supposed to trust and understand each other more than anyone else. They weren’t supposed to walk away from their all-consuming careers for each other, and they certainly weren’t supposed to fall in love. But life had a funny way of working out.

As for their current situation, they were dealing with things in their own way and in their own time. It was never going to be something they could coordinate. But even so, it frustrated Javier when he spiralled seemingly out of nowhere. Except, was it really out of nowhere? It was all a blur now.

“In my experience, sometimes you can’t be,” Señora Romero said. “And sometimes, you won’t want to be. Sometimes, you float alongside each other in your own boats. And sometimes, it’s good enough just to sail in the same direction at different paces.”

“He’s never late. And I guess it’s force of habit to assume the worst.” Javier wasn’t expecting to say that, but it was like someone had just removed their foot from his chest. It was an admission to himself as much as Señora Romero, confirmation that it hadn’t been out of nowhere at all.

Señora Romero merely nodded, giving Javier the space to continue if he wanted to.

“On the night of the ambush, Steve – my partner – and I weren’t supposed to be there. I’m not sure we were ever supposed to be in Colombia, to be honest.”

Javier stopped to let out a sceptical sneer as snippets of his encounters with Stechner replayed in his head. For all he knew, Stechner could have orchestrated his entire career, manoeuvring him around like a pawn on a chessboard.

“But we disobeyed orders and followed Horacio anyway. And then we, er…we heard gunfire and screaming over the radio. It was the longest car journey of my life.” He took another sip of his drink and a deep breath, determined to finish now he’d started. “It was the same at the hospital and after the bombing here. Always waiting, but never knowing where he was or if he was okay.”

“Oh, Javier, my dear, it makes complete sense you would think the worst. I would be the same in your shoes. But you have to remember, he’s a civilian now. He’s not a target anymore. The ETA bombings here have been directed at the Spanish authorities.”

Señora Romero leaned forwards until her hand met Javier’s. Shades of chestnut connected with cinnamon again as he squeezed as a gesture of thanks. Neither appeared fazed by this being their first meeting, perhaps finding it easier because they simultaneously didn’t know much about each other but enough to no longer be strangers.

“And for what it’s worth,” she continued, “regardless of the rights or wrongs of your government’s involvement in foreign affairs, it seems you were exactly where you were supposed to be that night.”

Touché. He couldn’t argue with that, the irony apparent of Steve previously framing Javier’s need to follow Horacio as a warning rather than a calling.

“I may have only just met you, Javier, but I know what you did for Horacio that night was a brave act of love. Wanting to help is an honourable trait, don’t ever forget that. But you might find you’re not worrying yourself sick so much once you’re focused on helping others again. And someone out there will always need it, wherever life takes you next.”

Javier scoffed before gulping down the rest of his lemonade. “I think that’s the problem.”

Señora Romero’s hosting instincts kicked in as she re-filled Javier’s glass.

“Thanks. Horacio got out a year before me and settled in working on my Pop’s ranch. Way more than I ever did.” Javier cringed at some of the memories of him in his pre-police days attempting various jobs that Horacio took to like a duck to water, whereas he had floundered.

“Is that what he wants to do?”

“I think so. Which is great; he’s a natural. It suits him.”

“But you don’t know what’s next for you?”

“Not a clue.” Not a fucking clue was more accurate, but he caught himself just in time.

“Do you need to have it figured out yet?”

“Well, no, not yet. We’re okay financially for now. But I know it can’t last forever.”

“There’s plenty of time between now and forever, Javier.” Señora Romero lowered her voice as though she was letting him in on a coveted secret. “At your age, anyway. Less so at mine, but I take each day as it comes.”

“What’s that like?”

“There are good days and bad days. And bad weeks, months and years, come to think of it. Days when my body doesn’t do what my mind tells it to do. Days when my mind is frail, and my heart is sore. But on other days, I’ll spend time with the family. Or my piononos will come out better than they did last time. Or I’ll make new friends in unusual circumstances.” She winked in Javier’s direction. “I think the bad days are just part of life’s rich tapestry. Especially where healing wounds are concerned.”

Occasional reminders of the past – or bad days – scattered amongst the simple pleasures sounded suspiciously like their time in Madrid so far. But maybe that was okay. Maybe, that was part of the process of moving on with their lives. Maybe, progress was supposed to be subtle and non-linear, almost imperceptible unless you knew what you were looking for.

No sooner had Javier got his head around that prospect than there was a knock at the door followed by a heartfelt apology, given and accepted with a look as much as words.

Of course, Señora Romero had been right, and there was no life-or-death emergency to attend to. But any embarrassment on Javier’s part was overridden by the relief his fears were unfounded, and he would gladly take an anxious mind rather than the alternative.

Pulses returned to baseline as the trio talked, albeit Horacio’s for a different reason than Javier's.

Whilst Madrid wasn’t Laredo, they couldn’t take acceptance for granted wherever they were. But as they returned downstairs, where Señora Romero removed the ‘Reserved’ sign from their corner table and offered them yet another breakfast on the house, a weight lifted from Horacio’s shoulders. Because the first real friend he made here had welcomed him and Javier into her home and business with open arms.

#Narcos fic #Narcos #Javier Peña #Horacio Carrillo #Carrillo #Javier Peña x Horacio Carrillo #Pedro Pascal #Maurice Compte #Narcos fanfic #Narcos fanfiction #Narcos fan fic #My Fan Fic #My Narcos Fic

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