#i will have my own fucking kiln and that is a promise

[zhuhongs]

Upon rereading tgcf, one of the biggest complaints I have is how lackluster all the extra chapters were. literally none of them were good and all contained rlly gross and harmful sentiments (like the amnesia one which.. yea.. or all the things implying xl should get pregnant for hc thus equating gay relationships with hetero ones and playing into the wife thing and just GOD I HATE MXTX) 

There were a lot of little plot points i wish that had been further elaborated on more in the extras as opposed to hualian being ... like that. I had enough. Like mdzs had actaully good extras (minus the incense burners) that were nice side stories that elaborated more on the characters. Like the hook one with the juniors was so cute and i loved seeing them grow more. Or the lotus pod extras omg.. im such a lotus pod extra stan. those were so cute and gave us a lot of good insight into just how lovestruck lwj was during the times when he didn’t see wwx. mxtx should've stuck to those sorta extras in tgcf but NOOO. SO I have a list of so many other more interesting things those chapters couldve been spent on like:

A resolution on He Xuan’s revenge and his character arc. Bc its implied He Xuan is still hanging out and watching over sqx and that taking revenge didn’t fully satisfy him bc ok.. yea shi wudu is dead but he xuans family will never come back. Now what does he have to live for?? i wish we couldve seen a look into his life during the entire ordeal. like a chapter from his perspective while he was posing as Ming Yi  and maybe a look at a conversation btw he xuan and the real ming yi or a chapter after SQX was banished to see what he’s doing now. Also what did he xuan owe hua cheng money for anyways?? Like ik not every little thing has to be explained but I Want to Know. PLEASE more goth boyfriend content now I just wanna see him :,((

a better resolution of yin yu and quan yizhens storyline. im still mad abt how that plot point was split btw books 3 and 5  when it was rlly out of place and  there were other more pressing plot matters and it just rlly deserved more time. Also i thought yin yu died!?!?!? but apparently one of the extras says he’s alive and man... i;m not reading any more of the extras to see that, give me a full yin yu and quan yizhen chapter.. fuck.

a day in the life of the guoshi fangxin or general hua PLEASE especially like one where hua cheng was SO CLOSE to meeting xie lian but had no clue that xie lian was there at the time but the two did smth that inadvertantly helped the other and they still were connected even though they hadnt met omg pls that’d be so nice. like imagine Hua cheng catching a glimpse of the guoshi in public in yong’an while he’s trying to follow some lead that points to xie lian or maybe following a lead to capture qi rong bc he said he knew qi rong was a part of the yong’an stuff and originally thought the guoshi was one of qi rongs pawns. like can you IMAGINE him getting so close. but at the last second he did smth small that impacted xie lian. like they bumped into eachother on the street or smth. god i’d go crazy

OR vice versa.. like a day in the life of the young ghost king hua cheng. Like again, one of my biggest issues was that hua cheng just knew everything and its never really explained how he got all of that info. like yes he’s been alive very long and has eyes and ppl working for him everywhere but like... how did he build that network?? I’d love to see a chapter of young ghost king hua cheng travelling around trying to learn as much as he can abt the world and how it can help bring him to xie lian. and the two maybe are in the same kingdom for a bit and they don’t meet exactly but hua cheng stops some fight or something and helps xie lian indirectly or maybe xie lian is performing on the street in some costume and hua cheng doesn’t recognize him and smiles and gives him a coin or smth. idk i’m just dying for any sorta extra chapter or fic like that. i’m honestly so tempted to write my own but i cant write

also!! we’ve seen how xie lian picks up people down on their luck near him and show them kindness (like banyue, lang ying, xiao ying, he tried to with san lang but we know how that ended lmao) so i’d love to see another little vignette of him doing that on his travels and how every person he meets teaches him smth about life and being a good person and idk, i just think it’d be rlly sweet. i love this facet of his character and feel like we didn’t see enough of it towards the end.

ALSO hua cheng only seems to respect one heavenly official besides xie lian and thats yushi huang.. i assume thats mostly bc she was the only one to help xie lian and let him use the rain master hat to bring water to yong’an. I was thinking maybe when he was a new supreme he had run into trouble and maybe was picked up by the rain master and helped him heal and in return he promised to help protect her village from harm in the future. Like i know a heavenly official wouldn’t cooperate with a ghost like that but yushi huang is different and doesn’t really care about the heavens so i think she would protect him if he could do something to benefit her village. ik this is kinda far fetched but when he first became a supreme I’m sure a bunch of ppl probably tried to mess with him and didn’t rlly believe him to be undefeatable bc he hadn’t proved himself yet also i doubt all his power came overnight. he had to learn how to use it once he escaped the kiln. and some group probably thought they could weaken him somehow. I’m thinking maybe a rlly well formed group of ghosts actually caught him off guard once and he had to retreat and was picked up by the rain master and stayed with her and learned from her a bit. i think it’d be a cool concept also i just rlly want more yushi huang content and i’m on their friendship agenda bc he rlly did seem to actually respect her when she first appeared and i think it’d be cool if the two had some history together.

Also idrc if this was addressed I couldve missed it But!! Did xie lian ever tell Hua cheng that the reason he got the curse shackles and was banished again in the first place wasnt bc jun wu wanted to punish him, but because he requested it. And specifically requested it bc he felt guilty abt letting wu ming take the human face disease and disperse for his sake. So he took the shackles and descended to atone for that?? Bc I dont recall hua cheng learning that bc his soul was already dispersed at that point so it didnt follow him and xie lian didnt say anything so uhhh... someone should tell hua cheng that. Like I dont think xie lian rlly said how much hua cheng meant to him and didnt show him he was loved in grand ways. Like xie lian did always care for bc in other ways but I think if hua cheng learned abt this on screen it wouldve been such a great moment and I'm rlly surprised mxtx didnt address this iirc!?!? Like imagine jun wu telling Hua cheng this in the kiln bc xie lian wouldnt say it himself. Imagine how cool that would be.

Also a small thing adding into the whole young ghost king Hua cheng stuff. Its implied and p much stated that hua cheng isnt his real name. That he likely doesnt have a real name bc his parents died? (It's not clear. I'm still mad at mxtx for not making his childhood clearer). So I'd like to see when and why hua cheng chose that name for himself. The new tgcf ending song kinda hints at its meaning with the lyrics "for you I'd fill a city of flowers" as xie lian is the flower wielding martial god so it's probably inspired by that. Also xie lian saved hua cheng from leaping off the city walls but I'd love to hear him say it bc the implication of his name didnt dawn on me for quite a bit and I dont know if everyone made the connection. Again I sure as hell didnt. So itd be cool to see a chapter that takes place in his past after just ascending as a supreme

Overall I rlly think tgcf had a lot more potential to be even better and a lot of that comes down to fleshing out the side characters and letting hualian have more of a storyline independent of one another. like i know the appeal and message of tgcf is that through love, people can overcome anything, but fuck man. i just wanna see what these two (mostly hua cheng) where like in the absence of each others presence. Part of what I really liked abt mdzs is that we got to see that longing develop btw wangxian when the two weren’t together and how they thought about each other and did things in thei others spirit bc they knew the other wouldve done the same thing. but whatever, mxtx was too consumed by her own unhealthy idea of what devotion and true love looks like but still. i rlly think the extras couldve helped the story be better rather than be fujoshi fuel that i try to bleach from my mind -_-

[luckyjak]

fic: Dunamancy

Essek teaches Caleb a spell that allows him to travel to various alternate realities: despite being warned not to cast the spell, Caleb does, and experiences three different timelines: one where Molly never died, one where Bren never broke, and one where he never left the asylum.

AU!Caleb/Molly, AU!Caleb/Astrid, somewhat Caleb/Essek.

A03 Link

Author’s notes: My working summary of this fic was: Caleb experiments with dunamancy, and Essek has to pull him back into his own time by the skin of his teeth. They talk about what Caleb experienced and then have sex. There's not actually any sex in this chapter, because I wanted to leave it ambiguous enough that people could come to their own conclusions, but I might add a chapter if I'm feeling brave and want to write it.trigger warnings: All of Caleb's backstory is just one big trigger warning.

Also: Apparently coffee is a thing in the Empire but it's mentioned so rarely that I thought I could get away with making it a Xhorasian delicacy. Forgive me for taking liberties with canon: it's just who I am as a person.

Things in italics are AU flashbacks.

The spell Caleb casts can be found on the A03 link.

All Zemnian comes from Google translate and is probably wrong. Most of the words you should be able to figure out by context, but there is one line that'd be a little difficult:

* You do not belong here. Why are you in my head? No, that is wrong. I know you

“Caleb. Caleb .”

He does not know how long he’s been sitting here for, or even how long he’s been on this plane of existence. His brain is fighting him, a constant stream of go away and staystaystay.

“Du gehörst nicht hierher. Warum bist du in meinem Kopf? Nein das ist falsch. Ich kenne Sie*.”

“I don’t speak Zemnian, and I’m not going to burn a spellslot to understand you. I burnt enough getting you back as is,” a voice he only partially recognizes echoes in his mind. “Mr. Clay, do you have anything to sedate him a little?”

No. No no no no no no, he cannot go to sleep, he won’t, he won’t,  so he thrashes blindly, hits whatever he can to try and throw it off of him.

“Ow, for fuck’s sake Caleb stop hitting me you wily bastard--”

“Rest well, Mr. Caleb,” is the last thing he hears, and then he’s gone.

He doesn’t know how much time passes. But when he wakes up again, he’s sitting up straight in a chair at a table. It’s only when he looks up and sees the drow man sitting across from him, sipping a cup of tea and reading a book, that his senses come back to him. “Essek .”

(Two thoughts war with him after that. Crick, enemy, eliminat-- no. Friend. Ally. Teacher.)

“Caleb. Thank the Luxon,” Essek smiles at him, setting his teacup down and scooting closer. “You put up quite a fight at first. I had to get Beauregard and Mr. Clay to help calm you down. How do you feel?”

He touches his own lips experimentally, then scratched at the scruff on his chin. He didn’t have scruff, before. Or did he?   “I’ve been better,” he confesses, his voice hoarse from disuse. “How long--?”

“You were gone for about an hour due to the spell,” Essek explains calmly, scooting his chair closer to Caleb. “You’ve been asleep for a little less than two since you got back.”

“Impossible,” Caleb feels his eyes widen, like he isn’t fully in control of them. “I was--I was gone for years . I--I lived for lifetimes. And you think I’ve only been gone an hour?” Essek nods, and Caleb feels a surge of paranoia swell within him. “How--how do you know I’m back? How do I know that this is my timeline? I could--I could still be traveling and be in yet another alternate universe. How do I know this is home?” He gestures around the basement of the Xhorhaus, his eyes scanning the walls to look for anything out of place. He doesn’t spend much time in the basement, and so he doesn’t know if anything is out of place or not.

“Ah, there’s that clever brain I was hoping you’d use,” Essek says. “Very well. I’ll tell you what I know about you in this timeline, and you tell me if that sounds like what you remember. You tell me if you can continue the story, just to make sure it all fits. If it doesn’t, we’ll try and figure out a way to get you home and get my Caleb back, okay?”

It wasn’t a bad idea. Caleb nods hesitantly. It could be a trap, but if it was, he couldn’t figure out how.

“Your name is Caleb Widogast. I’m under the impression that this may be a false name, but you’ve never told me an alternate, so Caleb is what I’ll call you for now if that’s alright with you. You travel with a group known as the Mighty Nein, which is ridiculous because there are only seven of you. Well. Six now, I suppose. The ones you travel with, their names are Fjord, Beau, Jester, Caduceus, Nott, and yourself. A few months ago, you brought something very important back to the Dynasty. Do you remember what it was?”

Caleb nods. It was exactly as he remembered.  “The Luxon Beacon. We were declared Heroes of the Dynasty. You were assigned our guide. You--after we helped Professor Wacco, you brought us to our house. Then we went to the Bazzoxan, and then the Kiln. We lost Yasha, and we came back. Does that--is that right?”

His answer earns him a soft smile from the Shadowhand. “I’d say you are my Caleb alright, or at the very least, you are from a timeline that is close enough. Welcome back.”

Then Essek slapped him across the face.

It didn’t hurt, really. Essek was a wizard like Caleb; he didn’t have much physical strength. Still, it stung briefly, and left a red mark across his cheek. “What did I explicitly tell you not to do? ”

Caleb winces, rubbing his cheek. “Experiment with time magic.”

“And what did you immediately do?”

“...Experimented with time magic,” Caleb grimaces, less out of pain and more out of guilt. The drow had been very specific with his instructions, and Caleb hadn’t listened to any of it, too excited by the prospect of the spell--the highest level Caleb could cast and that Essek had ever taught him--to care much about the dangers.

“Do you have any idea how dangerous what you just did was? You have no idea the consequences, the ramifications, the disasters that can come about from reality jumping like that,” Essek slams his hands on the table, shaking his teacup.

“I wasn’t--it was fine --”

He wasn’t lying; it had been fine. He had had everything under control, until he hadn’t, anymore.

“And what would have happened if you had teleported to an alternate reality where you were already dead? Did you even think about that? Or what if you had ended up in a body where you couldn’t cast? How would you have gotten back then, hmm? I’ll tell you: you would have been trapped, forever , a prisoner of your own body and mind. It would have been torturous existence for as long as you could hold out. Worse yet, those of us here in this timeline would never know what happened to you. You’d just be gone. Do you really want to do that to your friends? Have them wake up one morning to you just being gone?”

He hangs his head down in shame. “Essek, I’m sorry. I didn’t think--”

“No, you didn’t.” The Shadowhand scoffs. “ No one reality jumps without express permission from the Bright Queen, and only in very specific circumstances. You could unmake reality as we know it. We can’t--we can’t risk something like that happening. You understand, don’t you?”

Caleb nods. “I won’t--I won’t do it again, Essek. I promise.”

“ Good,” The Shadowhand didn’t smile, but his eyes were a little lighter from across the table. “I’m already going to have to do a mountain of paperwork thanks to this little-- fiasco, as it were. And Caleb?”

“Ja.”

Essek’s gaze softens. “I won’t be able to save you, next time. If you cast this spell without permission, you will be executed upon return. There will not be a trial.”

“I understand.” Caleb stares ahead as Essek stands to retrieve another cup of tea, pouring one out for Caleb. His mind is--it’s not well, still fractured, still three separate lives jumbling around up there. There’s a quiet bang upstairs from where someone dropped something, and it takes him a moment to remember where and when he is, to think about who might be upstairs to drop something.

It’s quiet for a moment, just him and Essek and the tea, and Caleb is grateful for it, grateful for the silence as his mind races and roars, his thoughts fighting one another for dominance.

The quiet can only last for so long, however.

“How was it?” Essek asks, his voice still soft and quiet, so much so that Caleb barely hears him.

“How was--?”

“The alternate realities,” Essek replies, louder, and Caleb came to the sudden realization that Essek had only yelled at him because he felt like he had to; beneath the stern facade, the drow was practically beaming with excitement. “I’ve always found it fascinating myself. Mind you, I’ve only gone to two different realities, but they were so wildly different from one another. What about you? How many did you experience? Were they different from your life here, or were they mostly the same?”

“You’ve--you’ve traveled like this before?” Caleb asks, genuine in his curiosity. “What was it like? For you, I mean? What did you see?”

“I saw,” Essek pauses, carefully considering his words. “Two very different paths, for myself. One where I had become a priest of the Luxon like my sister, living a--quite frankly, a boring life, cloistered away at a monastery. And I saw one where my father didn’t die when I was still a child. It was--interesting. A different sort of grief,” he pauses, takes a moment to sip from his teacup. “And yourself?”

“I saw three, I think,” Caleb shakes his head. “They were--they were all different. Very different.”

Very different, and still in his head, still rolling about like they belong to someone else.

“Three!  Well! Don’t be a tease, Caleb--tell me about them!” Essek smiles at him kindly, pouring another spoonful of sugar into his tea.  “It helps, I think. It helped me when I--when I got back. It helps categorize the abundance of memories in your mind. Keeps them separate and defined as different experiences outside of your memories from this time. But you do not have to discuss it if you do not want to.”

“Does it help?”

“Lots of things help. But talking is a good starting point,” he sets his cup back down, and pulls out a quill and parchment. “Besides, I have to include it in my report.”

Caleb winces. “Everything?”

“I can be discreet about some things,” Essek admits, “I don’t have to tell all of your secrets to the Bright Queen. But I do need a general idea of what happened,” he taps the quill to the parchment, and ink begins to drip, an enchantment Caleb recognizes from--from a different life.

“I don’t even know where to start,” Caleb confesses.

“Start with the first timeline,” Essek tells him. “Try to think of it as a different measure of time, a different universe, even. It will help keep things from being so muddled in your mind.”

“The first timeline,” Caleb repeats, setting his teacup onto the table. He tries to focus on the first timeline, the first place he ended up at after he cast the spell. What to tell Essek about that timeline? It was the one closest to the life he lives now. “Did I ever tell you about Mollymauk?”

“The name doesn’t sound familiar, no.”

“Ah. So, before we were--back when we first. No,” Caleb shakes his head. “I’m telling this wrong. Mollymauk was one of us . A member of the Mighty Nein, back when we first got together. A purple tiefling with strange blood powers.”

“Interesting. Go on.”

“He died, protecting us. Protecting me, Nott, and Beau, actually. About six months ago.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.” Essek says sympathetically. “I’m guessing in this altered reality, he wasn’t dead then?”

--

Beau was dead instead.

That was the first thought he had when he woke up. It wasn’t his body--but it was close , close enough to feel familiar. It took minimum effort to have control over it, to move the limbs so he could stand. The other Caleb--the one whose body he was now in--he let him take it, didn’t fight him, didn’t have the strength to, his bones weary with grief.  

The spell had worked, and it had brought him to a universe where Beau was dead, and Molly was not.

And Molly--

Molly was in the process of murdering Keg.

Do something , the other Caleb told him, voice sharp, and he forced himself to stand, to rush over to where Molly was threatening the dwarf woman.

“Hey, hey, stop--hurting Keg isn’t going to bring Beauregard back--”

“She lied to us!” Molly yells, screams , his rage absolute. There are tearstains on Molly’s cheeks, and his eyes are redder than normal. “She didn’t tell us how many there were, or how strong they were, and now Beau is dead and--”

He drops Keg and falls to his knees, grief overtaking him, and Caleb hugs him tightly from behind, letting the tiefling collapse in his arms. On the inside, Caleb’s mind is a myriad of emotions: grief--for Molly, who he’s holding, who he hasn’t seen or heard his voice for six months--and for Beau, who he just talked to moments ago, who isn’t dead in the world he’s from but she’s dead here and now, and that’s both better and worse. Anger at Lorenzo, at that fucking man who took someone he loved from him, again . Frustration at the thought that they were never going to face the Iron Shepards without burying a friend, no matter who it was.

So if he holds Molly tighter than he would have, six months ago, no one has to know but Caleb.

--

Another memory:

He’s alone on the Squall Eater, the ship’s gentle movements lulling him closer to sleep, and he’s content. The room is warm, Frumpkin is cozy next to his stomach, and the book he stole from Avantika’s office is actually quite interesting. It’s a perfect quiet little night, and that’s when he hears the knock on his door.

It’s Mollymauk.

“Hey,” he says quietly, his knapsack over his shoulder. “Do you mind if I bunk here with you and Nott? I won’t make much fuss;  I’ll sleep on the floor if you want me to. It’s just that Fjord is really making some terrible decisions right now, and I guess I’m just not used to rooming alone, because the night is getting to me and--”

“Nott’s not here,” he says first, opening the door wider for Molly to come in. “She stayed the night in Jester’s room so Jester didn’t have to stay with Clarabelle.”

“Oh,” Molly says, sheepish. “So you’ve got a room to yourself, then? Kinky. That’s alright, I won’t interrupt, I’ll go see if Clara and Yasha mind having a third--”

“Molly,” he interrupts, calling him Molly and not Mr. Mollymauk.  “Come inside.”

So he does, and that’s how Molly and Caleb become roommates from then on.

“You’ve been real sweet to me since Beau died,” Molly says, dropping his stuff on the other bunk but sitting besides Caleb on his bed. “I wanna say thank you for that,”

“You miss her,” Caleb guesses, as Molly leans back on the bunk so that his back is against the ship wall. “I do too.”

He does. He misses Beau so much sometimes that he forgets she’s still alive in his timeline, that this is all just borrowed moments he’s stolen from someone else.

“I do,” Molly laughs, but there are tears in his eyes. “I don’t know why. I hated her. She hated me. We had a fucked up relationship, and now she’s dead and I’m not and I don’t know why-- ”

They stay up most of the night, talking about Beau, and when they can’t talk about Beau anymore, they talk about everything else. They talk about the nightmares Molly suffers from, they talk about the guilt Caleb carries, even if they don’t talk about the source.

Molly sleeps in Caleb’s bunk with him. They don’t have sex that night but they do get used to sleeping next to one another, Molly wrapped around Caleb’s waist and clinging to him like he’s his lifeline, and Caleb clinging back, content with the company, with the physical contact, with the warmth.

--

Having Nott yell at him a second time isn’t any better than it was the first time, only instead of Caduceus picking him up off the floor, Molly does instead.

(“You’re not the problem here,” Caduceus tells him in his memory, even though wherever Caduceus is in this timeline, it’s so very far from here, “You’re the solution.”)

Instead, Mollymauk is angry on his behalf. “Fuck her. Who the fuck does she think she is?”

His stomach is still in knots, even outside the basement of the apothecary, in the smoldering remains above with just Molly beside him. “She’s--she’s not wrong, Molly, you don’t know what I’ve done--”

“I don’t care what you’ve done,” Molly repeats, and it’s something he’s said before, and how can he say that? How can he not care when it’s all Caleb can think about, most days. “She still shouldn’t have said that. Come on, let’s get you a new shirt.”

--

“Your name is Veth? My name is--was Bren Aldric Ermendrud,”

He doesn’t tell them everything, but he does tell them a little bit, and it feels a little like relief, even if they don’t know everything he’s been through, everything he’s done.

Later, when they are walking through the caverns, Molly pulls him back away from the others.

“You’re Caleb,” he tells him. “And I’m Molly. And Bren and Lucian can go fuck themselves, because we aren’t those people anymore, and we don’t owe them anything. Don’t--don’t forget that, okay?”

Caleb wants so badly to kiss him in that moment, and he cannot think of any reason not to.

So he does.

--

They do have sex in Xhorhas, though.

Not in the house they’ll own in a week. But in the tavern they are staying at, right after returning the Beacon. The are victorious: Yeza is safe, sharing a room with Nott down the hall. They are considered heroes of the dynasty. The handsome drow man, Essek, knows time magic, which is all Caleb has ever wanted to know in his life. They are celebrating.

Molly buys a bottle of wine that they share in their room, and they kiss and drink and fuck until the very early hours of the morning, and as they collapse on top of one another, Caleb thinks that he loves him.

He loves Molly.

Molly, who is dead, in his own timeline, who Caleb never once got to kiss or touch or fuck or love, and now never will.

--

“No, Beau died instead. In that timeline, she had sacrificed herself so that Molly, Nott, and I could get away, like Molly had in my own--in this timeline,” Caleb looks back down at the table, tracing arcane circles with his finger in the wood, trying not to think about the way Molly had felt, pressed against him. “I...I wasn’t super close with Mollymauk. He was my friend, but I was--I am a lot closer with Beauregard. But in that timeline, the one I was in, we--Molly and I got closer because of our grief. Molly and I became lovers, sort of by accident, I–I told him things I never told anyone. And now I have a head full of memories of being in love with Molly, and it’s not real. I’ve got to mourn Molly all over again now. And now when I think of him, I don’t think of my bright friend from the circus–I think of the man who made me smile even when everything seemed so goddamn shitty.” Caleb sniffs, wiping his nose on his sleeve. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to cry.”

“It’s real,” Essek reassures him, reaching across the table to squeeze his hand. “You remember it, right? You have those memories, and you lived it, so it’s real. It might not have been this timeline, but it was real to you.” He squeezes his hand a second time. “Was that the only change in that timeline?”

“Oh, gods no.” Caleb laughs despite his tears. “No, we never met Caduceus in that timeline. Instead, we met his sister, Clarabelle, and she traveled with us instead. She’s a--a firecracker, that one. I know now why he named the moorbounder after her.”

“How long did you stay in that timeline?”

“Until right before we lost Yasha. I couldn’t--I did not want to see what Molly would do, losing his best friend like that. So I left, like a coward, and let the other Caleb have his life back.”

Essek is quiet for a moment, taking notes and letting Caleb compose himself. He’s grateful for the kindness, for the ability to just close his eyes for just a moment.

All he can see is Mollymauk.

“And timeline two?” Essek speaks again; Caleb doesn’t open his eyes.

“I was home. In Blumenthel, in the Zemni Fields where I grew up. I had a wife, two children, three cats, because my youngest found kittens in the neighbor’s barn and we weren’t about to get rid of any of them. Drove Astrid crazy because there was cat hair everywhere. Um,” he opens his eyes again, looking directly at Essek. “Astrid was my wife.”

“I assumed.”

“I grew up with her. I--I haven’t seen her in twelve years, but a few hours ago we had been married for ten. Time travel is maddening .”

That earns him a grin. “There’s a reason we don’t recommend it for newcomers.”

“I can see why. Um. We had two sons, two boys. Johann was the oldest boy--just like his mother--”

--

He wakes up with a start, the feel of small hands tugging at his wrists.

“Papa,” a small Zemnian voice whispers. “Papa, Milo went into Mr. Winston’s barn again. I told him not to but he didn’t listen.”

He groans, flings a hand over his eyes, squeezing them shut. He’s exhausted , mentally and physically, and he does not want to deal with this right now. The mission he just got back from had been brutal, and had used up most of his spells. He needs sleep. “Go tell your Mutti.”

“I did ,” The boy’s voice says. “She told me to get you. She said she was busy growing my baby schwester so you had to stop Milo from getting in trouble.”

Ugh. That was true, at least.

He opens his eyes, and Caleb sees Bren’s son for the first time. He’s mousey but tall, skinny for his age. He looks mostly like Astrid--he has her dark hair and eyes--but the freckles on his nose came from Bren, as did the nose itself, bigger than the rest of his face.

Caleb loves him immediately.

“Well,” Caleb/Bren says, sitting up in bed with a smile. “Let’s go get Milo out of Mr. Winston’s barn, then,”

--

“But Papa, there are kittens !”

There are indeed kittens, three of them, barely a few months old, and Milo is clutching the soft gray one like Bren might take it away from him at any moment.

Milo, with his orange hair and blue eyes, who looks like a shorter, stubbier version of Bren at that age, with bandages on his nose and his knees, who is going to be the reason Bren’s hair goes gray one day.

Despite tattling on his brother, Johann has the calico kitten wrapped in his arms, and is already whispering sweet words to her.

Which leaves the third kitten, an orange tabby who looks a lot like Caleb’s own Frumpkin, who mews at him to be picked up like her sisters.

Augh. Master Ikithon was right. Children have made him soft. He picks up soon-to-be-named Frumpkin and coos at her (him? Might be a him), then turns towards his boys. “We can go ask Mr. Winston if we can take them with us, and if he’s alright with it then we can. But you do not go into this barn again without permission, Milo Ulric Ermendrud, or you will no longer have a cat. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes Papa!!!!” His legs are attacked by a four year old and a six year old at once, and Caleb cannot remember ever feeling this happy.

--

“Mama! Mama, we brought home kittens!”

“Mutti! I named mine Toby!”

“Toby is a dumb name! Mutti, mine is named Etta! Look Mutti, she’s gray and I love her.”

For being so small the boys are so very fast. Bren shuts the door behind him, Frumpkin on his shoulder, and rushes to catch up with his sons, who are currently attacking his wife in the kitchen.

Oh , Astrid is still beautiful, exactly the same as Caleb remembers, as she stands in the kitchen in the home they’ve made together, her attention divided by two rambunctious boys. She still looks mostly the same: same short dark hair, same bright eyes. More laugh lines on her face, but no less lovely, and her stomach is large and swollen with life.

Oh, Caleb loves her so. He does not want to ever leave this timeline.

“Boys,” Bren barks as the two shout over each other. “Leave your mother be.”

“But Papa!”

“Go find blankets for the kittens,” he instructs, and is met with whiny protest. “ Now ,” he repeats, and the two do as they are told, leaving Caleb alone to kiss his wife. “Guten morgen,” he tells her, and kisses her again, savoring the way she feels against him.

“Guten nachmittag, I think you mean, sleepyhead,” she teases him, pulling away but not leaving his embrace. She pets Frumpkin and coos at him. “I see our household has grown.”

“Ah. Mr. Winston was going to drown them,” he explains, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly. “I couldn’t let that happen. You don’t mind, do you?”

“Not at all,” she takes Frumpkin from his shoulder and scratches under his chin. “But you are cleaning up after them.”

“Yes ma’am,” he jokes, wrapping his arm around her waist from behind, holding her close and kissing her cheek. “How is my lovely bride today?”

“Cranky. Your child kicks a lot.”

He wraps his hands around her waist and feels the gentle kick from the baby. “Don’t say such bad things about my tochter,” he chastises, and then kisses her again, because he can.

“Hmm. You are going to be so upset when it’s another boy,”

“No, I won’t.” Caleb says, and means it, overwhelmed by the love he feels for her, for their children, for their home.

He kisses her again fully on the mouth, savoring the way she feels against him. She’s not Mollymauk, but he did love her once, and it’s so easy to love her again, to love their home and their family, this perfect life that’s so different from the one Caleb is from.

“I almost forgot,” she says as she pulls away from him, “there’s a message for you, down in the basement.” He groans, leaning his forehead against hers. He only just got back! “Don’t fuss at me about it. I’d be perfectly happy to go on this mission for Master Ikithon, but someone ,” she elbows him gently in the stomach. “Insisted we needed a third child.”

“I want a little girl,” he groans, reluctantly pulling away from her. “Wulf is busy, I assume?”

“I presume,” she turns and kisses him again before placing Frumpkin back on his shoulders. “But look! This time you’ll have company on your mission, ja?”

He pets the orange kitten, and carries it with him to the basement, a scowl on his face. There’s a heavy bang above him, and he rubs his face with his hands. “Boys! No roughhousing!”

There may be a scowl on his face, but there’s a smile in his heart.

--

There is a teleportation circle in their basement, as well as a letter. It’s written in a code Caleb doesn’t understand, but Bren clearly does, because he rolls his eyes at it. “Duty calls, eh, Frumpkin?” he scruffs the cat’s head and smiles when it mews in response.

He goes through the teleportation circle without problem, and lands in forest outside of a small village. It’s dark here, wherever ‘here’ is, and the village below is quiet and quaint.

“At least it’s a small village this time,” Bren complains to Frumpkin, popping his fingers one by one. “Shouldn’t take too long, I don’t think.”

Before Caleb realizes what’s happening, Bren stoneshapes the earth around the village, creating great stone walls encompassing it.

No one could get in; no one could get out. That gets people’s attention: what was once a quiet place now has people out of their houses, inspecting the sudden walls surrounding them.

Then Bren casts fireball .

And he casts it again.

And again.

And again.

No , Caleb wants to scream, to stop, but can’t; unlike the other Caleb he has no control over Bren and what he does, just a passive observer of this time. No, no, no no, what are you doing? What are you doing? Stop this!

There are bodies burning. People are screaming, running, trying to escape the blaze but with the stone walls surrounding the village there is nowhere to go. Caleb can smell the scent of burning flesh and hair.

“They deserve it,” Bren says, outloud, to Frumpkin but also, somewhat unconsciously, to Caleb. “They’ve been hiding injured Crick soldiers, letting them recover and then letting them go instead of reporting them to the Crownsguard. They are traitors to the Empire, and this is what we do to traitors.”

He’s going to be sick. He’s going to vomit, spiritually, from inside this cruel man’s body. Look at what you are doing, Caleb tries to reason with him. There are children in this village! Children just like your own, and you are murdering them!

But Bren’s heart is cold and unyielding, too focused on the supposed good of the Empire to realize the horrible things he’s done, and Caleb cannot stand it any longer: he cast the dunamacy spell and leaves, fleeing like a coward once more.

--

“--Her dark eyes and hair, same scowl. But uh, my height, I think, and my nose. And he was so serious, boy never smiled, not even when he was a baby. Born with a frown on his face. And his little brother, Milo--Milo is always in trouble. Milo found the kittens, and Milo stole cookies out of the cookie jar, and Milo was the one who put a lizard in his brother’s bed. And, oh , Essek, I killed them. My babies, my boys, they don’t exist anymore, because I left ,”

Caleb had started crying again, and found he couldn’t stop. “First I killed Molly all over again by leaving that timeline, and now I’ve killed my babies?” He cradles his face into his hands. “I remember everything. The way Astrid looked on our wedding day. How small Johann was when they first put him in my arms. The way Molly’s hair looked in the sea breeze on the Mistake. It’s all in my head and I can’t–I can’t –

“They aren’t dead,” Essek assures him, reaching out for his hand once more. “They still exist in that timeline. Same goes for Mr. Mollymauk. Just because you are from this timeline doesn’t mean that those times stopped existing.”

“But their father is a monster ,” Caleb sobs, squeezing Essek’s hand back, enjoying how real and grounded the physical contact makes him feel. He did that--he squeezed Essek’s hand, made that choice, and it makes him feel more at home in his own body. “He--he killed all those people, and he didn’t care . He didn’t care at all, and when I was him I didn’t care, and what kind of monster does that make me, that I can leave them--m-my children, there with a father who--who loves them but is willing to kill them and I--”

He doesn’t realize that Essek has stood up and walked across the room to hug him until he feels his arms around him, holding him tightly. He collapses against him, getting snot and tears all over Essek’s tunic, but he doesn’t seem to mind: he doesn’t say anything at all, just holds him, solid muscle against Caleb’s face.

He doesn’t know how long he cries against Essek, but it’s long enough that he feels embarrassed about it when he pulls away. “I’m sorry,” he apologizes again, wiping his eyes. “I don’t know why you always have to see me at my worst.”

“If this is your worst, Widogast, you have nothing to worry about.” Essek reassures him, squeezing his shoulders tightly. “Do you need a few more minutes, or would you like to continue?”

He can’t imagine talking at the moment. “Give me a moment to use the restroom, wash my face,” Caleb pleads, wiping his tears on the sleeve of his shirt. “I’ll--I’ll be ready soon, I just--”

“Take your time,” Essek assures him, brushing him away. “I have nowhere else I need to be.”

--

In the time it takes Caleb to get back, Essek has made a fresh pot of tea, and is reviewing his notes when Caleb returns.

“Sorry about that,” Caleb apologizes again. He has taken the time to change his shirt, and despite everything that’s happened, he belated realizes that it’s only 4 o’clock in the afternoon. He’s exhausted, mentally, and yet he doubts he sleeps at all tonight. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me--”

“You don’t have to apologize,” Essek assures him, cutting off his apology. “When I traveled to the universe where my father was still alive, I had a breakdown afterwards that lasted four days,” he gestures for Caleb to sit, and when he does, he reaches out and squeezes his hand again. “You have nothing to apologize for. That spell--it’s fascinating, but it is exhausting, mentally and physically.”

“Why’d you teach it to me, then?”

“Because you suggested you were interested in learning dunamantic theory , and it’s a great theory spell,” Essek smiles softly. “Less favorable in practice, as you’ve no doubt realized.”

Caleb actually takes a sip of his tea. Essek must have refilled his cup, because it’s warm still. He doesn’t recognize the blend, only that it’s not one of Caduceus’s usuals, and tastes distinctly Xhorasian. It’s sharp and earthy and bitter; though Caleb finds he enjoys the taste of it, he isn’t surprised when Essek puts a spoonful of sugar into his own cup.

“Do you think you can talk about the third timeline yet, or do you need more time?”

Caleb downs the rest of his tea like it’s a shot, and shakes his head. “The third timeline is the easiest. I was still in the asylum.”

--

He woke up in the asylum, with another version of himself in his own head.

While the first Caleb had been perfectly content for him to take over, and the second had been willing to share, up until he hadn’t, this Caleb (or rather, Bren, broken, broken Bren) fights him tooth and nail every second he’s here.

“Why are you here?” He says out loud in the asylum. “Why are you in my head? This is my head. Get out of it.”

“I’m trying ,” he responds, shaking his head and arguing with himself. “But you’ve got to let me cast--”

“No magic!” The other Caleb screams, tearing at his clothing, claws against his face. “No magic, no magic, no no no no no--”

The guards come and sedate him, and when he wakes up he’s in a padded room, alone with just himself and the Other.

He doesn’t know how much time passes. Too much. Not enough. He can’t focus in here, sharing a mind with a version of himself that is still so far broken. Bren’s mind is a broken ball of glass, sharp and dangerous at every turn. They bring him meals, and he eats like a wild animal. The guards make small talk outside of his cell, but their words might as well be gibberish, for all that he can understand them.

One day, a priestess comes. She’s familiar to him, and beautiful, the symbol of the Archeheart dangling on her chest, and oh , she’s the one who fixed him, last time.

“Oh Bren,” she tells him, casting a spell to cure the wounds he’s made on his face and arms, trying desperately to dig out crystals that weren’t there. “You’ve made so much progress. I hate to see you relapse like this.”

Let me talk to her , Caleb begs the Other. Let me talk to her, she can help us get out of here!

But the Other is stubborn, and refuses, and so the lady merely sighs at him. “Perhaps one day we’ll try Greater Restoration on you again and see how you fair. If you can behave, of course.”

Cast it on me now , Caleb begs. I need to get out of here. I need to get home .

The Other doesn’t listen. The Other bites her hand instead.

“Another time, perhaps,” she sighs, and then she’s gone , and she’s taken Caleb’s hope with her.

Another day--he doesn’t know how long it is, can’t keep anything straight in this stupid broken brain of his--another day, Essek comes.

“Caleb,” he tells him, standing outside the cell door. The guard don’t seem able to see him, so maybe he’s not really there after all. Maybe he’s just Caleb’s own dream here to torment him. “I tracked your dunamantic signature to this timeline. Are you there?”

YES he screams, but the Other doesn’t answer. He just sits there, like he can’t see the drow in front of him. Yes, please help me!

Essek says something in Undercommon that sounds like a swear, and then he reaches through the bars and presses his thumb to the center of the Other’s forehead. “I’m going to take you with me, and if you aren’t my Caleb I promise you I’ll bring you back, but I’ve got to try,”

The Other attempts to bite him, but he just bites the air, unable to make contact with Essek’s incomporial form.

--

“--Then I woke up here, with you,” Caleb explains, feeling calmer and more rational than he has all evening. Essek was right: talking about it did help separate it in his mind. “And that’s all I remember.”

Essek scrawls something down on his notes, but otherwise leaves Caleb alone to his thoughts. He pours another cup of tea and downs it; he finds the more he drinks of it, the less he minds the bitterness of it, actually sort of enjoys the sharp taste.

Essek finishes his notes, and with a few arcane sigils in the air, sends his notes off somewhere else. He smiles warmly at Caleb. “How do you feel?”

“Better,” Caleb admits. “Not--not a hundred percent. But better.” He finishes another cup of tea. “I really like this tea you’ve made,”

“It’s coffee,” his companion explains, humor on his face. “It’s made from ground up beans from Southern Xhoras. I can’t believe you drink it black,”

“Am I not supposed to drink it black?” Caleb asks curiously. Coffee was good. He liked coffee. He would have to invest in these beans if they ever left Xhoras.

“You can, I suppose,” Essek laughs. “It’s just much better with cream and sugar. I’ll make another pot if you’d like,” he stands up and move towards the little stove in the corner. “Don’t be surprised if you find it hard to sleep tonight, though. It’s a stimulant. Helps keep you awake.”

“That’s alright. I doubt I could sleep anyway. I still feel too--too--”

“Like your body isn’t your own, and you are some impostor walking around in someone else’s meatsuit?” Essek guesses.

“Yes! Exactly that,” Caleb grins as Essek pours a scoop, two, three of what looks like dirt into the pot on the stove. “Speaking from experience?”

“Perhaps,” he sets the pot on to boil, then floats back to the table across from Caleb. “It’s a common feeling after reality jumping, I’m told.”

“Hmm. Any advice on how to fix it?”

“Sex, if you’ve got a willing partner,” Essek says plainly, without embarrassment, even if his words bring a small flush to Caleb’s cheeks. “Barring that, any sort of physical exertion helps. Running, walking, sweating--it helps make your body feel like your own again, instead of something you’ve borrowed.”

The pot on the stove boils; Essek floats over, turns the fire off, his back turned to Caleb.

Sex sounds lovely, if he’s being honest. Of the three altered realities he visited, two of them were getting laid a lot more often than he currently is. And he could--he could see the benefits, that Essek mentioned. The physical exertion, helping to make him exhausted enough to sleep. The choice and control over what he does with his body would help make it feel like his own again.

Alas, he lacks a partner in this timeline. But maybe--

He stares, longer than he intends, at Essek’s backside. He’s not wearing his long mantle like he usually does. Instead, he dresses simpler: a long tunic, leggings, boots. It’s simpler attire, but the material still looks expensive and fashionable. The leggings are tight on him, clinging to his form in the best way, but the tunic is too long, hides his most attractive features.

Molly would have wolf whistled at him.

Astrid would have laughed. “A crick, really, Bren? I suppose he is handsome, though.”

He shuts his eyes tight, then swirls the last bit of coffee around his cup. “Is that what you did?” Caleb asks curiously, deliberately not looking at Essek. “When you came back?”

“Yes. The one and only time I had sex with a woman,” he laughs, straining the liquid into the teapot. “She was a lovely girl, but not for me, I don’t think. It still helped.”

He feels his ears turning red. “You have, ah, different preferences?”

“Is this an interrogation, Widogast?” Essek grins, turning around with the teapot to set on the table.

“Nothing of the sort. More--trying to find common ground,” Caleb explains. “You know I was with Mollymauk, in the first timeline. I cannot judge you if you prefer men, because I also enjoy being with men, and--”

“I prefer men,” Essek interrupts him, an amused glit to his voice. “But I’m more curious about why you are asking, Widogast.”

He feels his face flush, and runs a hand through his hair. “I don’t, ah, currently have a partner. I don’t suppose you are interested at all?”

--

Notes:

I left it there so you could have it open to interpretation. Does Essek accept? Does Caleb go upstairs to find Fjord/Caduceus/Jester and have fun with them instead? It's up to you. A choose your own adventure kind of ending.

[angrylizardjacket]

maybe youth is wasted on the young {Roger Taylor}

ask your destiny to dance Modern High School AU

A/N: 2685 words. Not Asked For But Here Nonetheless. might write a bit more for this AU, but i’ve got a lot of prompts, so no promises. hope you enjoy.

Brian got saddled with the two worst tutoring students in the world, and if the high school wasn’t paying him, he’d have let them both go after the first day. Roger he knows; before Brian had graduated they’d both spent lunch times in the music room, and Brian taught him a bit of guitar, and Roger smashed away at the drums and sometimes took a nap. He never expected Roger to be taking physics, but they didn’t usually talk about school when they were at band practice. The band had formed in Brian’s last year of high school, and fortunately there was only a few months after graduation where Roger was the only highschooler, until they went in search of a bass player, and found John Deacon, who seemed to live his life in the engineering workshop room. Together, along with Freddie, who’s two years above Brian, and a design student of all things, they make a pretty great team, musically speaking at least.

Ash, as a student, is an unknown quantity, bursting into the room he’d booked for studying, covered in paint and clay, and fifteen minutes late. She’s bursting with apologies, but Brian gives her the benefit of the doubt, points to the seat opposite him, and smiles. If he was being honest, Roger’s session finished late, he was thankful to have a full hour between appointments to grab some food and go over his notes.

He doesn’t know if they’re in the same class, but they’re in the same year, and both not there out of their own free will. Ash sleeps in class, Roger gets into arguments with the teacher; both are failing. 

Ash is new to town, and all of her school shirts are pink. Not on purpose, but she put them through with a red sweater and the rest is pretty self evident, and she hates Physics more than almost anything else in the world.

“Then why are you doing it?” Brian asks when she announces this during their second session together.

“Because I don’t wanna dissect frogs and rabbits and shit, and I can’t remember the periodic table to save my life; maths, even complicated physics maths, is still maths.” She explains, slapping down a falling apart notebook and fishing around her bag for a pen.

“Language.” Brian admonishes, and Ash frowns at him, elbow deep in her bag.

“I’m seventeen, go fuck yourself.”

The thing is, she's a good student, she can do the math, it's just a struggle working out what it means, but she's scatterbrained more than anything. And often late. Usually only by a few minutes, but everything changes the day Roger comes in ten minutes late, which comes as a surprise, he's always quite punctual, and he's covered in lime green paint. It's in his hair and everything. He looks like he’s had an afternoon full of regrettable situations.

"I don't wanna talk about it." He doesn't even give Brian time to ask, though Brian himself is rather distracted; it's a Friday, they've got a gig tonight.

"You'll be right for the show thought?" Brian asks, and Roger agrees easily, looking uncomfortable; the paint was still partially wet. As promised, Brian didn’t ask, and when the hour’s up, Roger leaves to go home and have a shower. After Brian’s break finishes, Ash doesn’t show up. Fifteen minutes after she’s meant to arrive, she’s still not there.

“What?” Ash snaps into her mobile when she picks up, and Brian’s taken aback; she’s not necessarily soft-spoken, but he’d never known her to be so hostile.

“Just reminding you about your tutoring session is all.” He said gently, and he hears a sigh on the other end of the line.

“Fuck. Right. Okay.” Ash breathes, a little distracted, a little put-upon, and it’s followed by scuffling, a door being slammed, and a tap blasting water into a metal sink; the art room. “Hey, listen, I’m just a bit-” sighing again, this time with resignation, the water’s still running in the background, “I’m just not up for it right now, some stuff has happened, and I just-” And there’s rustling as Brian hears her cover the receiver and holler a string of curse words at the empty - at least he hopes it is - art room.

“Is everything okay?” Brian asks when Ash uncovers the mic and apologises quickly.

“I’m fine. I will be fine.” She tells him, before apologising that she won’t be able to make it to their session that day. She hangs up.

When he makes his way to the art room, because she’s obviously not fine and he cares when one of his students misses a session, he sees her through the window, sitting down with her head on her arms at a table covered in various shards of a sculpture. At a glance he thinks she’s asleep, but as he knocks gently on the door, he sees her look up, shocked, her eyes red-rimmed.

“What are you doing here?” She asks, roughly wiping at her eyes with the sleeve of her sweater, standing in the door frame. She sniffles a little.

“I just came to make sure you were okay; the art room’s the only one with a metal basin that sounds like that.” He pointed over her shoulder at the art room’s sink. “What’s wrong?”

Ash is quiet for a very long moment, narrowing her eyes when she looked up at him, before turning on her heel and heading to the table with the sculpture fragments on it. They seemed to be in some sort of order, and Brian can pick out that it’s meant to be the bust of a woman, but it’s completely shattered, with a few pieces super glued together, though it seems she’d given up.

“My major work was destroyed.” She explained, voice flat, the statement followed by another sniffle. “Some dickhead put it in the kiln beside a piece with a huge air bubble in it.” At Brian’s confusion, she picked up a piece that looked like it had part of an eye; “the air bubble expanded and exploded and took out all my hard work on the way.” 

“I’m sorry.” He’s not sure what else to say, she looks absolutely devastated about the whole situation.

“I’m not up for Physics, I’ve gotta try and jigsaw this all back together.” And as she looks over all the work she still had left to do, her lip began to tremble.

“Yeah no, no worries; is there anything I can do to help?” Brian asks gently, Ash just shakes her head, can’t even open her mouth to speak because she knows she’ll start crying again. There’s a blur of movement out the window, and when Brian turns to leave, there’s a figure in the door. He’s tall, with the same striking ginger hair as Ash, and looks like every hipster English major Brian’s ever encountered.

“Who are you?” The ginger man asks, scowling, and Brian raises his hands in surrender, but Ash cuts in.

“Oz, he’s my tutor, he’s just checking in because I couldn’t make it today because- because-” and her voice catches on her explanation as she looks over her weeks of hard work scattered on the table before her. Brian goes to introduce himself to ‘Oz’, who he’s pretty sure is her brother, but the moment Ash sniffles, trying to hold back more tears, Oz brushes past him and it’s like they both forget about Brian.

“It’s going to be okay, Biscuit,” Oz murmurs gently, wrapping a now weeping Ash up in a hug, “I’ll help you stick all these back together and then we can go home, okay?” And he’s so fucking gentle about it that it actually surprises Brian, who hasn’t really thought enough about Ash as a person to devote an opinion on her beyond the fact that she’s a good student with a sharp sense of humour and terrible work ethic in regards to physics; not once, until now, had he ever really considered her fragile. 

He tries not to think about it too much, as he leaves, but it’s hard not to when the two of them show up at his gig later that night. Even in the dim light of the pub he’d recognise her hair from a mile away, and he’s silently wondering how she got in. 

‘Oz’ turns out to be Oscar Clarke, a friend of Freddie’s, Ash’s older brother, and as Brian had called it, an English major. 

“I didn’t realise I’d be seeing you again so soon, are you feeling any better?” Brian asks when the first set finishes; Ash is sitting on a high stool by one of the little round tables, and Oscar is leaning beside her with a bright smile. Ash nods, though she’s still a little subdued, and Oscar gives Brian an official greeting, thanks the guitarist for taking the time to check on his little sister, and offers to buy him a drink.

“Oz! It’s so good to see you!” Freddie wraps Oscar in a hug, interrupting them, before turning to Ash with a bright smile. “You must be Ashley, it’s lovely to finally meet you, my dear.” And Ash is halfway through a greeting and a grin when Roger hops down the the pub’s stage and comes over with their bass player to see what all the fuss was about. The moment they realise who the other is, both Ash and Roger freeze.

“I’m going to fucking murder him.” Ash says with a terrifying degree of confidence, and Roger can’t read her lips without his glasses but he sees her expression, and how she’s sliding out of her stool, and he bolts, leaving poor John confused. Oscar wraps his arms around Ash without hesitation, restraining her. “I’m going to gut him like a fish.” She says, with that same calm fury, struggling in her brother’s arms.

“So you know Roger?” Brian asks, and Ash snorts out a laugh but doesn’t say anything.

“Why do you wanna kill him?” Oscar asks, matching her calm tone, and Ash stop struggling.

“He’s the one who ruined my major work; him and his fucking meme-y, dick sculpture.” She spat, the composed veneer breaking as she dwells on it, and Oscar lets her go and turns back to a confused and concerned Freddie.

“Is she going to kill our drummer?” He asked, as John joined them, looking like an actual child, and he asks if someone can go to the bar and buy him a coke.

“She might.” Oscar says blithely, and heads to the bar. Freddie frowns after him. Brian chimes in, thinking only of Ash, covered in clay and crying alone in the art room hours after school had finished for the day, super gluing her shattered project back together one piece at a time.

“Listen, Freddie, I don’t say this lightly, but he might deserve it.”

“You’re a fucking bastard; if you don’t know how to work with clay properly, you shouldn’t even try, do you know how much work I put in-?” Ash snarled as she found Roger trying to hide his face at the end of the bar.

“I didn’t mean to-” He tried; she’d just thrown paint at him earlier that day, didn’t have the words to articulate herself. This is worse than the paint.

“You sculpted a dick - a dick of all things - around a piece of scrunched up newspaper and didn’t think to leave a hole to let the air escape? To let the air in the clay expand? Have you never-” She seethes, standing right up against the stool he’s sitting on, forcing him to edge away.

“Are you yelling at me about sculptures in the middle of a bar?” Roger asks, and yeah he feels guilty about what happened, but he’s also pretty sure she’s using a fake ID, and the bouncer only didn’t card him because he’s in the band, and if she draws too much attention to them they’re both going to get kicked out.

“Yes.” She snaps, and shoves him rough enough to push him from his seat. He catches himself before he faceplants. “I should kick your ass.” Snarling, she gives him the single most derisive look he’s ever seen, though he stands his ground.

“First of all, I’d like to see you try,” he smirks, moving the chair back and stepping into her space; her hands twitch as if she’s aching to hit him, “and secondly; over a sculpture?”

“Over my major work!” She crows, and he finally realises what the whole situation meant for her. “Do you know how much work I put into that? Over a month and a half, you dipshit!” There’s tears in her eyes, and it seems to take her a moment to realise, and she turns away, gently dabbing to not smudge her mascara.

“I’m sorry, Ash.” Voice gentle, Roger awkwardly pets her shoulder, but she brushes him off. He crosses his arms, unsure of what to do with his hands. “Can I get you a beer or something?”

“We’re the same age.” She squints at him over her shoulder, and he shrugs.

“I’m in the band.” He smirks, puffing out his chest a little, and she rolls her eyes.

“I don’t drink.” And with that she leaves, finds her brother who’s bought both her and John sodas, and Brian gives her a sympathetic smile, and Freddie breathes a genuine sigh of relief when Roger follows behind, somewhat sheepishly.

“How you doing, biscuit?” Oscar asks, wrapping Ash in a side hug, and she shrugs, taking a long sip of her drink and leaning against him. They stay for the rest of the band’s sets; Oscar had brought her out to cheer her up, and eventually, when she starts bopping along to the music, it starts working. Roger, from what he can make out of her in the crowd, feels something in his chest ease to see her relaxing and enjoying herself.

When asked about how the confrontation went, when the band is packing up and Oscar and Ash have left for the night, Roger, to everyone’s surprised, tells them she had every right to be pissed.

“Though if she follows through on her threat to deck me, she’ll have another thing coming.” He snorted, packing up his high hat stand. Brian asks if they’d known each other before, and Roger turns an interesting shade of pink and goes quiet. “We’ve got art and physics together.” 

“But you’re not friends?” Freddie asks, watching Roger for a moment before he and Brian share a small smile.

“Do we seem like friends?” Roger snapped, and Freddie grinned wider. “She’s the best sculptor in our class; even our teacher was pissed when she found out what happened.” He admitted, before his voice dropped to quietly amused. “Ms Roberts got so close to swearing at me like four different times, it was actually pretty funny.”

“He likes her.” Freddie stage whispered to Brian, and Roger turned scarlet at that.

“I do not.” He growled, “she threatened to murder me.” But he was all flustered, and clearly a terrible liar while a little tipsy off of only two beers.

“You think she’s cute and you want to snog her because you know she wouldn’t really kill you.” Brian cooed, dodging Roger’s thrown drumstick easily.

“This is bullying.” He grumbled.

“She is cute,” John piped up, “got really nice eyes too, though the lights made them look all gold at times.” He mused, though Roger couldn’t see the bassist pointedly watching him.

“They’re green.” Roger corrects automatically, and John’s grin widens. He realises too late what he’s said, because both Brian and Freddie are howling with laughter.

“They're green!” Freddie wheezes, and does not get out of the way of the other drumstick quick enough, but also doesn’t seem to care. 

“Fuck all of you!” Roger snaps, thankful when he hears the honk of a horn and sees his dad’s station wagon parked outside and waiting. He starts lugging his stuff out as the others are still doting on him. Assholes.

[destiny-islanders]

FFXV x Hocus Pocus AU Ideas Part 4

Yes! Here it is... The conclusion of the Hocus Pocus AU...

So the broomstick ride to the school is one filled with Terror and Regret

Gladio: *Has Ignis sitting on his lap* “Would it be weird if I complimented Ignis’s cologne right now?”

Gladio: “It would probably be weird.”

Gladio: “He’s so soft I can’t”

Noctis sneezes and almost falls off of the broom. Prompto lunges to catch him and nearly sends them all hurtling to their deaths.

Noctis: “Dude, it’s not like I can die. You’re flying so damned slow. I could take another 300 years to get to the school and I’d still beat you there”

Like I said. Terror. Regret. IRRITABILITY. 

They thankfully make it to the school without dying.

They set up a trap-- lure the Sanderson Brothers into the kiln

Prompto: “Look! I made this clay pot to hold my wolfsbane potion!”

Prompto: “Once I make it”

Prompto: “I’ll get it right this time”

Noctis: “You are literally the worst witch I’ve ever seen:

They use Prompto as the bait-- it’s easy for the witches to sense his presence, and he has the best chance of defending himself. He stands inside the kiln (his clay pot safely stowed in his pocket)

The Brothers arrive and corner Prompto in the kiln-- and Prom strikes! He casts Stop

Time magic is not his strong suit

But all he needs is the few seconds it takes for him to run

He rushes out of the kiln, Gladio slams the door shut, and Ignis turns up the heat

Gladio: “Iris, don’t look!”

Iris: *FUCKING LOOKS*

It works! The Sanderson Brothers are toast!

Gladio: “Somebody order charbroiled witch?”

Prompto:

Gladio: 

Gladio’s Tattoo: *SQUAWK*

With the Sanderson brothers out of the way, the group heads to Gladio’s house.

Prompto and Noctis have a Pretty Serious Talk about what happens next

It’s all Prompto making promises about what good care he’s going to take of Noctis, and how they’re going to be so happy together

Gladio: “Didn’t peg you for a fuckin’ furry”

Prompto:

Noctis: “What’s a furry”

Iris: “Prompto’s not really that furry, is he? The only hair I see is on his head”

Prompto, Noctis, and Iris end up falling asleep in Gladio’s room. Gladio takes a photo of them. Partly because it’s cute. Mostly because it’s blackmail for Prompto, who has Noctis curled up on his chest

Cue Gladio’s chance to sneak downstairs with Ignis

Ignis: “Well, you managed to make one of the most spectacular blunders in the history of Salem, but I suppose it all worked out in the end”

Gladio: “Thanks to you. I never would have thought of using the kiln”

Ignis: “I do have my moments”

Gladio:

Ignis:

*AWKWARD SILENCE*

Gladio: “I LIKE HOW YOU SMELL”

Ignis:

Gladio: “Your”

Gladio: “Your cologne”

Gladio: “smells nice”

Gladio: *Oh my fucking God I wish the Sanderson Brothers were still around so that they could fucking end my life”

Ignis: “Thank you, Gladio. You smell rather pleasant, yourself”

Gladio’s Tattoo: *SQUAWK*

Ignis: “Okay, if we’re going to date, we need to do something about that tattoo of yours”

Gladio: “Yeah I know it’s really--”

Gladio: “Wait what”

Gladio and Ignis go upstairs to retrieve the spellbook, then head to the study so that they don’t disturb the others

They have two (2) objectives

1. To find a way to reverse Noctis’s kitty curse

2. To figure out how the hell to get rid of Gladio’s screeching tattoo

Little do they know that halfway across town, the Sanderson Brothers are rising from the ashes in the kiln. And the book is calling to them while it’s open in Gladio’s house

Noctis must also sense the book’s power, because he scampers into the study and lunges onto it, forcing Gladio to shut it

They’re too late-- someone’s screaming upstairs

Continued under the cut!

Ignis and Gladio run upstairs with Noctis and find the Sanderson Brothers in the bedroom

Loqi has Iris-- he’s singing softly into her ear, putting her into a trance so she can’t fight back

Ardyn has Prompto pinned to the wall, using magic to hold him up by the throat

If anyone’s curious, Iedolas is kind of off to the corner not really doing anything. I think he’s forgotten what they’re supposed to be doing

Ardyn: “Well, well. Fancy that you’d drop by.”

Gladio: “This is my fucking house”

Gladio’s Tattoo: *SQUAWK*

Ardyn proposes a trade: Innocent life for the spellbook

Gladio really hates it, but he has no choice. He can’t let anything happen to his little sister.

He hands over the book

Ardyn: “Thank you.”

Gladio: “Now keep your end of the bargain. Let them go.”

Ardyn: “Them? Oh, you misunderstood me, dear boy. I said ‘innocent LIFE. Not LIVES.”

Ardyn: “Leave the girl. There will be plenty more children where she came from.”

He drags Prompto, kicking and screaming, towards the window.

The others try to help him, but Loqi and Iedolas cast magic spells that send them flying across the room.

Gladio gets knocked out when he smashes into his drum set

Gladio’s woken up by Noctis scratching him mercilessly across the face

Noctis: “Come on! Wake up!! We gotta help Prompto!!!!”

Gladio: “Iris, you should stay here.”

Iris: “No way! I’m going with you! Prompto’s my friend, too!”

Ignis: “If the Brothers have their way, there won’t be a safe place for children like Iris to go, no matter where she is”

Gladio: “Ugh okay fine”

Gladio: “But first we’re getting something from my dad’s room”

Meanwhile, in the Sanderson House, the brothers have used the spellbook to create the potion they’ll need to suck the life out from young people

They’ve got Prompto tied to a chair. He’s going to be their first victim

He’s like 17... that’s still pretty young

Ardyn: “Shame that we must do this to one of our own...”

Prompto: “Uh. No one’s stopping you from NOT doing this, y’know.”

Prompto: “Anyway, why don’t you spend the next twenty minutes telling me your life story and explaining the motives behind every single one of your actions”

He’s stalling for time okay

He knows Gladio and the others are on their way-- they just need time to show up

Iedolas and Loqi are content with blabbing away with Prompto, but Ardyn’s not an idiot. He orders his brothers around, getting Loqi to help pry Prompto’s jaws apart so that he can pour the potion into his mouth.

They manage to force him to drink it!! Oh no!!!!

But before the Brothers can start to sap away Prompto’s youth to claim for themselves, Gladio KICKS DOWN THE DOOR AND SHOOTS THEM DOWN WITH A SHOTGUN

Prompto: “JESUS FUCKING CHRIST”

Iris: “Prompto! You’re okay!”

Iris: “Why is your body all glowy???”

Noctis: “They made him drink the potion. We have to get him out of here-- quickly! Before the witches revive!”

The group runs back to the cemetery. Prompto’s broom is at Gladio’s house-- meaning that Gladio has to give him a piggyback ride when they set foot on hallowed ground.

They’re about to reach the heart of the cemetery when Ravus lunges out at them from behind an oak tree

He reaches for the combat knife Gladio stole borrowed from his dad’s closet

He manages to grab it

But

IGNIS SMACKS HIM SO HARD WITH THE SHOTGUN THAT HIS HEAD FLIES OFF

Ravus’s body stumbles over to his head and uses the knife to slice the stitches sewing his mouth shut

Ravus: “Help! Help you!”

Gladio: “You expect me to believe that???”

Noctis: “I can vouch for Ravus. We rarely saw eye to eye. But he hates the Sanderson Brothers as much as any of us”

The group has two (2) objectives now

1. Protect Prompto and stop the Sanderson Brothers from draining his life force

2. Hold out until the sunrise-- then it will all be over

To free up everyone’s hands, Gladio helps Prompto climb the oak tree. He’s high up off the ground and difficult to get to, thanks to all the branches. Win-win.

They don’t have much time to prepare. The Sanderson Brothers are here!

Gladio declares open season on witches with his dad’s shotgun

He fires off one shot (and misses) before Ardyn sends the gun flying across the graveyard with a flick of his wrist

FUCK

Iedolas and Loqi work to distract the party while Ardyn goes for Prompto.

It’s not hard. The kid’s glowing like a Lite-Brite in a basement

Prompto fires off a couple of spells. One of them nearly knocks Ardyn off of his broom.

But Ardyn takes advantage of Prompto’s soaring confidence-- he rights himself on his broomstick while Prom’s in mid-celebration and smashes right through the branches of the tree. Prompto’s snatched up with a shriek

Noctis sees Ardyn holding Prompto by the throat and sucking out his soul and leaps into action. He climbs the oak tree and launches himself at Ardyn.

Prompto lands on the slab of an overturned tombstone. Drives the air right out of his lungs

Ardyn lands in the dirt

Noctis lands on his side on top of a tombstone. His bones crunch upon impact

Ardyn stalks towards Prompto, his hair a dishevelled mess, his eyes alight with uncharacteristic and unbridled rage. He reaches a hand towards him, ready to draw the life right out of him-- but then he realizes that he can’t move. His feet are rooted to the spot.

He’s standing on hallowed ground

Though Prompto has the bruises to show for it and he’s pretty sure his shoulder is dislocated, he landed on the tombstone. He’s technically not touching the ground

He watches in horror as Ardyn’s body begins to turn to stone.

As all this is happening, the sun peeks out through the trees. Iedolas and Loqi explode into dust upon contact with the sunlight

Ardyn is only able to watch as the light of the sun travels along the grass... closer and closer... until it touches him. And then he is no more.

Gladio, Ignis, and Iris cheer. They did it!!!!

Their celebration is cut short by Prompto

Prompto: “S-Someone please-- please go check on Noct! Is he okay? Please tell me he’s okay!!!”

He can’t reach Noctis from where he is. He’s trapped on the tombstone.

The group rushes over to Noct... and...

Gladio: “P-Prom... I’m...”

Prompto: “No. No. He’s not dead. He can’t die! He can’t die!”

Gladio doesn’t have a wisecrack about where to put the body this time. The cemetery is completely silent except for Prompto’s sobs

Noctis: “Jeez, Prompto, get a hold of yourself”

His soul-- in human form-- is sitting on top of Ravus’s tombstone. He gives a nod of acknowledgement when Ravus shuffles past him and settles back into his grave to rest once more so his soul can travel back to a place of peace

Noctis: “It’s better this way. There are people on the other side who’ve been waiting for me for a really long time.”

Sure enough-- that’s Luna’s voice calling Noct’s name. She’s a beautiful shade-- pure white light standing beside a tree

Noctis: “I’d better get going. Thank you, guys. Especially you, Prompto.”

Prompto just smiles and nods. As much as he wants Noctis to stay, he knows he can’t. Noctis’s soul deserves to rest in peace after centuries of suffering alone

Noctis: “Maybe I’ll see you around, Prom.” *Kisses Prompto on the cheek*

Tbh he’s a ghost so he actually probably kisses the inside of Prompto’s head but at least he’s cool enough to not point that out and ruin the moment

Noctis: “In my day, that’s basically third base”

Prompto: “DUDE WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU SAY THAT”

At least the smile that lingers on Prompto’s face as Noctis takes Luna’s hand and ventures forth into the sunrise is genuine

...Bonus...

A week later, Prompto is in his study, finally putting that wolfsbane inside the clay pot he’d made in art class.

He feels something rub against his leg and SCREAMS

He drops the pot

HIS NICE CLAY POT

IT HAD BEEN THROUGH SO MUCH

He glances down at his feet... and there goes the ladle he’d been holding in his other hand

The wispy silhouette of a not-quite-there black cat doesn’t bother to dodge the spoon that passes right through its body

The cat smiles as much as a cat can at the sight of Prompto’s overjoyed face

For the curious: Prompto is able to mute Gladio’s tattoo... but he has no idea how to remove it. He’s working on it!!!

[aroihkin]

So my current registered schedule for Fall is:

MONDAY: 1:15P - 4:05P Ceramics Beginner a little under 2 hours free, 1 if going home 6:00P - 8:30P Arc/Gas Welding

TUESDAY: 11:20A - 2:05P Acr/Oil Painting Beginner a little under 4 hours free, 3 if going home 6:00P - 8:30P Arc/Gas Welding WEDNESDAY: 1:15P - 4:05P Ceramics Beginner

THURSDAY: 11:20A - 2:05P Acr/Oil Painting Beginner FRIDAY: 9:40A - 3:05P Watercolor Painting Beginner That’s pretty fucking chill, right? Nothing before 11 AM except the watercolor class on fridays. Some of them have short breaks in the middle between lecture time and lab time but I simplified it to single blocks for this post.

In the multiple hours gaps I can either catch up on any assigned work or, if I’ve got nothing to do and don’t think parking twice will be a nightmare, I can go home for an hour or three. I may end up defaulting to that because my gear for welding is going to be so different than what I’ll be packing around for the art classes, down to a difference in shoes and pants. I live only a ten minute drive from the school. I factor it into an hour difference round trip here just to be ultra fucking safe. IDK how much of a bear parking is going to be, or traffic to and from and around the school in specific during a major semester.

Acr/Oil is acrylic or oil, both taught in the same class. I’ll probably go for acrylic, and try to recreate my MS Paint opaque and sharp style. Taking two painting classes in different styles from different teachers ought to be interesting, hopefully in a good way. I might finally learn color theory on an intellectual level, instead of just picking colors I think look good and fumbling forward with that all the time! Between two different teachers trying to explain it, paint in hand, I might finally crack that barrier. Reading about it and even youtube hasn’t been able to help me much. We’ll see if they allow this with a stated goal of automotive repair certification. Welding can easily be a puzzle piece toward being super mega trained in it, so it was suggested I declare automotive for now to make the pell grant happen. (And for all we know, I may yet end up doing auto repair for a career instead.) I haven’t registered for any automotive classes this semester though because they’re all monday through friday, 8 AM to 12:30 PM or 1:30 PM. And it’s only worth four credits while all these others are worth three each. Like, damn. I need 12 per semester for full financial aid. With welding all being on the evening side and automotive all being on the morning side, I think I want to not do both very intensive things for the first semester while I try to straighten my health out. Unless they insist that I need to, in which case this whole schedule is going to get changed other than welding. lmao Otherwise I figure I’ll dabble in some artsy shit I kinda want to try out / learn the basics of (or more of, in ceramics’ case, I only know how to coil build and this teaches more than that, plus kiln access, maybe I’ll make my own fucking plates and bowls and shit lmao some of it is wheel).

This isn’t stuff I’d learn so easily through youtube or whatever for free. I don’t want to waste money on shit I could learn online, like languages or math -- plus I don’t want a ton of thinky-thoughts homework shit from my other classes when my real focus is welding. Hopefully these art classes don’t pile on a shit ton of essays or something. Like, I should have plenty of time for them, but I want that processing power for welding if I can. I haven’t done the final financial aid paperwork yet because we have weeks before it’s needed anyway, waiting on the IRS, and I’ve been struggling with sleep and light issues for the last few days.

Lots of time to do some part time work to boost my moneys, if I think I can get away with it health-wise. Probably merchandising since that tends to be pretty fucking flexible... and short on hours. I'm already doing the on-boarding with one company that doesn't promise to always have any actual work for me in the region, but I won't be relying on it.

[solivar]

WIP: Ghost Stories On Route 66

aka the one in which Hanzo is an expatriate art student whose life just got wildly complicated, Jesse is an occasionally leather-clad and frequently beleaguered NPS ranger, weird stuff is going on in the desert south of Santa Fe, and it’s all because I can’t write a plotless porny one-shot to save my life.

Also: this is all @gunnslaughter ‘s fault.

Chapter Two is now complete and I’m going to start posting to AO3 in the interests of making sure nobody misses any important bits.

The first thing he became aware of, once he realized there were things to be aware of, was the voice. It was a beautiful voice, rich and dark and warm, and the mere act of hearing it was the sweetest comfort he’d ever known, better than laying under the  kotatsu on a cold winter evening and watching the snow fall gently over the garden in the deep blue of the twilight, better than the exquisite release of tension as he loosed an arrow on the firing range, better than finding the precise shade of color to fully express the mood he attempting to evoke in his work. It wound around him and through him, buoying up his mind and soul on arms of song, and at that moment he realized the voice was singing, a song whose words he did not know, in a language he did not recognize, but which he understood nonetheless: it was calling him back, and he let it take him, up out of the dark-cold-nothing.

He became aware, next, of the solidity of his own existence, of the flesh and bone, blood and skin, that made up the body in which he lived, and of exactly how much that body hated every single thing about him and itself at that very moment. His head felt fragile, brittle, like an overbaked piece of clay sculpture fresh out of the kiln, waiting for the clumsiest intern in the Fine Arts department to come along and jostle it just hard enough to set off a chain reaction of events that would end in screaming, ambulance sirens, and intravenous sedatives administered en route to a mandatory seventy-two hour psych hold following a spontaneous attempted murder. It wasn’t quite pain so much as the threat of pain, the suggestion that the slightest hint of movement, necessary or otherwise, would result in a physical punishment vastly at odds with the severity of the offense, and so he concluded that holding still was likely the kindest thing he could do for himself. The rest of his body assisted by virtue of feeling as though it were carved from a single slab of lead or osmium or some other incredibly dense substance that would require genuinely heroic human efforts to heft around, thereby fully justifying his decision to behave as a basically sessile mass. Also helpful: the knowledge that something was holding him down. Well, okay, maybe not holding him down in the sense of restraining him from actually doing anything but someone definitely had their hands on him. Pressed to his chest, as a matter of fact -- his bare chest, it felt like, because that was definitely some skin-on-skin warmth transfer happening, callused, long-fingered hands spread across the breadth of his pectoralis major, tips of the thumbs just touching. Someone’s weight was settled firmly astride his hips, a sensation that would have been emphatically erotic under pretty much any other circumstance but at the moment did not seem to carry that connotation and none of the relevant equipment seemed interested in picking it up.

Still. Someone was touching him. He supposed, in a vague and not particularly enthusiastic way, that he should be at least a little bit concerned with that. Not enough to put any effort into stopping it, but enough to actually determine what was going on. That seemed like a reasonable idea. Yes, yes it surely did.

This is going to suck beyond the telling of it. The thought articulated itself verbally from amidst the inchoate mass of hazily good intentions, sending a frisson of dread through the threadbare fabric of his being, the essence of realism making itself felt. Then, before the essence of realism could graduate to the essence of fuck no, don’t do that, you’ll hurt yourself, he opened his eyes.

His eyelids parted with a sensation like silk tearing along a sharply folded seam. Until that moment, he would have sworn that eyelashes did not actually contain any nerve endings; afterwards, he would never again be so certain, because at that instant each one felt as though it were an exquisitely sensitive filament of something extremely fragile that shattered into a million shards of agony as they parted. His eyes watered, uncontrollably, reducing everything to either a dark blur or a bright blur of acid-washed torment as he blinked furiously in an effort to clear them, breath catching in his throat as something, probably a shriek of some variety, tried to claw its way out of his chest. He took a deep, heaving breath and the hands on his chest lifted away, the weight astride him shifted slightly, and sound he realized he’d been hearing all along stopped.

“Hanzo?” He knew that voice -- it sounded like he felt, rough and broken, as though its owner had been talking, or singing, for hours without cease. “Can you hear me?”

He blinked, thrice, and the blur cohered: Ranger McCree, leaning over him, painted knuckles to navel in...tattoos? It couldn’t be tattoos, he’d seen the man’s arms before, the pattern on them a thing of intricate and interlocking geometric forms, there was no way he would have overlooked it. He swallowed, hard, and found his lips and tongue and throat completely unequal to the task of making even the smallest sound.

“Oh, thank all the gods that ever were.” The look that crossed his face was a thing of pure and perfect relief. Hanzo could have sworn there were actual tears in his eyes. “I thought I’d lost you.”

Lost? Moving his jaw set off a warning throb in his temples, the promise of more to come if he wasn’t careful, and he closed his eyes, trying to force the insides of his skull and the current situation to come together in any way that made sense, to no particular avail. One of the strong, warm hands that had until recently been resting on his chest moved up to cup his face gently -- so gently he leaned into it, so warm and so comforting he would have reached up to pull him closer if he could have.

“You need to rest. Really rest. This took a lot out of you and I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I never should have taken you with me.” It came out a husky rasp, almost directly against his ear, and both those hands framed his face, warm chapped lips brushed his forehead, and he wanted to ask what there was to be sorry for but already the strength he needed to do so was fading, the weight of physical and mental exhaustion pulling him down into a gray and sensationless place where no pain could reach.

*

When Hanzo finally woke up it was completely and all at once -- admittedly, not an unnatural or even unusual event, considering he was normally the first person up and out on any given day. The strange part was that, for at least the second time in recent memory, he was looking up at a completely unfamiliar ceiling: large wooden beams, carved their lengths with repeating geometric motifs, picked out against the dark wood in vivid red and gold, white and ocher, latillas of paler wood laid perpendicular between each beam. Absolutely not the ceiling in any room of the three bedroom condo he rented with his brother, his brother’s boyfriend, and his brother’s two least objectionable classmates. For a long, long moment, he stared blankly up at it, appreciating the aesthetic qualities, the way the lighter wood of the latillas gave the illusion of the ceiling being higher than it actually was, the way the carvings drew the eye the whole length of the room. Dusky, Santa Fe red walls almost bare of adornment except for a few framed photographs. Three tall, slender windows, not quite floor to ceiling, framed in rough wooden lintels carved and painted in the same patterns as the ceiling supports, exterior shutters closed. The light he was using to see came entirely from the kiva sculpted into the corner nearest where he lay, a low fire burning behind an iron mesh grate. A standing wardrobe, a chest of drawers, a single chest at the foot of the bed, the bedstead itself, all of heavy, dark, old wood.

A bed. He acknowledged to himself that he was laying on a bed, which seemed...strange, for some reason. He couldn’t quite put his finger on why, or why that disquieted him at some level. It wasn’t an uncomfortable bed -- his feet weren’t hanging off the bottom, for example, and from his position in the middle of the mattress, he was in no danger of rolling off either side. Said mattress felt, to him, at least semi-firm, the pillows were several and not yet to the point of being slept flat, the blankets warm and soft and enveloping him completely -- he almost felt as though he’d been tucked in. He shifted slightly, stretching his wonderfully pain-free spine, buried his face in a pillow and the scent that rose from it was cedar-sage-spice and a single blinding instant he remembered where he was if not how he had come to be there and all-but teleported out of Ranger McCree��s bed.

Ranger McCree’s bed.

He was sleeping in his rescuer’s bed.

A frantic look around secured the calming information that he was, in fact, alone. A well-padded chair and footstool sat between the bed and the fireplace, a rumpled blanket and a throw-pillow still providing evidence occupation, though how recently he couldn’t begin to guess. A glance down showed him still dressed in soft-washed comfortable sweats, tee-shirt, socks, so whatever had caused him to be upgraded to the full bedroom accommodations had not, apparently, involved any other upgrades or side-grades or grades that would earn him weeks of helpful suggestions from Genji about what he should have done in this situation on the chance that he made mention of this to his brother, which he absolutely would not, ever. The bedroom door was against his back and, moving slowly and with care, he worked the wrought iron latch and slid it open an inch, to peer out into the hallway. It was, in fact, the same hall that led to the bathroom and the kitchen beyond, walls painted the cheerful yellow that caught and kept the sunlight. In the kitchen, the dishes were done and sitting in the rack to dry, but the quality of the light coming through the windows had changed, reflected rather than direct, much later in the day. He drifted to the arched doorway that separated the kitchen from the room of all purpose and found his host sitting at the dining table, back to him, a map spread out in front of him pinned down at each corner with a basalt block carved in the shape of an owl, a stack of reference texts, two college ruled notebooks, and a package of pens. From the angle of his head and neck, he was examining it; from the angle of his shoulders and his spine, he was not enjoying what he was seeing.

Hanzo took a breath to speak but before he could expel it, someone landed a thunderous knock on the door and a voice, deeper than the ranger’s by a whole octave and twice as raspy announced, “Garden of the Desert, special delivery!”

The eyeroll was clearly audible in the ranger’s voice. “It’s not locked, Gabe!”

“It fucking should be!” The windowless door swung open and a mass of swirling, hissing smoke, curling shadows, flickering dark wings flowed inside, the door slamming firmly shut and all the locks lining it flicking shut behind it. Hanzo retreated a step, two, blinked, and the smoke-shadow-wings resolved into a human shape: a man, tall, broad shoulders and chest only barely disguised by the loose black jacket he wore, silver-dusted black hair and scarred dark skin and eyes that burned darkly crimson in the shadows of his hood. He was, incongruously, carrying a plastic shopping bag that he deposited on the table directly in the middle of the map; the ranger promptly moved it aside. “So distracted that you’re neglecting basic physical security precautions, now? Does this have anything to do with the call I hear you made over to Roadie?”

“I am wearing twelve reasons why anybody who tries to come through that door uninvited is going to have a genuinely bad day.” The ranger replied, tone amused. “And y’all are still too young to be this much of a gossipy old fart.”

“I’m going to parse that out into an overall complement, for your sake.” The newcomer -- Gabe? Gabe with the glowing red eyes? Was Gabe actually a smoke monster? Hanzo had no idea and was too paralyzed with shock and indecision to either guess or scream or retreat -- pulled out a chair and dropped into it. “Spill it, kid. You’ve got six kinds of doom written all over you.”

The ranger -- Jesse, his name is Jesse, you can think his name, it’s Jesse -- scrubbed his hands over his face, shoulders dropping as he did so. “Yes, it’s got something to do with the call I made to Roadie. And the order I just made so -- “

“Custom blended to your precise specifications by Ana’s own hands, new tea bell inclusive. And a fresh bottle of that shampoo Jack makes that you love so much.” Gabe grinned and, for a completely horrifying instant, his mouth stretched entirely too wide and contained far, far too many sharp white teeth to be anything identifiably human. “For the record: Jamie called and asked if I’d be willing to ride shotgun so you can presume I already know about the broken-down car at the outer edge of the Red Zone. So just cut to the chase and tell me how it got there.”

Jesse pushed an object otherwise concealed behind the bulk of his body across the table: the dedicated shot composition camera that usually lived in the pockets of his bookbag. “Art student from the city. Per his testimony on the topic, he left Santa Fe on Friday morning for a day of inspiration-seeking among the ruins in the near vicinity of Shiprock -- both Shiprocks. While he was out there in the desert between the town and Tse Bit’a’í, he started experiencing technical issues with both his gear and his transportation. The GPS unit he was using completely freaked, dragged him somewhere around two hundred miles out into the Red Zone, and then almost back to safety before the car finally gave up and died. He walked, in the middle of the night, up from the edge and knocked on my door.”

“And you, of course, let him in.” Asperity thick enough to taste.

“He made it past the boundary maze.” Jesse replied, irritably. “Nothing purely from Beyond could get through there without -- “

“Without wearing enough stolen human flesh and blood and skin to pass and then come in here and tear your head off.” A hiss. “You are the entire reason I have gray hair right now, kid.”

“So you keep sayin’.” Dryly. “In any case, he did not tear my head off and, after describing the situation to me, I realized that our known zone of disruption is now way further to the west than it was even three months ago -- “

“And that whoever’s supposed to be monitoring the outer ward boundary is half-assing it pretty hard because everything they’re interested in protecting is still under Tse Bit’a’í’s shadow and nobody thought to call you so you could pick up the slack.”

“-- and that it might be developing some explicitly malevolent intent, because it dumped my guest almost on top of a nest of naayéé. An unusually active during the day nest of naayéé. Fortunately it was cold that night or he’d never have made it here otherwise.” He rested his head in his hands and, for an instant, he looked so utterly weary it was all Hanzo could do not to step into the room and try to comfort him. “And, of course, I screwed up at least once myself because when I went to check the car and see if I could avoid calling Roadie and Jamie, I took him with -- “

“Wow.” There was an entire lifetime of unsurprised nonreaction in that syllable.

“And he got a glimpse of one. In the rearview, so it was just the reflection but -- “

“Buuuuuuut it was enough to make you regret not leaving him here. Where he would be safe. Safer than anyplace else for dozens of miles all around.” Hanzo realized, in that instant, that there actually was someone on Earth more lethally sarcastic than his brother and it was sharing the room with him right now. “The next time Jack’s dog has puppies, you’re getting one. Maybe more than one. As an encouragement to stop adopting human strays.”

“Thank you so much for your understanding. I just spent the last...what day is it…?”

“Tuesday.”

“Tuesday!” Hanzo shouted, shocked out of his quiescence.

“I just spent the last three days singing his soul back into his body and then stitching them together again.” Jesse jiggled the bag gently. “Which is why I’m going to need this for him when he wakes up.”

“Oh.” Those burning crimson eyes flicked in his direction. “Well. You might want to see to that as a priority, kid, because he’s standing over there having an out of body experience and possibly a nervous breakdown.”

“Wh -- “ The ranger spun in his seat and locked eyes with him in the motion -- in any other circumstance, the look of dismay that crossed his face might’ve been comical. “Dammit, Gabe.”

“I see that my work here is done.” The smog monster/second most sarcastic human on Earth rose, dropped a fatherly pat on the ranger’s shoulder, and made for the door. “Coming over for fajitas tonight? We’re making enough to feed Reinhardt, so there’ll be plenty for you. And company, if he’s of a mind.”

“We’ll see.” The ranger growled -- really growled, his voice was gravelly enough for it just now -- and rose from his chair, hands outspread as though showing himself unarmed, despite the weapons he still wore, approaching slowly.

Hanzo bumped into the sink counter and realized as he did so that he was retreating, reflexively, that he could feel his pulse pounding in his throat, feel the breath catching in his lungs, his field of vision trying to tunnel at the edges. What he said cannot possibly be true, the calm voice of reason that ever and always sounded like his father murmured soothingly in the back of his mind, because it is impossible. None of this is possible. You are --

“I am totally losing my mind, aren’t I?” Hanzo asked, out loud. “Something really terrible happened to me out in the desert, and you’re just waiting for the ambulance to arrive. Go ahead. You can tell me. I promise I won’t freak out.”

“Something really terrible did happen out in the desert but, all things bein’ equal, it wasn’t as terrible as it could have been and, no, you ain’t losin’ your mind.” Softly, gently, and moving with the sort of slow care you’d use to avoid startling a skittish, injured animal. “And freakin’ out is a perfectly reasonable response, so if you do I promise I won’t hold it against you.”

“Good to know.” A warm, strong hand came to rest in the small of his back and, before he could stop himself, he buried his face in the angle of Jesse’s neck and shoulder and clung as he shivered, convulsively, unable to stop through any desire of his own.

Warm, strong arms closed around him, carefully, holding him closely enough to offer comfort and support, loosely enough not to tip what was threatening to become a genuine panic attack over the edge, a pretty neat trick the still-rational part of his mind was forced to admit. The hand not anchored to the base of his spine caressed his back in long, slow strokes and came to rest in his hair as the frantic pace of his breath finally moderated itself. The not-at-all-rational part of his mind wondered what that would feel like without the impediment of clothing and that was all he needed to find the strength to step back, to bring himself back under control. Jesse, taking the cue from him, let him go.

“What happened to me?” Hanzo asked, catching his rescuer’s dark eyes and holding them.

And, to give him the credit he deserved, he didn’t look away. “The naayéé are...not of this world. Never have been, never will be, but sometimes they find their way here, one way or another. The ones you saw the other day are particularly unpleasant to encounter because of the effect they generally have on people. They’re predators. Lazy-ass predators, actually, that mostly like it dark and mostly like it hot and they generally don’t come out in the daylight or the cold, so I really didn’t think we’d see any of them but…” He gestured helplessly. “Yeah. Again, I’m sorry. I didn’t want any of this to happen to you, it was completely my fuckup and -- “

“Jesse.” Hanzo interjected, with what he felt was admirable calm. “What happened to me?”

“They tried to eat your soul.” Jesse replied and immediately took a step towards him and rested a comforting hand on his arm. “Yanked it out through the sympathetic connection forged by the reflection you shared for a minute but I stopped things before it could get any further than that. It just took a while to coax your body and spirit back together -- you were in a couple different kinds of shock and it took some time to convince you that I wasn’t going to hurt you, too. Which was perfectly understandable given the circumstances.”

“I...see.” The still-rational part of his mind was screeching in high-pitched distress; the rest, however, was finally achieving an inner state of equilibrium that permitted him to hear and process this information without falling into any further pieces. “So I am...outside my body now. As your friend said.”

“Yes and I apologize, again. Gabe is pretty much made entirely out of antisocial tendencies at this point in his existence.” The comforting hand came to rest in the small of his back again. “We should probably put you back.”

“How can you be touching me if I’m not in my body?” Hanzo asked but nonetheless permitted himself to be guided down the now quite dark hallway.

“Circumstances have required me to master a number of fairly esoteric and nonstandard survival skills over the years.” Again, oh so very dryly as he opened the bedroom door.

“That’s not -- oh. Oh my.”

His body was, in fact, still laying in the bed, chest rising and falling in the slow, steady rhythm of sleep, hair spread almost artfully across one of the pillows, the firelight casting the planes of his face in coppery light and shadow. He blinked and took a deep breath and with a sudden, vertiginous wrench his perspective shifted and he was laying on his back in pillows and blankets and staring up at a carved and painted ceiling. With a certain amount of effort -- his thoughts felt laggy, like medicine head to a degree previously unheard of by modern science, and it took some time to convince his limbs to cooperate with one another -- he managed a sitting position against the headboard. Jesse sat on the edge of the bed and poured him a glass of water from the carafe sitting on the bedside table, which he consumed in a three swallows, and a second, which he drank more slowly.

His voice, when he spoke, was rusty with disuse. “It’s really Tuesday?”

“Tuesday afternoon. Almost evening, actually.” Jesse replied and offered another glass of water.

“I missed class. More than one class. I never miss class. I’ve got a midterm paper due tomorrow and two exams next week. My brother might actually be worried about me by now.” He accepted the glass and sipped at it slowly. “Something from another world just tried to eat my soul.”

“It’s a lot to take in.” Ranger McTalentForUnderstatement admitted, looking anywhere but at him, Hanzo noticed and, not for the first time, regretted that he’d let Hana talk him into that particular haircut, though he couldn’t really blame her for the piercings. “If you want, I’ll drive you home tonight -- I’ve got a call in to a local mechanic with the equipment required to retrieve your car -- “

“Roadie?” Hanzo asked, because asking questions and receiving answers made the whole situation feel at least slightly more real.

“Roadhog. It’s his nickname, real name’s Mako, but he likes to say he’s wanted in too many places to go by it.” Jesse glanced at him, grinned, looked away again. “He and his partner Jamie run a salvage and rebuilding operation off the highway about twelve miles north of here. They do most of the work that keeps my little fleet of gas-drinkers functional. They can certainly get your car back and probably in working order without too much trouble, so long as Jamie knows beforehand not to make too many...alterations.”

“I’m not certain I could afford that.” Hanzo replied carefully. “I was supposed to have it back on Sunday and I can just imagine what kind of fees -- “

“Don’t worry about affordin’ it.” In the sort of tone that didn’t really brook anything in the way of argument. “Are you hungry?”

His stomach was knotted entirely too tight to even consider the concept of food. “Not really, no. I just...would like to go home.”

“Of course.” Jesse rose and offered his hand; Hanzo accepted it, because his prevailing state of awkward and uncoordinated made getting out from under the covers and to the side of the bed more of an adventure than it should have been.

Getting to his feet was likewise a thing of extraordinary gracelessness and, for a horrifying moment, he felt like a newborn giraffe with legs too long and too ungainly to be real that also happened to be coming into the world on the deck of a ship about to sink into heaving, churning seas. He clung again, as the floor tried to tip sideways and knock him over, and his host submitted to the indignity with kindness and patience.

“I think maybe you ought to keep the sweats for now, just to make this as painless as possible.” Jesse suggested, a hint of humor with no trace of mockery in his eyes. “Let’s get you to the living room and I’ll bring the Jeep up.”

Walking got progressively easier the more he did it and so, while his host was out bringing around the vehicle, Hanzo tottered around the room gathering his things together: the plastic bag went in the bookbag, the folded stack of clothes went on top of that, Jesse’s gloves came out of his jacket pocket, and his jacket went on his body. The Jeep, as it turned out, was an actual, modern hover-vehicle painted NPS white with the green stripe and shields. On the way out of town, north on the unnamed, unmarked road that was once Highway 14, he pointed out the sights -- the town itself was once a more frequently sought-out tourist attraction, was still a national historic site, and had the cluster of carefully preserved mercantile buildings, saloons, even an old church, to prove it, along with younger, but equally abandoned, structures clustered around the edge of town, only a handful of which were still occupied. That handful consisted entirely of the Garden of the Desert, a compound of four greenhouses and a sprawling two-story Pueblo Revival hacienda, fully enclosed behind an adobe-and-fieldstone wall, the name of the place spelled out in jewel-bright mosaic on the arch over the main entry gate.

“Jack and Gabe and their gradually expanding pack of mostly-tame hellhounds call that place home. It’s pretty nice, actually. Gabe’s antisocial tendencies don’t influence his interior decorating decisions.” A pause. “Well, okay, they don’t influence them much. And he’s a damn fine cook, all other considerations aside. They both tend the greenhouses, though Jack and Ana -- that’s the neighbor up the valley, lives in the hills with her husband, Reinhardt -- do most of the alchemy, for want of a better term.”

Hanzo thought of unnaturally willful smoke and curls of shadow and far too many sharp, white teeth and the question was out of his mouth before he could stop it. “Gabe isn’t...completely human, is he?”

Jesse glanced sidelong at him and was silent for a long moment. “I wondered if you saw that while you were…” Another, longer silence. “That’s...kinda not my story to tell. I can say, with total confidence and all joking aside, that I would trust him with my life, and a lot of other people’s lives beside. But, no, he ain’t. Neither is Jack, he just wears it better. If you’re ever in a position where you need help -- like the kind of help you got from me, but I’m not available, there’s nobody better to call upon, and that’s a promise.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Hanzo found a smile actually crawling onto his face and he let it stay. “So the...blend...you got from them -- it’s some kind of medicine?”

“Yes. The kind of injury you’ve suffered is tricky to heal -- your body and your soul have to grow back together and, right now, you’re vulnerable to...relapse is such a stupid word here but...that’s kinda what it is. Your spirit’s still only lightly tethered to your body. Your body’s vulnerable without your spirit in it. All of you is more susceptible to weirdness in your sleep, as we just saw.” They reached the junction with the actual charted highway, traffic coming and going in each direction. “You should take that once a night, just before bed, for seven days. It’ll help strengthen the bonds, heal the spiritual wounds, make you...not forget, exactly, but make the memory less of a scar.”

“That’s good, because I would prefer not to forget.” Hanzo, greatly daring, rested a hand on Jesse’s shoulder, lightly, and snatched it back. “You saved my life, and for that I’m grateful.”

“I -- “

“Quiet.” Hanzo smiled ruthlessly. “You saved my life, and I do not want to forget that, or you.”

“It’s probably for the best if you did.” They were, Hanzo realized, approaching roads, and landmarks, that were thoroughly familiar now. “I can’t order you to stay away from the desert down south but, for your own safety, you should absolutely do so. Something out there decided you were interesting enough to mess with personally -- something out there might’a gotten a taste of you and might’a liked it and that? That’s dangerous, more dangerous than I can probably make you appreciate just now.” Softly. “I don’t want anything worse to happen to you, Hanzo. Please don’t invite it in the front door.”

“I will try not to do so.” His temporary home loomed out of the twilight -- for an instant, it was on the tip of his tongue to ask how Jesse knew the address, realized he’d probably gotten it from his driver’s license, and struggled to find something else to say as they pulled up to the curb. “Where -- where would you suggest I go, then?”

“Black Mesa’s one of the most beautiful places there is -- and the mountains north of Los Alamos, particularly at this time of year.” Jesse reached over and unlocked the doors, activated the hazard lights and, before Hanzo could fully process what he was doing, got out and opened his door for him. “Promise me you’ll take care of yourself.”

“I promise.” Hanzo hefted his bag over his shoulder and stood clear of the door. “And I will take your advice to heart, as well.”

“If you’re still not feeling a hundred percent after the week is out, call me.” Jesse pressed something into his hand as they walked to the door of the condo together. “I’ll do whatever I can to help, that’s my promise.”

“Thank you again.” Hanzo paused with his hand on the exterior identification lock. “Would you...like to come in? For coffee?”

“I’d best be gettin’ back, but thank you kindly for the offer.” He tipped his hat, and Hanzo’s knees tried their hardest to transform into bendy gelatin again, successfully enough that it was all he could do to stand and watch as he walked back to the Jeep and pulled away.

He was, in fact, still standing there holding onto the lockbox when the front door flew open behind him, a shadow fell over him, and his brother demanded, in a voice that promised something immediate and horrific for someone if he didn’t like what he heard, “Where. The actual fuck. Have you been?”

[bloggerthanwolves]

Log #25 - Cape Carnival

The Good

With the Compass and Spatial Awareness, I returned to Cape Cod across the infinite vastness of the seven seas. The plan is to get the materials I need, return to Me, and then connect it to Cape Cod via Nether.

Wouldn’t it be a shame if I got distracted for twenty hours making Cape Cod cool? I promise I can explain. It all started when I found out that the Crucible can resmelt diamond gear. It can resmelt it for 100% of materials used. Endless diamond gear.

High on the power of the infinite diamond pickaxe, I went mining for a few hours. Then I decided to go into my Test World and try to make a Hibachi switch. 

I found a way to set up a lever that turned a 3x3 grid of hibachis on and off, without using any repeaters (which take four gold each.) This was big enough that I went to go implement it in my main world.

(Don’t mind the odd painting in the background - that’s a story for another time.)

There are three things in BTW that can use a 3x3 grid of Hibachis - the Cauldron, the Kiln, and the Crucible. Since I don’t have a lot of excess leather for more Bellows, right now I have one set of Hibachis with a stoking mechanism set up, and I swap out the device above them as I need to. This was part of the reason I wanted a quick way to turn them on and off.

Immaculate. You may notice the use of sandstone - it’s one of the few blocks in BTW that floats without mortar. The downside is that it takes a diamond pick to pick up without destroying it. Luckily, I just came into an infinite diamond pick, so I grabbed a few stacks from a nearby desert.

(Yes, I am kicking myself for breaking that Diamond Pick in Log #18.)

By this time, I’d been back in Cape Cod for quite a while, and I was running through my supply of melons.

You see, I’ve been slowly replacing my farm with planter-pots since I unlocked them. And for whatever reason, although I can’t find any documentation regarding this, it is an immutable observation: things in planters grow really fucking slowly. See those bonemealed hemp stems on the left? They’ve been growing for at least eight hours, possibly as many as sixteen. I don’t know if I’m doing something wrong (I’ve checked the wiki) or what.

Anyway, so I’m renovating this farm, and wheat production is slow. Melons were removed entirely, since they need their own farm setup. They can grow onto nearby plants and crush them, requiring an...odd setup to make them anything resembling neat.

And I was like, man, I could use more melons. What if I spent three hours making a melon/pumpkin farm?

So that happened. And then I thought, man, I’m running out of room for chests in my house, what with all the dirt, cobble, netherrack, sand, and gravel I’m picking up. And I have time to kill waiting for Hemp to grow. What if I spent six hours making the best house I’ve ever made in Minecraft, let alone Better Than Wolves?

Yeah. Not super impressive in the scheme of things, I’m aware, but building was never something I focused on, even in vanilla. Either way, building it was certainly a lot of fun, and it’ll serve me well. And I think it was grand enough to justify renaming Cape Cod to Cape Carnival.

(Fun? In Better Than Wolves? Only took...22 months?)

The Bad

I was spending my evening how I spend most of my evenings - looking over old BTW changelogs - when I found something worrying.

That’s bad. That means Revel is gone, and I need to go find some other village. On the bright side, I don’t have to cross the ocean again. Oh well, win some/lose some.

...is what I was going to write. But then I found this, a couple versions later, while grabbing the screencaps for this blogpost:

Oh, cool. Now all of my long-term villager related worries are over, never to return.

The Ugly

I found something worrying a few weeks ago.

I was in my Test World, trying out villager trading in anticipation. But I noticed something wrong - none of the villagers were gaining exp from trades.

BTW overhauls villagers (as you might guess) and gives them levels. They gain experience each time you trade with them, and once they fill up, they require a special trade to level up and unlock more trade options.

Or they were supposed to. No matter what I tried, I couldn’t get my villagers to gain exp. Was it cause they spawned from eggs? I bred them and waited for the kids to grow, but they didn’t gain exp either. What was going on?

On a hunch, I started a second creative world. I spawned a villager, did a trade, and...they gained experience.

Oh no.

Villagers seem to be - broken - in my Test World. For whatever reason, they won’t level up. Maybe this only applies to egg villagers, and natural ones are fine, but I doubt it. This is terrifying.

It means it’s possible for an entire world to have broken villagers.

What if my survival world has broken villagers? I need them to progress in the tech tree and beat the game. They can’t be broken! I’d have to find some workaround, some way to fix it, or else I’d have to go start a new world. And lose everything. All 22 months.

I don’t know if my main world has broken villagers. To be honest, I’m afraid to find out.

[solivar]

WIP: Ghost Stories On Route 66

aka the one where Hanzo is an expatriate art student, Jesse is a beleaguered park ranger, weird stuff is going on in the desert, and it’s all because I am fundamentally incapable of writing a plotless porny shortfic to save my life.

...It’s growing chapters now. ::scrubs face::

The first thing he became aware of, once he realized there were things to be aware of, was the voice. It was a beautiful voice, rich and dark and warm, and the mere act of hearing it was the sweetest comfort he’d ever known, better than laying under the  kotatsu on a cold winter evening and watching the snow fall gently over the garden in the deep blue of the twilight, better than the exquisite release of tension as he loosed an arrow on the firing range, better than finding the precise shade of color to fully express the mood he attempting to evoke in his work. It wound around him and through him, buoying up his mind and soul on arms of song, and at that moment he realized the voice was singing, a song whose words he did not know, in a language he did not recognize, but which he understood nonetheless: it was calling him back, and he let it take him, up out of the dark-cold-nothing.

He became aware, next, of the solidity of his own existence, of the flesh and bone, blood and skin, that made up the body in which he lived, and of exactly how much that body hated every single thing about him and itself at that very moment. His head felt fragile, brittle, like an overbaked piece of clay sculpture fresh out of the kiln, waiting for the clumsiest intern in the Fine Arts department to come along and jostle it just hard enough to set off a chain reaction of events that would end in screaming, ambulance sirens, and intravenous sedatives administered en route to a mandatory seventy-two hour psych hold following a spontaneous attempted murder. It wasn’t quite pain so much as the threat of pain, the suggestion that the slightest hint of movement, necessary or otherwise, would result in a physical punishment vastly at odds with the severity of the offense, and so he concluded that holding still was likely the kindest thing he could do for himself. The rest of his body assisted by virtue of feeling as though it were carved from a single slab of lead or osmium or some other incredibly dense substance that would require genuinely heroic human efforts to heft around, thereby fully justifying his decision to behave as a basically sessile mass. Also helpful: the knowledge that something was holding him down. Well, okay, maybe not holding him down in the sense of restraining him from actually doing anything but someone definitely had their hands on him. Pressed to his chest, as a matter of fact -- his bare chest, it felt like, because that was definitely some skin-on-skin warmth transfer happening, callused, long-fingered hands spread across the breadth of his pectoralis major, tips of the thumbs just touching. Someone’s weight was settled firmly astride his hips, a sensation that would have been emphatically erotic under pretty much any other circumstance but at the moment did not seem to carry that connotation and none of the relevant equipment seemed interested in picking it up.

Still. Someone was touching him. He supposed, in a vague and not particularly enthusiastic way, that he should be at least a little bit concerned with that. Not enough to put any effort into stopping it, but enough to actually determine what was going on. That seemed like a reasonable idea. Yes, yes it surely did.

This is going to suck beyond the telling of it. The thought articulated itself verbally from amidst the inchoate mass of hazily good intentions, sending a frisson of dread through the threadbare fabric of his being, the essence of realism making itself felt. Then, before the essence of realism could graduate to the essence of fuck no, don’t do that, you’ll hurt yourself, he opened his eyes.

His eyelids parted with a sensation like silk tearing along a sharply folded seam. Until that moment, he would have sworn that eyelashes did not actually contain any nerve endings; afterwards, he would never again be so certain, because at that instant each one felt as though it were an exquisitely sensitive filament of something extremely fragile that shattered into a million shards of agony as they parted. His eyes watered, uncontrollably, reducing everything to either a dark blur or a bright blur of acid-washed torment as he blinked furiously in an effort to clear them, breath catching in his throat as something, probably a shriek of some variety, tried to claw its way out of his chest. He took a deep, heaving breath and the hands on his chest lifted away, the weight astride him shifted slightly, and sound he realized he’d been hearing all along stopped.

“Hanzo?” He knew that voice -- it sounded like he felt, rough and broken, as though its owner had been talking, or singing, for hours without cease. “Can you hear me?”

He blinked, thrice, and the blur cohered: Ranger McCree, leaning over him, painted knuckles to navel in...tattoos? It couldn’t be tattoos, he’d seen the man’s arms before, the pattern on them a thing of intricate and interlocking geometric forms, there was no way he would have overlooked it. He swallowed, hard, and found his lips and tongue and throat completely unequal to the task of making even the smallest sound.

“Oh, thank all the gods that ever were.” The look that crossed his face was a thing of pure and perfect relief. Hanzo could have sworn there were actual tears in his eyes. “I thought I’d lost you.”

Lost? Moving his jaw set off a warning throb in his temples, the promise of more to come if he wasn’t careful, and he closed his eyes, trying to force the insides of his skull and the current situation to come together in any way that made sense, to no particular avail. One of the strong, warm hands that had until recently been resting on his chest moved up to cup his face gently -- so gently he leaned into it, so warm and so comforting he would have reached up to pull him closer if he could have.

“You need to rest. Really rest. This took a lot out of you and I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I never should have taken you with me.” It came out a husky rasp, almost directly against his ear, and both those hands framed his face, warm chapped lips brushed his forehead, and he wanted to ask what there was to be sorry for but already the strength he needed to do so was fading, the weight of physical and mental exhaustion pulling him down into a gray and sensationless place where no pain could reach.

[solivar]

WIP: Ghost Stories On Route 66

aka the one where Hanzo is an expatriate art student, Jesse is a beleaguered park ranger, weird stuff is going on in the desert, and it’s all because I am fundamentally incapable of writing a plotless porny shortfic to save my life.

Now with 100% more snarky smog monster father figures dropping by to bust chops and advance the plot.

The first thing he became aware of, once he realized there were things to be aware of, was the voice. It was a beautiful voice, rich and dark and warm, and the mere act of hearing it was the sweetest comfort he’d ever known, better than laying under the  kotatsu on a cold winter evening and watching the snow fall gently over the garden in the deep blue of the twilight, better than the exquisite release of tension as he loosed an arrow on the firing range, better than finding the precise shade of color to fully express the mood he attempting to evoke in his work. It wound around him and through him, buoying up his mind and soul on arms of song, and at that moment he realized the voice was singing, a song whose words he did not know, in a language he did not recognize, but which he understood nonetheless: it was calling him back, and he let it take him, up out of the dark-cold-nothing.

He became aware, next, of the solidity of his own existence, of the flesh and bone, blood and skin, that made up the body in which he lived, and of exactly how much that body hated every single thing about him and itself at that very moment. His head felt fragile, brittle, like an overbaked piece of clay sculpture fresh out of the kiln, waiting for the clumsiest intern in the Fine Arts department to come along and jostle it just hard enough to set off a chain reaction of events that would end in screaming, ambulance sirens, and intravenous sedatives administered en route to a mandatory seventy-two hour psych hold following a spontaneous attempted murder. It wasn’t quite pain so much as the threat of pain, the suggestion that the slightest hint of movement, necessary or otherwise, would result in a physical punishment vastly at odds with the severity of the offense, and so he concluded that holding still was likely the kindest thing he could do for himself. The rest of his body assisted by virtue of feeling as though it were carved from a single slab of lead or osmium or some other incredibly dense substance that would require genuinely heroic human efforts to heft around, thereby fully justifying his decision to behave as a basically sessile mass. Also helpful: the knowledge that something was holding him down. Well, okay, maybe not holding him down in the sense of restraining him from actually doing anything but someone definitely had their hands on him. Pressed to his chest, as a matter of fact -- his bare chest, it felt like, because that was definitely some skin-on-skin warmth transfer happening, callused, long-fingered hands spread across the breadth of his pectoralis major, tips of the thumbs just touching. Someone’s weight was settled firmly astride his hips, a sensation that would have been emphatically erotic under pretty much any other circumstance but at the moment did not seem to carry that connotation and none of the relevant equipment seemed interested in picking it up.

Still. Someone was touching him. He supposed, in a vague and not particularly enthusiastic way, that he should be at least a little bit concerned with that. Not enough to put any effort into stopping it, but enough to actually determine what was going on. That seemed like a reasonable idea. Yes, yes it surely did.

This is going to suck beyond the telling of it. The thought articulated itself verbally from amidst the inchoate mass of hazily good intentions, sending a frisson of dread through the threadbare fabric of his being, the essence of realism making itself felt. Then, before the essence of realism could graduate to the essence of fuck no, don’t do that, you’ll hurt yourself, he opened his eyes.

His eyelids parted with a sensation like silk tearing along a sharply folded seam. Until that moment, he would have sworn that eyelashes did not actually contain any nerve endings; afterwards, he would never again be so certain, because at that instant each one felt as though it were an exquisitely sensitive filament of something extremely fragile that shattered into a million shards of agony as they parted. His eyes watered, uncontrollably, reducing everything to either a dark blur or a bright blur of acid-washed torment as he blinked furiously in an effort to clear them, breath catching in his throat as something, probably a shriek of some variety, tried to claw its way out of his chest. He took a deep, heaving breath and the hands on his chest lifted away, the weight astride him shifted slightly, and sound he realized he’d been hearing all along stopped.

“Hanzo?” He knew that voice -- it sounded like he felt, rough and broken, as though its owner had been talking, or singing, for hours without cease. “Can you hear me?”

He blinked, thrice, and the blur cohered: Ranger McCree, leaning over him, painted knuckles to navel in...tattoos? It couldn’t be tattoos, he’d seen the man’s arms before, the pattern on them a thing of intricate and interlocking geometric forms, there was no way he would have overlooked it. He swallowed, hard, and found his lips and tongue and throat completely unequal to the task of making even the smallest sound.

“Oh, thank all the gods that ever were.” The look that crossed his face was a thing of pure and perfect relief. Hanzo could have sworn there were actual tears in his eyes. “I thought I’d lost you.”

Lost? Moving his jaw set off a warning throb in his temples, the promise of more to come if he wasn’t careful, and he closed his eyes, trying to force the insides of his skull and the current situation to come together in any way that made sense, to no particular avail. One of the strong, warm hands that had until recently been resting on his chest moved up to cup his face gently -- so gently he leaned into it, so warm and so comforting he would have reached up to pull him closer if he could have.

“You need to rest. Really rest. This took a lot out of you and I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I never should have taken you with me.” It came out a husky rasp, almost directly against his ear, and both those hands framed his face, warm chapped lips brushed his forehead, and he wanted to ask what there was to be sorry for but already the strength he needed to do so was fading, the weight of physical and mental exhaustion pulling him down into a gray and sensationless place where no pain could reach.

*

When Hanzo finally woke up it was completely and all at once -- admittedly, not an unnatural or even unusual event, considering he was generally the first person up and out on any given day. The strange part was that, for at least the second time in recent memory, he was looking up at a completely unfamiliar ceiling: large wooden beams, carved their lengths with repeating geometric motifs, picked out against the dark wood in vivid red and gold, white and ocher, latillas of paler wood laid perpendicular between each beam. Absolutely not the ceiling in any room of the three bedroom condo he rented with his brother, his brother’s boyfriend, and his brother’s two least objectionable classmates. For a long, long moment, he stared blankly up at it, appreciating the aesthetic qualities, the way the lighter wood of the latillas gave the illusion of the ceiling being higher than it actually was, the way the carvings drew the eye the whole length of the room. Dusky, Santa Fe red walls almost bare of adornment except for a few framed photographs. Three tall, slender windows, not quite floor to ceiling, framed in rough wooden lintels carved and painted in the same patterns as the ceiling supports, exterior shutters closed. The light he was using to see came entirely from the kiva sculpted into the corner nearest where he lay, a low fire burning behind an iron mesh grate. A standing wardrobe, a chest of drawers, a single chest at the foot of the bed, the bedstead itself, all of heavy, dark, old wood.

A bed. He acknowledged to himself that he was laying on a bed, which seemed...strange, for some reason. He couldn’t quite put his finger on why, or why that disquieted him at some level. It wasn’t an uncomfortable bed -- his feet weren’t hanging off the bottom, for example, and from his position in the middle of the mattress, he was in no danger of rolling off either side. Said mattress felt, to him, at least semi-firm, the pillows were several and not yet to the point of being slept flat, the blankets warm and soft and enveloping him completely -- he almost felt as though he’d been tucked in. He shifted slightly, stretching his wonderfully pain-free spine, buried his face in a pillow and the scent that rose from it was cedar-sage-spice and a single blinding instant he remembered where he was if not how he had come to be there and all-but teleported out of Ranger McCree’s bed.

Ranger McCree’s bed.

He was sleeping in his rescuer’s bed.

A frantic look around secured the calming information that he was, in fact, alone. A well-padded chair and footstool sat between the bed and the fireplace, a rumpled blanket and a throw-pillow still providing evidence occupation, though how recently he couldn’t begin to guess. A glance down showed him still dressed in soft-washed comfortable sweats, tee-shirt, socks, so whatever had caused him to be upgraded to the full bedroom accommodations had not, apparently, involved any other upgrades or side-grades or grades that would earn him weeks of helpful suggestions from Genji about what he should have done in this situation on the chance that he made mention of this to his brother, which he absolutely would not, ever. The bedroom door was against his back and, moving slowly and with care, he worked the wrought iron latch and slid it open an inch, to peer out into the hallway. It was, in fact, the same hall that led to the bathroom and the kitchen beyond, walls painted the cheerful yellow that caught and kept the sunlight. In the kitchen, the dishes were done and sitting in the rack to dry, but the quality of the light coming through the windows had changed, reflected rather than direct, much later in the day. He drifted to the arched doorway that separated the kitchen from the room of all purpose and found his host sitting at the dining table, back to him, a map spread out in front of him pinned down at each corner with a basalt block carved in the shape of an owl, a stack of reference texts, two college ruled notebooks, and a package of pens. From the angle of his head and neck, he was examining it; from the angle of his shoulders and his spine, he was not enjoying what he was seeing.

Hanzo took a breath to speak but before he could expel it, someone landed a thunderous knock on the door and a voice, deeper than the ranger’s by a whole octave and twice as raspy announced, “Garden of the Desert, special delivery!”

The eyeroll was clearly audible in the ranger’s voice. “It’s not locked, Gabe!”

“It fucking should be!” The windowless door swung open and a mass of swirling, hissing smoke, curling shadows, flickering dark wings flowed inside, the door slamming firmly shut and all the locks lining it flicking shut behind it. Hanzo retreated a step, two, blinked, and the smoke-shadow-wings resolved into a human shape: a man, tall, broad shoulders and chest only barely disguised by the loose black jacket he wore, silver-dusted black hair and scarred dark skin and eyes that burned darkly crimson in the shadows of his hood. He was, incongruously, carrying a plastic shopping bag that he deposited on the table directly in the middle of the map; the ranger promptly moved it aside. “So distracted that you’re neglecting basic physical security precautions, now? Does this have anything to do with the call I hear you made over to Roadie?”

“I am wearing twelve reasons why anybody who tries to come through that door uninvited is going to have a genuinely bad day.” The ranger replied, tone amused. “And y’all are still too young to be this much of a gossipy old fart.”

“I’m going to parse that out into an overall complement, for your sake.” The newcomer -- Gabe? Gabe with the glowing red eyes? Was Gabe actually a smoke monster? Hanzo had no idea and was too paralyzed with shock and indecision to either guess or scream or retreat -- pulled out a chair and dropped into it. “Spill it, kid. You’ve got six kinds of doom written all over you.”

The ranger -- Jesse, his name is Jesse, you can think his name, it’s Jesse -- scrubbed his hands over his face, shoulders dropping as he did so. “Yes, it’s got something to do with the call I made to Roadie. And the order I just made so -- “

“Custom blended to your precise specifications by Ana’s own hands, new tea bell inclusive. And a fresh bottle of that shampoo Jack makes that you love so much.” Gabe grinned and, for a completely horrifying instant, his mouth stretched entirely too wide and contained far, far too many sharp white teeth to be anything identifiably human. “For the record: Jamie called and asked if I’d be willing to ride shotgun so you can presume I already know about the broken-down car at the outer edge of the Red Zone. So just cut to the chase and tell me how it got there.”

Jesse pushed an object otherwise concealed behind the bulk of his body across the table: the dedicated shot composition camera that usually lived in the pockets of his bookbag. “Art student from the city. Per his testimony on the topic, he left Santa Fe on Friday morning for a day of inspiration-seeking among the ruins in the near vicinity of Shiprock -- both Shiprocks. While he was out there in the desert between the town and Tse Bit’a’í, he started experiencing technical issues with both his gear and his transportation. The GPS unit he was using completely freaked, dragged him somewhere around two hundred miles out into the Red Zone, and then almost back to safety before the car finally gave up and died. He walked, in the middle of the night, up from the edge and knocked on my door.”

“And you, of course, let him in.” Asperity thick enough to taste.

“He made it past the boundary maze.” Jesse replied, irritably. “Nothing purely from Beyond could get through there without -- “

“Without wearing enough stolen human flesh and blood and skin to pass and then come in here and tear your head off.” A hiss. “You are the entire reason I have gray hair right now, kid.”

“So you keep sayin’.” Dryly. “In any case, he did not tear my head off and, after describing the situation to me, I realized that our known zone of disruption is now way further to the west than it was even three months ago -- “

“And that whoever’s supposed to be monitoring the outer ward boundary is half-assing it pretty hard because everything they’re interested in protecting is still under Tse Bit’a’í’s shadow and nobody thought to call you so you could pick up the slack.”

“-- and that it might be developing some explicitly malevolent intent, because it dumped my guest almost on top of a nest of naayéé. An unusually active during the day nest of naayéé. Fortunately it was cold that night or he’d never have made it here otherwise.” He rested his head in his hands and, for an instant, he looked so utterly weary it was all Hanzo could do not to step into the room and try to comfort him. “And, of course, I screwed up at least once myself because when I went to check the car and see if I could avoid calling Roadie and Jamie, I took him with -- “

“Wow.” There was an entire lifetime of unsurprised nonreaction in that syllable.

“And he got a glimpse of one. In the rearview, so it was just the reflection but -- “

“Buuuuuuut it was enough to make you regret not leaving him here. Where he would be safe. Safer than anyplace else for dozens of miles all around.” Hanzo realized, in that instant, that there actually was someone on Earth more lethally sarcastic than his brother and it was sharing the room with him right now. “The next time Jack’s dog has puppies, you’re getting one. Maybe more than one. As an encouragement to stop adopting human strays.”

“Thank you so much for your understanding. I just spent the last...what day is it…?”

“Tuesday.”

“Tuesday!” Hanzo shouted, shocked out of his quiescence.

“I just spent the last three days singing his soul back into his body and then stitching them together again.” Jesse jiggled the bag gently. “Which is why I’m going to need this for him when he wakes up.”

“Oh.” Those burning crimson eyes flicked in his direction. “Well. You might want to see to that as a priority, kid, because he’s standing over there having an out of body experience and possibly a nervous breakdown.”