#like um . it is a very significant change since the last time i weighed myself

[talkorsomething]

...well, i now officially know i've lost weight.

Like... a lot? a lot more than i had thought?

Which is. Odd because honestly pretty much everything still feels like it fits about the same...

I guess it explains why i've been more cold?!

+ also i dont know Why it's so much... if i start eating like a normal human being again i don't... really *want* to go over where i started? :/ i guess i'd maybe be fine w/ being about the same because i know it won't be That big of a difference. Or i don't think it will anyways? Hm...

[five-rivers]

Is there any way we could possibly convince you to write more of the Eldritch!Danny au? As it's own phanfic? This, of course, would only be done once you are under considerably less stress, and can comfortably put the effort into that, if there ever could be such a time whilst writing Mortified and Stars Aligned. It could even wait until one or both of those has reached a point that you deem them Completed™. I'm just immediately part of Sam's Cult XD

It’s been a bit, and this is kind of random, but...

.

Clockwork’s avatar pressed the food to Danny’s lips, and he bit down, hard.  Juices dribbled down his chin as the food squirmed.  He moaned in something like relief as the pressure in the venom sacs in the roof of his mouth lessened.  He ate.

He kept Dreaming of himself with fangs and venom. Did that mean something?

A cold pressure under his chin forced him to look up.  Clockwork’s avatar inserted another piece of food into Danny’s mouth.  

Of course, it means something, it said. You are such a generous soul that you must give of yourself before you can even do something as basic and vital as eat.

Something about that didn’t sound right, but Danny wasn’t in a position to argue, not when he found himself so hungry.

Clockwork’s avatar fussed over him, feeding him more and more, past the point of mere satiation to the point where he felt bloated and slug-like.  He wanted to curl up and sleep real sleep.  The image of a caterpillar who, having gorged itself, began to form a cocoon, flittered across his mind.  

You are a long way from metamorphosis yet, dear one, said Clockwork’s avatar.  Come.  I have something for you.  

Danny followed the tug of the chained collar around his neck, blinking blearily, his footsteps just a little unsteady.  

The careful direction of the chain led him to a small table cluttered with trinkets.  Clockwork’s avatar leaned down to press its cheek against the crown of Danny’s head.  Its cloak fell to either side of Danny, cutting off his field of view to the left and right, leaving him with only the table and the wall behind it.  

A gift, said Clockwork’s avatar.

“Why?” asked Danny.  It felt odd to speak here, and much more so in English, but he was still learning how to use his True Voice.  

I wanted to give you something myself, before we celebrate your birthday.  

“My birthday is ages away,” said Danny.  

From some perspectives, perhaps.  But we missed so many of yours.  We must make them up before the next one.  

There was something ominous there, but Danny just leaned into the avatar’s touch, unwilling to devote himself to interpreting omens.  

Pick one, said Clockwork’s avatar, pick wisely.  Gifts received in the Dream become part of you.

Danny nodded and opened his eyes (when had he closed them?) to look at the trinkets—no, the gifts—again.  Gifts that, like all good gifts, came with strings attached.  

There was something off about that thought.

But it didn’t matter.  It wasn’t as if he could refuse a gift.  

He reached out.  

.

He picked the beaded pectoral necklace.  Mostly because he was curious to see how it went on, what with the collar around his neck and all.  Yes, this was the Dream, and multiple things could exist in the same place at the same time, but usually there was an… internal consistency, of sorts.

It turned out the answer was that the necklace merged with the bottom edge of the collar, which felt weird, but it was fine, because both were manifestations of Clockwork’s Love.  

The unfamiliar weight of it hung strangely off his shoulders, especially given the counterweight that hung down his back, and forced him to alter his posture.  He stood straight and… Well.  Not tall. But to his full height.  

Clockwork’s ticking sounded pleased.  An echo of something where Danny’s heart once was agreed with that assessment.  

When he left the Dream and went on with his life, it seemed as if not much had changed, except—

He felt more confident.  More coordinated.  He didn’t stutter as much.  People listened to him more.  

Even Sam and Tucker remarked on it.  

Only a few days later, Clockwork called him back, reeling him into the deep Dream by the chain attached to his collar.  He had another gift for Danny.  A bracelet.  Its weight joined that of the necklace.

Since you seemed to enjoy this so much, said the avatar, running its fingers over the faience beads.  

And so it went.  

Every few days, Clockwork would call him back and give him some new little adornment.  A ring.  A jeweled comb.  An anklet. A brooch.  A belt.  Each gift seemed to smooth away some almost imperceptible flaw in his waking self, seemed to draw more eyes to him, more attention, more praise.  People who would never give him the time of day before actually sought out his company.

He wondered.  Each thing he was given was a display of wealth.  Did that come across, somehow?  Or was it simply gravity, the mass of his presence pulling in their regard?

The improvements weren’t just in his human life. The others were easier to fight, to distract and ward away.  Their blows did not hurt nearly as much, nor did their ‘appearances’ distress him as much as they once had.  

He noticed, too, the weight of what he wore in the Dream.  Each ring, each bauble, made it easier for him to sink into the depths, made it harder for him to reach the surface.  

Sometimes, after a return, he would like on the floor in his room, panting.

But he was growing stronger, too, and he hoped—

It didn’t matter what he’d hoped.  

He could no longer reach the waking world. He tried seven times before the chain, vibrating with amusement, pulled him back to Clockwork.  

We must celebrate, said Clockwork’s avatar, pulling a sort of woven metal sleeve over Danny’s right hand.  It hooked neatly onto the rings on each of his fingers.  

“Why?” asked Danny, barely holding himself back from falling to pieces.  He had a responsibility to Amity Park.  Not to mention, he wanted to live there with his friends and family.  

Because it is a wonderful milestone, that you are too powerful to reach that place on your own.  The avatar placed a crown of knotted metal on Danny’s head.  This is what a cult is for, my little gem.  To pull you up.  

“What if…” said Danny, “I get too… heavy to be pulled up?”  

Another milestone.  

.

Except, no, Danny’s hand still hovered over the table, undecided.  He let it fall back to his side and blinked, shaking his head to clear it of the vision that had just overtaken him.  

Did it show what would be, what might have been? Or merely a possibility?  

Reality splintered.

.

He put his hand down on a stack of folded white cloth, jostling the bells sewn to the hems.  He didn’t actually know what it was, but it seemed harmless, and the fabric was soft.  

It turned out that the cloth was a set of folded veils.  The bells were weights, to make them hang properly.  

Clockwork’s avatar helped him put them on in front of a mirror, since Danny had never worn anything like them before.  The cloth was thin, diaphanous gauze.  Where the veils touched the clothing he was already wearing, it whispered away, like it never was.  In some places, mostly on his shoulders and back, for some reason, the veils merged smoothly, seamlessly, with his skin.  It was an odd sensation, made more so by the fact that his nerve endings seemed to extend partway into the cloth.  

Although, that might not be by design, but because Danny expected it.  This was the Dream, after all.  

Once all the veils were in place, the only pieces of his body exposed were his hands and bare feet.  It was strange, looking at himself in the mirror through the sheer veils over his face and head.  He almost looked like a ghost.  

It was… it was kind of embarrassing, being dressed like this.  The veils were the only things he was wearing, and even with all their frothy layers, he could make out the silhouette of his body beneath them.  

He spun in place, just enough to hear the bells ring with high, clear tones.  Like this, the subtle embroidery on the veils looked like feathers.  

When he woke again, normal clothes felt rough and coarse against his skin in comparison.  He gritted his teeth and bore it.  He couldn’t very well walk to school in the nude.

“Did something happen last night?” asked Sam, surveying Danny up and down.  

“Um,” said Danny, “yes, but why?”

“You look…”

“Mysterious,” said Tucker.  

“Ethereal,” decided Sam.  “But also…”  She hummed. “Untouchable, maybe?  I don’t know.”

Danny explained what had happened.  

It was in the course of just messing around that they found another effect.  

“Dude,” said Tucker, as Danny sat on his shoulders, “did you lose weight or something?”

“No?” said Danny, turning away from his sticky-note masterpiece on the classroom ceiling.  “At least, I don’t think so.”

“You just seem a lot lighter than the last time we did this.”

They weighed him later, at Sam’s house.  He was.  

The next time he visited the dream, there were changes.  One, the sensation in the cloth had extended.  He could feel almost all the way to the ends of some of the shorter veils. Two, his form beneath the veils was less distinct.  Softer. When he put his hand underneath them to check, his body felt softer, too.  Three, he was glowing.  

Of course, said Clockwork’s avatar, stroking its cold hand down his back in a way that made all of his new nerve endings overload.  As the illusion fades, the truth may shine.  

It did not elaborate, no matter how Danny pressed him.  It did, however, pet him until he was left as little more than a pleasantly chirping puddle of veils and feathers on Clockwork’s floor.  

He did not note the significance of the feathers until his next visit to the Dream, whereupon some of his veils had become wings, bells still attached and ringing with every motion.  He spread them out and flew.  

Flying was even better than he had imagined. Never before had he known such joy.

The changes continued, the form he wore in the waking world becoming progressively more and more alien to him, more grating and uncomfortable.  

“That only makes sense,” said Sam.  “You’re more than us.  Being constrained like this can’t be good for you.”

Tucker nodded in agreement.  “I mean, look at all of this.”

Danny looked around the cafeteria, catching several worshipful gazes.  

“You don’t belong in a cage like this.”

“I want to be able to help,” said Danny.  It had become easier, in some ways.  It was as hard as ever to fight the others, but human aggression stopped dead in Danny’s presence.  

“You’ll still be able to,” said Sam.  “But Tucker’s right, you should be trapped here. You should in a high place… on a pedestal.  Somewhere to give us hope.  Somewhere we can look up to.”

He stood in front of Clockwork’s mirror again. There was a suggestion of a human body beneath the wings, but nothing more than that.  Soon, even that would be gone.  

Even as he thought it, he let his wings shift, forming a more spherical shape.  The light at his center became blindingly bright, but Danny could still see the chains of Love attached to it that kept him grounded.  

One of those chains pulled taught as Clockwork summoned him, not even bothering with the avatar this time.  This time, Danny would be able to talk to Clockwork directly, and it would be fine, because Danny had shed that illusion of humanity and become more like Clockwork.

He entered Clockwork’s direct presence and—

.

Danny reeled as the vision simply stopped being something his mind could interpret.  He felt a part of what he called his sanity crumble.  

Perhaps…  Perhaps not that one.  Instead…

.

He chose the featureless white mask, lifting it with both hands.  It was surprisingly heavy.

Clockwork’s avatar reached out, the sleeves of its robes whispering past Danny’s ears.  Let me help you put that on, it said.  It took the mask and flipped it over, brushing the broad, white satin ribbon out of the way with its thumbs.  

Before Danny could think to protest, before he could decide if he wanted to protest, the mask was pressed against his face.

The soft inner lining fit perfectly snug against his features.   Perfectly enough that it forced his eyelids and lips closed.  The bottom edge of the mask cupped his jaw, preventing him from opening his mouth.  

He could not see, with the mask on. Somehow, this surprised him.  Part of him had expected to supernaturally be able to see through the mask.  

This was inconvenient.  On the other hand, not being forced to see the Dream and its denizens could be a boon in and of itself.  

Clockwork’s avatar finished tying the ribbon.  When you wear this, only those who know you will know you.  And only those who you keep in place of your may have their knowledge progress.  

Danny tested his ability to speak, first with human words and then with his True Voice.  The best he could manage was a sort of hum.  

I know you best of all.  One cannot progress past completion.  Remember, those who Love you will understand you, even without words.  You will be allowed to remove the mask if it pleases you.  

Danny nodded to show he understood, the weight of the mask making the motion more energetic than usual.  

It took Danny time to learn how to navigate the Dream blind.  The Dream was, well, Dream.  It did not follow the usual rules of object permanence.  Things Danny could not directly perceive existed only at the whims of others.  While he was with Clockwork, he could have faith that things would stay mostly stable, but once he left, his world shrunk to echoes and what lay against his skin.

But when he did finally make it home and opened his eyes, he was able to fully understand what the mask gave him.  

He could not see the nightmares and madness lurking just under reality.  His sight was human.  He turned to his mirror and saw not a monster, but simply his physical body.  

He found himself weeping in relief.  It had been so hard.  Even if it was an illusion bought by ignorance, for the first time in far too long, he felt safe, no longer exposed.  

Whether or not it pleased him, he might never take the mask off.  

He walked to Jazz’s room to tell her the good news, only to discover he could not speak.  

After some experimentation, Danny and Jazz determined that, when he wore the mask, his speech was as constrained in the real world as it was in the Dream.  If he wanted to talk, he had to slip into the Dream to take it off.  

It was inconvenient, but still.  A perfectly hidden identity and relief from seeing were more than worth inconvenience.  

With the mask on, he almost felt human again.

Before the school day began, he paused in the bathroom and braced himself.  He had gotten away with being quiet at home, but at school, teachers would require him to answer questions.  

He stepped into the Dream and reached up to untie the knot at the back of his head.  It would not come loose.  Danny pulled harder.  

If it pleased him.  

Well, it didn’t please him to be exposed in school.  Beyond that… Danny suspected that Clockwork also had a hand in when he was allowed to remove the mask.  

A few weeks later, the school psychiatrist diagnosed him with selective mutism.  

“It almost makes sense,” claimed Tucker, gesturing at Danny’s ceiling, “if you think of it like a parent keeping their kid safe on the internet.  Like, you don’t want their identity exposed, so you keep them from giving away personal information or talking to strangers.”

“That,” said Sam, poking Danny’s cheek, “or he wants your cute little face all to himself.  What do you even look like in the Dream?”

“Like me,” said Danny.  He raised a hand to touch his face.  “I don’t know what I look like with the mask on.”  The words came surprisingly easily.  Before the mask, he’d worried that he’d eventually be unable to speak English, what with how difficult it was becoming to translate his thoughts to sounds.

Later that day, there was an incident.  Danny couldn’t help.  He couldn’t see.  

(It was, however, very clear that the others could see him.)

(He couldn’t help but feel guilty.)

That night, Clockwork pulled him into the Dream.

There is someone I want you to meet, said Clockwork’s avatar as its fingers untied the mask.  

“Who?” asked Danny as the mask came away.  He nearly forgot his question as he once again took in Clockwork’s appearance.  He had forgotten how beautiful it was here.  Tears rolled down his face.  

Your brother, said the avatar, gently leading Danny forward.  I think you will get along.  You both like masks.  

It took a few minutes for Danny to distinguish this new presence from Clockwork’s, but once he did, the name came easily to his mind.  This was Nocturne, the Dream Eater.

“Why is your mask different from mine?” asked Danny, because he couldn’t make a good first impression to save his life.  

The mouth and eyes on Nocturne’s mask turned upward in humor.  It plucked Danny’s mask from the hands of Clockwork’s avatar, and, to Danny’s simultaneous horror and delight, Danny discovered that he could feel Nocturne’s claws on the mask as if they were on his face instead.  

That is because it is your face, said Nocturne, the one you show the world.  Why wouldn’t you feel it when it is touched?  When it is damaged?  Nocturne ran his fingers down across the space where eye holes would have been in an ordinary mask, and Danny found himself forced to blink.  For the other, it is because you are a child.  I see and speak for myself.  A child sees the world through their parent’s eyes.  A child has no voice, but their parent speaks for them.  

“Will it change when I get older?” asked Danny.

Nocturne laughed.  You will not grow older.  He moved forward suddenly, pressing the mask to Danny’s face, and putting one of his other hands against the back of Danny’s head.  You will always be the youngest of us.  The most… Human.

.

Is something wrong? asked Clockwork’s avatar.

“No,” said Danny, quickly.  “It’s just hard to decide.”

You could have them all, it said, if it is so difficult.  

Danny shook his head.  “No, I just need more time.”

Maybe if Danny were human, this would be about getting the best deal, choosing the gift with the lowest price, but he wasn’t, and it wasn’t.  This was about choosing the price he wanted to pay.  

It surprised him, how much he wanted to pay some of them.  

.

The set of bracelets clinked merrily when Danny touched them.  They were four bands, each about two inches wide and a couple millimeters thick.  The metal they were made of was smooth on the outside, but on the insides, they had the same fractal patterns as the collar.

The manacles are a good choice, said Clockwork’s avatar, approvingly.  

Manacles.

Not bracelets.  

Unfortunately, he didn’t think he was allowed to change his mind.  

The manacles went around his wrists and ankles, each one closing with a snap.  When they shut, the metal they were made of swirled, the hinges and seams disappearing to present a flawless surface and the overall shape shifting so the inside laid flush against his skin.  

As soon as he closed the last one, and it finished altering itself, Danny felt a sharp pain through the center of his wrists and ankles, followed by a radiating numbness, as if a rod had been driven through each manacle, through each wrist and ankle, stopping only when it hit the other side.  But the numbness soon faded, and as he flexed his hands and feet, he didn’t feel anything like that.  

Still.  The message was clear.  The metal bands were not coming off.  

Clockwork’s avatar took one of Danny’s hands, and examined the band.  The metal, which had warmed against Danny’s skin, turned frigid under the avatar’s touch. For a moment, Danny’s vision blurred, and he saw a multitude of delicate chains leading from the manacle in every direction, connecting it to Clockwork, the other manacles, the collar around his neck and who knew what else.  His vision cleared.  A few long, silent minutes later, the avatar released him.  

They were made with much skill.  I hope you find them useful.  

Danny nodded.  

The manacles weren’t visible in the waking world, but Danny imagined he still felt them.  Especially when he was doing things with his hands or feet.  

‘Made with skill,’ indeed.  

Lots of skills.  Skills like drawing, writing, dancing, sign language.  He didn’t trip or stumble any more but moved smoothly.  It was interesting.  It didn’t feel like the skills belonged to someone else.  They were his, now, wherever they had originally come from.  He knew how to do each thing he was doing, and he did them intentionally.  

Still, his art (which he had always considered at least decent) was now scary good.  He’d also outplayed Ember on the piano a few days back, breaking her hold on the people who had been listening.  She’d been… rather upset about that.  

It was worth it.  

The string attached to the gift didn’t make itself known for a while.  One day, while he was drawing, his wrists burned cold, and he found himself drawing something more than what he’d originally intended.  The general subject was the same, but the skill put into it, the effort, was far, far greater.  He’d meant to doodle a little, maybe for ten or so minutes before he went to bed.  

Instead, it was hours later and if it wasn’t on the back of his French homework the drawing could have been hung in a museum.

It would have been the easiest thing in the world to imagine that he was being puppetted, controlled, that the manacles made him into a marionette, but that wasn’t what it felt like.  Instead, it felt as if something had flipped a switch inside him.  

He understood, then.  The manacles granted him skills, but he couldn’t always decide when to use them.  Or how much.

It wasn’t the last time it happened.  He’d suddenly be seized with the urge to do something.  Make use of some skill.  And whatever he did when those urges settled over him was inhumanly good.  Dangerously good.  As in, attracting the wrong kind of attention good.  

Those men in suits had been there for him, and he was quite certain that, if he had been perceptible to people foreign to Amity Park, they would have tried to take him.  Tried, being the operative word.  

More importantly, the mural he’d been compelled to paint on the side of the supermarket last night seemed to be attracting a following.  He’d attempted to keep elements of the others out of it, but he knew they somehow slipped through, slipped past his attention, and into his art.  

Sam and Tucker thought it was fine, though. He was inclined to trust them.  

He was glad that the manacles did not seem to infer any violent or deadly skills.  He wasn’t what he would do if they did and the urge to act turned into an urge to harm.  

The manacles turned cold.  

Perhaps he’d bake a cake.  Something for Sam and Tucker, as a thanks for putting up with him.

.

Danny slumped against Clockwork’s avatar, who held him without complaint.  These visions were mentally draining.  They would be, what with containing weeks compressed into seconds.  

Were they seconds?

.

The picture frame caught Danny’s eye.  It was a picture of him, as an infant, being held by Clockwork’s avatar, the great expanse of Clockwork himself in the background. Danny wasn’t quite sure he knew the picture was of himself.  Really, he’d been a generic-looking baby.  But he did know.  

He took the picture.  

Nothing happened.  He went home, woke up, and went about his normal life.  On occasion, he would look at the picture when he dropped into the Dream.  It warmed something in him.

It took him a month to realize he was aging backwards.  

To be fair, no one else seemed to notice, either, even though the change was much more rapid than normal forward aging.  Danny suspected they were being blocked from noticing.  

No, that wasn’t quite right.  They treated the age he appeared as the normal state of things, but they also treated him as if he were his apparent.  Something which had bothered him all last week, even if he didn’t realize why it was happening.  

It made it slightly more embarrassing that he himself had only noticed when he’d gone to retrieve a cup from the top shelf in the cabinet and couldn’t because he was too short.  

Sam, Tucker, and Jazz were confused when he brought it up to them.  They seemed to be under the impression that he’d always been a few years younger than Sam and Tucker.  That he’d been skipped forward a few years to be in the same class as them.  Danny had let the subject drop.  He had no idea how to even begin fixing this.  If it even could be fixed.  

Every day, as he got younger and younger, he also seemed to attract more and more attention.  Positive attention.  People would smile at him, tell him he was cute, give him presents out of nowhere. Danny couldn’t say he hated it.  

Until he got small enough for people to carry around. Which they did.  Frequently.  Without asking for permission.  Even this wasn’t so much of a problem.  

Until the cult.  

Until the knife.

Until the sacrifice.  

(And Clockwork was so thrilled to be able to raise him from infancy.)

.

He hadn’t decided yet.  

How could he decide?  They were amazing gifts.  Terrifying gifts.  Gifts he could not refuse.  Gifts he didn’t want to refuse, at least on some level.  

But this wasn’t about what he wanted.  It was about what he could live with.  

The pectoral gave him power and the respect of his peers but took away his ability to use those things in the defense of Amity. Although being powerful in the Dream was an idea that tickled at the shadows in Danny’s mind.

The veils gave him something he always wanted – flight – but at the cost of his humanity and individuality.  

The mask would protect him, let him hide and return to a mostly ordinary life, but he would lose the chance to face his new existence on his own terms as well as some of his autonomy.  Not to mention, his ability to actually help his people.

The manacles gave him skills he’d enjoy, but also made him a hazard for others.  

The picture frame…  Something twinged inside Danny’s chest… The picture frame gave him a new life with Clockwork, from the very beginning.  But he’d lose everything else and kickstart an unmanageable cult.

He couldn’t give up his friends, his family, his human life.  He couldn’t give up his ability to protect Amity.  Perhaps all those things would fade from importance in his mind as he became more and more other, but for now they were razor sharp.  That made his choice clear.  

“The manacles,” he mumbled to Clockwork’s avatar. He could work around the drawbacks (even if part of him resisted the notion that the drawbacks were drawbacks).

The avatar stroked Danny’s hair.  An excellent choice.

“How,” said Danny, trying to recollect his thoughts, “how do they work?”

Danny’s eyes fluttered as he saw the chains on the manacles again.  The way they felt on his skin was just like what he remembered.  

Skills that go unused are lost in the Dream. These find them and bring them to you, bind them to you, so they are never lost again.  Clockwork’s avatar plucked one of the chains.  It felt as if someone had traced their fingers possessively up one of his arms.  Although some of the chains have other functions.  It nuzzled Danny as something deep below in Clockwork’s depths began to chime.  One can never be too connected to those they Love.  

Danny woke in his bed and moaned.  His pillow was wet with drool.  Evidently, he had left his body behind this time.  That happened, on occasion, when he went to the Dream. He was never sure how he felt about it.

He raised his hands up above his head.  As expected, the manacles were not visible, but he did feel more… connected to the world around him.  Being connected was good.  It meant that what happened before wouldn’t happen again.  It meant that he wouldn’t be lost.  

He lowered his hands, clasping them over where his heart would have, should have been.  

The connections, though, were mostly to Clockwork, who was as inhuman as any of the others Danny protected Amity Park from. Should that bother him?  He thought of what Nocturne had said in the other timeline, the one where he had chosen the mask.  He’d known, already, that as much as Clockwork protected him, he also kept him in a state where he needed that protection.  Wasn’t it natural?  Wasn’t it the desire to keep Loved ones close?

His breath hitched as he briefly felt the soothing mental weight of Clockwork’s Love increase.  

It was fine, wasn’t it?

[himikiyo]

cityscapes turn to dust // himikiyo week day 1

Himikiyo Week Day 1: Folklore + Magic

“Trying to defy death, hmm? You’re choosing to take the hard road just as I did. If I don’t have enough time left to change your mind, all I can do is wish you luck.”

Korekiyo's actions taking care of their sister catch up to them.

Read on AO3, DRA, or under the cut

They had to travel light these days. With the city so ravaged, it was common to pick up and leave at a moment’s notice, and there was only so much Himiko could carry. Kiyo was much stronger than her of course, but even the essentials weighed a fair bit. Most of her possessions, along with theirs, remained at their house, still locked up tight for the time being. Someone determined enough would still be able to break in, but she tried not to think about that.

Material possessions weren’t as important as a life anyway.

Despite traveling light though, Korekiyo seemed to be getting weaker. She told them they just needed rest, but they both knew that wasn’t it. The last time they visited their sister, she put up a fight. Perhaps she knew what was coming, and recognized the sickle in their hand. Either way, she bit them again. Maybe that was the final exposure their body could take after holding out so long.

Their arm was wreathed in broken veins, a sickly purplish crown centered on the bite mark. The imprint of each and every tooth was still clearly visible over a week later whenever she checked under the bandages. She picked her opportunities carefully, when they were half asleep or in a particularly good mood. That way, she hoped, they wouldn’t be quite so upset about how cold it was to remove any layers.

She checked every night to make sure they were still breathing. It was getting harder to tell.

---

People still tried to avoid saying the word zombie. Euphemisms were used: infected, changed. Sometimes there was no more than an indirect reference, like the grandmother who told her that “some of them” drove her out of her home. Maybe it was a foolish desire, since this elderly woman had clearly done well enough for herself to escape that, but Himiko wanted to help her.

“Why don’t you stay with us?” she asked. “Just for a little while. We don’t have much, but it’d be safer than traveling alone.”

“Thank you, dear,” the woman replied, adjusting her shawl. “But I like my chances. I’ve made it this far. If you’ll accept some advice from an old woman...” She trailed off momentarily, casting a meaningful glance at Kiyo. “You may want to consider striking out on your own too. There’s something not right about that one.”

“They’ve just been a little sick lately. Once we find somewhere safe to get medicine, they’ll be fine.” The lie tasted bitter on her tongue, but she couldn’t stand saying anything else. Without Korekiyo, she was sure she’d be long since dead.

“Sick? Or changing? Sometimes the hardest lesson to learn is when there’s nothing more to be done.”

“No, that’s not—” She broke off, swiping miserably at her eyes. Kiyo still sat in the corner. Wearing three sweaters to fight a mild early autumn chill, they gave off the impression of an especially gangly marshmallow. It seemed like they were oblivious to the conversation, but Himiko knew better. They always observed more than people gave them credit for.

“Don’t let your friend suffer, dear.” After pressing a small, paper-wrapped package into her hands, the grandmother left. Himiko watched until she vanished from view, hoping she arrived safely to wherever she was headed.

---

“So,” Kiyo said some time later. “When are you planning to kill me? She gave you everything you need to do it, didn’t she?”

“What? No, I’d never. You know I’d never do something like that.” Perched on the edge of the couch they were laying on, she combed a hand through their hair. It helped her fight the urge to rest it on their forehead and see how much their temperature had dropped.

“Yet you encouraged me that putting my sister out of her misery was the right thing to do.”

“That’s different. She wasn’t herself anymore.” As always, she bit back the part about how even with her full mental faculties, that would have been what she deserved.

“Any day now, you might come to find that I am not myself anymore either. Then I will no longer be able to cooperate with your attempts to do it painlessly.”

“That won’t happen,” she argued, fingers involuntarily tightening in their hair for just a moment. “If it was going to happen, it would have already. That was, what, the fifth time she bit you or something? It’s like you told me that first day I found out the truth. You’re immune.”

“Immune.” They scoffed, face contorting into something between a grimace and a scowl. “That was never anything but a lie I allowed myself to believe. I’m not immune. I’m dying.”

“No, you’re not,” Himiko mumbled. She inched closer to them on the couch, laying her head on their bony shoulder. Through sweaters and blankets, it almost felt soft. “I won’t let you.”

“Trying to defy death, hmm? You’re choosing to take the hard road just as I did. If I don’t have enough time left to change your mind, all I can do is wish you luck.” Numb fingers tugged their mask down to press a kiss to her forehead. The old, scarred-over bite wound on their neck was taking on the same purplish hue as their arm.

---

She woke up the next morning with her head resting on their chest. She couldn’t hear a heartbeat.

Shinguuji Korekiyo was dead.

After she came to that realization but before she could figure out what she should do about it, they stirred, feebly trying to shove the blankets off.

“Too hot,” they mumbled, rolling over (or trying to — the attempt wasn’t very successful with half her weight still on them).

“Kiyo?” It had been weeks since they had anything temperature-related to say that wasn’t complaining of being too cold. Not to mention the bigger issue of their lack of vital signs. Straightening up fully, Himiko leaned over them to meet their eyes. They were groggy and unfocused, but they clearly seemed to recognize her.

“What? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I guess I have in a way,” she responded, choking out a shaky laugh. “You.”

They sat up slowly, giving her a perplexed look. Did they not even realize what was going on? Surely they had to feel different. She reached out and laid a hand on their chest, just to be certain. Was she so exhausted that she just missed it before? After flexing their wrist, stretching their arm — stiff, maybe from the lack of blood flow? — they overlapped her hand with their own.

“I see. I didn’t imagine becoming a zombie would feel so pleasant.”

“Pleasant? How can you be so calm?”

“I actually feel better than I have in quite some time,” they admitted. “It’s rather comfortable. I do seem to have a certain degree of numbness, but it’s a worthwhile exchange to be free from all the recent pain and discomfort I’ve experienced. Considering my mind seems to be intact, at least as much as I can tell from my own biased perspective, death might not be so bad. If nothing else, it gives me something new to study.”

“Oh. Well, I’m glad you’re feeling better, but I don’t know if it’s normal to accept something like this so quickly.”

She was forgetting, of course, that Kiyo had never quite been normal.

---

Over time, it became clear that them saying they had “a certain degree of numbness” was a bit of an understatement. If she happened to touch them when they weren’t looking, they only seemed to notice about half the time. Their pain tolerance, already high, had increased to such an extent that it was very possible for them to sustain serious injuries without noticing. Thankfully, it didn’t seem like they were in any danger of dying again.

They were still capable of healing, just at a slower rate than a living person. The bite wounds were gradually becoming less evident, flesh repairing itself in defiance of the laws of biology.

That didn’t save her from the unpleasantness of acting as their doctor.

Her first lesson in zombie surgery was a jarring one. The glass shards embedded in their leg likely could have been avoided if they had as much feeling as they used to, but there was no point in agonizing over could have beens. The good news was that they barely seemed affected, glancing down at the heavy wounds with little more than bemused intrigue.

“Ah. I thought something stung a bit. We should probably take a moment to deal with this,” they said smoothly.

“Um, yeah, probably. It really doesn’t hurt? You’re bleeding a lot. What if you run out or something? We don’t exactly know all about how this whole zombie thing works.”

“It’s alright,” Kiyo said. “I think. If I can heal from injuries, it follows that I must still be capable of regenerating my blood supply. However, leaving broken glass there could cause problems. You should remove it.”

“Me? Why?”

“You should get used to tending to my wounds just in case there comes a time when I’m unable to do so myself.”

---

She got plenty of practice. Most of their injuries were minor, but she dutifully took care of each one nevertheless. When she really thought about it, sometimes she wondered if they acted a little carelessly on purpose just to give her experience. They’d always teetered dangerously on the edge of masochism, and now there was the added temptation of learning more about zombie physiology to boot.

Sure enough though, that time Kiyo mentioned did come eventually. So far, it seemed nearly impossible for them to die again, but that didn’t do much to diminish the dread that flowed through her when she saw the exposed muscle and bone of their arm, flayed open like so many of the other shambling zombies they’d seen over the past several weeks.

They grimaced when she started to clean up the wound. It was barely a flicker of pain, but even that was significant considering how much they were able to get through without batting an eye.

“Apologies, dear,” they murmured. “Continue.”

“Sorry. Kind of weird how quickly this has become normal.” She leaned in, pressing a soft kiss to their lips before continuing.

Pulling the edges of the wound together and stitching it up nice and securely...She wasn’t the neatest with her sewing, but she was getting better, and Kiyo always insisted they didn’t mind.

“Beautiful work, my love,” they praised, smiling down at their rather Frankenstein-esque arm. “That’s much better already.”

Himiko just smiled, wrapping the arm up again in their usual bandages.

“I’ll always be here to sew you back again. For now, we should probably both get some rest.” They were only a day away from the village of their hopes.

[theajaheira]

regarding honor and honesty in the workplace (15/?)

read on ao3!

this chapter: jenny takes faith and tara out, and runs into an old...well, “friend” definitely isn’t the right word.

from the personal files of Jenny Calendar:

I know that things with Lilah are very obviously more complex than they seem, and I know that I should give her the benefit of the doubt, especially since she was the one who hired me. I guess it’s just difficult for me to handle the fact that Lilah’s guilt doesn’t seem to weigh her down as much as I think it should. It’s not fair for me to make those arbitrary decisions on how she should and shouldn’t behave. I know that. I’m going to call her in a little bit and apologize, and maybe we can talk this out, because we both want the same thing in the long run.

Right now, though? Right now I’m taking a much-needed, much-deserved day away from case work. It’s been a long and exhausting few weeks.

“Yes, I am relaxing, but I can’t relax when I’m being fussed over,” said Jenny patiently, sticking her head into Faith’s room (Faith and Tara were doing a jigsaw puzzle on the air mattress and giggling at how difficult it was) and giving both girls a big grin. “And if you want, you can come over and relax with us. Isn’t Dawn off school early today?”

“You Americans have too many holidays,” said Rupert matter-of-factly. “And if I come over, we’ll just start working on the case again, and I want you to have a truly relaxing day.”

“So what, I can’t relax around you?” Jenny laughed incredulously. “Rupert, you’re the most relaxing thing in my entire life right now.” Behind her, Faith started making kissing sounds. “Stop that,” Jenny added over her shoulder.

“No,” said Faith.

“That’s—very sweet,” god, it was a mark of how well they knew each other that Jenny could hear Rupert cleaning his glasses, “but still—I don’t want to run the risk of distracting you from relaxation with case work.”

“Then I will just keep you on the line for six hours,” said Jenny promptly.

“Jenny, you are supposed to be taking a break from being a detective—”

“And what, just because our breaks coincide, we’re supposed to spend them apart?” Jenny immediately volleyed back.

There was an awkward pause. Then Rupert said, “Considering—how things are going with Lilah, Jenny, I rather want to become a bit more used to being by myself. You, ah, take up a significant part of my life without realizing it, and, and goodness knows I prefer it that way, but your life seems to be going in a different direction, and I want to make the transition easier on me.”

“Nothing with Lilah is even close to set in stone right now,” Jenny pointed out, not sure why she felt the need to clarify that to Rupert, who should know that fact better than anyone. “I mean, god, the woman on a so-called path of redemption still hasn’t called Professor Burkle back to tell her—”

“You should keep in mind that Lilah is still at great risk,” Rupert reminded her gently. “It seems more than likely that personally notifying all these people of her change of heart isn’t something that she can easily do while she still works for the company that hurt them.”

Jenny exhaled. “Yeah,” she said, “but why are youthe one telling me this? Why not her?”

“Because I am significantly more in tune with the way your mind works,” said Rupert simply, “and because I know what you need to hear in order to understand. Lilah, unfortunately, doesn’t have the same luxury.”

Jenny felt a warm flutter in her chest. “Thank you,” she said softly, almost without thinking. “God, I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“I’m sure you’d manage,” said Rupert awkwardly. “I think you’ll do quite a fine job of managing with Lilah, once you two get over the new-relationship bumps in the road.”

Something about his answer made Jenny feel disappointed; she’d been waiting for some kind of reciprocation, or at least some warmth in return. “Yeah,” she said, laughing uncomfortably. “So, um, I should get back to actual relaxation, huh?”

“I expect so.” Rupert sounded a little sad too. “Take care of yourself?”

“You bet,” Jenny agreed, and heard the dial toneless than a second after she’d finished speaking. “Gonna be hard to relax now, though, now that he keeps on hanging up on me,” she muttered.

“Hey, Mom, does this puzzle have all the pieces?” called Faith from the bedroom.

Jenny, very grateful for the opportunity to be a mom and not a disaster detective, entered Faith’s room. Faith was lying on her stomach, staring with a frown at the half-finished jigsaw, while Tara hunted through the puzzle box. “You know,” said Jenny, “it might help if you guys didn’t do the puzzle on an air mattress. Just a little.”

“Takes all the fun out of it,” said Faith. “Besides which, we didn’t want to bother you if you were on the phone. Tara’s idea,” she added, nodding to Tara, who looked up with a small smile.

“Yeah, that doesn’t sound like you,” quipped Jenny, sitting down next to Faith and looking down at the puzzle. “Are you two already committed to this puzzle, or do you both want to go out somewhere?”

“Oh, I’d love to go out!” said Tara excitedly. At Jenny and Faith’s surprised looks, she blushed. “Um,” she said, “I really like your apartment and all, but hiding out in here is getting a little bit—and Faith keeps telling me about how nice LA is—”

“I gotcha,” said Faith, who was blushing too, though Jenny suspected that it mostly just had to do with Tara’s soft, reassuring smile. “That actually sounds pretty cool. Where’d you have in mind, Mom?”

“Honestly?” said Jenny with relish. “Absolutely no idea.”

Faith and Tara were in the backseat of Jenny’s Bug, watching cat videos on Faith’s phone and giggling. Tara was wearing her hair up and tucked under a large sun hat, as well as a pair of quite nice sunglasses that Jenny was pretty sure had once belonged to Buffy. Technically, it was something of a risky move, taking Tara out of the house, but Jenny was very much of the mind that the girls needed an outing, and there wasn’t anywhere safer than the Magic Box.

From behind the counter, Anya looked up, surprised, when they entered the shop, beamed at Tara, and then scowled at Jenny. “This isn’t safe,” she said, “you all should know better, and that disguise is absolutely pointless, I can already tell it’s you, Tara. You have a very distinctive mouth—somewhat pointy but still round.”

“More soft than pointy,” said Faith, realized what she’d said, and winced.

“I missed you,” said Tara affectionately to Anya, crossing the room and ducking behind the counter to give her friend a hug. Anya hugged Tara back, sending Jenny a death glare that most likely held the power to murder someone and then smirking at a now-visibly-blushing Faith, who busied herself with examining some of the novelty magic items.

Jenny decided to take this opportunity to step outside for a breath of fresh air, trusting that Anya would keep her eagle eyes trained on the girls and knowing that Tara could probably use a little bit of space to enjoy time with her friend. It was sunny out, and warm, and it felt incredibly wonderful to not be worrying about a case or a girl and just be Jenny. Rupert, frustratingly, had been right about her needing a day off.

Smiling a little to herself, Jenny gazed across the street. The Magic Box was in a surprisingly nice part of town, complete with hipster cafés and an expensive-looking clothing store right next door, out of which was exiting a well-dressed blonde who almost looked like—

Holy fuck.

Jenny should have backed off and away and gotten back into the store, because that would have drawn less attention. But she couldn’t handle the thought of just hiding in the Magic Box with her girls, and if she blocked the door, there’d be no way for anyone to get to her girls anyway, so she flattened herself against the front door and hoped like hell that she wouldn’t be noticed.

Over the tops of her expensive designer sunglasses, Darla looked up, smiling in that slow, predatory way that Jenny was pretty sure neither she nor Rupert had ever forgotten. “Goodness me,” she said. “You’re like a scared little bunny rabbit, Calendar. Calm down.”

“Don’t tell me to calm down,” snapped Jenny, crossing her arms tightly against her chest and glaring at Darla, “the last time we saw each other in a non-court scenario, you tried to shoot Rupert’s daughter.”

“Purely personal,” said Darla, waving a hand. “Besides which, that little tiff didn’t involve you in the slightest.”

“Buffy was in therapy for almost two years after that stunt you pulled—”

“Are we really going to rehash all the stuff you already yelled at me in court over?” Darla asked with a long, irritable sigh. “Because I was hoping I’d be able to manage a few more shopping excursions before the day’s done.”

“Get out of LA,” said Jenny.

“Oh, sweetheart, you can’t keep me out of the city,” said Darla, sounding genuinely amused. “You more than anyone should know now that Wolfram and Hart’s protection can let me do absolutely anything I want.”

Jenny, very ready to come up with another angry retort, froze. Not at all willing to admit that Darla had caught her off guard, she said coolly, “So you know I’m working on a case involving Wolfram and Hart.”

Darla snorted. “Please,” she said. “You’re on Wolfram and Hart’s payroll, Calendar, and I don’t like that at all. That’s why I’m here.”

“Your intel fucking sucks,” said Jenny matter-of-factly, then remembered belatedly that no one but Lilah Morgan (and Calendar-Giles Investigations, plus kids) actually knew about the plan to take down Wolfram and Hart. It did seem possible that Lilah might have come up with some kind of cover story for all the time she was spending with Jenny.

Darla, surprisingly, didn’t look fazed. “She told you some sob story about how you’re not like the other girls, huh?” she said, smirking. “Told you that you’re the only detective she trusts to help her take down Wolfram and Hart?”

Jenny faltered. “I don’t—”

“Amazingly,” said Darla, “I’m here to help you. Hard as it is to believe, I don’t want you up in arms against Wolfram and Hart once this thing with Lilah inevitably breaks bad.” She waited, but when Jenny (still unable to find words) didn’t respond, she continued, “You’re a dedicated detective, and even though Wolfram and Hart is obviously going to rip you and your cute little family business to shreds, you’re definitely going to do some serious damage to them before they manage to take you down. Hell, the only reason I didn’t get jail time was because Wolfram and Hart bribed the judge, the jury, and some of the witnesses—I don’t want to see what you can do to that firm with some actual evidence from honest people.”

Jenny stared, then scoffed. “You’re trying to cover your own ass,” she said, half-relieved by the revelation. “You just want me to drop the case so that Lilah and I don’t destroy the only thing keeping you out of jail.”

Darla didn’t look troubled by Jenny’s statement. “Ask yourself this,” she said. “How much of herself has Lilah Morgan really let you see?” Without waiting for an answer, she swiveled, turning on her heel with the shopping bags and striding gracefully away.