#last i checked its carcass was still on the side of the road

[aesa-inn-skald]

Okay so I don't know what the statute of limitations on this is (not a crime don't worry but felt like one) but it's been long enough that I should probably tell the internet about it.

Do you ever go for a drive, the sun is setting and its a lovely evening, the sky is a wonderful gradient of purples and oranges.

Then out of the corner of your eye, on the side of the road, you see a very smashed up couch. Old three seater, looks like it's been wrecked by a dog, frame is unusable etc.

And you think to yourself, 'I wonder if that's leather...'

So you call your good friend who lives only five minutes away @the-merry-otter, and open with "Hey bestie, are you up to much, I've got a box cutter and I know where a couch is, wanna skin it?"

Anyways long story short I have a bunch of chrome tan leather I got for free

[littlepanduh-writes-365]

Day 101

Title: “I Still See Those Stars”

Features: Jiyoo (Dream Catcher) | Seola (WJSN) | Seulgi (Red Velvet)

Word Count: 2,609

Inspiration: angsty one shot starters - "It really hurts."

Tags: Apocalypse/Dystopian AU | Angst | Open Ending

cw// blood

(I actually think this might turn into a full flic. There's a little more backstory regarding Hyunjung and a continuation for Seulgi and Jiyoo. I'll keep posting WIPs for the time being. Enjoy this little excerpt for now!)

(Minor context that will be in the full version: I haven't fully developed the story, but this is taken place some time in the beginning of an apocalypse. Just from a little research, it seems that electricity and satellites would still be working, especially in bigger cities. That's why my characters are still using them.)

“It really hurts.” Yoohyeon wants to follow up with another snarky comment, but finds herself completely winded after saying those three simple words. She lets out a gasp and attempts to cover it with a chuckle.

Doom washes over Minji and ferociously drains into the car seat below them. Yoohyeon wasn’t one to bluntly voice her pain. She was only like this in dire situations. Minji checks the gash on Yoohyeon’s side. Fighting her tears, she puts pressure on an area that was still bleeding and ignores Yoohyeon’s wince.

“We’re only twenty minutes away from the nearest encampment.” Hyunjung presses down on the accelerator.

Minji knows she needs to stay positive, but the logical side in her couldn’t help but think of the worst case scenario. What if the next encampment was already run over by a mob of monsters? What if it didn’t have medicine or food? They were running out of backup plans and extra supplies.

The weak woman puts a hand over her girlfriend’s fist. Not wanting to look at a bloody bandage, Minji looks back up at Yoohyeon and brushes away some stray hair.

What if she lost Yoohyeon?

“Stay strong.” Hyunjung’s timely advice is directed towards Yoohyeon, yet looks at Minji through the mirror in the sun visor.

Minji hates it. Twenty minutes was a long time. So much time, with little to do. She could stare out the window to calm her anxieties or stare into the love of her life’s eyes in case it may be the last time she does so. She could think about what her life will be like in a new base or reminisce about her college days with her girlfriend before this biological warfare started. Twenty minutes in this universe could be nothing or everything. Should Minji help look into other encampments and check radio signals or should she comfort the person she loves the most and mentally prepare for the worst?

She looks out the window to check for any signs of refuge. They were driving on a road that was right in between farmland and the city. Unfortunately, there were no signs of activity on either side. The factories were far out and didn't promise resources. Scavenging city buildings was risky and they already showed signs of abandonment. “How far out are we?” She isn’t coherent enough to think of a plan, but she could at least brainstorm something. The other passengers can put together the pieces.

Hyunjung looks at the GPS. “I’d say less than 30 kilometers.” Minji hates how unsure she sounds, but understands any satellite device has a growing margin of error in terms of accuracy. Time will only tell when cell towers and the electric grid will start to fail like in the movies.

Due to its damaged suspensions, the truck shakes rather violently as Hyunjung runs over some carcasses. Minji wants to scold her for driving so fast but still feels a wave of anxiety when Hyunjung slows down to an appropriate speed. The internal battle irritates the leader, making Minji hate her desperation for a safe haven.

Yoohyeon grunts. The aggressive shaking caused her to bleed out again. Minji fumbles around for the first aid kit. After making so much noise, Seulgi reaches behind them to pass on a clean bandage.

Minji dresses the wound. Thankfully, it’s not deep, but it’s undeniably sizable. “You’re gonna be okay, Yoo.” The patient reaches up to bite on her first. Minji hates seeing her in so much pain.

“Make a left at the intersection,” Seulgi commands in a low voice. Hyunjung follows her orders.

“Do we know anyone at that encampment?” Minji continues distracting herself.

Thankfully, Seulgi doesn’t hesitate to respond. “Our main point of contact is Kim Taeyeon.”

“Kim Taeyeon.” Minji ponders over her name. “Why does that name sound familiar?” Uncertainty hasn’t ever been a stranger to Minji ever since this horrid adventure started, but she wished there wasn’t so much of it at a time like this.

Seulgi visibly gulps. However, she knows not to test Minji’s patience. “Taeyeon-unnie took Joohyun-unnie into her care.”

It’s a rather bitter memory.

This Taeyeon-person seems trustworthy, but considering Joohyun’s fate…

Minji doesn’t like how there hasn’t been a single odd in their favor.

Still, she pushes for answers. “How do you know we can trust her?”

Seulgi bites the inside of her cheek. Even Hyunjung glances over to check on her. “Taeyeon-unnie took Joohyunnie in without any question.” She pauses to brace herself and to push back the affection. “I understand what happened to Joohyun-unnie, but we all know that was out of our control. I’m still grateful that sunbaenim took her in without question and treated her as best as she could.”

Minji can hold onto Seulgi’s hope, but continues to dig for a peace of mind. “And what if she’s not there?”

“I was in contact with her yesterday. They still have control over a communications tower and haven’t had to resort to using a backup power generator. They seem to be doing fine.” Seulgi’s defensive nature is a rare occurrence and tips Minji off.

“That was before the attack.” Minji sounds a little more volatile than she ever wants to be. “What if she’s not there? What if they were affected, too?”

Seulgi sighs. She doesn’t know how to give an answer that an angry Minji will accept.

This time, Hyunjung steps in. “The next camp after is another 12 kilometers from Taeyeon-ssi’s base. Hyojung-unnie and Hyunwoo-oppa are there. I haven’t contacted them, but their base camp is pretty big and I’m pretty confident that they’re still there. We’ll radio in when we get close.” Her supposed backup plan still had holes in it, but the concept was enough to ease some of Minji’s worries.

In the back, Yoohyeon takes a shaky breath. Minji immediately consoles her.

Hyunjung looks at her backseat passengers in the rearview mirror. “You think you can hold up, Yoo?” She won’t be able to see, but Yoohyeon smiles.

“She’s holding a thumbs up.” Minji lets out a chuckle.

It’s enough to keep the driver going.

“How about you?” Hyunjung lowers her voice and looks towards Seulgi. “Are you doing okay?”

Seulgi hesitates. Her silence is enough of an answer.

The tension in the car is rather unbearable, so Hyunjung rolls down her window and turns up the music. She mentally prepares herself for what she’s going to see—who she’s going to see. It’s a lot to think about and she may never be ready to return, but knows she doesn’t have a choice.

At least there’s a hint of excitement. That’s gotta count for something, right?

Trying to stay awake amidst the silence, Yoohyeon looks out the window and notices the Lotte World Tower. She smiles. “We’re on our way home.”

The message was a little too obscure for Minji’s comfort. Was Yoohyeon starting to see The Light ™? “What do you mean by that?”

Yoohyeon continues to stare out the window. “Everytime I took the bus home from uni, I knew we were close to home when I saw the Lotte World Tower. Don’t you remember?”

Minji doesn’t remember, and she’s about to lie, but suddenly remembers bus rides with Bora and Siyeon and finds comfort in the past. She wonders if her other friends are there. She wonders if they’re alive. She wonders if she can go home.

The car stops. Minji looks outside and sees that they have reached a bridge.

Hyunjung turns in her seat to crack her back. “It’s a rather long line, but the coast is clear and at least things are moving along. She pauses to take a deep breath. “We won’t be moving for a while. I’m going out to stretch and—” to brace myself. Hyunjung doesn’t complete her thought. “Is that okay with everyone?”

Seulgi looks back, mostly for Minji’s approval. She senses this magnetic pull between her and Yoohyeon that is just begging to be satisfied and mentally scrambles a way out of the car as well. “I’m going to check our inventory.”

Hyunjung unbuckles her seatbelt and scurries out. “Knock on the window in case you need something. I won’t go far.”

The driver’s window and the back door are open, but it’s the most privacy Minji and Yoohyeon have had in a long time. Minji allows herself to decompress, but tries to keep her emotions at bay. She can’t relish in relief until they pass this bridge.

“Minji-yah,” Yoohyeon weakly calls out to her.

The owner of the name looks down at her girlfriend and squeezes on her weakening hand. “We’re almost there, Yoo. Just wait a little more.”

The injured woman pitifully smiles. “Do you remember the time we went stargazing after finals?”

Minji doesn’t like this one bit.

She doesn’t like how Yoohyeon sounds tired of clinging onto hope. She hates thinking that Yoohyeon is resorting to their time at university to stay optimistic. She doesn’t want to remember their happiest memories at a time where it might be her worst one.

Yoohyeon chuckles. Even if her eyes were jaded, that smile peaked through the windows of her soul. “I was exhausted, but you pulled me out of bed and drove an hour out. You held me as we stared into the sky.” Despite her diminishing health, she forces herself to talk. It’s something she wants. It’s something she needs.

Minji remembers that day. She doesn’t think she’ll ever forget the moment she finally confessed to Yoohyeon. Yoohyeon doesn’t have the energy to retell the story in detail, but Minji probably doesn’t need it.

“Can I tell you a secret?” Although faint, there’s a hint of mischief in her smile.

Thinking this is Yoohyeon’s way of lightening the mood, Minji plays along. “What’s that?”

It takes a moment for Yoohyeon to respond. Be it the fact that the adrenaline is no longer numbing out the pain or the reality of Yoohyeon digesting the idea of exposing the truth because she might not have the chance to do so at their wedding, the younger woman musters up some courage. “You were so upset about all the fog at the top of the mountain.”

Minji giggles out of embarrassment. “Yeah. You tried to make me feel better by saying you saw a shooting star.” She stares out the window. It was barely past noon. If only Minji could wish on a star, she’d pray for Yoohyeon’s safe recovery. “I know you were lying, but you were persistent that you saw it.”

Yoohyeon’s smile is so beautiful yet painful to witness. “You’re right, I didn’t see a shooting star that night.”

She pauses to catch her breath. When she closes her eyes, memories seem to flash in a span of seconds. Yoohyeon does see the day they actually went to see a meteor shower. She remembers wishing how she wanted to spend the rest of her life with Minji. Oh, how unfortunately short that time might end up being. It’s a shame she never got to give Minji the ring she bought considering how their apartment was blasted over like the rest of the neighborhood. Just like the star she bought, the ring was only a form of symbolism in their relationship, but it was better than nothing.

After a long period of silence, Minji caresses her. “Save your energy, Yoo.” She presses a gentle kiss on her forehead.

Rushing back into consciousness, Yoohyeon decides to push through. She opens her eyes. Minji’s face is full of concern. Yoohyeon wishes she could simply wipe away all of her worries, but knows that’s only possible if she were to stay alive, so she tries to stay positive. “Minji, I did see stars that night though.” She reaches towards her girlfriend to caress her cheek. Even if this memory may be short-lived, she wants to ingrain it in her heart along with the other ones that she’s collected throughout the years. They longingly stare into each other’s eyes. “That night, throughout university, through this apocalypse, right now, I still see those stars.”

Minji doesn’t understand Yoohyeon. She doesn’t understand how she can be so gentle and poetic and caring and romantic at a time like this. She doesn’t understand how through all this pain, she tries her best to rid someone else’s.

It breaks Minji’s heart even more.

She grabs Yoohyeon’s hand and gently kisses each knuckle. At a time like this, she wishes she could give Yoohyeon every romantic phrase every language could offer, but when words fail her she does her best expressing herself physically. “I love you.” It’s the best thing she could muster up without falling apart. It’s short and sweet and doesn’t measure up to how she’s feeling, but she knows it’s enough.

Yoohyeon continues, “Your eyes were the first thing I fell in love with. I liked a lot of things about you, but once you finally confessed to me, I allowed myself to dangerously fall in love with you. Your eyes were the first of many things.”

It’s the tip of Minji’s emotional iceberg. Tears break free past her ducts. They don’t go far though. Yoohyeon won’t allow it. She knows Minji hates when that happens. She does her best wiping her tears with her thumb.

Actually, she understands why Yoohyeon is like this.

Just like her, loving her girlfriend was easier than loving herself. Loving Minji was easier than fighting for her own life.

What she doesn’t know is that Yoohyeon has been brainstorming this speech for years. It’s a shame because Yoohyeon wanted to say this at the altar with Minji and all their friends, not while she was bleeding out in a dead friend’s car with two of Minji’s roommates. It��s the best she can do in this apocalypse and as long as said apocalypse is going to last, she’s going to keep wishing she could give Minji the better they deserved.

Minji grabs her hand and kisses each knuckle again, this time a little more slowly and one by one. Yoohyeon is saddened by the fact that she can’t feel the sensation anymore.

The adrenaline is definitely running low. A wave of exhaustion hits Yoohyeon and she’s not sure if she can fight it anymore. “I love you.” Yoohyeon blurts out.

This time, Minji can muster up some words. “I love you, too, Kim Yoohyeon. I love everything about you. I love everything we’ve shared, even this damn apocalypse. I’ll love you ‘til the end of time, even if that may be sooner than later, but you deserve to hear it.” She continues peppering Yoohyeon’s hands with kisses. The words are still not enough, but she knows she needs to say it.

It’s bittersweet. The words are comforting, yet dampen her spirits. At least she knows that Minji will always be there for her. “Hold me?” Even if it were to be the last time?

After staring into each other's eyes for a moment, Minji looks down to check on Yoohyeon’s wound. The most recent bandage has a small peak of blood, but nothing as bad as Yoohyeon's initial gash. A little cuddling doesn’t seem to hurt.

She unbuckles her seatbelt and shimmies closer to Yoohyeon. Not wanting to move Yoohyeon too much, she wraps an arm around Yoohyeon’s shoulders and pulls her close.

They stare at the unmoving tower. It’s not as sparkly as the stars Minji promised that fateful night and Hyunjung’s yelling isn’t as romantic as cicada chirps, but with the way Minji holds her close and whispers her profession of love to her, Yoohyeon falls just like the first time.

[shurisneakers]

shut in [7]

Summary: When your high profile mission goes terribly wrong, you’re forced to hide in a safehouse with a man you’ve never met before. With seemingly nowhere else to go, you’re forced to work together to figure out who is trying to have you assassinated before it’s too late. (Sam Wilson x Reader, Hitman AU)

Warnings: cursing, implied abuse, death, implied ptsd, injuries, broken bone, origami and paper planes

Word count: 3.7k

A/N: ONE MORE WEEK !!!!!!!!! ONE MORE WEEK !!!!!!!! also gif is somewhat related except steve isn’t there sorry to crush any hopes

i also appreciate feedback so if you would like to, please consider dropping me an ask or comment ly guys!! also if you want to be on the taglist, it’s mentioned at the bottom of the chapter.

here’s my ko-fi if you’d like to support my writing <333

Previous Part || Shut In Masterlist

“Is there a reason you’re back so early?”

Both of the men nervously glanced at each other, silently urging the other to talk. A quiet form of encouragement.

“We chec- we checked all the neighbouring towns. All your safehouses,” one of them finally sputtered up after his partner elbowed him in the ribs.

“And?”

“We coordinated with all our guys across the country to look for them-”

“All I’m hearing are a bunch of excuses,” they twirled the gun on its barrel like it was a plaything. “Get to the point.”

“No one knows where they’re hiding,” he finished, swallowing thickly. “We’re still looking though. We just thought-”

“What?” their voice was surprisingly calm. “That your little status update would impress me? That I’d feel sorry for you for working so hard?”

“N-no boss,” his partner finally pitched in, saving face for his companion who opened and shut his mouth wordlessly. “Just keeping you in the loop. We’re close, I can feel-”

“Do you remember what I told you the last time you were here?”

Both of them shut their mouths immediately. Knuckles white, nails digging into their skin as they clenched their fists shut.

“That you wanted them dead,” the first one said with faux confidence. A waver in his voice gave it away.

“Yes, but you’re forgetting the important part,” they tsk’ed, shaking their head, eyes downcast.

They didn’t give anyone a chance to react. They slammed the gun down, swiftly picking it up before taking aim at his partner’s face.

“I said I’d blow your brains out.” They pulled the trigger.

Bits of bone fragment and blood splattered across the first agent’s face. He inhaled sharply, chest rising and falling haphazardly. He had his eyes shut tightly, face away from the carcass slumped over next to him..

“I want every fucking part of this country searched,” they roared, throwing the gun to the side carelessly, leaving someone else to scurry after it. “And since it’s so fucking hard for you to finish two tasks, just get me their location.”

The agent barely nodded, looking like he was about to throw up. His partner’s blood trailed down the side of his face like sweat.

“I’ll kill them myself.”

Hugh Grant was starting to look less appealing on your 6th rewatch of Notting Hill. In fact, he was starting to blend together with the characters from Die Hard and it was becoming difficult to differentiate which part belonged to which movie.

Sam sat opposite to you at the dining table, a set of papers assigned in front of him. The TV was left on, serving as background noise and occasional fillers to substitute the lack of conversation.

“That movie is not making sense anymore,” he stated objectively.

“It stopped after the third time for me.” Your words were hushed, your focus remaining on the swan you were trying to create from scratch.

“If I hear her say ‘I’m just a girl, standing in front of a boy’ one more time, I actually think I’ll projectile vomit.” You could tell that his eyes didn’t shift from the screen though. “I can feel the bile. It’s going to happen.”

You only hummed in agreement, more interested in his lamenting than the actual movie.

Although origami wasn’t one of the skills you picked up in the fucking mafia, you still knew a few basic things. The rest you just folded with confidence and prayed it would work.

What other options did you have when you were stuck together in a house with no WiFi?

Sam had made a paper bowl to hold the car keys and the few dollars you picked up from Pierce’s place. It looked like it would fall apart at any given moment, its structural integrity questionable at best.

You had made a small flower that rested on the table in front of you. You were sure it would go missing the minute a draft entered the room.

He had given up after his contribution of the bowl. Apparently his creative expertise extended only towards that and paper airplanes, not that that stopped him. He was folding and manufacturing them with a vengeance.

“How is this supposed to help, Wilson?” you questioned, unable to contain the smile that grew on your face at the sheer number of planes he was making.

“Just because it’s not a decorative marvel-” he shot back in its defence, “-doesn’t mean it’s useless.”

“Oh, yeah? What else can it do other than not fly?” You watched as he launched one of them. It did a loop before falling miserably to the floor.

“Hey, you can put a message in it. Maybe one of those button trackers, a microphone. The possibilities are endless.” He laughed, folding another one out of the limited supply of paper he had left. “Besides, your thing won’t even lift off the ground.”

“Yeah, but this one can float.” You held up the swan that you had created. That about concluded your knowledge of origami.

“That’s actually… pretty cool,” he admitted. “Teach me how to make one.”

“A true master never reveals their secrets,” you eluded, placing it on the table.

“I dare you to make another.” Sneaky bastard. He knew you wouldn’t be able to replicate it. He saw you struggle the first time.

“Why, so you can just copy off of me?” you dodged, and Sam narrowed his eyes at you. You followed the same.

Neither of you blinked for a while.

“I’m out of paper,” he finally relented, gesturing to the fleet of planes that littered the table.

“I’m out of ideas.” You paused, looking down at how you’d spent the last hour. “Do you wanna go test these outside later?”

Sam looked up eagerly and you could just tell he was intending on getting competitive. “Hell yeah.”

“I’m going for a run in some time.” You got up to stretch your limbs, shrug off the fatigue that was setting in. Along the way you left the swan and one of the paper planes on top of the mini fridge alongside the car keys. It was cute. “We could do it then?”

“Sure,” he affirmed. “What time?”

“At around 6-” your eyes landed on the clock on the wall before widening, “-shit, shit, shit, I didn't realise it was five thirty. We have a call with Ransone.”

“Phone’s on the couch,” he mentioned to the living room, sitting up straight. “Why are you freaking out? We still got a few minutes to go.”

You pushed yourself away from the table, forcing yourself to shakie off the drowsiness that had begun to set in.

“You wouldn’t get it,” you mumbled, “He gets pissy if I don’t do things his way.”

You grabbed the phone, punching in the buttons and having it at the ready.

You noticed Sam focused on you with knitted eyebrows but not voicing whatever he had on his mind.

“Ready?” you questioned, but more as a formality. You had to do it regardless.

He simply nodded, looking on as you let the phone ring. If he had noticed your antsiness towards the call, he didn’t bring it up.

Ransone picked up on the last ring, not skipping a beat in answering, “Y/N.”

“Hey Ransone.” You switched the call to speakerphone.

“Are you alone?”

You glanced at Sam. He shook his head, arms crossed over his chest, edging you to continue with the arrangement you had planned the day prior.

Ransone trusted you more. He was more likely to communicate openly if Sam wasn’t around.

“Yeah, I am.”

“Where’s the other one?”

Sam silently scoffed.

“He’s taking a nap.”

“Ah,” Ransone’s tone was condescending. “How have things been?”

“It’s fine.” You press your lips into a straight line, not elucidating. “What’s the update out there?”

“Everything is a mess. We’re trying to figure out who attacked you but since there wasn’t anything left behind or any kind of trace, it’s proving to be... inconvenient.”

“Is it safe to travel?”

“What, with your face on national television?” he laughed. “Nah, I’d say it’s a little too early to be thinkin’ of a road trip. Just stay where you are, I’ll tell you when you can come out.”

Your fingers were thrumming at the table rhythmically, peeking at Sam every now and then for anything he found suspicious or wanted you to ask about.

“Listen, we’ve paid off every big guy to keep this under wraps as much as possible but Pierce was an important person. All the higher ups want this to be solved as quickly as possible. They don’t care about sacrificing a player here or there.”

Pinning the blame on you was easy enough. The faster you were put away, the faster they could stage an “accident” in prison so that none of their secrets were exposed. Wasn’t like they hadn’t done it before.

“Others in the business aren’t likin’ us accusing them of attacking one of our own. Our best bet right now is Serpentine but we haven’t gotten anything to prove it.”

You doubted they ever would. Even if they did do it, Serpentine was notorious for being cunning and stealthy in their operations. They made sure there would be no tracks leading back to them.

“So, we’re at a dead-end,” you verified. There was no telling when this would end, your exit looking further and further away. “We’re fucked.”

“No. We’ll just- Y/N, listen to me,” Ransone called out, drawing your attention back to the call.

“Yeah?”

“I’ve always protected you,” his voice was noticeably softer. “Don’t you trust me?”

You felt the temperature in the room drop.

“You said there would be no one there!”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Ransone scoffed. “I never said that.”

“I walk in there and there’s four people, completely armed.” Forcing yourself to recall it was making your head spin. Maybe you could ask the nurse for a painkiller. “It was supposed to be empty.”

“I think the blood loss is making you delirious,” he chided, looking at the bag of drips hanging above your bed. “It wasn’t even that bad-”

“You’re lying.” The words slipped out before you had the chance to think it over.

“Excuse me?” he tilted his head, tone suddenly sifting to that of warning.

You knew he was. You had agreed to this mission because it was supposed to be easy. It was a break.

“Ivan was there when you briefed me.” You lifted your good arm to point at him shakily. “He knows you’re lying.”

“Does he now?” Ransone quirked an eyebrow, studying his aid who stood in the corner of the dingy hospital room.

A beat of silence passed where Ransone stared at Ivan, waiting for a reply of confirmation.

Ivan only lifted his shoulders in unawareness. “I don’t remember you sayin’ that.”

Your mouth fell agape but you quickly rushed to shut it. Fucking liars. You shouldn’t have expected anything better.

“Told you.” Ransone shrugged. “You’re a smart one, Y/N, so I’m going to let that slide this time. But next time you accuse me of something I didn’t say…”

He trailed off, resting a hand on your broken shoulder. You flinched, jaw clenched so tightly you thought your teeth might break. You tried to imagine yourself somewhere else, desperate to reduce the quivering of your body when he squeezed it lightly.

“You know I’ve always tried to protect you.” He put a finger under your chin, tilting your head to meet his eye. “Don’t you trust me?”

A beat passed before you responded.

“I do,” you said through gritted teeth, pulling your face away from him.

“I’ll ask them to up your dosage.” Ransone took a step away from you, dropping his hand. “I’m going to need my best player on the field as soon as possible.”

You didn’t acknowledge his statement. Every part of your body felt like it was going to combust.

Did he really say that no one was going to be there or was it just the injuries playing with you?

“Get well soon,” he offered, one step out the door. “Buttercup.”

“You trust me, don’t you Y/N?” he repeated when you didn’t respond.

“Yes.” You swallowed, gaze falling to the floor.

“And I trust you. You wouldn’t do anything to break that, would you?”

Sam raised his one hand questioningly as if to ask what the hell he was talking about. An intimidation tactic. He had been using it for several years to reinforce your loyalty.

“I wouldn’t.”

There were things you weren’t telling him, of course. Details about that day or where you and Sam were hiding right off the top of your head. More if you thought about it deeply.

“Good,” came his response. “So if there’s anything you need, let me know. I’m always a call away.”

“Thank you.”

“Talk to you soon.” He ended the call there.

You stood there blankly for a while before dropping the phone to the ground and crushing it. Usually you wouldn’t have to do that; removing the battery would be enough. This time you wanted to.

Your chest rose and fell heavily. You loathed him. Yet, you couldn’t fucking leave. 

“Hey.” Your eyes snapped back to Sam. “We still going on that run?”

__

The wind felt good.

Your muscles were burning and you could feel the constriction of your lungs but you liked it. The endorphins were working their charm.

Sam was right beside you, not questioning why there was so much aggression in your movement. You had lost track of how long you had been running. You couldn’t bring yourself to focus on that.

The path was paved with fallen branches and roots sticking out, forcing you to hop over some of them to avoid falling. It only annoyed you further.

You wanted to punch something. Or someone. The tension was rolling off your back in waves, and if someone saw you the’d probably believe you were going to commit an act of violence.

It was a while before you felt your steps begin to falter, the need for a proper breath taking precedence over the want to run more.

“Timeout?” you asked Sam breathlessly, slowing your pace to a jog.

“Sure about that, Usain Bolt?” he huffed, slowing his pace to match yours.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he dismissed it. “T’was fun.”

Now that you had slowed down, it forced you to come to terms with how much energy you had just burnt out.

“You wanna talk about what’s on your mind or ignore it?”

“Rather not talk about it for now.” The more you thought about him, the angrier you got. And as of late, you had realised that your method of dealing with that anger wasn’t the best.

The air was getting colder. It was getting harder to see what was in front of you, relying on the few rays of sunlight that shone through the treetops. You took a roundabout at your self declared checkpoint, changing course back to the house.

Sam followed wordlessly, but his presence was strangely comforting. Warm.

“Thank you.”

“For...” he trailed off, prodding you on.

“I don’t know. This.” You gestured to the path ahead of you. “I didn’t think you’d agree to it.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” His eyebrows knit together in puzzlement.

You didn’t have an answer to that. Probably because you weren’t used to people just doing nice things for no apparent reason.

“How are you so calm all the time? I’ve never seen him get under your skin,” you asked quietly. “How do you do it?”

He didn’t answer straight away. He mulled over it as he dodged broken sticks and upended roots on the ground. You would be fine if he didn’t answer either; as long as he knew that you appreciated it.

“I just realised that everything he put into me was destructive. Actively worked on unlearning it,” he replied after a while. “It took me years to even begin.”

You expected to hear that but it didn’t make it easier.

“I don’t even know how to start,” you mumbled. It was so tiring, even thinking of where and how it began. It was all you knew. All you were taught.

“If I could add something?”

You looked at him questioningly.

“You had a different relationship with him than all of us, Y/N. A deeper one. It’s not easy to forget that,” he pointed out. “But… you’re not him. That takes strength.”

These weren’t new revelations. It was things you had told yourself earlier to rationalise all your actions. You knew it on a surface level but it was difficult to convince yourself sincerely.

You didn’t say anything, just continued jogging with an eye on the ground. 

It felt better to hear it from someone else. A starting point to maybe get to where he was, too.

“I just can’t believe anyone took him seriously enough for him to get this far,” Sam added, a tick of annoyance in his voice. “I don’t condone bullying but someone should have just punched him in the face as a child.”

It wasn’t even the funniest thing you had heard him say but for some reason it elicited a snort from you, soon giving way to a laugh.

His face snapped to yours at the sound of your laughter, a small smile growing on his face.

His brief moment of distraction was all it took for him to not notice the tree root sticking out in front of him. His ankle got caught in the wood, sending him stumbling to the ground face forward.

“Oh shit,” you cursed, halting in your place immediately, dropping to your knees to where he was.

“Fuckin’ hell,” he groaned, turning onto his back. “I think I broke my face.”

“That may be a bit excessive but your nose is definitely bleeding,” you knew this was serious but you were finding it difficult to control your laughter once you realised it wasn’t a life threatening injury.

“Just leave me here to die.” He covered his eyes with his elbow, refusing to look at you.

“C’mon, Wilson. Let’s get you fixed up.” You stood up, offering your hand. He grabbed onto it, hoisting himself up.  “Can you stand up straight? Do you think you have a concussion?”

“World class assassin,” he grumbled, shaking his head to imply he was fine other than a possible broken nose.

“Promise I won’t tell. Your reputation is safe,” you said it humorously but with conviction, hoping to make it less embarrassing for him. Not that you’d let him forget it any time soon.

It took longer to walk back considering how far you had ventured out, along with the fact that you had to guide him as he held his nose in the air to try and control the bleeding.

You pushed open the door to the house, holding it open as he walked in. Sam made his way to the dining room after you told him you’d get the first aid kit for the second time during your stay there.

By the time you returned from the bathroom, grabbing an old t-shirt along the way, he had a single ice cube pressed to the bridge of his nose.

“That’s not going to be enough.” You dropped the kit onto the table, opening the mini fridge. You emptied the ice cubes from the tray onto the t-shirt, twisting it into a small ice pack.

“These are my battle scars.” You could tell that he was trying not to use his nose. He sounded ridiculous. 

“Whatever makes you feel better, Sam,” you chortled. His mouth eased into a half smile and you didn’t get why until you realised it was the first time you had called him by his name. You didn’t acknowledge it, surprised by how easily it slipped out from your mouth when you weren’t actively stopping it.

You gave him a bit of cotton to wipe off the blood that had dried on his face.

“Look up,” you instructed, standing over him so you could assess the damage. He complied, letting you cradle his jaw softly, tilting his head to see if there were any signs of a fracture or anything worse.

It was a bad fall, but nothing he hadn’t been through before in terms of severeness. It wasn’t going to leave a mark.

“Definitely going to bruise but it’s not broken,” you concluded, going over it once more to make sure.

“Thanks, doc,” his voice came softly from below you. Only then did you realise how close you were standing to him. You could feel his breath on your wrist that was still caressing his face.

It felt like eternity, but he didn’t make an effort to move or shove you away. Your eyes flitted down to his lips for a second. If you just leaned dow-

“Right,” you cleared your throat, taking a step back. “Just hold this to your face for a while to reduce any swelling.”

You handed him the makeshift ice pack, feeling the heat creep up your neck.

“Your turn to use the bed tonight, right?” His voice was significantly lower than what it had been a few minutes ago, something you weren’t acclimated to hearing. It only made your face feel hotter.

“Yeah.” You avoided meeting his eyes, using the time to close the first aid kid. “Unless you want it.”

“No, go ahead.”

It was too early to retire for the evening but suddenly you weren’t all that hungry anymore. Apparently neither was he.

“See you tomorrow, then?” you inquired, turning away before he could see you cringe.

“See you tomorrow,” he confirmed, “Good night.”

You just gave him a short wave over your shoulder and physically restrained from walking to the room, shutting the door and never looking at him again. You hoped he didn’t notice or at least never bring it up if he did.

You couldn’t do this. Not again.

Not when you knew the consequences.

Next part

[valleydean]

Chapters 7 & 8 [read here]

A Ghost Story read from the beginning | playlist | ko-fi

Fic Summary: Castiel Novak has haunted his family's estate for 150 years, awaiting the return of his lost love. Upon their reunion, Dean Winchester learns of his past reincarnation. After the night of Castiel's resurrection, the two try to find out why they've been given a second chance. The answers may be hidden in the forgotten memories of Dean's former life - but sometimes the truth is better left buried.

Chapter Preview:

Dean pushed the gate open with an ancient creak. He went back to the Impala parked on the side of the road, put the bolt cutters into the trunk, and pulled out a flashlight. Castiel barely paid him any mind. It wasn’t until Dean’s hand touched the small of his back did he realize he’d been staring blankly. He couldn’t quite recall the last few seconds. His mind had been vacant, all feeling and emotion within him rendered numb. Quickly, he shook himself and turned his focus on Dean.

“You ready?” Dean asked.

The answer was no. Nevertheless, Castiel responded, “Let’s get this over with.”

“Hey,” Dean said, increasing the pressure of his palm on Castiel’s back. “We’ll be in and out. And we won’t even go inside.”

Castiel exhaled, trying to be comforted. “I’ll be fine,” he assured, though he didn’t know if he was lying. He turned slightly into Dean, putting on his most earnest face. He didn’t want Dean to worry about him. He touched his hand to Dean’s shoulder and said, “Thank you for the concern, but it’s unnecessary.”

In the lowlight, Dean’s eyes flashed curiously. He looked up at the house, lips pinched. “In that case, wanna make a pit stop before we get to the cemetery? I wanna check something out.”

“A pit—” Castiel began in question, but he didn’t get to finish it. Dean grabbed his hand and pulled him through the gate. He didn’t let go as they trudged up the hill. When they got closer to the house, Castiel twined their fingers together, making sure not to squeeze too hard. Try as he might to prevent it, his eyes kept straying to the manor’s boarded up windows and concave roof. The entire structure was a carcass.

Just as Dean promised, they didn’t go inside. He took them around back. The stable and carriage house, Dean’s old apartment with it, no longer stood. All that remained of either of them was the stone slab foundation of the carriage house. Castiel recalled the day the branches of the oak tree he’d once found refuge beneath were brought down by a storm. A large limb crashed into the structure, leaving nothing but ruin in its wake. The stable, on the other hand, had rotted and crumbled slowly over time, until it no longer stood.

The oak tree itself was still in place, but was spotted with decay. Its bark was stripped from parasites, holes drilled in it from birds. There wasn’t a single leaf on it. The gnarled roots were more exposed than they’d ever been, and he feared the tree would topple over if he gave it a hefty push.

Dean led him to the back of the property and through the trees. And Castiel couldn’t help but ask, “What happened to being in and out quickly?”

“Just wanna see something,” Dean said absently. He was looking around, waving the light to and fro, like he was trying to remember something. He tugged Castiel’s arm, starting and stopping and sometimes changing direction. After a few minutes, it became exceedingly clear what he was searching for—and Castiel kept his mouth shut. He didn’t want to go there. He didn’t want to see what it had become.

Though, eventually, Dean found his way back to the garden in the clearing. The low stone cropping he’d placed in a semi-circle around the area had been buried, or the stones had somehow been moved. Fallen leaves littered the ground, and the stream had dried up, but Castiel thought he could still smell petrichor tickling his nose. The bench was cracked and moss-covered. Spindles of dead ivy twirled around it like a cage. Castiel could feel his heart in his throat.

Dean’s hand slipped out of his. “There was a garden here.”

Castiel nodded, even though Dean was turned in the opposite direction. Voice thick, he said, “Yes.”

Dean looked around, forehead lined in intense thought. “I… built it for you.”

Jaw tight, eyes sad, Castiel nodded again.

This garden had been the nicest thing anyone had ever given him. He and Dean would waste hours in it together—Castiel reading while Dean slept despite the fact he should have been working, or the two of them talking, or just sitting in the silence, or making out. And then there were the times without Dean. After Dean. That’s what Castiel remembered most.

“I’d often sit out here after you’d…” Left. He fisted his hands. “When you were gone. No one else ever knew about this place. It was… peaceful.” Peaceful—until it wasn’t. Until it became clear that Dean was never coming back, that whatever taste of freedom, whatever dream, Castiel had was fleeting and futile. And he would sit in the garden to feel Dean’s presence, until even that faded. Until all he imagined when he looked up at the thick tree limbs was a body swinging from them. Until that thought became less shocking, less remorseful, more numbing than anything.

“Are you finished?” Castiel asked, hearing the curtness of his voice but not knowing how to stop it.

A muscle in Dean’s jaw jumped when he clamped it. He took another slow look around, but he nodded.

Castiel was wound so tightly, he was bound to snap. “Good,” he said. “Then let’s get to the intended purpose of this trip so we can leave.” He spun around, walking away from the garden as fast as he could without making it obvious. His shoulders were shrugged up to his ears, and he thought he could get away with blaming the tension on the cold.

/////

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[goonlalagoon]

We start small || Leagues and Legends

A series rewrite AU for @ink-splotch​‘s fantastic Leagues and Legends books.

Spoilers for the whole trilogy below!

Read on Ao3

 When George was fifteen, her village left her out for a dragon. The blacksmith slipped a knife up her sleeve as they went, and in the press of bodies she couldn't ask him why. She could only guess at what mercy he was handing her. The villagers would live with shame under their tongues for the rest of their lives, but they would live. The dragon ruled the hillside, great and golden, scales bright against the purple lupins that bloomed there every year, and they pretended it was fear that made them shudder at the sight.

Maybe Jack still survived the bandits who attacked the merchant caravan he was travelling with. Maybe he travelled on with them, bounced from place to place until he found a cause to throw himself into, on some distant shore far from the Forest where he had grown up. Maybe he didn't, one fourteen year old boy with no training and no battlefield experience, just a big heart and a bit of luck on his side.

There was no Dragon Slayer. It would be years before someone earned the old title Giantkiller, and it wouldn't be a red headed forest boy who tried to stand tall under the weight of that history.

Liam Jones powered the towns and villages of the mountains for weeks. The Seeress was almost blind with the burning light that drifted up through the floor, and the afterimage it left behind when it finally winked out was almost worse. There were no tales in the mountains of the Pied Piper.

Beatrice Tanner would never know any of their names.

On the day when in another life she might have opened her door and let a third soul into her shuttered heart, Bea woke as always before the sun to put the bread on to rise, and while the ovens warmed she rolled her dog eared map out over the old wooden table and traced her fingers over hidden paths and scant shelters. She had a network, small but growing, owed petty favours and moments of kindness. She had a list of lives saved, and a list of those she knew were at risk and could possibly be convinced to leave. She had a list of losses, a bitter sting under her tongue and a cold motivator to keep trying.

People still didn't believe her warnings, most of the time. They hushed her for telling children to be careful, to be hidden, and she did it anyway whenever she saw gold glittering in the corner of her eye, when she saw children play with sparks that didn't burn. Maybe they wouldn't believe her, but maybe they'd check over their shoulder anyway. Maybe the children would curl their hands into little fists and ignore the skin of the world pressing in on them, scared by this woman who hissed nightmares at them in the street. She didn't want children to be afraid, but she wanted them to be safe, and when there was a monster on the loose fear was what kept you alive.

She said as much, one day at a market, snapping warnings at children and glaring at the uniformed man who'd asked her what she was scaring children for. She had no patience for coddling, and she had little for the Bureau either. But this one blinked at her, and scratched at his clean shaven chin. 

"Stealing mages? Say, d'you mind repeating all this to Sarge? He's the boss of our League, and this sounds like something we should know about." Bea eyed him suspiciously, but the possibility of getting more people to help outweighed her faint distaste for the Leagues. 

It was only a few weeks later that May told her that it was really just May, not short for anything despite what the Bureau paperwork said. Bea wasn't quite sure whether this was a sign of trust or of just how much May wanted to get out of her padded armour and into something that didn't chafe quite as much on the healing gash down her side.

Sarge had sent coded reports back to headquarters, and was glaring at the responses. Flash was twisting his fingers, safe with his training and his league, staring sleepless at the ceiling with visions of those who weren’t keeping him awake. They couldn’t give themselves wholly to this cause; the Rangers had a job to do and it was one that badly needed doing - but part of their job was to keep people safe from monsters, so when they left they took some of her gathered information with them, and kept their eyes open. 

They sent her news, dropped by the markets they knew she liked to give her the names of people who had helped, people who believed them when they whispered warnings. They sent people to her, frightened or angry or numb, but always desperate, and she sent them on. She didn't ask anyone to be a hero, because heroes were for stories and legends, for Bureau badges and official postings. She just asked people for a little bit of help, and then they offered it again and again. 

It was over a year after she met them that they sent her the Giantkiller. 

Kay had thick ropes of scarring over his side and arm, the pockmarks of claws pressed deep into his shoulder. He was a child when rocs tried to carry him off, struggling and screaming. He was lucky - the Rangers heard the commotion and brought the beast down, two arrows in its heart, a net of golden fire to catch him as he fell, to pour into gaping wounds and knit flesh back together. When they had to stay camped out for a day while the mage weathered an Elsewhere storm, their Guide showed him how to mix a paste to help the scars heal out of ingredients he could find within an hour’s walk of home.

His father's fury when he said after they left that he wanted to be a Leaguesman too was a burning thing, a bitter thing. He jerked his head down the road the Rangers left by, and listed every time they could have been of use before one lucky day. Kay fiddled with his spoon, because it was true - but that was the point of joining up, wasn't it? To be the person who was there when he was needed. But his father was bitter, furious, so he held his tongue. 

When his father was out working in the field and Kay was supposed to be chopping wood, he fenced the air with a stick for a sword the way he'd watched May and Sarge practice in the early morning, as they let Flash sleep late to regain his strength and they kept a wary eye out for any returning rocs. He stumbled over his own feet and knew he was no good.

When he was younger, he'd practiced with his sling until his fingers blistered, and his father smiled over the small game he brought in, the crows he scared away from the crops with a sharp stone to the claws. Kay practiced still, every day, and now he imagined bigger targets.

The rocs came again, as they did every year, and one tried to carry off not a child but the neighbours' sheep. Kay sent it crashing back to the ground. Its neck snapped as it landed and he stood over it, shaking and fierce and frightened. The men arrived at a run from the barn, and Kay's father looked proud and scared and bitter. 

"You see?" He said, later, when they’d butchered the carcass and he was watching Kay sort the feathers he'd asked to keep. "Rocs every damn year, and no Leagues here to help."   

Kay hummed, non-committal, thinking but I was. 

He was too young for the Leagues anyway, he knew. But he wasn't too young to help, so when there were rumours of Things haunting the woods nearby he slipped out his window in the grey dusk and went hunting. He had a handful of mage spelled stones, even if they were spelled for gentle warmth not damage, a gift from Flash to help ease the ache in healing limbs. The Things shrieked like the stones burned, and he was sick behind a bush afterward but the nest was gone, and Things shriek but he'd heard the families who’s homes were closer to the woods than his weeping too, and he knew which he'd choose. His father was pacing when he got home in the soft light of dawn, and he knew without asking where Kay had been. He knew what Kay was making himself into and he was furious and so scared, but Kay couldn't go back to waiting for someone else to save his people. 

Kay set out the next morning, when his father was already out in the fields, working off his anger on the weeds. He packed a satchel of food and clothes, his sling and pouches of stones. He slipped the little carved flute his father made for his last birthday into the side of his bag, and set off down the road, refusing to look back.

When he met the Rangers again, it was in the shadow of a giant, the wreckage of a village. They were too late to help bring it down, but they found him digging through the fallen buildings for survivors. Sarge glanced at the sling at his hip first and Kay tensed. They were already whispering about him, the survivors, about the Giantkiller and his sling, and he knew the price of being a vigilante. Sarge said nothing, just gripped the other end of the beam he was trying to lift, hauling it up so Kay could drag the wounded boy underneath into the light.

They had a hushed conference, the Rangers and the Giantkiller, carefully out of sight because they could only shirk this particular duty if no one knew. May shook her head over him but bullied him through a basic staff work drill. Sarge watched, and nodded thoughtfully when Flash muttered "think the Baker could use a field agent?"

His story rolled ahead of him, growing as he went. He cleared a nest of Things in one village and took down another roc in a narrow pass, had a brief run in with bandits that he barely survived. He helped stock a woodpile for a hot meal and repaired a fence for another. There hadn't been a Giantkiller in the memory of anyone younger than his grandmother, and he listened to the old stories that were being dusted off. He hoped no one expected him to live up to all of them. 

Bea heard him out, polite but not friendly, and he tried not to shuffle in his seat under her level gaze. She shrugged, eventually, and let him tag along as she smuggled a woman and her sister through the checkpoints in her cart. Kay tucked his sling out of sight and played a sullen teenager for all he was worth so that she could scold him loudly and the guards would shake their heads over the disruption instead of searching through the carefully stacked flour bags.  

Someone wrote to her a week later saying they had a wyvern problem - people had long since started writing to the Baker for any help they needed and couldn’t afford from official sources, to see if she knew someone who could help. She sent Kay as a response, and he came back with a burn on his leg and pockets full of scales, scrubbed clean - but he came back. She grew to expect it, became used to keeping his room ready and leaving space at the table for him.  

The first time he broke into the Graves' keep, he slipped out of the bakery after she'd gone to bed. They hadn't reached these ones in time, and he'd watched the way her shoulders fell and her lips thinned when he came back too soon, no rescues in his wake and no stories about how he'd helped them escape. He'd looked at her map, and thought but I'm still here.

The keep was easy to break into, because no one else was fool enough to try, and the Seeress was still working her way into her father's toolkit. He'd never held a lock pick but he knew how to remove hinges from a wall so he opened the doors that way, until one of the terrified mages shook off the stupor and started melting through them for him. They fled, and he scrawled the ward diagrams Flash had sent to Bea in the dirt for his rescues to copy with the sparks of power that were left to them. They had suspicions, Bea and the Rangers, dark thoughts about how their foe was finding prey so easily. They had wards that would cloud them from the sight of a seer, briefly, enough to break a trail, and they worked.  

Kay led them to the bakery, where Bea fed them and sent them on, and when the house was empty again she wrapped her arms around Kay and hissed don't you dare do that again, don't you dare Kay, you don't disappear on me. He nodded and promised, but they both knew he meant he wouldn't slip away in the night. Kay was young, true, but he wasn't a fool. He could promise not to go without a word, but he couldn't promise he'd come back. 

There was no Dragon Slayer, no Piper, a different Giantkiller - but it had never been just about those three friends. They were the ones whose legends were told, but theirs had never been the only hands buried in this war.

In a different village, there was a girl with the Elsewhere pulling gently on her bones. Kay took a warning, because if he and Bea had heard of her then so would the Graves’, and her sister narrowed her eyes at him as she went pale with fear. For all that he was the messenger not the threat, Kay took an instinctive half step back. "If anyone thinks they're taking my sister, they're going to get what's coming to them."

Rosie and Susie had friends, and those friends had already lost people to the machines, vanishing in the night and dropping out of contact. When Kay warned them, told them what he knew, they listened. They planned. When slavers came in the night, Elsewhere cracks tucked in their pockets, they thought this would be easy. The Seeress had seen an orphan girl with magic. If she had seen anything else, it had been shadowy faces with nothing to make them stand out. This is the peril of a Seer; you fall into the habit if thinking that if you don't see something it can't matter.

Slavers came in the night, and never left.  

They started calling them Snow White and Rose Red, these sisters with deep roots in the mountain soil who grit their teeth and refused to run, refused to hide. Theirs was a mountain village, no Bureau-sanctioned guard and no walls to defend them, so they built their own. Bea smuggled out every person unwilling to become a civilian soldier, who wanted safety not defiance, and the rest built a fortress.  

Kay helped, hands familiar with hammer and nails, the cost of freedom. He made friends, not just with the sisters but with Doc and his sons, the taciturn blacksmith and his two apprentices, the cheerful woman who ran the inn and the cynical one who presided over the fledgling community garden, with a few scattered kids his own age with fire in their veins and fear in their eyes.

(Or was it fear that ran in their blood, twitching at shadows and hearts pounding when they woke at night, and fire in their eyes, a stubborn, worn down fury?)  

They named it Challenge, carved it deep over the main gate, a name and a purpose. 

Their first siege had been a holding action in the mines, Doc and his sons collapsing tunnels and digging new ones until winter came on and forced the Graves' soldiers back to their own walls. The vigilantes stayed in the mines, huddled together for warmth and comfort, elated and terrified at their own victory. Rosie and Susie roamed the passages, after, speaking to everyone and inviting a selection to a council - Kay was invited too, and sat awkwardly listening to them lay plans for rebuilding, how to build sturdy walls the moment the snows cleared enough. Their second came days after they carved Challenge over the gate, while Kay was still getting all of the sawdust out of his hair.

He went back to the bakery afterward, to pour over maps with Bea and be sent out on missions. They couldn't save everyone. They couldn't save most people, but some was better than none. Kay stared at the ceiling through long, sleepless nights, trying to convince himself that it was okay that he couldn't work miracles. People knew him by sight, now, and some days he didn’t feel he should be looking over his shoulder whenever they called out Giantkiller!

It was a long, slow war, their quiet campaign against the Graves family. Bea’s network grew and grew, despite their heavy losses - mages who escaped and ones who didn’t, the non-magical casualties who weren’t quick enough with a lie or a dodge, or were simply unlucky. Susie and Rosie were a fierce pair, exchanging razor sharp letters with Bea to plan out strategies and contingencies.

(It wasn’t until after his third siege at Challenge that Kay would realise that Bea had never actually met either of the sisters; she had never met Marian, either, but they had never communicated directly so it was easier to recall. The sisters and the Baker sent word back and forth for years, but barely knew anything of each other outside of their shared plans besides what he could pass on - for all that Bea would like to see Challenge, there was bread to bake and travel could be dangerous. Better not to give the Seeress any reason to look again at this sleepy village that she and hers had already gutted for fuel.)

Kay was no natural physician, but he helped to wrap bandages in Doc Frederickson’s infirmary whenever he was in Challenge, between meetings and sentry duty. In the streets and villages people expected him to be a hero; in the infirmary, Doc just expected him to be useful. He cracked bad jokes as distraction, fetched water, and peered over a bewildered man’s shoulder at a neat formula that someone had stumbled through the gates clutching. She didn’t remember where she’d found it, but it had been tucked into the lining of her coat. There was a note on the front in her own handwriting, for all she didn’t recall writing it - My first rabbit was called Snowball, and this is real, not a joke.

Doc’s hand shook so badly that he had to put the unfolded note down before he dropped it. Kay clutched the edge of the desk hard enough to hurt, looking between the message and the woman sat on the edge of an infirmary cot, gold dripping sluggishly from her fingertips to pool on the fabric. It would stain, leaving smudged hand-prints on the sheets and faintly in the mattress below, but they would consider it a miracle not a nuisance. She was sitting, fingertips trembling but no worse this morning than they had been any day of her journey north. She had been dragged from the cells, away from the machines that should have killed her, and rather than dying grateful for a final view of the sky she had found herself weeks to the South, in a town she hadn’t known and a recipe in her pocket in handwriting she didn’t recognise.

It wasn’t a cure, but it was still something no-one had thought to hope for. It was a medicine, true, but it was also a message: somebody, somewhere, was trying to save their mages too. They weren’t the only ones resisting this blight.

This, too: after that first midnight venture of Kay’s they had never been able to rescue anyone from the Graves’ keep. They had fought to prevent people being taken, rescued people from mage warded wagons, hissed warnings to make people hide or flee. They had built a town, walls and watchtowers, a beacon of resistance. But they had never managed to make their way into the keep itself undetected a second time, for all the desperate families who had tried, for all the curses the Seeress and the Mayor hissed when they found the doors open and cells empty. Kay and Bea would exchange long looks over the bakery table, and wonder who on the inside was setting people free and laying the blame at their convenient feet.

(In a lab none of them had never seen, Jillit Chu was saving life after life of people who she knew would never remember her name, secrets written in invisible letters on her skin when she went home at night. Thorne was pouring over reports, Jill’s own records, Jeremiah’s much less successful and yet officially far more vital analyses, the dispatches from his spies in the mountains. He wanted the Graves family dealt with, of course - but he wanted their secrets, too. Thorne was a Bureau man, and while Mayor Graves was always careful not to upset the Bureau, he was no more affiliated with them than the vigilantes that plagued his operations. It had never been the means of production that Thorne objected to, or the Graves’ would have been out of a business years before.

Spider didn’t know this; Andrew Molina had given years of his life to bring the machines down, weaving a web to tear it all down. He was trying to find a gap in his plans to let Sandry slip through; he knew where Sam had gone even if she didn’t, thought if he could get her out too then there would be a life for her away from the wreckage of her father’s dreams. If he had to, he knew he would let her fall with it and take the regrets, but he was an excellent Bureau agent - he liked his odds for achieving both. He wasn’t reaching out to Sam just yet - they were working to weaken the system, but it was slow work. The Baker and her resistance were an irritation, but they weren’t yet causing enough of a disruption to have materially disrupted production, to have strained the system, to be convincing the less dedicated that this was a fight they were going to lose.

Thorne had other agents, he knew, and they heard things the Spider didn’t. Reports that when put together said that this was going to be the work of more cold years - he measured them in people lost, and tried when those the Seeress saw were children to make sure he was spotted on the road, that whispers spread before him, warnings. He couldn’t let everyone slip away, not if he wanted to bring it all down, but he tried to save as many as he could - he felt every mage who burned for other people’s light as a weight on his shoulders. He kept walking, the Seeress’ right hand man, and did not stumble under that burden.)

Robin Hood died on an otherwise unremarkable winter’s day, stumbling back to the treeline with them, held up as much as their rescues. Marian’s hands didn’t shake as she lit the pyre, and Kay wondered if she would stay that cold for the rest of her life. She left with a handful of the Merry Men, the ones who’d been thinking of warmer pastures or those like her couldn’t stand to be beneath the trees without Robin. Kay wasn’t sure if she was angry at him or the world - Marian wasn’t, either. She had fought sieges at his side, before he begged Robin’s help for the last time; she knew his history, this mountain born boy who became a legend. She wouldn’t write to him or the Baker, but Little John would drop mentions into his occasional messages, and some days she was glad for the news.

When Kay had first stumbled into the Woods, an injured mage leaning on his shoulder and pursuit on his heels, it had been Marian who coolly shot down the armed guard and guided them beneath the trees. She had helped bandage up his rescue, and Robin had dropped down next to him at the fire. Kay wasn’t sure he had ever felt as safe as he did that night, curled up beneath the towering trees with their cheerful assurances that he didn’t need to worry about any armed followers tracking him here, dozing off in a borrowed bed roll on the hard ground. The Merry Men weren’t all kind to outsiders, but they loved Robin and respected Marian - if they were told he was a friend, he was a friend. Kay watched the smoke rise, the snow melting around them, and wondered if Robin would still be alive, if Kay hadn’t thought of him as a friend.

The remaining Merry Men stayed out of the fight, after that, nursing wounds physical and metaphorical, but Little John made it clear that the paths through the trees were still open to Kay and his rescues. More than one trembling mage and their shaken family were escorted safely south by the Merry Men after a night or two beneath the trees.

It was a long war, and Kay measured it first in months rather than days, then years rather than months; the Seeress was spreading her gaze further afield as the mountain villages became wary, as anyone with sparks at their fingertips fled before they needed warning. Kay gained scars from vicious brawls with guards, with the long limbed Spider, a bullet wound in the shoulder that would ache in the cold for the rest of his life from Spider’s deputy.

Kay was by no means the only person fighting this war, but he had become one of the lynchpins, the one who most often acted directly against the Graves’ network - his was the face the Seeress saw most in the wake of plans dissolving like smoke. She had a bespoke curse tucked in a pocket, and one vindictive day she set it loose. Bea watched the Giantkiller turn pale, shaky on feet that a moment before had been steady, and crumple. She caught him before he could hit the ground, and carried him gently to his room. She sent out frantic messages through her network, looking for healers, looking for anyone who could help. After three nights of fever, Little John crept into the bakery, cradling a pouch in his large, gentle hands. He was no trained healer, but he knew old stories, knew how to walk into the shadowed trees on a full moon night and ask for help for the deserving. He did not know what he had done, to mix this medicine, but when the sun had risen it had been in his hands.

Kay spent another three nights tossing and turning, but he woke with the sun on the seventh day. It would take weeks until he felt fully rested, and Little John warned him that full moons would make him restless for the rest of his days. He spent his time sorting Bea’s correspondence and helping her in the bakery, until she declared him fit for field work again. Even then they were wary, cautious. They had no doubts who had sent a curse to strike him down, for all they sneered at the hypocrisy - they watched for any sign that the Seeress had known where to strike, but found nothing amiss.

One morning, Kay woke to the sound of shattering crockery in the bakery below; he was wary, fresh bruises on his knuckles and sleeping light, recently home and still listening for ambushes. He crept downstairs, and found Bea pinned to the wall of her own kitchen with strings of golden fire, the butter dish broken on the floor. The slingstone he pitched through the door landed, but its target had moved in time and took a glancing bruise to the arm rather than a blow to the head. She held up calloused palms, but he could see the gun at her hip and the gold holding Bea in place: he wasn’t fool enough to think that she was anything other than ready to take him down if he moved. She smiled, a precise and practiced thing. “Hello. Apologies for breaking in, but I needed to speak to the Baker and the Giantkiller, and I believe this is the right address?” Her smile turned feral, a fierce grin that looked more at home on her lips. “I’m an agent from the Bureau quiet branch, and I thought you might want to know we’re planning to bring the Graves’ down in a few weeks’ time.”

Bea made a scoffing sound, the gold fire glittering off her eyes, and the woman flicked her fingers to twist the fire into nothing again. Kay itched to go to Bea, check that she was alright, but he knew better. There were two of them and one armed intruder - better to keep her looking in two directions, for all that she seemed to think she was on their side, for all that he had no doubt which of them would win, if it came to a fight. Kay had years of experience, true, but you didn’t make it to being a field agent with the quiet branch without a fearsome skillset to your name.

She eyed their distrust with amused, approving resignation, and patiently laid out the bones of the web she and Spider had been steadily weaving, the tipping point that was coming. Kay frowned at the hints, puzzling out tactics, and Bea traced her fingertips over her map - the markers of lives saved, the ones of lives lost. There was an empty room upstairs she still couldn’t bear to use, years later. Kay did not and would never know that sometimes when Bea woke from nightmares these days they had been about waking to find the house cold and the curtains in his cosy room billowing in the night air, for all that he was no more a mage that she was. She eyed their guest with as much professional disregard as the woman had shown her, breaking into a house warded over the years by careful, grateful hands as though it was nothing.

“And why now? Why are you and yours only tearing down the Graves’ now? We know who you are, Agent, and for all I’ve heard of you you’re in the Graves’ pocket, the Spider’s precious protege.” She curled a lip, a mountain woman from a village that couldn’t afford walls, that had begged and begged for Bureau protection and been told to come back with gold in their pockets. “Why have the Bureau decided that now they can deign to get involved? Why are you here, breaking into my home, to tell me you’ve finally decided to care enough to stop it?”

"They killed my brother," snapped Laney, an old, bitter hurt - and the Baker looked back at her coldly, as though that didn't explain anything at all.

"They've killed a lot of people." The sharpshooter stiffened, hand twitching as though she might have gone for a gun if she hadn’t needed them alive. Bea didn't flinch from the movement, expression hard and unforgiving. "How many have you helped them kill? I could tell you, I think, because I hear almost everyone's story about the ones they lost, sooner or later. Do you know what we call you, when we whisper warnings? What legend did you think you were building, in your brother's memory?"

The Ballad of Agent Jones

Laney Jones had stumbled at her brother’s beloved heels for years, until he left the desert in search of new horizons. Years later, she had followed in his footsteps once again, Academy papers in her pocket and a handful of hard-won fire clutched close to keep her warm on the journey. She was planning to find her big brother, one day. She was going to show him what she could do, what she had made of herself, and she was going to see the pride in his eyes once again. It was a warm thought, one she had clung to through cold nights of hidden practice and long days of doubting her worth.

In her second year at the Academy, armed men broke into the fish shop where her study group were having their first meeting. When Thorne took her aside in the days after, to have a private chat with such a promising young woman, he glanced over her skin tone and the name in his file, and paused. He asked, carefully, if she had any connection to a Liam Jones, another powerful mage he had heard of. Laney beamed with familial pride, and a certain quiet joy that she had been put on the same level as Liam. "My brother, sir. He whistles up his magic, though I never had the knack for it."

Thorne called her in again a week later, for another chat, but his face was serious and even the glint of his glasses seemed subdued. There was a thin file on his desk, L. Jones scrawled on the outside. Laney's heart froze, because she knew there was no reason for the Bureau to have files on her, not yet.  

"I am sorry, miss Jones, but Liam Jones died almost seven years ago, in the mountains." He pushed the file towards her, sympathy but not pity in his voice. "There are people there who - deal in mages. It seems that there was no one to warn him to hide." He pressed a clean handkerchief into her hand and went to fetch water for the kettle. He could have called for someone to bring them tea, but Thorne understood that people sometimes needed a moment alone with their grief.

The contents of the file had been heavily redacted, because the work of the Bureau quiet branch investigating the trade in mages was an ongoing thing, and a sister's grief didn't give you rights to all of the carefully gathered details. But there were a few stark lines that were intact - a description, a date of capture. A short summary of a doomed escape attempt that made her smile with fierce, pained pride. A date of death.

What had she been doing, that day? Where had she been, when her brother's song vanished from the world?  

Thorne made her tea and made no comment on her damp eyelashes, told her she could speak to him at any time if she felt she needed someone who was aware of the situation to listen. He asked for her family's contact details, so that he could write to tell them the terrible news personally. He straightened the papers on his desk and promised to tell her when he sent it, in case she wanted to write as well, but he said that it shouldn't be her job to break it to them unless she wanted it to be.

Laney signed the quiet branch's letter of employment before the week was up.

She would never run the backstreets of Rivertown with Rupert; he would perhaps have trusted Sez, Bart and their secret, steady work to fellow Academy students, if a bit warily, but not to someone with Thorne looking over her shoulder from the beginning. Laney spent her spare hours at the Academy in the library or out on the firing range, and felt trapped, burning in her own skin.

When the battle of Driftwood Island came, when she realised that the monsters of fire were slipping in from the Elsewhere, it was Thorne she went to, to say she could help; she stitched the rift closed while the Rangers held their own in the wreckage above. She didn’t tell Thorne how she’d done it, exactly, but she agreed that they shouldn’t tell anyone it had been her - no point in making her a target, after all.

(Laney wouldn’t remember any of this for years;  until then, so far as she could recall she’d spent the whole battle helping to shield sections of lower Rivertown from fire damage. If there was a gap in her recollection - well, it was so easy to lose track in your first real battle, for everything to blur together. The Rangers couldn’t recall exactly who had stitched the rift up while they bought time, and it nagged at them for years, too)

On her first day at the Bureau’s quiet branch as a junior agent, Laney made her way to Thorne's office, shoulders carefully square and chin held level, and asked him what she would need to do to become part of the group working on the mage slave trade case.   

Thorne had known her brother's name, his description; not just the dates of his disappearance but those of his escape attempt and death, the clinical numbers documenting how much power had been wrested from his bones. Laney had known, even in the midst of grief - these were not things you could learn without someone on the inside. These were not things you knew, the shadowy quiet branch of the governing powers, unless you had plans to do something with the information.

Laney had her own plans; she had always intended to use the Bureau just as much as Thorne had planned to use her.  

When the Seeress saw her, Spider’s newest potential recruit, she smiled slightly in recognition, sinister and small. She asked Laney why she was applying to a role with the Graves' network. Laney had looked her dead in the eye, shoulders relaxed and everything gold around her shining true.

"My brother was a mage, a powerful one. I grew tired a long time ago of being a shadow because I don't have gold dripping from my fingers."

Neither Kay or Bea trusted the Agent and her casually mentioned ally - Spider had been a nightmare in the mountains for longer than Kay had known of this fight, and had never slipped into the Baker’s net to whisper secrets to her deputy. In another life, the Baker’s right hand had been a girl who saw nothing but blood and ash on her palms, who had once let a whole village die, unseen, because she wanted to live; in another life, the Spider had been confident that the Dragon Slayer would understand the price he was paying. He would have offered himself as an informant, trusting in her pragmatism to take his information and keep the source to herself. In another life, Bea had years of listening to George talk haltingly about the place she had once called home, the dragon they had given her a legend for, and would have listened to her, taken the information even if reluctantly.

But the Giantkiller had no such weight on his shoulders, and Spider had spent too long working himself into the Graves’ good graces to risk his position on that kind of gamble.

They didn’t trust Agent Jones or the Spider, let alone the Bureau man with twinkling glasses who slipped into Challenge with a promise of information and a cheerful litany of all of Kay’s illegal activities, but they couldn’t afford not to take their warnings. Challenge prepared for another siege, hunkering down to withstand whatever the Graves’ threw at them, and Kay decided when the Rangers arrived to support the defenders that his life was worth the gamble and followed two shadowy spies into the Keep, a decoy captive.

He’d been here just once before; after that, the Mayor had finally listened to Sandry’s murmurings about weak points in their security, and no-one had broken into the keep since. Spider let them in through a side door, and Kay shuddered as it clicked closed behind him. They burned the machines, Agent Jones lighting the mage blasts, but the engineer wasn’t there, the careful blueprints and plans stored somewhere other than this cold office. Kay turned a corner and ran into the Seeress, the first time he had seen her face to face. They stared at one another, frozen; she was frantically figuring out how the Giantkiller had made it into the keep unnoticed - and he had no idea who he just run into, unsure if he should tell her who he was and hesitating to use force on someone he thought might be an innocent.

Spider stepped up behind him, and the Seeress’ cold mask slipped, fractured as she looked between them, Sandry feeling her steady ground shift beneath her feet. Spider’s hand settled warningly over Kay’s shoulder, yanking him back and cuffing him to a stair-rail to keep the boy in place as the recognition dawned, while he frantically whispered at Sandry - telling her to leave, to slip out of the side door and hide, that she could join her brother and start over. The Seeress snapped out sharp retorts, demanding to know what exactly the Bureau knew of her baby brother, and Kay felt an abrupt, unwelcome fellow feeling - he knew what it was, to fear the extent of the Bureau’s files, to want the names of you and yours kept secret. The Seeress was trembling, torn between drawing herself up and in, hurt and terrified of showing it, and wanting to trust, for just a little longer, that the Spider was on her side.

Mayor Graves turned the corner, calling for the Seeress, his useful little monster, because someone had been in his office, burned his papers to ash. He was clutching a weapon that pulsed gold (in the cells below, there was a trembling body, the magic in their blood ripped free and pushed into a new vessel), concerned but not frantic. He spied Kay, and his face broke into a smirk. Spider stood with a relaxed stance, hand on his holstered gun, face a mask while he weighed options. The Seeress straightened her spine. Her father had told her all her life that mages were selfish, hoarding power, that their work was a sad necessity for the wellbeing of the many.  He was holding a gun that took that power and put it in his own two hands - Sandry had made Spider teach her to shoot years ago, on the quiet, because she wanted something she could do, to defend herself and her brother, something to hold onto that would give her power that didn’t rely on words. She knew that this was a power he had made for himself to cling to.

The Giantkiller was a child, still, and almost as young as her brother had been when she pressed a bag into his hands and told him to flee. Her father was pointing a gun at a boy barely older than his son, and everything in him was twisting gleeful with it. She murmured, dispassionate, that the boy might have useful information. That Spider should take him downstairs for questioning, to find out about the gaps in their defences - a security breach such as this must be investigated carefully, for all their sakes. Spider could dispose of the pest, after. Mayor Graves had never been in the habit of listening to his daughter, and she wanted to scream it at him as he dismissed her again without even a word.

The Mayor took an experimental shot at the Giantkiller, burning the ground by Kay’s left leg to cinders, and crumpled to the ground. Agent Jones slipped out of the shadows behind him, ash dusting her fingertips, pistol held steady and familiar in her hand. She glanced down at the body, cold, and wondered if she would regret never getting to tell him exactly why she’d taken aim, a sniper’s precise shot under cover of his own.

Spider stepped casually in front of Sandry, and with a glare Agent Jones holstered her gun before striding briskly by both her mentor and the Seeress to release the bindings holding Kay in place.

“C’mon, Giantkiller. Let’s get you back to your friends at Challenge, and the boss in here to sort out everything else.” She slid her eyes sideways towards Spider. “I’ll be sure to tell him that you have the Seeress in your custody, sir.” Spider gave a resigned sigh, but made no other objection. Kay felt he ought to protest, to argue against leaving the Seeress unchained, to snap that it should have been him who took down the Mayor, but this had never been just his fight, for all his was the name the Seeress had hissed in the wake of foiled plans. He let himself be guided out, Agent Jones brisk and efficient, a polite smile pasted on her face.

Thorne was waiting for them outside, cheerfully confident in his Agents and the Giantkiller. He told Kay that Challenge had withstood the final siege, but couldn’t tell him the cost. Kay, seething, bit his tongue at the man’s oily reminders that in the quiet branch’s service, any messy rumours about illegal activities would be swept under the rug. The Giantkiller jerked his head back at the keep. “The mayor is dead, but the Seeress is still alive in there.” Thorne pursed his lips, nodding. “Good, good. The mayor had to be removed, though alive would have been…preferable. Young Cassandra can take over, however, to maintain consistency - with supervision, of course, before you say anything.” Kay scowled. “She fed mages into his machines for years.” Thorne smiled at him, condescendingly, shaking his head like a kindly grandfather.

“We cannot simply remove every political figure we disagree with. She is young. She will be managed. You should be making your way to Challenge, however. I’m sure your friends will want to hear the good news.” Agent Jones watched the boy stalk away, carefully keeping her face neutral. She was an old hat at manipulating people, after years of practice - she could see that Thorne was trying to collect another recruit. She could also see that he was going about it in entirely the wrong fashion, but she didn’t think it was worth pointing that out.

Thorne glanced at her sideways. “The mayor is dead, Agent Jones?” “Yes sir. An unfortunate necessity to avoid further loss of life.” He heaved a sigh, but didn’t question it. “Very well then. Let us go and debrief Spider, and explain the new order of things to Miss Graves.”

Even with the Mayor gone, the keep was still hostile territory; Agent Jones was on high alert, so when she heard a door click softly closed as they walked through the entry way she waved Mr Thorne on ahead of her, waiting until Dadlus thought it was safe to emerge again. She tackled him to the ground, and had him cuffed and cursing by the time Thorne, Spider and the Seeress made their way back down the stairs. Thorne’s face turned gleeful when he saw her captive. He rubbed his hands together. “Excellent! Good work, Agent Jones.” The Seeress’ head snapped toward him, eyes widening fractionally in surprise before he spoke. “I have a Bureau engineer who desperately needs to pick your brains, particularly as it seems the Giantkiller was able to burn all of the blueprints. You're going to be very valuable to us.”

Spider was staring between Thorne and Dadlus, ice slipping down his spine as he put the pieces together, discovered the game Thorne had been playing all along. He had spent years working in this keep, shoulders weighed down by so many lives he had been unable to save, who he had sacrificed to ensure he could bring it all to an end. He took three long steps forward and slid the knife he always carried up his sleeve between the engineer's ribs. "I didn't let children die for years so the Bureau could turn around and do the same thing all over again." Dadlus slumped to the ground, blood pooling under him. Thorne went for his gun, but Agent Jones was quicker - in a different life, it would have been dragon’s fire that killed Gerald Thorne, but in this one it was handfuls of Elsewhere fire that Laney had been carrying around her wrists for years, hidden even from the Seeress.

Cassandra stared at them both over the cooling body, shaken - she had always seen everything, every secret and every weakness, and here she found both: her lieutenants had been hiding secrets upon secrets, tucked carefully away where she hadn’t found them, and so she was weak where she’d thought her back was guarded. She wondered if it would be a bullet or a blaze that came for her, whether Spider would help or if he would pull her out of the way.

Agent Jones didn’t glance her way: she and Spider were eying each other, weighing up their priorities and potentials. Spider wanted Sandry to go free - she had barely been an adult when he arrived at the keep, for all that it had taken him weeks to discover she wasn’t cold years older. He had realised within those first months of working his way into her network just how young she must have been, when the Mayor told her she was a monster and turned her into a tool.

Laney had always wanted revenge for her brother, justice for the other victims. She had burned the machines with glee and felt no guilt for shooting the Mayor down. She felt no guilt for burning Throne, either - she wanted the machines gone as much as Spider. But she knew who it was who had found her brother, who had sent armed thugs with Elsewhere cracks in their pockets after Liam. She had told herself she would feel no guilt for shooting the Seeress, either, even when she saw the date of birth in the briefing files.

But Laney had spent a year now with Sandry and the Spider; she remembered the squeaky sage in her second year study group, the one she still sometimes met in the University library to chatter over Elsewhere theory. She had heard Sandry talk about Sam, but she had heard Grey talk about Sandry, too. She thought she talked about Liam the same way, sometimes.

“Thorne said we would leave you in charge,” she spoke softly, as though the words were of no importance. “So we will. But you do not re-start operations, and Spider and I will make sure of it.” Agent Jones holstered her gun, turned to the Seeress, and raised an eyebrow. “But the people around here will freeze in winter, without help. Your people, now. So, I’ve a challenge for you - I know you’ve studied how the machines work, how to make them more efficiently. But have you ever tried to figure out how you can wrest this power from thin air and turn it into something useful?”

Laney Jones pressed her hand up to the skin of the world and broke it; in the glow of the Elsewhere she was radiant, and Cassandra would have shielded her eyes if she’d been able to bear looking away. All her life, she had been told that what they did was the only way, only fair.

She stared, eyes stinging, and thought I have never seen a mage burn so bright.

Kay spent the weeks after at Challenge helping to shore up the damage; Bea left the bakery to help, bandaging the wounded and scolding him for taking foolish risks. They knelt side by side in the community garden, repairing damaged trellises and trying to see which of the fragile growths could be coaxed back into health and which needed to be turned to compost. One water break, surveying the rows they’d managed to restore, he idly turned a stone over and said, “What are we going to do now? What’s next?” She didn’t pretend he was talking about the garden, though she didn’t reply until they were carting the next load of dug up plants to the compost heap.

“I don’t know. It’s been so long since I didn’t have -” And he put his arms around her and let her cry into his shoulder; Bea had turned herself to stone in so many ways, over the years, since she woke to a cold house and an empty bedroom, and now her war was won. There would be pieces to pick up, rebuilding that would take years. The Seeress was still in the keep, and for all that Agent Jones assured them she wasn’t going to be a problem it still sat bitter under both their tongues. It would take months for the mountain villagers to feel safe, for a child with sparks flicking between fingertips to inspire joy not terror. It would take years, a lifetime - several lifetimes. There was work for Bea to bury herself in still, but for now there was sun on her shoulders and there would be no mages lost in the night. For now, she could realise they were safe, as safe as you could ever be, and weep for all those who hadn’t been.

Later, shoulder to shoulder in the crowded inn, Kay would rest his head on her shoulder, quiet.

“I think I should go back to the farm, for a bit. See my dad, yeah? Make sure he knows I’m okay.” He nudged her with an elbow, gentle. “I’ll come back, though. But I promised I wouldn’t leave without telling you, so I am. I’m going to head back to the farm and get shouted at, so you aren’t even going to be the only one nagging me about taking risks, then I’m gong to come back to the bakery and chop wood for you.” She laughed softly.

“That’s your life plan?” He grinned, and it was a younger face that looked back at her than she’d seen for years. He was still a child, really, for all that he was growing tall and gangly. He shrugged. "For now. I’d like to go a few weeks with no-one trying to kill me, it’d make a nice change. Later - well. Maybe I’ll go get myself a Badge, I'm almost old enough. Sarge told me plenty of times he reckons I could do it, and I’ve daydreamed about it for years, you know? Be a proper Hero, join the Rangers as an intern. Agent Jones told me Thorne is dead - I didn't ask for details, I thought she might shoot me - and that I didn't need to worry about my name being in any paperwork with the Giantkiller, so long as I say Thorne was tragically killed in the fight with the Mayor. I could do it, if I wanted.” They sat in silence for a while longer, watching the crowd. After a while, Bea ruffled his hair gently. “Maybe you should go to the Academy, get yourself a career lined up. But if you’ll take an old baker’s suggestion - I think you’d make a better Guide, all things considered. You've had enough practice at being a hero.”

In the morning, before he set out for the old farm he hadn’t been back to in years, Kay climbed up the flights of stairs to the uppermost platform of the wall that surrounded Challenge. The wooden posts were riddled with marks, from flung weapons and the sooty streaks left by stolen mage fire, idle carved graffiti left by bored sentries - names and old in jokes, defiant records left when they knew they were all inviting battle to their doorstep. He stood looking out at the surrounding peaks as the sun rose, thinking about the Leauges and Bureau policy, about a roc digging claws into his shoulder and long summer sieges, the machines burning and Mayor Graves crumpling lifeless to his plush carpet, and dug out his pocket knife.

We were here.

[uk-news-talking-politics]

Everything you need to know about day one of Brexit

By Ian Dunt

Oh sweet Christ not Brexit again.

Yes, you will never escape. It will never be over. Decades from now, as your wrinkled fingers grasp the remote for your 3D holo-viewer, the main news item will still be about Brexit.

At least we got a break during the coronavirus emergency.

Yep, say what you like about pandemics, but at least they take trade talks off the front pages. Still, it's back now. We leave at the end of the year. And deal or no-deal, things at the border are going to be very different.

OK lay it out for me.

For decades we have had frictionless trade with Europe in the customs union and single market. The customs union got rid of tariffs, which are taxes on goods entering a territory, and the single market harmonised regulations, which means goods are made to the same standards. Once you're outside of them, you need checks at the border to make sure people are paying the right tax and complying with the regulations.

And that's what's about to happen?

Exactly. And this will apply regardless of whether there is a deal or not. I want to issue a word of warning before we go any further: It's a horror show. The level of tediousness here is off the scale. This is like someone came up with a super-powered serum for the concept of bureaucracy and then injected it directly into your bloodstream. But you didn't turn into Chris Evans in Captain America, you turned into Jeff Goldblum in The Fly. The worst things are the acronyms. Everything has an acronym. But you need to get your head around it in order to understand what's going to happen to us next month.

I don't care. I hate this. I want this conversation to stop.

You can't, it's too late. You are trapped here with me and the acronyms. OK so here's the basic problem, the one from which all others follow. Our customs system currently processes around 55 million declarations a year. In 2021, it will process around 270 million. It needs to massively ramp up capacity.

It's just as well the government has such a good track record of implementing complex IT projects at speed then.

Quite. To be fair, the government has put a lot of effort into this, albeit belatedly. More than 35 government departments and public bodies are involved, including HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC), the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra), the Home Office (HO), the Department for Transport (DfT), the Border and Protocol Delivery Group (BPDG) and the Transition Task Force (TTF).

Sweet Jesus the acronyms.

Actually, most of those are abbreviations, but let's not get caught up on details. We've barely scratched the surface. There are three key areas where the government needs to build capacity: IT systems to process the customs declarations, physical infrastructure at or near ports, and staff in government and the private sector to keep the customs system going.

That's a lot to do.

It is. But the government made things easier in one crucial respect: it delayed its own import declarations system until July next year.

What does that mean?

It means that stuff coming into Britain from Europe basically gets waved through. There are still technically customs requirements, but they've been pushed back six months. This allowed them to make sure goods would still enter the country and let them focus on trying to get the exports right.

It's hardly taking back control, is it?

No it isn't, but they're undertaking a systems-level change at an eye-watering timetable, so it was a necessary sacrifice.

Couldn't they have extended transition to prepare for this?

Yes they could, but chose not to. That's cost them. Covid seriously delayed preparations, dominated attention in business and government, paused ministerial decision-making and put communication with traders into deep-freeze over the summer.

So what are the biggest risks now?

The IT systems. There are 10 critical IT systems which are needed at the GB–EU border. Then there are the European systems which UK exporters will need to use to get access to the continent. We're not going to go into all of them here - we're going to massively simplify.

Thank heavens.

Don't worry, it'll still make your brain dribble out of your ears. We're also going to simplify by taking goods going from Britain to Northern Ireland off the table. That's its own separate hellscape. And we're going to focus on the Dover-Calais crossing. There are many others going from England to France, but this is the main route. It serves 'accompanied goods' - when a driver in a lorry takes the goods onto a ferry and then drives it off on the other side of the Channel. This is called RoRo, for roll-on-roll-off.

Acronym. Drink.

If you keep that up you'll be smashed by the end of the article and won't have any idea what I'm talking about.

I already have no idea what you're talking about.

Fair enough, drink away. The trouble with customs IT systems is this: Everyone needs to be filling in the right thing, in the right place, at the right time. If they don't, things break down. That doesn't just apply to the UK and French governments. It applies to exporters and importers, ports, hauliers and others. Customs is all or nothing. If one section is wrong, it's all wrong. Lorries are often full of lots of different consignments of goods from different exporters. Plenty of them travel with 100 individual separate consignments on them. This is called 'groupage'. So if one input of one customs form in one of those consignments is wrong, the whole lorry is delayed. And if that lorry is delayed, all the lorries behind it are delayed. The potential for breakdown is therefore very significant.

This is already making me anxious. It's like Jenga but it reaches all the way into the sky and is composed entirely of knives.

You also need to make sure that third party software used by places like the ports integrates with the government systems. And that assumes that the government IT systems actually work and have staff with the proper experience and training to operate them. And this too is interrelated. If one of the systems breaks down, it has a knock-on effect on the other systems. You keep seeing this same problem crop up. It's not one of error, exactly. It's about the consequence of the error, the knock-on effects of it.

How robust are those IT systems looking right now?

Not great. Some have been delayed indefinitely, some for a set period, some are in trials and some are online. But even when they're finished, you really want to give all the people using them time to understand them, to get used to them, so that when we leave transition there are as few mistakes as possible. All four industry representative bodies, including the Road Haulage Association (RHA) and the British International Freight Association (Bifa), have raised concerns about the government's level of preparedness, saying that they don't believe the border will be fully functioning by next month.

That's two more acronyms by my count.

I'm glad to see you sticking to the important information here. The trouble is that lack of government preparedness doesn't just affect it - it affects trader preparedness as well. If they're not getting clear communication from the government about what is happening and how it is happening, they don't know what to do. And the government has a bad record here. It has marched traders up the hill on no-deal several times over recent years, only to march them down again. Now many simply ignore it. Government communications have, until recently, centred on the "opportunities" of Brexit, which does nothing to indicate the urgency with which people need to make expensive and time-consuming changes. Even in October, just 45% of high-value traders who trade exclusively with the EU had started to invest in readiness.

Oh dear.

There are some reasons to be more optimistic. The first is that government communication has belatedly started to improve.  A new campaign in October was much better, telling traders that "time is running out". There's also one really important thing to remember about all this: it's not a long term problem. Brexit has plenty of those and they are severe, but this is not one of them. This is a short, sharp, embarrassing shock. Eventually, the market will adjust. People will see what happens in January and find ways around it so they can get their goods to market. Some people think that will happen very quickly indeed - no more than a month. Some think it'll take the first quarter of next year or longer. But very few people think it will last the whole year. What we're looking at here is the most dramatic, but also ultimately the most superficial, of Brexit impacts.

Starting to feel a bit tipsy now.

Cool, then it might be a good time to start talking about the IT systems.

No. Stop.

What?

I don't want to hear it. I want to get out.

It's too late. You're trapped here in an imaginary world in which I am talking to myself and explaining customs procedures. And in fact your resistance to this conversation probably points to some kind of deep-seated psychological trauma which I'm working my way through.

Dog carcass in alley this morning. Tyre tread on burst stomach.

Very good, Rorschach. So look, there are really four forms you need to remember. First, the import/export declaration. Second, the safety and security documentation. Third, the sanitary and phytosanitary measures for agricultural goods. And fourth, the system that collects these data sets and connects them to the lorry which is transporting the good.

What's in the import/export declaration?

They basically state what the good is, its value and how much duty you have to pay on it. It's the tax bit. It's all very complex, laborious and crammed full of technical minutiae but that's the executive summary. It needs to be lodged before the good gets to the French border.

How do you lodge it?

You do it through a UK system called the Customs Handling of Import and Export Freight, or Chief.

Drink.

This is a really old system and before Brexit was even a twinkle in Boris Johnson's eye, the UK planned to turn it off and migrate all traders to a new system called the Customs Declarations Service, or CDS.

Drink.

CDS was meant to replace Chief from January 2019 and then switch off altogether by March 2021, but there were repeated delays. So instead they're keeping Chief for trade between Britain and the EU and using CDS for trade between Britain and Northern Ireland, because it has the capacity for dual tariff fields. CDS is then going to be scaled up until it can deal with all the declarations.

No acronyms there.

Actually trade between Britain and Europe is called GB-EU and trade between Britain and Northern Ireland is called GB-NI, but let's not worry about that. The government insists that Chief now has an increased capacity that can handle 400 million annual declarations - way higher than the 265 million which are expected. HMRC has paid Fujitsu £85 million to provide technical support. But others aren't convinced. They're not sure it can handle the load and nervous that there isn't enough support if something goes wrong.

Very reassuring.

Isn't it. Remember that the importer on the EU side also has to be doing all of this - at the right time, in the right place - on the European customs system.

OK so what about the safety and security thing?

It's a document outlining what the good is, so it can be assessed for potential risks. Again, it's a long complex thing with multiple data fields. Like import/export, it has to be done in advance of the goods reaching Calais. It's submitted to the UK government via a new system called S&S GB.

Drink.

It must also be submitted to the EU member state's Import Control System, which is called ICS.

Drink. OK tell me about the sanitary pad things.

Sanitary and phytosanitary measures, or SPS.

Drink.

These are there to protect people, animals and plants from disease or pests. They cover products of an animal origin, like cheese, or meat, or fish, as well as live animal exports, plants and plant products, and even the wooden crates used to transport other types of goods. It's painstaking stuff, but I think, given the pandemic we're all going through, we all understand why it's important.

Yeah, fair enough. You've sold me. I'm totally on board with this stuff.

These kinds of goods have to enter Europe through specific Border Control Posts, or BCPs.

Drink.

And there they undergo some, or all, of a variety of checks. There's a documentary check for the official certification which travels with the good. There are identity checks, which provide a visual confirmation that the consignment corresponds to the documentation. And there's a physical check to verify the goods are compliant with the rules, for instance temperature sampling, or laboratory testing. You know that whole chlorine-washed chicken thing?

Sure.

Well this is where they check whether it has been and stop it getting into Europe if it has. But it's actually the documentary check which is the hardest part in terms of UK preparedness. It includes something called an Export Health Certificate, or EHC.

Drink. Jesus Christ.

These are documents which confirm that the product meets the health requirements of the EU. So they might say that the animal was vaccinated, for instance. Some products, like a cut of lamb, will just have one EHC. But others, like a chicken pizza, will have more than one.

We've talked about this before. People shouldn't put chicken on pizza.

You are wrong, it's a perfectly legitimate pizza topping, and in fact you are so wrong that I have started using chicken pizza as my trade-good shorthand. Chicken pizza is the new widgets.

What even are widgets?

No-one knows, that's why economists love them. A chicken pizza, however, is a composite good for the purposes of SPS. The chicken and the cheese are different animal products, so they would need separate export health certificates. And all these certificates have to be verified by an official veterinarian, or OV.

You're just messing me about now.

No seriously, they use that acronym. This whole area of public life has been radicalised into extreme acronym use. Anyway, the OV goes through the details, queries the documents and signs them off. But there's assistance from a person pulling together all the paperwork. They're called a Certification Support Officer, or…

I can't believe this.

...CSO. These guys are mostly in private practices, usually farming practices. It's not a big part of their workload - maybe 20% of what they do. But if you don't have those vets, you can't send the export. That would be catastrophic for the farming, food and hospitality sectors. And that's where we have an issue. There are restrictions on getting that many OVs up and running. There's a tight labour market for vets and the UK is highly reliant on Europeans coming over to do the job, but the end of free movement makes that much more difficult and expensive, as does the covid pandemic.

So what has the government done?

It pumped £300,000 into providing free training for the role. Many vets took it up. The number of qualified vets has jumped from 600 in February 2019 to 1,200 today. But that still leaves a capacity gap of 200.

Well that doesn't sound so bad.

No it doesn't, but when you start to scratch away at the figures, they fall apart. The 200 figure is the number of 'full time equivalent' qualified vets required. And if vets only spend about 20% of their time doing this, it means we'll actually need an extra 1,000 vets training in the additional qualification.

Oh dear.

Yep. Groups representing the sector are seriously worried about this. And as with customs, the smooth functioning of the border will rely on the importer on the EU side doing all the bits they're required to do too, by creating a record in the Trade Control and Expert System, or Traces NT.

Drink. OK, what's the fourth bit of IT?

Transport. This involves wrapping all the other forms together and attaching them to a vehicle. In the UK, we'll be doing this through something called the Goods Vehicle Movement Service, or GVMS.

Drink.

It links export declaration references together into one single Goods Movement Reference, or GMR.

Drink. Bloody hell man these people are out of control.

The GMR should come out like a barcode, a one-stop shop for all the tied-together information we've been discussing. GVMS will be needed for certain movements in January, particularly for trade with Northern Ireland, but it won't be a requirement of all imports until July. It's currently being tested and there are dark murmurs about its functionality from those who have come into contact with it. Mercifully, exporters into Europe on January 1st will be using the French system, SI Brexit. This was operational a year ago and has been fully tested several times.

Those lazy French with their useless romantic dispositions.

It's almost like they're a nation that cares about shopkeepers.

Speaking of which, how're British businesses going to deal with all this additional paperwork?

Many companies will be OK. Very big corporations are well ahead and in many cases have set up a European entity so that they can sell directly from their UK entity to the EU one. Then they'll probably just reflect the customs costs in a subtly increased retail price. Smaller companies who are used to exporting to the rest of the world outside of Europe also have an advantage. They're used to these kinds of things. The people who are most at risk are the small-to-medium-sized enterprises who have traded exclusively with Europe.

Small-to-medium-sized… Oh no.

Yeah, that's right. SMEs. Which, by the way, comprise the vast majority of companies in the UK. If you send just two or three loads of your product a month to Europe, it probably won't be worth the cost in manpower and money preparing for all this stuff. They'll likely just accept a shrinkage in their business. For many of them, the whole thing is a bafflement. Honestly, you read the guidance on all these systems and it's like it's in an alien code - a garbled assault of acronyms and complex systems. Many small firms, already suffering from covid, just throw up their hands in despair.

Bleak. It's always the little guys that get it.

Yes, although paradoxically, that actually presents one of the few reasons for optimism. Well, not optimism exactly, but a hope for least-badism. Now that so many people feel January will be chaotic, they might just decide not to bother trying to send anything. Goods will get stuck at a warehouse instead of on a truck.

Seriously? That's your good news? Aren't you just displacing disruption from the ports to other parts of the supply network?

Yes precisely. But there really are no good outcomes here.

Because if that doesn't happen, the system seizes up?

Yeah exactly. Lorries head to Dover then get held up because they don't have the correct paperwork. Then lorries behind those lorries get caught up, pushing the queue out, dominating Kent, creating a huge singular blockage. The government's own Reasonable Worst Case Scenario, or RWCS…

Drink.

... estimates that between 40% and 70% of lorries may not be ready for border controls, leading to queues of up to 7,000 trucks.

But that would only be going out right? The stuff we bring in to the country would be unaffected because we're not putting in place controls.

Kind of. It's certainly true that most imports should have a clear run into the UK. You can keep those two lanes separate. But most hauliers are from Romania, Lithuania, Hungary and Poland. They pay a lease on their trucks, which means they have to keep them going if they're to make money. They can't afford to get stuck in a queue at the border. So there's a good chance they'll look at the log-jam in the UK and think: 'I'm not touching that with a barge pole'. This would mean Britain struggled to get its imports, including potentially fresh food and medicines.

Wow.

Yeah, it could be bad. But there are plans for that eventuality. The government has set up some emergency routes, for instance on the Newhaven-Dieppe crossing. There's additional ferry capacity at eight ports, with the Department for Transport acting as the referee on which vehicles get onto their crossing. But it's not a like-for-like replacement. Many of these crossings take much longer than the short gap between Dover and Calais, and they often operate for unaccompanied goods overnight. If the import is urgent, or fresh, or, like some covid vaccines, needs to be kept at a certain temperature, then you may have a problem.

What is the government doing to make sure this doesn't happen? How will they control the blockage?

There's three parts to that really. The first is controlling access to Kent, which the trucks head into to get to Dover. This project has no acronym, but instead adopted one of the least elegant names in the history of British policy-making: The Check an HGV is Ready to Cross the Border Service.

Wait but...

Yeah. HGV: Heavy Goods Vehicle.

I fully accept now that it was a mistake to adopt this drinking idea.

Before the lorry gets to Kent, the driver will fill out an online form with a bunch of information - the registration number, the destination, details of the consignments, confirmations that the import/export documents have been filled in, export health certificates, the whole lot basically. Those that are judged to have all the documentation are given a Kent Access Pass, or KAP.

Drink.

And that allows them to go into Kent. Police can hand out £300 fines to lorries found on the Kent roads without the permit.

But this is all done on trust right? It's a self-assessment form.

Yep. It'll rely on people filling it out right. It's not linked to EU customs systems. So there's no guarantee that documents they claim to have completed will be accepted by EU customs authorities. But on the plus side, the software was launched recently and most people think it'll work OK. It's better than nothing, basically.

Alright so what's next? Traffic management?

Exactly. It's uncanny how naturally your questions lead me onto the next thing I want to discuss.

That's because I am you.

Don't talk about that, it makes it weird. Alright so first up we have the traffic flow plans. The Department for Transport is taking an existing temporary system to create contraflow on the M20 and putting it on a permanent footing, allowing 2,000 lorries to be held on the motorway while traffic still flows in both directions on the London-bound side.

OK, what's next?

Well then there's the issue of actual sites. HMRC has identified seven locations outside the ports. There's prep work being done at a site in Sevington, Ashford, at a cost of £110 million, to act as a clearing house for another 2,000 lorries. Some 600 lorries can be held on the approach to Manston airport, with more at the airport itself. These two sites, along with the M20 contraflow, are for holding traffic. There are also plans for Ebbsfleet International Station, North Weald Airfield and Warrington to be used for bureaucratic checks away from the border. Other sites, potentially in the Thames Gateway and Birmingham areas, are also being considered. They insist that this should give them capacity for 9,700 lorries, which is above the 7,000 in their worst case scenario.

Assuming that scenario is correct.

Right. Covid and other unrelated events, like a fire breaking out for instance, could mean that even the worst case scenario is an underestimate. We just don't know. Plus that relies on all of this being up in time. The government has passed legislation to streamline planning processes, but the timetable is unbelievably tight. The same thing goes for staff.

These are the customs officials who check all the paperwork, right?

That's certainly part of it. They're split into two departments: HMRC and Border Force. HMRC needs 8,600 full-time equivalent staff in place for January 1st. They still need another 1,500 but seem confident they'll have them. Border Force recruited an additional 900 staff ahead of a possible no-deal last year and is trying to bring in 1,000 more. Ministers are confident they'll have enough people in place by January 1st, but trade experts are less convinced.

Recurring theme.

Indeed. It's easy to get fixated on numbers but it really matters how well you've trained people too. You can have someone helping with customs work after a day or two, but for them to have any real sense of what they're doing, you're going to want a year's training. And then there's the question of personality type. Customs is a very specific kind of work, full of extremely complex documentation which must be got right. For some people, that is unimaginably boring. For others, it's very satisfying. But you need the right ones. And that's not what typically happens when people get desperate on a recruitment drive.

What's the other part of the staffing problem?

The private sector. It's a job called 'customs broker'. They're basically people who come in and help companies with their customs forms. Like I said, this stuff is mind-meltingly complex. You really do need someone to come and help you do it. And that's what the government wants too of course, because the more people getting it right, the fewer delays at the border. But as of last September, just 53% of traders said they planned to use a customs broker, with 30% unsure and 18% saying they were going to do the work themselves. Those aren't good numbers.

Are there enough of them to meet demand?

No. This has been a long-running problem. Almost two-thirds of customs brokers do not have enough staff to handle the increased paperwork from leaving the EU. And actually capacity seems to have reduced over the year due to the covid pandemic. The UK needs thousands more.

What's the government doing about it?

It's invested £84 million since 2018 into training, recruitment and IT system development. But many customs brokers are still hesitant about taking on new salary costs to build a capacity that won't be fully required until next July and they're nervous about taking on unprepared customers.  Of the £84 million on offer, just £52 million had been taken up in mid-October.

Is that… is that it? Please say that's it. I'm wasted.

It is.

OK so give me the executive summary.

We're about to experience the sudden implementation of complex customs processes in a nation which forgot they existed. This involves the introduction of numerous interrelated IT systems which have been under-tested. It's not clear that either government or traders are fully prepared for what's about to happen. In order to minimise the disruption the government is introducing various traffic management projects and trying to bulk up staff capacity. But there's just too many variables to know how it'll pan out. Maybe the systems will hold out and many traders will anyway sit out January because of concerns about queues. Or maybe the systems will fail, traders won't fill in forms right and the whole thing will blow up in our face. The most likely outcome right now is somewhere between shambles and catastrophe. We have to hope it's a shambles.

Can you do it in acronym-speak?

Amid RHA and Bifa concerns about the lack of progress, HMRC, Defra, the HO, the Dft, the BPDG and the TTF are building up IT systems for post-Brexit GB-EU trade and particularly for RoRo at Dover-Calais which will involve exporters submitting import/export declarations to Chief and the CDS, S&S information to S&S GB and ICS, and collating their SPS documentation - including an EHC filled out by an CSO under the supervision of an OV sent via a BCP - with the importer logging it on Traces NT, while generating a GMR via GVMS and SI Brexit, and then HGVs getting a KAP, all to avoid the RWCS.

D… Drink?

Yes I think so. That seems very sensible.

[enithinggoes]

The witch’s teachings, lesson 0: admission

This is a documentation of the education I’ve received from the witch Morgana, whose wisdom and proficiency I’ve come to admire greatly since it began. To contextualise this, though, I must first explain how my apprenticeship at her hand began.

I was  a young lad of 23, and never had been out of the village where I had lived, whose only medic, doctor Jones, had taught me how to deal with sewing and cleaning wounds, as well as a few remedies that could supress pain and infection in the body, and I had been serving as assistant in his practices for a few months, however, we’d been recently dealing with injuries I found myself unable to treat, farmhands would appear with deep gashes into their arms and legs which, even after our usual practices, were said to radiate an intense burning sensation, and kept reopening for days on end.

After just a week of these happenings. Doctor Jones and me were both exhausted, caring for the 10 men and 2 women affected by the strange injuries had been intensely taxing, they would feverishly ramble about a dark creature with yellow eyes moving quickly through the night, slaughtering livestock and attacking any who attempted to scare it off or kill it. Me and my senior had been taking shifts of sleeping inside our clinic so at least one of us was constantly able to respond to new cases and monitor the existing victim’s condition. At the afternoon’s end, the neighbourhood suddenly fell silent, there should still be people moving through the street and conversing at the neaby bar at this time, the deafening silence made me shiver, I felt truly alone, being the only one awake at the clinic.

Suddenly the clicking of boots pierced the silence, followed by a door opening and I understood the reason behind the quiet. A woman entered the clinic wearing a short black dress with purple details, black pants, boots and gloves and a large brimmed, pointy hat. She was tall and lanky, with short raven hair. But what struck me the most was her eyes, they were dark like the ocean’s depths, giving the impression that any light that hit them could never escape, and they had a focus to them unlike those of anyone I’d met, the same focus of a falcon in the moment before it dove down for it’s prey, there was no mistaking it, this woman was a witch. I’d heard of them before, in fables and legends, how they were powerful and conniving and vicious and you should never cross them lest you be cursed to die or meet a fate even more terrible.

I stood reflexively to attention, stammering as I spoke a hurried greeting, “Hello ma’m, what brings you here?”

She brought out a small pouch and spoke with elegance and clarity “Heard your town was having a little werewolf trouble, so I’ve been brought on for a little help and consultation, you’re gonna want to spread that over their wounds twice, about half a day apart if you want the stinging to stop, has anyone been bitten?”

“No ma’m, we’ve only seen claw marks so far, did you say werewolf? I didn’t think those were real! What can we do? Should we organize a search party? What is this stuff?”, I asked, taking a small cilinder  filled with some kind of cream out of her pouch,  which she’d handed to me.

“Take a breath laddy, you don’t have to do anything about the werewolf, let momma here deal with that, it’s what I’m here to do anyway, just warn everyone to stay inside for a few days, alright? As for the paste, it’s silver powder, mashed together with rosemary, you can ask your mayor for the ingredients and make it here yourself.”

As the witch instructed, I spread the paste over my patients’ injuries, she insisted on checking them for bite marks, although considering the size of this creature’s claws, I imagine it would be near impossible to miss a bite. Whenever I finished the treatment on a pacient, their cries of pain would quickly lower in volume and frequency, to the point I stopped a few times to check if their heart and breathing were stopping, but their heartbeat was only going down from the speed it had accelerated to due to the pain back to a stable beat.

As she prepared to leave the clinic, the witch turned to me and asked “Have any human bones or half eaten carcasses appeared? Anybody disappear recently?”

“No ma’m, no dead yet, only injured” I responded

“Great, must be a recent transformation then, one last thing,” she said, “And I need you to answer this honestly, I promise it’s gonna be better for everyone, including you. Have you, or anyone you know been experiencing frequent night terrors, sleepwalking or finding destroyed furniture inside their homes?”

I must admit I was a bit afraid when I responded “not that I know of, ma’m.”

She put her hand on my shoulder reassuringly. “Easy there chap, you can call me Morgana ok? I’ll take you at your word, it’ll all be alright soon, now get some rest, you look spent.”

After she went away I was left to muse upon what that encounter had meant, the first witch I’d met seemed a lot kinder than the ones in the stories. Sure, she a cleverness to her indicative of someone who knew of things I didn’t, and a professional stance in the face of those grievous wounds that showed she was rather habituated to violence. But seemed ultimately benign and even kind, furthermore, I reckoned there was no way these people would recover in less than a month without her knowledge and assistance.

As I thought about it, my mind wandered to her pouch and the cylinder for the healing substance, still on the table, had she forgotten it? She’d probably want it back right? In what I’ve come to regard as a stupid move I left to look for her and give her what she’d left behind.

I only came to my senses when I realized it was already quite dark out, I thought I heard something moving behind me, but it could have been a mixture of exhaustion and paranoia, I started moving faster, trying to find my way home or back to the clinic, But the streets seemed to wind in ways unfamiliar to me. After a while I turned a corner only to  find a furred creature starring back at me, it looked like a bear, but taller and skinnier and it’s eyes seemed to glow slightly in the dark. I ran, and heard it bounding towards me, coming closer and closer every second, I turned town an alley, trying to lose it but realized my mistake when I saw the wall at its end, I turned to face the creature, preparing to scare it off or maybe die trying.

Its jaws opened wide as it jumped towards me, moving its arms as if to grab me and hold me in place, I closed my eyes out of fear. *BANG*, a noise rung out through the alley, the creature’s weight knocked me down with it’s momentum, but no bite or swipe came, it was already dead, at the other end of the alley stood Morgana, smoke coming out of her flintlock pistol. I hastily pushed the creature’s body to the side, spotting a hole in the back of its skull

“I thought I told you to stay inside, kid. What  in god’s name are you doing here, trying to get yourself killed?” She scolded while coming towards me.

I stood up as fast as I could, then did my best to answer her, “Y-You forgot your pouch.”

“Boy, you’re either very selfless or very stupid.” She took the pouch from my hand, then added under her breath “thank you.”

Suddenly, something came to mind, the real reason I was here, why I’d gone out in the middle of the night and risked my life, “I… I think I wanted to see you work. I was awestruck by your knowledge of a world that was in the edge of my very reality until now, you seem to wield a comprehension over it that seems impossible for anyone I know.” I bowed down my head. “Please, take me on as your apprentice! I’ll serve you however you like, just give me a morsel of that wisdom you wield so effortlessly!”

For the first time so far, she seemed stunned, she put her hand to her chin, thinking for a moment. “so your thirst for wisdom is such that it overpowers your fear of the dark…Very well, I could use a familiar, but be warned, I expect you to carry my things and do the menial labour I cannot waste my time doing. This will be hard, and very often tiring, you must let go of your old life and your old name if you are to proceed. Until you are powerful enough to be a witch yourself and choose your new denomination you shall be known only as my familiar. do you understand that?” She extended her hand towards me, stern but welcoming.

“Yes ma’m… Morgana.” I shook her hand.

“Then the pact is sealed.” A blue light engulfed me as I felt myself shrinking and transforming, I had quickly transformed into the form of a medium black cat, I’d heard about witch’s familiars before, so I did nothing but walk into my master’s leg, following her out of the alley.

   As we left in the first rays of dawn, the first thing I learned was how the witch was able to kill the werewolf in one shot when it had bested many men, only silver weapons can wound a werewolf, so her silver bullet was an easy fix. The second was why she chose to leave so soon, instructing the village doctor like she’d done with me before and passing by a sea of judgemental eyes,  angry and fearful. Witches are not well liked, they are seen as bad omens and dangerous beings, but they are tolerated as long as they are needed by the community. With the monster gone, and the body of a known baker of the village found in an alley with a hole in the back of the skull, that bottled up resentment was soon to turn into more dangerous action, hitting the road before that happened was vital to a witch’s survival. Thus began my education under the wise witch Morgana.

[grim-faux]

2 _ 30 _ All Seeing Patience

First

 In hindsight, perhaps being so lenient with the boy was not wise given how Mono could be so driven and overbearing at times. However, he was no stranger to this behavior. It wasn’t a frequent matter, only when he returned from a venture through the city.

 At first it was pleasant, Mono was unbothered by his return and let him be. The child lingered around, checking in on him as per his way, or watching from the shadows of some furniture. Likely, the boy had gotten his exploration quota exhausted of the upper rooms, though, he was uncertain with how far Mono would extend his searches. The boy had no issue returning, to hold down the fort as it were. He couldn’t recall if the child faded off once, thus, he deduced Mono remained in or near the vicinity of the room. The further away the child ventured, the more ambiguous the transmission.

 This slight distance preserved time for the Thin Man to ponder hypotheticals, of the Pale City, of his purpose now. A never-ending contest to deal with this child, content to keep on his heels, unwilling or indifferent of returning or departing to the hostile world he condemned that boy to. At times he did rouse from rest with a new creeping anxiety, this uncertainty of providing adequately the resources scrounged from a world that would not tolerate betrayal.

 Betrayal. That made Him seem like the villain. That was laughable.

 Then the source of his apprehension, on the floor tugging at his cufflink. “What?” No response. Just more of that insistent tugging. “What do you need?” Why did he even bother?

 For some while the room was plain, the dull light gleaming more vivid than an incriminating spotlight. He settled on the recliner with a set of fingers digging into his temple, musing that he needed to do better of keeping track which districts of the city he visited. Likewise, track which areas might be suitable to escort the child through. The safest route.

 Said child had come in, as he does whenever it suits him. Occasionally a toy accompanied him, and the few he brought stayed on the floor by the chair. The Thin Man tried to return them to the nest room, but they kept reappearing while his guard was laxed. He began shutting them away in cupboards, but they kept cropping up!

 Now the only difference, the child began a tactic of prying at his suit and arm. Excessively. To an annoying degree. And refused to answer questions.

 “What is it?” “Do you need something?” “Child?”

 He tried to snatch the child, blindly and not driven. It usually worked to spook Mono off for a short while, if not longer. Alas, within a crying brief span, the child was back. The brash nuisance hauled himself up onto the arm of the recliner and shoved at the arm kneading at his hair line.

 “Mono. What? What is it?”

 The boy made a little noise and shoved his shoulder, his bare feet braced to the side of the recliner. “Go.”

 “Go? Go where?” He reached over, but the child ducked away. Briefly, he debated stalling time and seizing the child. But the boy vanished, and he collected himself to check. He was somewhere. Desperate, he glanced up half-expecting the child to be on the headrest perched like a gargoyle. That persistent tugging returned, to his ankles.

 “Why? Why are you like this?” The boy pulled and then pushed his leg away from the recliner base. He leaned over, but Mono flickered out with a squealing crackle. “Mono! Stop. Go play or something.” The voice piped up, beside him:

 “With. T’look. Th't important,” the voice rasped. Before he could react, the boy once more flittered out in a glitch. Very reminiscent. He’d forgotten what that looked like, though, he supposed it looked much different when he phased around.

 “No. There is no need! There are no dangers.” He looked around, perplexed to where the child with his limited skill might’ve managed. “Nothing for you to be afraid of. Are you listening? I am here.” Eventually, he’d wear himself out. That’s how this went.

 “R'sad,” Mono whispered. Ah, there he was on the opposite armrest, and stumbling onto his lap. “Shu’d go.”

 “No. No. No. No.” The child glared at him and tugged on the front of his coat. “No.” He went to snatch him, forgetting entirely to slow time. Mono vaulted, or might’ve teleported again. Sooner or later, he seethed. Shoving himself forward from the recliners back, he searched across the floor. Where now? Who knows? Probably to bite his ankles.

 He snapped his leg up. “Mono!” The child was there, but vanished before he caught full view of him. Enough of this, he flickered into standing and abandoned the area completely. “I will not ț̶̅o̵̘͋ļ̷̈́ẽ̵̯r̶̝̽ȃ̷͉t̴̘͒e̶̻̒ this. That behavior is Ä̸̡́b̸̜̈ḥ̶̋o̶͚̐r̷͙̃r̸͓̈́e̵̝͐n̷͖̉t̴̓ͅ.̴̡̚” The diluted rasp peeled up from beneath his heels.

 “H’vee look? Go? Help t’watch.”

 The child followed him down the corridor. Of course he would. “For the last time, N̸̘͋o̵̺͘!” He pivoted and made another reach, this time drawing on time to drag on the boy’s movements. Mono still managed a good teleport to compensate, but it was lagged and not as impressive as his previous shifts. “Y̶o̷u̸ ̶A̸r̵e̵ ̸G̸r̵a̵t̴i̵n̴g̸ ̵O̸n̴ ̸M̸y̷ ̶L̵a̵s̵t̴ ̸N̸e̷r̶v̴e̷.̴”

 Another shriek and crackle, as another propelled Mono beyond his grasp. Again, limited. The child scrambled toward the room, where he set up his nest. The Thin Man stooped in the doorway, while Mono rushed among his gifts, aimed for the crumpled mattress against the wall. Time resumed its normal wade, and the boy crashed into the lone standing leg post.

 “Y̵o̷u̷ ̴A̶r̵e̶ ̴G̴o̵i̴n̷g̴ ̴T̴o̷ ̵S̶t̷o̴p̸ ̶P̸e̵s̸t̵e̵r̷i̶n̵g̸ ̷M̵e̴,̷ ̶U̴n̶d̸e̵r̷s̷t̸a̷n̵d̶?̷ ̸ Ň̷̺O̸͕͘!̶̧̋ ̵I̸ ̴A̷m̶ ̴V̵e̶r̶y̵ ̸B̵u̸s̸y̸.̷”

 Mono wound around to him and began bouncing in place on his heels. This probably would go on for some time. Hours.

 “I̷̤̾ ̷̤͑Ḍ̶͠ö̸̹n̶͕̚'̷̈́͜t̵̘̏ ̴̮͊H̷̠͛ä̶͚v̶̨͊e̸̪͗ ̸͔͗T̴̙̂i̴̠̐m̴̡̂ē̶̹ ̵̦͝F̷̞̑o̷̥̊r̶̝̾ ̸̟͂T̸̮͐h̵̝͠e̸͜͝s̵̳̽e̸͓̐ ̸̯̚G̶̨̕ą̴͘m̵͎̍e̷͎͘ș̷̋!̸̟̿” And snapped the door shut.

 It was one of those games the child liked to play. Lurk around, get in close, and harass him mercilessly. He had to learn ‘No’ meant ‘Stop’. It was obnoxious and he wouldn’t be subjected to it.

 The Thin Man straightened his hat and resumed his course through the corridor to the main entry. He needed to take off and have a look around, perhaps find a new area to deposit the child. Give the boy a while to settle down and think about this. It wasn’t as if he didn’t have plenty of toys and books to destroy.

 Nothing of the Pale City’s roads or alleys appeared out of place, not even the gaping wounds winding through the city thoroughfares. For some time, days if the Thin Man wanted to get technical, the weather was in moderate order. It would have suited to depart the shelter and escort the child to a new station and provisions. However, he recognized that the child needed to recuperate from the long drag through the between. The whole of this process tedious.

 Of the multitude of stores he perused through, none of the books nor literature provided insight to the Tower, let alone made mention of it. He is not surprised, given that he grew up within the endless corridors and coils, and in the end knew nothing of it. What he learned from the Tower, was that it was a bastard, and knew too much about him. He didn’t even know if the cycle was a reoccurring anomaly set in time, or if it was a repetitious recycle.

 He knew only of his short time as a free child, and his time now as an adult. The few memories he shared with Mono… didn’t feel like they were truly his; a film projection or movie segment, he had no business or involvement in. If possible, they were fabricated somehow by the Tower, to mock him. Even when he was released to pursue his child-self, was not a similar event to when he – as a child – had fled from his distorted future shadow.

 The upward ascending steps ended at an open wound which capped the remnants of a building, much of the brick and rebar pried from the ravaged cement stuck loose like fish bones in a spoiled carcass. In a flash, his form skittered around debris layered across what was a building interior. He idled around the wreckage determined to leave no stone unturned, regardless how pointless it was, how cemented it was to a forgotten road. Across the crumbling walls lay pages and some folders, rotten to tatters and barely discernable from the decayed bodies of a Viewer or other creature, perhaps a partially corrupted adult. Not quit a Viewer, not so far gone yet.

 A drawer in a bleached desk popped open, and he cut the distance in a flicker to check what might’ve survived. Much of the folders and notebooks are overtaken by the merciless storms, stained and caked with mildew. With a curse, he tossed the package of pages to the floor.

 In one of the partially built stone cubicles, a chair creaked on what remained of its wheels as it spun against the lashing mist. The clouds slathered the surface exposed to the air with thousands of glittering beads. The bill of the Thin Man’s hat whipped against the gusts, but he remained unbothered. He touched the cigarette at his lips and let the ember gleam.

 Sometimes he found a calendar in an office or store, or room; they came about in frequency, but described nothing. The dates would always be wrong, the year and time of month. Not that time mattered at all in the Pale City, where the sky was choked by clouds and storms, driving rains to scrub off the city from the face of the wretched world. The Viewers were too preoccupied by the televisions which sprouted freely, all of them too busy to realize the days escaped them, that time was lost and forever gone. Abandoned….

 Time was lost to him. To the Tower. Endlessly waiting.

 He stepped to the edge of the sheared concrete wall and peered down, at a roof not far below. Lined along the furthest edge, the Viewers. All their affection to the entity which promised release, peace, everything this horrendous world would deny them. Even without his direct presence, they remained grotesquely devoted to the summons.

 There in the distance, the gleaming piece of his burning ire. The Signal Tower cut through the storm and delivered its impassioned hypnosis over lesser creatures. Featureless bland and boring as the shell is, concealed the true horror of the thing within. Nothing so dangerous or depraved has ever been such a beacon, though ironically the Signal Tower is the beacon. And for some reason, no one ever thought of it, let alone gave the thing the time of day. It existed, to be ignored. It thrived on the dismissal, until it began to make promises. He imagined each contract it made to each denizen of the Signal, it kept. How lovely.

 “It calls to me.”

 The Thin Man bore holes into the horrid sacks of flesh blow. The ember chewed off a little more of the cigarette as he drank down the smoke. They deserved this, he reasoned. It was true, without a doubt. Mindless and deranged, infatuated with a private deception that promised without true fulfillment. Was it even a negotiation, if the Tower held no obligation to fulfill anything? It gave them what they sought, an easy way out. He supposed it was easy to make promises to those who had no idea what was truly good for them.

 None of the artifacts strewn over the floor or desks could impart of what the building was, of what these offices catered to. The search was hopeless, but still, he sifted through the remaining filing cabinets seeking a shielded hollow which might hold insight. Perhaps, a dying smolder of light stuffed into a dusty corner. It was no different than seeking insight from a long dead writer, such as Jules Verne. Where was he to suspect where and when the Tower first appeared? Someone, somewhere in the entire time of the world, must have witnessed something pivotal.

 He only knew the Pale City. Knew that he was meant to fall in the road, before the doors of the Signal Tower. So that a child could take his throne and assume his role.

 The last shop he made point to search through had more promise than the office, or so he hoped. It was all pointless, he mused. Nothing ventured nothing gained, as the saying goes. He located a tattered and yellowed newspaper, beneath the counter of the cash register.

 In cylinder racks besides the windows, the tattered remains of a dozen or so magazines. A few fresh pieces had been replaced, perhaps by Stockers. The shop didn’t cater entirely to literature, but held a few other pieces of inventory scattered about. It wasn’t much to pilfer, but he acquired a few books that had not been seized by the weather.

 Upon returning to the location where he left Mono, he kept attention to the corridors and the few doors torn down or left open. The upper floors did not have active televisions, and none of the open dwellings appeared tampered with during his absence. All was in order.

 The residence, as well. Even before he opened the main door, he knew the child was still within. He loosened the books against his side and leaned up, at his back, the door gave a soft click. At his proximity, the lamps flashed as he trailed through the rooms and corridor, ever cautious with his steps. Mono was very prone to be underfoot when it was not practical, which is never.

 It’s odd… the child did not emerge. He flashed into the the spare room and set the books beside the recliner, his eyes shifted across the walls, searching for the unlikely glimmer of movement. No new plushies have come to invade, the transmission is not here. In a glitchy screech, he relocated to the corridor. Mono remained in the room, but usually he would appear and check the intruder. The tinge of the transmission hovered within the room. He didn’t… did the child leave at all?

 He took the handle and cautiously pushed the door in. Not sure of what to expect, let alone lost to what might’ve happened. This could all be blown out of proportion, but he would be lying if he insisted he wasn’t fearful.

 “Child?” He scanned over the floor and the broken bed. Then, a corner of a room, which imparted results. There the strange child sat with his knees tucked into his coat, and the paper bag on his head. The Thin Man sighed. “What are you doing?” He hated how the paper bag just gazed at him, impassive and blank.

 Mono shrugged.

 He pushed the door open further and leaned up, once he cleared the frame. “You didn’t wallow in here all this time, did you?”

 This time, the child flecked his palms up with his shrug. The paper bag crinkled a bit, as he turned his head to examine the area over. The toys, intact. Untouched. Even the books didn’t appear traumatize, no more than when he first found them. It shouldn’t come as a grand revelation, the Thin Man after all spent the better part of his life in a room. Though that too irritated him.

 Now the child climbed to his feet, using the wall to balance himself as he stood and began tracing the perimeter. When he neared his shoes the boy inched over and flipped the paper bag up and regarded the tall-tall figure. The Thin Man glared back, a lone eyebrow arched. This little stare off was unsettling; the child stood motionless, aside from his fingers working at the edge of his coat.

 At long last, the boy dipped his head down and slipped past the Thin Man, to wander through the hall.

 Curious, the Thin Man flashed into the corridor and observed from a distance, while Mono went to the other rooms. He followed to the entrance of the room with the recliner, and spied the boy give the entire area a strict examination from the vantage of his paper bag. He hesitated to admit, he didn’t like this.

 The boy ventured to the other room, and the bathroom, skimming by the walls and homing in on any imperfection. As if he never saw this place before. From there, it was hurry past the Thin Man and go perform his exploration of the living area, the kitchen. Especially the kitchen, where Mono opened a few of the cabinets and checked the contents. He clambered onto the countertop and pushed up the paper bag, in order to scarf some of the food left sitting out. Unbothered that the Thin Man was beside the threshold, watching. What appeared last on the agenda was the one closet, then the main entry. Mono inspected it, ran another lap of the main living area, then scurried over to the collapsed sofa chair.

 Mono went to the side and situated himself beside the wall and the fabric base, with his arms wrapped about his knees. Sleep, most likely. Or half sleep. Perfectly normal.

 Uncertain, the Thin Man drew closer. “Do you understand… you were not meant to stay in that room?” Mono tipped the paper sack a little, but settled back down. “You could have left at any time. You did leave, didn’t you?” Once again, a shrug.

 This infuriating child….

 He took a book from his pocket and knelt, to set it beside Mono’s feet. He anticipated complete indifference, but he is optimistic when the boy uncoiled a bit and began flipping through the pages. That was better than the alternative ‘bad ending’ scenario he anticipated, but it was still too soon.

 “How… are you?”

 The child scratched at his bare shin and looked up at him. The bag nodded, and he went back to turning the pages in his book. Just nodding. No speek, for now. He supposed the child would be in this mood.

 He shifted on his knee. “Well?”

 Mono tiled his mask up. “Mm… t’danger,” he croaked. “Shh. N’wait f’r safe.” He kept prattling on about something or other, but the tone was very soft.

 “What danger?” He could barely make out one eye in its little dark cutout blink at him.

 “Dang-err-ous,” he whispered. “T’danger. Out. N’stay. F’r k’p safe. I… um, D’hide. Good.”

 The Thin Man pinched the bridge of his nose. This child did not really isolate himself to a room he was not confined to. “Child. There was no dangers. None at all. I did not want you to bother me anymore.” A very quiet:

 “D’t.”

 Why? That’s all he asked. He would trade any knowledge of the Tower, if he could grasp why the child was so difficult.

 “Mono,” he rumbled. The light in the room flashed. “Y̶̹o̷͎̍u̶̬͗ ̶̠Ḱ̶̙n̵̻o̷̙͌w̶̳̅ ̸̘̈́B̴̞̂e̶͕͑ṯ̷̍t̷̥̚e̸͉͠r̶͉̚.̴̦͋”

 “Sure.”

 He glared down at the child, watching him with that ridiculous mask. “What does that even mean? This ‘̶͇̓S̸͖͑u̵͈̇r̵̬͊ĕ̷̟’̴̬́?̷̠͠ It clearly Ḑ̵̛o̸̹͝e̸̡̛s̸̜̆ ̸̧̈N̸̻o̷̹̒t̷͈͗ mean what  ̷̝͗I̸̹̚ ̸͙͝T̸͚̆h̴̜̚i̶̫̊ņ̷̒k̸̝͐ it M̶̧͆ê̴̺a̴͍͌n̵͈̆s̸͚͊.̶̝͠”

 Rather answer, Mono hefted the book into his arms and began strafing along the wall, facing the Thin Man. The Thin Man flashed to his full height. “Mono!” The boy dumped the book and took off. “Don’t you dare go back to that room, or I̴̼͊ ̵̲̉W̵̫̊i̶̼͗ľ̵̫l̷̺̋ ̷͈̄W̸̨͊ǎ̸̙l̶͍̕k̵̫̔ ̸̝̌O̷̤͆u̸͕̚ť̸̜ ̷̮̂O̵̳̕f̶͙͊ ̵̥͑H̸̤͘e̸͓͑r̷ͅe̸̠ ̵̡F̴̬̀o̶͕̅r̸̛̫ ̵͉͊T̴͈̉h̷͍̍é̶̩ ̵̜̔L̶͍̒a̸͔̔s̵̩̚ṭ̶͛ ̵͈͛T̷͠ͅǐ̸̟m̵̦͊e̸̺͊!̷͈͗ Don’t T̷̥é̴͖s̶͙t̶̞͋ ̷̟͌Ṁ̸̩ȩ̵̚!̵̈́ͅ”

 Mono tripped at the corridor’s entrance and toppled to his front. He recovered quickly, standing up by the wall and fidgeting, looking toward the open hall and then back to the tall figure. “T’n… w’leave?”

 He was frustrated and angry at this child for so many reasons. Perhaps not the right reasons. Mono was absolutely perplexed and distressed, struggling in the looming shadow of what he was to become. Utterly unaware and helpless, in all regards.

 With a grunt, the Thin Man turned away. “Mono. Come along.” As expected and as hopeless as his suspicion was, the child followed. With a hesitance in his step, he trailed after the tall thin man.

 In the kitchen, the Thin Man went through the cabinets until he found the cups. The pressure in the faucet pipes was depressingly slow, but the water clean. He filled the cup halfway and lowered it to the child. He stood there watching this child practically inhale the water, at last seeing the face revealed. If briefly.

 “Slow down. You’re not a fish.” Half a cup, gone. The child held the cup up to his fullest reach. “No. Wait a while, or you’ll make yourself sick.” He still relinquished the boy of the cup, and set it aside for later. He looked down at Mono, gawking up at him and waiting. Motionless like a statue.

 “You are not confined to rooms, you know this. Don’t you?” He peered down at the boy, while Mono jammed his hand up under the paper bag to chew out… callouses, he suspected. “If a door is shut, it is not to trap you.”

 Mono didn’t waver under the intense glare. Or maybe he did, and the Thin Man couldn’t see. “S’not safe.”

 How to get through that barrier? “True…. When I leave you, you should not follow. But it doesn’t help, if you remain in one place. To trap yourself. Does that make sense?” The paper bag tilted. “Doors are only meant to keep dangers out. But it doesn’t always stop hazards, now does it?” Mono shook his head. That was better than a nod or shrug, he supposed. “You know not to stay put when you suspect you might be in danger, don’t you?”

 “D’d’t leave,” he murmured. “Safe.”

 Well, that was true, though the Thin Man didn’t want to tackle that topic branch. He sighed into his hand. “Listen carefully. You do not understand, or you can’t, I should say. There are things I need to do, and it’s too dangerous for you to come with me. I have much to do. One day, it will all make sense.” He took a glimpse of the child, still gazing up at him.

 “Sum’busy,” he uttered, and turned away. “T’n d’watch. See.”

 Though the boy appeared pacified and perhaps better equipped, who could say? — It… did not go well at all. What or where in all his little head, did that child… he was strange, and entirely too dutiful and trusting. Possibly, that hurt worst of all. At times timid, then on other (impractical) occasions that rebel cut loose. The child he had been, before he was discarded into the harsh pit of reality.

 In ways he and the boy were polarities, while at the same time identical. The Tower promised him the opportunity to grow up, sheltered, provided for. The boy didn’t understand any of this. It was not his fault. The Thin Man was the child’s Tower now.

 It knew him so well, the Signal Tower. The Flesh. The thousands upon millions of Eyes, swarming, laughing. It insisted and promised that one day, he would return with the child.

 The Thin Man leaned back on the countertop and brought his hands to his face. An ongoing cycle. A never-ending loop, connected and spiraling far out of control. Not until the two ends connected, would he ever contend with the truth.

 A short while later, he abandoned the kitchen to relocate the boy and see what he was getting into. The child had only returned to the side of the sofa seat, and crammed himself into the wall against the fabric side. Upright, with the new book clutched in his arms, his paper bag bent sideways.

 The Thin Man leaned far over and reached out, to nudge the shoulder. Not even Mono’s steady breathing sputtered, the child was utterly out.

 Once the boy roused, they could continue on this disastrous journey. For the time, the Thin Man flashed into the room with the recliner. His focus has not returned, the pages within the tomes impart nothing but dull prehistory, as bland and pointless as wilted flowers pressed between pages. He mused on what the chances might be, of if he did secure some media piece about the Tower – a piece that was not tarnished by the elements, after so long neglected?

 He lit a cigarette, and recovered the folded newspaper tucked into his suit. Some of the marks are illegible, there’s a picture and a column about a missing child. He takes interest in a building disaster, but that is nothing more than a ruptured watermain or something. Disappointing. Still, he flipped through the soured pages, seeking something, anything. Any small sliver of salvation from his eventual schemes.

Next

[chasseurdeloup-retired]

If You Give a Cat A Bone(doggle) || Morgan and Kaden

TIMING: Before Constance was yeeted forever LOCATION: The woods PARTIES: @mor-beck-more-problems and @chasseurdeloup SUMMARY: Morgan and Kaden take Anya the cat for a walk and make friends. Sort of. 

Walking cats always looked kind of funny compared to dogs. Probably because most didn’t put up with it long enough to bother. There was something charming about it, though. And there was something nice and grounding about walking with Morgan and Anya around the East End. Especially on a Sunday. Kaden was sure Abel would be jealous that he didn’t get to come but he had a feeling Anya wouldn’t love his dog as much as his dog would love the cat. “I’m still impressed you got her leash trained,” Kaden told his friend as they walked. There were so many topics he just didn’t want to touch. Not right now at least, not in public. Distractions were better anyway. Like she was deciding to test his compliment, Anya started pulling on the leash, darting after something in the distance, probably a rodent of some sort, maybe a lagomorph. “She might be worse at walking but she’s definitely better at hunting than Abel.”

Morgan laughed dry in her chest. “Oh, this is all Anya’s spirit doing the work,” she said. “You should see her when she actually--” Likes me, is what she was going to say. Because it was almost eight months since she’d been impaled by the side of the road and Anya still, at best, only tolerated her presence. At this point, she was more Deirdre’s companion than Morgan’s, perching on the banshee’s lap, trailing behind her when she went to any of the rooms in the house, and glaring at anyone who she thought infringed upon her time with her. Granted, Anya no longer attacked or hissed at Morgan whenever she walked into the room. Sometimes she would sit in such a way that her paws touched Morgan’s leg while the rest of her lounged against Deirdre, and Morgan would press back just a little so she could feel her leathery toe beans just a little better and feel so fucking grateful. It was hard not to be bitter at such a small allowance of affection when Morgan used to be the one she clung to and protected.

It wasn’t much of a surprise when the cat bolted out of her grip.

Morgan swore and took chase. “She’s good when she’s not permanently pissed off I died,” she grumbled. “Anya! Anya!” Stupid cat. If Morgan was still a witch, she could borrow her eyes and see where the hell she was running off to, but no. That would be too easy. “Help me look?” She called.

Kaden would, she knew, but it never hurt to ask.

They followed Anya’s trail away from the park and near the woods that surrounded Strawford. She wasn’t exactly being subtle, just a little shit. A hiss rattled through the air. “Someone’s pissy,” she said, unimpressed. Maybe her prize squirrel had climbed too high up a tree, maybe she’d got herself stuck on something, and-- “Oh, shit.” Or maybe she had decided to pick a fight with a bone critter Morgan had never seen before.

Kaden saw the leash slipping from her grip and lunged to grab it before the cat could bolt off, but it was too late. Goddamnit. “Putain de merde,” he grumbled to himself. Of course he was chasing a cat. On his day off, too. He took off after the cat before saying another word, he didn’t even look to check if Morgan was running with him or not. “What do you think I’m doing?” he shouted back at her. “And what do you mean pissed off that you died? She’s--” That was stupid. He knew damn well animals had personality and opinions. That wasn’t his question. His real question was why were they walking the disagreeable cat? Catching cats was a pain in the ass. Catching disagreeable cats was something close to hell. Thankfully, she was easy enough to follow, probably because the leash was slowing her down. Not enough for him to grab it, unfortunately.

His arm shot out in front of Morgan to hold her back. He didn’t even hear the hiss, didn’t see the cat’s hairs stand on edge. What he did see was the fucking bonedoggle across from them, growling at the cat. Shit. Fucking shit. Anya had a squirrel and was swatting at the bonedoggle to stay away. He pulled out a knife and slowly crept towards the monster. He just had to get between the cat and the creature. “Get Anya,” he said to the zombie sharply. He threw himself at the monster, hoping he could distract it from the bones. Easier said than done.

“Well if you had a magic connection with someone and they broke it one day and turned up smelling wrong, you’d probably be pissed too,” Morgan huffed. “She was my familiar, Kaden.” As much as she hated losing the one best friend she’d assumed she could count on in her death, Morgan got it. There wasn’t an abundance of hard theory on familiar connections, but her tie to Anya had been at least somewhat emotional as well as metaphysical. Which meant whatever it really felt like when she died, Anya suffered something like it too. And if losing a magic connection was anything like losing magic itself… yeah, might as well blame the lady dumb enough to fuck it up and come back different. Not like they could talk it out.

She didn’t understand Kaden’s plan to divide and conquer. On the one hand, the critter looked pretty angry, on the other hand, it was kind of...a dog? A maybe-demon dog? Couldn’t they tackle it together, maybe take some bones back as souvenirs?

She should have listened. Kaden lunged to wrestle the creature and Anya saw a chance to assert her dominance. She lunged, faster than Morgan could catch her, and scrabbled her claws around the creature’s side, trying to tear into it. Morgan ran to pull her off but the creature, still wrestling with Kaden, thrashed. The black cat yowled. “Anya!” The cat flew off, claws flexed, and crashed into Morgan, who bundled her up in her arms. “Why are you such a stupid, stubborn cat?” She whispered. Anya flailed, still ready to fight for her pride. Whatever this critter was, they needed to get rid of it. Morgan jumped to her feet and put her body between Anya and the demon-bone-dog. “How do we make that thing go away?” She asked.

Kaden didn’t know shit about magic and familiars, not really. He knew what they were, sure, but not on the deep level that the former witch did. He’d never really understand. But the plan was clear enough. Didn’t matter right now. He might not understand shit about magic, but he understood bonedoggles. And how fucked they were right about now. Before Kaden had much chance to try and find a clean spot to shove his knife through the creature, the cat had lunged at it. “No!” he shouted. Fucking hell. He didn’t need the cat getting stuck to the goodman monster. Instead of attacking, he reached out for the flailing cat and caught a lot of claws. The bonedoggle wasn’t interested in engaging with the humans, it lunged out, teeth bared and snarling at the carcass in question. There was nothing going to get in the way of the monster and its bones, not even a hunter. It barreled into him and knocked him to his knees. Kaden cursed, but lashed out with the knife as the monster darted past him. All he managed was to scrape the blade across the bone armor covering the creature.

Kaden saw the monster unhinge its jaw, ready to bring its teeth down and around Anya's sides. His eyes went wide, he didn’t wait for Morgan to step in, he just threw himself into the monster’s side, pushing it aside. And he felt his shirt get stuck to the fucking side of the monster. Shit, shit, shit. He pulled his arm back, his shirt tearing away at the sleeve. The bonedoggle turned and faced him, growling, spit spewing and ready to tear into the hunter, possibly take his bones for its collection. Fuck, fuck, fuck, he had to get away and he couldn’t count on his knife right now. His palm dug into the dirt beneath him. Dirt. He took a handful and threw it at the monster’s face, temporarily blinding it. Kaden scrambled to his feet and back to Morgan. “Killing it might help!” Anya seemed to agree, the cat was doing everything in its power to claw the bonedoggle’s eyes out. “Its spit is like fucking glue so don’t let--” The fucking cat was getting near the goddamn monster again. Putain.

“Like GLUE?” Morgan shrieked. There was no time to process; the bone monster was already thrashing its head, trying to throw Anya off. “Shit, shit, shit…” She dove for the creature, clinging to it with all she had. Her legs were too short to reach all the way around something that big, but she dug in with her thighs and clamped her arms around its snout, forcing its jaw shut. Anya’s eyes met hers, steady and inquisitive. What are you doing? Morgan couldn’t tell if she was judging her or not, but she clenched her muscles around the creature’s jaw harder. “Anya, off!” She barked.

Anya glared. She tore her paw across the creature’s face, cracking one of the bones at last and leapt off, making a dive for her decayed squirrel corpse and running into the bushes with it.

“So, about killing it?” Morgan cried. She couldn’t see Kaden from here. The creature was bucking and thrashing harder than ever and she didn’t want to know what would happen if it slobbered on her hand. “There’s not a chance we can just play fetch with this guy and make a run for it is there?” The creature grunted and smacked onto the ground, trying to throw her off next. Morgan grunted as her bones bent into her organs. “Maybe you should just do your thing! Before my bones liquify!”

“Once a bonedoggle is after a bone, it doesn’t like to just fucking drop it,” Kaden said, about to throw himself at the monster. Didn’t get a fucking chance, Morgan was already there. Okay, he just had to find an opening, a weak spot. Take it down. “And I think the same fucking thing can be said for your cat.” It was possible she was a more tenacious hunter than his dog. The one he got to help him hunt. Putain de merde. “Hold on a little longer!” he shouted. It was handy that Morgan was damn near indestructible. Almost. Still not quite. He didn’t want to risk her life for too long; even zombie bodies hit a breaking point. He didn’t want the bonedoggle to find it. He wasn’t sure he could handle that. Still, it looked like she had a pretty damn good handle on the monster. Hell, it was impressive and of itself.

Right, Kaden didn’t have time to appreciate her hunting methods. He flipped his knife over in his hands and threw himself towards the creature as it rolled on the ground. His knees dug into the monster’s back legs, pinning it in place. She just needed to hold onto its muzzle one second longer. His knife plunged down into the creature’s exposed belly, tearing through and ripping open its guts. Death would come soon. But not fast enough. The bonedoggle’s face broke free from the zombie’s grip and saliva went flying. Kaden’s arm shot up to shield his face, ducking away and shutting his eyes tight. Putain de fucking merde.

Morgan crashed to the ground flat on her face. She could hear the critter snarling and slobbering as it died. She curled up on herself as much as she could, ignoring the terrible angle of the arms she’d landed on. Then it was quiet, and Morgan couldn’t move her fingers as she struggled to sit up. Most of the critter’s saliva landed on her sweater, but enough had fallen on her fingers to clump them together. She picked herself up, wincing as her bones righted themselves, and pulled off her sweater before anything else could turn sticky. “Are you okay?” She called to Kaden. “I could use that knife of yours, if you’re in one piece.” She held out her stuck, scrunched up hand. “You don’t have to watch them grow back, I’d just really like to be able to use them again.” She looked around the underbrush and saw Anya’s bright eyes peeking out, her squirrel clutched in her mouth by its neck. She padded out and sat in front of Morgan sniffing her with care before brushing her head against her knee. “This is all your fault, you know,” she said, but there was no malice in her voice. She hadn’t seen the sly smile of her cat’s mouth in profile in so long, she almost didn’t mind all the trouble it had cost. “Thank you,” she said to Kaden again. “You saved me and my favorite brat.”

“I’m alright,” Kaden said before even properly assessing the situation. He checked and found out the folds of his shirt was glued to his jacket. He sighed. “My clothing, not so much.” He should stop getting attached to any article of clothing. He should know better. But he’d liked this shirt. Oh well. Kaden had just watched her bones twist and her body catort into positions no standard body should. Even then, he tilted his head and furrowed his brow at her ask for his knife. “Are you going to cut in between your skin? That’s not--” Then it hit him that she’d be just fine. She’d regenerate. “Right,” he said and handed over the knife. He didn’t really want to watch but he supposed it didn’t really matter and watched anyway. She’d said something before about her body being a fact and she had a point. He should probably just treat it that way. As hard as it was to just accept the wings at first, it would have been a hell of a lot easier if he’d accepted Bea’s advice to treat them as a fact. The problem was, of course, that those facts clashed with so many lessons taught to him as fact growing up; lessons he still hadn’t properly reconciled. He wasn’t sure he’d ever manage to.

Seeing her reunited with her cat brought a smile to Kaden’s face. It made it easy to forget the regrown fingers and the bonedoggle carcass piled a few feet away. “Don’t mention it,” he said, reaching out to see if Anya would let him pet her. No offense either way, cats could be particular. “Just doing my job.” It was the reason he really did like working in animal control, moments like this, when people and animals could be safe and sound even if it didn’t last.

Morgan gave Kaden a double take to make sure he really wasn’t going to look away. She wrinkled her face up in a universal signal of ‘are you sure?’ before bringing the blade down as quickly as she could. She winced and looked away as her old fingers tumbled into the grass. She was getting used to the regrowth by now, but watching pieces of her fall away, useless, no longer a part of anything or anyone. She whimpered with pain and watched as new bones sprouted and coated with sninew and blood. Morgan flexed them, testing her grip and her nerves. They always felt the same, no farther or closer to living sensations than before.

Anya sniffed the new fingers and scraped her mouth across them, tail upright and perky. If anything from the past few minutes had bothered her, it didn’t anymore. Curious, she moved onto Kaden, giving him a once over and a long, steady look before she decided he was good enough for one pet across her fur.

“Just doing your job, huh, cowboy? Do you say that to all the damsels in distress you rescue?” Morgan laughed and guided Anya back into her lap, fixing her harness and leash. “If you come back round to the ranch, I’m sure I can rustle you up some pie to show my gratitude.” She put on her best Texas drawl for him and got to her feet, Anya now safely in tow with her prize. To Morgan’s surprise, she rubbed against her leg and looked up with an expression that was almost friendly.

Kaden didn’t want to gawk at the oddities of her body as it was and he flinched a little as he watched, but he had decided not to look away. And so he didn’t. It was the only way to deal with it. Not unlike pain. The more you were exposed to it, the easier it was to handle. Training taught him that much. Probably not how his mother would prefer he applied his training. Too fucking late. She was more than dead and buried now. She didn’t even exist. Right. He wasn’t sure if it was better or worse to keep his eyes on her newly grown fingers or the dead ones that the cat was planning to chew on.

“How, uh, how does pain work? For you?” Kaden asked, before quickly second guessing himself. “I mean. If you don’t mind me asking. I just. I-- I mean, I saw you now and you--- I just was curious.” He rubbed the back of his neck and felt like a fucking asshole. Like he was being insensitive or something. “You don’t have to answer that. Sorry. That was stupid. You--” He couldn’t even finish his thought and just took the knife back and wiped it clean on the grass and then the hem of his shirt before putting it away. At least he got to pet the cat. It wasn’t long or much (he expected nothing more, to be honest), but it still was enough to bring his heart rate back slower, steadier.

“Very funny,” Kaden answered, rolling his eyes. Wouldn’t lie, he appreciated the brief moment of levity. The weight was still there, but it was a little lighter. “Normally I only do one or the other. Rescue the cat or fight the monster. This was a great two for one deal. I think that earned me two pies.” Not that he needed any more baked goods in his apartment. It was more than enough work to give them all away half the time.

“It’s different,” Morgan said. “I mean, that hurt, and I’ve always been an awful cry-baby. My mother always said so. But it’s not, uh, proportionate, to the way humans would reckon it. And I don’t get to feel anything too gentle, so sometimes, in the right context, a little hurt can feel nice. I guess if I had to rank it, that’s something like a four or a five? But for you, losing an extremity would be a lot closer to ten, right?” She shrugged and wiped the corners of her eyes. “It’s okay, Kaden. I’d rather you ask than wonder or lean on whatever’s in your hunting manuals, if that’s even a thing.”

Morgan’s expression grew warmer. “Well I declare, officer! I think you might be right. But only ‘cause you’re such a good friend. I’ve got mama’s pecan pie on the stove right now, and I’ll let the second one be hero’s choice.” She laughed and beckoned him over. She hadn’t expected much out of the day, but for an outing that involved full-ass monster wrestling, this was pretty okay.

“Right. Good, uh, I mean thanks. For, you know.” Kaden said, nodding along as he listened. It was a far cry from “zombies are dead, they can’t feel anything.” Part of him anticipated that much by now though a piece of him still felt the chill of the shadow of his training. It wasn’t all entirely wrong, just sometimes taken too extreme. Sometimes not. Finding where the line was wouldn’t be an easy one, not from what he could tell. If he even wanted to redraw the line. It was possible he was still surrounded by exceptions. Only time would tell. “Pain’s sort of on a weird scale for me. Not, uh… I mean not like yours. I don’t think. But you know. Hunter. Training. That.” He wiped the dirt and grime he could away from his jacket and jeans. “I don’t know if I’d know a ten when it happened. Or ever call it that.” Most of him had stopped trying to sort the good and bad of his training and just accept it for what it was.Sometimes he wondered all the same.

“Is this where I say ‘no need, little lady’? Or something to that effect?” His attempts at mimicking her current accent didn’t quite sound right. Even he knew that. He laughed at himself a little. Only a little. “Anyway, I think it’s probably a good idea to get home before any more bonedoggles show up. And so Anya can’t make another break for it.”

[mando-lore]

"A bird... or something...": The story of Mothman and other 'flying men'

Certainly Strange: A Podcast About The Unexplainable, episode 7

Listen on: YouTube  Spotify  Castbox

"It was a bird... or something."

It was the 15th of November, 1966, and Roger and Linda Scarberry and Steve and Mary Mallette were joyriding through a maze of dirt roads that connected abandoned world war two bunkers, late at night in Point Pleasant West Virginia. They had just driven past an abandoned generator plant when they saw… something. A huge figure in the darkness, just off the side of the road. And it was watching them. With huge, blood red eyes.

"I'm a hard guy to scare" Scarberry later said to the local newspaper, "but last night I was getting out of there." He slammed the gas and tried to manoeuvre his car out of the dump area as quickly as possible, away from the strange creature that watched them. And as they fled, they all saw the creature, something that looked like the hybrid between a man and a bird, standing on a hill by the side of the road.

And then, it started following them. It hoovered above the car, chasing them. “We were driving one hundred miles per hour and that bird kept right up with us. It wasn’t even flapping its wings.” The women started crying. The creature followed them until the couples reached the National Guard Armory on Route 62. They thought they had finally lost the strange man-bird, but once they turned the car around, there it was again. It seemed to be waiting on them.

The creature was over six foot tall, grey, with a wingspan of 10 feet. "It was like a man with wings," Mallette said. "It wasn't like anything you'd see on TV or in a monster movie..."

The Scarberries and the Mallettes gave a statement to the police. "If I had seen it while by myself I wouldn't have said anything," Scarberry commented, "but there were four of us who saw it."

At first, the four witnesses were the laughingstock of the town. But soon, stories started to surface, old and new. They were definitely not the only ones who had witnessed the creature that is now known as the Mothman.

On that very same day, on November the 15th 1966, the Mothman had been spotted by a farmer about 90 miles away in Salem. Newell Partridge was watching television when at 10:30pm he heard his German shepherd named Bandit howling. The farmer went out to check on his dog with a flashlight, when he was met with two large red eyes, like red reflectors, staring at him.

Bandit took off towards the creature that threatened his master, into the night. Then, the farmer could hear his dog screech and whine. And he never saw him again.

The strange thing? In their eyewitness report, The Scarberries and the Mallettes told the police that, while they were being chased by the Mothman, they had seen something, lying on the side of the road. It had been a carcass. The carcass of a dead dog.

The very next day, the Mothman was spotted by one Mr and Mrs Wamsley and their friend Mrs Bennett, who were driving through the world war two bunker area on their way to visit a friend. They parked the car in a darkened area several feet from the residence, and knocked on their friend’s door. When they found him not at home, they headed back to the car. This is where they saw it. In the darkness, a shadowy figure lurked behind the automobile.

“It rose up slowly from the ground. A big, grey thing. Bigger than a man, with terrible, glowing red eyes.” Said Bennett. According to her own statement, when Bennett saw the creature, she was so horrified she fell on her baby whom she had been holding in her arms.

There were dozens of Mothman sightings during the next several weeks. One witness, Mrs. Roy Grose, saw the creature through her kitchen window, early in the morning when her barking dog had awakened her. She say a large multicoloured object hovering over the treetop in a field across the road. That same day a local teenager encountered a huge birdlike creature with his car, and claimed that it had followed him for more than a mile.

Tom Ury, a young shoe salesman, was driving down route 62 at 7:15 in the morning on his way to work, when he spotted a towering figure standing by the road in an adjacent field. Suddenly it had spread its wings and took off straight up. The figure then started circling his car like a bird, and kept flying over the car even at the speed of seventy-five miles per hour, much like as he had done to the Scarberries and the Mallettes. Tom was apparently so frightened by this encounter, he did not get into work that day.

In total, there were around 200 sightings of the Mothman in the year 1966 to 1967. But it was not the first time something like a bird-man was spotted near Point Pleasant.

In 1961, 5 years prior, a woman was driving down route 2 along the Ohio river with her father when she spotted a winged figure. She had just passed by a park when a tall figure suddenly appeared in the road ahead of her. It was a grey figure with folded wings across its back, like how one would describe an angel. Startled by the car, the creature unfolded its wings, which “practically filled the whole road”, and then the mysterious creature took off.

However, the woman and her father were not the first to ever witness the creature that would become known as “The Mothman”. In 1948, the Army officials at McChord Field in Washington state were approached by the 61-year-old Mrs Bernice Aikowski, who claimed that she had seen a man-bird in her backyard in nearby Chehalis.

“I know most people don’t believe me, but I have talked to some people in Chehalis that tell me they say the man, too. It was about 3 PM on January 6th, and there were a lot of small children coming home from school at the time. They saw the man, too, and asked me if they could go into my backyard so they could watch him longer as he flew towards the south end of the city.”

According to her, the flying man-bird seemed to be a man equipped with long silver wings fastened over his shoulders with a strap, like one of the inventions of Leonardo da Vinci.

On April 9th, 1948, two Longview Washington state residents named Viola Jonson (a laundry worker) and James Pittman (a janitor) told journalists that they had seen several men with flying suits and goggles, flying through the air, circling the city at a hight of 250 feet. Two similar flying men were sighted near Butte in Oregon, on September 16th that same year.

In 1971, at 2AM in Norton Massachusetts, police sergeant Thomas Downy was driving home along Winter Street in Mansfield. As he approached a place known, ironically, as Bird Hill in Easton, he was confronted by a huge winged creature that was over 6 feet tall with a wingspan of eight to twelve feet. As sergeant Downy drew to a stop at the intersection, the birdman flew straight up, disappearing over the dark trees into the swamp. Downy reported the sighting to the Easton police when he arrived home and a patrol car searched the area, but the man bird was never seen again.

These birdmen are not sighted exclusively in the United States, however. Plato and Homer already wrote about a race of winged men in Ancient Greece. On July 11th, 1908, the Russian explorer VK Arsenyev sighted a winged humanbeing near the mouth of the Gobilli river. Sightings have also been reported in Portugal, England, and Vietnam.

The many sightings of the Mothman came to an end on the 25th of December in 1967, when the Silver Bridge, connecting Point Pleasant with Gallipolis collapsed. 46 people died, and it is still known as the deadliest bridge collapse in the history of the United States. Next to the Mothman sightings, the Silver Bridge collapse was the second terrible and bizarre thing to put Point Pleasant on the map in one year’s time. So it was not hard for people to seek a connection between the two.

Some eyewitnesses claimed that they had seen the Mothman at the bridge that day it collapsed, blaming the creature for the disaster that killed so many. Of course, it is a way of mourning to seek an explanation, someone to blame, for this terrible loss of life.

People did indeed think that the Mothman was a bad omen, a demonic vision that foreshadows a great disaster. The Mothman does bear the resemblance of a demon, the embodiment of fear itself.

A more realistic based explanation for the Mothman comes from Dr. Robert L. Smith, an associate professor of wildlife biology at West Virginia University, who said that the description of the Mothman all fitted the sandhill crane, the second largest American crane, which stands almost as high as a man and has a wingspan of more than seven feet. He said the “red eyes” could be the large red circles around the crane’s eyes. The appearance of the bird could have been moulded into the image of a monstrous creature through mass hysteria.

So, is the Mothman an image of the mind, the demonic embodiment of fear? Is it simply a bird, mistaken for a monster through mass hysteria? Or… is the Mothman real? Whatever he was or whatever he may be now, still, he is certainly strange.

SOURCES

All That’s Interesting. (2017, May 17). The True Story Behind The Legendary Mothman Said To Terrorize West Virginia. Retrieved from https://allthatsinteresting.com/mothman

Coleman, L. (2001). Mothman and other curious encounters. Cosimo, Inc. https://books.google.nl/books?hl=en&lr=&id=KZlavRmNPtkC&oi=fnd&pg=PA8&dq=mothman&ots=KSz4GP-jP7&sig=-WwUOFtlxYvPePGyE-MwpPccj4s#v=onepage&q&f=false

Daly, J. (2020). Narrative Hijacking: Mothman and the Silver Bridge Collapse. https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2279&context=researchweek

Gettysburg Times. (1966, December 1). Monster Bird With Red Eyes May Be Crane. p. 12. Retrieved from https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=LG0mAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Rf8FAAAAIBAJ&pg=620,2790721&dq=point+pleasant+roger+scarberry&hl=en

Point Pleasant Register. (1966, November 16). Couples See Man-Sized Bird...Creature...Something. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20071011230219/http://www.westva.net/mothman/1966-11-16.htm

[toomuchofabastard]

Heaven’s Final Betrayal (3/6)

[ << CHAPTER 1 ] [ < CHAPTER 2 ]

Fandom: Good Omens (TV)

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Aftermath of Rape/Non-Con, Denial, Drinking, Self-Blame

Word count: 3,228 (total 9,818)

Fic Summary: It was obvious that Heaven wouldn’t exactly be thrilled about Aziraphale’s role in preventing Armageddon. But neither the angel nor Crowley could have predicted how far they were willing to go to get  revenge, and now Aziraphale needs him by his side more than ever.

READ ON AO3

___

Crowley was stirred from the inky grasp of sleep by the rumble of the mattress and the sensation of shifting weight next to him. Reality slowly seeped its way back into his consciousness. Aziraphale. The angel was awake. His bed, his flat. Morning.

What happened yesterday.

Crowley grimaced as the memories resurfaced. Fuck. Images flickered unbidden in his mind, snippets and sounds of events like a highlights reel designed specifically to torment him. He rubbed his gluey eyes with the heel of his palm, and forced them open. The visions vanished.

Aziraphale was sat on the edge of the bed, still and silent. Crowley couldn’t see his face.

“Mornin’, angel,” he mumbled.

“Good morning,” Aziraphale replied quietly, but still facing away. Crowley cocked his head, trying to guess at what was going through the angel’s mind. After a long pause, Aziraphale turned to him.

“So-,” he began, with what Crowley could tell instantly was painfully-forced cheerfulness. He patted his thighs and gave a half-hearted wiggle.

“Breakfast at the Ritz?”

His voice was thin and brittle-sounding, higher than normal. The smile on his face didn’t reach to his eyes. The sight rekindled the ache deep in Crowley’s chest.

Crowley sighed. “Angel, it’s- …You don’t have to do this.”

“I know,” Aziraphale replied quickly. Then he exhaled shakily and his eyes scrunched closed.

Crowley sat up next to him and encircled his arms gently around the angel’s waist, hugging his belly and resting his cheek against his shoulder. When Aziraphale’s eyes opened again, they were filled with the same despair and devastation from the night before. His chin started to pucker and he blinked rapidly. He wouldn’t look at Crowley as he spoke, instead staring down at his hands rested loosely in his lap.  “I… I don’t want to think about it, Crowley. Please, just for today, can we please just pretend…” His voice wobbled and he trailed off with a gulp, turning away.

Crowley sighed unhappily and rubbed his hands over the angel’s stomach. Pretend what? Pretend like it had never happened? Like yesterday afternoon had just been a bad dream. Like they were still happy. Like he hadn’t been raped. Oh God, thought Crowley, as the weight of the word hit him fully. He’d been raped. They’d raped him.

He looked again at Aziraphale’s face. No matter how valiantly the angel was trying to bury it, he couldn’t just suppress all that hurt, all that trauma. He was visibly this close to breaking, barely holding himself together. Crowley was pretty sure one tiny thing would be enough to throw him over the edge. And stoically, stupidly trotting out that stiff upper lip and hiding behind denial would only make things worse, Crowley knew. Why did he do that to himself? He supposed Heaven had taught him to be that way. Some kind of self-defence mechanism against all their cruelty and control.

But he couldn’t ask Crowley to be party to it. Crowley couldn’t do that, it just hurt too much. Even if Aziraphale needed him to… ah, shit. He looked down, and ran his tongue despondently over the back of his teeth. Yeah. Aziraphale needed him. And wasn’t he always there when Aziraphale needed him. He knew this was never going to be sustainable in the long term. But, especially with how fragile Aziraphale seemed right now… maybe just for one day…

“Alright,” Crowley eventually conceded. He nuzzled sadly into the angel’s shoulder.

“Thank you, my dear,” Aziraphale whispered.

“So-,” Aziraphale took a deep breath and tried again, the artificial mask of cheerfulness returning. “The Ritz, for breakfast? We haven’t been there for a while. And their smoked salmon is simply delectable, and they do that fancy juice that you like, or at least you said that you did last time. Or-or we could do the Wolseley, if you prefer?” He was rambling, still smiling too wide and too emptily.

“Whatever you want, angel,” Crowley replied quietly. Just because he’d agreed, didn’t mean he had to encourage him. He was already hating every second of this.

Aziraphale flashed the fake smile again, and swallowed. “The Ritz it is.”

◥|⧗|◤

They took the Bentley. Crowley drove with less reckless abandon than usual, not wanting to rattle his angel in his current state. Aziraphale spent most of the drive looking vacantly out of the window as the busy London streets zipped by. Crowley shot him furtive glances, wanting to keep watch over him but hoping to avoid the usual chiding “eyes on the road, please dear”. Aziraphale either didn’t see or was choosing to ignore him. His hands in his lap were clasped tight, Crowley noticed. The little signs were still there, betraying what the angel must really be feeling inside.

A table for two for the breakfast sitting was miraculously available, and they were seated immediately. Crowley dismissed the waiter with a flick of his hand when he tried to pull out the chair for him, whereas Aziraphale smiled graciously at the man and accepted his help. He couldn’t hide the wince as he sat though, and even as he tried to smother it, Crowley could see the despair flicker again, ever so briefly, behind his eyes. Then it was gone, and the smile was back, though even less convincing than before. Aziraphale sat up ramrod straight and busied himself with his napkin. Crowley smirked vaguely back at him, heart heavy. He’d put on a new pair of sunglasses, and was very thankful for the camouflage they provided. He didn’t want Aziraphale (or any of the humans, for that matter) reading his expression at the moment.

They ordered quickly, and ate quietly. Aziraphale maintained the frozen smile throughout the meal, and tried a number of times to engage Crowley in pleasant small talk, but Crowley didn’t feel any more like talking than he did like eating, and the resulting silence hung dead and flat in the air around them. Aziraphale, likewise, wasn’t eating with his usual relish, instead picking at his food and batting it around the plate with a far-away look in his eyes. Nonetheless, the angel forced down every morsel and afterwards made a great show of wiping his lips with the napkin and complimenting the waitstaff. Crowley watched him carefully all the while, ready for the moment when the mask would finally crack, already preparing himself to pick up shattered pieces of angel in the aftermath.

But it didn’t come, and once they’d paid for the meal*, they headed to St. James’ Park at Aziraphale’s suggestion. The ducks were rowdy as usual, tearing the pieces of bread they threw to shreds, like vultures at a carcass. Crowley begrudgingly left the angel alone at the pond-side while he fetched them ice-creams from the kiosk, as had become their habit. Aziraphale accepted his with another flash of that god-awful broken smile, and linked his soft hand with Crowley’s purposefully. Crowley gave it a squeeze.

*Crowley, by force of habit, left a handful of pennies on the table for the waiter, but discreetly doubled the service charge on the bill. 

They strolled around the edge of the water as they ate. Occasionally, Crowley felt a subtle tremor run through Aziraphale’s hand in his, but when he turned to check on him, the angel always looked away, suddenly remarking on the activity of the waterfowl or pointing out a worthy target for one of Crowley’s demonic wiles.

The deflection continued as they finished the ice-creams and headed back towards the bookshop, stopping at Piccadilly Market on the way. It was busy with people today, milling around between the red-and-white striped awnings, underneath which proprietors were hawking old books, antiques, and other sorts of tat that the angel loved. Aziraphale dragged Crowley from stall to stall, cheerily inspecting their wares. He seemed unable (or, Crowley guessed, unwilling) to pause for even a moment, presumably lest the façade he’d built up crumble without a constant distraction. But Crowley caught the mask slipping in a few moments when the angel thought his face was hidden. A shimmer of uncertainty in his eyes, a tiredness in the way he held himself. As the afternoon wore on, Crowley could swear Aziraphale began to limp when he walked, just imperceptibly.

Crowley was worried about him. It had been gnawing away at his stomach all day. But he couldn’t help but feel annoyed too. Aziraphale must realise how much it hurt whenever he turned that bloody fake cheerfulness act of his on him. Sure, hiding his feelings from Heaven or even from the humans was understandable, but they were supposed to be on the same side now. They were supposed to share these things. Did he think Crowley would judge him? That he wouldn’t see through it in an instant? They’d known each other too long for the latter, and Crowley prayed that Aziraphale didn’t believe the former. It just hurt, the way Aziraphale was shutting him out.

The sky was turning peach-coloured with the first omens of sunset when they eventually got back to the bookshop. Crowley held his breath as he opened the door. Aziraphale hung back behind him. Inside, everything was still, the air heavy with dust, and the books, papers and furniture exactly as where they’d left them the last time they’d been home. Before. Crowley sighed deeply. Nothing had changed. Even though it seemed everything else in their world had. A weight that he hadn’t realised was pressing down on him seemed to lift slightly from his shoulders.

He turned and motioned Aziraphale inside. The angel looked briefly hesitant, but then he swallowed, raised his chin, and entered. Crowley’s hand went automatically to brush his back as he passed. Finally, they were back where they belonged. He shut the door on the world behind them with a sense of conclusiveness. The hum of the streets melted away, and then it was just them, left in silence.

◥|⧗|◤

They were six bottles of wine down, and Aziraphale was clumsily opening a seventh, when the elephant in the room finally trumpeted its unwelcome presence. Crowley had only drunk one, maybe one-and-a-half, of the bottles. The edges of the room were just beginning to spin a little at the corner of his vision. Aziraphale, on the other hand, was so far beyond plastered that he was heading towards a decorative stucco with crown moulding.

“An-angel, I think you’vhad enough,” drawled Crowley, and then frowned at himself, surprised at how drunk he already sounded.

Aziraphale made a face like a petulant toddler. “Jus’ one more,” he muttered. He finished wrestling with the cork and tipped the bottle unsteadily, managing to get at least half of the liquid into the glass instead of onto the carpet. “Can’t… can’t do any harm.”

Crowley’s face creased in disagreement, but he said nothing.

Aziraphale grasped the glass and then necked the contents back in one gulp like a parched man in the desert. Crowley watched, slightly dumbfounded. Under the veil of inebriation, the worry bit again at his stomach.

“Hey, you r’member that thing at that wedding in Cana?” he asked abruptly. “Wine into water - no, wait-” He made a spinning motion with his hand. “-other way ‘round. You know what I mean.”

Aziraphale looked morosely up at him, cradling the glass close. “Bloody awful evening.”

“You’re just sssaying that ‘cos you weren’t allowed any,” said Crowley. The angel pouted.

“Anyway…” continued Crowley, feeling increasingly talkative as the alcohol permeated its way into his system. “Point is, you’re not s’pposed to drink it like it’s still water.” He jutted out his chin. “So s-stop drinking like a… a…” What was the phrase? Some kind of animal. Something aquatic?

“…a dolphin,” he finished, with a confidence he didn’t feel.

Aziraphale spluttered with laughter, making Crowley blink in surprise. “ ‘s fish, dear,” the angel slurred, and then collapsed into another giggle. “You and your dolphins!” He suddenly fell about laughing, bending double on the sofa, and inadvertently sloshing wine everywhere.

Crowley smirked uneasily. His unease built as the angel’s laughter grew gradually louder and louder, until it was almost hysterical. It hadn’t been that funny, he thought to himself. The noise sounded wrong to his ears, discordant and unsettling, as though the bottom had fallen out of reality. It actually made him feel a bit sick.

Aziraphale raised his glass-free hand to cover his face. Beneath it, Crowley heard the hysterical laughter slowly transmute into hysterical sobbing.

Aaand there it is, thought Crowley with pained resignation. The angel had finally reached his breaking point. Immediately, he miracled the alcohol out of his body and back into one of the bottles. “Angel?” He stepped closer and knelt down in front of Aziraphale, trying to peer up through the angel’s fingers at his face. Aziraphale’s hunched shoulders jerked fitfully up and down, muffled sobs and hiccups escaping from underneath his hand. Crowley gently removed the wine glass from his other hand, and then took hold of his wrist and rubbed soothingly at his pulse-point.

“Talk to me, angel,” Crowley said softly. “Please.”

He waited while Aziraphale continued to gasp for breath, eventually managed to stop sobbing, and swallowed heavily. Slowly, the angel peeped out at Crowley like a frightened child from underneath the hood of his hand. Half of his face remained hidden, but what Crowley could make out was contorted with anguish.

“How do you make it stop, Crowley?” he asked wretchedly, sniffling. “It just-… I just want it to stop hurting. I don’t know what to do.” He stared into Crowley’s eyes, looking desperately lost.

“Help me,” he pleaded.

And there was that terrible, stabbing ache in Crowley’s chest again. “Oh…c’mere,” Crowley replied with a sympathetic sigh. He clambered onto the sofa beside Aziraphale and drew him close. Aziraphale lent into his touch, burying his face into Crowley’s shoulder as another distressed whine escaped him.

“I can’t help you if you keep shutting me out,” Crowley explained gently, rocking him from side to side. Aziraphale nodded mutely against him. “C’mon,” he rubbed the angel’s back. “Sober up and let’s talk. It’ll help. I promise.”

Aziraphale nodded again and, gradually, he pulled away from Crowley and straightened up. A quick squint of exertion crossed his face, and the empty bottles on the table were suddenly filled again (well, all but one, Crowley noted, but that was forgivable given the circumstances). The angel wiped messily at his eyes with the back of his hand and took a deep, shuddering breath, and then turned to look uncertainly at Crowley.

“Just tell me what you’re feeling,” Crowley whispered. “Don’t keep bottling it all up.”

Resignation settled on Aziraphale’s tear-stained face and he sighed. He looked away at the floor, hugging at his own arms.

“I feel...” he began, his voice strained like it was a struggle to get the words out. “…humiliated.” He rocked back and forth on the sofa, digging his fingernails into the flesh of his upper arms. “…violated.” He shuddered. “A-And I know I shouldn’t but…” He glanced sideways at Crowley and then back down at the floor, his eyes brimming with unshed tears. “…ashamed,” he finished, voice almost a whisper. He covered his face again as another pained whimper slipped from his throat.

Crowley rubbed at Aziraphale’s knee. “You know it wasn’t your fault, right?” he said. “What they did to you, it was barbaric, a-and senseless, and cruel” - the litany of bastards bastards bastards returned to his head, but he tried not to let the rage carry him away - “and it was not your fault.” He punctuated each word with a gentle pat of the angel’s leg. “Not one bit of it.”

Aziraphale nodded quickly. “I know, I know. It’s not that.” He sniffled again.

Then what? Crowley raised an expectant eyebrow, and waited as Aziraphale gathered himself together again and shuffled on the sofa until he was facing towards him.

“You know, I really thought-” the angel began, and actually chuckled bitterly through the tears. “I really thought that we were the good guys.” He shook his head. “How naïve of me. All those years of loyalty to Heaven, and this is what I get for it. It seems I’ve been well and truly ‘played for a sucker’.”

He looked up at Crowley. “You could always see it, of course.” He sighed ruefully. “I just can’t believe I was ever so foolish as to have-…to have trusted them. I’m just a soft old idiot.”

“Aziraphale,” Crowley sighed with a hint of exasperation, squeezing the angel’s hand. “That’s not your fault either. You’re a good person.” He cracked a slight smile. “You are soft, and I love that about you. You see the best in people” - he lifted Aziraphale’s hand to his lips and pressed a kiss into the tops of his knuckles - “like you did in me. Shame on them for taking advantage of your trust.”

Aziraphale looked unconvinced.

“Can you say it with me? ‘None of this was my fault’?” Crowley pressed.

The angel gulped and stared into Crowley’s eyes, a look on his face like he truly wanted to believe him. “…None of this was my fault,” he repeated quietly.

“And you believe that, yeah?”

Aziraphale nodded silently.

“Then…the shame will go away,” Crowley said. “You just gotta give it time.” It would always hurt, of course, but Crowley knew from his own experience that the pain did fade, eventually. He wasn’t about to remind Aziraphale right now that some of this would doubtlessly stay with him forever.

Aziraphale sighed again, deeply and wearily. He glanced over at the once-again-full bottles of wine on the table, but a hint of a frown from Crowley and he stopped reaching for one. “I just want to move on. Forget this ever happened,” he mumbled, waving a hand dismissively.

“…you can’t do that, angel,” Crowley responded, as patiently as he could manage. “It won’t work. We’ll just keep going round the same miserable circle.”

He shuffled closer to the angel again and pulled him into a hug. Aziraphale let him, and curled up close with his head resting heavily against Crowley’s chest. Crowley stroked a hand through his soft curls as he spoke.

“Look, I understand,” said Crowley. “You turn the pain inwards on yourself, because you don’t know how else to survive it. Trust me, I get it.” Aziraphale looked up at him in surprise. “But you have to stop trying to escape all this by suppressing it, angel,” Crowley continued. “If you don’t let yourself feel it, you’ll never be able to move past it.”

The angel looked down and sighed once more. “You’re quite right, of course,” he said quietly. Then his face twisted and another half-sniffle, half-sob left him.

“I’m sorry,” Aziraphale said, “for hurting you too. For shutting you out.” He pressed closer into Crowley’s embrace. “I’m a mess.”

“For Satan’s sake, angel, don’t worry about me,” Crowley scoffed softly. A pang of love and fondness joined the ache in his heart as he looked down at the angel. “In fact, don’t you worry about anything right now. I’m here, I’ll look after you.”

He brushed Aziraphale’s hair gently aside, and planted a tender kiss on his temple.

“We’ll get through this. Together.”

Aziraphale closed his eyes, and he smiled - weakly, but, this time, genuinely.

[kermab]

The Morgulon Chapter 2

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/34542/the-morgulonWhen Greg came back to his senses, he was still laying on the ground. It took him a few seconds to realize that he was back at the camp. Someone had wrapped him in blankets, and there was a fire just a couple of yards away, but his feet were cold anyway. His whole left leg was a dull, throbbing ache. He grunted softly and turned his face to look away from the flames. He could see a couple of more campfires, and people sitting around them, but the atmosphere seemed subdued. When his father, David, Andrew, and Nathan returned from a hunt, that was always cause for celebration.

Speaking of his family, where were they? At the very least he would have expected Andrew to be there, to yell at him for putting Dolly in danger.

He turned his head back towards the fire right next to him. Beyond the flickering flames, all he could see were shadows. He thought he did see someone standing there, but he couldn’t be sure.

After a few minutes, he heard people coming closer, several pairs of heavy boots and a whispered argument. They stopped on the other side of the fire. At least one of them was still wearing the ridiculous white cape, and then he could hear Nathan growl:

“Just let her have a look, David. They checked him out, I had a look myself, he’s fine. If it makes her happy, let her waste her time.”

Greg blinked. The person in the white cape turned out to be Lane deLande, not Nathan. She was flanked by his brothers, though. David’s fingers played with Greg’s pistol when deLande kneeled down next to Greg, in a crouch that would allow her to get up again quickly.

“I want to see your face,” she said, and David said:

“You don’t have to. This is stupid. This whole thing was stupid.”

“We agree on that, at least,” deLande sighed. “He shouldn’t have been there at all.”

“He wasn’t the problem,” David growled back.

Greg looked up towards Nathan since David’s gaze was fixed firmly on deLande. The youngest of his brothers rolled his eyes at him and shrugged.

Greg had to clear his throat and start over before he managed: “I got nowhere to go tonight.”

Which at least brought the ghost of a smile to Nathan’s face.

So Lane deLande reached for his face and turned it towards the fire, staring at his skin intently. It was incredibly uncomfortable. Greg had never been this close to a woman who wasn’t his mother, and after a few seconds, he closed his eyes. A moment later, he heard David hiss, and then he felt cold metal on his skin.

“What happened to your face?” deLande wanted to know.

“Just some twigs,” Greg said, and let her turn his head a little more so that she could put the cold blade against his neck. Was this what the cow felt like before the butcher cut its throat?

Finally, deLande grunted and got to her feet again.

“Happy?” Greg asked.

“Not really,” the huntress replied, though when Greg opened his eyes, he saw her put the knife away.

“Your skin is too dark,” deLande went on. “Makes it really hard to tell whether it reddens or not, when the silver touches it. Especially in this light. You should better keep an eye on him,” she added in David’s direction, who did not go for her throat, although Greg could see that it was a close thing.

“Of course, Lady Inquisitor,” Nathan griped.

DeLande glared at him, but finally left.

“Well, that was fun,” Greg muttered.

“You,” David started, stopped, and dropped to the ground. “You are so ridiculously lucky, do you even realize that?”

Nathan settled down next to him.

“I’m too pretty to die,” Greg replied, but when that didn’t even earn an eye roll from either of them, he asked: “How bad was it?”

“Bad,” David just said.

Nathan added: “You weren’t the only greenhorn who thought he’d check a copse of conifers all on his own.” He paused and added: “You were the only one who survived it. Thanks to Dolly.”

“Is that where Andrew is?” Greg asked. “She’s okay, right?”

“Dolly is fine,” Nathan sighed. “Dad’s dealing with the family of some of the men who – didn’t make it. Andrew is with him.”

Greg shuddered. “How many?”

“Thirteen, all together.”

“We lost four shooters, too,” David said quietly.

“Four shooters?” Greg echoed incredulously. Sure, it happened that a shooter wasn’t fast enough on the draw, but four of them? With a plan this well laid out? “How did that happen?”

“Well,” David said, “we shot four werewolves, and your inquisitor back there gave the signal that you guys had killed two more. So some idiots left their post, because hey, six werewolves are dead, the hunt is over and we never receive false information about anything, ever, do we? So of course the remaining two werewolves went on a rampage through what was left of the formation. They must have gotten some beaters early on, too, but no one can tell when and where at this point.”

“Crap,” Greg muttered. Four shooters and nine beaters dead.

Eight werewolves, Mithras have mercy.

 Late the next morning, the mood in the camp improved slightly: Coaches and riders were coming up the road. It was time to present the dead werewolves to an official, either from the Church or an Imperial magistrate, to have the kills confirmed, and reap the rewards. With a pack as big and as dangerous as this one, there would likely be representatives of both. Possibly other interested parties as well.

Indeed, there were no less than eight men coming up the hill towards the camp. Greg had a good view of them from the back of a cart, where his brothers had put him earlier. The cleric was easy to recognize in his red robes, as was the Imperial magistrate, since no one else was allowed to wear that colour of blue. A third man wore a bright servant’s uniform, probably from a nearby Valoisian noble – hopefully, someone who had put up a bounty.

Next, there were three men in the more sober suits of the Loegrian fashion, and lastly a couple of men who were quite obviously farmers. They probably wouldn’t have any rewards to hand out, but they would carry word of their success.

For those new hunters who still needed to make a name for themselves, that was almost as important as the money.

Greg watched from a distance how the men with the gravitas of their respective offices inspected each carcass and then had to witness how the heads were cut off. He couldn’t quite stop himself from grinning: the cleric and the Imperial magistrate were so clearly uncomfortable. Bram was standing right next to them. From his gesturing, Greg was guessing that his father was trying to leverage their discomfort into a higher reward. After all, the agreed-upon rates had been for only six werewolves, not eight.

 Eventually, the last head fell and a cheer went through the huntsmen gathered close to the negotiation. The magistrate fled, waving to his servants, the cleric stayed just long enough to see the eight heads bagged before he too fled down towards his coach. Greg’s father ambled after them. The cheering grew louder when the armed servants of the officials carried up huge strongboxes full of silver.

Greg closed his eyes. Dividing the silver would take its sweet time. His father would get extra pay for organizing the whole thing, and deLande probably a little something for leading the beaters, too. Then there were fixed rates just for showing up, which generally barely paid for your expenses if you were a beater. Next, there was the success premium, which again, everybody would receive, and made the whole thing worthwhile.

Lastly, there were the general kill awards and the bounties, by far the most money, which would go to those eight individuals who had fired the killing shots. Unless of course one of the monsters had been brought down through a group effort, in which case things could get really complicated. Because the one who fired the killing shot also took home the pelt, and werewolf pelts fetched high prices with the Valoisian nobility, especially back in the homeland. If a werewolf hadn’t been active long and hadn’t amassed a bounty yet, the price of the pelt often trumped the official rewards for the kill.

 Greg woke with a scream when the cart under him started moving. Even the slightest bump made his leg hurt as if there was a draft horse kicking him in the thigh.

“Oh, hey,” Andrew said. “You’re awake.”

“No shit,” Greg muttered to himself. He had to bite his tongue to suppress another whimper of pain.

“Yeah, sorry,” Andrew said. “It’ll get better once we reach the main road. Here, that should cheer you up.”

He dropped a leather bag full of something heavy onto Greg’s chest.

“What’s that?”

“Your reward, genius. One bag full of silver, and some gold to pad it out.”

Greg closed his eyes and breathed through the pain when they hit the next pothole. Andrew was right, though. The thought of his first earnings did cheer him up. He could buy a horse with the money – once he could walk again, anyway – and still have plenty left for a rainy day.

He really wished he had some laudanum, but all he got was a bottle of whiskey when they stopped for the night. They had just made it over to the next village, which didn’t even have an inn. When the farmers heard who they were, they were happy at least to let them stay in one of the barns, which was dry and sheltered from the icy wind that had picked up. Greg was cold anyway. By the time his brothers heaved him back onto the cart, he felt hot and feverish.

For the remainder of the journey, he dropped in an out of consciousness. Whenever he woke up, someone was sitting with him, mostly Andrew, but David and Nathan took turns as well, and once, there was his father poking at his broken leg. That time, Greg was really glad when he passed out again.

 Finally, he woke up in his own bed, in their townhouse in Deva. Dr. ibn Sina was sitting at his bedside, who had taken over for his father as the family’s doctor just recently, and on Greg’s other side was his mother Imani. It was embarrassing how incredibly glad he was to see her. When she hugged him a little awkwardly, he was relieved that the young doctor got up and left them alone.

Had David cried like this in their mother’s arms after his first hunt, Greg wondered as he blinked away the tears. Had Andrew and Nathan?

If they had, his mother didn’t mention it. She did ask, however: “Does this mean that you do not wish to go hunting again?”

Greg pushed himself upright as much as he could and wiped the tears from his face. “What?” he asked. “No! I – it was just…”

He stopped, confused, when his mother reached for his hand. “I did not think you would change your mind so quickly,” she said. “But I can live in hope, can’t I?”

“Uh, sure,” Greg muttered. “Uh – what would you have me do?”

His mother smiled sadly, just with her glittering black eyes. “I always thought you liked the city,” she said, standing up. “The theatre, the music halls, even the lectures of Mr. Higgins. And I would have liked to keep at least one of you closer to home. Mr. Higgins will be disappointed, too. You know, he had some hope of getting you perhaps even into parliament.”

“Or poetry,” Greg muttered darkly to himself.

“You used to enjoy literature,” his mother pointed out.

Greg shrugged. “Sure,” he said. “But I don’t want to be one of those sappy romantics who waste all their time just dreaming of adventures, instead of living some.”

“But what if all your adventures go like this one?”

Greg thought about it for a moment. “Then at least I’ll have done some good in the world, instead of just talking about it,” he decided.

His mother nodded slowly, but she didn’t look convinced, Greg thought. He was almost sure she would say something more about the matter, but ibn Sina returned to take his temperature. Greg closed his eyes and tried to think himself somewhere else.

 Ibn Sina insisted on repeating the embarrassing and uncomfortable procedure three times a day for a whole week, even though Greg didn’t feel feverish at all anymore. He actually felt really good. The doctor had secured his leg in a splint, and with help from David and Nathan, he spent a lot of time out in the garden, where, despite the cold, he had lessons with Mr. Higgins.

Mr. Higgins was the teacher who had educated them all since they were kids, and he was at least as disappointed as Imani when Greg’s injury didn’t stop him from wanting to go hunting again. So he spent the whole time trying to change Greg’s mind, until, at the end of the week, Greg actually felt relief when ibn Sina interrupted a lecture because he wanted to talk to him in private.

“I have to ask you,” the doctor started, as soon as they were alone.

“Sure,” Greg said, perplexed, because the young physician stared at him intently, looking worried.

Ibn Sina huffed softly, opened his mouth, stopped himself, started again, and finally asked: “Did you use any kind of magic to speed up the healing process?”

Greg just stared at him, mouth agape.

“Magic,” he finally managed. “Where would I have found a healer? When?”

“So you didn’t use any magic?”

“No,” Greg said, as firmly as he could. He knew that ibn Sina, just like his father, had strong views about using any kind of magic. Apparently, there was a taboo against it in their religion. There had been a time, when Greg had been very young and the last plague had hit Deva, when his father had consulted a healer about his mother’s illness. Greg had been too young to understand the details, but he remembered ibn Sina senior storming out of the house and not returning for over a year.

He didn’t want the doctor to run out on him. And he really hadn’t used any sort of magic.

But to his surprise, ibn Sina didn’t look assuaged. Quite the contrary: he buried his face in one hand for several seconds. Eventually, he looked around and led Greg upstairs to his room. Walking the stairs became easier every day, but the doctor’s firm grip surprised Greg, and nearly pulled him off balance.

“I need you to think very carefully,” the doctor said, as soon as the door closed behind them. “Did you ever – purchase some kind of amulet, a charm maybe, or make some sort of deal with – with an entity of some sort, even as a child, even if you thought it was just a joke, or – or a dream... Maybe some strange blessing…”

When Greg kept shaking his head, he trailed off, looking crestfallen. He rubbed his face again, swearing in a language Greg didn’t understand.

“What’s going on?” Greg asked when the doctor wouldn’t say anything further. “What’s the problem? I’m feeling great.”

“Yes,” ibn Sina sighed. “That is precisely the problem.”

When Greg looked at him blankly, he continued: “You were really, really sick when you got here, Greg. You fevered for the three days of the journey, and then another day and night after you were back home, and I don’t think you even remember. Because you were slipping away, Greg, we were losing you. And then suddenly we weren’t anymore, and you woke up, and you were fine. Even your leg is healing way too fast.”

“So?” Greg asked.

“Gregory, bodies don’t work that way. I would have been willing to shrug off the fever as just incredibly good luck, or possibly even a heavenly blessing. But what your bones are doing – magic is the only explanation for that. And if you didn’t – acquire – this magic by your choice and free will, then – then you have to consider – then the most likely explanation is that you were bitten.”

“No,” Greg said. “No, I wasn’t. I was checked. Twice, actually.”

“Greg, if it was that easy to spot, don’t you think there would be fewer werewolves around?” The doctor looked at him seriously. “Especially with darker skin tones, such as yours, it’s hard to be sure before the first full moon. In fact, even a simple sunburn can make it impossible to see the reddening around the wound. Especially if it’s just a scratch.”

Greg opened his mouth, but he had no idea what he should say to this, so he closed it again after a few seconds.

“Because of your father’s occupation, I have not spoken to anyone else about this,” ibn Sina said. “And if I am wrong, I will be back after full moon and take off that splint, since you will not need it any longer. But I doubt that I am wrong. May God have mercy on you.”

With that, the doctor left. Greg just stood there, staring after him. Without thinking about it, his hand reached up to his face, to the cuts there, that had already faded to pink lines, still lighter than the rest of his skin. It couldn’t be. One of the things that made werewolf bites stand out was that they took forever to just scab over. In fact, there were a lot of stories about people who survived the initial encounter with the monster, but bled to death hours later, because even small wounds wouldn’t close.

But all of his injuries were healing faster than they should, not slower.

He stepped in front of his mirror and pulled down the neckline of his shirt. There was nothing on his neck or his shoulders, and as far as he could twist his head, nothing on his back either. He hesitated for a second, then slipped out of his room and over to his mother’s boudoir, where he nicked a hand mirror from her vanity. But that didn’t show him anything but the smooth, dark brown skin of his back, either.

Which, admittedly, was a little weird. A month ago, like most seventeen-year-olds he had had plenty of pimples on his back and face. Now, there were only a couple of tiny spots left.

The black curls on his head were too thick to see anything underneath, but when he returned his mother’s mirror, he found a silver letter opener, so he used that to run it over his head. He felt stupid doing it. Silver was supposed to be inimical to werewolves, shouldn’t he feel something when he gripped the handle of the letter opener? But the silver just felt cool. Not bad, just very cold. His fingers were starting to feel chilly from holding the letter opener.

Greg dropped the silver and stared down at his fingers. Warmth flooded back as soon as the metal cluttered onto the table. And when he stared at his hands, for the first time he noticed the teeny tiny cuts at the knuckles of his right hand. No bite marks, he was sure of that.

But. He suddenly remembered that moment when the werewolf had gripped his white cape, shaking him, remembered reaching for his knife and just blindly hacking at the wool, right next to the werewolf’s teeth.

So scratch marks?

Carefully, hesitatingly, he held out his hand, palm up. He had to take a deep breath and close his eyes before he could bring himself to brush the back of his hand over the letter opener.

It was cold, icy cold. Unnaturally cold. And it hurt. It started slowly, barely noticeable, but then the chill and the cold turned into a burn as if glowing embers had landed on his skin. Not everywhere, but he didn’t have to open his eyes to know that the burn was everywhere where the skin was still scabbed over.

Ibn Sina had been right: He was well and truly screwed.

find the whole thing here: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/34542/the-morgulon

[naorisososo]

Night Driving

Headlights flashed by every few minutes, as cars passed on my left side. The road was narrow, desperately clinging to the side of a rocky mountain face, and there was only a weak guardrail separating them from falling to their doom.

The thought popped into my head every time. I couldn’t help it. But I knew better. Plus, I convinced myself some time ago that I wasn’t the only one with dark thoughts like this. It’s what made me normal. Relatable, almost.

The map that sat on the dashboard flapped like the wings of a bird wishing to fly, but it was tucked away where it would remain flightless. The folded pages of the map were my guide to an escape. A relief from reality. There was a location in the middle of the national park I was driving to that was circled with thick, red ink. The smell made me lightheaded for a moment, but I reluctantly put the cap back on. Again, relatable thoughts.

The shapes of the clouds above had slowly melted away into nothingness, as the sun set behind the tall wall of pine trees that bordered the long, winding road I drove upon. It was almost pretty - the way the oranges melted into a raspberry purple hue, finally giving way into the dark midnight tone, as sparkles of stars twinkled above.

A splatter hit the windshield, as a bug met its end. I frowned, taking a moment to roll up my window before turning on the windshield wipers, hoping the fluid would remove its dead carcass from my view. A few dozen wipes would suffice before rolling down the windows again, letting the fresh air fill the cabin of the car. Why do we call it fresh air? This is the same air that the dinosaurs used to fart in, right?

The car in front of mine must be slowing down because their brake lights painted my hands and the passenger seat beside me red with caution. Don’t slow down. Go faster. No one would miss you if you just happened to crash into the car in front of you. Maybe that’s a bit too harsh. Oh well.

I slowed myself behind them, resting my hand against the cold frame of the window, tapping my fingers to some unknown beat. I couldn’t see anything else in front of that car since we were on a curve, but I was surprised there was any reason at all to slow down. It’s not like there would be traffic. At least, not where I was heading.

They opened their door, as their hazard lights clicked on. I watched as they scratched their head, slamming their door shut, and shouting at their useless car. I adjusted the angle of my rear-view mirror, checking to see there was no other car behind. I must have pushed too hard, as the mirror snapped off of its holder. I sighed, looking down at the cheap feature. Must be what I get for purchasing the first car I came across. I tossed it in the back seat, listening to the soft thud and bounce of it hitting the leather seat then coming to rest on the floor.

A few more minutes passed, as two cars slowly passed us by, staring curiously at the man who stood in front of his car, bent over, pretending to know what he was looking at as he fumbled with the guts of his car. One car was overly cautious, giving the man and his car plenty of room, almost rubbing up against the guardrail before centering their car back on the road. I tapped my fingernails against the dashboard, leaning my cheek impatiently on my other fist. I had places to be. Well, places to get lost in, would be more accurate. Couldn’t he have picked a better time to have his car breakdown? 

I honked.

The man quickly shot up, hitting the underside of his hood. He peeked his head out from behind, glaring at me, as I flashed my brights to further annoy him.

“Go around then, smart ass!” he shouted, flipping the bird at me. 

What a brilliant idea.

I shifted into reverse, being sure to give Mr. Repairman plenty of space, before slowly driving into the other lane of traffic. I smiled, flashing pearly whites in his direction, as I drove past. Neither of us saw what was coming.

The loud music echoed along the rocky surface, as a group of teenagers sang along to whatever song was popular on the radio at the time. They had just come back from skinny dipping in the lakes of the great national park that was just a few miles up the road. Their breaths stank with alcohol, as the high school quarterback sat in the driver’s seat while his girlfriend sat beside him, being egged on by their classmates in the backseat to give him a blowjob while he drove. 

“I’ll do it if you do it!” her best friend teased from the backseat, as she looked over her own boyfriend, kissing him playfully on the cheek.

“You hear that, buddy! We’re about to get lucky!” his teammate said, roughly patting the driver’s shoulder, as he slid his hand down his girlfriend’s backside, feeling the curve of her ass in his grasp, giving it a tight squeeze that caused her to giggle with glee.

The girlfriend in the passenger seat chewed softly on the tip of her thumb, as she looked at her curly haired football boyfriend who just looked so delicious earlier that afternoon in the water. 

Of course they made out and did other stuff, but a blowjob while driving? How exhilarating!

“Come on, baby, don’t be shy,” the driver offered, taking one hand off of the steering wheel to rub her left thigh. His fingers only inches away from something that grew wetter by the minute.

“Oh, alright...but this doesn’t leave the group! Promise?!” she huffed, looking at the duo in the backseat before giggling softly. “You must want me really bad, huh, babe?” she asked, leaning over the center console, and admiring the bulge she could see underneath his colorful chino shorts.

She placed her hand on top of the bulge, applying friction to excite him before undoing his waistband, and sliding him inside of her mouth.

He bit his lip, rolling his eyes back, only closing his eyes for a moment before coming around the curve to see my car driving around the parked car.

He cursed, quickly slamming on the breaks and swerving to avoid me, only to slam into the parked car instead.

The screech pierced my eardrums, as I swerved to the left to avoid their car that seemingly came out of nowhere, and off I went - through the guardrail and over the edge of the road.

The quarterback slowly lifted his head from the steering wheel, seeing his own blood dripping off of it. The windshield was completely shattered from the collision, and it took him a moment to see past the cracks of glass to notice the man pinned between the cars.

“Fuck! No, no, no…” he began to mutter to himself, as he tried to lift himself up out of the car, only to feel the weight of something in his lap.

He looked down to see a bloody mess.

His girlfriend’s face had tears streaming down her cheeks, with her lips pressed against the base of his cock. Her mangled neck looked heinous in the moonlight, as he now began to feel the pain radiate from his groin. Blood soaked through his shorts and into the leather car seat, as he pushed her off of him, only to realize his dick was still inside her messy muzzle.

He screamed with agony, as the initial shock dissipated, allowing the pain to fully greet him.

I fell.

Well, tumbled would be more accurate. It all happened so quickly that when I woke up, I had to remember what occurred just moments ago.

The coffee that had kept me warm during my drive was now in puddles on the ceiling of the car. What a hell of stain. 

So much for those godforsaken guardrails. They didn’t really guard anyone, did they?

I couldn’t feel anything below my waist, and the glass shards in my arms weren’t probably great for my health either. I didn’t bother pulling any of them out. There was enough blood all over me anyway. But I did spot a hole that I could try and pull myself out of. Emphasis on try.

I was way heavier than I remembered, as I slowly dragged myself up through the hole with my forearms, feeling the shards of glass dig deeper into my skin. It felt like my hands had fallen asleep and I felt millions of little pins and needles, but they weren’t pins and needles. No, it was glass.

Mr. Repairman was smart enough to put on his emergency brakes just in case his car decided to roll away from him. This maintained the traction his car had, as the highschoolers swerved, slamming him from behind, into the grill of his car.

He laid across the engine, whispering something about fixing his car, as his head just nodded repetitively - as if stuck in a loop. As the last bits of breath escaped his lips, bubbles of blood popped, splattering across the warm, dusty plastic of the battery.

The map got its wish. It flew alright. Flapping during the free-fall, the burst of wind picking it up and carrying it out of the opposite window into the cold night air. Gravity soon took its toll, pushing it down towards the carnage below, intermittently hitting a branch before ultimately landing just a few feet away from the wreck.

I couldn’t pull myself any farther. I just laid there, torso sticking out of the crumbled car, cursing my broken and twisted legs for betraying me too early. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.

I was going to smile and strike up a conversation about the weather with the clerk at the entrance booth of the national park. I was going to ask about the best place to park, only to take a wrong turn and veer off onto a dirt road. I was going to leave the keys in the seat of my car, and wander off into the woods.

Someone would maybe discover my body a few days later, as they hiked through, seeing my bright red shoes sticking out of the leafy debris that lay scattered across the forest floor. There was to be a mysterious fog surrounding them, adding more mystery to my death. But no. 

Now I’m destined to die confined by this wretched car that was to be my last purchase. The headlights hummed softly, stretching their beams out past the trunks that surrounded me, almost pitying me before dimming to their own death.

Fuck. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. This is unfamiliar. This is unplanned. How unsophisticated. Now the only thing left of me will be the skid marks I left upon the road several stories above me.

What a shame.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This post was inspired by this writing prompt I found!

[katsuki-creativewriting]

Kōyō Yamamoto - IT1

My current progress so far... I feel optimistic and I think we may finally have a lead. I want to build up our progress and do whatever possible to prevent falling back to square one.

The time is 6:35 pm. I am currently driving at 60km per/hour, no sign of anyone driving past me. It almost seems odd. I usually see the same brand and the same bland colours of cars zooming past me like lightning every minute I drive. And believe me, it doesn't take long.

I am making my way to a workshop on the outskirts of the city. The man I'm about to present myself to is, Kenzou Hibiki. He's age seventy-one, not married, and no children based on his information according to Maro. If I were, to be frank, my mind and body aren't looking forward to visiting a stranger. I'm not sure if I can call him a 'stranger' with all the details we've gathered. Although he doesn't know us, and we've never met properly in person. Maybe? You know what? strangers will do. I haven't been too keen on the idea of visiting him. I should be asking myself why. Well... it is due to his compulsive addiction with... pills.

I forgot to mention that the man lives in his workshop and apparently, fixes and sells clocks and watches? I'm surprised he can make a profit out of by just making CLOCKS all day. Nowadays most people use sci-fi tech watches or just use their phones to look at the time or even search for the weather. While I prepared myself before this trip, I decided to bring my broken watch along to see if he can fix it for me. Perhaps I could get on his good side and hopefully, I can get his consent to question him (let's hope he hasn't taken any of his "sweet, saviour" pills). I could wish myself luck on this venture through a thunderstorm, but I don't know if I CERTAINLY need it.

It's just questioning. It can't be that challenging, right?

- Signing off, Kōyō

• • •

Kōyō could not even describe the emotions of the small droplets of tears falling from the sky. Could he imagine them as petals? No, they seem too harsh; they cannot even describe as a feather! The raindrops fall almost like hailstones knocking at his window in an attempt to enter through the front. The journey was not too far, but it seems longer just by peering into the distance. It felt like a continuous circle going on the same roundabout over once and over twice; it never ends. The same strip of trees, the same patterns on the road. The only time Kōyō could tell he was making progress was when he notices carcasses on the side of the glossy road and plastic bags floating along to the sound of the gushing wind.

He likes the sound and feel of the engine vibrating. For some reason, it puts him at ease like he is trying to escape or take his time away from his office. Stuck to the chair like glue nearly all-day having to tap away on a junk of technology while he hears the reverbed buzzing going off in his brain whenever it is quiet. Whenever the noise occurs, he feels desolate on the inside.

In the boot of the car, he brought along with him a handful of files given to him by the police centred on the drugs and its current effects it has caused on the people who have by far taken them. Since the man has bought a plentiful of these exact pills, he must know something about the one in control or at least the company producing them. Kōyō does not seem intimidating like the police in their act, dressed in their navy, blended blue uniforms. Thus, he would like to see if he can coerce him to disclose information.

• • •

Kōyō reached his destination and stops around the end of a construction site. The shop is that close to a site? he thought. Was it truthfully okay for Hibiki-san to be living near here now? It doesn't seem safe anymore.

Kōyō exhales as he releases the wheel from his grip and opens the door to elevate himself out. "So... This is the workshop?" He ponders to himself. This must be a prank, right? The house is practically ready to collapse! There were the few patches here and there but Kōyō could not even comprehend the idea of someone ESSENTIALLY living here. Kōyō calls Maro again to ensure he was at the right building. A voice echoes at a high yet low pitch on the phone. "Yeah? what's up?"

"Umm... Hinata, are you sure this really is the place? It really looks knackered for someone to live here..."

"I'm certain this is actually the place. Unless you didn't check the address correctly."

Before Kōyō responds, he checks the address once more picking it out of his battered coat pocket. He was in the right area. But is it really...?

"Oh!" Maro bellows from the phone. "I forgot to mention about the construction site next to the house. It's honestly a tad bit appalling to see a man stay in one spot for most of his life. It could be he's close to broke with all the pills he's purchasing, or he's just a clingy dude who makes his living off clocks. Anyways, good luck trying to communicate with him!" And the call ends. It only left Kōyō biting his lips.

This really IS the place. Maro was not lying after all...

Kōyō carries out the heavy files piled up behind the backside of the car. It was too much of a load for him in the end and decides to only take out the ones that are most needed for the questioning. Locking the car behind him, he made his way up the steps and knocks on the door with one exhausted hand struggling to carry the files.

No answer...

This wasn't exactly the plan. I'm not supposed to be here to look like a fool! He argues to himself. With the files in his left and his right free, he can describe himself as a hunched man than a straight man. He knocks on the door once more before kicking the files with his kneecap to thwart them from slipping out of his arms.

No answer again...

This was odd. Was he home? According to Hinata, this guy rarely leaves his house. So, it would seem peculiar to think that NOW of all days and hours he decides to pack up and leave so unexpectedly. Unless... he knew Kōyō was coming to question him. He stands in front of the door, observing everywhere but the door, waiting for the door to open. A few minutes later...

It did...

Kōyō tentatively pushes the door open, to see that no one was there to open the door for him. Has he been standing near the door for almost five minutes and it turns out to be unlocked the entire time? To say the least, he has made far worst moments for himself. He studies the house. The uninviting wallpaper covered up by old wooden clocks hanging on the walls. You can barely see the flowery patterns. The only thing visible was the plain, white ceiling. He has planted way too many samples of his hand-made clocks. The sound of the loud and agitating ticking from the clocks drew Kōyō insane. He wanted to get in and out as soon as he can; he has already heard enough ticking in his brain in his office. A few would have done the trick. The desk was dusty, and the carpet was ragged. It looks like he has not replaced the carpet for a couple of years now. At least it smells pleasant. Smells like the aroma of flowers, not sure what type.

His arm and hands were dying from the files that he carried alongside him. All the blood from his arm to hand left his grip fragile. He plonks the files onto the desk to give his left a break.

"Hibiki- san! Are you there?" Kōyō calls out. But there was no answer; just like with the door. Hibiki-san probably could not hear him from all the ticking in the room. He shouts for the second time, but still... no answer. He rummages around each room he could find, skimming through it with just a quick peek. No person in sight. With no one around the office, there was only one other room left. His bedroom.

I'm really sorry, Sir. But you're not leaving me with any choice...

He gradually but steadily saunters his way up the stairs. It seems so soundless as he was climbing up like the clocks never exist in that one room. And the smell of flowers... was fading away. Replaced with something more... repulsive. What is that horrendous smell? Is it coming from the room? Kōyō clutches his nose as he steps up the last two rigid stairs. This is the only room he can imagine where Hibiki-san could be hiding. He holds onto the door handle and pauses for a moment to think about what he was doing.

Was this an innovative idea? It definitely isn't my best. Guessing if this was the best idea to commit to was not going to reward him with the information he desperately needed. His eyelids tenderly knit together; he opens the door. He unravels his eyes only to feel his heart leap and body tumble back. He automatically grips onto the frame of the door. He just went... pale. There he was, Hibiki-san on his bed with saliva leaking out of his mouth like he recently vomited. His eyes were rolled back. Bloodshot.

Not.

Moving.

A muscle...

He could not get his words out. Just... stutters. From downstairs, he could hear a 'ding', then a 'dong'. Kōyō tries to avert his eyes away to see the time on his phone. It was 7:00 pm sharp. He glances at the man again. He still was not moving. Kōyō crept up to the man and checks his pulse.

No beat...

Oh shit, oh fu- Shit! No, no, no this can't be!

Kōyō calls Maro in a state of panic. This cannot be true. Did the pills really do this to him?!

He could not even think straight, his hands were stuttering as much as HE was stuttering.

Maro picks up. "Hey, Kōyō, what's up? Any luck?"

"H-Hinata, Hinata... I-I, uh..."

"Dude, what's wrong? Why are you stuttering?"

"You know the man I was supposed to question, Kenzou Hibiki?"

"Yeah?"

"Well... you didn't tell me he'd be DEAD!"

"What?! How?"

"I'm not sure. My gut's telling me it's got to do with the pills or... just an overdose."

"I'll call the police to let them handle this unpredicted mess. What are you going to do?"

"I... think I'll go back to the office and rehash this. I'll let the police take care of this."

"Alright, but you NEED to come back to the house to observe more of the area if the police allow you to do such."

"I promise I'll come back and give you the juicy info you yearn when I've been given permission."

"...Perfect." And the called ended with a click.

Kōyō suppresses the urge to vomit as he rushes out of the house, lifting the files in both hands. The files were useless in this situation. A situation he could not match against. He places the files in the front seat instead and clicks in the seatbelt for the pile as well as himself.

Let's get out of here and let the police handle this...

• • •

The pellets of the thunderstorm only grew heavier and more vicious as he makes his way back to his apartment. The gloaming sky made him assume it was nine rather than seven.

Back on the journey.

In his mind, he could not unwind or think about the road. He only thought about what he saw back there. The sight of the man, the state he was in... Decaying flesh and receding hair. The poor guy was lost and confused on his path, and it was obvious from the doorway he was masked with wrinkles. The only question he could ask himself is: Why did he choose that path? The path to escape, to the point of death? or did he really take the "easy" way out?

In fact, why do people choose this, knowing it will one day kill them?

Kōyō heard another car approaching his direction. On the contrary side, he was making progress. But the worrisome side, the car sounds like it was going much faster than him. They were in a sixty per/hour zone. Were they going past the limit?

The car was moving up closer in the dark. Kōyō was waiting for the car to appear through the headlights like something you would expect out of a horror movie. All of a sudden, there they were, driving away. The driving seemed somewhat sluggish, and that was troubling. In just one steer, the driver turns to his right.

Right in front of him!

Kōyō could do nothing. He could not steer to his right; he could not turn backwards. The only action he could take was to hold himself tight like a shield, and that is what he did when the car collided into him and hurtled into the trunk of his car. It shatters the windows and Kōyō's head bashes against the steering wheel.

He fell unconscious once the two cars started bleeping like crazy. His mind grew silent, his sight went blank...

…and the ticking stopped in his brain.

• • •

"If I may ask, who are you? Give me some details about you. And tell me, why did you decide to take this job up?"

"My name is Kōyō Yamamoto. I am twenty-one years old and graduated from Sakagami high school in Tokyo. I chose this job as a private journalist because I wish to take over my Father's job and... avenge someone who seemed to be connected to this case."

I don't plan to stop until I've reached the top of the path of malice.

[vegetacide]

Whump prompt #4 - part II

Veg-notables - As I mentioned before I shouldn’t be allowed to look at prompts. This is a continuation of the snippet found HERE. Only proofed by me so any mistakes are purely my own

Likes, shares and comments are my motivational fuel.

Rating:  M for suggestions of torture.  

Characters: Scott, Kayo  and Virgil (he is around ..somewhere)

Prompt snippet -  no title cause I am lazy and haven't thought of one

Enjoy…. 

oOo

Kayo was - to put it lightly - irate in a scary calm, calculating and head for the hills kind of way. Later when all was said and done, she would look back on the numbness that had overtaken her and analyze it.  Letting the doubt and fear along with it finally take root and she would allow herself a private moment, in a locked room to express what was pent up. 

She had various bolt holes on the island that only Virgil was privy to and she would go to one and let the emotions past the deadly stillness she was projecting but for now,  cool and controlled was the name of the game.  

Setting down Shadow on the lea side of the mountain beside the silent, large green craft that so personified its pilot,  she allowed herself a moment to breath. Clenching her fists as she noticed the shake in them that belayed the mask she had cemented into place. Her stress levels must be skyrocketing as the physiological effects of it were being broadcasted in her fine motor skills but the panic that she knew she should feel even behind her plastered on facade was curiously absent.  Her brow cocked up at the odd blankness of other feelings for the only things coming through the still veil  was the raging hellfire that was her anger. 

Shaking her head away from the random torrent of her thoughts,  she looked up at the blue expanse of the sky.   The odd juxtaposition it presented considering their circumstanced irked her.  It should be raining down acid not sunny and warm.  

As Thunderbird One came into view over a large outcropping dusted with evergreens,  Kay cracked the seal on Shadows canopy and jumped down.  The dry tufts of grass,  crunching beneath the soles of her boots and sending a small, fluffy tailed critter scurrying into the underbrush.  

Shielding her eyes from the dust kicked up from One, she made her way across the rough, cut clearing and up the incline to where Two rested amongst the remains of an old miners camp.  The rotten and lichen covered outbuildings creating an eerie back drop for the large transport.  

As her eyes scanned over the decaying refuse of the condemned colliery, she absently admired the skill in which Virgil had situated the massive craft.  In the confined space allocated to the abandoned plot of land, he’d set the craft down without disturbing any of the rusted out machinery or structures. He’d even managed to somehow avoid flattening what looked to be a picnic table that had seen better days.  Its brick red paint cracked and flaking, leaving a puzzle like assortment of debris around it in a halo of disuse.  

The man was a truly gifted pilot, there was no doubt about that. No one could maneuver the Herculean flying boat around like he could.  Turning her face up towards the underside of the silent ‘bird, a hint of something flashed across her expression.  The giant seemed lifeless without the skilled operator and it didn’t sit right with her.  Like a soul had been snatched away and a carcass left behind, barren and wasting.

Pulling her mind back from her dark musings,  she redirected herself back to the task at hand.  Her shrewd eyes narrowed as she scrutinized the derelict site. Searching and cataloguing anything and everything that seemed out of place in the otherwise undisturbed landscape.  

Virgil had been called out here to rescue a trapped hiker, a standard run for the well trained troop and nothing outside of their regular wheelhouse.  It wasn’t the first time that they’d had to sweep in to pluck some backwoods walker from some precariousness or another and it surely wouldn’t be the last.  

Virgil had been exceedingly chipper considering the early hour as he left the comms room for his chute that morning. He’d even paused long enough to drop a kiss on her forehead as he passed before disappearing down the long slide to the awaiting craft. It had been a rather quiet week for them,  an oddity given that the world seems unable to resist getting into stupid and avoidable danger, and the dark haired man had been eager for some action.  

Kayo kept replaying the scene over and over in her mind, but no matter how many times she revisited the call and the frightened voice that John had projected across the comms,  she could detect no duplicity. There had been no prickle of caution that would cause her to halt her lover’s plan of action so she’d continued on with sipping at her coffee and tucking her legs up under her,  getting comfortable. 

In hindsight,  she wished she’d paid more attention or perhaps even tagged along for the ride.

At the sound of hurried feet at her six, she held up a hand a non-verbal urging for Scott to cease his approach.  

“Kayo?”  Came his inquiry over the dedicated comms line.  He was some fifty feet away to her left, having landed One down below on what remained of an old loggers road, luckily just wide enough for the lithe craft to make use of.  “Did you find anything?”

Kayo backed out from under Two making sure to retrace her steps and took a circuitous route over to where the anxious commander stood, shoulders so tense for his brother that Kayo could make out the fine tremors racking through them as he tried to keep own distraught anger contained. 

Drawing near she indicated over to the scene behind her, the humid air stirring and playing with the ends of her long ebony hair.  The mugginess that was typical for the Canadian summer causing the ends to curl up and the loose wisps around her face to stick to her tawny skin. “Two’s on emergency lock down just like John said.   I did a preliminary scan on approach to the DZ,  there’s nothing.” Her report was direct and concise.  Her blunt delivery a coping mechanism in itself.  

Scott cursed harshly,  hands clenched into tight fists at his side with frustration. After a moment; his own eyes sweeping over the area,  he took a step towards Two.  “Show me.”  The order in his voice evident and proof that he’d only just managed to rein himself in.  

Kayo took the lead and pointed to a few areas of disturbed ground in various spots up the rise.  “Here and here.. There was a struggle.” Kneeling, she touched the rocky ground and brought her gloved hand up for a closer look.  Her thumb sliding across the pads of her fingers as she inspected something.  Her brows twitched as a brief glimmer of her upset peeking through her control but she quickly stowed it away.  

“Blood. Someone went down hard.”  The who wasn’t necessary, there was only one option. Scott squatted down on his haunches beside her, gravel crunching under his thick soles and reached out his own gloved fingers to inspected the tacky, dark substance. 

“Couple hour tops, with this humidity”  He commented,  taking in the consistency of what was smeared across his fingers. 

Kayo nodded her agreement at his assessment and straightened, eyes once more scanning about. “On foot they couldn’t have gone far, especial with 180lbs of dead weight…”  She considered, glancing off towards the tree line some two hundred feet to the West, “ Must have had transport of some kind..”  

“I’ll have John scan the area again maybe he can pick something up even with the iron deposits here playing havoc with our sensors..worth a shot though.“

"Anything is better than what we have..” Kayo said as she stepped past him.  “I’m going to see if I can find any signs of a transport.  If they had one maybe I can pick up a trail or get an idea of what direction they took.”

The urge to reassure Scott that they would find the missing pilot was an unnecessary platitude and a promise she was scared to admit that she wasn’t able to make. With little to no clues as to how, what or why anyone would have taken Virgil the real fear that they might not find him was a thought that right now she couldn’t bare to  look at too hard.  

The hand that caught her wrist as she slipped by caught her briefly by surprise, the hard blue eyes that was swimming with worry and a glimmer of fear that met her own had her looking away before her own inner doubts could take any further root. 

Pulling free with a gentle tug, she refused to meet his gaze.  There was no way she was going to allow herself to go down that rabbit hole and she shook her head. “It’s getting dark, I’ll contact the GDF to lock the area down while I check the perimeter.”

Scott returning nod was all the acknowledgement she needed.  The worried sound of his voice following her as he reported through to 5 some 22 000 km away.  His form becoming obscured in the waning shadow of Two as the distance between them grew with each step she took towards the treeline.

TBC - HERE

[yoongi-sugaglider]

Daegu Quarantine

Jungkook x reader

Gang/ zombie apocalypse au

Warnings:

Gore, violence, zombies, mention of drugs and drug dealing, weapons discharge in self defense, possible future main character death, zombies, course language, zombies, drinking, did I mention zombies?

Summary:

They were the top of their game, known throughout the city as the smartest and most dangerous crew to ever hit the Daegu streets. But what’s going to happen when this group of young men encounter something right out of a horror film?

Word count: 3778

Part 2 === Part 3 === Part 4

A/n :Never EVER point a weapon at someone if you are unfamiliar with the proper maintenance and care of a weapon. Proper training and technique are the only safe way to ever handle a gun.What Jimin does in this chapter is dumb and should NEVER I repeat NEVER be replicated.

P.s: No this isn’t the last chapter :)

Everyone instantly went on high alert. Namjoon and Hoseok jumped to their feet, though one wobbled and almost fell in the process, as Yoongi and Taehyung pulled out their weapons.

The sound of bullets sliding into chambers as pistols were cocked rang through the air. A well trained and well oiled machine that was our group going on high alert.

“There shouldn’t be anyone out there, nobody knows where this place is.”

“I know that Jimin, we all know that.” Came Yoongi’s gruff reply. He moved over to the window, his glock held close to his ear as he peaked out of the blinds Jin had been staring out of only moments before.

“Looks like just the one guy, but what the fuck is up with the way he’s moving?” Namjoon had joined him at the window, weapon at the ready as well as he watched the stranger over the shorter man’s shoulder.

“Fuck if I know but there’s a group of people coming down  the drive, looks like 5...no 6 people,they look scared.” Taehyung said this all with little emotion in his voice. This was just another job after all for our number one security technician.

Jin rounded the corner from the kitchen, eyes wide when he saw everyone’s weapons drawn. He quickly handed a cup of orange juice to a still barely conscious Jungkook before drawing his own weapon and heading to the window.

“What’s going on?” He whispered as he scanned over the scene outside.

“Fuckers are coming up the driveway. People that shouldn’t be here.” Came my curt reply. I moved towards the main entryway, glancing back at the heavily alert crew of gangsters.

“Jin, do me a favor and double check the backdoor, make sure the bolts are in place and then stay there. I don’t want anything sneaking up on us while Jungkook’s recovering.” I nodded at Taehyung who shot me a grimace that could have been mistaken for a smile.

“Namjoon, stay here with Hobi and Kook. Jimin I need you to get to a guest room and grab yourself a weapon.” The boys complied, each moving to their assigned tasks as Yoongi watched me with squinted eyes.

“Yoongs, with me.” He nodded, patting Kook on the leg in reassurance as he came over to walk beside me.

Together we made our way to the front door, both of us with weapons at the ready as I glanced hesitantly out of the peephole in the center of the door.

The view outside was muted, the single light on the front porch casting a sickly orangish hue over the walkway that lead around to the garage. I flickered my line of sight over the front lawn, noting the position of the shuffling form that Taehyung had mentioned.

“Looks like male, mid twenties. He’s holding his arm to his chest and walking like somethings wrong with his knees. Stiff almost.” I muttered to Yoongi. He grunted in return, knowing better than to make much more in the way of noise in case I needed to hear what was going on outside.

After a moment I spotted the group of people, all of whom seemed huddled together as they hustled their way up the drive. Most seemed to be holding a variety of makeshift weapons, heads moving around as if trying to keep an eye on everything in their surroundings.

“Looks like civilians. Don’t carry themselves like they know what they’re doing.”

“Think any of them have that virus?” Yoongi asked to which I shrugged in answer.

“Doubt it but that first guy. Something’s not right about him.” I watched as the scene unfolded.

One of the people in the larger group tripped and fell, attracting the attention of the limping man who turned instantly and seemed to crouch low to the ground, almost like an animal stalking its prey.

I hissed in a breath as I watched the thing move, fingers cold and clammy as they tightened around the grip of my pistol. The group of people hadn’t spotted him yet, having lifted their fallen partner from the ground and continued their way up towards what I could only assume was the safety beacon that was our porch light.

“Yoongi, hit the light.” I muttered, feeling the cold void of his presence as he moved to comply with my orders.

The light flicked off, plunging the lawn into darkness and immediately setting things into motion. The thing lurched forward with a scream, tackling the person closest to it as the group had finally and unknowingly come upon it.

The people scattered, abandoning the group in an every man for himself scramble to get away from the creature’s seemingly random attack. Most disappeared into the darkness, though one had managed to move fast enough to be able to huddle beside the railings of the stairs that led to our front door.

I chose to act, throwing back the latch and opening the door as I trained my weapon on the shadow shrouded creature that stood hunched over it’s fallen victim. Yoongi followed close behind, his own weapon trained on the figure that was huddled at the base of our stairs.

“Move and you die.” Yoongi growled, his voice fierce and commanding as he watched the huddled form tremble beneath his sights.

I’d moved down onto the walkway, approaching the crouched creature just to be greeted with the wet squelching sounds of some predator feeding on a carcass.

“The fuck?” I whispered to myself.

The creature heard me, spinning towards me in it’s crouch and bearing very human, and very visceral filled teeth. It’s eyes shone in the light from the house, seeming almost to reflect back at me in some greenish tint very similar to an animal’s.

It made as if to lunge at me and I went with my first instinct, feeling the cold unyielding metal squeeze beneath my trigger finger. A momentary burst of light blinded me temporarily and when I opened my eyes I was greeted with the sight of two human figures laying dead at my feet.

Taehyung strode from the house, smart phone still in hand as he made his way down the stairs and over to where I stood as I lowered my weapon down to my side.

“The others are gone.” He said and nodded his head over to where Yoongi stood guarding the trembling figure. “She’s the only one left?”

“She?” I asked with squinted eyes as I continued to stare at the figures on the ground before me.

“Yeah, she….what do you want us to do about this?” He wondered as he crouched down to nudge at the prone forms with the tip of his gun.

I shrugged, heaving a sigh as I turned to walk back to the house. “Burn them I guess. Don’t want the rest of us risking infection by having dead bodies around like these ones.”

Taehyung followed close behind, giving Yoongi a nod as he made his way back into the house, probably to recruit one of the other boys to help him carry the bodies away from the house.

I glanced over Yoongi’s charge, noting that the figure seemed to be wearing some sort of hospital gown before turning back to look over the wide expanse of our lawn. Nothing moved, but I made a mental note of the strangely ominous orange glow that seemed to flicker on the horizon, despite it only being an hour till midnight.

“City’s on fire.” I muttered before turning to stare down at the trembling form once again.

“Who are you?” I demanded, putting as much force and authority into my voice as I possibly could.

The figure moved, head tilting up and shining eyes finally meeting mine in a tear filled gaze.

“M...my name is Jeanette.” She whispered, arms tucked close around her stomach as she seemed to shrink in on herself to make herself smaller.

“And how in the hell did you manage to find this place?”

“I...we were coming down the road, running from the fires in the city when a group of the chatterers came down the road moving towards us. We ducked into some bushes hoping to hide and just sort of came across what...what I’m guessing is your driveway.”

“Chatterers?” I asked, head tilting to the side as if I were listening for a lie in anything that she said.

She nodded, pointing a shaking finger to the two corpses strewn out on the ground. “That’s what we called them. The things, the people that eat each other. They look like they’re dead but they’re not. Some of them get bitten and when they wake up all they seem to do is chatter. Like they aren’t in control of their jaw anymore.”

“Like one of those old wind up teeth toys from back in the day?” Yoongi asked, a dark smirk forming on his face.

She stared up at him a moment before looking quickly back over to me. “Exactly like those toys.” She brought her hand back to her stomach, clutching it like her life depended on it.

“If it’s just one or two of them it’s hard to hear. But a whole group you can hear from more than a block away. It’s how Dean heard them...How he warned us to get off the road in time to avoid the large group….”

She let out a choked sob, seeming to collapse in on herself as the realization of the situation slammed into her.

“Oh God Dean…”

I caught a glimpse of her finger, a small diamond ring glinting in the light flooding out from inside the house.

“He was your husband?” I whispered, earning myself a nod. “And I take it he’s the one that got take down by that...chattering thing?”

She nodded again, seeming as though she were attempting to stifle the sob that threatened to escape. “We were at the hospital, waiting on some test results when it all happened.”

“Christ you walked all the way from the hospital dressed like that??” Yoongi took off his pullover, bending down quickly to cover her with it in an attempt to calm her trembling and warm her up a bit.

It was the first time I’d seen him act like this towards a stranger and the action left me speechless for a bit as I watched him reassure the quivering girl.

I stayed silent as he helped her to her feet, hands gentle as he pulled the sweatshirt over her hospital gown and shivering frame.

“I...I had no choice really. We didn’t think. We just ran. The ER was a mess.” Her expression wilted at the memory. “People being brought in bleeding and screaming or on their way to dying.”

Her eyes found mine as her grip tightened on Yoongi’s arm. “My husband is...was ex military. He got the two of us out as quick as possible. We ended up along with those other people you saw us with. We just ran, didn’t know where we were going or how long we’d run.” Her voice broke as tears began to stream down her cheeks.

“We were just supposed to be here on vacation…”

I sighed, clicking over the safety on my weapon and tucking it into the holster at my side. “Come on we should get you…”

I was interrupted by the muffled sound of an explosion. Yoongi and I jumped into action, Yoongi pulled the woman into the house as my head darted around trying to find the source of the sound.

Off in the distant orange haze that came from the city dozens of flashes began going off, almost like lightning in a thunderstorm. With each flash of light the distant sound of thunder echoed, so much force behind the sound that I could feel it through the soles of me shoes.

“Sounds like transformers are starting to blow all over the city.”

I looked back to see Taehyung standing in the doorway,ever present cellphone in hand as he looked out at the glow coming from the city. I grunted, my dominant hand going down to rest subconsciously on my weapon as I turned back to the two bodies on the ground.

“Joon is heading to the storage shed. Said he’ll be round with the 4 by 4 in a few to pick up the bodies and burn them out back. Better out of sight and out of mind if you ask me.”

I nodded to let him know I had heard him, mind already racing ahead to the million and one things that still needed to be done in order to ensure our survival.

“How’s…”

“He’s fine.” Taehyung cut me off, already knowing what I was going to ask. “Jimin checked his blood sugar and he’s already a lot more alert than before.”

I nodded, heart slightly at ease in knowing that the love of my life was okay. “I don’t like this Tae. I don’t like any of this…”

He glanced over to me, a rare smile gracing his handsome features. “I know little sis. But there’s nothing to be afraid of. Once he’s back on his feet he’ll take charge like he always does and you’ll finally be able to rest. Remember you’ve been going at it just as long as he has.”

“I know.” I shrugged, free hand rubbing my forehead as I watched the flickering lights in the distance. “We’re together though...family sticks together no matter what. Right?”

“Hey…” Taehyung moved closer, his arm wrapping gently around my shoulder as he rubbed some warmth back into my chilled skin. “You’ve got nothing to worry about. Regardless of what’s going on out there you have your brothers right here with you. So relax. We’ve got this.”

I couldn’t help the smile that ghosted past my lips. “So they’re your brothers now huh?” I watched him out of the corner of my eye as a blush crept up his neck.

“Yeah...well I mean…” He dropped his arm from around me, rubbing on the back of his neck as he tried to take on a nonchalant pose. “I meant we were your...I mean they were…”

“Mmmhm.” My smile grew as I grabbed his arm and tucked myself into the curve of his body. “You’ve been with us what...three,four years now?”

“Four, but I’ve known you for longer, so by association they’re mine.” He gave a half hearted attempt to pull himself from my grasp but my hold was relentless.

“Alright, okay, jeeze.” He gave a chuckle as he scratched the tip of his nose. “They didn’t care about my past. They just accepted some poor farmer's son slash hacker extraordinaire  from the boonies into their ranks and let me work for them. They trust me to watch their backs. The least I can do is trust them too.”

“That’s my boy.” I stood on tiptoe, giving him a sisterly peck on the cheek. “Now come on, let’s make sure they don’t get into any more trouble. I’ve got a feeling there’s gonna be a lot more headed our way here real soon.”

***

Seeing Jungkook up and alert again had to be about the best feeling in the world. The stars in his eyes shone bright when they landed on me as i walked into the room and I couldn’t help the way my whole being lit up when he smiled.

“There’s my girl.” His voice was husky as he rose from the sofa, enveloping me in his arms in a warm hug that I could only describe as the feeling of coming home.

“You’re feeling better?” I asked in a hushed voice as I buried my nose into the dusky scent of peaches that wafted up off of his shirt.

“Mmm. Much better thanks to you.”

“YA! I did all the work!” Jin pouted from the window he’d been posted at.

“On the contrary. She did all the work, you just followed orders.” Jimin retorted. He’d paused in his work, Jin having been in the process of showing him how to break down and clean the weapon he’d chosen while also keeping a half an eye on the outside lawn from the window.

“Watch that firing pin.” Jin scolded, having been watching his student the entire time despite his outburst.

The weapons expert prided himself on his knowledge, citing himself as the best shot in the business despite Yoongi actually being the one to hold claim to that title. But that didn’t lessen Jin’s actual knowledge in the slightest. The man could take apart and put together any weapon or vehicle handed to him so quickly that sometimes it was mind blowing to even think that he was also the sweetest guy as well as hands down the greatest cook this side of the Red Sea.

“Sorry hyung.” Jimin hung his head and lowered the delicate part to the table gingerly as if it were a bomb ready to go off.

“Aish, don’t act like that. You’re doing fine, just pay attention to where you put it or there’s no firing that piece if you really need it.”

“Hey now, ease up on the kid. He’s used to saving lives not taking them.” Jungkook’s voice was gentle but firm, knowing that Jin didn’t mean to come off as harsh.

I reached up to pat his cheeks, returning his attention to me. “Are you sure you’re alright?” I asked with a quiet whisper.

A smile stretched across his face. His nose wrinkled and his eyes disappeared as his upper teeth pressed into his lower lip.

“I’m fine angel. Honest I am.” He opened his eyes to press a gentle kiss to my nose. “I really am sorry for worrying you like that. It won’t happen again I promise.”

I scoffed at that, attempting to pull my hands from his cheeks though he enveloped my hands with his own,forcing them to remain in place. “Don’t give me empty promises bunny boy. I know better than that.”

He chuckled and the sound filled my chest with a warm sense of comfort. He tilted his head and pressed his soft lips into the tender flesh of each of my palms,causing the heat to rise to my face.

Hoseok hobbled into the room and I was vaguely aware of the gagging sounds he made at catching us in such an intimate moment. He moved past the table Jimin sat at, bumping into it with the side of his hip and mumbling an apology to the flustered boy who scrambled to catch parts of the weapon he’d been charged with disassembling.

“Sorry kid. Stupid leg’s got my balance all jacked.”

Jimin shook his head, giving his elder a smile of understanding. “I know hyung, it’s alright. Just try and keep off of it? That’ll help the healing process kick in a lot quicker.”

Hoseok nodded, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans as he wandered over and flopped onto the sofa beside Jungkook and I.

“Where have you been?” I asked him,pushing Jungkook gently back so that I could cuddle into his chest. Kookie wrapped his arms around me and I sighed at the feeling of strong wiry muscles wrapping their way around my form.

“I went to help Joon figure out how to best burn the two bodies without setting fire to the rest of the lawn.”

“He may be fucking smart as hell and the second best mechanic next to me but good lord is he a fucking mess when it comes to wrecking shit.” Jin muttered under his voice.

I looked over to him and quirked my eyebrow. “Second best huh?” I asked as I tried to cover a giggle.

“Damn right. I’m smart and handsome and the best thing that ever happened to this group of misfits.” Jin flashed a gloating smile, kissing his hand and blowing it in my direction without hesitation.

“Aish, you’re so full of yourself hyung.” Tae grumbled as he swiped through his camera feeds.

“And who exactly is going to disagree?” Jin grumped, allowing the blinds to snap shut as he stalked over to Tae.

“I am. I’m a better dresser and better looking by far than you. That’s all there is to it hands down.” Taehyung flashed his elder a boxy grin, flipping up two fingers and signing under his eye in a V shaped impression of his hacker code name.

“I will have the both of you know that I’m the one who gets all the ladies when we go out.” Jimin piped in, waving the now half assembled gun at everyone as he pushed back his chair and stood to pose amongst the three.

Twin shouts of “YA!” Echoed through the room and Jin and Taehyung both reached out to grab the shorter boy who dodged the both of them and shot across the room with a bright and cheerful giggle.

He raised the half assembled weapon, attempting to point it at Tae and allow the hammer to click into place. Jimin watched in horror as the slide literally slid off the gun, falling to the floor with a heavy thunk.

“But I...”

Hoseok burst out laughing, waving the barrel of Jimin’s gun from the sofa. I could only assume he’d stolen it when he bumped into the table earlier.

“But when did you even???”

“These children I swear.” Jungkook muttered as he shook his head before gently kissing the top of mine.

“I know right!” I answered, shifting a bit so that I could tilt me head and stare up at him. “You would swear you’d raised them since you were 15.”

“YA!” Jin shouted, skidding to a halt and abruptly halting his pursuit of the defiant and now irate doctor. “I carried you on my back all these years do you hear me?” Jin squared up, his broad shoulders on display as he literally pointed to his back.

“That’s no joke.” Hoseok piped in. “With those broad shoulders you could have carried the who crew on your back and still had space left over for a customer or two. No wonder Bangtan is the most feared name in Daegu.”

The entire room burst into laughter,Jimin and Taehyung having collapsed together on the floor in their fit of laughter and Jin’s windshield wiper laugh echoed around. Hoseok leaned into Jungkook as the two clutched at each other and I couldn’t help but smile in wonder at the family I’d accumulated.

Maybe Jungkook was right. Maybe it was better this way after all.