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quickspinner · 4 years

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These Two Hands (I’ll Never Not Know You)

I worked on this for ages, and I just couldn't get it to come out right, so I put it aside and worked on other things. I hadn't looked at it in months, and then the WIP meme came along, and I started looking it over, and it turned out to be ridiculously easy to fix and finish, so here it is at last!

Shoutout to all my artist buddies, whose complaining about hands being such a pain to draw gave me the idea for this fic. 😆 Love you guys.

I don't think I said anything that specifically made it clear, but they're university aged in this one.

It was a beautiful summer day in Paris, with just enough breeze to keep the heat from being unbearable. Enjoying the weather and his music, Luka had no idea how long he’d been sitting there playing on the warm, wide stone steps of the Trocadero. A while, by the sun and the hollow feeling in his stomach. Luka packed up his guitar and slung it across his back. He started to descend the steps, but paused as he nearly trod on something at the bottom. He bent down and picked up the book, plain black and with heavy, weighted paper, like an artist’s book. It wasn’t battered or dirty, like it had been there for days, though the canvas cover was frayed a bit at the corners. Well-used, he concluded, and lost only recently.

Luka looked around, hesitant. He couldn’t see anybody who looked like they’d lost something. He went back up the steps and looked around at the top, with the same result.

Luka sighed. He got so into his music, he frequently lost awareness of his surroundings, so while he knew some people had stopped on the steps to hear him play, he had no memory of what they looked like or what they’d been doing, other than Officer Roger passing by and giving him the stinkeye. Apparently the officer hadn’t felt like ruining a perfectly good day by hassling about permits and nonsense, though, and once he’d moved on, Luka had played without regard to his audience.

He went back down the stairs, thinking, and then sat down slowly on the bottom step. He felt like an intruder as he opened the book, as he thought of the battered spiral notebook full of embarrassing, half-finished scribbles he carried in his guitar case. He checked the inside of both covers first, but found only the initials MDC. No phone number, not even a full name.

Luka blew out a frustrated breath, fluffing his bangs away from his face. Reluctantly, he began turning pages.

It was full of...hands. Hands planting a seedling, hands cleaning something indistinct. Hands buried in a lumpy mass. Clay? Or maybe dough? Hands twined in yarn, holding the vague suggestion of knitting needles. What they were doing was usually only lightly sketched in and suggested, but the hands themselves were detailed and bold. It was kind of weird at first, but as he continued to turn the pages, still checking each for some sign of the owner, he began to appreciate the different types of beauty and strength captured on each page. He could imagine the trembling in the wrinkled hands with swollen joints that held a flower stem delicately. There were fingers curved over a computer keyboard, charged with energy, and he could almost hear the rapid smack of the fingers hitting the keys.

Luka found himself rubbing his fingers together. He’d never contemplated his hands from an aesthetic standpoint. Why would he? They were rough and scarred; his fingers from the guitar, his palms from the ropes and rigging on the boat, from the lifting and carrying required for the constant rearranging of the stuff on deck to make sure they could get around. He’d never thought about whether they were—any of what he saw in these pictures.

He glanced up and around again, still feeling guilty to be poking through someone else’s private things, but no one was paying him any mind, and he still had no clues as to the owner. He tried to flip quickly, just checking each page for even a hint of where he might go to return it, but with everything but the hands indistinct there wasn’t much to go by.

He stopped in surprise on the last sketch in the book, staring at the drawing of hands on a guitar. The guitar was just roughed in, once again more of a suggestion than a drawing, except where the left hand rested on the fretboard, pressing into the strings.

The hands, though, were incredibly detailed, and, he realized with a sudden blush, they were his. He touched his thumb to the ring on his pointer finger absently. The right hand, curved to strum, the pick invisible from that angle but implied, had bracelets matching his stacked along the wrist.

The nails were colored in, dark like his, but beyond that, he wouldn’t have recognized them without the jewelry and the small curving scar near the thumb of the right hand.

These hands were elegant, graceful, intentional. It had been a long time since Luka last consciously thought about the control he had over his hands, but he couldn’t help thinking about it now. It had taken him years of practice to get there, but when he played, his hands did exactly what he needed them to, found the strings he needed quickly and accurately. Though they were thin, they were strong and sure, equally capable of coaxing a melody and knotting a rope with speed and strength.

That was what this person had seen in them, at least.

“Oh!”

Luka looked up and found a girl staring at him with both hands over her mouth, her blue eyes wide. Her gaze flickered between him and the book.

“Is this yours?” he asked without thinking.

She nodded slowly, pink spreading over her cheeks.

Luka closed it quickly and stood up, offering it to her. She took a hasty step forward, grabbing the book gratefully, but somehow got her feet tangled up and yelped as she tipped forward. Luka caught her shoulders and steadied her. “Woah, easy.” He shifted her back until she was solidly on her feet, and let go. “I’m sorry for snooping, it’s just I found it on the steps and I was trying to find a name or something so I knew who to give it back to. I wasn’t having much luck, though, so I’m really glad you came back.”

“Oh,” she said, blushing and holding the sketchbook to her. “It’s okay, of course I understand. I’m glad it was found, at least. I just...I’m just kind of embarrassed, I know it must look kind of weird, and I usually ask before I draw someone but you were busy and the music was so lovely and I started watching your hands and just kind of got caught up in the moment but I’m really sorry—”

“Hey, it’s okay,” Luka said, putting a hand on her shoulder briefly to interrupt as she began picking up speed. “I thought they were cool, and I’m flattered you saw something in my hands worth capturing.”

She smiled shyly. “I like hands that make things. They’re my favorite. I mean, it started just as a drawing exercise, because hands are hard, and so I thought if I just kept drawing them I’d get better. And...and then when I started looking, I got interested, and I kept going. It’s kind of stress relief now. And that probably doesn’t make it any less weird.” She put one hand back over her face, the other still clutching her sketchbook, and made a little whine. “Why am I still talking?”

“That’s amazing,” Luka smiled, and then hesitated. “Um, are you busy? On your way somewhere? Because if not, I’d really like to look at some more. If it’s okay with you.”

Her eyes widened slightly, and the flush on her cheeks deepened. “R-really? I mean, sure, if you, um. If you want to. I didn’t really think they were that interesting, to be honest.”

“Well, I do,” Luka said, and backed up to sit back down on his steps, tipping his head to invite her to sit next to him. “My name’s Luka.”

She smiled nervously, perching on the step and tucking a strand of hair behind his ear. “I’m Marinette.” Luka turned back to the beginning of the book, and began to page through more slowly, pausing now and then to ask Marinette about a picture.

“That’s my grandmother,” she told him, as he looked at a picture of half-gloved hands resting on the handles of a motorcycle. “She travels a lot.”

“I really like this one,” he said after a moment, pausing at the hands twined in yarn.

“I, um,” Marinette hunched her shoulders a little bit. “I love drawing people knitting. They all look so different, even though they’re doing the same thing. Everyone holds the yarn a little bit differently, knits just a slightly different way.”

“And this?” he asked, tilting his head slightly. “I can’t quite figure this one out.”

“That’s my friend Kim,” Marinette explained. “He’s a swimmer. He was doing backstroke time trials and I just got really fascinated with the way his hands held onto the wall. I didn’t quite get the perspective right, though.” She giggled nervously, and Luka smiled at the sound. “The blurry spots are from when he dripped on me trying to get a look at what I was doing.”

“I can see it now,” Luka nodded. “The tension in them, and why you did the eyes here between them—”

“They ended up looking kind of buggy, with the goggles,” Marinette admitted.

“No, I really like it, though,” Luka looked up to flash her a quick smile. “You really get that sense of power about to let loose.”

Marinette blinked. “Y-yeah,” she smiled. “Yeah...thanks.”

“Why make the rest of the drawings so incomplete compared with the hands?” Luka asked curiously, looking up from the book to meet her eyes. “I mean, I get why the hands are the focus, but why make the rest of it so vague?”

Marinette blushed. “It’s...stupid. I don’t know if it’ll even make sense if I say it out loud.”

“Try me,” Luka smiled.

“It’s just, no matter how I draw them, it’s not the full picture,” Marinette said thoughtfully, and then glanced up at him with an adorably shy smile. “No pun intended. I just mean that there’s so much that these hands can do and when I draw them, I’m really only capturing one. I’d be fascinated to find out what else your hands can do besides play guitar,” she added, and Luka’s face flamed red, though Marinette didn’t seem to notice anything suggestive about what she’d said as she picked his hand up, examining it. Luka swallowed as she turned his hand over and ran her fingers over the calluses on his palm. “You didn’t get these from the guitar,” she said. “Sports? Or something else?”

Luka cleared his throat. “I live on a boat on the Seine,” he said, watching her. “I work with a lot of ropes, and I’m always climbing around fixing something or other.”

Marinette nodded, looking up at him, his hand still cradled in hers. “That explains the tan. What else?”

“Um…” Luka blinked, trying to think. “I carry sound and boat equipment.”

“Okay,” Marinette said, still listening. Looking at him like he was a puzzle she was trying to solve. He wasn’t sure what she wanted to hear, or why he suddenly very much wanted to be worthy of her interest, but...

“I...comfort my sister,” Luka said softly, dropping his gaze to his hand again. “She’s nervous, she gets worried. I put my hand on her shoulder so she knows that I’m there with her and she’s not alone. I...I calm my mother down. She’s kind of...passionate, she gets worked up about stuff a lot. I put my hand on hers or on her arm to remind her to take a minute to breathe.”

“And you help up strangers who trip over their own feet,” Marinette giggled.

“Yeah,” Luka smiled, looking at her. “That too.”

“It sounds like your hands do a lot of good,” she said. “Your hands help people. Lift them up. You carry, you support. That’s very noble, Luka.”

Luka’s face heated. “Poetic, but...I think that’s giving me a bit too much credit,” he said, looking down at her little hands on his. He was beginning to be fascinated with their contrast, by the way their fingers looked together. Impulsively he closed one hand, capturing hers gently.

“You’re really special, Marinette,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve ever met anybody that thinks like you.”

Marinette stared at him for a second, and then looked down at their hands. It seemed to hit her all at once that she’d been holding onto him, and she jerked her hands back, face reddening. “I’m so sorry—I’m being really weird, aren’t I?” Marinette hunched her shoulders. “I’m sorry—”

“Maybe a little bit,” Luka broke in, stopping her from another apology spiral. “But what’s weird anyway? Just something a little different than normal. Unique. Nothing wrong with that. Let’s just roll with it.” He grinned. “Embrace the weird. May I see yours?”

She looked startled. “W-what?”

“Your hands,” he said, holding out his own. “May I see them?”

Marinette couldn’t get any redder but her mouth opened and closed soundlessly for a moment. “It’s okay,” Luka said quickly. “If you’d rather not. I’m not trying to make you uncomfortable.”

“No, it’s fine,” she said, hunching her shoulders again. “It’s only fair, right? Gosh, I didn’t even ask you, you must think I’m so—” She made a wordless noise in her throat and held out her hands stiffly.

“I don’t,” Luka chuckled. “I didn’t mind. It doesn’t have to be fair, though,” Luka said, making no move to take her hands again. “If you’re not okay with it, don’t feel like you have to.”

“It’s really okay,” she said. Her hands relaxed a little, her shoulders came down, and there was enough sincerity in her smile to convince him. “It’s just, I don’t think mine are anything special.”

“Hmm,” Luka chuckled, slowly reaching to take her hands. “I didn’t think mine were either, until today.” His hands dwarfed hers as he closed his fingers lightly. Her fingers were slender and elegantly tapered. Her fingernails were short but filed meticulously into perfect ovals. He ran his thumbs lightly over the backs, tracing the veins and gliding over the bumps of her knuckles.

“So what do you do with these hands, besides drawing?” he asked as he looked.

“Sewing, mostly. Some knitting and crochet and things like that, but mostly I make clothes. I’m in school for fashion design and I’m always working on some project or other. That’s why my hands are always so beat up.”

Gently Luka turned her hands over, letting go of her left hand to trail his fingers over the palm and fingers of her right, noticing the calluses on her fingertips and one on the side of her middle finger.

Luka looked up at her and grinned. “You said hands that make things are your favorite.”

Marinette shrugged slightly, smiling. “It’s worth the callouses. The business stuff, I could live without, but the making—it doesn’t feel like work. I like making things that help people express themselves.”

Luka picked her left hand up again and noticed a shiny burn scar on the heel of it. He turned that hand up and let go of the other to run his fingers lightly over the scar. “What’s the story here?”

“A boring one,” Marinette chuckled, making a face. “I’m a klutz and I live in a bakery. I tripped and put my hand down in the wrong spot. I’ve gotten lots of burns for various reasons but that’s the only one that really left a mark.”

“Do you bake?”

“Sometimes. Not for the bakery, but for friends and family on special occasions. I also do a lot of decorating. Cakes and cookies and stuff. I’m a master with a piping bag.”

“That makes sense,” Luka said softly, thoughtfully.

Marinette tilted her head and looked up at him. “Luka?”

“These little hands create so much beauty,” he mused aloud, marveling. Marinette squeaked and he glanced up at her, a question on his tongue, but he froze instead, caught by her eyes, clear baby blue, framed with dark lashes, and currently wide and staring at him. It struck him all at once as he took in her vibrant blush and pretty parted lips that she was really, really beautiful, and that he’d been fondling her hands for the last several minutes and he should...he should probably let go.

He didn’t want to.

He didn’t want to let go of those tiny, strong, capable, beautiful hands.

“Sorry, I was just thinking,” Luka said, and cleared his throat to smooth out his suddenly rough voice. “What you were saying about my hands lifting people up. Your hands...make things beautiful. You take ordinary things and make them better.” He looked back down at their hands, rubbing his thumbs absently across her knuckles as he spoke. “That’s a pretty special gift, Marinette. Making the world a more beautiful place, or even just making it so that people can see the beauty that’s already there...you’re amazing.” He took a deep breath and forced himself to look back at her face. “Would you, um...this is going to sound really forward, but would you go out with me sometime?”

“O-out?” Marinette stammered, looking rather like she’d just been hit in the head with a board.

Luka tried not to laugh. “Yeah. Out. On a date? Maybe this weekend? I know we just met, but…”

“I’d like to,” Marinette blurted, face red. “That...that sounds really great.” She dropped her gaze for a minute, and then flicked her eyes back up shyly, a slow smile curling her lips. “But if you want my number, you’re going to have to let go of my hands first.”

Luka grinned back, squeezing her hands instead of releasing them. “Or I could just take you out right now. Are you free for lunch? I’m starving, personally.”

***

It was another sunny summer day, on the same stone steps, and Marinette and Luka sat pressed close together, the fingers of his right hand threaded together with her left, as she sketched busily on the sketchbook in her lap. They’d been there for a while now, but Luka was comfortable and happy lounging on the sun-warmed steps, humming a tune to himself and trying not to fidget in a way that would tug on the hand Marinette was holding.

He was staring blankly at nothing, remembering their first kiss. Well. Not their first kiss, standing outside of her home while he held her hands in his and leaned in to press his lips to hers for just a sweet, soft moment. Their first real kiss, when his hand came up to cup her cheek as hers slid back and slipped into the hair at the nape of his neck and he kissed her for real. He remembered noticing how his hand felt so big compared to her face as his thumb brushed her soft cheek, his touch feather-light and reverent even as hers was firm against him. She tilted her face to better meet him, and his thumb slipped down to her jaw, his calloused fingertips fanning out along the side of her neck. He remembered the way she gasped, leaning into his touch, which pulled her lips away from his. He’d kissed along her jaw as his rough palm skimmed down the elegant line of her neck and followed the curve of her shoulder before stroking back up again to pull her closer. How their other hands had met and twined together, fingers locked as they were now, palms pressed tight together. He remembered how the strength in those little hands had surprised him.

Movement beside him jerked him back to the moment, as Marinette sat back to look at her page critically. Swallowing, Luka seized his moment.

“Can I see?” he asked as he sat up and leaned over, and Marinette shifted the sketchbook so he could look at the drawing of their joined hands she’d been working on.

Marinette had teased him a little bit about asking for such a thing, but not too much. He was just as in awe of her art now as he’d been the day they met, and she knew it. Her portraits of his mother’s hands and his sister’s hands were already hanging on his wall, so this was a logical addition to his collection.

“Beautiful,” he murmured, looking over the nearly-finished picture. “I’m loving it, but...I think it’s missing something.”

Marinette frowned, turning the picture back towards herself. “What do you mean?” she asked, just as Luka shifted his grip on her hand. She looked back at their hands, opening her mouth to protest, but instead her mouth just dropped open as Luka slid a small sparkling ring onto her finger.

“There,” he grinned, looking up at her face as Marinette did a credible imitation of a fish. “That’s better.” His eyes softened as he looked at her. “Marinette, will you—”

He never got a chance to finish as she tackled him awkwardly back onto the steps, her sketchbook falling from her lap and bouncing down to land in nearly the same place it had almost exactly a year ago.

#quickspins #i'll never not know you #lukanette #endgame lukanette #lukanette endgame #luka couffaine #marinette dupain-cheng #miraculousladybug #miraculous ladybug #ml fics

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crystalninjaphoenix · 4 years

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And the Show Goes On

A Horror Septics Story

(I’ve been sitting on this for a while, but I finally managed to finish it. Let’s check back in on Stacy, John, and the boys, why don’t we? Surely nothing else could go wrong in their lives ;) )

—————

The road was a simple, narrow path, only two lanes. It cut through the trees of the deep forest, the branches above stretching to cover it like a canopy, the roots causing cracks in the asphalt. It was almost like the woods were trying to reclaim the narrow stretch of man-made land. The canopy caused an artificial twilight, and the car driving down the road had to turn its lights on to be able to see.

“I think we’re almost there,” Stacy said, peering through the windshield. It was hard to see far, what with the darkness caused by the trees and the weird fog hovering around the trunks. She glanced in the rear-view mirror to look at the backseat. “How’re we holding up, boys?”

Mathew made an OK sign with his hand, headphones on. Larkin was busy staring out the window, his coloring book discarded.

“Great, glad we’re doing tip-top,” Stacy commented.

John, sitting in the passenger seat beside her, chuckled. “Tip-top?” He asked.

“Yes, tip-top,” Stacy said, doubling down on the phrase. “We’re all hunky-dory.”

“God, you’re so American and cheesy,” John muttered, smiling a bit. He was leaning back against the seat, eye closed and deliberately not looking out at the trees.

“Hmm.” Stacy hummed, nodding. She fell into quiet thought for a bit. They’d come a long way from their small town in California. Two years ago, she would never have guessed that she’d end up halfway across the world, running away from some...supernatural evil. Or, well, two of them, technically.

“Oh!” Larkin pointed out the window. “Did you see that?”

“See what, Lark?” Stacy asked.

“There was a...a Cheshire cat out there,” Larkin said. “In the forest.”

John suddenly whipped around, looking over the seat. “Don’t look at it.”

“What? Why not?” Larkin asked.

“Just trust me on this one,” John said, voice lowering. “Okay?”

“What do you mean by a Cheshire cat, Lark?” Stacy asked cautiously.

“A smiling cat! Didn’t anyone else see it? Matt!” Larkin reached across and started pushing his brother. “Did you see the cat?”

“No, I didn’t see any cat,” Mathew muttered, adjusting his headphones and sinking further into the seat.

Stacy frowned, and considered saying something, but was distracted by light appearing at the end of the road. “Oh, I think that’s it!” she said, trying to sound excited.

The car passed out from the forest as if leaving a tunnel. Afternoon sunlight abruptly appeared. The road winded down a sloping hill, leading to a collection of buildings down below. The car passed a sign made of stone, reading Welcome to Foraois Hollow.

“Still the most uncreative name,” John muttered. “Foraois is literally ‘forest,’ how very original. I bet the English had something to do with it.”

“Do you speak...whatever language that is?” Mathew piped up.

“Irish, and yes,” John said. “Not fluently, but better than I used to.”

“People still speak Irish?” Mathew asked.

“Yeah, of course we do,” John said, laughing a bit. “Especially in the actual country we’re from.”

“You’re Irish?!” Stacy remarked with some surprise.

“Yeah. Can’t you tell?”

“I...can now.” She’d always sort of picked up that John had an accent, but hadn’t registered which accent it was. Until he brought it up.

John smiled sadly. “‘S okay. Not your fault.”

The rest of the drive into the small town was quiet. The buildings of Foraois Hollow wouldn’t have been out of place 200 years ago. Charming houses with peaked roofs and white walls lined the streets, until the streets eventually clustered together in what looked like the business quarter, around a paved town square. People were walking around, going about their day...though Stacy couldn’t help but notice that a lot of them stared at the car as it drove past. Perhaps that was because most people seemed to prefer walking here, but she got the feeling it was more than that.

Stacy pulled to the side of the road right next to the square. “Alright, break time,” she said. “Let’s stretch our legs while I look for a hotel. Or something.”

Larkin opened the car door and hopped out, looking around. “Cool!” He said. “Mom, can I go look around? Please?”

“Look around? Hmm…” Stacy gave the town square a once-over. There were a few booths selling food and trinkets. The people walking around seemed normal, but you could never be sure. “Alright. Just stay where I can see you, ok?”

“Okay!” And with that , Larkin ran off, running up to the nearest booth and getting on his tiptoes to inspect the wares.

Mathew climbed out of the car as well. “Huh.” He lowered his headphones. “This is, like...quaint.”

“Yes, it is,” Stacy said cheerfully. “I’ve never heard you use that word before. Did you read it somewhere?”

“Uh...yeah.” Mathew leaned against the car. “What? It fits.”

“It does. I’m not saying you’re wrong.” Stacy pulled out her phone and typed ‘hotels near me’ into her browser. She squinted. “Huh...no results? That’s odd.”

John pushed open the door and leaned out. “No hotels, huh? Yeah, I think I remember that.”

“So you’ve been here before,” Stacy clarified. She’d been suspecting that.

John nodded. “Stopped by,” he said vaguely.

Stacy dropped it there. It was clear from his tone that John didn’t want to talk about it. Instead, she turned her attention back to her search for hotels. The wifi connection was secure, so it wasn’t that the results weren’t loading, it was just that there were no hotels for miles. The closest one was appearing in the next town over, the town they’d left two hours ago. She tried changing the search to motels, but got the same results. “Why don’t they have any hotels? Isn’t that a bit of an oversight?”

“People don’t really stop by here often,” John said. “And I don’t know if they want people to stay.”

Stacy shivered a bit. “That sounds...ominous.”

“Oh it isn’t, really,” John said casually. “It’s for everyone’s good. You remember what I said on the way over here? About the forest?”

Stacy nodded. “After we finish driving through it, don’t go in there ever.”

“Exactly.” John looked away, turning his attention to watching the town square. “I think if people stay here, they might eventually be tempted to do that, so there are no hotels or anything to discourage long stays.”

“But...we’re supposed to be staying here,” Stacy said slowly. “To stay away from Jaq—that...thing.”

“Yeah, but we know better,” John said.

Stacy wasn’t so sure about that, and the sentiment didn’t make her feel better at all. “Still…” she said, slowly changing the subject. “Where are we going to stay? You’ve been here before, where did you stay?”

John blinked. “I...I live in a tent,” he reminded her.

“Ah. Right.”

“Hey Mom,” Mathew piped up. “Why don’t we just ask someone if there’s a place we can stay?”

“Ah. Yes, good idea, Mat,” Stacy said, nodding. There were a whole bunch of locals in the square, surely one of them would have an answer. She straightened, looking around to see who was most approachable. But her eyes landed on someone else. “Oh? It looks like Larkin’s already making friends.”

Larkin had moved on from the booth he was originally interested in, and was now running circles around a different booth, chasing a boy who looked about his age. The two of them stopped and switched direction a couple times, like they were reenacting one of those comedic movie scenes where people tried to duck around a central item only to find their opponent blocking them. Chuckling to herself, Stacy walked over. “Hey Lark. Having fun?”

“Hi Mom!” Larkin stopped the chase. “This is Nick!”

The other boy, shorter than Larkin and with dark curls, grinned and waved at Stacy. “Howya, Lark’s mam?”

“I’m doing very good. It’s nice to meet you, Nick,” Stacy said cheerfully.

“Nice t’meet you too!” Nick said. “How long are you gonna be passin’ through?”

“Yeah, Mom!” Larkin added.

“Oh. Well, we’re actually going to be staying for...a while,” Stacy explained. “But we don’t really have anywhere to stay.”

Nick’s eyes widened. “Oh oh oh! You should stay with me! Then me and Lark can play all the time!”

Larkin gasped. “Mom, please? Pleeeaase?”

Stacy smiled, but it contained a hint of sadness. It had been a while since Larkin had so easily hit it off with a kid his age. “Well, I think Nick will have to ask his parents—”

“I can do that!” Nick squealed. He ran over to a nearby booth, selling bundles of yarn and what looked like other sewing or knitting supplies. The booth was being manned by a woman about Stacy’s age, with the same dark curls as Nick. “Mammy! Mammy! Maaaam!” Nick yelled, jumping up and down right by the woman.

“Hmm? What is it, pancake?” The woman asked, looking down and blinking slowly.

“Mammy, this is Larkin Allen and his mam!” Nick said, pointing back at Stacy and Larkin. “They’re gonna be stayin’ for a while. Can they stay with us, Mam? Please?”

The woman looked over at Stacy, giving her a quick once-over. Stacy waved. “Why’re you stayin’ in town, can I ask?” the woman asked in a flat tone.

“Oh! Uhhh…” Stacy tried not to squirm at the awkwardness that question raised. She wasn’t sure how much to say about the weird supernatural stuff that was following them, even if there was apparently weird supernatural stuff in the nearby woods. “My friend suggested it,” she finally decided on, pointing back towards her parked van where John and Mathew were having a chat. “He said this would be a...safe...place,” she said slowly.

“Mm-hmm.” The woman rubbed her eyes. “I see. Well, I s’pose that’s subjective, but if you insist. I’m Colleen. Colleen Iontach. And you are? And your friend?”

“Um, Stacy. Stacy Allen. My friend’s name is...John,” she settled on. “He’s over there with my other son Mathew.”

“Alright, Stacy. If you’re wantin’ t’stay, I’m not gonna stop you.” Colleen shrugged. “And might as well house ye for as long as that is.”

Nick and Larkin gave out a loud cheer, and immediately began buzzing with chatter.

“Oh. Thank you so much,” Stacy said. “Really. I tried to look up hotels, but—”

“There aren’t any nearby, yeah,” Colleen finished. She took a spiral notebook and pencil out of her pocket, scribbling something down and tearing off the page. “This is my address. Head down that street over there to get it. If Nick wants, you mind givin’ him a ride home?”

“Oh, no problem,” Stacy agreed, taking the paper. “Kids? Did you hear that?”

“Yeah, I’d love t’drive home with you!” Nick shouted. “I can tell you if you’re goin’ the wrong way!”

“Alright, let’s go then!” Stacy laughed.

Heading back to the car, Larkin and Nick rushed ahead, with Larkin introducing his new friend and his brother to each other. Stacy went more slowly, taking a moment to read the address.

“So I guess you found a place, then, huh?” John asked.

“Yep.” Stacy folded the paper and put it in her pocket. “We’re heading there now.”

“Great.” John watched the three kids interacting. He frowned. “I think I know...nevermind.”

“Hmm? Sorry, didn’t catch that,” Stacy said.

John shook his head. “Nevermind, just thought this kid looks familiar, but, you know, can’t be sure.”

“Huh. Well, isn’t it a possibility, if you’ve been here before?” Stacy prompted. “Maybe ask him if you’ve met.”

“Can’t,” John said shortly.

“...okay, then. Let’s, uh, go.” Stacy rounded around the car to the driver’s side, hopping inside. John just got stranger and stranger the longer she knew him. But there was a sadness that hovered around him, a sort of...grief, almost. So she wouldn’t be pushing it further or blaming him for sometimes seeming a bit odd.

* * * * * * * * * *

There was nothing extraordinary about the address Colleen had given her. It was a house just like all the others on the street, the only difference between it and them being a smudged chalk drawing on the sidewalk in front. Stacy guessed that was Nick’s work, probably done a day or two earlier.

As soon as the van pulled to a stop, Nick hopped out—a little before the car had completely stopped rolling, in fact. “C’mon, c’mon!” he shouted. “I’ll introduce you to Grandmam!” And without another word, he ran inside.

“Hey, wait up!” Larkin jumped out of the car as well and followed him.

Mathew stared out the car window. “So we’re really gonna stay with these people?” His tone was less than enthusiastic.

Stacy sighed. “Yes, Mat. For now, at least. Why? Is something wrong?”

Mathew shrugged. “No.” He climbed out of the van before Stacy could say anything else.

“...huh.” Stacy stared after him, biting her lip. He’d been pretty quiet on the drive here. Though she supposed there was a reason for that. After all, the last thing they’d seen right before leaving was a monster coming after them. That would be enough to freak anyone else. Larkin seemed fine, but maybe he was just repressing it...

“You okay?” John asked.

Stacy jumped, and tried to smile. “Yeah, I’m fine, just...thinking about the kids.”

“They’re good kids,” John said. He paused, and in a softer voice, added, “They’ll be alright.”

She didn’t respond, silently climbing out of the car and walking towards the house’s front door. After a moment, she heard the van door open and slam close as John followed her.

The inside of the house was as quaint as the outside. Wooden floors and walls papered in a design that looked fairly old. The furniture also looked old, not in that it was run down, but in that the style could’ve been taken out of the 1930’s. There was a huge fireplace, with a rocking chair nearby that Mathew had settled into, once again pulling his headphones on. A wide doorway led to a hallway, through which another arch showed the kitchen, and Nick and Larkin inside talking to someone.

“—and his mam—” Nick glanced over, catching sight of Stacy. “Oh! She’s right here!” He waved. “Hi Ms. Allen! Come meet Grandmam!”

Stacy wandered over and entered the kitchen. Nick was tugging on the skirt of a tall older woman, who had her gray hair pulled up in a bun. The old woman was standing at the kitchen counter, chopping carrots and other vegetables with a large knife. She stopped and looked up once Stacy entered the room. “Um, hello,” Stacy said, waving. “I hope you don’t mind us staying. I’m Stacy, this is Larkin—”

“Hi!” Larkin said.

“My other son, Mathew, is in the front room.” Stacy turned around to point behind her, and saw John standing in the doorway, staring at the old woman with wide eyes. “Oh. And, uh, this is my friend John.”

“Well nice t’meet ye,” the old woman said. “Don’ worry about stayin’ it’s no trouble. We often play inn to people passin’ by. The name’s Roisin Iontach. I see you’ve all met Nicolas, and must’ve met my daughter Colleen.” Roisin smiled warmly, then looked away from Stacy and over at John. She nodded. “Nice t’see ye again.”

John started, and made a strangled choking sound. “You...remember me?” His tone was shocked, but contained a strange hopeful note.

“Can’ remember your name, and I can’ recall your face,” Roisin said idly. “It took me a while to recognize the Evil Eye around ye, and then it came runnin’ back t’me.”

John stared at her, absolutely stunned. Stacy, confused, glanced in between the two of them. “Um...so you two know each other?” she asked, trying to keep up a pleasant tone.

Roisin returned to chopping vegetables. “I suppose we do. Now why don’t you all get your things set up in the guest bedroom? It shoul’ be large enough for all o’you.”

“Oh! Oh! I can show them!” Nick said, grabbing Larkin by the hand and running out. He grabbed Stacy’s hand as well as he passed. “C’mon!”

“Ah! Alright, alright, slow down!” Stacy found herself being pulled down a hallway towards a set of stairs. She glanced back behind her to see John still standing there, frozen, staring at Roisin with a strange expression that she thought might be awe.

* * * * * * * * * *

Things settled into a routine fairly quickly. Stacy and the kids stayed in the guest bedroom of the Iontach house, while John returned to his tent, which he’d set up on a small patch of grass behind the house that wasn’t big enough to be called a yard. The Iontach family seemed friendly, but Stacy was still a bit wary. Of course Larkin seemed happy to hang out with Nick. The two of them made an energetic pair, running around the house and nearby area while Nick showed Larkin everything. Colleen didn’t seem to be home often. She was either at work or running that booth in the town square, which apparently served as an additional source of income. As far as Stacy could tell, Colleen was the only parent in the house; there wasn’t a Mr. Iontach anywhere to be seen.

Roisin sometimes seemed a bit...odd. In a way that couldn’t be explained by age. Stacy couldn’t forget that small interaction the older woman had with John. She kept trying to find the time, or the nerve, to ask Roisin what that was about, what she meant by the Evil Eye. But every time, her anxiety got the better of her. She tried asking John about it, but of course, he refused to say anything.

And besides, Stacy thought there might be something else she had to devote her attention to. Mathew had been quiet ever since arriving in town a few days ago. Very quiet. All he seemed to do was mope around in the guest bedroom listening to music. True, he did that before, but not nearly as often. She was starting to get concerned.

About four days after they’d settled in to stay with the Iontachs, Stacy headed up to the guest bedroom, finding the door closed. She knocked on the solid wood gently. “Hello? Anyone there?” There was no answer, but she knew Mathew was inside, so she pushed open the door and peered inside.

Mathew was lying on the queen-sized bed he’d been sharing with Larkin recently, staring at the ceiling. He was wearing his headphones, but Stacy knew he could still hear her.

She quietly walked in, stopping next to the bed. “Mind if I sit here, Mat?” She waited for Mathew to shrug in response before sitting down on the edge of the bed. The room was quiet for a bit. “Do you want to talk about anything?” she finally asked gently.

Mathew exhaled slowly. He blinked. “Mom,” he finally said. “Are we fucked?”

Stacy made a strangled choking noise. “M-Mathew, I’ve told you, that word isn’t allowed until you’re fifteen. But, um, anyway. What do you mean by that?”

He sighed, and reached up to rub his eyes. “I mean...there was that ghost...thing...in the first house we moved to. That made us move again. Then there was that thing pretending to be your friend. That made us move here. Are we just...just going to have...things...coming after us forever?” His voice went very quiet on that last question.

“Oh, honey,” Stacy said. “No, don’t worry. We’re going to be safe here.”

“But there’s something in the woods,” Mathew whispered, finally looking over at her. “Larkin saw it on our drive here. And John knows about it. And I think everyone here knows about it.”

“Well…” Stacy hesitated. “It’ll be fine as long as we don’t go in the forest, yeah? I think it’s stuck there.”

Mathew sighed again, and looked away.

“...Look.” Stacy scooted closer. “I know, this whole thing is...scary. It’s very scary. And honestly, it still feels kind of unreal. But we’re going to be alright, okay?”

“You don’t know that,” Mathew muttered.

“You’re right, I don’t.” She inched closer still. “But I do know that we’re one smart, brave family. We’ve been through a lot so far, and we can weather through more.” She gave him a small smile. “We’re gonna be okay. And I’ll make sure you and Larkin are safe, no matter what. I promise.”

A pause. Then: “Thanks, Mom,” Mathew said quietly. He was blinking furiously, eyes welling up.

“Is there anything I can do for you now? A snack or anything?”

“Nah, just tell me when dinner’s ready.”

“Will do, Mr. Mattykins.”

Mathew laughed a bit. “Mom, I’m not five.”

“I know, I know,” Stacy relented, grinning. “I just had to. I’ll see you later, okay?” She stood up, and headed out, leaving the door open. Mathew didn’t ask for her to close it.

* * * * * * * * * *

The next day, Colleen approached her while she was sitting in the living room, reading a book she’d picked up from a local shop. “Hey Stacy?” she asked. “I hate t’do this, but can you watch the yarn booth today? I just got called in for a shift.”

“Hmm? Oh. Um, sure.” Stacy slid a bookmark in between the pages. “Um, where do you work, by the way?”

“Hospital,” Colleen said absentmindedly. “Simon used t’work there, too.”

“Oh. Your...husband?” Stacy asked carefully.

“Yeah. He’s not with us anymore.”

“Yeah…” Stacy looked down. “My husband isn’t, either.”

“I figured.” Colleen’s tone was very dull, as it usually was. “How’d it happen?”

Stacy squeezed her fingers into fists. “Car crash. Drowsy driving.” Even though it was almost two years ago, she felt a lump in her throat. “Um...what about Simon?”

Colleen looked her dead in the eye. “He went into the woods a month before.” She fell quiet. Stacy shifted uneasily in her seat. “He was from out o’town. Like you guys. Anyway, the booth is pretty simple. Here’re all the things ye need.” She pointed to a couple canvas bags on the ground. “Set it up. Casheirin’ should be easy. Good luck.” And she disappeared out the front door.

“Oh. Uh...okay,” Stacy said, hurriedly standing up.

The booth was pretty simple to run. If a customer stopped by, be friendly. If they asked her who she was, she explained that she was new and staying with the Iontachs. Things proceeded quickly from there, and she closed up around seven, gathering up everything unsold and replacing it in the bags to drive back to the house.

Just as she was finishing packing up, she felt a chill run along the back of her neck. Immediately, she stopped, and looked around. The town square was pretty empty. And of the few people here, none of them were looking at her. But she could see, from a distance, a view of the forest, visible due to it being up on higher ground. Squinting at the forest, she took out her phone and opened up the camera, using it to zoom in on the trees. It was still hard to see anything, so far away. But...for a moment, maybe something moved. Maybe. She couldn’t be sure.

Shivering, she quickly headed back.

* * * * * * * * * *

Seven o’clock was already quite dark at this time of year. When she arrived back at the house, parking on the street and heading in, the entire street was bathed in shadows. Stacy hurried inside.

Roisin was sitting in the rocking chair, knitting and generally being the perfect image of a kindly old grandmother. She looked up when Stacy entered, and smiled. “Ah. Welcome back, Ms. Allen. How was the booth?”

“Um, good.” Stacy set the bags down, and was about to head up to the guest bedroom to look for the kids, but she hesitated and turned back. “Hey, um, Roisin. I have a question.”

“Hmm? Ask away, then.”

“So, this morning, Colleen said her husband, Simon, was from out of town,” Stacy said slowly. “And also, I think you said she was your daughter? But I was wondering about your last name, then. You’re all Iontachs, but how’s that possible? Did Colleen go back to her maiden name after her husband...passed?”

“Oh no, Simon took our name,” Roisin said cheerfully.

Stacy blinked. “Ah. So...is that a tradition here? Taking the wife’s last name?”

“No, not exactly,” Roisin continued, pausing in her knitting and focusing on Stacy. “The Iontach name is a powerful one, Ms. Allen. It is old, great, and magnificent. We’re descended from the magicians who settled this valley long, long ago. The only ones left who’re descended from them. So we know t’carry the name on. In marryin’, not takin’ the Iontach name is a, oh, how’s it said...a dealbreaker.”

“Oh. There are...magicians,” Stacy said slowly.

Roisin looked back at her knitting, needles clacking. “Well, perhaps not how ye think. Not like the wizards in fantasy, more like the witches that still exist today. Ye heard of Wicca?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Exactly. Same sort o’practices.”

“Oh.” Stacy hovered awkwardly for a moment. “So...would being descended from witches or whatever be part of the reason why you, uh...made that comment about an Evil Eye to John on our first day here?”

“That poor young man,” Roisin said, shaking her head. “Anyone wit’ the proper gift can tell just by lookin’ at him, yes?”

“Uh...I guess?” Stacy laughed nervously. “I mean, I have no idea what you’re talking about—”

“You don’?!” Roisin dropped her knitting and stared at Stacy in utter shock. “Oh jesus, I thought you knew. Your son, the one friends with Nick—I s’pose he gets his sight from his father, then.”

“Wait, what did you say?” That phrase was somehow...familiar. Hadn’t she heard someone say that recently?

“Those of us who know the truth instinct’vely,” Roisin explained. “We can see past the lies and illusions the creatures of the world keep up. I assumed Larkin—nice, strong name, by the way—I assumed he got his sight from you. After all, you are runnin’ here to stay away from one o’them, aren’ you?” The old woman squinted, giving Stacy a once-over. “Yes, ye’ve been marked, same as your friend. Well, not exactly the same. Yours is older, smelling of dust. An’ the hold on ye is quite a bit weaker. Quite a bit.”

“I—I—uh—I mean, yeah but—not—” Stacy stammered. All this new information was a bit much. Larkin could see these things? Her instinct was to balk at the notion, but then she remembered back in the house in Bronainise. Larkin had been the first one to see the thing in there, and had apparently been friendly with it...and he realized right away what Jaqueline was...but really? He got that from his father? “I mean...my husband was really just an average guy. A bit of a dork, but funny and energetic. He couldn’t have been involved in all...this.”

Roisin had begun knitting again. “Well, it’s not like he’d have told ye he coul’ see monsters, woul’ he? Or maybe he didn’ know, himself.” She shrugged. “Anyway, it’s not like it’s of any matter in the end. You’ve been marked all the same, an’ now you’re all here t’hide.”

“Okay, so, one last question,” Stacy hurried to say. “What...what do you mean by marked? Because that...doesn’t sound good.”

Roisin didn’t answer for a long while. She simply sat there, clacking her needles away. The silence went on for so long that Stacy sighed, and turned to leave. She was in the doorway when Roisin called out, “It means one o’them is int’rested in ye. For whatever end purpose. I’m sure you already know what yours is.”

Stacy hesitated in the doorway, then quickly left.

* * * * * * * * * *

She woke up in the middle of the night, gasping for air, a cold sweat covering her. Was there a pressure on her chest? Had the last few months been a dream? Was she back in that house? Her eyes were closed tight, but she had to know. She had to be sure. Dread poured into her stomach as she cracked open her eyelids—

There was no thing there. No thing staring at her from the foot of the small bed she was sleeping in. No thing lurking in the corner of the Iontachs’ guest bedroom. She let out an audible sigh of relief.

It was fine. There were no whispers hovering in between awake and asleep. In fact, there was no sound at all. The room was very quiet. Honestly, it was a bit odd. Usually Mathew snored a bit. Stacy rolled over to look at the larger bed on the other side of the room where the boys appeared to be fast asleep. Appeared to be. They could always be pretending. In which case, she’d better let them get back to sleep.

She started to roll back over, but paused. A weird something had glinted in the corner of her vision. Her eyes darted around the room, now on high alert as her heartbeat rose. Ah, there it was. A small bit of spider thread in the corner of the window, reflecting the moonlight outside, just visible through a gap in the curtains. See? It was fine. No need to worry.

Stacy closed her eyes and firmly told herself to go back to sleep. Even if dreamland wasn’t so appealing, she needed the rest.

The curtains fluttered in a silent wind.

* * * * * * * * * *

It rained a couple days later. It drizzled all through the cold morning, keeping everyone inside. Roisin showed Stacy how to make “real hot chocolate” (in her own words) on the stove for the three boys stuck in the house. Colleen still went to work; it seemed she was absent most days, leaving the house wearing blue scrubs and returning late at night. Larkin and Nick took a few old board games out of the closet, and managed to convince Mathew to join them.

The rain slowed into occasional droplets sometime in the afternoon, and Stacy grabbed her coat and headed out to the small patch of grass out back where John had pitched his tent. She hadn’t been seeing much of him lately, and she was a bit worried.

She hit on the side of the tent like she was knocking on a door, droplets of water getting her hands wet. Inside, John cried out. Movement rustled, and the tent entrance unzipped. “Can you please, please not do that?” John asked, sticking his head out.

“Sorry,” Stacy said, taking a step back. “Just wanted to, uh, see what was up with you. With the rain and everything, maybe it got wet out here.”

John shrugged. “I’ve been in worse weather. And with worse shelter than a tent, too.”

“Are you sure?” Stacy prodded. “Because you can come in the house, you know.” She hesitated. “I mean, unless you don’t like them or something. I’m not gonna make you.”

“They’re fine,” John said, rolling his eye.

“I mean, I just—Roisin knows you, so you’ve clearly met them before, I wouldn’t want to drag up old wounds or anything.”

“Stace, if you want to ask me what the deal is between me and the old lady, just ask, you don’t have to dodge around the subject.”

“...uhhh,” Stacy felt her face grow red with embarrassment. “So...you’ve been in this town before.”

“Foraois Hollow, yeah.” John scooted up close to the tent entrance and crossed his legs. “How do you think I knew it would be a safe place to hide from the thing in the red hood?”

“And there’s that, too,” Stacy added. “Don’t get me wrong, I am really glad we haven’t seen...that...in the week and a half we’ve been here. But why?” She glanced through the rainy skies, and pointed at the trees of the forest, up on the hills. The fog still lingered around their trunks. “Because of that? Is the forest, like, alive or something?”

“Or something,” John said casually. “Look, just understand that it’s really territorial, but it doesn’t come into town, so you’re good.”

“I—okay.” Stacy decided to drop it there for now. There was time to talk about that later. “Did you, uh, stay with these guys the first time you passed through, too? Or did you just know Roisin? Actually it’s probably that, otherwise Nick or Colleen would’ve said something—”

“No, I knew them,” John said. He was looking down at his lap, fingers picking at a hole in the knee of his jeans. “Didn’t know any of them really well, but they were nice enough to let me stay a few nights. Couldn’t stay long, cause this was before—” He suddenly stopped. “I-I wasn’t expecting any of them to recognize me. The fact that Roisin did is a miracle.”

“She said you were marked by this Evil Eye thing,” Stacy said, prodding gently. “That she remembered that. Apparently she has some sort of weird sight. Maybe the others do, too, but maybe they’re not as practiced at it?” It was a flimsy reason for why the other two Iontachs couldn’t remember John, but it was all she could come up with.

“She said that before, too,” John muttered, pulling a thread loose.

“Uh-huh.” Stacy nodded. “Um...I talked to her a few days ago, and she said that…” She hesitated to say it, but forced it out. “That I was somehow...marked...too. A-and that meant that something was...interested in me.” John didn’t say anything, still looking down. “It—it’s gotta be that thing from the house, right? Jaqueline—or that thing, whatever, it said as much. I mean, that’s why we’re here, isn’t it? Is...is that why you came here, before? To get away from whatever...it was that...?” She trailed off, realizing she was basically thinking out loud and not expecting an answer.

To be fair, John didn’t really seem that ready to give her an answer either way. He hadn’t moved, still pulling at the loose thread. Looking closer, his hands were now shaking. John took a deep breath, and looked up at Stacy. “Look...there’s not much to say about it. I was...I was on the run, came across a tiny town, and...found something in the forest. Found there were more...of them. Out there.” His voice lowered, barely audible. “And even they don’t want anything to do with me.”

Stacy was quiet. “I’m...sorry, John.”

“My name is ìŗĆºŷĻ.”

“Uh...sorry, I couldn’t catch that.”

“Nevermind.” John’s voice was heavy and tired. He backed up into the tent. “Thanks for saying I could come in. But I’ll just...just stay out here. See you later.” And he zipped the entrance back up.

“Um...see you.” Stacy turned and walked away, footsteps splashing in a puddle that marked the boundary of the grass and the paved stones that covered the rest of the house's “backyard.” She looked around at the rain pattering on the ground. Or...actually, there was no pattering to be heard. No splashing, either. Stacy blinked, and reached up to clear her ears. Soon after she did, the normal sounds of the world returned. That was...odd. Very odd. Was her hearing going? If it was, it was probably the result of stress. Or...was it something else?

She spun in a circle, looking for anything weird. But everything looked the same. Nobody was out except for her, not even driving about. Nothing was moving within eyeshot. Still, she felt uneasy as she headed back inside the house.

On the house’s roof, a loose shingle fell to the ground as if disturbed, yet it made no sound as it crashed and broke.

* * * * * * * * * *

The rain stopped by nightfall, leaving slick puddles that reflected the yellow light from the street lanterns. It was about ten o’clock. And Stacy was starting to grow a bit...concerned.

In the time she and the boys had been staying with the Iontachs, Colleen had always been home by nine thirty on the days she worked. It was possible that she’d had to stay late. Didn’t nurses often have to do that? But something didn’t sit right with that.

Larkin and Nick had gone to sleep, Mathew was hanging out in the house’s office, and Roisin was in her bedroom, getting ready to go to bed as well. Stacy was alone in the living room, playing a mindless bubble game on her phone and glancing at the front window every so often. Look back at the phone. Then at the window. At the phone. Then the window. Phone. Window. Phone. Wind—

Stacy gasped, almost dropping her phone. Colleen was staring at her through the window. She waved. Stacy waved back. And Colleen disappeared, opening the front door. “Stacy?” she asked.

“Y-yeah.” Stacy tried to laugh. “You scared me, jeez.”

“Sorry.” Colleen smiled easily. “Didn’t mean to.” She paused. “Hey, this might sound a bit strange, but I think I’ve found something you need to see.”

“Um...yeah, it does sound a bit strange,” Stacy said slowly. “What is it?”

Colleen glanced over her shoulder. “Well, I think it has to do with why you’re here. What you’re running from. But I need you to see it to make sure.”

Stacy perked up, shoving her phone in her pocket. “Okay, but what is it?”

Colleen hissed through her teeth. “Difficult to explain. And that’s saying something, considering what I’ve seen. It’s...dusty. Strange in this rain, isn’t it? Smells odd, too.”

Dust. Stacy stiffened. “Hang on a second, I need to get something.” She stood up and quickly headed upstairs, sneaking into the guest bedroom and doing her best trying not to wake up Larkin, who should be fast asleep by this time. She opened the dresser drawer and pulled out her handgun and holster, putting it on. Glancing over at Larkin, she sneaked back out and headed down.

“A gun?” Colleen was standing in the exact same place as before. “Didn’t know you had one. Isn’t that a bit unsafe, with the children and all?”

“At this point, it’s less safe to have one than to not,” Stacy muttered, pulling on her coat. “Alright. Lead the way.”

Colleen smiled, a quick movement like someone was pulling on her face to make it. “Great. We’d better be careful, though, it’s a bit...odd. These things could be dangerous, but I’m sure you know that.” She turned and walked quickly out the door, Stacy hurrying to follow her.

“It’s some ways away,” Colleen said, briskly walking down the street. “Came across it on my walk home.”

“Okay. A-anything else?” Stacy asked, panting a bit. Colleen was really walking quick. She didn’t know she was that fast. “Like...what size is it?”

“Oh, about yea big,” Colleen pantomimed a box. “The size of a human head, I’d say.”

Stacy nodded, and fell silent as the two of them turned a street corner. She didn’t exactly appreciate that comparison; it made her imagine all sort of gruesome things this surprise could be.

“Just a block or two farther.” Colleen sped up more. Stacy broke into a light jog. How was Colleen simply walking this fast?

They rounded another corner, and Stacy immediately noticed something on the sidewalk, sitting in a circle of light caused by the street lanterns. “That’s a box,” she muttered. “It was difficult to explain that it was a box?”

“It’s a bit more complicated than that,” Colleen said She’d stopped walking, and now looked reluctant to get closer.

Stacy took a deep breath, and walked up to the box. It was a cardboard cube, covered in the gray dust that had plagued the house in Bronainise. A sharp, alcoholic smell was coming from it. She reached out, and stopped. Instead she grabbed her gun and leaned forward, prodding the cardboard lid with the end of the barrel. Nothing seemed to happen, but she still didn’t touch it. Carefully, she used the gun to push the lid off the box, dust falling to the wet ground, but not sticking. She leaned forward and peered into the now open box. And frowned. “There’s...nothing inside.”

“Oh? How odd,” Colleen said from her spot at the edge of the light.

Standing up, Stacy looked around. There wasn’t anyone nearby. Or anything, really. And she couldn’t hear anything either. Which...actually, that was kind of strange. Her eyes locked on a tree in the distance, leaves blowing in the wind. And she could feel the same breeze against her face. But she couldn’t hear it. She turned her attention to Colleen, who was standing almost perfectly still. “Have you seen anything...weird around?” she asked slowly. “Besides the box.”

“Not a thing,” Colleen said, shaking her head. “Why? Anything in particular you’re concerned about?”

“Uh...not really.” She was just noticing it now, but Colleen was speaking a bit...differently. Was it just her, or had her accent faded? “Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?” Colleen asked politely.

“I...exactly. I don’t hear anything.” Stacy paused. “Wait a second.” She tilted her head. There were faint strains of...was that music? Where was it coming from? She tightened her hold on the gun as she tried to find the source of it, turning around. She stopped turning once she realized it...was it coming from Colleen? Stacy froze.

Colleen tilted her head. “Is something wrong, Stacy?”

“Um...so, h-how’d you know that this box was related to me?” Stacy asked slowly.

“Oh, I had a feeling,” Colleen said dismissively. “Misery has this feel to it, you understand?”

Her heart skipped a beat. “What did you say?” she asked breathlessly.

“You heard me.”

Misery loves company. That was what the thing in the red hood had said. And there was something about the way it was said...and the way Colleen said it now...Stacy stepped back and squinted at Colleen. No, it was definitely her. Her appearance wasn’t fading, details turning to vague impressions of a face like Jaqueline’s had. But she wasn’t acting normal either. Standing too stiff. Stacy took another step back.

“You’re looking a bit nervous, Stacy,” Colleen took a step forward. “Maybe you should calm down. Take a break.”

Stacy started to raise her gun, but stopped halfway through. This still was Colleen, wasn’t it? She couldn’t shoot her.

As if she knew this, Colleen smiled. “No need to be harsh. After all, doesn’t she have a kid? A gunshot would put her ability to provide for him at risk.”

Stacy took a few more steps back, chills running down her spine as she managed to point the gun. But still, she couldn’t do it.

Something glinted in the street light. Stacy’s eyes darted towards it, looking for it again. She couldn’t quite grasp it, but it was hovering above Colleen. What was it? Her mind went to some sort of thread, but that was impossible. Except that...it certainly appeared to be some sort of string, rising up into the air, heading toward the street lantern above her head.

Another set of chills ran down her skin. With trepidation, she looked up.

Her eyes widened as she tried to scream, but no sound came out.

* * * * * * * * * *

The Iontachs didn’t have much in the way of computer tech. Mathew figured John would like that; he seemed to have a thing about that. But it meant that the only place Mathew could watch YouTube was on the clunky desktop in the office. He sat in the tall desk chair and kicked his feet, headphones plugged into the speakers as he looked for a new let’s play to watch.

The door opened, and Mathew jumped and spun around. Stacy was peeking into the room. “Uh, hi Mom,” he said.

“Hey Mathew,” she said cheerfully. “Do you know where your brother is?”

“Uh...isn’t he still in bed?” Larkin wasn’t really the type to try and stay up late. Though maybe that would change when he got older.

“Ohhh.” Stacy nodded. “That would make sense.” She backed up, then reappeared in the doorway. “While I go get him, do you mind going out to the car?”

Mathew slowly unplugged his headphones. “Um. Are we going somewhere?”

“Yes,” Stacy sighed. “I’m sorry, but we’re going to have to. You know why, yes?” She paused meaningfully. “Anyway, get ready and go on out. I’ll be there soon with your brother.” She backed up and disappeared for good.

Mathew slung his headphones around his neck and pushed the desk chair backwards. He grabbed his phone and charger from where it was plugged into the walk, checking to see if it was full. It was, so he put it and the cord into his hoodie pocket. He swiveled around, ready to stand up. And then he didn’t. His heart had sped up, stomach starting to squirm. What happened to cause this? Were those monsters back? He physically shuddered as an image of the thing in the red hood twisting its head into place flashed in his mind. If that was the case, they’d better hurry.

He went right out to the car, climbing into the back seat of the unlocked van. Staring out the window at the rainy street, his eyes wandered over to the alley that would lead around the back of the house. Was John going to come with them? He did the last two times. But then again, he wasn’t really involved with this, was he? Well, a little bit. He did save them from the thing in the last city. But the thing hadn’t been...after him. So maybe there was no reason for him to come with. Still, Mathew thought John was kind of cool...you know, for an adult.

The door opened again, and Stacy placed a sleeping Larkin, wearing pajamas borrowed from Nick, in the other seat. “There we are. Oh, we need the buckle, don’t we?” She slid the seatbelt across him.

“You didn’t wake him up?” Mathew asked.

“No no, let’s let him sleep.” Stacy closed the door and walked around to the driver’s seat, quickly climbing in and starting the car. “And here we go.”

The van rolled down the dark streets of the city, tracing the same route it had taken on the way into town two weeks ago. Mathew stared idly out the window as they passed beyond the town limits and up into the forest. Mist curled across the ground, forming strange shapes. He shifted uneasily. This place was freaky. Wasn’t fog supposed to disappear after rain? Maybe he was getting that wrong. In any case, this just felt weird. He glanced over at Larkin, still fast asleep. Quietly, he leaned over and shook his shoulder gently.

After a bit of this, Larkin stirred. He blinked open his eyes and looked around, obvious confusion causing his face to scrunch up. “Mat,” he whispered, leaning closer. “What’s goin’ on?”

“I don’t know,” Mathew whispered back. “Mom said that we had to leave and we all got in the car and drove away.”

“Aw.” Larkin’s face fell. “What happened?”

“Dunno.” Mathew shrugged. “Ask Mom.”

Larkin leaned around the seat of the car to look at Stacy in the driver’s seat. She didn’t look back at him, eyes fixed on the road. Larkin’s eyes widened a bit, and he scooted a bit closer to Mathew. “We should get out of the car,” he whispered.

“What? Why?” Mathew asked.

“Mom’s being...weird,” Larkin said, glancing back over at her.

“You’re weird,” Mathew muttered.

“No you.”

The two of them straightened. Mathew looked out the window again. Okay, if they wanted to get out of the car, then obviously they needed it to stop first. He got an idea. Doubling over, he groaned and clutched his stomach. “Mooom, I think I’m getting carsick.”

Stacy didn’t even look at him.

“Mom?” Mathew leaned forward. “Mom, I’m gonna throw up.”

Still no response. A sudden chill ran down Mathew’s spine. He looked over at Larkin in a silent plea for help. Larkin thought about it. Then he unbuckled his seat belt, stood up, and screamed right into Stacy’s ear. Yet she didn’t even flinch.

“Shit,” Mathew said under his breath.

“Don’t say that, it’s a bad word,” Larkin said automatically, then moved on. “What d’we do?”

Mathew glanced out the window again, then turned his attention to the door itself. It wasn’t locked...and Mathew knew that their van didn’t have a child lock...if it was necessary, he could technically...

Deciding it was necessary, Mathew undid his seatbelt, pushed the car door open, and jumped out.

Luckily, the car wasn’t going too fast. But he still fell hard, skin scraping on the cracked asphalt and bruising his bones on the ground as he tumbled for a good while. Eventually he lost momentum, staring up at the branches overhead and trying to get his breath. “Owww…” he groaned. Well, he would never be doing that again.

He sat up, and looked down the road, seeing the red tail lights of the car even through the mist. Those lights were moving farther away, but then they stopped. The car started to back up, but then one of the doors opened and Larkin darted out, running farther into the forest. The car braked suddenly, and Stacy jumped out. “Get back here!” she shrieked, running after Larkin. Mathew watched this happen, feeling a bit disconnected to the situation. It was like something from a movie, or a cutscene from a game. Not quite real.

And then he saw a shadow move. His eyes naturally glanced toward it—up toward it. He let out a soft gasp as he realized the shadow was on top of the car. Had it been there the whole time?!

The shadow stopped, and he had the sudden feeling it was looking at him. Mathew scrambled to his feet and ran, heading deeper into the woods.

Dark trees passed by him, almost indistinguishable from the shadows coating the forest floor. Mathew tripped over roots and undergrowth that was invisible beneath the white mist. Branches caught on his hoodie, but he kept running, heart pounding. What was happening?! What was wrong with his mom?! What was up with that shadow?

After a while, he realized he had no idea where he was, and he slowed to a stop. Panting, he tried to look for anything distinguishable, but everything was darkness and trees and mist. His mind immediately went to wolves and bears in the woods. He’d have no idea they were coming. And then he remembered that shadow, and the things he’d heard in town about the forest, and his stomach started to sink. What was he doing out here? What was he thinking?

And then the image of Larkin running in the other direction returned to him, and he felt a sudden blast of cold fear seep into his bones. He’d left Larkin in these woods. Alone, with who knows what else here. Immediately, he turned around, pivoting on his feet to try and keep track of where he was, and headed back. Eventually he’d reach the road, right?

No, apparently not.

He’d been stumbling in the dark, trying to keep a straight line for what felt like twenty minutes, and he finally had to conclude that he was lost. Frustrated, he punched the nearest tree, then cried out. This was the worst. It was an actual nightmare. He hurt all over from jumping out of the car, he was lost in a strange forest, his mom was acting weird and scary, and Larkin was somewhere out there alone. Tears started to choke his throat. He wiped his eyes.

“Are you lost?”

Mathew cried out, flailing for a moment before pressing his back to the tree he’d punched. He looked around, eyes straining to see anything. The only thing that was really visible in the pitch-black forest was the fog...which was actually a little strange. His vision traced the patterns in the mist, watching it swirl. It seemed to be swirling around a particular spot. No...there was something there that it was spinning around.

“You look a little lost.”

Mathew jumped again. The voice was coming from the thing in the middle of the swirling mist. He looked up, trying to get his eyes to adjust to the darkness. If he had to guess, it looked like a person. It was vaguely shaped that way, at least. “Um...maybe?” he said, voice small.

“You’re just a child. What are you doing in the woods?” The person-shaped shadow walked closer, looking like it was gliding across the ground.

“Uh...I’m...my mom...” Mathew tilted his head back to look at the shadow’s face. That head wasn’t exactly person-shaped. It looked more like an animal...but it might’ve been a mask. “She, uh...drove us out here, and, uh...”

“‘Us’?” The shadow prompted.

“My brother and me,” Mathew said. Was it weird that he wasn’t freaking out? He was a bit on edge, but shouldn’t he be panicking more? “He...ran the other way, I’m—”

“You’re looking for your brother.” The shadow flashed a smile. No, it had been smiling the whole time. “I can help you find him, if you’d like.”

Mathew hesitated. Little alarm bells were going off in his head, and he could practically hear his mom and dad’s voices reminding him to never go anywhere with a stranger. “I don’t need help. But, uh, if you were to say where he is out loud, I, um...wouldn’t stop you.”

“Hmm?” The shadow tilted its head. “I think you do need help.”

“No, I-I’m fine,” Mathew said, voice cracking. He started to edge around the tree. “I’m going to, uh, go now.” And he pushed away, quickly walking in the other direction. The hairs on the back of his neck told him the shadow was following him.

“It’s very dark out, isn’t it?” The mist was swirling faster, rising from around Mathew’s knees to around his hips.

“Uh...yeah,” Mathew said.

“And you’re going in the wrong direction. Your brother went north.”

Mathew stopped walking. “How do you know that?”

Something grabbed the back of his hoodie and started pulling. “We should head this way.”

“H-hey!” Mathew squirmed, reaching back to try and loosen the grip. But his hands felt nothing but the mist. “Let go!”

“Why?”

“I don’t—I don’t want to be pulled!”

“You want to find your brother, though.”

“Yes, but don’t—I’ll just follow you, okay? Let go!”

“Sounds perfect.” The thing let go of him, and he whirled around to see it standing very close, looking down at him and grinning. The mist was barely moving now, dropping down to hover around his knees. “Come on. This way.” The person-shaped thing turned and headed to the left, leaving the mist agitated in its wake. Mathew hesitated. He took a single step in the other direction, but the mist rose into the air, tendrils reaching out. It felt like it shoved him away. Mathew gasped gently, then hurried to follow the thing. Clearly there wasn’t much of an option here.

The forest was oddly quiet. He could hear his footsteps, rustling the undergrowth. But nothing else. And he couldn’t see anything either. “Um...is there any way there could be...light?” he asked tentatively. Maybe asking the strange forest creature questions was a bad idea, but he was tired of stumbling around.

“You tend to carry lights in your pockets now.” Luckily, the thing didn’t seem to mind.

“What? Oh.” Mathew reached into his hoodie pocket and pulled out his phone, switching on the flashlight. A circle of white light lit up the forest, bouncing off the mist. He scanned the nearby surroundings, and—

“Aaak!” He jumped back, fumbling to keep hold of his phone. Once it was securely in his grasp, he pressed a hand to his chest to try and calm down. “Mom?!”

Stacy looked a bit of a mess, a few stray leaves in her hair and dirt on her coat like she’d fallen down. And there seemed to be the faint sound of...music coming from nearby. Staticky, tinny music, like it was on an old record. Instead of acknowledging her son at all, she looked at the shadow with wide eyes. “I’ve lost the smaller one.”

“Really?” Though the thing didn’t stop grinning, it sounded a bit disappointed.

“She isn’t fast!” Stacy protested. “Or at least not faster than the smaller one!”

“You should’ve dropped her and grabbed him yourself.”

“What’s done is done,” Stacy said dismissively. “Where did he go?”

“This way,” the shadow said, a bit smugly.

“What’s going on?!” Mathew asked, voice rising. He tried to point the flashlight beam at the shadow, but barely caught the edge of something—fabric or fur or more mist, he couldn’t tell—before it started off in another direction. “Mom? What’s happening? Where’s Larkin?”

Stacy didn’t answer him, following after the shadow. Mathew stared after her. Tears started to well in his eyes, and he blinked them away. This was not his mom. But he still followed after her, hoping that if they found Larkin, he’d be able to...he didn’t know exactly what. Do something.

They walked for a few minutes more. Mathew kept scanning the forest with his flashlight, lighting up the mist around them. The strange music seemed to now be coming from all around, a bit louder now. Until suddenly, the shadow stopped.

“What’s wrong?” Stacy asked.

“I was too focused on the boy,” the shadow said, its voice low. “I didn’t notice it.”

“Notice what?” Stacy said impatiently.

“Uh, it’s probably talking about me,” a familiar voice said. Mathew gasped, and spun around. His flashlight beam landed on two figures, one taller and one small. “Oh jesus, be careful with that,” John said, blinking in the sudden light. “You could blind someone.”

“John? What’re you doing here?” Mathew asked. He tilted his light down a bit, now looking at the smaller figure standing half-behind the man. “Hey, Lark.”

“Hi Mat,” Larkin said, waving a bit. He glanced at Stacy and the person-shaped shadow, and shrank back a bit.

“You shouldn’t be here,” the shadow hissed.

“Yet here I am,” John said casually. “Anyway, Mathew, I’m here because I noticed your mom leaving for some reason. Then coming back and grabbing you two, without saying anything to anyone. Not like her, y’know? Then I noticed the reason for such out-of-character behavior.” He glanced over at Stacy, then moved his attention upwards, into the branches of the trees above her. “You shouldn’t be here either. Isn’t Forest Guardian here supposed to be, like, super territorial?”

“There are exceptions to every rule,” Stacy said plainly.

“Get out,” the shadow snarled, still glaring at John.

“Fucking make me, why don’t you?!” John snapped. “Go ahead. Throw me out of here with your freaky fog.” He waved at the nearby mist, which twisted out of the way. It was like it didn’t want to touch him. No, it definitely didn’t want to touch him. There was a small circle of clear area around him, free of mist. Larkin was standing barely inside the clearing, holding onto John’s jacket like it was a lifeline. “No, you can’t. Cause you’re afraid. That’s the one fucking perk I get with this, and you can bet your ass I’m gonna use it. If you have one.” He laughed, then looked back over at Mathew. “Are you alright?” He asked, voice softer.

“Uh...yeah,” Mathew said. “Just...confused. And freaked out.”

“You jumped out of a car,” Larkin reminded him.

“I mean, yeah, but I got better—”

Stacy growled, and lunged forward, grabbing Mathew by the arm. He yelped, and tried to push her away, but her grip was iron. “We can just get the two of them, right?” she said in a suddenly raspy voice.

“It wants all three,” the shadow said.

“Can’t we grab the smaller one after dropping off these two?”

“Oh my god, this is still to do with the thing in the house, isn’t it?!” John kicked the ground. “Jesus! How far is it gonna follow her? Is it even really worth it at that point?”

“Oh, you would know, wouldn’t you?” the shadow drawled.

“Let go!” Mathew screeched, now slapping Stacy’s arm with his free hand. He tried kicking her shin, but Stacy might as well have been a statue. “Mom! What’s wrong with you?! You’re—you’re scaring me!”

Stacy blinked. Something in her eyes seemed to flicker, and her grip loosened. Just a bit, but Mathew managed to pull away, falling onto the ground. He was already running before he even got to his feet, and soon was standing next to Larkin and John. Larkin immediately switched to clinging to him.

“What was that?!” The shadow hissed, now looking into the branches above Stacy’s head.

“Some strong emotion,” Stacy said in a strangled voice. She was shaking slightly. The still-playing music was slower, a bit distorted. “I have it under control now.”

John stepped out in front of the two younger boys. “No, no, we’re not doing this. You don’t have anyone under control. You’re going to let her go and they’re going to leave here all fine and happy.”

“Or what?” The shadow asked. The mist rose, reaching Larkin’s shoulders and Mathew’s waist. It spun in hypnotizing, agitated patterns. The music distorted further, now sounding hellish.

John hesitated, and said nothing. Mathew looked between him and Stacy. There had to be something they could do about this. Why was his mom acting like this? And why was everyone talking to the tree branches? Was there something up there? Curious, Mathew raised his phone, pointing the flashlight into the branches above Stacy’s head. “Holy shit!” He gasped, nearly dropping the phone.

It looked like a person. Sort of. More like something made to look like a person. With strings dangling from limbs and spirals where eyes should be. It was crouched in the tree branches, and as the light shined on it, it scurried over to another tree, the strings tangling and untangling. Stacy walked with it, always standing beneath it.

John’s eyes widened, and he turned to the boys, pulling them close. “Okay, I got an idea,” he whispered. “But you two need to run when I say to, alright? Go straight that way, eventually you’ll hit the road. And watch out for the mist, okay?”

Larkin nodded, but Mathew just gaped. “What?”

“Just do it, okay?” John hissed, turning around to face the shadow and Stacy. “Okay, so you’re hiding in the trees like a coward. Good to know.”

“Who said I was hiding?” Stacy hissed.

“Oh yeah, also you’re using someone else’s voice. Real brave there.”

The shadow snarled. “Not all of us are capable of the same feats, ĸø¹ŭ§. And not everything is as lucky as you are.”

“Yes, I’m very lucky,” John said darkly. “Which is why—run!”

Larkin caught on immediately, grabbing Mathew, still a bit confused, by the hand and running in the direction John had pointed earlier. Behind them they heard an animalistic scream, and the music rose in volume and speed. Mathew glanced over his shoulder, catching a glimpse of John starting to climb a tree. Then he saw the shadow looking after them and he faced front again, picking up the pace.

Around them, the mist rose and thickened, covering both their heads. Breathing became difficult, like trying to breathe with your face buried in a pillow. They tripped over unseen obstacles on the forest floor, tree trunks coming out of nowhere to block their progress. Mathew gripped Larkin’s hand tight. They were still going straight, weren’t they? It was hard to tell. It felt like something was grabbing them—like there were hands in the mist, made of the mist, snatching at their clothes and yanking them off course. But the music was growing quieter, more distant. So they had to be making progress.

Suddenly, Mathew felt the forest floor beneath his feet turn to hard asphalt. The grip of the mist lessened, becoming a little less thick, though tendrils still wrapped around them to pull them back.

“Okay, the car has to be here somewhere, right?” Mathew panted.

“Look!” Larkin pointed to their right. Two yellowish lights were barely visible through the fog.

“Great, let’s go.” The two of them stumbled through the mist until the front of the van was visible. Mathew put his phone back in his pocket and put his hand on the car, walking around the side. “Here we are, front seat,” he muttered, pulling open the door to the passenger’s seat. “In you go.”

“Larkins first,” Larkin said cheerfully.

“It’s ‘ladies first,’ actually. I didn’t know you were a lady.”

“I could be. I’d be a very pretty lady.” Larkin hopped into the car and climbed over the seat into the back. “You wouldn’t be. You’d be too sad and weird.”

“Well you’d be too tiny and weird,” Mathew started climbing in as well. “Though I guess—” Something grabbed his ankle and he screamed. He looked behind him, but saw nothing except more mist, spinning and twisting. The thing around his ankle started pulling, and he grabbed the edge of the seat to brace himself. But it was persistent. He shook his leg and tried to pull himself in. Larkin gasped, and grabbed his arm, helping to pull him inside. They made slow progress, but he felt more things wrapping around his legs. “Let go of me!” He yelled, kicking his legs. With one final yank, he tumbled inside, and immediately turned around to slam the door shut.

“Oh my god,” Larkin whispered. “Are you okay, Mat?”

“Y-yeah, fine,” Mathew said, pressing a hand to his chest and feeling his heartbeat. He looked out the car windows, seeing nothing but fog. “Um...now what?”

“Do we wait for John or Mom?” Larkin asked.

“I...I guess so.” Mathew paused. “Oh, she left her keys in the car.”

“Mat, you can’t drive,” Larkin said, poking him.

“I can in, like, two years.”

“But we’re not in two years, we’re now.”

“Look, all I’m saying is I could probably figure it out in an emergency.”

The two of them fell silent, looking at the mist outside the car. Minutes passed. “Poor faces,” Larkin muttered.

“What are you talking about?” Mathew asked, looking at him.

“The faces in the fog. I mean, sometimes there’s hands too. But mostly faces.” Larkin pointed out the window, tapping the glass.

Mathew squinted. Then he gasped. There were vague faces in there, appearing in swirls then melting back into the fog. “Oh god. It’s like soul sand. That’s creepy.”

“No, it’s sad,” Larkin insisted. “Cause the demon with the cat face probably put them there.”

“Uh...yeah, probably.” Staring out at the mist, Mathew sat straight up. “Wait a second. There’s...there’s something there,” he whispered. Something was moving the mist around, disturbing it and causing tendrils to move about. “Hang on.” Mathew started looking through the car, pulling open the glove box. There had to be something to use as a weapon, didn’t there? Something heavy, or—

A hand pressed against the driver’s side window, another one waving away the fog. Mathew jumped. Stacy’s face slowly came into view, pressing against the glass. Her eyes widened as she saw Mathew and Larkin inside, both huddled as far away from her as possible. She raised her hands, gave a smile, and slowly opened the driver’s door and slid inside. “Um...hey, pumpkins,” she said softly.

“Mom?” Mathew asked, voice squeaking.

“Yeah, it’s me, it’s...I’m so sorry.” Stacy covered her mouth with her hand. “I didn’t mean—that wasn’t me, I would never ever do anything like—I didn’t want to scare you, I—”

Mathew stared at her. Was his mom...crying? Well, he supposed that wasn’t too odd. She cried when the news about their dad came in, and many times after that, staying up late at night with a bottle. She never wanted either of them to see it. “Mom…” he said slowly. “It’s okay.”

“Yeah, it wasn’t your fault,” Larkin said, slowly scooting closer. “It was that freaky puppet thing.”

Stacy wiped at her eyes. “Thank, boys,” she whispered. “We...we should get out of here. I think the fog is getting even thicker.” And she reached down to start the car.

“What about John?” Mathew asked.

“He can handle himself,” Stacy said patiently. She glanced out the side window. “Those things won’t bother him. But they will bother us.”

The car rolled forward. Stacy gripped the steering wheel tight, eyes wide and staring out the front. They weren’t going that fast, but for the limited visibility, it was as quick as they could go without worrying about running off the road.

It felt like forever before they finally broke out of the thick fog. As soon as they were clear, Stacy hit the gas, and the van shot forward. Mathew and Larkin glanced at each other, then quickly put their seatbelts on. “Mom,” Mathew finally said. “This is...this is because of the ghost thing from the house, right?”

Stacy didn’t answer for a bit. Then she nodded. “Yes, I think it is.” She laughed drily. “I guess they all know each other, or something.” She paused. “Don’t worry. We’re...we’re going to go farther away this time. It’ll be fine.”

“Mom,” Mathew said. “Don’t...”

The silence filled the car for a moment. “Don’t what, Mat?” Stacy asked.

Mathew let out a long breath. “Don’t...do that again.”

She smiled sadly. “I’ll be more careful next time. I promise.”

* * * * * * * * * *

Two days later, a mom and her two kids were standing on the deck of a ferry, watching the gray clouds overhead. Stacy sighed. She would’ve preferred to fly back home, back to the town they’d lived in before they knew anything about things in houses or forests. Bad memories be damned. But her savings were quickly running dry, and the flight over an entire ocean would’ve cost a lot more. “You two doing okay?” she asked.

Mathew had his headphones on, listening to music on his phone. He nodded. Larkin was in the process of sitting down and poking his head through the railings to look down at the water below, giving a quick thumbs-up. Both of them were wearing new outfits she’d bought at the last town.

“Good, good.” Stacy sighed, looking back at land. It was slowly shrinking into the distance. She folded her arms, feeling the handle of her gun hidden beneath her coat. “We’re all...good.” They all went silent and watched the shore fade away.

#jacksepticeye #jacksepticeye fanfiction #jacksepticegos #septic egos #tw: horror #marvin the magnificent #jameson jackson #brigid writes fanfiction #horrorseptics

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thebibliomancer · 4 years

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Essential Avengers: Avengers #216: “... To Avenge the Avengers!”

February, 1982

"Avenge us, Tigra! The Molecule Man must die!”

Eesh, the Avengers plus Silver Surfer have gone full Hamlet’s Dad on Tigra and she’s gonna cat Molecule Man and his plush himself to death. But he’s ready for it.

But why? Well...

Last time: Silver Surfer inadvertently gave Molecule Man the idea to eat Earth. The Avengers and the Surfer teamed up to stop him but he just Molecule Manned their sweet gear into nothing, captured them all, and then stomped them under a giant boot-o-matic crusher! Except Tigra who he kept around because he wanted someone to talk at and because Tigra had claimed that she liked him!

This time: “Tigra... the Last Avenger!”

Nice touch that the book name inside the book has been changed to match even if the cover hasn’t.

That is a tough hat to wear. Did you know its only been a little over a week since she joined the team?

And in that time she got thrown into space by an Elf-Queen, watched a founding Avenger have an emotional breakdown and try to kill his friends to make them like him again, had her soul set on fire, been repeatedly harassed in public, and watched the whole team be killed with her life only being spared because she begged for her life!

Is this the worst week and change in Avengers history? IT MIGHT WELL BE!

“She was spared. The fear of death has drained away now, leaving only emptiness behind. She has never felt so alone.”

This narration set in the same panel where Molecule Man is all but slapping the giant boot and going ‘this bad boy can crush so many fucking Avengers in it.’

Well really, its more like

Molecule Man: “Well, cat-lady, they’re dead! Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, and that Silver Surfer guy -- squished flat by my giant boot-o-matic crusher! You know, I made this thing out of molecules from a scrapyard! Yessir, I believe in recycling!”

But that’s about the same level of dissonance between jolly goofus villain rambling and hollow despair.

Anyway, Molecule Man calls her out on being such a bummer because she’s moping over there when he’s feeling good about killing the Avengers and really Tigra try to consider how he feels geez.

So she shakes off the despair and asks hey what exactly is Molecule Man going to do with her?

Tigra: “Am I going to be your mate or...”

Molecule Man: “What? Nah! I never got along with girls! I mean, you know... that way! Yessir, mom always warned me about... that! And she was right! You can be my friend! No! Make that -- my pet! Here, kitty, kitty!”

Wow.

That. That dodged a bullet in a cool Matrix bullet time way right into another bullet.

Let’s please not get too creepy with this, huh? You listening to me, comic published nearly forty years ago? Let’s not get creepy!

Molecule Man decides to be a responsible pet owner and feed his pet. He can control molecules so obviously it should be no trouble to just rearrange them into any configuration he--

Okay, its apparently really hard to make food! Way too complicated!

He’s going to be an irresponsible pet owner and not feed Tigra. And meanwhile he’s going to chow down on some undifferentiated mush or possibly a pile of dust. Its all molecules so its all the same to him.

Tigra didn’t even want food but asks him where the bathroom is.

Molecule Man: “Bathroom? Hmm... well, I really don’t understand how plumbing works, so I couldn’t make a bathroom! If you want, though, I could sort of fake it...”

Tigra: “No, I’ll be all right! i just feel a little sick...”

Molecule Man: “So go be sick for a while! I’ve got to get started on my little project anyway! If I’m going to eat this stupid planet -- I’ve got to prepare by clearing away all the living things from a few square miles of land.”

And he gets started! A giant ridge of land just peels up from the ground, like Molecule Man is skinning a fruit before eating. Also a volcano erupts. Pretty sure there weren’t any volcanoes in New Jersey before now.

Fairly sure.

Outside the dome, thankfully the army has been evacuating everyone in a fifty-mile radius or else a lot of people would be dead. VOLCANO.

Then the Fantastic Four arrive.

Yayyyyy! Oh whoa whoa, Fantastic Fourrr!

They’ve got the best Molecule Man mashing record so they’re here to do what they do do.

Which in this context is fail like champs.

Ben Grimm the Thing tries to shatter the dome with a punch and no dice. Then Human Torch cranks up to nova flame and applies the heat of a sun on one little spot on the dome.

Johnny about wears himself out doing it and still no result.

Guess Iron Man, Thor, and Silver Surfer > a pinpoint miniature sun.

Meanwhile inside, Molecule Man tells Tigra hey get a load of this. And then he levitates a couple billion gallons of water from the Delaware River and dumps it on the Fantastic Four, plus the army, washing them away.

Invisible Woman: “Reed, it -- it doesn’t seem possible!”

Mr. Fantastic: “Everything is made of molecules, Sue! Anything is possible for the Molecule Man!”

Molecule Man far too hax.

But meanwhile, gasp, the Avengers weren’t actually all killed in a book with their name on it! This is unprecedented!

And Silver Surfer is ready to explain their unlikely survival of giant crushing boot.

See, Silver Surfer wasn’t quite as knocked unconscious as the three Avengers so he played possum. When Molecule Man put the Avengers plus Silver Surfer in the crushing boot and when it was just about to crush, Silver Surfer used the Power Cosmic to disintegrate the bottom part of the boot so that the Avengers and him fell to a lower floor. Completely uncrushed!

So that’s good.

The bad is that Silver Surfer has to report that Tigra is still in Molecule Man’s clutches.

The awkward is that Iron Man and Thor lost their armor and hammer respectively so Cap is like ‘wait, what are Tony Stark and Perfectly Normal Dr. Donald Blake doing here??’

So Tony and Don come clean about his secret ID.

Tony Stark, Actually Iron Man: “I feel a little foolish about keeping that secret from you till now! I’m sure Don feels the same way...”

Donald Blake, Dr. Thor: “Right, Tony...”

So now Cap is in on the secret which previously bound Tony and Don together as the Best Friends Avengers Who Aren’t Beast and Wonder Man.

Remember when they discovered each other’s secret IDs? Good times. Well, weird times. That was the issue when that hates-robots group suicide bombed Vision for dating a meat woman.

Also, Tony was only wearing underwear under the Iron Man armor so Don gave him his suit jacket to wear as a loincloth. Mighty nice of him.

Silver Surfer has just been standing on the sides not caring about all this secret ID nonsense or personal drama so he chimes in to point out that Molecule Man is going to eat the planet unless they stop him.

Cap decides that he and the Surfer have to strike before Molecule Man realizes they’re alive. Tony and Don have the important mission to hide somewhere safe.

Tony and Don object to being sidelined. Strongly.

Tony: “You think Iron Man is just a suit of armor, Cap? Is that what you’re saying?”

Don: “I found this rod to use as a makeshift cane! It won’t change me into a thunder god, but it’ll help me get around -- if only to draw fire!”

Tony: “Like it or not, we’re with you!”

Don: “The Avengers stand assembled, Captain America! Now, lead us!”

Cap: “All right! I get the message! I should have known better than to think you’d -- I mean, you two are the best...”

Tony: “Save it, Cap! We’ve got work to do!”

Aww.

This is everything I could have hoped for out of secret ID reveal. Cap starts thinking of them as civilians now that they have real person names but ultimately it brings them closer as teammates.

I love it. Granted, I love it because my favorite form of Avengers is a group of friends and set of interpersonal dramas roughly shaped like a superhero team.

Later, in the nighttime and in the room that Molecule Man made for Tigra.

... Wow, Molecule Man.

Wow.

So we’ve got a giant cat shaped bed. A giant, terrifying cat head on the wall. And a giant ball of yarn. But not giant sized cat tree? Fie and shame.

Anyway, Tigra is sitting on bed lamenting and decrying the Fantastic Four’s failure. Especially as it pertains to her situation.

Tigra: “I -- I just can’t believe the Fantastic Four failed! How could they let me -- and the world down like that? How could they? Right now, Reed Richards is probably locked in his lab trying to invent a gizmo that’ll pierce the dome! Hmf! Who knows how long that might take? The Molecule Man plans to eat the Earth tomorrow morning!”

Nothing like a nice filling breakfast, I guess.

She grants that Reed doesn’t know there’s an everyone’s-deadline so instead Tigra bemoans that it’s all up to her.

Tigra: “I should have tried to jump him today! I can’t believe I didn’t! I was standing right next to him a couple of times! I’m cat-quick! Why didn’t I lunge at him and claw him to shreds before he could move? Could it be because my muscles felt like jelly -- ? I was trembling -- ? In shock -- ? Afraid of him? Hey, shouldn’t I be? I mean, I saw him crush my friends to a bloody smear! And I had a spooky feeling that he was somehow, secretly ready for an attack -- and hoping I’d give him an excuse to dice me into furry cubes!”

And because this is a Tigra character beat page, she also thinks about how easy the hero gig used to seem when it was for smaller stakes. But with the actual literal fate of the world at stake... “I never thought that when the big test came I’d be a scaredy cat!”

But she remembers what Cap said during the Ghost Rider story that its not wrong to be frightened if you don’t let fear dictate your actions.

So she creeps out into the night to Molecule Man’s bedroom.

Oh, that’s a neat touch.

Her shadow on the wall looks a lot like a tiger because her hair curls at the end like a tail.

Neat.

So anyway, she doesn’t understand how Molecule Man can be so confident that he’s just sleeping with his door wide open and with no defenses and wonders if there’s a trap or whether he’s just counting on her to think that there’s a trap.

She’s about five seconds from a full-blown I know you know that I know that you know episode.

The only way to find out is just go for it so she creeps into the room. The garish room.

This is even more wow than Tigra’s room.

But as she creeps into the room and up to the enormous, ridiculous bed, she realizes that she has to kill him. If she attacks and doesn’t kill him with the first strike, what he could do is too horrible for her to imagine.

But what she doesn’t realize is that Molecule Man isn’t sleeping soundly and isn’t unprepared.

He’s stretched monomolecular filaments across the room, too thin for even Tigra to spot.

Now usually monomolecular filaments is one of those ‘oops I’ve been cut to pieces by invisible wires’ thing. You’ve probably seen it in a couple of anime. But this is more like a bunch of cans on a string.

Tigra breaks one of the filaments while she creeps forward. Something that she couldn’t possibly know but which instantly alerts him.

And his response is a “Oh, ho! Just wait’ll she tries it! This’ll be fun!”

Because Tigra’s instinct was correct. Molecule Man was keeping her around just to kill when she finally tried anything. Its been a game. See how far he can push Tigra and how messily he can deal with her when she loses.

This is pretty tense stuff! Well, it lasts a page so it doesn’t overfocus on this specific tense scenario but still!

Tigra: “I’m in range! All I’ve got to do is spring and... and kill him! He murdered my friends! He’s going to destroy the whole world! I’ve got to kill him! Come on, lady! Do it! What’s wrong? He deserves it! He’s a murderer -- ! A rotten little wimp! He calls you ‘kitty’! Kill him! I hate him! I hate him! but... i just can’t kill him!”

And apologizing to Cap for not being able to go through with it, she slinks out of the room trying to think of another way.

Inside the room, Molecule Man sits up disgruntled, just not understanding at all why she didn’t go through with it. There’s no way she could have known that he was ready for her so why wouldn’t she try to do a murder!

And then as Tigra is wishing she had someone to talk to, someone grabs her and pulls her around a corner.

Boom, a comedy after all that one page of tension.

And it’s Cap because there’s like four people it could have been.

Tigra is elated that the Cap is alive, that she’s not alone anymore! And she tries to confess that she attempted to kill Molecule Man to avenge the Avengers. That maybe she should have because now she might lose them again!

Tony: “You did fine, Tigra! Relax!”

But she doesn’t feel like she did fine so she tries to explain that she let the Avengers down by giving into cowardice. She told Molecule Man she liked him to stay alive.

Cap: “Good strategy, Tigra -- preserving your life so you’d be able to carry on the battle!”

She tries to explain it wasn’t strategy so much as being terrified but she gets distracted because she’s just realized that in this group of Cap and Silver Guy there’s two people she doesn’t know.

Cap: “Dr. Don Blake, who’s secretly Thor and Tony Stark who is Iron Man’s alter ego!”

Her mood immediately flips.

Tigra: “You guys are really Thor and Iron Man? Really? And it’s okay for me to know? Really?”

Tony Stark: “Why not? Somehow those secrets seem pretty trivial, what with the world on the verge of being the Molecule Man’s breakfast!”

He says that but he still looks pretty annoyed at Cap just blurting it out.

And geez, Cap, you gotta let people reveal their own secret identities. Or make up some dumb excuse that everyone instantly believes.

Its the done thing.

In terms of Avengers drama though this is pretty good. Thor, Cap, and Iron Man have been working together for a really long time. Even though Cap didn’t form the Avengers he’s basically been there so long they consider him an honorary founder.

Cap learning Iron Man and Thor’s secret identities can be a ‘we should have told you sooner!’ thing.

Tigra just joined the team! Like a week ago!

They need to work together now and there’s probably no smooth lie that could paper over where Iron Man and Thor went and why these two are here now but its probably still a little galling that Cap just blurts it out to the newest person on the team.

Its great. I’d love to see the repercussions of this.

Anyway, time is short so Tony gets to explaining the plan.

He found his broken armor and managed to scavenge enough bits and pieces to make a little device he’s calling a screamer. It’ll emit a high-pitched noise that should disorient Molecule Man.

And then the device just poofs into smoke in Tony’s hand.

Whoops, Molecule Man overheard their plan to beat up Molecule Man and also heard Tony call him names.

So he pulls together all the loose dust in the room and uses it to strangle Tony.

Wow, they’ve gone from having a “layered assault” to watching someone literally choke on Molecule Man’s dust. That’s got to be the quickest turnaround from hope to nope.

Tigra goes wild, rushing at Molecule Man and screaming that she shoulda killed him before and she’s damn well going to scratch his face off now!

But Molecule Man asks her to talk to the hand. Zing.

Puns.

Although “Don’t scream at me, Kitty! ‘Cause I’ll slap you down!”

Sure. That’s good wordplay too.

Having just been comedically (although seriously) WHAP!’d across the room, Tigra has her own words to say.

Tigra: “You -- you weak, slimy excuse for a human being! How could I have stooped so low as to humble myself to garbage like you? So you’ve got power! Big deal! You were a nerd before -- you’re still a nerd! You were a mistake! You shouldn’t even have been born! You crybaby! All you do is blame the world for your own inedequacy! Go on, kill me, nerd! I despise living in the same world with you!”

Wow. She really took all those personal details he shared and slapped him upside the head with them.

Goes to show. Don’t try to destroy the world. People will have rude things to say.

Meanwhile, Cap and Silver Surfer are trying to save Tony but can’t clear the super condense dust faster than Molecule Man gathers it.

Cap tells Tigra to get Molecule Man because that’s their only chance but Tigra is too hurt from being slapped by a giant hand.

Molecule Man: “I’ve got to hand it to you guys, it must’ve taken some doing to escape my crusher! This time, I’m going to make sure you’re dead! Hmm... someone’s missing! But who?”

And he’s done process of elimination and realized that the guy Thor turned into is missing and figures he ran away when Entirely Normal But Furious Dr. Donald Blake tells Molecule Man to grit his teeth.

And then Molecule Man runs off yelling because Dr. Donald Blake can throw down. He possibly broke Molecule Man’s nose with that one punch.

Good job, Dr. Donald Blake.

With Molecule Man not focusing on the dust thing, Tony is free of the dust thing but unconscious. Dr. Donald Blake tells the others that he’ll take care of Tony and that they should go chase Molecule Man since they can run better than he can.

So Cap, Tigra, and Silver Surfer go off in pursuit of Molecule Man.

Silver Surfer reminds that he can track Molecule Man’s unique energies. Cap helpfully points out that they can also just track the trail of blood drips from Molecule Man’s nose. And Tigra goes ‘also I can smell him’ because its good to have three different ways to find a guy.

They find him in some sort of throne room (curled up in pain on the throne) and charge at him. But he’s not in the mood for their shenanigans.

So he sends a tidal wave of molecules at them.

Cap shouts for Silver Surfer to do something and he does do something indeed.

The Surfer blasts the wave of matter with the power cosmic so hard that it transmutes into raw energy and just explodes through the top of the palace in a beautiful pyrotechnic display.

It also completely exhausts the Surfer and he just kind of plops down for a nap right there on the ground.

Cap tells Tigra to watch the Surfer and then goes to take the Molecule Man on alone.

This isn’t a great plan but also their already small roster has kind of dwindled to this point.

And maybe Cap sort of doesn’t want to throw Tigra at Molecule Man when she’s already been hurt and was voicing all those doubts earlier. Can’t say for sure. She’s about to offer for help but Cap is like ‘WHOOPS NOW OR NEVER!’

Molecule Man must be in a whimsical mood, I mean more so than usual have you seen what he’s been getting up to? Because he converts some of the furnishings into a bunch of stars to shoot at Cap.

Its funny because Cap wears a star. It’d be ironic if he got smacked in the face with one, probably.

But Molecule Man activated Cap’s speechifying and that buffs him because nobody likes hearing Cap talk about freedom and justice and doing right more than Cap probably.

What I’m saying is that he leaps and gambols between the stars and I feel its because he has Stuff To Say that he’s doing so well.

Cap: “You make me sick, mister! They say power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, and you’re living proof of it! You might kill me! After all, I’m just an ordinary man -- but men like me have always found a way to bring high-and-mighty tyrants like you to their knees! There’s never enough power to save madmen like you -- from ultimate, bitter defeat!”

WAK!

And perhaps it wasn’t just his agility that was improved by inspirational speeching himself. Because he knocks Molecule Man down with that one punch and he doesn’t get back up.

Or maybe Molecule Man just has a glass jaw.

Don Blake and Tony Stark show up and Silver Surfer wakes up but he runs in with the rest anyway for some reason. Tony tells Tigra to watch Molecule Man while he has an Important Debate with Cap.

See, Tony has realized something. Knocking down Molecule Man is just the first step. If Molecule Man gets back up, he might start eating the Earth again and the Avengers might not be able to stop him.

So he asks Don Blake if there’s a medical way to just sort of keep Molecule Man knocked out.

Don Blake: “How? We can’t just keep hitting him on the head -- this isn’t a T.V. show! I mean, how hard do you hit him? How many times can you do that before causing serious brain damage... or death?”

Realism? In a comic book? What are YOU doing here??

Anyway, Tony doesn’t see any other option but to kill Molecule Man.

Cap protests that Molecule Man is a human being with rights to due process and a trial by jury of his peers!

But Tony is convincing the others. As an Actual Doctor, Don Blake doesn’t like to hear this. He wants to save lives. But he can’t refute Tony.

And Silver Surfer also seems on Team Tony.

Silver Surfer: “I understand what it is to sacrifice one life so that a multitude, a world might live! It seems clear that this Molecule Man cannot be imprisoned or held in check! He... must die to save the Earth... though I could never bring myself to slay him!”

Don’t you have the power cosmic? Surely there’s a power cosmic option available?

To be fair though his the power cosmic might be exhausted at the moment.

Still. Geez, Silver Surfer. ‘He gotta die but 1-2-3-not-it’ is really how you’re playing this??

Meanwhile, Tigra has decided that being asked to watch Molecule Man implies a certain duty perhaps even responsibility to tell him how much he sucks. Which is a lot.

And recall that she’s already told him how much he sucks earlier in the fight. So she has found a second wind in telling him how much he sucks.

Tigra: “You little jerk! Don’t you see? Cap was wrong! Power very seldom corrupts! It usually doesn’t change anything! It just magnifies what’s already there, whether it’s good and noble or evil and petty!”

“You were a nerd before... now you’re a powerful nerd! Big deal! Dummy! The shame of it is that with your power you can build... you can contribute! You don’t have to be a loser anymore!”

“Why are you such a fool? Why can’t you see that killing a planetful of people doesn’t make you even -- it just make you lonelier than ever!”

Wow. It feels like Tigra could hypothetically be talking about all different kinds of entitled nerds who then become the jerks as adults!

Anyway.

Tony and Cap are still arguing.

Tony, at least, isn’t going to ask someone to do something he wouldn’t do himself. I.e., he’s going to kill Molecule Man himself and save four billion people.

Cap: “Tony... please! I can’t let you do this!”

Tony: “You can take me in for murder afterward, Cap, but for now, stand aside! I’m warning you...”

Cap: “You’ll have to go through me, Tony...”

You’re warning him, Tony? You don’t have armor. You don’t even have pants. What are you going to do to supersoldier Captain America?

Logic aside, what strikes me is how much this foreshadows.

Before Civil War contrived that superhero registration, the big hot button superhero debate issue is whether superheroes should kill in extreme circumstances.

Spoilers for the NINETIES but the Regular and West Coast Avengers will come to schism and Cap and Iron Man will basically break up over whether or not to kill the Kree Supreme Intelligence after it engineered a war that killed 90% of the Kree people on purpose.

Shooter is long gone by that point but I guess someone is going to pick up the thread.

Because the debate doesn’t get settled here or rather does, sorta, in favor of Cap but not in a way he expects.

Interrupting the sad fist fight between Cap and a nearly naked man, Molecule Man pops up and tells everyone that Tigra has convinced him to turn his life around.

Tigra: “Guys, Mr. Owen Reece and I have talked, and, well, I convinced him to give himself up!”

Mr. Owen Reece: “Yes, I want to start seeing a therapist!”

Cap: “huh?”

Mr. Owen Reece: “I know I’ll have to go to jail... but that’s okay! It’ll give me time to think things out! I’ll make an opening in the dome now so you can call the authorities!”

Don Blake: “s-sure!”

God, that is just great. I love this as a resolution so much. This is a resolution that Squirrel Girl would bring us, although we’d get more of the actual convincing.

Still very, very good. Good to be optimistic in comics sometimes. Sometimes villains can seek redemption if only a cat yells at them long enough.

Although I think the best part is how baffled everyone is by the plot twist.

So with but a “Soon...” caption, the police have come to pick up Mr. Owen Reece and brought Miss Hanrahan who is going to be his therapist.

Holy crap, a therapist in Marvel who isn’t Doc Sampson but will work with superpowered nonsense!

Can we bring Miss Hanrahan back??

A couple things I like here.

One is that Mr. Owen Reece has changed off-panel into a suit instead of his supervillain costume. Now that’s him making an honest effort.

Two is Very Annoyed Tony Stark in the back of the pack of Avengers. He’s wearing a handkerchief as a mask because someone might recognize him as Tony Stark and then wonder ‘hey why is Tony Stark here.’

Three is the proud smile from Tigra when seeing Mr. Owen Reece meet his therapist.

Melts my heart a little.

Before he goes away to jail, Mr. Owen Reece takes a quick sidebar with the Avengers.

He retroactively feels just awful about ruining their various gadgets so he decides to make right.

He reintegrates Mjolnir, Toomie the surfboard, and Cap’s shield exactly as they were. Original molecules and all! They were so weird that he remembered where they all went.

As for Iron Man’s Iron Man armor.... look, he did his best.

Mr. Owen Reece: “But your armor, with all those complicated electronic gadgets is just too tricky for me to reassemble! You needed something more proper to wear till you get home, though -- so I whipped up some red and gold cloth and made you an Iron Man leisure suit! I hope it’s okay!”

Amazing. Simply incredible.

Although I think my favorite part was Mr. Owen Reece realizing ‘hey Iron Man should be wearing pants!’

Anyway, he also takes apart his Molecule Man Doom Fortress and puts those molecules back where he found them. More or less. He tries.

And, yes, he does rebuild the entire town of Netcong, New Jersey. Except the plumbing.

In a funny call back to Reece admitting he doesn’t really understand plumbing, none of the plumbing in the rebuilt town works.

Later, back at Avengers Mansion, Silver Surfer is offered a spot on the team but turns it down.

FOR THE PATHS OF DESTINY DO BECKON HIM DOWN A LONELY ROAD THAT MUST BE TRAVELED ALONE

Its the only who he has ever known. Except for all the time he spend with Galactus. Or the Defenders. Or later on when he has a companion to take on space nonsense.

Tigra also takes this time to say farewell.

Tigra: “I’m just not in the same league as you guys! I mean, sure I’ve got lots of super-ability, and, usually, I'm even pretty heroic -- but not up to your standard! I mean two of you, without your powers, no less, really showed me what it’s all about back there! And let’s face it, you guys mess with some heavy-duty opposition! I think I’ll quit while I’m ahead!”

Noooooooooo

But but but Tigraaa you were a source of joy and fuuuuuuuun

You only joined at the end of #211! It’s only been about a week in-universe!

Darn.

The three other Avengers all say their goodbyes.

Thor reminds her that she was the one who turned around Mr. Owen Reece but Tigra says she got lucky.

Iron Man gives her one of Tony Stark’s cards and tells her to call Tony Stark who is definitely not him anytime she needs anything.

Jarvis even tears up at her leaving, although he denies it because a good butler never dies on duty and then blames his allergies.

And then Tigra is off. Damn. If I didn’t know who might be joining the Avengers soon I’d be completely inconsolable instead of just very.

So now the Avengers are down to just three members. That’s not a team. That’s a crossover. Probably why Jarvis wonders if a membership drive is in order.

NEXT: The return of... Yellowjacket, the Wasp, and Egghead!

I’m game for Wasp coming back! Don’t think it likely that Yellowjacket is just going to come back to the team just like that! And Egghead? The villain who blew up a city with a killsat and killed Hawkeye’s brother? Unlikely recruit!

(No I know that’s not what the NEXT means)

Hey, follow @essential-avengers because the Hank Pym just keeps happening. Like and reblog too please. Be sad with me that Tigra is gone.

#Avengers #Molecule Man #Tigra #Captain America #Iron Man #Thor #Silver Surfer #essential avengers #essential marvel liveblogging #Tigra the Last Avenger #would be a good name for a book #Molecule Man is bad at bathrooms and being nice #never before has a flimsier plan so immediately fallen apart #the Fantastic Four have a brief cameo and they don't enjoy it

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imyourliquor-youremypoison · 5 years

Text

Big Spook (Peter Parker x Reader - Part 3)

Synopsis: Aged Up!Peter thinks he’s done well with leading a double life. He’s studying what he likes, he has his own place, he’s dating the girl he loves… but that doesn’t mean life is easy all the time. Even superheroes have bad days - and sometimes worse days.

Tags: Aged Up!Character, College AU, Established relationship, Whump, Angst. Does not take FFH into account. SPOILER FREE.

Word count: 2.6k

Part 2 <<< >>> Part 4

MASTERLIST

When (Y/N) woke up – she couldn't remember when or how on earth she managed to fall asleep in this situation – she was lying on a couch in what she could only assume to be the Avengers' compound, a blanket draped over her, the blinds hiding the sun. It was about ten in the morning, and she quickly rubbed the sleep away from her eyes and threw the blanket away.

She had never even dreamed of stepping into this place, let alone spend the night. But she didn't have time to gush over being in the Stark Tower, because she knew Peter was somewhere on a lower floor, half dead.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y,” (Y/N) called, hoping she worked the same as E.D.I.T.H and thanking heaven that Peter was a huge nerd who had gushed over his glasses for ages when she asked him about them.

“Miss (Y/N),” the A.I. Greeted her, waiting for her to speak.

“I need to see Peter,” she said, a stone dropping to the bottom of her stomach as she said his name. Let him be alive, let him be alive.

“Right this way, Miss.”

The panels of a seemingly normal looking wall moved to reveal an elevator and dinged when the doors opened. She stepped in and the doors closed on their own, F.R.I.D.A.Y taking care of letting her off on the right floor.

She ran out as soon as the doors opened again, and she recognized the white walls of the medical wing. Thanks to muscle memory only, (Y/N) found her way back to the surgery room Peter had been brought in, but the sign next to the door said it was currently empty.

Going back, the looked at the sign on every door, trying to find someone, anyone, who could point her in the right direction.

“(Y/N),” an all too familiar voice called her name, cutting short to her increasing panic. When she turned around, she saw a puffy-eyed May Parker standing by a door down the corridor. “He's here.”

She jogged over to her and the two women crashed into each other for a tight hug. (Y/N) heard May cry softly, but she found she could no longer shed a tear. She had cried so much yesterday, and the shock of it all finally hit her, numbing her to everything around her. She needed to see Peter.

“He'll be okay, he'll be fine,” May whispered against her head, placing a kiss on top of it. (Y/N) knew she said it for herself, she tried to speak it into existence.

“Happy called you?” (Y/N) croaked out, clearing her throat.

“As soon as you passed out,” she said with a nod, gently stroking her hair. May always showed her maternal love, and (Y/N) often wondered why she had never had kids of her own. “We're waiting for Dr Cho to tell us what's going on.”

When (Y/N) looked over May's shoulder, she saw Happy standing beside a bed, where she knew Peter laid, though she could only see the shape of his legs under the white sheets. May quickly filled her in on what she missed and told her he came out of surgery around six this morning. Dr Cho went to sleep, having earned her rest and left Peter in the capable hands of the nurses.

The three of them waited inside Peter's room, silently watching his chest rise and fall and finding comfort in that, and that alone. Because they didn't know anything else. Most of Peter's body was hidden under the sheets, but what little they could see was not reassuring at all. Half his face was bandaged up, because of the head wound (Y/N) had nearly lost her mind over, and he had obviously gotten several stitches for other open wounds on his upper body. That was without mentioning the purple bruises littering his arms, or the split lip, the small gash on his left eyebrow, or the swollen black eye.

There was a growing emptiness in the pit of (Y/N)'s stomach, and she was afraid it would consume her like a black hole. May squeezed her hand when Dr Cho entered, holding a pad in her hand with a few papers on it, startling (Y/N) out of her daydream.

“Let me put your worries to rest,” the doctor started, walking around the bed and taking a small flashlight out of her pocket to inspect Peter's eyes. “The surgery went well, I was able to stop the bleeding and stitch him up without causing any brain damage, and his vitals are good.”

Happy stood beside May now, and (Y/N) drank in Dr Cho's every word.

“That said, he sustained a great number of superficial wounds all over his body, and it will take time to heal, superpowers or not. It's difficult to assess the full extent of the damage his head wound has done since he hasn't woken up. This is the bad news: Peter has fallen into a coma.”

Her face became serious, and she stopped her examination of Peter to look each of them in the eye, meeting their distressed gazes with a neutral face.

“A coma?” May croaked out. (Y/N) could tell by the sound of her voice that she was close to crying again, while she did not even feel the usual tingle behind her eyes.

“Yes. It's the body's natural response to the physical trauma,” she explained. “As long as he doesn't wake up, I cannot do anything else. I have treated every other wound. He’s lost of lot of blood,” Dr Cho said and paused, then looked at (Y/N). “We don’t know how long he stayed on your bathroom floor before you found him, but he was in severe condition when you brought him in, and his head wound must have sent him in shock.”

“How much blood?” (Y/N) squeaked out, feeling her throat tighten to the point of discomfort. It was her fault. If she hadn't fallen asleep...

“Enough,” was the only answer she got out of Dr Cho. “I’ve transfused him blood, so he should regain some colors very soon. He does also appear to have several shattered ribs and a broken cheekbone too, but there’s no internal damage, which is good.”

The list of bruised, cut, shattered and broken body parts Peter had made (Y/N) want to vomit all over again, and she hadn't even eaten or drunk anything in over sixteen hours.

“What can we do now?” Happy asked the doctor just as she was about to leave.

She stopped in her tracks and showed them the shadow of a smile – a sad one.

“It's out of ours hands now. Peter will wake up when he's ready.”

(Y/N)'s finger tailed along Peter's arm, following the veins running from his wrist to his elbow, lost in her contemplation. It felt like she hadn't moved in forever. She vaguely remembered Ned and Betty coming by to see Peter, but they didn't stay for most than a day – she thinks – because Peter wasn't technically family and they couldn't leave work on ground that a friend was in a coma.

God knew how long coma could last, no one could get off work for this long. (Y/N) saw them off – she thinks – and it was only her and May again. Happy came and went again, checking in whenever he had a chance, and making sure the psycho who had put Peter in this bed would get what he deserved.

(Y/N) didn't care. (Y/N) didn't care about anything. She barely found enough strength to look away from Peter, let alone care about other things. Sometimes she went to the bathroom attached to this room, and that was it.

May had to bring her food or she would forget to eat altogether. It had been days now, but (Y/N) couldn't tell how many because she hadn't moved, she hadn't slept properly, she hadn't watched the news since the first day.

She had been sitting still on a wooden chair next to Peter's bed, eyes fixated on the TV screen hanging on the wall across from the bed. She had clutched Peter's hand in hers, like she had been doing for the last few hours – she wasn't even sure she could move it anymore – while listening to the news.

They had gotten him. The criminal Peter had been chasing for days and days, they got him. The police found him tied to a lamp post, covered in blood that wasn't his, and knocked unconscious on the same night Peter came back half dead. (Y/N) had smiled when she heard the anchorwoman say that he had been arrested, she had turned towards Peter to celebrate the news, but reality had hit her like a ton of bricks.

Peter wouldn't be celebrating his latest arrest any time soon.

Feeling ill again, (Y/N) had turned off the TV and unplugged it, for good measure, and since then, the hours spent in Peter's room had been silent for all of them. May didn't sleep here but she came in the morning and left late at night. She brought yarn with her and knitted, or a book to read, or pictures to look at. She had tried to show (Y/N) the album she brought on the fourth day, but (Y/N) merely stared blankly at the pages, as if she couldn't see the pictures at all.

May hadn't tried to gain (Y/N)'s attention anymore after that, she merely made sure she was fed and got some sleep. She slipped a sleeping pill in (Y/N)'s coffee on the fifth day because the girl looked a fright! She hadn't had any shut eye in days and her eyes were dry and red because she stared at Peter all day long, wordlessly urging him to wake up. He needed to wake up.

On the seventh day, May saw a change in (Y/N)'s behavior. It was as though she received an electric shock – or perhaps the lack of food and sleep was getting to her finally. She stood up, and took her phone, and she spent the day answering all the worried text messages she and Peter had received since he came here, she also called their faculty and internship supervisors to keep them updated.

“Yes, yes I know,” she said in her phone, her back turned to May.

Her voice sounded fake, it was a customer service voice, May noted, eyes darting from her knit-work to the young woman's back. She knew (Y/N) was on the brick of insanity, she was driving herself mad with worry and her health suffered from it too. She bore dark circles under her eyes and her cheeks were hollow.

“I'm sorry about that, I know I should have called but I barely leave the hospital room,” she sighed in the phone, clearly arguing with her supervisor about her prolonged absence from work. “I'll come back as soon as I can, and I will catch up on my work. No, I-”

May waited, curious to see what she was going to say to this person who so clearly had no idea what (Y/N) currently endured.

“Well I'm sorry if it's an inconvienience to you, but like I said, I will not be able to come back to work as long as my fiancé hasn't recovered from his accident. What's so hard to understand? Would you go to work if your wife's life was in danger?!” (Y/N) shouted in the phone, holding it away from her ear and simply yelling the words to the screen. “Have a good day!” she snapped before ending the call.

May's eye slit up and she stood up, leaving aside her knit-work.

“Honey, don't let it get to you,” she went and took (Y/N) into her open arms, rubbing her back when the young woman buried her head in the crook of her neck. “Everything will work out, you'll see. Peter wouldn't want us to lose hope so soon. We have to believe he will wake up.”

“I know, I know this,” (Y/N) hiccuped. “But it's so hard. I don't know how much longer I can do this- I- I feel like I'm holding my breath, and I just- I can't breathe, May. I can't- I can't breathe.”

(Y/N) was slowly crumpling down, her breathing becoming uneven and sharp. May recognized a panic attack when she saw one and held (Y/N) in her arms, lulling her gently and whispered reassuring words into her ears while she gave in to the daunting sadness crushing her heart. A dam broke inside her, and the tears began to flow again, and she cried and cried and hiccuped against May's flowery blouse, wishing her own mother was here with her.

“Shh”, May said in her ear. “It will be fine. I know my Peter, and I know he won't abandon you, he'll fight to come back to you,” she told her in a soothing voice before pulling away.

(Y/N) had calmed down a little, only silent tears ran down her cheeks but she had regained her breath and her body had stopped shaking. May tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear.

“You need to go home, honey,” May told her, meeting stubborn refusal. “You haven't had a full night's sleep in a week now, you'll end up in a the hospital if you don't take care of yourself.”

The rational part of her brain knew that, but how could she leave Peter? How could she leave her boyfriend alone in this sterile place, between these lifeless white walls while she was in their home?

“Oh, please don't cry anymore.” May pulled her in again and wrapped her arms around her. “He'd hate for you to torture yourself like this. You know it's not your fault. The one responsible has been arrested and will answer for his crimes.”

“It is. It is my fault. I should have stayed awake, then I would have been there when he needed me. Instead I let him bleed out on the floor, like a- like a-” a hiccup again, and she burst into tears once more.

“No, no, you can't think like that. You just fell asleep, it happens! No one could have predicted what happened that night. Peter leads a dangerous life, and you have nothing to do with this.”

There was no point in arguing. (Y/N) knew she was at least partly responsible for Peter's current state. If she had woken up a little sooner, maybe...

“Please, just go home. Have a bath, go to sleep, eat a real meal,” May urged her. “If anything new happens, I'll call you right away, I promise you. But in the meantime, do not come again until you've had at least ten hours of sleep. You need to rest.” She tucked another wayward strand of hair behind (Y/N)'s ear, who, like an obedient little robot, nodded.

She took her jacket that she's threw on over her sweats the day Happy brought them here, and was about to leave when May spoke up once more.

“Oh, and honey!” she called her. (Y/N) turned around and saw her smile. “I'm so happy for you two. Peter finally proposed, huh? I know he was waiting for the right time to ask you, I'm glad you said yes.”

Swallowing thickly, (Y/N) tried to reciprocated the smile, but quickly turned around to leave, before May could see the horror on her face.

A/N: This is by far the angstiest piece I’ve ever written. *Pokes my readers with a stick* y’all still alive? How ya holding up? Hang in there

TAGLIST: @palindrome-teddy @complete-trash-101 @keeperofhopesanddreams @i-love-whumperflies @golden-guide @marauderette130

Comment if you wanna be tagged in part 4 :)

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lostcybertronian · 5 years

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Who Did It?- Part 8

Masterpost

List of those who guessed right: @thehiddenbreeze and someone who guessed on anonymous. Both of you get prizes (written prizes) should you choose to come to my DMs :)

—-

There were no roads leading to the tiny, decrepit cabin found at the coordinates Google had marked. Only a desolate highway running right through the middle of woods that seemed to appear with no warning at all; one moment there were houses and cars, the next there was forest.

The digital numbers on the dash read 1:34AM when they parked on the side of the highway and cut the engine. The cruiser’s lights were a beacon before they faded out and the black crawled in.

At night, the woods seemed menacing; clustered close together, so dense and dark it was impossible to pick out any individual thing.

Dark didn’t know how long it took them to find and navigate the narrow goat path- it wasn’t even that, really, more worn patches of ground than anything else- as it twisted and snaked around trees like an unraveled ball of yarn, but it felt like an eternity. Every second dragged, heavy with the knowledge that another innocent person could be dying. Or dead already.

It was almost a relief to see weak light filtering through the branches. To emerge into a small clearing and see the ramshackle cabin hunching there like a dying animal. But as soon as it came, that relief was gone, replaced by dread as he saw the silhouette through the window. It had to be Google. They were in the right place.

Bam! Bam! The weathered door gave under the strength of Wilford’s kick. It crashed open.

“Down on your knees! Now!” Dark charged in first, Wilford hot on his heels.

“What are you doing here?” Google snarled at the same time the man- Dark hadn’t noticed him before. Hadn’t seen his silhouette in the window. But now that he saw him, he could’ve sworn he’d seen him somewhere before. A pair of eyes in a crowd perhaps, a passing body on the sidewalk- lurched to his feet. He was filthy, and there was a red welt forming on his forehead.

“You!” He shouted, his voice wavering, but hard and edged with fury. His eyes bloodshot eyes shot to Wilford, and a ragged grin dragged at his pale mouth. “You,” he said, then turned to Google. “You led him right to me!”

Dark and Wilford exchanged a glance. Neither lowered their weapons.

“What do you mean?” Dark demanded. “Who are you?”

A dozen emotions flickered across the man’s face, all at once and all in the span of a second, then his face contorted with rage and his lips pulled back into a snarl.

“You don’t remember.” He bit out, spitting every word like it was a curse. He stepped toward them, wooden boards creaking beneath his feet. “You don’t remember-”

“Remember what?”

“Edward.” Google said suddenly, taking the photograph. He held it up to the light. Watched the crack glass glint and its frozen faces smile. “He wants you to remember Edward.”

Dark paused. Exchanged another glance with Wilford before looking back to the man. Clearly, this guy was deranged. But, somehow, he fit into all this. “The medical examiner? He was a victim of the Bubblegum Killer. What does he have to do with us?”

“He has everything to do with you,” he hissed, black eyes glinting. As he spoke his hands wrung, wrung, wrung themselves into tight knots of sinew and flesh and bone in front of him. Every pair of eyes in the room tracked his movements. “Because you took him from me.”

His face turned red. Crumpled. Tears sprung and welled over, carving ragged tracks down familiar pathways through dirt and blood and sweat. “You took him from me!” He shouted, voice ringing around the cramped space. He pointed again, first at Dark, then at Wilford. “You covered it up, and you tortured him. You tied him up and cut him and laughed when he screamed and cried and begged for mercy!”

“I did no such thing!” Wilford protested, ignoring Dark’s warning glance. “I would never kill anybody.”

“He died in my arms.” The man’s voice was hollow, now, his eyes empty. “I was too late to save him.”

“So you started killing,” Dark said. “Why?”

The man’s eyes flashed and his head snapped up. “Because it’s not too late to make you pay.”

Behind him, Google’s head shot up, and his entire body jerked like he’d been shot. His fingers tightened around the frame, his knuckles turning white. This went unnoticed.

Meanwhile, Wilford held his ground, even when Dark jolted back. He guffawed. “Wilford Warfstache can’t be bested by some nobody. Some fool who thinks he can run with the best of ‘em.”

“Wilford-“ Dark warned, but it was too late: the man roared and lunged, grappling for Wilford’s gun and for his throat.

“I’m not nobody!” He snarled, teeth bared and furious. “I’m the Author! And you will remember me this time.”

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bloodybells1 · 6 years

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Leeches, Part 1

“Just the other day, I sat at a bus stop, over on, I don’t know, somewhere in the eighties on the east side. I sat back and the sun shined on my face, and I think I just sat there for going on half an hour. I let about five buses pass me by, I reckon. The drivers kept asking through the doors, but I just shook my head and waved them on.”

Joe laughed at himself, very much the wizened old timer, laughing at his time-honored follies, a cough feigning to latch on to the tail end of one of his chuckles. He sat on a folding chair and never crossed his legs during his speech. He looked back at us once in a while, a wide grin framing the face of a man who’d found God in his dotage.

Behind him stood three sturdy chairs on a low, small landing, the middle one much larger, obviously for a deacon, or some other minister. To his left was a banner affixed to the chapel’s wall, to his right the darkened interior of Rutgers Presbyterian Church’s main hall, only the closest pew mingling with our reflections on the glass, while the rest of the chamber disappeared into the unlit black, pews, apse, arches, all fading away like undulating cephalopods motioning into the bottomless expanse of the deep ocean.

We were thirty men of various ages and, in various angles, situated on recently unfolded chairs, our ears plastered to Joe’s syllables. A semicircle of a row flanked Joe on each side, while rows of five staggered farther away in front of him. We waited for him to finish his speech.

My friend Kenyon, a man given to reflexive smiles, body art and jangling silver jewelry, raised his hand on the tail end of the applause. Kenyon was, like myself but in a completely different way, the aesthetic anomaly in this male lineup of denim, half-zip fleece pullovers, and unbuttoned checks. As for me, I was undergoing an awkward transition from the bespoke slim-fitting hipster fare of my East Village salad days to the generic knits I ended up cottoning to, staid, American gear with a fashion forward edge, the kind of corporate mimicry of downtown New York style evident in late aughts Express storefronts, the cheap grey cardigan with thin, plastic buttons and a gaudy, shiny placket to name one example, the sort of trickled-down haute couture which American Apparel had turned into a belated, and thankfully short-lived, empire of disposable cotton.

Kenyon, on the other hand, was a world onto himself. He was irreducible, and managed to turn all of that corporatizing on its head. Steeped in glam rock, a downtown tradition dating back to Max’s Kansas City, he merged the ripped tank tops and the second skin of leather trousers with punk, post-90s hip hop, and even industrial. By the time Kenyon was done, he was fully dressed, even though he’d barely put anything on: five necklaces formed an extra shirt over that tank top, while seven sterling-coated rings formed makeshift cuffs past the “sleeves” of tattoos on his arms. Sometimes he wore a black grosgrain cap with a chrome plate sewed onto the front that read “BITCH”. No one dressed like Kenyon, and if the reader regards my valuation as improbable, I can but insist that no one pulled off his sartorial derring-do with even half of his aplomb.

In all honesty, I didn’t want to like Kenyon, and I chalk that up to sibling rivalry. Though he did pull it off, his style was nonetheless loud. At the time, I needed quiet. That’s why I was there listening to Joe with my conveyer belt cardigan. Of course I had no idea I was dragging my old style like a cadaver in search of some missing morgue. But I was trying to fit in, trying to make a break with the past. I needed those dudes with their conservative shtick, sitting cross-legged checking blackberries once in a while, probably texting loved ones about soccer practice and babysitter hours. Joe was the granddaddy and these guys were my dads.

Once Joe was done everybody else started chiming in. People talked one at a time, and each person picked the next person to talk. Kenyon’s arm was erect, and he was picked early. Joe was sheepish about feedback, more out of feeling gratified to have shared his story with us than with insecurity about revealing himself, so he darted his eyes from the floor to anyone who wasn’t talking. Kenyon, like all who were picked, was speaking to the room, even though he directly addressed Joe, who indulged the time it took to place a couple bucks into the donation hat making the rounds. Silver tinkled on silver as Kenyon lowered his arm.

He did his best: “Joe, that story about the bus stop, man, wow, that’s amazing. I wish that was me. I’m just not there yet. I’m always busy, running around chasing my fantasies, maybe a woman, projects, getting angry about my job. It’s like I’m addicted and I can’t find peace. So I envy you, and all that serenity you shared with us. Thank you.”

Unlike their hardier, more “masculine” AA counterparts, Al-Anon meetings have no liquidation agenda. They’re not out to eradicate your issue. Nobody will say, as they do in AA, “Hey buddy, you’ve been fucking up, so it’s time to get your ass in gear and do some service for a change”. It’s more like “Sit back and relax, you’ve been working too hard” and “Don’t just do something, sit there.”

AA-ers criticize the warm embrace as too accommodating, but for my money’s worth, I always got more out of the Kumbaya fireside chat in Al-Anon meetings, than the fluorescently-lit, “bad cop” demeanor of your typical AA church basement. Booze was a problem, of course, but only during a relatively short span of debauching as an erstwhile rockstar. It was a symptom of “extreme lifestyling”, so, once I left the music industry and started frequenting libraries instead of dive bars, I had little difficulty moderating my intake. Thankfully, there were no winged bottles of Smirnoff in my dreams, and to this day, I say a prayer of gratitude with every crisp draught of New World red during mealtime.

What I lacked was not self-control, but self-esteem. Al-Anon, with its boundaries, its “healing centers”, its gingerbread cookies, its amateur yogis meditating, palms up, while people like Joe regaled you with yarns about how they lived “one day at a time”, boosted the lagging go-getter within and checked the autocratic superego’s overreach. Unlike our bulldog AA counterparts, choking and chafing on the leash, we were more like tiny, caged Papillons needing assertiveness training. Al-Anon’s ethos of boundary-setting was the gamechanger for the steamrolled contingent.

I needed a jolt in the arm to help me take charge of the new me. Once the keg dried on my club kid/rocker past, so did all of its faulty affirmations – “I’m a killer” – “I’m the man” – “I’m the life of the party”. What had seemed like incontrovertible evidence of greatness and longevity soured into empty pomp and arrogance, showing its age faster than a fine Brie sitting out too long. If you cut the tap, you see things for what they are, hollow, teenage rhetoric, a lacquered gloss of puerile angst disguising the real pain within, the miserable cartography drawn in Crayola. I had a hard time transitioning to “adulting”.

Al-Anon was the perfect solution for a spiritual drifter like myself, someone who’d managed to duck the hypnotic allure of substance, but was tethered to the overhead luggage of an overwrought past, a hypertrophied lore inflated by the helium-empty of media success and unrestrained carousing. The skill of setting boundaries, the primary focus of the work in that fellowship, was my first time making a conscious, adult demarcation of self. It was a kind of handwritten accounting, using a brand-spanking new calligraphy pen when in the past I only had a crayon.

Not only had I been bluffing my way through every opportunity and relationship all my life, but I’d shirked male bonding as well. The old man had left enough scar tissue to lead me to believe, wrongly, that nothing presented a greater threat to my safety than another swinging dick in the room. Al-Anon, being majority female in its constituency, attracted me for this very reason. But this uptown meeting offered me a new twist: the gentle lilt of Al-Anon sloganeering with the familiar heft of masculine energy. When I found that meeting, I discovered the verdant hidden pastures of otherwise craggy masculine caverns, undergoing the Robert Bly encounter with male, yet enlightened, initiation.

“I get so much wisdom from those guys,” I told Kenyon on the downtown 1, our trip back to the Village from the Upper West Side enlivened by the meeting. Post-meeting positive spin comes like hand delivered mail, the delay forgiven and forgotten at the instant the hand touches the parcel, a sudden flash of serum in the bloodstream, a mild chemo.

“They’re like old New York,” Kenyon replied. A silver bracelet ticked on one of his eight rings as he switched arms straphanging. He rearranged his fedora and there was a moment when, with the sterling on his fingers blinking in the light as it contrasted with the soft crushed velvet of the brim, he looked like Jared Leto (Twenty Seconds to Mars Leto, not the actor). Kenyon was impossibly handsome and, after two decades of casual sex in New York, had to have known it. On top of that, his mind was so sharp, dropping an op-ed’s worth of observation in a single response, you always forgot how attractive he was. I didn’t want to like him, for survival reasons, but I couldn’t help myself.

We both got off at Sheridan Square and parted at the newsstand on Christopher and Varick. The hugs were the best part of the night, warm, not bro-y. Cool jocks first clasp hands and keep them in between, the embrace more of a back pat, with the forearms warding off fears of errant torsos touching. Not so with Kenyon. It was a full upper body affair.

He went East and I West, to a dinner date with someone I met at school. But I couldn’t get his wall-to-wall smile out of my head.

All throughout the evening, through the dinner and the subway ride back to my Upper East Side apartment, even as my head hit the pillow and I let the day’s events drift through my head like a shuffling deck, I thought of Joe’s bus stop and wondered if it was one of the ones I used, any of the M79 ones, running from where I lived on East End Avenue to Lexington where the 6 train offers the nearest underground service. That crosstown corridor gives access to one of the most pacific locations in the city. The highlight was coming out of Agata & Valentina, hauling four thick polypropylene shopping bags spilling over with istara cheese, seasonal fruits, swordfish, prime cuts, homemade pasta, and imported Brazilian nuts, and, braving the murder on my delts, walking across the street to the east bound stop on 1st and 79th,hauling two leaden weights like overfull scales pressing down on a balance. Joe probably had his atman moment directly across the street, at the westbound stop, where the sun hits more directly for longer in the day.

As I turned my head on the pillow, I thought of tomorrow, Wednesday, of waking up, walking the dog, hitting the computer to play around with electronic music, and stretching the limbs. At acting school they were really emphasizing the importance of movement (“If I see one more stiff actor in my scene study class, I’m going to be angry” was one teacher’s version).

I was reminded how, in my early twenties, I was terrified of anyone looking at my body. I didn’t know anything about anatomy, but I could feel how broad and lanky were my shoulders. I was like a wide clothes hanger. Playing the bass guitar, though I hadn’t gone out of my way to pick it up, made perfect sense, the heaviest rock instrument to offer ballast against flaying limbs. Night after night the strap creased my left shoulder, pulling me closer to the floor, the weight pressing my boots on the ground, plantar ligaments stretching out the arches. Once it was removed, I was like a hot air balloon.

So was my acting, hence the need for movement exercises, which made interesting cases concerning anatomy. At Stella Adler, I had the good fortune of having Joanne Edelmann, an experienced dancer from the Alvin Ailey school, impress upon me the importance of the pelvis. Everything was about the pelvis, acting, moving, blocking, memorizing lines, it all had to come from the pelvis, apparently. We’d lay down supine, after one of us had swiffed the last class’s sweat, grime and dead skin cells off the creaky, wooden floor, and start gyrating our pelvises, all twenty-five of us. Having suspended my pause at the bursar’s office (at some point the acting conservatory, like therapy and Al-Anon, acquired healing potential in my mind), I jumped into all this with gusto. These movement exercises, so I thought, were my ticket to getting my feet on the ground, literally. So I worked them every day for an hour.

It was early spring in 2009 and I’d been living in the Upper East Side for close to a year, moving here to escape the East Village’s countercultural orthodoxy.

The East Village is great when you’re an upstart, when your friend owns a vintage boutique and sitting there for hours talking about nothing could feel like a quiet revolution. There was something conspiratorial about scrounging for change, wearing the same pair of trousers, and bumping into the same vagrant hipsters every night. Bar hopping became a kind of Where’s Waldo stretched over the span of a week, like each party was a pop-up shop taking over that bar or club. It would have been unthinkable to go on another night, after the pop-up shop had moved. Each one of us could feel like an unshowered Che looking at Fidel clipping a Cohiba across the fold-out table, an overhanging burning bulb backlighting the floating dust and cumulus clouds of tobacco smoke.

But by this time, I’d already “made it”. My cover was blown. Interpol’s success had fattened my wallet even as it’d thwarted my agitprop designs. Trips to the grocer could involve catcalls and held stares. Benjamin’s wisdom seemed apt: “Behind every fascist regime, lies a failed revolution”. In my case, the project of seeing how far flipping the bird could get me (very far, apparently) had yielded such pithy spiritual results it was time to call it a day and find a place to do my laundry where I wouldn’t have to sign autographs.

Growing up in Queens, I had no idea what the hell was the East Village. But I knew the Upper East Side, mostly through The Jeffersons (my mother did have a wealthy friend and, once, while we visited when I was eleven, I feigned adult sass by declaiming “This place is rich!” during the elevator trip up the Central Park adjoining high rise). The sight of rows of stacked iron-grated balconies on grey-brick facades, all set to each other like a long ship container yard disappearing into the horizon of 2nd Avenue, where every taxi cab, street light and butcher shop becomes a tiny dot twenty blocks north of 79th Street, was always set to a soulful “We finally have a piece of the pie”.

Later, after initiation with the caramelized crust of 80s pop-culture, the Upper East Side came to mean Woody Allen and Andy Warhol. The high rises, in my estimation, offered sanctuary to the city’s cultural superintendents, a haven in which to pen or paint their New York City-centric odes in peace and quiet. I thought of Leonard Bernstein laboring over scores, the doorman interrupting with a call about a dry cleaning delivery.

Here, as well, were stock brokers, attorneys, traders, and other sundry bourgeois interests, the better to authenticate the wealthy artist’s pains with commerce’s badge of (dis)honor. (“There. You are one of us. Now, to quote a 90s prophet, entertain us.”) Eyes Wide Shut, with its luxury apartments and endless chambers, its New York Jewish-y professional class embodied in Sydney Pollack’s Rolex, its de riguer charcoal Brooks Brothers three quarter overcoat worn by Tom Cruise in almost every frame, laid out the terms of this fantasy of old school New York wealth for me, if also tickling my artistry with a Kafka-esque slant. Perhaps, I could revivify the failed revolution, I thought, not against the fascist regime, but from within.

It was a straight shot up 1st Avenue from Houston Street to 79th and on a random late morning Tuesday you could drive through light after light in less than fifteen minutes. I’d always hated the West Village’s European style of urban planning, the streets and lanes that curve and follow every slope of the ground, (pre-Google Maps, this meant that sometimes you ended up, Blair Witch Project-style, back to where you started). I loved the East Village’s Soviet, numerical grid, so artificial you could easily imagine the planners taking their time to map everything out. What this did was help me focus on the shops, ateliers, and salons within the fifteen block radius, without the distraction of curves and cobblestone. And the Upper East Side, at least from an urban planning perspective, was the East Village without the personality, simply adding a z axis of verticality to the latter’s x and y. With three dimensions now at my disposal, I felt I could take my Bernstein myth into Olympus itself, away from the caustic rabble of DIY punk down below.

I made enough money to afford a $4000 rent in what is called a “splinter building”; apparently only three in the city exist, a building slim enough it can only have two apartments per floor, but giving each one a three sided-view of all Manhattan, in my case, from the 23rd floor. When I first walked into it the sun was setting, casting an amber glow onto the East River. Wall to wall windows proffered a vision of Manhattan only the wealthy know – “This is Your City” (daily exposure did end up diminishing the returns of the view).

For some reason, taxis were out of the question (never mind I was splurging on rent, dinners, tuition, and music equipment expenses). After five dizzy years of flights and car services, I was only too happy to take to the MTA, the buses still lacquered in the future-glossy palette of navy and white, which I recognized from my morning commutes to St. Francis Prep High in Floral Park from my Elmhurst home. Getting on the M79 right by the river, I basically had the bus to myself, my own crosstown Lear jet, a meager, yet delightful, taste of the jet-setting I’d left behind.

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bellsblake-archive · 7 years

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the butterfly effect

happy stydia positivity week @hufflepuffkira!! i’ve loved talking to you about stydia this week, and i hope you enjoy this! :D (btw this is kind of a “what might happen if the plot of 6b never happened and everyone was just able to go to college and live their lives” kind of fic)

In chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the phenomenon whereby a minute localized change in a complex system can have large effects elsewhere. In other words, a tiny cause can create a catastrophic and unpredictable reaction. When Lydia was first learning about chaos theory, one of the articles she read used the example of a butterfly flapping its wings in California and, days later, causing a hurricane in Japan that formed from the smallest air currents produced by its wings.

In the life of Lydia Martin, Stiles Stilinski was the butterfly.

Or: Lydia reflects on all of the tiny causes that led her and Stiles to the place they are today.

word count: 3255 words

Lydia wakes in the tiny bed in Stiles’ dorm, her face pressed against his chest and his arm flung over her body.

Lifting her head slowly, she removes herself from beneath his arm carefully, trying not to disturb him. His arm drops gently to his side, his hand landing right next to his mouth, which is smushed against the fluffy pillow that’s muffling his soft snores. This is a common occurrence, Lydia waking up before Stiles; she’s always been an early riser, while Stiles could probably sleep through an earthquake without even rolling over.

She studies the sharp planes of his face, the way the light coming in from the window paints him in shades of gold. With a light touch, she traces the hollow of his cheek, the shadows under his eyes, the slight upward curve of his nose; he doesn’t even stir.

Three months, she thinks, a little wistfully, as she looks at him. Three months, nine months.

Three months of love. Three months of having him by her side and being able to call him her boyfriend when she introduced him to people. Three months of kissing him on the cheek just because she could, and swinging their hands when they walked, and making out in the back seat of his Jeep. Three months spent curled against his side watching cheesy movies, and talking about random things at three in the morning when they were supposed to be asleep, and sleeping in the shirts he’d leave behind in her bedroom (the soft fabric always smelled like him).

And then, a week ago, they’d left on this epic road trip to Washington. Well, it was really just a trip to drop off Stiles at George Washington University before she headed to MIT, but they’d made it as epic as possible. Sightseeing and ridiculous photos and stays in slightly shitty motels that felt a little like home and making out in every state they passed through, from the west coast to the east. It was one of the happiest weeks of Lydia’s life. For once, they weren’t running or fighting. They were just living.

But starting tomorrow, she would be en route to MIT, and Stiles would be here in Washington D.C. and preparing for his start in the pre-FBI program on Monday. They’d be apart for nine months, the length of the school term.

Nine months of separation. Nine months of Skype calls and text messages that would certainly make her face light up with happiness, but would never hold a candle to the feel of his hand in hers or the way he holds her. Nine months of an empty space beside her where he should be. Nine months of counting the days until they’re together again.

She knows she’s strong and capable and can manage to be away from her boyfriend for a little while. But it’s the last thing she wants.

Even before they got together, Stiles was a constant in her life throughout most of high school. She’s going to miss him so much, more than she already misses her friends back in Beacon Hills, because he’s different. She realized that when she was sixteen and kissed him on the floor of the locker room and just knew.

If someone had told her a year before then that one day she’d fall in love with Stiles Stilinski, she would have laughed in their face and carried on with her day.

But there she was, fallen. Here she is, fallen. Still falling, every day.

In the life of Lydia Martin, Stiles Stilinski was the butterfly.

For a long time her life was this incomplete puzzle. Most of the pieces fit together, but there was always one missing piece, one that wouldn’t fit into place no matter how many times she turned it.

Stiles ended up being that missing piece. He was the one who completed the puzzle, who pulled everything together. He was the butterfly who created the hurricane, a hurricane that whirled through her life and made her into someone stronger, someone real.

Sometimes, she wishes she had realized it sooner.

Sometimes, she wonders if their story would be the same, if she had.

(She wouldn’t trade it for the world.)

By the time Lydia reached high school, she had lost herself. She was already hiding the true extent of her intelligence, sacrificed on the altar of popularity. She was falling into the trap of parties full of booze and dancing - because maybe, if she threw the best ones, people would like her. She was dating Jackson, devoting almost her entire life to please him and then letting him turn around and treat her like shit. And she was miserable, more miserable than anyone knew.

All she wanted was for people to like her more than she hated herself.

It didn’t start that way, but that’s where she was when it ended.

She knew she was spiraling out of control, into a life she didn’t want, but she didn’t see a way out of the endless cycle of hate. Jackson made things worse, and every time he verbally abused her, and compared her to other girls, and told her that she wasn’t pretty enough or good enough and threatened to leave her, she wondered, why is this what I want?

And then, she met Stiles.

All of a sudden he stumbled into her life, dragging Scott and their supernatural drama with him, and saved it. He saved her life, in more ways than one.

Even before she knew about the supernatural - before she knew that she was supernatural - Stiles and Scott were always trying to protect her. She never understood it; she hadn’t been friends with them since elementary school, and she mostly ignored their existence for a long time. Stiles, especially, always seemed to be there when she needed encouragement, which was a lot of the time.

Lydia vividly remembers the day she sat in her car sobbing about Jackson and Stiles stood at her window and tried to comfort her. She remembers when Allison set them up to go to the school dance together - god, Allison always knew what was best for Lydia - and Stiles told her she was beautiful when her own shitty boyfriend wouldn’t. And she remembers the fear she felt, the excitement she felt, when he accused her of being the smartest girl he knew, because she wondered how he could be so perceptive when he barely even spoke to her. But someone knew the real her, and that was enough.

She remembers being fully sucked into the supernatural, remembers the hallucinations and delusions she experienced as the occult grappled for a hold on her. Somewhere along the way, she realized Stiles was in love with her.

Of course, Lydia didn’t know what to do about that. She wasn’t convinced that she liked Stiles as more than a friend, and she was already so far gone with Jackson that breaking up with him wasn’t even an option in her mind. She still continued to fool herself into loving him, even after everything.

But she remembers the way Stiles looked at her as he stood in her bedroom, a nasty scratch on his cheekbone and conviction in his eyes. The tremble in his voice as he told her that if she died, he would lose his mind.

He saved her he saved her he saved her

She’d thought about death before. On a particularly bad day, a day when Jackson told her she was a waste of space and she felt like her true self was lost forever and she had been crying in her bedroom for hours, she’d considered swallowing a bottle of pills and ending it. The only reason she hadn’t gone through with it was because she didn’t want her mom to have to find her; they’d already lost her dad.

And now, Stiles was standing in the same bedroom and telling her she had to live.

She never thought about death again - only about running from it. To fill the gap, she thought about Stiles.

Days spent holding her tongue and nights spent between Jackson’s sheets began to fade away, replaced by nights spent sitting in the back seat of Stiles’ Jeep discussing literature, mathematics, psychology, politics, the supernatural, and any other subject they could think of until they were blue in the face. Years spent with a fake smile plastered on her perfectly painted face gave way to genuine bursts of laughter - the first in a long time - that Stiles managed to coax out of her by cracking stupid jokes at two in the morning, when they were both already half delirious.

She remembers long days spent in Stiles’ bedroom while he rearranged the yarn on his detective board, as she liked to call it. She’d lay on his bed and read and offer some occasional input. By the end of the day, they were on the verge of solving the next supernatural mystery. Their minds fit nicely together, she thought.

If Allison was her best friend, Stiles was her platonic soulmate. He understood her in a way that no one else did, and he loved her unconditionally even after she internally decided she didn’t have a romantic interest in him. They fell into something easy, and casual, and special, and real. When she was around him, she didn’t have to put her mask on.

Lydia finally felt like a human being again, not a porcelain doll about to shatter.

As the seasons collapsed into each other, she and Stiles only become closer. And she was happy. For the first time in months, in years, she was so genuinely happy.

When she kissed him to stop his panic attack, she never thought it would mean something to her.

Of course, he meant something to her. He was the first person she had truly been herself with, and he liked who she was in a way Jackson and all of her fake, popular friends never had.

But she’d decided he didn’t mean this to her.

This: the soft press of his lips on hers, the way her entire body broke out in goosebumps when she realized what was happening, the warmth in her chest, the stars in her eyes. He held onto her like a lifeline - and she hoped that was what she was to him, because it was the only way she could ever repay him for being her lifeline, once upon a time.

As she kissed him, she was terrified.

Terrified because she hadn’t been in love since Jackson, who was now long gone. Terrified because last time, being in love had almost ruined her life, even with as forced as that love was. Terrified because even the quiet beginnings of love could be enough to destroy her.

She wasn’t strong enough yet to fall apart all over again.

Her head knew Stiles wouldn’t do that to her. Her head knew Stiles loved her more than his own life.

Her heart said, this is dangerous.

When she pulled away and opened her eyes, he was staring at her with a mixture of shock and awe, an expression she was sure he saw mirrored on her own face. Something was tugging at her, a tiny stirring in her chest. (A butterfly, perhaps, flapping its wings in her rib cage. Ready to cause the catastrophe.)

Dangerous.

She wasn’t ready to give her heart away again, not after she’d spent so long trying to pick up all the pieces that Jackson broke. She decided to hold onto her heart for a little longer, to nurture these stirrings of a feeling, to be rational about all of this before acting.

(Later that day, she found out that she and Stiles shared an emotional tether. If she’s being honest, she wasn’t even surprised.)

One day, she finally let her love for Stiles consume her, until she was going down in flames.

She was laying on her stomach on his bed, bare feet and faded red lipstick and layers of her hair falling out of their pins, wrapping a piece of red string from his detective board around and around her fingers. And she was upset, because she’d had a false banshee premonition that got Stiles in trouble.

When Stiles noticed how upset she was, he walked over from the board and knelt in front of her. He told her not to doubt her abilities, and that he’d go back to school and search all night to prove to her that she was right.

And in that moment, her heart swelled with love for him, and she allowed it to overwhelm her. He was looking into her eyes, wonderstruck, as if she’d hung the moon and painted the constellations in the sky, and she knew that he had to be the one for her. Their lives didn’t intertwine like this for nothing.

Oh, she thought, her hands trembling a little as he carefully unwrapped the red string she’d looped around her fingers. Oh. This is what it feels like.

Like falling. Like flying.

Maybe she was the butterfly now.

For a while, Lydia thought she’d lost him completely.

After Allison died - unexpectedly, horrifically - and Lydia felt the pang of it down in the tunnels, and she held onto Stiles and screamed and screamed until her throat was hoarse, Stiles became distant. Lydia knew he felt responsible for Allison’s death, and she knew that guilt manifested itself in nightmares and panic attacks. She shoved her confusing feelings aside, telling herself she’d deal with them at a later time, and tried to be there for Stiles the way he’d always been there for her. But every time Lydia tried to reach out to him, he seemed to push her farther and farther away.

She spent many a night curled up in bed, hugging a pillow to her chest and sobbing until her eyes burned. She’d lost Allison, and now it looked like her other best friend was lost to her, too.

And then Stiles started dating Malia, and Lydia couldn’t help but wonder why he’d allowed her into his life and not one of his best friends. She buried her feelings deeper and deeper until she thought they’d finally shriveled away. She made her peace with the fact that Stiles wasn’t the same thing to her anymore.

When she was locked in Eichen House, she wasn’t even sure if Stiles would come for her.

But then there he was: her salvation, her destruction, hurricane and hope all wrapped into one body, and she realized she still loved him despite everything. Dimly, as he unhooked her from the bed, she thought, Is this it felt like for you, all those years you loved me and I didn’t love you back?

He saved her, again. He was always saving her.

After Eichen House, Lydia finally regained some of her old friendship with Stiles. A little distant, a little awkward at the start, but soon they were falling back into old habits. She found herself in the back of his Jeep again, but now instead of talking about academics, they were sharing nightmares.

Stiles talked to her about Allison, whose blood wasn’t even on Stiles’ hands, and the chimera boy Donovan, whose blood actually was on his hands. He talked about the way he thought he saw them everywhere, out of the corner of his eye, and about the panic he felt when he did. And she talked to him about Eichen House, about the experiments they tried to perform on her, and he’d listen quietly and hold her and stroke her hair over the scar the Dread Doctors drilled into her head.

It wasn’t as easy as it was before. Back then they were children; now, they were broken, and it took a while before their jagged edges fit together just right. But for Stiles, it was worth the extra effort.

And then Stiles was taken by the Ghost Riders, and she felt like there was some crucial piece of her soul missing and she had no idea what it was. Like someone had taken a knife to her heart and carved out a little piece to keep without her noticing. She’d stand by her locker, waiting for someone to walk her to class who never came. She’d remember loving someone, but when she tried to think of his face, she drew a blank.

A little lost, a little unmoored. Determined to find him and remember him and bring him home.

And when she finally did remember, it was while replaying their story in her mind. Everything came filtering back, piece by piece, but it wasn’t enough. She was searching for the memory that would open the floodgates. She was searching for the butterfly that would cause the hurricane.

She wandered away, led by some inexplicable force to the locker room - significant, although she didn’t know why. And then she saw herself, sitting on the ground beside a boy weighed down by anxiety and fear and guilt and sadness - all of the things she’d been weighed down by before he stumbled into her life - and she saw herself kiss him.

She saw the light dawning on her own face - he saved me, I love him - and then it all came flooding back.

Remember I love you.

In that moment, she knew she was right not to ever give up on him.

When she woke from that hazy dream, she woke with tears in her eyes, sobbing to Scott that she never said it back, and Scott understood because he’d watched them dance around each other for three years. He’d watched his best friend love her for nearly ten. And Lydia was also crying because it was still hard to believe she was that special, so special that Stiles suffered through an unrequited love for her for ten years when loving him for two had almost killed her. It was hard to believe that the lost girl she’d been could be so lucky.

And when she finally reunited with him and kissed him again, and she realized he’d loved her all along, she finally had the good sense to think, to know with all certainty, this is what I want.

When she finally stops reminiscing, she notices that Stiles has woken up and is blinking at her sleepily. “What are you thinking about?” he mumbles.

The corner of her mouth turns up, just a tad, and she leans down to kiss his lips. “You,” she whispers, like a prayer. “Us.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she hums. “And I’m going to miss you so much when we’re at different colleges, but I know we’ll be okay.”

Stiles raises his eyebrows. “You’ve been so worried about this all week, and now you seem like you’ve made your peace with it. Why?”

She smiles. “Because of the butterfly effect.”

#stydia fanfiction #stydia #teen wolf fanfiction #teen wolf #stydia fanfic #teen wolf fanfic #stiles stilinski #lydia martin #stiles x lydia #hannah writes #this was gonna be longer but i ran out of time #love ya tho

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utukkigirl · 7 years

Text

Ain’t No Cure for the Cervitaur Blues, Chapter 7

Ain’t No Cure for the Cervitaur Blues A Gravity Falls Fanfic by Krista Perry I own nothing.

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Chapter Seven

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Dipper woke, gasping, sitting up in his bed, clutching the front of his shirt as his heart nearly beat out of his chest, and immediately scrambled to his feet, jumping to the floor, getting ready to run. There was a threat, there was danger, he heard that dark laugh, he could smell death…

He blinked. He was in the attic. He turned around in a circle, tensed, breathing hard, eyes searching for a threat that was suddenly not there. “What…” he whispered, confused.

And then, as his adrenaline ebbed slightly, he realized. He hadn’t woken up. He had fallen asleep, and he was in his mindscape.

He shook his head, trying to clear it. This was so confusing. One moment, he was a deer. He was with Mabel and… and a woman who could only be a magic forest creature of some kind, if her strange wooden skin and green hair were any indication. They were going somewhere. Mabel had wrapped him in a blanket and put him in her backpack, and how weird was it that he was small enough to fit in her backpack?

Mabel had put on the backpack, and he could feel the solid, comforting warmth of her back through the fabric. He had poked his head out from underneath the flap as they went out the back porch, and then….

… then he had heard that terrible demonic chuckle, had smelled the stench of an unnatural predator, and panic had flooded his simple deer brain. He had thrashed frantically, desperate to get away, to escape, but suddenly Mabel was there trying to hold him still, and the wood woman put her hand on his head and…

And now he was here. Asleep. Standing in the Shack’s attic in his mindscape with an out-of-control flight instinct still rushing through him, urging him to run from a threat he was incapable of escaping, since it existed in the waking world.

That magic forest lady had touched his head and put him to sleep against his will, and he suddenly realized he probably couldn’t wake up right now even if he wanted to.

And that threat was still out there, and Mabel was still out there, and he didn’t have any way to warn her, because she and that forest lady thought he was just a dumb deer having a freak out. Augh! Dipper pulled at his hair in frustration. What was he supposed to do now?

Well, he couldn’t just stand around here, that was for sure. He felt jittery with excess energy and the absolute need to be moving. He rushed out the attic bedroom door…

…and found himself in the upstairs hallway of his home in Piedmont.

He was facing the bathroom across the hall from his and Mabel’s bedroom. He turned around, only to see the battered open door and attic bedroom of the Shack instead of the regular bedroom that usually occupied that space. Interesting. Did that mean he had come to view the attic as more of his real bedroom than the one at home?

His heartbeat slowed and his breathing came easier as he found himself in the place he had grown up; a place that always meant comfort and safety and family. He hadn’t been homesick at all during his stay at Gravity Falls because there were so many mysteries, so many things to discover and explore. But now, as he thought about his current predicament, and realized he might never see his home again -- might never see his parents again – he was hit with a wave of homesickness so painful and overwhelming, he felt like throwing up.

And he could hear voices in the house. Familiar voices. Welcome voices. He took a few steps down the hall to the next room – a room that was supposed to be his sometime in the future when his parents decided he and Mabel were too old to share a room. But he opened the door and found the room as he left it -- filled with shelves and stacks of old books. Books his mom had never had the heart to part with and put up for sale at The Literate Owl, the second-hand bookstore she owned on Piedmont Avenue.

And there she was, a mere ghost of a memory, wearing mom-jeans and her favorite vintage Duran Duran World Tour 1987 t-shirt, her long brown hair piled up in a messy bun stuck through with a knitting needle. She was pulling an old hardback off the shelf and turning to hand it to a younger him, who was probably eight or nine from the look of him.

“Here you go, hon,” she said, and Dipper watched his younger self take it reverently.

“The Count of Monte Cristo,” his younger self read, then looked up at Mom. “You think I’m ready for this?”

Mom laughed. “You’ve read Lord of the Rings, and had the audacity to tackle The Silmarillion.” She reached down and ruffled his hair. “I think it’s safe to say you can handle this, my brilliant boy.”

Young Dipper grinned up at her with delight, and Dipper had to close the door against them both, swallowing hard at the lump in his throat and the deep, hollow ache in his chest.

He could hear more voices, more memories, manifesting throughout the house and, for a moment, Dipper considered retreating to the attic bedroom.

But no. Though his pulse was slowing back to normal, he was restless. He didn’t want to be stuck in the attic, waiting for who knows how long until he could wake from a magic-induced sleep, just to be a stupid baby animal again.

So he turned the hall corner, and there was the little alcove with a window bench, covered in skeins of multi-colored yarn and bathed in morning sunlight. Mabel sat on the bench, alternately humming and singing a song from some boy band while she knitted something that was probably a sweater for one of her stuffed animals.

“Mabel?” he said, hesitant hope sparking in him.

But she didn’t acknowledge him. She just kept swaying in time to the music in her head while she knit.

Dipper frowned. “Mabel?” he tried again, walking closer. He had been able to interact with memory-Stan when they were in his mindscape. Why wasn’t this working? He didn’t care if this Mabel was just a memory, he really needed to talk to someone. When she still didn’t respond, he walked right up next to her and waved his hand in front of her face. “Mabel, come on, please—“

He broke off as his hand passed right through her.

He sighed, feeling his shoulders slump. Great. Even his memories that weren’t hiding behind doors were intangible and non-responsive. This just got better and better.

Beyond the alcove were the stairs that led to the main floor, and across the hall from the stairs was his parents’ bedroom. He was planning to skip that door and just go downstairs, but to his surprise, the door was already open. Unable to squash his curiosity, he looked inside.

There, inside the room, crouched on either side of the French doors that led to a small balcony, were him and Mabel, eavesdropping on the conversation their parents were having just outside.

Dipper huffed a short laugh. This memory was fresh, from just before the start of summer. Still, it would be interesting to re-live it, knowing what he knew now, so he walked right up to the French doors. The Dipper and Mabel on either side of him were straining to hear Mom and Dad, casting meaningful glances as each other, right through him. Talk about feeling invisible.

Mom and Dad were lounging on deck chairs, watching the sun set.

“I don’t know,” Mom said, sipping her Diet Coke. “I can see a couple of weeks, or even a month, but… the whole summer? I know Uncle Stanford said he didn’t mind, but that seems like a huge imposition.”

“Naw,” Dad said, waving his hand nonchalantly. “It will be good for all of them. Uncle Stanford’s been up there alone since before Uncle Stanley died, and it will be good for the kids to visit him up there for a change. When he visits us, it’s just for an afternoon while he’s on his way to somewhere else, and the kids barely get to know him.”

“But that’s not our fault. I know we’ve made it clear he’s welcome to visit for as long as he likes.”

“Yeah,” Dad said, “but that’s not the point. One of my best childhood memories was the two weeks my dad sent me to stay with him. He plays the grumpy old man well, but stick around him long enough and you’ll know nothing means more to him than family. I always wanted to go back every summer, but Dad kept me busy with other things.”

Mom laughed. “Maybe that’s because you came home from your stay claiming you saw Bigfoot.”

Dad straightened with mock indignation. “For your information, my dear, I did see Bigfoot.”

“Yes, yes,” Mom said, grinning. “And the seven dwarves. How could I forget?”

“They weren’t dwarves,” Dad said. “They were more like living lawn gnomes.”

“Because that’s so much better.” She was openly snickering at him, and Dad grabbed one of the chair pillows and swiped playfully at her. “Hey,” she protested, holding up her soda can. “Watch the drink.”

“Unbelievers,” Dad intoned, “must go thirsty.” And he grabbed the can away from her. “Hey, it’s already empty!”

Past Dipper and Mabel knew what that meant, and were already scrambling to their feet to scurry out the door before they got caught. But Dipper stayed to watch what his past self had only heard while fleeing.

“Get me another one, please?” Mom said, smiling and batting her eyes.

Dad groaned and got to his feet. “You know I hate when you do that.”

“Stop jumping to please me when I do it, and I’ll stop doing it.”

They both laughed. It was an old game, almost like reciting a script at this point, and Dipper found himself blinking back a stinging wetness in his eyes. The homesick ache in his chest was so all-consuming, he didn’t even flinch when Dad opened the doors and walked right through him.

Both his parents vanished as the memory ended.

Dipper turned and ran out of his parents’ room, unwilling to see what memory might manifest next. He could hear more voices in the house. From downstairs in the sitting room, he could hear his own voice crow in triumph and Dad’s answering moan that always followed when he beat him in a game of chess. He could hear Mom and Mabel singing 80’s tunes at the tops of their lungs in the laundry room as they folded clothes. And there was Mom telling him for the last time to take out the trash before he lost his video game privileges, and his voice responding, Fine, I’m doing it, I’m doing it. Sheesh!

He stood at the top of the stairs and looked down. The front door was just a few feet from the bottom of the stairs. The longer he stood there, the more the memories manifested, until the house was full of voices and images of himself and Mabel and his parents, fading in and out of existence. He needed to get out of here before his homesickness overwhelmed him. But as he started down the steps, Mom and Dad rushed to the door, Dad shrugging on his coat while Mom handed him a thermos of coffee and a leather briefcase. They pecked on the lips, and then Dad was gone as Mom closed the door.

For a moment, Dipper thought she was going to walk away and disappear, but then she looked up at him. “Mason?” she said, and Dipper froze.

“Mom?” he said. His heart was suddenly in his throat. She could see him?

She reached out to him and gave him a tired smile. “Come here, hon.”

And at that moment, he wanted nothing more than to run to her and be gathered into the comfort of her arms. “Mom,” he said, his voice wobbling unsteadily, and he took a couple of steps down…

…when a much smaller, younger memory of himself ran right through him, rushing down the stairs and into her open arms.

Oh. Of course. Right.

Dipper turned away, trembling hands grasping for the wooden railing and clenching it like a lifeline. And if his face was a little wet, well, what of it?

“Did Daddy and I wake you?” Mom asked.

His younger self nodded. “Where did Daddy go? It’s still night time.”

“Well,” Mom said, and if Dipper closed his eyes, he could almost feel her running her fingers gently through his hair. “Daddy is the orthopedic surgeon on call at the hospital. That means if there’s an emergency and someone gets hurt in the middle of the night, he’s the one who needs to go help them.”

“Oh. I guess that’s okay, then.”

Mom chuckled. “Yes, it’s very much okay. So, is Mabel awake?”

“Nope. She’s still sleeping.”

“You should join her. You don’t need to worry. Everything is fine, and Daddy will be back when he’s done.”

“But I’m not tired now.”

Mom sighed, weary and amused. “Let me guess. You want me to read to you.”

“Yes! Yes yes yes!”

Mom laughed. “All right, settle down. Let’s go find a good book.”

She would read to him until he fell asleep, nestled in the crook of her arm, Dipper knew. And then he would wake up in the morning in his own bed.

Dipper didn’t wait until the memory left the room. As soon as they were clear of the door, he ran out of the house, slamming the door behind him.

He stood on the front porch, sucking in deep breaths, wiping surreptitiously at his face and trying to still his shaking hands.

Okay. That… really, really sucked.

And it was still sucking, because right in front of him were Mom and Dad, dressed in their gardening clothes. Mom was trimming the hedges on either side of the stone path that led from the sidewalk to the front porch, and Dad was mowing the front lawn. And as they faded, there he was, no older than five, riding his bike down the sidewalk with no hands and yelling, Look, Mabel, look! She responded with, Oh yeah? Watch this! No hands and eyes closed! Upon which she promptly rode her bike into the mailbox.

As his younger self hurried to his wailing sister’s aid, Dipper jumped the hedge and ran down the narrow, tree-lined street, not caring where, as long as it was away. Some place where no memory could remind him of what he had lost.

No matter how he looked at it, his life was cut short. He would spend the rest of it living whatever deer lifespan he had. His family would probably take care of him, making sure he wouldn’t die prematurely at a hunter’s hand, only for him to die at the ripe old age of eighteen or twenty. But even if he was with them, he would never understand them or experience that familial love he longed for, trapped in the limited moment-to-moment awareness of an animal.

Awake, full of slow, simple thoughts and mindless instinct. Asleep, fully aware, haunted and yearning for what he could never have again.

So he ran blindly through his mindscape, faster than humanly possible. And though he tried not to look, he still caught glimpses of places from his past. The Eggbert Elementary playground. The vast Mountain View Cemetery, so much cooler than the park with its monuments and mausoleums; its stone angels and guarding sphinxes that were perfect for twilit games of hide-and-seek with Mabel. Professor’s Games and Comics with the weekend DD&MD tournaments. The seemingly endless winding streets of hills and houses and shady walkways that lent themselves so well a pair of twins looking for adventure, real or imaginary. Shepherd’s Canyon, that ran almost all the way to…

…the Gravity Falls Water Tower, and suddenly he was out of Piedmont, but this wasn’t any better. There was the arcade, and the Northwest Mansion, and the lake, and Greasy’s, and, of course, the Shack, all swarming with familiar wraiths of memory. He kept running.

No more home, he pleaded silently. He felt like there was an empty, aching hole where his heart should be, and he felt the wind drying the tears on his cheeks. Let me be somewhere else. Anywhere else.

When he finally slowed and came to a stop, Piedmont and Gravity Falls were long gone, and he found himself in a forest where he didn’t recognize anything. There were no rising cliffs, no landmarks. Just woods as far as he could see… but there were no pine trees. No conifers at all; just deciduous trees in all their green, broad-leafed glory.

The relief he felt at leaving the painfully familiar behind was almost palpable.

And this place… it was beautiful. Peaceful. Sunlight streamed through the forest canopy, and the air was cool and smelled of damp earth, old leaves, and a sweet hint of distant honeysuckle. He could hear a gurgling stream nearby, and cheerful birdsong, and the hum of insects.

Just being here made the tight, twisting lump of anxiety in his chest loosen slightly.

He walked toward the sound of the stream, and came out into a clearing, at the bottom of a small waterfall cascading over mossy stone and pooling in a small pond before rushing on downhill. The grass near the pond looked soft and inviting, so he went over and sat down, and again felt that knot in his chest loosen. The blades of grass felt like silk between his fingers.

Dipper took a deep, cleansing breath. This… this was okay. He could stay here until he woke up, he decided. It made him feel a little better -- his mind couldn’t be completely messed up if it could conjure a place like this for him. The natural beauty of the place eased the consuming ache of his loneliness.

He had been sitting a while when a man emerged from the other side of the clearing.

Dipper looked at him, a little surprised, but not alarmed, since this man was obviously a construct of his mind as well. He looked like he had stepped right out of a DD&MD manual, tall and pale, with long black hair that fell past his shoulders. He was wearing ornate robes of swirling blues with silver filigree lining. Floating in an arc above his brow was a crown of seven jewels shining like stars.

As the man stepped forward, Dipper raised an eyebrow at him. “Please tell me that you’re Elrond, and that I’ve somehow created Middle-Earth in my mindscape,” he said.

The man tilted his head slightly and smiled a little, but said nothing, so Dipper went on. “Because you’re pretty much exactly how I always pictured Elrond from the books. I mean, no offense to Hugo Weaving; he did a great job with the roll in the movies, but sometimes he would get this look on his face, and I’d expect the next words out of his mouth to be, ‘Mister Anderson,’ and that the movie would turn out to be just part of the Matrix. That always kind of threw me off, and… I’m babbling, aren’t I?” Not really the first impression he wanted to make with Elrond, but hey, this was his mind, and this man was the first person to look at him and really see him. It was nice to speak to someone who could actually listen, even if he was imaginary.

“I am not Elrond,” the man said, and Dipper was impressed with quiet echo in his voice that gave him a distinct aura of non-aggressive power. Nice.

“Oh?” Dipper pulled up some of the grass by his legs and twisted the blades in his fingers. “Who are you, then?” He was mentally going through a list of potential tall, mystic-looking dark-haired characters he knew of, when the man spoke.

“An interested party.”

Dipper narrowed his eyes at the indirect answer. “Interested in what?”

“You.”

Dipper scrambled to his feet, alarm bells ringing in his head. Okay, maybe this guy wasn’t a construct of his mind, and if so… what the heck was he doing here? How was he here? None of his immediate guesses were in the least bit comforting. Was this guy a friend of Bill’s? He backed away as the man started walking toward him again, and when the man reached the flowing pond between then, he kept walking, his feet hovering a few inches above the water.

“Okay,” Dipper said, wincing as his voice broke on the second syllable. He raised his hands as if trying to ward him off. “You just stop right there. Don’t come any closer!”

The man stopped just shy of the bank on Dipper’s side of the pond, looking at him calmly.

Surprised, Dipper lowered his hands slightly. “What do you want?” he said, tensing and ready to run at the first sign of threat.

“I came to see if my Lady was correct.” The man’s smile was as gentle as his voice was quiet, but Dipper didn’t dare let his guard down. Too many monsters were all smiles and friendship until they were ready to eat your face off. “She said you are one of mine. I have come to confirm her assertion.”

“Wait, what do you mean, one of yours?” Dipper didn’t like the sound of that at all. “I don’t even know you, so… pretty sure, not one of yours.”

The man didn’t respond except to look at him. Or rather, Dipper realized, look at his forehead.

Wait, was this about his birthmark? Almost automatically, he reached up and pulled the brim of his cap down in case his hair wasn’t covering it completely, but the man continued to stare as if nothing was in the way.

“Ah,” he said. “Ursa Major. Odin’s Wain. Butcher’s Cleaver. Guidepost.” His smile warmed. “You are one of mine.” He met Dipper’s gaze and raised an eyebrow. “You have wandered far, child. Dare I say, had you not inadvertently twisted the threats of fate, you would have wandered farther still.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Dipper said, probably with more force than necessary, especially since it wasn’t exactly true. He looked at the man’s floating crown of gleaming stars, thought of his birthmark, and had an absolutely crazy idea of what the man meant. It made him feel sick to his stomach. This was stupid. This was absolutely the last thing he needed right now. “Go away and leave me alone!”

The man gave him a patient look. “Humanity ill-suits you, child. I think you will be well rid of it.”

“Okay, nope, no way, I don’t think so!” Dipper shouted, backing away and waving his hands. “Whatever crazy thing you think you have planned for me, just forget it! I happen to like my humanity! A lot! So… so back off!”

“You do?” The man’s expression turned puzzled. “Unexpected. And yet, at the moment, you are not human.”

“That wasn’t exactly my decision,” Dipper said, nearly snarling. “And it doesn’t matter what my body looks like, I’m human right here!” He pointed at his head. “And I plan to stay that way! Besides…” He felt his cheeks heat slightly, and looked down and glared at the grass. “This whole stupid deer thing is only temporary.”

“Is it?” the man asked.

“Yes,” Dipper insisted, clenching his fists at his sides. “Mable and my grunkles will find a way to break the curse. I know them. They won’t stop until it’s broken.”

“That is true,” the man said, and Dipper looked up in surprise. “And yet, should they find the solution, they will not use it, for there is but one way to break the curse. The dream demon used an other-dimensional artifact of immense dark power to change your form. Only death can free you from its influence.”

Dipper paled. “… what?” That… that couldn’t be right. Death? Only death? Sure, he’d had his pity party where he internally moaned about being cursed until he died, but always, underneath that, there had been the spark of hope that his family and friends would be able to save him somehow.

The man’s expression softened with sympathy. “Do not despair. At this moment, your twin sister and a dryad are bearing you to the Lady, for she desires to help you.”

Dipper looked up, latching on to the man’s words. “The Lady? Who is she? Can she really help me?”

“She has many names and many aspects, but in this time and place, she is known as the Mother of the Wood. She is my Lady, and I am her Lord.”

Dipper blinked. “Oh.” He swallowed hard as he grasped the implications of what the man said. His heart pounded, and he could feel his pulse in his head. He had hoped that he would be able to solve the mysteries of Gravity Falls, but this was so far beyond him, he really wondered if he would throw up. Was it even possible to throw up in the mindscape? If so, he was probably about to find out.

Deep breaths. Try not to puke in front of the, uh, sky entity or deity or whatever.

“So,” he said, when he managed to push back most of his nausea. “She can help?

“We can,” the man said. “You are one of mine, and I would help you also. But we will not force this help upon you. You must choose to accept it.”

“Well, of course I want help,” Dipper said, confused as to why it would even be an issue. “You think I want to be a stupid deer for the rest of my life?

The man extended his hands, palms upward. “Two paths lie before you in the immediate future, and you must choose one,” he said. “Both offer escape.”

Dipper nodded eagerly. Two paths. A choice. Right. So far, so good.

“The first path is dying like any other mortal.”

Dipper was getting impatient. He already knew one of the paths was death, the man had just told him so earlier. Why would he choose that? “And the second path?” he asked.

“Is like unto it,” the man said. “For you must still die for the curse to release you. However, the Lady and I can hold your soul before it flees into the infinitude, and remake you, that you may yet live in this world.”

Dipper stared at the man, stunned. “Re… remake? What does that mean?”

“It means,” the man said soberly, “that you would be human no longer. You would become a new creature entirely. This is the choice.”

Dipper shook his head, trying to wrap his mind around the man’s words. “I… but how would…” He didn’t even know what to say. His choices were death, or death and being changed into something else entirely? What kind of choice was that?

“What about my life, my memories, my family?” he asked. He thought about Mabel, about Mom and Dad, about Great Uncle Ford and Grunkle Stan. The thought of losing them forever had pained him enough that he had run away in his own mindscape. “Would I still have them? Would I still be me?” He didn’t want to lose himself being remade, any more than he wanted to lose himself as a stupid deer.

The man gave him a long, thoughtful look. “Your soul is strong and bright, child. You are one of mine, yet you cling to this human life with a fierce resolve. It is possible you will keep the memories and experiences from this life, should you choose to accept our aid.”

“Possible,” Dipper said, his heart sinking. “But not a sure thing?”

“What you carry over would be entirely up to your strength of will,” the man said. “You have but a brief time to consider your choice, for your fate approaches you swiftly. I will leave you now, but know that when your choice is made, the Lady and I will be aware, and we will act accordingly.”

Before Dipper could even protest, the man faded from view, leaving him alone in the clearing once more.

“Well… okay,” Dipper said, waving at the spot where the man used to be. “Great. Nice talk, then. Thanks a lot. I’ll just contemplate my apparent imminent death all by myself now.”

He felt numb. There was only so much crap a guy could take, after all, before each new surprise just impacted uselessly on the surface.

Dipper turned and walked away from the clearing.

“Welp,” he announced to the surrounding forest. “I think it’s safe to say that this is the worst day of my life. Less than twenty-four hours ago, I was human. Now I’m a cursed, sleeping fawn who is about to die. Why? I don’t know! I’m asleep!”

Dipper found that ranting at the forest was not especially helpful. He kept walking.

Here he thought that seeing his memories brought to life sucked, because of the sharp, hollow pain of homesickness they inspired. But that paled in comparison to this. One way or another, he was apparently fated to die. He could choose to come back, but as what? The man hadn’t said, and he had been too overwhelmed to ask. He thought of some of the creatures he’d read about in the journals, and groaned. And to become one of those things, and not even remember ever being human, being himself? Death might be better.

But what about Mabel? What would she do? What about Mom and Dad and Grunkle Stan and Great Uncle Ford? He couldn’t leave them like this! Especially Mabel. If he died, it would destroy her. He knew, because of the keen spike of terror he felt at the thought of losing her. But would it be any better for her if he lived, but didn’t remember her?

Dipper suddenly regretted running away from his memories of Piedmont and Gravity Falls. He wanted to see Mabel again. He wanted to see Mom and Dad and his grunkles, even if they were just shades of the past. He wanted to see Wendy and Soos. He wanted to remember them all, and hold on to them with all his might.

Home, he thought, his walk slowly gaining speed, turning into a run. I want to go home.

But then a green-haired woman suddenly appeared in front of him, and he only just managed to stop before plowing into her.

“You!” he said, realizing that he recognized her as the dryad who was with Mabel.

She stared at him, eyes wide. “Dipper?” she said.

What in the world was going on now? “Yeah?”

She stepped closer to him, reaching out, and he instinctively took a step back. “Dipper, you’re… I don’t believe it…” Her eyes seemed to glaze over. “Mabel, he’s right—“

“You’re with Mabel right now?!” Dipper interrupted. “Is she okay? Is she upset? She hasn’t gone to sweater town at all, has she?”

She looked at him and her eyes lost that glassy look. “Yes, she’s right here… Hold it!” The dryad held up her hands. “Just give me a second to explain. I can’t talk to both of you at the same time.”

Dipper understood immediately. Somehow, this dryad – the same one who put him to sleep, he noted irritably – had connected with the human part of his mind, while still being in the waking world.

Her eyes lost focus again. “Dipper is in there,” she said, pointing at the ground, and Dipper could only guess that this mindscape version of her was mirroring her actions in the real world. “You remember the light-shining-through-the-paper metaphor I showed you back at the Shack? When he’s asleep and I try to communicate, it’s like I’m on the other side of the paper!”

Okay, she lost him. She had to be talking about something she had done when he was awake and his comprehension skills were practically nil.

She seemed to be listening to something Mabel said, because she replied, “He’s… just kind of wandering through a forest in his mindscape.”

Dipper felt a little insulted. “Hey, I’m not just wandering.”

“What?” she said, focusing on him again. She looked around at his mindscape forest. “But you are.”

“I am not,” Dipper insisted, folding his arms in irritation. “It’s my mindscape. I know exactly where I’m going.”

She smirked at him, and he suddenly realized he was being teased, which did nothing to improve his mood. “Oh, pardon me,” she said, before looking off into the waking world. “He is striding with great purpose through a forest in his mindscape.”

“Ugh.” Dipper put his face in his hands. “That isn’t any better.”

“How is that not better? I specifically rephrased so it wouldn’t sound like you were aimless and lost.”

“Look,” Dipper said, raising his head. “I don’t have time for this.”

The dryad grinned. “Mabel, you never told me how delightfully easy it is to tease your brother.”

Dipper groaned. Here he was, with the perfect opportunity to communicate with Mabel, even indirectly, and let her know what was going on, and his messenger was wasting time messing around. “You don’t understand,” he said, straining to keep his temper under control. “I need you to give her an important message!”

But as he spoke, he saw her glazed eyes and realized she was listening to Mabel, not him. After a few moments, she turned her attention back to him, and her smile seemed more genuine, and less irritating. “Mabel wants you to know that we’re taking you to Mother to break your curse.”

“I already know that!” Dipper said, spreading his arms in exasperation. “Listen, please! You need to tell Mabel that a man came to me here in my mindscape, only he wasn’t just a man. He was tall and pale, and he wore a crown of floating stars! He told me that you were taking me to his Lady to help me, but that I would have to die to break the curse, and that I could choose either to stay dead, or let them change me into something else, but if they do change me, I might not remember her!”

The dryad stared at him, a stunned expression on her face.

“What are you waiting for?” He was practically pleading. “Tell her!”

She nodded and waved off to the side, as if hushing Mabel. “He says he already knows. A… strange, pale man told him. He was wearing—“

And then, right before Dipper’s eyes, she vanished.

He stepped forward. “Dryad?” he said, but she remained gone. Apparently the connection had been lost.

Well, at least he had given her the message to relay to Mabel, and even if it was a bit incoherent, he hoped that she would get the general gist of it so that she wouldn’t be completely blindsided by whatever was coming. That gave him a small measure of comfort. The dryad’s connection, irritating though it might have been, was an unexpected gift. Especially when he thought his only contact with any of his family would be with their memory ghosts.

And speaking of, before the dryad showed up, he had been headed back home.

He had only taken a few steps before he was overwhelmed with sudden agony shrieking through his entire body, setting every nerve on fire, and he crumpled to the forest floor, too surprised to scream.

The mindscape around him flickered, and the forest faded to a blank, grey fog. He could taste blood in his mouth, and every breath caused stabbing pain. He couldn’t move his arms or his legs and he thought they might be broken.

He had the disorienting sensation of his consciousness flickering awake into blank, terrified fawn instinct, then fading back to human, jolting awake, and fading again, and he was in so much pain his human mind wasn’t much more coherent than his small, confused deer brain, and he could barely tell them apart.

The grey fog around him began to darken, and it dawned on him that he was dying.

I’m dying. No, Mabel, is she okay, I’m dying. I don’t want to die. Mabel! She was just with me a few moments ago and I’m dying, is she okay? I don’t see her! Where is she? Mabel!

I don’t want to die.

Help me. I don’t want to die…

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

Almost there… stay on target…

A/N: I know, another evil cliffhanger, but hopefully this chapter will add insight into the previous chapter and what is to come. I think this is the fastest I’ve posted another chapter of this fic, but that’s because I’ve finally reached the part of the story that was written in my head before everything else.

Another major contributing factor to my increased writing speed is all the lovely reviews and comments. Likes and Kudos make me giddy with happiness. Thank you all for your support. And please, if you feel so inclined, let me know what you think of this chapter. That would totally make my day. :)

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