#literally started reaching at old fandoms about halfway down

[thechaoticcheese]

10 Favorite Characters, 10 Fandoms

Thank you @echos-girlfriend and @sun-roach for the tag! I couldn't reblog it properly with the rest (my phone started to die) so I started a new one.

1. Avatar the Last Air Bender - Zuko

2. Star Wars the Clone Wars- Ahsoka

3. DC - Batman

4. Red Dead Redemption 2 - Arthur Morgan

5. Skyrim- Teldryn

6. DSMP - Tommy

7. Warrior Cats - Jayfeather (Art by ARVEN92 on deviantart)

8. Adventure Time - Marceline

9. Arcane - Jinx

10. Alexander Hamilton - Aaron Burr

[griefabyss69]

Back again! 💜😊

How about some of that: leatherworking for gay sex

Yesss!!! This was from a conversation with a friend - MONTHS AGO, back when I knew like two people in this fandom! (Which means the writing is fairly old and I haven't picked thru and edited it in months also) This is also a fic that created a new backstory in both of my usual versions of Steve and Eddie - Eddie knows basic sewing/mending and Steve is curious about it but never had the chance to learn. (If you read my NNN fic - Constrained, the library scene alludes to this) Steve's helping Eddie with things around the house while he recovers from the vecna hell dimension injuries and that kind of starts something new for him. First as a surprise for Eddie, but he finds out he really likes doing it! This one is plotted out to the end (it's very simple), so hopefully one day soon I pick it back up and finish it! It's over halfway done anyway Excerpt!!!: ( Contains: The tail end of a long healing process, Steve Likes To Be Useful, honestly this one is just sweet so far, rated G??)

It starts like this:

Eddie's hands are fucked, at least for now.

And Steve's hands are working just fine, so he sits at Eddie's kitchen table in the Munson's new double-wide trailer, fixing the ripped stitches in Eddie's oldest battle vest. Jacket. Whatever.

There's no music playing because Eddie's writing something that has his forehead crinkling with concentration, his hand shaking with the thickest pen he could find wrapped in his aching fingers, but the quiet is nice. He likes to listen to Eddie breathe even if sometimes it still has a bit of a rough edge to it, his breath catching on the way in. He's here, you know?

Steve finishes with the patch pretty quickly - Eddie's hand hasn't even given out on him yet.

He only recently learned how to sew, with Eddie handing him a battered book from like the 40's and showing him which pages to follow in order to learn the simple stitch he needed. Given how Eddie's been well enough to not need help with literally everything, he's been enjoying finding things to do that he probably wouldn't have gotten around to even if he had made it out of the Upside Down unscathed.

There's a warmth that cradles Steve's heart when he gets to do shit like this, like right now as he looks over the vest to find another patch that could use some TLC, working slowly and carefully as he secures it.

He's got the vest folded and set on the table, starting to put supplies away, when Eddie sighs, tossing his pen onto the table.

"Alright, I'm calling it," he says, shutting his notebook with a heavy thud.

"Cool, you want to go for a drive?"

Another way Steve gets to take care of Eddie. He gets him out of the house and onto the roads, even if it's not the same as racing his van around the dusty streets.

--

Steve's back at Eddie's kitchen table, sitting across from him while he tries to resist the urge to kick out and nudge his legs just to be annoying.

The peace and quiet is nice here, but Eddie's frowning at his page and has been slowly gripping the pen tighter and tighter the deeper the furrow between his eyebrows gets. Steve's not necessarily worried but he thinks Eddie's hand is going to hurt a lot sooner if he doesn't loosen up his grip.

"Want to take a break with me?" He asks, setting down the book of crossword puzzles he'd brought in from the break room at work.

Eddie blinks up at him, slowly leaking tension like a wool sweater unraveling, eyebrows unpinching and his hand ungripping until he lets the pen fall to the table. Like he forgot Steve was here, instead lost in a miasma of whatever misery that had been dredged up from the sewers of his mind.

"I…" Eddie looks down at his notebook, shuts it slowly as he takes a breath. "Yeah, we should."

Steve gets up and stretches, letting out a hearty groan as he reaches for the ceiling, peeking out of the corner of the eye to watch Eddie watch the hemline of his shirt. It makes his stomach swoop and he tries to stretch a little further, see if he can bare another inch of skin.

"Let's sit outside," he says, heading for the door.

--

A quiet fifteen minutes on the porch, soaking in the warmth from the pre-summer sun, and Eddie seems to be back to normal, poking at Steve and teasing him for something or other - it kind of slips through his ears as he watches his mouth.

"So, what's got you stressed? Like, right now in particular," Steve asks, picking up his crossword book again as they settle in. He's not having much luck with it today, the answers just not coming to mind, but he's doing it in pen because he's decided not to care.

"It's stupid," Eddie sighs, leaning back in his seat to give him a bland look. Like he's too done with his own shit to even roll his eyes. "I broke my bracelet."

He lifts his hand to show off his naked wrist, wiggling it for emphasis that yeah, it really is a nude wrist, no bracelet to be found.

Steve tries to think about the bracelet instead of about nudity.

"How'd it break? Can I take a look at it?"

He finds himself with a new kind of puzzle, one that might be a lot easier than the mess he's created trying to find answers to facts in such unforgiving constraints.

Eddie's leather bracelet - the one that catches Steve's eye because it's also got a metal chain attached, and chains and Eddie are a combination that does something nice to his blood whenever he thinks about them for too long - is sitting injured in front of him on the table, with the Munson's toolbox on the chair beside him, open and picked through for something that could be useful.

"It's okay if you can't get it, I can probably find a new one or take it to a shop or something," Eddie's saying, like he's not fucking miserable without the weight of the thing.

Steve knows something about routines and pressure, thinks about how he always buys the same kind of jeans in the same size so he has consistency, and if he weren't sober he'd probably reach out and circle his fingers around Eddie's wrist to see if that helps.

"Yeah, just lemme try," he says, examining where one the snap had come out of the leather. Eddie had worn this through hell and then through literal hell, but otherwise it seemed like it was in good condition. The snap just was a point of failure that had gone through too much.

[myrandom-fandomlife]

Jatp

Alive!Luke x Alive!reader

Reader and Luke are dating but reader’s parents disapprove of him being in a band. So one night reader sneaks him into her bedroom and things get steamy/smutty

Ladies and gentlemen are you ready for a cabinet meeting the first (sorta) smut fic of this fandom huh

K here it is under the cut because it’s kinda a lot, lmk if you like!

Warnings: cursing, kind smut, needy Luke, horny Luke, fluffy Luke, friends to lovers, angst, bed sharing, morning wood, accidental spooning, lowkey cringe, all the goods

Word count: 1,536

You sighed, realizing you forgot your phone in Julie’s garage when you were already halfway to your house. Turning around, you retrace your steps and head back to the rehearsal area. You were there for your best friend, Luke, and his band’s rehearsal that day. You ended up sitting in on a lot of them because you loved watching the band play, they were amazing. Luke, most of all. He has a fire when he sings, and it’s probably the most attractive thing you have ever seen. 

You finally arrive back at the rehearsal spot, walking through the door and breathing in the familiar scent of Julie’s Bath and Body candles and a mix of the boys’ colognes. 

When you walked through the door, you weren’t expecting to see Luke softly strumming his acoustic on the couch. There’s a notebook in front of him, and he’s frantically writing what you assume are lyrics. He looks up when he hears you walk in, “Oh, h- hey.” He says quietly, and you immediately know that something is wrong. 

“Are you okay?” You ask, knowing you’re not going to get an answer at first. You find your phone on the coffee table, pocket it, and sit down next to him. 

“Yeah. Fine.” You see him write down another note in his song book in front of him, a song titled ‘Unsaid Emily’ and you know it’s about his mom.

“Luke,” you look at him with knowing eyes, hoping he will just let you in. 

“I-” his voice cracks, “I got into a fight with my mom about the band again, and I don’t know if they want me there anymore.” 

His eyes fill with tears, and you pull him into you. His face is buried in your shoulder, tears falling freely now. You sit there in silence for a while, letting him cry and holding him. 

When the tears have slowed to a stop he sits up off you with a watery smile, “Thank you, and I’m sorry for ruining your shirt,” he laughs a little.

“There’s your smile,” you grin because he’s just so pretty. “We’ll sort things out with your parents, I promise, okay? In the meantime, you can stay with me.”

His face goes red, “L-like in your room?” 

“Well yeah, my bed is pretty big and I can’t have you sleeping on this old couch” You laugh, feeling heat crawl up your neck because did you really just tell Luke Patterson to sleep in your bed?

“You want me to sleep with you?” His face gets even redder- which you didn’t think was possible- and he immediately retracts that, “N-not that I don’t want to sleep with you, I do, but not like that, not that I wouldn’t sleep with you-” 

“Luke,” you cut him off feeling more heat rise to your cheeks at his words, “if you’re that concerned, I will sleep on the floor.” 

“No!” You jump at his small outburst, “I mean, I’m not making you sleep on the floor in your own house.”

“Great, then it’s settled. We sleep in my bed. But, you can’t be seen by my parents.” 

“I’ve gotten great at sneaking around parents, how do you think I change clothes?” 

You snort and grab his hand, pulling him off the couch. “C’mon dork, it’s almost 11, and I need to be home by 11:30.”

On the walk home you discuss how he can sneak home and grab a bag of clothes to keep at your house. 

~~~~

The first week of him staying goes well, just a lot of blushing and awkward comments. Nothing that can’t be survived. 

It’s on Thursday of the next week that you wake up to notice two things. You are completely wrapped in Luke’s arms, which is definitely NOT how you fell asleep. And, there‘s a poke at your back that you don’t think is one of Alex’s drum sticks. A shiver goes down your spine and you feel your body heat up a little at the thought. Your alarm goes off about two minutes later, waking Luke. 

He groggily opens his eyes, “Oh, hey there princess,” he smirks at your scowl in response to the nickname he started calling you when he learned that you needed at least 6 pillows to sleep. 

He doesn’t seem to register your position or his situation for another minute. You can pinpoint the exact moment it hits him because his eyes go wide and he jumps so hard he falls off of your bed. 

You start to laugh at his antics, when your mom knocks on your door, “Everything okay in there sweetie?” You hear her call.

“Yeah, yeah. I just tripped,” you huff out a laugh and she seems to buy it because you hear her retreating footsteps. 

“So, uhm,” Luke clears his throat.

“I’m gonna go get ready,” you cut him off, grabbing some clothes quickly and heading for the bathroom across the hall. 

It’s not until you reach the bathroom and you’re halfway through getting dressed that you realized you grabbed Luke’s Sunset Curve shirt by mistake. You decide to make the most of it, tying it up so it’s not so big on you and leaves a small patch of skin showing between the top of your ripped jeans and the bottom of the t-shirt. 

You walk back into your room, and Luke is sitting on your bed, waiting. Your mom and dad have left for work by now, so he wasn’t worried about being caught. 

When you enter, he looks up and his mouth drops open. His eyes trail up your body, stopping at the exposed skin on your stomach, then up to your eyes. His face is red as a cherry, yours most likely matching. He clears his throat, “Is tha- is that my shirt?” 

You meet his eyes, darker than usual, “Yeah, I hope that’s okay. I accidentally grabbed it and didn’t have time to come back and find another.” 

“No, no. It’s completely fine.” He can’t take his eyes off you all day, and his face keeps looking like his brain short circuited whenever he sees you. According to Julie, at least. 

~~~~

That night, you decide to just untie his shirt and wear it with shorts as pajamas, hair in a messy bun. Luke crawls through your window while you’re doing homework and when he sees you his jaw literally drops again, “Holy shit.”

“What now, Luke?” You sigh, trying to get some of your calculus done. You haven’t been able to focus lately, head full of fantasies with a certain messy-headed, puppy-eyed, brunette. 

Something in him snaps because grabs your books and sets them on the ground with a surprising amount of care. He gets on your bed, arms on either side of you. 

“You really don’t know what you’re doing to me? God, Y/N, you’re driving me crazy. First you invite me to stay in your bed with you, which is so sweet of you. But then you go and prance around in tiny shorts and a tank top every night. Then this morning you walk in here wearing my shirt and think I’m not going to get turned on? Especially when I’ve been in love with you, basically since middle school. Then this? You might not know it, but you’ve been teasing me since the second you got here. So please, please let me kiss you because I don’t think I can go another second when you look like that.” 

You blink, trying to take in his speech, “Wait, like what?” You question, still feeling insecure. 

“Like an absolute angel, with my shirt on and tiny shorts, and your hair pulled up like that. Oh my god, you’re so gorgeous.” 

Your breath hitches for a second, realizing everything he just said. Then you grab him by the neck of his shirt and kiss him hard. 

He enthusiastically kisses back. You lay back on the bed and he follows, arms on either side of your head. 

He starts kissing down your neck, and you moan, grateful for your parents being out tonight. 

“Luke, no marks please.”

He leans back and smiles at you, “Too late for that one, princess.” Then goes to make another, before you pull him up a little so you can at least give him a hickey too.

His breath speeds up and you smile wickedly, “Now we‘re even.”

He pulls you back to his lips and starts pretty much attacking your mouth, biting your bottom lip occasionally. You pull back again, only to kiss under his ear, hand sliding under his shirt to splay across his toned stomach. His hips buck into yours in reaction, gasping at the feeling. 

You mirror his movement, making him groan, “You’re gonna be the death of me.” 

Both of your hips are rolling against each other, and you pull his face back down to yours, kissing his swollen lips again. 

Your hands move to the top of his jeans and he pulls away from your mouth again, “Are you sure you want to do this?” 

“Absolutely,” you smile at the boy in front of you, “Oh, and, I’m in love with you too.”

tags (everyone who responded to my post about this request or I think would want to be tagged): @lukessimp @thatfandomgirl14 @lukes-orange-beanie @spiidergirlsworld @charminggirl-cs @peresphoncs @lovesanimals @hoodpankow @midnightmagicmusings

[makeroomforthejolyghost]

In Search of Lost Screws (RQBB '21)

Here at last is my entry for the 2021 Rusty Quill Big Bang!

Fandom: The Magnus Archives Rating: T Word count: ~30k Warnings: Chronic Illness, Mild Body Horror, Internalized Ableism, Canon-Typical Spiders, Mention of Canon-Typical Suicidal Ideation, Alcohol Other tags: Cane-user Jon, EDS Jon, Canon-compliant, Season 5, Set in 180-181 (Upton Safehouse period) Characters: Jon Sims, Martin Blackwood, Mikaele Salesa (secondary), Annabelle Cane (secondary) Relationships: Jon/Martin Summary: While staying at Upton House, Jon and Martin accidentally break their bedroom’s doorknob, and can’t get back into the room until they fix it. Meanwhile Jon tries not to break into literal pieces without the Eye, and also to pretend he’s having a good time as he and Martin lunch with Annabelle, parry gifts from Salesa, and quarrel about whether Jon’s okay or not. He's fine! It's just that the apocalypse runs on dream logic, and chronic pain feels worse when you're awake. Excerpt:

“Have I mentioned how weird it is you’re the one who keeps asking me this stuff?” “I’m sorry. I’m trying to help? I just…” Jon closed his eyes, which itched with the warehouse’s dust, and rubbed their lids with an index finger. “I can’t seem to corral my thoughts here.” “Don’t worry about it. It’s actually kind of fun, it’s just—I’m so used to being the sidekick,” Martin laughed. “Besides, I miss my eldritch Google.” “Should I go back out there, ask the Eye about it, then come back?” Another laugh, this one less awkward. “No. That won’t work, remember? This place is a ‘blind spot,’ you said.” The words in inverted commas he said with a frown and in a deeper voice. “Right, right. I forgot,” Jon sighed. He lowered himself to the floor and examined the finger he’d felt snap back into place when he let go his cane. During the five seconds he’d allowed himself to entertain it, the idea of heading back out there had excited him a little. A few minutes to check on Basira, verify what Salesa had told them about his life before the change, make sure the world hadn’t somehow ended twice over. Give himself a few minutes’ freedom of movement, for that matter. Out there he could run, jump, open jars, pick up full mugs of tea without worrying a screw in his hand would come loose and make him drop them. He could stand up as quickly as he thought the words, I think I’ll stand up now, without his vision going dark. God, and even if it did, it wouldn’t matter! He would just know every tripping hazard and every look on Martin’s face, without having to ask these clumsy human eyes to show them to him. “Honestly, it’d almost feel worth it to go back out there just to formulate a plan to find them. At least I can think out there.” “Hey.” Martin elbowed him slightly in the ribs. Jon fought with himself not to resent the very gentleness of it. “I think I’ll come up with the plan for once, thanks. Some of us can think just fine here.” Was it just because of Hopworth that Martin’s elbow barely touched him? Or because Martin feared that Jon would break in here, in a way he’d learnt not to fear out there?

Huge thanks to @pilesofnonsense for hosting this event; to @connanro for beta-reading; and to @silmapeli for their amazing illustration, whose own post you can find here.

If you prefer, you can read this fic instead on Ao3. I won't link it directly, since Tumblr has trouble with external links, but if you google the title and add "echinoderms" (my Ao3 handle), it should come up!

Crunch. “Oh god. Shit! Oh god, oh no—”

“What’s wrong? What happened?”

A clatter, then a noise like a small rock scraping a large one. Jon’s heart plunged; halfway through his question he knew the answer.

“I—I broke it? Look, see, the whole thing just—take this.” Martin tore his hand out of Jon’s and dropped the severed doorknob in it instead. Then he dropped to the floor, diving head- and hands-first for the crack between it and the door as if that crack were a portal between dimensions. Jon closed his eyes and shook this image away, hoping when he opened them again he could focus on what was real.

He should have known this would happen from the moment they left for breakfast. Every time he’d opened that door its knob felt a little looser. Why hadn’t he warned Martin? Well, alright, he didn’t need powers to know that one. He just hadn’t thought of it. Been a bit preoccupied, after all. And even if he had thought of it, that was exactly the kind of conversation he’d been shying away from all week. Watch out for that doorknob; it’s a little loose, he would say, and yeah, probably Martin would answer, Oh, thanks. But there was a chance Martin would say instead, Why didn’t you tell me?—and all week Jon had obeyed an instinct to avoid prompting that question. All week he had made sure to enter and exit their room a few steps ahead of Martin, and hold the door open for him. Martin probably just saw it as Jon’s way of apologizing for their first few months in the Archives together, and once that thought occurred to him Jon had started to look at it that way himself. Maybe that’s why he’d forgot this time.

“Nooo-oooo, come on come on!”

“I don’t think you’ll fit,” Jon said, when he looked again and found Martin trying to wedge his fingers under the door.

(Martin used to leave Jon’s office door open behind him—perhaps absentmindedly, but more likely as a gesture of friendship and openness, which the Jon of that time would not suffer. Sasha and Tim, n.b., only left his door open on their way into his office, when they didn’t intend to stay long; Martin would leave it gaping even if he didn’t mean to come back. Every time Jon had sighed, pulled himself to his feet, and closed the door behind Martin, drawing out the click of its tongue in the latch. And a few times he’d closed the door in front of him, so as to exclude him from a conversation between Jon and Tim or Sasha that he, Martin, had tried to weigh in on from outside Jon’s office.)

“What are you looking for?”

“The—the screw, I saw it roll under there. It fell down on our side. Oh, my god, it was so close—if I’d reacted just half a second earlier, I could’ve?—shit.”

“Oh.” Jon huffed out a cynical laugh.

“I can’t believe it. I broke Salesa’s door! He welcomes us in to an oasis, and I break the door. Oh, god—I’ve broken an irreplaceable door, in a stately historic mansion!”

A few more demonstrative huffs of laughter. “No you didn’t.”

Martin paused. He didn’t get up, but did turn his head to look at Jon. “Yes I did. It’s right there in your hand, Jon—”

“I should’ve known. Check for cobwebs, Martin.”

“Oh come on.”

“This can’t be your fault—it’s far too neat. This is all part of Annabelle’s plan.”

“Do you know that?”

“W-well, no. I can’t, not here. I just—”

“Yeah, I don’t think so, Jon. Pretty sure it’s just an old doorknob.”

“Did you check for cobwebs?”

“Of course there are no cobwebs. A spider wouldn’t even have time to finish building the web before somebody wrecked it opening the door!”

“Then what’s that?” With the tip of his cane Jon tapped the floor in front of a clot of gray fluff in the seam between two walls next to the door, making sure not to let it touch the clot itself.

Martin rolled over to see where he was pointing, and almost stuck his elbow in it. “Ah. Gross. Gross, is what that is.”

“Christ, I should’ve known this would happen. I did know this would happen,” Jon reminded himself—“just ignored the warning signs because I can’t think straight here.”

“It doesn’t mean anything, Jon. It’s a corner. Spiders love corners. I mean, unless you can prove the corner of our doorway has more spiderwebs than anywhere else in the house—”

“Well, of course not. You forget she’s got her own corner somewhere, which we still haven’t found by the way—”

“So, what, you think Annabelle Cane lassoed the screw with a strand of cobweb.”

“Not literally? She could be sitting on the other side of the door with a magnet for all we know!”

Martin peered under the door again with an exasperated sigh. “She’s not.”

“Not now she’s heard us talking about her.”

God, what a delicate web that would be, if all he had to do to avoid the spider’s clutches was reach a door before Martin did. Perhaps if he’d knocked first that’d have saved him. Maybe Martin was right. How could Annabelle know him well enough to foresee this mistake? Most of the time he hated people opening doors for him, after all.

Why do people see someone with a cane and think, Only one free hand? How ever will he open the door!? They don’t do that for people with shopping bags—not ones his age, at least. Letting another person open a door for him felt to Jon like… defeat, somehow. Like admitting the dolce et decorum estness of this version of reality all nondisabled people seemed to live in where he couldn’t open doors. And that version of reality horrified him. Not so much the idea of being too weak to open them—that sounded merely annoying. Like knocking the sides of jar lids on tables and swearing, only with doors. He had beat his fists against enough Pull doors in his time to figure he could live with that. It was more the idea of becoming that way. Letting his door-opening muscles atrophy ‘til it became the truth.

But sometimes you just let a thing happen, and forget to hate it. That was the thing about pride. Sometimes your convictions and your habits stop fitting together—you believe Fuck this job with all your heart, but still tuck in your shirt when you come to the office. And then you fly back from America in borrowed clothes, and pop in at the Institute like that on your way to Gertrude’s storage unit, and that’s what changes your habits. Not the knowledge you can’t be fired; not your now-boyfriend’s plot to put your then-boss behind bars. A thirdhand t-shirt with a slogan on it about how to outrun bears.

On his way out this morning the doorknob had felt so loose in Jon’s hand he almost had told Martin about it. But Martin had been full of let’s-go-on-an-adventure-together-style chatter—like when they’d left Daisy’s safehouse, only, get this, without the dread of entering an apocalyptic wasteland—and listening to him put the door out of Jon’s mind before he’d had time to interject.

Their first day here—or at least, the first they spent awake—Jon had inadvertently taught Martin not to accept invitations from Salesa. The latter had bounded up after Martin’s lunch in linen shirt and whooshy shorts and was, to Martin’s then-unseasoned heart, impossible to deny. So Jon had spent thirty minutes on a creaky folding chair, lunging out of his seat on occasion to collect a ball one of the other two had hit wrong, and trying to keep Salesa’s too-bright white socks out of sight. He’d pretended he preferred to sit out, knowing Martin would worry if he tried to play. But he hadn’t done as good a job hiding his boredom as he thought. “Thanks for putting up with that. Sorry it went on so long,” Martin had said as they re-entered their bedroom. “I just couldn’t say no to him, you know? For such a cynical old man he’s got impressive puppy eyes.”

“It’s fine? You know me, I don’t mind… watching.”

“I just mean, I’m sorry you couldn’t play. How’s your leg, by the way? Er—both your legs, I guess.”

“It’s fine. They’re both fine. I didn’t want to play anyway, remember? I don’t know how.”

“Sure you don’t,” Martin replied, words tripping over a fond laugh.

“I don’t!”

“Come on, Jon. Everyone knows how to play ping-pong.”

Martin had turned down Salesa when he showed up the next day in khaki shorts and a pith helmet with three butterfly nets, without Jon’s having to say a word. More emphatically still did he turn him down when Salesa mentioned the house had an indoor pool, and offered to lend them both antique bathing suits like the one he had on, “Free of charge! A debtor is an enemy, after all, and in this new world I have no wish to make an enemy of” (sarcastic whisper, fingers wiggling) “the Ceaseless Watcher who rules it. I have nothing to hide from you,” he’d alleged, for the… third time that day, maybe? Each morning Jon resolved to count such references; he rarely missed one, as far as he knew, but kept forgetting how many he’d counted.

But Salesa was a salesman, and over time his efforts had grown more subtle. He stopped showing up already dressed for the activity he had in mind, and instead would drop hints at meals about all the fun things they could do if only they would let him show them. Martin loved how the winter sunlight caught, every afternoon around four, in the branches of a tree visible outside the window of their bedroom. “Ah, yes,” Salesa had agreed when he remarked on it one morning. “Turning it periwinkle and the golden green of champagne.” (He poured sparkling wine—the cheap stuff, he said, not real champagne—into an empty juice glass still lined with orange pulp. Over and over, without once overflowing. The oranges weren’t ripe enough to drink their juice plain yet, he said. But they’d still run out of juice first.) “If you think that’s beautiful”—he paused to swallow bubbles come up from his throat, waved his hand, shook his head. “No. On one tree, yes, it is beautiful. But on a whole orchard of bare trees in winter”—he nodded in the direction of Upton’s orchards—“the afternoon sun is sublime. You can see how the twigs shrink and shiver under its gaze; the grass rustles with a hitch in its breath as if it fears to be seen, but with each undulation a new blade flashes gold like a coin,” &c., &c.

“Wow. Sounds like you really got lucky, finding such a nice place to, uh. Sssset up camp?”

Jon knew Martin well enough to hear the judgment in his voice; if Salesa recognized it then he was an expert at pretending not to. “And it's only a two-minute walk away,” he’d said, instead of taking Martin’s bait. “It would be such a shame for my guests not to see it.”

“Oh, well. Maybe in a few days? It’s just, we’ve been outside nonstop for ages. It’s nice to be between four walls again. Besides, we don’t know the grounds as well as you do—and the border isn’t all that stable, you said? Right?”

“It is if you know how to follow it! I could accompany you—show you all the best sights, with no risk of wandering back out into the hellscape by mistake.”

“We’re just not really ready for that, I don’t think. Right, Jon?”

“Mm.”

“Are you sure? If it were me, a foray into a beautiful natural oasis would be just what I needed to convince myself that my peace—my sanctuary—is real.”

“If it is real,” Jon couldn’t stop himself from muttering.

Salesa remained impervious. “You would be surprised how difficult it is to feel fear in a place like that. I don’t think that is just the camera.”

“We‘ll think about it,” Martin conceded.

“Yes—you should both think about it. I am at your disposal whenever you change your mind.”

And so on that morning they had narrowly escaped. Would they had fared so well today. The problem was, on these early occasions Jon had interpreted Martin’s No thankses as being, well, Martin’s. But after a few more of Salesa’s sales pitches Jon began to second-guess that.

“Is it warm enough in here for you both?” Salesa had asked them last night at dinner. “I worry too much, perhaps. I only wish the place took less time to warm up in the morning. At breakfast time, in sunny weather like we've been having, I’ll bet you anything you like it’s warmer out there than in here.”

“It’s alright; we’re not too cold in the mornings either. Right, Jon?”

“Hm? Oh—no.”

“Perhaps we three could take breakfast out there, before the weather changes.”

“Ha—that’s right,” Martin had laughed. “I forgot you still had that out here. Weather changes. Brave new world, I guess.”

Salesa smirked and shrugged. “Well, braver than the rest of it.”

“R…ight. ‘We three,’ you said—so not Annabelle?”

“Mmmmno, probably not her. I have tried taking spiders outside before; they never seem to like it much.”

Nearly every day, here, Jon found a spider in their bathtub. The first time Martin had been with him. Martin had picked the thing up with his fingers and tried to coax it to leave out the window, but by the time he got there it’d crawled up his sleeve.

“Excuse me.”

Martin pulled back his own chair too and frowned up at him. “You okay?”

“Just needed the toilet.” He tried to arrange his mouth into a gentle smile. “Think I can do that on my own.”

The other two resumed their conversation the moment Jon left the dining room. Before the intervening walls muffled their voices Jon heard:

“I suppose that does sound pretty nice.”

“Pretty nice, you suppose? Martin, Martin—it’s a beautiful oasis! What a shame it will be if you leave this place having done no more than suppose about it.”

“It is a bit of a waste, I guess.”

“You wouldn’t need to sit on the ground, if that’s what concerns you. There are benches everywhere.”

He’d been just about to cross through a doorway and out of earshot when he froze, hearing his name:

“Oh, ha—not me, but, Jon might find that nice to know,” Martin said. “Thanks for.” And then silence.

Was that the whole reason he kept declining invitations to explore the grounds? To keep grass stains out of Jon’s trousers? Martin was the one who’d sat down on that godforsaken Extinction couch; why did he think—?

Not the point, Jon told himself as he sat on the toilet and set his forehead on the heels of his palms. He tried to watch the floor for spiders, but his eyes kept crossing. The point was that if—? If Martin was lying about wanting to stay inside—or, more charitably, if he was telling the truth but wanted that only because he thought Jon would have as dismal a time out in the garden as he had at ping-pong—then…?

He imagined holding hands with Martin while surrounded by green. Gravel crunching under their feet. Martin smiling, with sunlight caught in the strands of his hair that a slight breeze had blown upright.

“And if you get too warm,” he heard Salesa tell Martin, as he headed back into the dining room, “we can move into the shade of the pines! You know, they don’t just grow year-round? They also shed year-round. The floor under them is always carpeted in needles, so you need never get mud on your shoes.”

“Huh,” Martin laughed. “Never thought of it that way.”

“But of course there are benches there too,” Salesa added, his eyes flickering up to Jon.

As Jon hauled himself into his seat he asked, in a voice he hoped the strain made sound distracted ergo casual, “So, what, like a picnic, you mean.”

Not a fun picnic. Not very romantic, since their third wheel was the first to invite himself. Salesa neglected to mention how much wet grass they would have to trek through to get to his favorite spot; that there were benches everywhere didn’t matter since they couldn’t all three fit on one, so they ended up sat in the dirt after all—and n.b. it required a second trek to find a patch of dirt dry enough to sit on at this time of morning. Jon was so sick with fatigue by the time they sat down he could barely eat a thing, though he did dispatch most of Martin’s thermos of tea. His hands shook and buzzed, and felt clumsy, like they’d fallen asleep; he ended up getting more jam in the dirt than on Salesa’s soggy, pre-buttered toast. He felt as though the rest of his flesh had melted three feet to the left of his eyes, bones and mind. Eventually he elected to blame his dizziness on the sun. When his forehead and upper lip started to prickle, threatening sweat, he stood up and announced, “It’s too hot here.”

Or tried to stand, anyway. One leg had oozed just far enough out of its joint that it buckled when he tried to stand; indigo and fuchsia blotches overtook his sight. He pitched forward, free arm pinwheeling—might have fallen into the boiled eggs if Martin hadn’t caught him. “Jon! Are you okay?”

God, why was Martin so surprised? This must have been the fifth or sixth time he had asked him that question since they left the house. One time Jon had bent down to brush dirt off his leg and Martin had thought he was scratching his bandages. So he asked him were they itchy, had they started to peel, did they need changing again, were they cutting off his circulation (no, not yet, not yet, and no). How could someone be so attentive to imaginary ills and yet miss the real ones? At another point, an enormous blue dragonfly had buzzed past, and instead of Did you see that? Martin had turned around to ask Are you okay. Now, on this fifth or sixth occasion, for a few seconds of pure, nonsensical rage he wondered how Martin dared stoop to such emotional blackmail. Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies, Jon thought; aloud he snorted, as in malicious laughter. His throat felt thick, like he might cry.

“Fine, I’m just—sick of it here.” He pulled his arm free of Martin’s and overbalanced. Didn’t fall, just. Staggered a little.

“Should we move to the shade? We could try to find those famous pines, I guess.”

Jon sank back to the ground. “What about Salesa? Do we just leave him here?”

“Oh. Right,” said Martin. Salesa had eaten most of Jon’s share, and drunk both Jon’s and Martin’s shares of wine. Now he lay asleep in the dirt, head pillowed on one elbow, the other hand’s fingers curled round the stem of a glass still half full. “I guess, yeah? I mean he seems to know the place pretty well, so. It’s not like he’ll get lost out here.”

“We might, though.”

Martin sighed. “True. Should we just head back to our room, then? Maybe get you a snack.”

“Not hungry.”

“A statement, I meant.”

“Oh. Alright, sure,” Jon made himself say. “That sounds like—sure.”

So then they’d headed back, and only Martin had a free hand, and Jon was too tired by that point to distinguish his mind’s vague warning not to let Martin open the door from his usual pride on that subject—and that kind of pride never does seem as important when it’s your boyfriend offering. So he’d dismissed the warning and, well, look what happened.

When he got up from his knees and turned round Martin frowned at Jon. “Are you alright? You’re sat on the floor.”

Jon frowned, too—at the seam between the floor and the hallway’s opposite wall. “I was tired.”

“You hate sitting on the floor.”

“I sat on the ground out there,” Jon said, with a shrug that morphed into a nod in the direction they’d come from.

“Yeah, under duress,” Martin scoffed. “In the Extinction domain you wouldn’t even sit on the couch.”

There was something odd in Martin’s bringing that up now; somewhere, in the back of his mind, Jon could hear a pillar of thought crumbling. But he lacked the energy to find out which of his mind’s structures now stood crooked. “I think this floor is a lot cleaner than that couch,” he said instead, with an incredulous laugh.

“Even with the cobwebs?” Martin didn’t wait for Jon’s answering nod. “Fair enough,” he said, one hand on the back of his neck as he twisted it back and forth. He dropped the hand, sighed, cracked his knuckles. Looked at Jon again. “Yeah, okay. Guess we don’t have to deal with this right now. Let’s find you another bedroom first.”

“Maybe that’s just what Annabelle wants,” Jon muttered, deadpanning so he wouldn’t have to decide whether this was a joke.

Martin snorted. “I’ll risk it.”

Find was a generous way to put it; in fact there was another bedroom only two doors down. By the time Jon got his legs unfolded he could hear the squeak of a door swinging open down the hall. When he looked up, Martin said as their eyes met, “Nope—bed’s too small. You good there ‘til I find one that’ll work?”

“Seems that way.” Jon tried to smile, relief warring with his usual If you want something done right urge. In the quiet moment after Martin neglected to close that door and before he swung open the next one, Jon made himself add, “Thank you.”

“Of course. Oh wow,” Martin said of the next room, in whose doorway he’d stopped. “This one’s a lot nicer than ours. It’s got a balcony. Wallpaper’s pretty loud though. D’you think that’ll keep you awake?” Laughingly, “I know you don’t close your eyes to sleep anymore, so.”

“How loud is ‘pretty loud’?”

“Sort of a… dark, orangey red, with flowers?”

Jon shrugged. “I won’t see it at night.”

“Oh, god. I hope it doesn’t come to that. Should we do this one, then?” Instead of closing the door, Martin swung it the rest of the way open, then strode back to Jon’s side of the corridor, arm already outstretched. Jon managed to stand before Martin could reach him, but, as it had done outside, his vision went dark for a few seconds. He felt Martin’s hand on his shoulder before he could see his frown.

“You alright?” Martin asked yet again.

“Yes. I’m fine.”

“It’s just—you don’t usually blink anymore, except for effect.”

“Oh.”

Out there, none of the watchers blinked. At first, soon after the change, Martin had asked Jon to try, “Because it just feels so weird. Like I’m under constant scrutiny. Literally constant, Jon. You get why that feels weird, right?” (Jon had agreed—sincerely, though he wondered why Martin needed to ask that question in a world whose central conceit was that being watched felt weird. He’d also chosen not to point out that his scrutiny, like that of Jonah Magnus, was not, technically, constant, since he did sometimes look at other things. But he still rehearsed this retort in his mind every time he remembered that conversation.) Turned out it was hard to time your blinks properly when your eyeballs didn’t need the moisture. He’d forget about it for who knew how long, then remember and overcompensate by blinking so often Martin at first thought he was exaggerating it on purpose as a joke. It got old fast, in Jon’s opinion, but even after he learnt Jon didn’t intend it as a joke Martin still found it funny. “You’re doing it again,” he’d say every time, shoulders wiggling. Eventually Jon had asked him,

“You know you don’t blink anymore either, right?”

“Oh god, don’t I?” When Jon shook his head, with a smile whose teeth he tried to keep covered, Martin squeezed his own eyes shut and pushed their lids back and forth with his fingers. “Ugh—gross!” And for the next half hour he’d done the whole forget-to-blink-for-five-minutes-then-do-it-ten-times-in-as-many-seconds routine, too. After that they had both agreed to pretend not to notice the lack of blinking. Jon figured he couldn’t hold it against Martin that he’d broken this rule though, since Jon himself had broken it first, on their first morning here:

“You blinked,” he had informed Martin as he watched him stir sugar into his tea. Martin, who had not only blinked but broken eye contact to make sure he dropped the sugar cube in the right place, replied with a scoff,

“Didn’t know it was a staring contest.”

“No, I mean—”

“Oh! I blinked!”

“…Right,” Jon said now. “I’m—it’s nothing.”

Martin sighed. He closed his eyes, but probably rolled them under their lids. Jon used the inspection of their new room as an excuse to look away, but took in nothing other than the presence of a large bed and the flowered wallpaper Martin had warned him about.

“‘Kay. If you’re sure.”

Taking a seat at the foot of the bed, Jon looked down at his grass-stained knees and prepared himself to ask, Look, does it matter? I’m about to lie down anyway, so, functionally speaking, yes, I am fine.

“So, you’ll be okay here for a bit while I go figure out what to do about the door?”

“Sure.”

“Okay. I’ll come check on you as soon as I know anything, yeah?”

“Of course.”

“Although—if you’re asleep, should I wake you up?”

“Yes,” Jon replied before Martin had even got the last word out. He heard a short, emphatic exhale, presumably of laughter. “Wait—how would you know, anyway?”

“Oh. Yeah, good point.”

Jon looked down at his shoes. His fingers throbbed in anticipation, but he figured he should spare Martin the horror of getting grass stains on a second bedroom’s counterpane. The first shoe he pulled off without untying, since he could step on its heel with the other one. But he had to bend over to reach the second one’s incongruously bright white laces, biting his lip when he felt his right femur poke past the bounds of its socket as between a cage’s bars. On his way back up his vision quivered like a heat mirage, but didn’t go dark. He scooched himself up to the head of the bed. Made sure to face the ceiling rather than the red wallpaper.

A few months into his tenure in the Archives, Jon had discovered that if you close your eyes at your desk, even just for a minute, you can trick your whole body into thinking you’ve been gentle with it. But that trick didn’t work anymore. Out there, this made sense; interposing his eyelids between himself and the world’s new horrors couldn’t push them out of his consciousness, any more than it had helped to close the curtains at Daisy’s safehouse. Martin’s sentimental attachment to sleep had baffled him, as had his insistence on closing his eyes even though they’d pop back open as soon as his body went limp. Here, though, Jon sympathized with Martin’s wish. He too missed that magic link between closed eyes and sleep. Probably he should just be grateful for this rest from knowing other people’s suffering? The thing he had wished to close his eyes against was gone here. But now that most of his bodily wants had synced up with his actions again, it felt… wrong, like a tangible loss, that he couldn’t assert It’s time for rest now by closing his eyelids. That it took effort to keep them joined. Jon even found himself missing the crust that used to stick them together on mornings after long sleep.

That should have been his first sensation on waking, their first morning here. After seventy-one hours his eyelids should’ve been practically super-glued together. Instead, they’d apparently stayed open the entire time. It wasn’t uncomfortable—he hadn’t woken up with them smarting or anything. Hadn’t noticed one way or the other; after all, when not forced awake by an alarm, one rarely notices the moment one opens one’s eyes in the morning. He just didn’t like knowing that he looked the same waking and sleeping. It didn’t make sense. The dreams hadn’t followed him here, so what was he watching? He could see nothing but the ceiling.

He rolled over, hoping to look out the window. Doors, technically. Between gauzy curtains he could make out only wrought-iron bars and the tops of a few trees. A nice view, he could tell; when he got his second wind he was sure he’d find it pretty. For now he wondered how much more energy debt he had put himself in by rolling over.

Drowning in debt? We can help!

How had he not foreseen how horrible it would be inside the Buried? The inability to move or speak without pain and loss of breath—“Just imagine,” he muttered sarcastically to the empty air, as though addressing his past self. “What might that be like.” He’d lived for years with the weight of exhaustion on his back—heavier at that time than it’d ever been before. And he knew how it felt to risk injury with every movement. What an odd frame of mind he must have lived in then, to think his magic healing wouldn’t let him get scratched up down there. Had he thought it would protect him from fear? I must save my friend from this horrible place! But also, If I get stuck there forever, no big deal; I deserve it, after all. There seemed something so arrogant about that now, that idea that deserving pain could somehow mitigate it. That because monsterhood made him less innocent, it would make him less of a victim. How could he have thought that, when he’d known pulling her out of there didn’t mean he forgave her? He should apologize to Daisy for—

Right. Nope, never mind.

He began to regret rolling over. If he planned to stay on his side like this for long, he shouldn’t leave his shoulder and hip dangling. He could already feel their joints beginning to slide apart. But his body had started to drift to that faraway place from which no grievance ever seemed urgent enough to recall it—neither pain now nor the threat of greater pain later. Nor the three cups of tea he’d drunk.

After he and Martin had fallen asleep on Salesa’s doorstep, Jon had vague memories of being led up the stairs to their bedroom, though he remembered neither being shaken awake nor getting into bed. Just a seventy-odd-hour blank spot, followed by pain of a kind he had thought he’d left behind.

It wasn’t that watchers couldn’t feel pain, after the change. They could, but it was like how real-world pain felt through the veil of a dream. Your actions didn’t affect it as directly as they should. In the Necropolis Martin had asked him, “How exactly does a leg wound make you faster?” If he’d had the courage to answer, at the time he would have said something about his own wounds not seeming important now that he had to tune out those of the whole world. That wasn’t it though, he knew now. Pain just worked differently out there. When Daisy attacked him, it had hurt—but the wound she left him hadn’t protested movement. Not until he and Martin entered the grounds of Upton House. You could bear weight on an injured leg just fine out there, because it wouldn’t hurt more when you stood on it than otherwise.

Sometimes, when his joints slid apart while he slept, he could still feel it in his dreams. Up until 13th January 2016 (for months after which date he dreamt Naomi Herne’s graveyard and nothing else), his sleeping mind used to craft scenarios to explain its own pain and panic to itself. Running from an exploding grenade, staying awake through surgery, that sort of thing. But over the years, as the sensation grew familiar, his dreams about it became less urgent, their anxieties more mundane. He’d shout for help from passing cars, then feel like he’d lied to the stranger who opened their door to him when it turned out running to get in the car hurt no more than standing still.

Even before the change, it’d been ages since he’d had to worry about that. Since the coma, Beholding had fixed all these accidents, the way it’d fixed the finger he tried to chop off. They wouldn’t reset with a clunk, the way they had when he used to fix them by hand. It was more like his body reverted to a version the Eye had saved before the moment of injury. When he tried to pull open a Push door he’d hear the first clunk, followed by about half a second of pain, then after a gentle burst of static—nothing. Just a door handle between his fingers that needed pushing. If he tripped on uneven pavement he might still go down, but his ankle wouldn’t hurt when he stood back up, and the scrapes on his hands would heal before he could inspect them. Here, though, in this place the Eye couldn’t see, Jon lacked such protections. He didn’t have the dreams either? And that was more than worth it as a tradeoff, he was sure. But it still smarted to remember that pain had been his first sensation waking up in an oasis. Not birdsong, not sunshine striped across linen, not the warm weight of another person next to him. He knew he’d come back to a place ruled by physics rather than fear because he’d woken up with gaps between his bones.

“Jon? Are you awake?”

“Hm? Oh. Yes.”

“Cool.” Martin sat down on what felt like the corner of bed nearest the door. “I think I know how to do this now.”

“How to put the doorknob back on?”

“Yeah. God, I still can’t believe it twisted clean off in my hand like that. With no warning—like, zero to sixty in less than a second. I mean, can you believe our luck? The thing’s perfectly functional, and then suddenly it just—comes off!”

“Er…”

“Oh, god, sorry—I didn’t mean—”

“What? Oh—hrkgh”—Jon rolled around to face Martin, hoping the little yelp he let out when his leg slopped back into joint would sound like a noise of exasperation rather than pain. He found Martin sat looking down at the severed doorknob which poked up from between his knees. “No, Martin, of course not, I know—”

“Still, I’m sorry about—”

“No, it’s—it’s fine?”

On that first morning, Jon had managed to get his limbs screwed back on properly without making enough noise to wake up Martin. He’d limped out of their room and down the hall, pushing doors open until he’d found a toilet, whereupon he sat to pee and marveled that the flush and sink still worked. It was bright enough inside that he hadn’t thought to try the light switch on his way in—too busy contorting his neck to look for the sun out the window. On his way out, though, he flicked it on, then off. Then on again and off again. How could it work, when there was no power grid the house could connect to? Automatically Jon tried to search his mind’s Eye for a domain based in a power plant or something. Right, no, of course—that power did not work here.

When he got back to their room he found Martin awake. “Oh—morning,” Jon told him with a shy laugh.

“It—it is morning, isn’t it,” Martin marveled. Then he asked if Jon could hand him the map sticking out of his backpack’s side pocket. (What good are maps when the very Earth logic no longer applied here, after all. But Martin was rubbish at geography, so Jon still had to provide the You Are Here sign with his finger for him.) Jon grabbed the map on his way back to bed, and was about to tell him about the miracles of plumbing and electricity he’d just witnessed—not to mention the bathtub he’d admired on the long trek from toilet to sink—when Martin frowned and asked, “Why are you limping?”

“Am I?” Jon had shrugged, then cleared his throat when the motion made his shoulder audibly click. “Daisy, must be.”

“No, Jon. That’s the wrong leg.”

He slid both legs out of sight under the blankets and handed Martin the map. “It’s nothing. It just… came off a bit. Last night."

Before Jon could add It’s fixed now though, Martin said, “I’m sorry, what?”

Jon had assumed Martin understood the kind of thing he meant, but that he’d misled him as to its degree—i.e., that Martin objected to his talking about a full hip dislocation like it mattered less than what happened with Daisy. So he’d said,

“No, sorry, not all the way off—”

And Martin just laughed. “What, and you taped it back up like—like an old computer cable?”

“Sort of, yeah? It—it does still work, more or less.”

“Right, of course. No need to get a new one, yet; you can just limp along with this one. No big deal! Just make sure you don’t pull too hard on it.”

“I mean.” By now he could sense Martin’s sarcasm, his bitterness; that didn’t mean he knew what to do with them. So he'd said with a huff of laughter, “I can’t just send for a new one. That’s—that’s not how bodies work. You have to….” Wait for it to sort itself out was the natural end to that sentence. But he hadn’t been sure he could say that without opening a can of worms.

“Wait so… what actually happened? Are you okay?”

Only at this point had Jon recognized Martin’s response as one of incomprehension. What happened exactly? he had asked, too, when Jon told him the ice-cream anecdote. Did no one ever listen when you told them about these things?

“Nothing. Never mind. It’s fine.”

“Oh come on.”

“It’s. Fine! It’s not important.”

And then for days Martin kept alluding to it. Like some kind of reminder to Jon that he hadn’t opened up, disguised as a joke. Every time something came out or fell down he’d mutter, “So it came off, you might say.” Eventually they’d fallen out over it, and now neither one could come near the phrase without this song and dance.

“Don’t worry about it, Martin,” Jon assured him now; “I’m over it.”

“…Uh huh. Well, putting that to one side for the moment—I think I can fix this?”

“Oh? Great!—”

“—Yeah! It should be simple, actually. I think I just need to replace the screw that fell out? I mean, there doesn’t seem to be anything actually broken, just, you know,” with an awkward laugh, “the screw lives on the wrong side of the door now. But if we can just put a new one in the door should be fine.” He looked to Jon as if for help plotting their next steps.

“I—I don’t, um. Think we have one.”

Martin’s shoulders dropped; the corners of his mouth tightened. “Yeah, I know we don’t have one, Jon. I just mean, we need to find out where Salesa keeps them.”

“Oh!” Jon replied, in a brighter tone. Then he registered what this meant. “Oh. Right.”

“Y…eah.”

“Any idea where to look?”

They checked what seemed to Martin the most obvious place first. Salesa used one of the ground-floor drawing rooms as a sort of repository for everything he’d left as yet unpacked—all the practical items he hadn’t been able to repurpose as toys, plus some antiques he’d been too fond of or too nervous to part with. Two nights ago, Salesa had noticed the state of Jon’s and Martin’s shoelaces, and insisted they let him replace them with some from this little warehouse. “Please, come with me; I’ve nothing to hide. You can have a look around, see if I have anything that might help you on your journey….” As he said this he’d counted to two on his fingers, as though listing off attractions they should be sure not to miss.

Jon watched Martin perk right up at this. All week Salesa had kept pleading with them to tell him about any luxuries they had wanted while touring the apocalypse, so he could try to find something to fulfill those wants. “Well, I—I don’t know about luxuries,” Martin had ventured the third time this came up. “But I do think we might run out of bandages soon, so. If you’ve any extra?”

“Of course, of course, yes, how prudent of you, always with one eye on the future. Must be the Beholding in you.” (Neither Jon nor Martin knew what to say to that.) “But there will be plenty of time for that. I meant something for now, while you are here, while you don’t need to think of things like that.” And sure enough, each time Salesa had come to them with presents from his little warehouse (booze, butterfly nets, more booze, antique bathing suits, &c.), he’d forgot about Martin’s homely request for gauze and tape. Martin insisted they change the dressing on Jon’s leg every day; by now they’d run through the bandages he brought from Daisy’s safehouse. So when Salesa suggested they accompany him to his repository, Martin said,

“Sure, yeah! That sounds really helpful.” (Salesa clutched his heart as though he’d waited all his life to hear such praise.) “Er. The things in your warehouse, though. They’re not L—um.” Leitners, Martin had almost called them. “You don’t think they’ll develop any… strange properties, when we leave here, do you?”

“Of course not,” Salesa had answered, stopping and turning all the way around in the corridor to face Martin with a frown. “Martin, I promise, only my antiques are cursed—and even then, not all of them.” He’d resumed the walk toward his little warehouse, but turned around again and held up a hand, as if to preempt a question. “There are, indeed, yes, some items out there, touched by the Corruption, which can pass their infection on to other things they come in contact with. But, no,” he went on, his voice fighting off a joyous laugh, “no, the only item I have like that does almost the opposite.”

“Oh.”

Salesa nodded, but did not turn around this time. “Strange little thing. It’s an antique syringe that, so long as you keep it near you, repels the Crawling Rot. I like to think it helped dispatch that insect thing Annabelle chased away. But if you try to get rid of it,” he added in a darker tone, “all the sickness, the bugs, the smells, even stains on your clothes—everything disgusting that it’s kept away—they remember who you are, and they hunger for you more than anyone else. The man who sold it to me….” He shook his head ruefully, hand now resting on the door.

“Was eaten alive by mosquitoes,” Jon muttered.

“Something like that, yes,” said Salesa, as he jerked open the door.

Jon hated the way his and Martin’s shoes looked now. He hadn’t had to put new laces on a pair of old, dirty shoes since he was a kid, and the contrast looked wrong—the same way starched collars and slicked-back hair on kids look wrong. Jon’s trainers were gray, their laces a slightly darker gray, so these white ones wouldn’t have looked quite right even without the dirt. Martin’s had once been white, but their original laces were broad and flat, while these were narrow and more rounded. The replacements’ thin, clinical white lines looked something between depressing and menacing. Too much like spider web; too much like the stitching on Nikola’s minions. When they came undone on this morning’s walk, Jon had made sure to tread on them in the mud a few times before tying them back up. Poor Dr. Thompson’s syringe must have retained some of its power here, though, because they still looked pristine. Jon wondered if it had no effect on spiders, or if without it this whole place would have been draped in cobwebs.

Martin seemed pleased with their haul, though. Despite Salesa’s amnesia on the subject, his little warehouse held more plasters, gauze, medical tape, antibacterial ointment, alcohol wipes—the list went on—than one man could ever use. In a strange, raw moment Jon liked to pretend he hadn’t seen, Salesa had wrung his hands as his eyes passed over this hoard. His lip had quivered. He’d practically begged Martin to take the whole lot away with them. “What harm will come to me here? And if it does come, what good will it do, protecting one lonely old man from skinned knees and paper cuts? The two of you—where you are going—the gravity of your mission!” At this point he’d seized one of each their hands. “Everything I have that even might help, you must take it. Please.”

“I—yeah,” Martin stuttered. “This is—really helpful, yeah. We’ll take as much as we can fit in our bags.”

Salesa had let go their hands by this point, and crossed his arms. “Right, yes, bags, of course, the bags. Are you sure you don’t want my truck?”

“Oh, well, thanks, but I don’t think either of us knows how to—”

“To drive a truck?” Salesa uncrossed his arms and began to reach for Martin’s shoulder. “I could teach you—”

“It won’t work without the camera anyway,” pointed out Jon. “We have to walk.”

Martin sighed. ”That too. ‘The journey will be the journey,’ as Jon keeps saying.”

“I said that once,” Jon protested.

No such success on this return visit. They found a small pile of miscellaneous screws, one of which Martin said would work (though it was the wrong color, he alleged, and had clearly been meant for some other purpose), but the screwdriver they needed remained elusive. “I mean, I can’t be sure they’re not in here—the place is as bad as Gertrude’s storage unit. We could spend all day here and still not be sure—”

“Let’s not do that,” said Jon, pushing an always-warm candlestick with a pool of always-melted wax out of Martin’s way with his sleeve for what felt like the hundredth time.

“No arguments here.”

“Where to next?”

“I guess it makes sense that they’re not here. This room’s all stuff Salesa brought, and why would he bring home-repair stuff when he didn’t even know where he’d wind up.”

“Except for the screws.”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t look like he keeps screws here, remember? There’s just a couple random ones lying around, like he forgot to put them away or something.”

Jon peered between the clouds in his mind, trying to catch sight of Martin’s thought train. “So you’re saying the screwdriver should be…?”

“Somewhere less… frequented, I guess? They’ll probably still be wherever they were when Salesa found the place.”

“Not somewhere that was open to the public, then.”

Martin sighed. ”I mean yeah, probably. Not that that narrows it down much.”

“Somewhere… banal, less posh.”

“Not sure how much less posh you can get than this place. But yeah, I guess. Have I mentioned how weird it is you’re the one who keeps asking me this stuff?”

“I’m sorry. I’m trying to help? I just…” Jon closed his eyes, which itched with the warehouse’s dust, and rubbed their lids with an index finger. Odd that his eyes weren’t immune to dust, when leaving them open for seventy straight hours hadn’t bothered them. And why didn’t the syringe keep dust away? In Dr. Snow’s day (not far removed from Smirke’s, n.b.), Jon seemed to recall that dust had been used as a euphemism for all waste, including the human kind Dr. Snow had found in the cholera water. It was like how people today use filth—hence the word dustbin. And hadn’t Elias once called the Corruption Filth? Jon opened his eyes and watched Martin swirl back to full color. “I can’t seem to corral my thoughts here,” he concluded.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s actually kind of fun, it’s just—I’m so used to being the sidekick,” Martin laughed. “Besides, I miss my eldritch Google.”

“Should I go back out there, ask the Eye about it, then come back?”

Another laugh, this one less awkward. “No. That won’t work, remember? This place is a ‘blind spot,’ you said.” The words in inverted commas he said with a frown and in a deeper voice.

“Right, right. I forgot,” Jon sighed. He lowered himself to the floor and examined the finger he’d felt snap back into place when he let go his cane. During the five seconds he’d allowed himself to entertain it, the idea of heading back out there had excited him a little. A few minutes to check on Basira, verify what Salesa had told them about his life before the change, make sure the world hadn’t somehow ended twice over. Give himself a few minutes’ freedom of movement, for that matter. Out there he could run, jump, open jars, pick up full mugs of tea without worrying a screw in his hand would come loose and make him drop them. He could stand up as quickly as he thought the words, I think I’ll stand up now, without his vision going dark. God, and even if it did, it wouldn’t matter! He would just know every tripping hazard and every look on Martin’s face, without having to ask these clumsy human eyes to show them to him.

“Honestly, it’d almost feel worth it to go back out there just to formulate a plan to find them. At least I can think out there.”

“Hey.” Martin elbowed him slightly in the ribs. Jon fought with himself not to resent the very gentleness of it. “I think I’ll come up with the plan for once, thanks. Some of us can think just fine here.”

Was it just because of Hopworth that Martin’s elbow barely touched him? Or because Martin feared that Jon would break in here, in a way he’d learnt not to fear out there?

“Oh—I know,” Martin said, clicking his fingers and pointing them at Jon like a gun. “We passed a shed this morning, remember?”

Jon squinted. “Not even remotely.”

“No yeah—on our walk with Salesa. I tried to ask him what it was for, but he kept droning on and on. By the time he stopped talking I’d forgot about it.”

“Huh,” said Jon, to show he was listening.

“That seems like a good place to keep screws and all, right? If it’s so nondescript you can’t even remember it.”

“Sure.”

“Great! Are you ready now, or d’you need to sit for a bit longer?”

“I’m ready.” This time he accepted Martin’s hand, not keen to trip on something cursed.

“Anyway, if we don’t find them and Salesa’s still out there, we can ask him on the way back.”

Jon’s heart shrunk before the prospect of inviting Salesa to be the hero of their story. Please, Mr. Salesa, save us from our screwdriver-less hell! They would never hear the end of it. It would inevitably remind the old man of the countless times in his youth when he’d been the only man in the antiques trade who knew where to find some priceless treasure. Let Salesa open their stuck door and they’d find Pandora’s bloody box of stories behind it. He winced and let out a grunt as of pain before he could stop himself. “Let’s not tell him, if we can help it.”

“Of course we should tell him,” Martin protested. “We can’t just leave it broken like this.”

“But if we can fix it without his help—?”

“What? No! Even then, he’s our host. We have to tell him. It’s his door, he deserves to know its—I don’t know, history?” Martin sighed, shoving one hand in his hair and holding out the other. “If he’s got a doorknob whose screw comes loose a lot, he should know that, so he can tighten it next time before it gets out of hand. I mean, we’re lucky it only chipped the paint when it—when it fell off, you know?” (Jon, for his part, hadn’t even noticed this chip of paint Martin referred to.) “And—and suppose he’s only got this one screw left,” tapping the one in his pocket, “and the next time it happens his last screw rolls under the door like this one did.”

“And what is he supposed to do to prevent that scenario? There aren’t exactly any hardware stores in the apocalypse.”

Big sigh. “Yeah, fair enough. I still think we should tell him. It just feels wrong to hide secrets from him about his own house, you know?”

“Fine,” sighed Jon in turn. ”Should we tell him about the scorch marks on the window sill as well?”

“No?” Martin turned to him with an incredulous look. “Tell me you’re joking.”

“I mean—I was, but—”

“Please tell me you get how that’s different.”

“Enlighten me,” Jon said wearily.

“Seriously? Of course you don’t tell him about the?—those were already there! If we’d put them there, then yeah, of course we’d need to tell him.”

“So it’s about confessing your guilt, then. Not about what Salesa makes of the information.”

“I mean, I guess?” Martin looked perplexed, lips drawn into his mouth. “Actually, no. Because those are just scorch marks, they don’t—you can still get into a room with scorch marks on the windowsill, Jon.”

“And yet if you’d left them you’d tell him about it?”

“Well yeah but if I told him about it now it’d just be like I was—leaving him a bad review, or something. It’d just be rude. ‘Lovely place you have, Salesa. So kind of you to share your limited provisions with us refugees from the apocalypse. Too bad you gave us a room whose windowsill could use repainting!’”

Jon laughed. “Yes, alright, I get it.”

Martin’s sigh of relief seemed only a little exaggerated. If he hadn’t wiped pretend sweat from his brow Jon might have bought it. “Okay, that’s good, ‘cause”—when Jon kept laughing, Martin cut himself off. “Hang on, were you joking this whole time?”

“Sort of?”

“Were you just playing devil’s advocate or something?”

“I mean—not exactly? For the first seventy or eighty percent of it I was completely serious.”

“And then?”

“I don’t know. It was just—fun. It felt nice to take a definite sta—aaaa-a-aa.” Something in Jon’s lower back went wrong somehow. An SI joint, probably? The pain caught him so much by surprise that when he stepped with that side’s leg he stumbled forward.

“Whoa!” Martin’s hand closed around his upper arm. Jon yelped again, from panic more than hurt this time, as his shoulder thunked in its socket. “Jon! Are you okay?”

“Don’t do that,” Jon hissed, trying lamely to shake his arm out of Martin’s grip. It didn’t work. The attempt just made his own arm ache, and produce more ominous clunking sounds.

“I—what?”

“It was fine. I don’t need you to catch me.”

Martin let his arm go. “You were about to fall on your face, Jon.”

“I’d already caught myself—just fine—with this.” He gestured to his cane, stirring its handle like a joystick.

“How was I supposed to know that?”

“I don’t know, look?”

“It’s not—?” Martin scoffed. “Look when? It’s not like a rational calculation. I can’t just go ‘Beep. Beep. See human trip. Will human fall on face? If yes, press A to catch! If not, press B to’— what, stand there and do nothing? It’s just human nature; when you see someone falling that’s just what you do. I’m not going to apologize for not calculating the risk properly.”

“Fine! Yes, okay, you’re right. Forget I said anything.” Throwing up his free hand in defeat, Jon set off again—tried to stride, but it was hard to do that with a limp. Even with his cane, he couldn’t step evenly enough to achieve a decisive gait.

It was fine, Jon reminded himself. He’d had this injury (if you could call it that) a thousand times before. When it came on suddenly like this it never stuck around long. Sure, yeah, for now every step hurt like an urgent crisis. But any second it would right itself as quickly as it had come undone.

“No, no, I understand! Point taken! Note to future Martin,” the latter shouted from behind Jon, voice troubled by hurried steps; “next time let him fall and break his bloody nose.”

Trusting Martin to shout directions if he went the wrong way, Jon pressed on, rehearsing comebacks in his mind. Is this not a boundary I’m allowed to set? You don’t let me read statements in front of you. Isn’t that part of human—isn’t that my nature, too?

Oh, yes, human nature, that must be it. You didn’t lunge after Salesa at ping-pong the other day, did you? I saw you opening doors for Melanie when she got back from India. You stopped for a while, did you know that? You all did, everyone in the Archives. And then—it’s the strangest thing!—you all started up again after Delano. Maybe you lot don’t see the common factor here; people always do seem to think it’s more polite not to notice.

So what if I had broken my nose? You nearly broke my shoulder, catching me like that. Does that not matter because you can’t see it? Because it wouldn’t scar?

They were all too petty to say aloud. Too incongruous with the quiet. He could hear his own footsteps, and Martin’s, and the clank of his cane’s metal segments each time it hit the ground, and a few crows exclaiming about something exciting they’d found on his right. Nothing else.

“Looks like Salesa went inside,” Martin shouted from behind him.

Jon stopped walking and turned around. “What?”

“Left a couple things out here, but yeah.” Martin jogged to catch up with him, from a greater distance than Jon would have expected given how much limping slowed him down. He must have veered off course to inspect the clearing Salesa had vacated. In one hand he carried an empty wine glass by its stem, which he lifted to show Jon.

“Huh.”

“Yeah.” When he caught up with Jon, Martin stood still and panted. “Guess it won’t be as easy to ask him about it as we thought. If we don’t find what we need in there,” he added, glancing demonstratively to something behind Jon.

Following Martin’s eyes, Jon finally saw the shed. Nondescript boards, worn black and white by the elements. Surrounded by hedges three months overgrown.

Turned out it wasn’t a shed anymore, though—Salesa had converted it to a chicken coop. “Explains the boiled eggs,” shrugged Jon.

“God, they’re adorable. Do you think it’s okay to pet one?” Martin crouched in front of a black hen with a puffball of feathers on top of her head. (Martin called her a hen, anyway, and Jon trusted his authority on animals other than cats). “I don’t really know, er, ch—hicken etiquette,” he mused, voice shot through with nervous laughter.

The black hen sat alone in a little box, and didn't seem to want attention. A little red one they’d found strutting around the coop, however, ventured right up to Martin and cocked her head, like she expected him to give her a present. While Martin cooed over her and the other chickens, Jon went outside and laid flat on his back in the grass under a tree. “Take your time,” he shouted. “I’m happy here.”

Sure enough, when Martin emerged from the coop and helped him stand back up, whatever cog in Jon’s pelvis or spine he had jammed earlier was turning again. And by the time they got back to the house, Martin had talked himself into the idea that maybe all the house’s doorknobs that looked like theirs came loose a lot, and Salesa had taken to keeping the screwdriver to fix them in, say, the hall closet, or in their toilet’s under-sink cabinet.

“I think we’re gonna have to find Salesa and ask him about it,” concluded Martin, when these locations turned up nothing they wanted either.

“If you’re sure.”

Jon sat down on the closed toilet seat. Hadn’t that been what he said just before the last time he sat down on the lid of a toilet before Martin? He’d dutifully turned away, that time, as Martin undressed, wanting to make sure he knew he’d still let him have some privacy. But then, of course: “Where should I put these, do you think? —Er, my clothes I mean.”

“Oh. Um.” Jon had turned his head to look at the stain on Daisy’s ceiling, for what must have been the tenth time already. “I can hold onto them if you like.” Which then meant Martin had to get them back on before Jon could undress for his own shower and hand him his clothes. As he’d piled his trousers into Martin’s hands a tape recorder fell out of one pocket and crashed to the floor, ejecting the tape with Peter’s statement on it. “Shit,” Jon had hissed and ducked to the floor to pick it up, trusting the slit in his towel to reveal nothing worse than thigh.

“Shit,” Martin echoed. “I hope that wasn’t your phone.”

“No—just the recorder.” Still on the floor, Jon clicked its little door shut and pressed play. Sound of waves, static, footsteps. He switched it off. “Seems alright.” Thank god, he stopped himself from adding. Jon didn’t want to lose this one, this record of how he’d found Martin, in case he lost him again. But he didn’t want Martin to hear the sounds of the Lonely again so soon, either. That was why he’d stayed with Martin while he showered, rather than waiting in the safehouse living room. He wouldn’t have insisted on it, of course. He didn’t exactly believe Martin would disappear again? But long showers were such a cliché of lonely people, and steam looked so much like the mist on Peter’s beach, and when Jon asked how he felt about it, Martin said that thought hadn’t occurred to him,

“But as soon as you started to say that, I.” He’d stood with his teeth bared, half smiling half grimacing, and bringing the tips of his fingers together and apart over and over. “Yeah, I think you’re right. Heh—it scares me too now, if I’m honest. That’s… a good sign, I guess, right?”

They had come a long way since then, Jon told himself. They were more comfortable with each other now. On their first morning here, they’d showered separately, but after (Martin’s) breakfast Jon’s irritation had faded and he had resolved to pretend along with Martin that this was a holiday. So they’d got to use the enormous bathtub after all— the one at whose soap dish Jon now found himself staring as he sat on the lid of the toilet. When the heat made him dizzier, as he’d known it would, he had relished getting to rest his cheek on Martin’s arm along the rim of the tub, where it had grown cool and soft in the few minutes he’d kept it above the water.

“Let’s have lunch first,” Martin said now; “you’re getting all….” While he looked for the right word he dropped his shoulders and jaw, and mimicked a thousand-yard stare. “Abstract, again. Distant. People food should help a little, yeah? Tie you back down to this plane a bit?”

“Probably,” Jon agreed, smiling at Martin’s tact.

But to get to the kitchen they had to pass through the dining room—where they found Salesa snoring in a chair at the head of the table. “Let’s just ask him now before he gets up and moves again,” maintained Martin. Jon shrugged his acquiescence and leant in the doorway, shifting from foot to foot. Why hadn’t he used the toilet before letting Martin lead him here?

”Um, Mikaele?” Martin inched a few steps toward him, but a distance of several feet still gaped between them. “We have something to ask you, if that’s—hello? Mikaele?”

A likely-sounding gap between snores—but nope. Still sound asleep. Salesa sighed, licked his lips, then began to snore again.

“Mikaele Salesa,” called out Jon from his post at the door, rather less gently. “Mikaele Salesa!” He turned to Martin, meaning to suggest that they eat now and trust the smell of food to wake Salesa, but stopped himself when he saw Martin creeping timidly toward Salesa with his hand outstretched.

“Sorry to disturbyouMikaele,” Martin squeaked out, so quickly that the words blended together. He gave Salesa’s shoulder the lightest possible tap with one fingertip, then snatched his hand back with a grimace of regret as Salesa’s own hand reached up, belatedly, as if to swat Martin’s away. “Oh, good, you’re—”

Salesa interrupted with a snore. Martin sighed and turned to Jon. “What d’you think? Should I shake him?”

Jon pulled out a neighboring chair and sat on it. “No need for anything so drastic. Try poking him a few more times first.”

“Right.”

Once he’d tired of rolling his cane between his palms Jon bent down to set it on the floor. He’d learnt his lesson about trying to hang it on the back of these chairs, though in this fog it had taken several incidents to stick. Every time it ended up crashing to the floor, when he scooched his chair back or when Martin tried to reach an arm around him. Then again—he conjectured, bent halfway to the floor with the cane still in his hand—if he did drop it, that might wake Salesa.

Two nights ago Jon had got up to use the toilet, and knocked his cane down from the wall on his way back to bed in the dark. It crashed to the floor; Jon swore and hopped on one foot back from it, imagining the other foot’s poor toenail smashed to jagged pieces as it thumped to life with pain. Meanwhile he heard rustling from the bed, and Martin’s voice, querulous with sleep. “Jon? Jon, what’s—happened, what—are you.”

“Nothing it’s fine go back to”—he’d hissed as his knee decided it had enough of hopping—“don’t get up, just. I’m gonna turn on the light, if that’s alright.”

“What fell? Are you okay?”

“The cane. I knocked it over in the dark.”

“Oh.”

He got no verbal response about the light, but guessed Martin had nodded.

From a distance his toe looked alright—no blood, anyway, so he could walk on it without risking the carpet. Jon picked his cane up from the floor and steered himself to the foot of the bed, where he sat down. His toenail had chipped, it looked like—only a little, but in that way that leaves a long crack. If he tried to pick it straight he’d tear out a big chunk and it would bleed. But if he left it like this it would snag on the sheets, on his socks, until some loose thread tore the chunk of nail off for him. What could he do for this kind of thing here? At home he’d file the nail down around the chip, then cover it in clear nail polish, and just hope that’d hold out until the crack grew out and he could clip it without bleeding. But here? A plaster would have to do, he guessed. They had plenty of those now.

Jon hated bandaging, ever since Prentiss—in much the same way that Martin hated sleeping in his pants. He’d had time to learn all its discomforts. How sweaty they got, the way they stuck to your hairs, the way lint collected in the adhesive residue they left. Didn’t help he associated them with that time of paranoia. They didn’t make him act paranoid, understand; he just habitually thought of bandage-wearing as what paranoid people do. It made an echo of his contempt for that time’s Jon cling to his perceptions of current Jon. On his first morning here, when the ones on his shin where Daisy’d bit him peeled off in the shower, he hadn’t bothered to replace them. After all, the bite only hurt when something pulled on it or poked or scraped against it, so he figured his trousers would provide enough protective barrier.

“That healed fast,” Martin had remarked, when he noticed the undressed wound in the bath—and then, when he looked again, “Yyyyeah I dunno, I think you might still want to bandage that. We don’t want dirt getting in there.”

“Do I have to?”

“Humor me.”

When they got back to their room he’d let Martin dress it himself. Martin had sucked air through his teeth. “This is days old—it shouldn’t be all hot and red like this.” According to him these were early signs of infection, which would get worse if they didn’t take better care of it—i.e., keep the wound freshly bandaged and ointmented. Jon refrained from pointing out that when the cut on his throat had got like that he’d left it uncovered and been fine. But he did ask what worse meant. “Really bad,” testified Martin. “I had a cut on my finger get infected once. Really disgusting. You don’t want to know.”

Jon smiled at him, raised his eyebrows. “After Jared’s mortal garden I think I can handle it.”

Martin smiled too, but wrinkled his nose and shook his head. “There was pus involved.”

“Oh, god! How could you tell me that!” gasped Jon, hand to his chest.

“Yeah, yeah. Anyway, it also hurt? A lot? And it can make you ill. So we should try to avoid it, yeah?”

He’d tried to disavow the disappointment in his sigh by exaggerating it. “Yes, alright.”

“Don’t know why you’d want to leave it exposed anyway. Doesn’t it hurt?”

“Well, sure, when you do that,” Jon had muttered, flinching away. As he asked the question Martin had lightly tapped the skin around the gash through its new bandage. A second or two later Jon added, “Less than when I got it? It’s hard to tell; it’s… different here.”

With a sigh that caught on phlegm and irritation, Martin asked, “Different how?”

He hadn’t been able to answer then, but he knew now, of course. It hurt the way things do when you’re awake. Not with the constant smart and throb it had when he’d first got it, but, it snagged on things now. Had opinions on how he moved. When he bent his knee more than ninety degrees, that stretched the skin around it painfully. Also if he knelt, since then the floor would press against it through his trousers. And stepping with that foot felt odd. Didn’t hurt, exactly, but sort of… rattled? Like a bad bruise would. This all seemed so small, compared to the moment of terror for his life that he’d felt when Daisy bit into him—that gaping wound in his new self-conception, which his healing powers had sewn up so quickly. The ritual of bandaging it every evening seemed so otiose, so laughably superstitious. He despised the thought of adding another step to it.

While Jon went on examining his toe, Martin asked, “What was the... thumping. It sounded like.”

“Oh—no—I didn’t fall; it’s fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“No—yes—stop, it’s nothing, don’t get up. I just forgot I left it on the—leaning against the doorwall” (he hadn’t decided in time whether to say doorway or wall and ended up with half of each) “so I walked into it, er, toe first.”

“Oh,” Martin said again. Jon could hear him subsiding against the pillows behind him. “It came down?”

Big sigh. Jon’s fingernails met his palms. He set his foot back on the floor, and when his hip whined in its socket he clenched his teeth and kept them that way. In his mind he heard days’ worth of similar jokes. When he couldn’t get a jammed jar open: So you’re saying it wouldn’t… come off? When they got back their clean laundry: Can you believe all those grass stains came out?—oh, sorry: that they came off, I meant. Always with an innocent laugh, like Jon’s original phrasing had been just, what, like a Freudian slip, rather than something perfectly comprehensible that Martin had refused to engage with, taken from him, and rendered meaningless on purpose. “No it did not,” he snapped, “and I would appreciate it if you’d quit throwing that back in my face.”

“Whoa, uh. O…kay. What’s… going on here exactly?”

“You—?”

His heart plummeted; his face stung with embarrassment. Came down, Martin had said—not came off. He’d just been confirming that Jon’s cane had fallen down.

“Oh, god—nothing, never mind. You did nothing.”

“Well that’s obviously not true.”

“I just—I thought you’d said ‘came off.’ I thought you meant, had my toe ‘come off.’”

“Oh,” said Martin, yet again. When Jon turned to look he found him still blinking and squinting against the light. “Do you… need me to not say that anymore?”

“Not when I—?” Not when I’ve hurt myself, Jon meant. But Martin hadn’t done that, so this grievance didn’t actually mean anything. He’d been seeing patterns where there were none, and now that he’d seen through the illusion Jon knew again that Martin never would say it like that. “No, it’s fine. Do whatever you want.”

Martin turned the tail end of his yawn into a huff of false laughter. “Nope. Still don’t believe you.”

“Everything you’ve said makes perfect sense with the information you have. It’s all just—me. Being cryptic again.”

“Okay, uh. Are you waiting for me to disagree? ‘Cause, uh. Yup—you’re still being cryptic. No arguments there.”

Jon just sighed, really scraping the back of his throat with it. Almost a scoff.

“Sooo do you wanna fill me in, or.”

“No?” With an incredulous laugh. “Well, yes, just.”

He hadn’t known how to start from there, while so tightly wound and defensive. It seemed cruel to raise such a sensitive subject when Martin sounded so eager to go back to sleep. Or maybe he just didn’t want to hear Martin whimper apologies. Didn’t want to deal with how fake they would sound. They wouldn’t be fake; he knew that. But they would sound fake, which meant it would take an effort of will, a deliberate exercise of empathy, to accept them as real. He wasn’t in the mood to hear yet another person say I’m sorry, I didn’t know; much less to respond with the requisite It’s okay; you didn’t know. It would take a strength of conviction he didn’t have right now.

“Y—you don’t have to explain it tonight? I’ll just, I’ll just not use that phrase anymore, and maybe in the morning you’ll be less in the mood to lash out at me for things that don’t make sense.”

And what was there to say to that? It had taken Jon three tries to force out, “Okay. I’m sorry.”

“Good night, Jon.”

“Good night. I still need the light, for.”

“That’s fine. Just turn it off when you come back to bed.”

“You won’t wake him up,” a new voice interjected.

Annabelle. Jon couldn’t see her, but he had learnt by now to recognize that voice, with its insufferable upbeat teasing inflection like every sentence she said was a riddle. He caught a glimpse of movement, then heard the click of her shoes on the floor. She must have poked her head round the doorway at the far end of the table while she spoke, then scuttled off again. At last he got a good look at her, as she put her blonde-and-gray head through the closer door.

“He’s a very heavy sleeper,” she informed them, with a smile and a shrug. “You can shake him all you want; it’s not going to work.”

Martin cleared his throat—trying to catch Jon’s attention, presumably. But Jon feared Annabelle would vanish again if he took his eyes off her. Not that he wanted her here, either, but?—he at least wanted to know which direction she went when she disappeared.

“What are you doing here, Annabelle.”

She shrugged two of her shoulders. “Just offering you some advice.” Then she used the momentum from the shrug to push herself backward, out of the doorway back into the corridor. Before the last of her hands disappeared off to the right, she waved to both of them.

“Well, how about some ‘advice’ about this, then—”

“She’s already gone, Martin.”

“Seriously? God—which way did she go?” Jon pointed; Martin bolted down the hallway after her. “Oi! Annabelle!”

“Shhh!”

“Annabelle! Do you know where Salesa keeps the—”

Jon did his best to follow him, praying all his limbs would go on straight this time. “Don’t!”

“What? Why not?” he heard, from the other side of the wall. Thankfully he could no longer hear Martin’s pounding footsteps. He overtook him in the hallway, just about able to make out his face around the dark swirls in his vision. “She’s as likely to know as Salesa, right?” Martin continued. “And it’s not like she’d lie about it. I mean, what would be the point?”

“I just don’t think we should give her any kind of advantage over us,” Jon snarled. The attempt to keep his voice down made the words come out sounding nastier than he intended.

Martin scoffed. “You don’t think maybe this is a bit more important than your stupid principle about not accepting help from her?”

“Is it?” Jon took hold of Martin’s sleeve, having just now caught up to him. “The new room’s fine. It’s even nicer than the old one, right? We could just stay there.”

“I already told you, Jon. I’m not just gonna leave it like this.”

“’Til Salesa sobers up, I meant.”

“If we have to, yeah, but—? All our stuff’s in that room. The statements’re in there.”

“I just don’t think we should show her that kind of vulnerability,” Jon hissed, shifting from foot to foot in his eagerness either to sit down or go somewhere else. “I don’t want to give Annabelle something she can use over us.”

“How does this make us more vulnerable than we are eating her food?”

“It doesn’t, alright? That doesn’t mean we should add more to the pile!” He watched Martin shrug and open his mouth, but cut him off in advance: “Last time we had this argument you were the one maintaining she was dangerous.”

It was on their first night here—their first awake here, anyway. They’d been heading back to their room, Martin lamenting that he’d not packed anything to sleep in when they left Daisy’s safehouse. “Won’t make much difference to me,” Jon had shrugged at first.

Martin had shaken his head, grimaced at something in his imagination. “I hate sleeping in my pants. It’s just gross. Dunno why anyone would choose to do it.”

“How is it gross?” Jon had laughed. He’d expected to hear some weird thing about its being unsanitary for that much leg to touch sheets that only got washed every two weeks, and to argue back that in that case shouldn’t he sleep in his socks. Disdain for the body seemed damn near universal, and yet manifested so differently in each person whose habits Jon had got to know up close. Georgie had heard that underarm hair helped wick away the smell of sweat—so she let that hair grow out, but shaved the ones on her stomach for fear they’d smell like navel lint. And Daisy, a woman who used to sniff her used-up plasters before throwing them in the bin, would spray cologne in the toilet every time she left it. Jon had enjoyed getting to know which of bodily self-contempt’s myriad forms Martin subscribed to.

But this turned out not to be one of them. Instead Martin explained, “It’s so sweaty. Like sitting on a leather couch in shorts, except the leather’s your other leg? Ugh. I hate waking up slippery.”

“That’s why I put a pillow between mine,” laughed Jon. “Suppose I will miss Trevor’s t-shirt, though. Now that I don’t have to worry about showing up in people’s dreams like that.”

“Oh, god, right—what is it? ‘You don’t have to be faster than the bear’—?”

“‘You just have to be faster than your friends,'” Jon completed, in the most sinister Ceaseless-Watcher voice he could muster. Martin snorted with laughter.

And then they’d opened the door to discover Annabelle had done them a fucking turndown service. Quilt folded back, mints on the pillows, and a pile of old-timey striped pajamas at the foot of the bed. “Huh. Cree…py, but convenient, I guess. Least they’re not black and white, right?” Martin unfolded the green-striped shirt on top, then handed it with its matching trousers to Jon. “These ones must be yours.”

“Mm.” Jon let Martin hand him the pajamas, then tossed them onto the chair in the opposite corner of the room (from which chair they promptly fell to the floor). The mint from his side of the bed he deposited in the bin under the bedside table.

“So who’s our good fairy, d’you think? Salesa, or.”

“Annabelle,” Jon hissed. “Salesa was with us all through dinner.”

Martin nodded and sighed. “Yeah.” He sat down on the bed, still regarding the other set of garments—these ones striped yellow and blue—with a puzzled frown. “God, I’ll look like a clown in these. You sure I won’t give you nightmares about the Unknowing?”

But Jon said nothing, still hoping he could avoid weighing in on Martin’s choice whether or not to accept Annabelle’s… gifts.

“It’s probably Salesa’s stuff, at least. Not Annabelle’s. I mean,” Martin mused with a brave laugh, “he’s got a lot of weird outfits on hand apparently.”

“Unless she wove them out of cobwebs.”

“That’s not a thing,” Martin groaned, making himself laugh too. “Spider webs aren’t strong enough to use as thread.”

“Not natural ones, maybe,” Jon said with a shrug and a careful half smile. With no less care, he turned the sheets and counterpane back up on his side of the bed, restoring the way it’d looked when he and Martin made up the bed that morning. Stacked the frontmost pillow back upright against the one behind it. Punched it a little, more as a way to break the silence than because it looked too fluffy. Then sat down in front of them and put his shoe up on the bedside table so he could untie it—glancing first at Martin to make sure he didn’t disapprove.

“I mean, I guess,” Martin mused meanwhile. “Not sure why she’d bother, though. Maybe it’s”—with a gasp and a smile Jon could hear in his voice—“maybe she’s put poison in the threads, and that’s why yours and mine are different. Mine’s got—I dunno, some kind of self-esteem poison, like, a reverse SSRI, to make me feel like you don’t need me, so when she kidnaps you I won’t try to save you. And yours….”

As Jon pulled off his now-untied shoe one of the bones in his hip jabbed against some bit of soft tissue it wasn’t supposed to touch. He gasped and dropped his shoe. It thudded on the floor.

“You alright?”

“Fine. Some kind of dex drain, probably.”

“Ha.”

After a silence, Martin spoke again: “Are you sure you’re okay staying here for a bit? Sorry—I kinda bulldozed over your objections earlier.”

Jon finished untying his other shoe, then paused to think while he shook the cramp out of his hand. “No,” he decided. “You didn’t bulldoze, you just…questioned. And you were right to.”

“Still, I mean. It might not be a great idea to stick around here with the spider lady who’s had it in for us since day one. Have you re-listened to the tapes from the day Prentiss attacked, by the way, since you got them back from the Not-Sasha thing?”

“Right—the spider, yes.”

“Yeah, exactly! You wouldn’t even have broke through that wall if it hadn’t been for the spider there!”

Jon nodded and scrubbed at his eyes, trying to muster the energy to match Martin’s tone. This was an important conversation to have, he knew. And a part of him shuddered with recognition to hear Martin talk about those tapes. He had re-listened to them—first at Georgie’s, one night in the small hours as he cleaned her kitchen, thinking clearly for the first time in months and trying to pinpoint the exact moment his thoughts had been clouded with paranoia, so that he might know what signs to look for if something else tried to infect his mind like that. And then again after Basira found the jar of ashes. That time he’d just wanted to suck all the marrow he could from the memory of Martin with his sensible corkscrew and his first answer to Why are you here, even if it did mean having to hear himself ask if Martin was a ghost. A few weeks later, however, after Hilltop Road, he’d done a fair bit of obsessing over the spider thing with Prentiss, yeah. He just wished he could remember what conclusion he’d come to.

All he could remember was going for those tapes yet again only to find them missing from his drawer. But he’d been chasing phantoms all day; it was late at night by then, and when he’d dashed out to tell Basira his fear Annabelle had stolen them, stolen his memories from him just like the Not-Them had, he’d stood there over her and Daisy’s frankenbag for what felt like an hour, mouth open, unable to utter a sound. It felt too much like going to wake up his grandmother after a dream. So he’d told himself to sleep on it—that he’d probably left the tapes in some other obvious place, and would find them in the morning. And when he remembered his panic, the next day at lunch, and checked his drawer again, the tapes were back, right where he expected them. He’d dismissed it as a dream after all. But no—Martin must have borrowed them. He must’ve been worried about the Web, too.

“It’s… it should be okay. I don’t think it’ll be like that here.”

Martin sighed. “Don’t do that.”

“What?”

“That thing where you just—decide how something is without even telling me why you think so. I mean it’s one thing out there, when you ‘know everything’” (this in a false deep voice) “and can’t possibly share it all, but here? When you’re just guessing, like everyone else? Why don’t you think it’ll be like that here? And what does ‘like that’ even mean?”

“I'm sorry—you’re right—I just mean, I don’t think she has her powers here. Based on what Salesa said about the camera, and on what happens when I try to use my powers….”

“Salesa just said the Eye can’t see this place, though. What about that insect thing he said found its way in?”

“I mean.” Jon shrugged. “We managed to find our way here without the Eye’s help.”

“Yeah, but if the Web has no power here then how could she have called me on a payphone? She had to have known where I was to do that, yeah? And she couldn’t know that from here unless the Web told her to do it, right?”

“Maybe? We don’t even know if the Web works like that.”

“Told her to do it, made her want to do it, gave her the tools to do it, whatever. You know what I mean. Look—we know the Eye’s not totally blind here, since it can still feed on statements. Right?”

Jon wondered now how either one of them could have been so sure of that. “Apparently,” he liked to think he had said—but more likely he’d replied simply, “Right.”

“So then by that logic the Web still probably likes it when she—I don’t know, when she manipulates people here. It probably still gets, like, live tweets from her about it. How do we know it can’t use that information to weave more plots around us?”

“If that’s even how it works,” Jon had replied again. “The other fears don’t work like that—they don’t plan, they just.” He tried to sort his intuition into Martin’s live tweet metaphor. “The fears just like their agents’ tweets, they don’t… comment on them, o-or build new opinions on what they’ve read. It boosts the avatar's… popularity, I guess? Their influence?” Jon hadn’t even logged into Twitter since before the Archives. “But unless the Web is different from all the other fears, it doesn’t—it’s not her boss. It doesn’t come up with the schemes, it just.”

“Isn’t it literally called the ‘Spinner of Schemes’, though? The ‘Mother of Puppets’?”

And Jon couldn’t remember what he’d said to brush off that one.

“Of course she’s dangerous,” Martin said now. “I just don’t see what sinister plot of hers we could possibly be enabling by asking her where to find screwdrivers.”

Jon scoffed. “She’s with the Web, Martin! The ‘Mother of Puppets,’ the ‘Spinner of Schemes’? You’re not supposed to be able to see how the threads connect. Anything we ask her gives her another opening to sink her hooks into.”

“So what, you just don’t want to owe her a favor?”

“Yes?” Jon blinked—on purpose, needless to say. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. I mean—why do you think she’s here, Martin, ingratiating herself with us?”

“Gee, I don’t know. Maybe because it’s the one place on Earth that hasn’t been turned into a hell dimension?”

Jon snarled and set his head in his free hand. The dizziness was coming back. “In her statement Annabelle said the trick to manipulating people was to make sure they always either over or underestimate you.”

“Okay,” granted Martin, as though prompting Jon to explain how this was relevant.

“She’s trying to humanize herself,” he maintained, scratching an imaginary itch behind his glasses. “We shouldn’t let her.”

“I mean, she is physically more human here.”

“Is she? She doesn’t seem to be withdrawing from the Web; she’s not—like this.” Jon turned his wrist in a circle next to his head.

“Yeah but she’s been here for months, right? Maybe she’s passed through that stage.”

A bitter huff of laughter. “So you’re saying she’s reformed.”

“No. I’m saying the fact she’s not all—loopy here doesn’t necessarily mean she still has any power.”

“She’s got four arms and six eyes, Martin!”

“And you sleep with your eyes open and summon tape recorders, Jon!”

“Well,” mused Jon with a wry smile, “not on purpose.”

“That’s my point! You’ve only got—vestiges here, yeah? I’m not saying we should trust her; I don’t wanna be friends or anything. I’m just saying I don’t think the actual concrete danger she poses here is what’s making you hate the idea of asking her for directions.”

“What about that insect thing Salesa said she chased off. Does that not sound spidery to you?”

“We don’t know that! Maybe she waved his syringe at it.”

Jon took a deep, shaky breath through his nose. He’d hoped he wouldn’t have to bring up this next part; he feared it might make Martin too afraid to stay here any longer. “I think she’s plotting against us.”

Blink. “Well, yeah. Of course she is. She’s been plotting against us for—”

“Here, I mean. I mean, I think that’s why she’s here. She’s been hiding from the Eye on purpose so she could lure us into her trap with her spindly little”—Jon thought of the earrings that dangled from Annabelle’s ears like flies, swinging with her every sudden movement. Unconsciously he struck out with his hand as if to catch one, closing his fist around empty air. “Without my being able to see either her or the trap. At best, she’s here gathering information about us so she can report it back to her master.” He pictured the thousand spiders he’d seen birthed during Francis’s nightmare crawling back and forth with messages between here and the nearest Web domain—

“I thought you said the fears didn’t work that way,” pursued Martin—

“And every little thing we tell her is one more thread she can use to pull on us.”

“Okay, but, even if you’re right, ‘Hey Annabelle, our doorknob’s busted, can you help us find the tools to fix it’ isn’t actually a fact about us.”

“But that’s just the best-case scenario, Martin! The worst-case scenario is that she predicted we’d get locked out of our room, or even loosened the screw herself—”

“Not this again—”

“—because she knew we’d have to ask her for help, and wherever she tells us to look for the screwdriver is where she’s laid her trap! Think about it—this couldn’t happen outside the range of the camera, right? It would only work in a place where I can’t just know where to find something. That’s the only scenario where we’d ever ask her for directions.” Martin sighed, crossed his arms, rolled his eyes. Jon looked right at him, hoping to catch them on their way back down. “What if her plan is to trap us here forever so we can’t go stop Elias? What if by trusting her with this, we give her the tools to keep the world like this forever?”

Again Martin sighed. He bit his lip, at last seeming not to have an argument lined up already.

“I can’t actually stop you from going after her”—Jon heard Martin scoff, but pressed on—“but I can’t take part in this.”

“You sort of already did stop me, Jon.” He lifted his arm, pointing vaguely in the direction she’d gone. “We can’t catch up with her now.”

That wasn’t quite true, Jon knew; Martin had chosen to stop and listen to him. Instead of pointing this out in words Jon smiled, meekly, and reached for Martin’s hand. “Guess that’s true. Are you, er, ready for lunch now?”

His answering scoff sounded fond, indulgent, rather than incredulous. “Yeah, alright.”

With Martin’s hand still in his, Jon turned around—an awkward business, while holding hands in such a narrow passage—and began to walk back towards the dining room. At the end of the corridor stood a tall, thin, many-limbed figure, holding a water carafe, a stack of glasses, and four steaming plates of food.

“You boys getting hungry?” As she stepped toward them her shoes clacked against the floor. How had they not heard her approach? And what was she doing back at that end of the corridor?

“How did you—?”

“I have my ways. I’ve brought lunch for you both, if you’re amenable.”

“Oh—well, thanks, you’re, you’re just in time, actually.” Jon didn’t dare look away from Annabelle Cane long enough to confirm this, but suspected Martin had directed that last bit at him as much as her. “Can I help you with those?”

Annabelle managed to shrug without dislodging anything from the four plates in her hands. “You can take the napkins if you want,” she said, extending toward Martin the forearm from which they hung.

Jon sat back down in the chair he’d left at a haphazard angle—though it felt weird, since he usually sat on the table’s other side. He thanked Martin when he handed him a napkin, and allowed Annabelle to set an empty glass and a plate of food in front of him. It was a pasta dish, with clams—from a can, he reminded himself. A can and a jar of pasta sauce. Couldn’t have taken more than twenty minutes to put together.

“Salesa’s still out of it,” observed Martin. “Don’t think he’ll make too much of his.”

“A shame,” Annabelle agreed. She set a plate down in front of the sleeping Salesa anyway. “Maybe the smell of food’ll wake him up.”

“Are you going to eat with us?” Martin asked, as he and Jon both watched her deposit a fourth plate across the table from them.

“I may as well. We do still have to eat to live here, don’t we?” Jon could tell she meant this comment as an invitation for him to join their conversation, but he didn’t intend to take her bait. “Besides,” Annabelle went on, “this way you’ll know I’ve not saved the best for myself.” With one hand she picked up her own plate again; another of her long, thin arms reached out to take Jon’s plate.

He dragged it to the side, out of her reach. “No, thank you.”

“Alright. Martin,” she said, looking over at him with a patient, patronizing smile. “Will you switch plates with me?”

“Oh, my god,” Martin groaned into his hand. “Sure, why not.”

Something small and gray skittered across the table toward her. For half a second Annabelle took her eyes from Martin. Her nostrils flared; one of her eyes twitched; Jon heard a stifled squawk from behind her closed lips as she swept the skittery thing over her edge of the table. He made no such effort to hide his scoff. Did she think she could play nice, by declining to hold little spider conversations in front of them? That they’d think she was on their side as long as they couldn’t see her chatting to her little spies?

“Thank you,” Annabelle sing-songed meanwhile, returning her gaze to Martin. “You’re sweet.”

On their first morning here, after showering and then shuddering back into their filthy clothes, Jon and Martin had barely left their room before Annabelle dangled herself in their path, with cups of tea (Jon refused his) and an offer to show them to the pantry. From this tour Jon had concluded that all food in this place was tainted by her influence. And he didn’t actually feel hungry at that point? He remembered Martin remarking on his hunger before they’d both fallen asleep, but Jon had felt only tired. Surely that meant he still didn’t need food here, right? It’d been like that before the change, after the coma—he’d needed sleep and statements to keep up his strength, but could function just fine without… people food. So he’d resolved to accept nothing offered him here—or at least, nothing Salesa and Annabelle hadn’t already given him and Martin without their consent. No tea, none of Salesa’s booze, no use of the huge industrial washing machines, no food.

That resolution lasted about nine hours. He knew because on that first day time still felt like such a novelty he and Martin had counted every one. Once he’d tried and failed to compel Salesa—once he’d heard him give a statement and managed to space out for half of it, rather than transcending himself in the ecstasy of vicarious fear—Jon started to grow conscious of his hunger. After two hours he felt shaky; after four he started picking quarrels, first just with Annabelle when she showed up with snacks, then with Salesa, and then even with Martin; after six he felt first hot, then cold. Finally around the eight-hour mark he was hiding tears over an untied shoelace, and figured it was worth finding out how much of this torment people food could solve. He sat through dinner, flaunting his empty plate—then stole to the pantry for something he could make himself. Settled for dry toast and raisins. “Couldn’t you find the jam?” Martin had asked him.

“Didn’t think of it,” Jon lied, once he’d got his throat round a lump of under-chewed toast.

“You want me to get some for you? That looks pretty depressing without it,” Martin said, with his eyebrows and the line of his mouth both raised in a pitying smile.

“Better make it one of the sealed jars.”

“What, so Annabelle can’t have got to it?” Jon nodded, chewing so as to have neither to smile back nor decide not to. “You know she made the bread, right.”

Of course she had. Jon dropped his head onto his fists. “Fuck.”

“What did you think?” mused Martin with a laugh. “That Salesa just popped down to the supermarket?”

“I don’t know—that they’d taken it from the freezer, maybe?”

“I mean, that’s possible,” Martin granted with a shrug. “Should I get you that jam?”

Big sigh. “Fine.”

In reality he’d stared up at the row of jam jars in Salesa’s pantry for a full ten seconds before deciding not to have any. He feared spiders would spill out of the jar onto his hand as soon as he got it open. But he also feared he might not be able to open it at all—only hurt himself trying. Way back in their first year in the Archives together, Martin had once seen him struggling to get open the jar where he kept paperclips. Jon hadn’t realized he was being watched—or, that is, that Martin was watching him. In the Archives the sense of someone watching was so omnipresent one soon lost the ability to distinguish Elias’s evil Eye from other, more mundane eyes. Anyway, after three minutes’ effort and nothing to show for it but a misplaced MCP joint in his thumb, Jon had given up on paper-clipping the photos Tim had pilfered for him to their relevant statement and begun hunting through his desk drawers for a stapler instead. And then a high-pitched pop above his head made him startle so badly he gasped, choked on his own spit, and flung the picture in his hand across the room like a paper airplane.

Around the sound of his own cough he could hear Martin shouting Sorry, and Tim and Sasha laughing on the other side of the wall. Martin’s laugh soon joined theirs, though it sounded desperate, sheepish. He dove after the photo Jon had dropped, and then, when he came back with it, explained, “Got the paperclips for you.”

Jon frowned. “This is a photograph, Martin.”

“No, I mean—?” His laugh came out like a whimper; he picked the unlidded jar up an inch off the table, then set it back down. “Here.”

Okay, so, not exactly an auspicious start, but, it still became a thing? Martin opening his paperclip jar. At first he’d wished he could just remember not to seal it so tightly; he could get it just fine when he stopped turning it earlier. At least when the weather hadn’t changed since the last time he opened it. But then when they all started leaving the Archives less often, and the break-room fridge filled up with condiments that all seemed to have twist-off lids… he’d kind of liked that? Martin would hand him the peanut-butter jar, with its lid off and pinned to its side with one finger, before Jon had even finished asking for it. This seemed to be the pattern behind all his early positive impressions of Martin: the jar lids, the corkscrew, the way he managed to make mealtimes at the Institute feel like proper breaks. Martin had seemed like such an oaf to him at first—clumsy, absent-minded, always seeming to think that if he professed enough good will with his smiles and cups of tea and I know you won’t like this, but, then no one would notice his impertinent comments and all the doors he left wide open. All the dogs and worms and spiders he let in. He’d seemed to Jon the human embodiment of a fly left undone—more so than ever after the morning he’d walked in on him wearing naught but frog-print boxer shorts. But he had this easy grace with things that needed twisting off. Banana peels, bottle caps, wine corks, worms.

And then when he came back after the Unknowing Martin was never around. Jon and Basira and Melanie all lived in the Archives, like Martin had two years before, but by that point he wasn’t on Could you open this for me? terms with any of them. But he hadn’t needed people food anymore, and if he subluxed a joint it would heal instantly anyway. So he’d just struggled and sworn, feeling stupid for shrinking from the pain even after having chopped off his own finger. And it got easier with practice. By the time he and Martin reunited, he’d got so used to it that sometimes he’d hand jars to Martin already unlidded. Martin hadn’t seemed to notice. Finally, one evening a day or two after that row they had over the ice-cream thing, Jon had opened a jar of pasta sauce (he’d taken up people food again at Daisy’s safehouse, if only to make their time there feel more like a regular holiday), and reached out to hand it to Martin—then paused and retracted the hand that gripped the jar, remembering his promise to be more open about.

“This is, um.” He’d glanced up at Martin, then back to the floor as the latter said,

“Huh?”

“This is one of those things that’s got better since the coma. Since I became an avatar. I can, um. I can open jars now? Without.” He’d almost said Without hurting myself, then remembered that wasn’t technically true. Deep breath. “Without lasting harm. It—it hurts for a second? But the Eye heals it instantly. That's why I’ve been.”

“Oh,” Martin said, seeming to stall for time as he absorbed this information. He accepted the jar which Jon again held out to him, and turned it around in his hands, eyes on its label. “Yeah, I—I noticed, you’re really good at opening jars now,” he went on with a laugh. Again he paused, and blew a sigh out of his mouth. “Right. Okay. Thank you for telling me?”

“I’ll try and be better about….”

Martin nodded, turning back to the stove and beginning to stir sauce into the pasta. “Yeah. I, uh—I didn’t know that was why you used to need me to open them for you?” Since the other night’s argument, Jon had gathered as much. He nodded too. “I thought you were just, heh, you know. Weaker than me.”

“I mean, I am—”

“Well yeah but you know what I mean.”

“I do. I should’ve told you.”

“No, I—actually I think you’re in the clear on that one, if I’m honest. I just—it’s just weird? I thought I was done having to” (another blown-out sigh punctuated his speech) “having to reframe stuff I thought was normal around some unseen horror. Sorry,” he added when he’d finished beating sauce off Daisy’s wooden spoon; “that’s probably not a great way to.”

“No—it’s fine?”

“Suppose it sounds like an exaggeration, now, after all we’ve.”

Mechanically, Jon nodded, without deciding whether he agreed or not. Around an awkward laugh, he confessed, “‘Unseen horror’ might be the nicest way I’ve ever heard anyone describe it.”

“Er. Yikes? That sounds like you might need some better friends, Jon.”

“Maybe,” he conceded, laughing again. “I—I just mean, it’s nice to hear something other than?” Jon paused and pushed his little fingers back the hundred or so degrees they each would go. First the left, then the right. Other than what? Well, doubt, for a start. Though most of the doubt he heard from outside himself was implicit. Careful silence from people he told about it; requests people made of him seemingly just so he’d have to tell them he couldn’t do that; impatience, bafflement, suspicion from strangers. Why are you out of breath, the woman behind the Immigration desk had asked him at O’Hare, as if breathlessness incriminated him somehow. But that wasn’t the response he’d subconsciously measured Martin’s phrase against. What he had in mind now was more like… bland support. Hurried support. Assurances quick and dutiful, yet so vague he could tell the people who gave them were thinking only of the mistakes they might make, if they dared to acknowledge what he’d said with any more than half a sentence. The I’m sorry you’re in pain equivalents of Right away, Mr. Sims.

That was it—unseen horror was an original thought. Martin had put it in his own words, rather than either borrowing Jon’s or using none at all. “Other than a platitude.”

So at Salesa’s when Martin came back with the jam jar he handed it to Jon. Jon made a show of trying to open it, but could feel his middle finger threatening to leave its top half behind. It frightened him, in a way he’d forgot was even possible. For such a long time now, pain had just been pain? He’d grown so unused to the threat it held for normal people. The threat of actual danger, of injury. He’d set down the jar on the table in front of him, and crossed his arms in front of it.

“Can’t get it, huh?” Martin asked; Jon shook his head.

How much danger, though, he wondered. Earlier that day, after he and Martin got out of the bath, his left index finger had popped out while he was buttoning his shirt. It still ached when he used the finger, or thought about the cracking sound it had made—but didn’t throb anymore without provocation. Not much danger there; not even much inconvenience. He supposed if he hurt his middle finger too then he might have some trouble with his trouser button the next time he had to pee? Right, yes, what a cross to bear. I hurt myself doing x; now it hurts to do x. But it already hurt to do x, didn’t it? Didn’t x always hurt, before the change? Why did he so fear to face an hour or a day where it hurt more than usual, but not so much I can’t do it?

“So you’re saying it won’t… come off?”

“Ha, ha.”

“Sorry. Couldn’t resist.”

“What if I open it and it’s full of spiders?”

Martin had smiled, rolled his eyes, pulled the jar toward him, and twisted its lid off with a pop. “See? No spiders in this one.

“While you’re here, Annabelle,” Jon heard Martin say, “I don’t suppose you know anything about where Salesa keeps his screwdrivers?”

Annabelle tapped her chin and said, very pleasantly, “Hmmm. Perhaps they’re where he left them after the last time something broke.”

Martin’s lips drew closer together. “Yeah,” he nodded, “probably. Any idea where that might be?”

“Perhaps he keeps them next to whatever screw comes loose most often.”

“And do you know which screw that is?”

She shook her head, though who knew whether that meant she didn’t know or merely that she didn’t mean to tell him. “Perhaps he only uses the item when he’s alone,” she said, with a shrug and a sly smile.

“…Ew.” Annabelle cackled like a school kid pulling a prank. “Right, great,” sighed Martin. “Thanks a lot. Forget it. You done, Jon?”

Jon glanced sleepily down at his plate. Only half empty, but cold by now. “Yes.”

“Nice of you to grace us with your presence, Annabelle,” Martin said, sliding his and Jon’s plates toward her side of the table.

Instead of energy, lunch gave Jon only a slight queasy feeling—like one gets from eating sweets on an empty stomach.

“God”—hissed Martin, with clenched fists, as they ambled back to their room—“‘Perhaps he keeps them next to the screw that gets loose most often.’ Yeah, figured that out already, thanks! Can you even believe her? Sitting down to eat with us, as if she’s all ready to help, and then the best she can do is,” he paused and straightened, then said with a finger to his chin in imitation of Annabelle, “‘Oh, hm, guess he only uses it alone. Oh well!’”

“Don’t know what else you expected.”

Martin sighed, his arms crossed now. “Guess I should’ve done what you asked after all, since that accomplished nothing.” After a moment he went on, “Least it wasn’t a trap, right? I tried not to give her anything she could use against us.” With a smile Jon could hear without looking at him, “You notice how I pointedly didn’t offer to help clean up?”

“No, I didn’t,” Jon confessed, laughing a little.

“No?!” Again Martin paused on his feet, frowning, incredulous. Jon wished he wouldn’t; standing still made him dizzier, took more effort than walking, like that poor woman in Oliver’s domain. Daniela? Martin shook his head at himself. “Ugh—then who knows if she noticed, either. I thought I was being so obvious!”

“I mean—”

“Wait, hold up, let’s double back.”

“Are you going to go back and tell her it was on purpose?”

“No, just”—he echoed Jon’s laugh—“no, of course not. I just wanted to try that wing’s toilets next. Didn’t want her to see which way we were going.”

“Oh.” By this time Martin had turned around and started to walk the other way; Jon hung back. “Er. I thought—I thought we were going to our room first.”

“What, the new one you mean?” asked Martin, turning his head around to look back at him.

“…Yes,” Jon decided. Until this moment he’d forgot about that, and been daydreaming of their original bed.

“Sure, if you want. Do you need a break?”

“I… I think so, yes.”

Martin turned the rest of the way around, shuffled toward Jon and looked him over, with a concerned frown. He took his free hand between his fingers and thumb, brushing the latter over Jon’s knuckles. “Yeah, okay. You still seem pretty out of it. How are you feeling?”

“Not great,” answered Jon, though he smiled in relief at Martin’s willingness to change the plan for him.

“Food didn’t help?”

His stomach seemed hung with cobwebs; his mind, like a large room with half its lights burnt out. His light head seemed attached to his heavy, aching body only by a string, like a balloon tied to an Open-House sign. He still needed the toilet. “Not really?”

“Yeah, thought not. You need a statement, huh.”

Jon shrugged, avoiding Martin’s eyes. “Probably.”

In the interim bedroom Jon sat down at the edge of the bed, bent down over his legs, and untied his shoes, wondering why his life always came back around to this. His hip got stuck like a drawer that’s been pulled out crooked, so he had to lever himself back up with his arms, trapping fistfuls of counterpane between thumbs and the meat of his palms. It made his hands cramp, but that helped—the way it would have helped to bite his finger. When he’d got himself upright again he sat and blinked for a few seconds, hoping each time he opened his eyes that his vision would’ve cleared.

Martin sat down next to him and put his hand on Jon’s arm. “You’re blinking again. You okay?”

“Just… kind of dizzy? It’s an Eye thing.”

He let Martin pull him towards him until their shoulders touched. “Yeah. Makes sense. Nap should help. Statement’ll definitely help.”

“Right.”

They agreed to lie on the bed rather than properly in it, not wanting to have to put the covers back together afterward. Jon set his head on that squishy part of Martin’s chest where it started to give way to armpit, knowing to angle himself so the scar tissue pressed the hollow part of his cheek rather than anywhere bonier. It was normally dangerous to lie half on his back, half on his side like this, but he’d lately discovered he could use Martin’s leg to keep his hip from falling off. He could feel the muscles in his shoulder twitching and cramping, whether to pull the joint out or keep it in who could tell. But it’d be fine as long as he shrugged the arm every few minutes.

All the ways they knew to spend time in each other’s company had come together in Scotland, where he’d had none of these worries. Even after the change, on their journey, with nothing but sleeping bags between them and desecrated earth, he’d borne only the same aches he’d been ignoring since he read the statement that ended the world. Jon imagined lying next to Martin like this on the cold stone of a tomb in the Necropolis, surrounded by guardian angels’ malicious laughter. Not feeling the cold, or the grain of the stone against his ankles and the bandage on his shin—just knowing it was there, like when you watch someone suffer those things in a movie. Less vivid even than a statement about lying on a tomb; in Naomi Herne’s nightmare he’d felt the stone in her hands.

“Hfff, okay—ready to get back to it?”

“Mrrr.”

“…Jon, are you asleep?”

He shrugged his hanging shoulder. “No.”

Nose laugh. “Come on, wake up.”

“Mmrrrrrrr.”

“My arm’s asleep.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It won’t wake up ‘till you get up off of it, Jon,” said Martin, gently, between huffs of laughter.

“Hmr.” Jon rolled away to face the wall with the window, freeing Martin’s arm.

“Do you want me to go look without you?”

“Okay.”

“Are you sure?”

“Mhm.”

Cold air washed over his newly-exposed arm, ribcage, side of face, the outside of his sore hip. It was cold on this Martinless side of the bed, too. He rolled back over into the shadow of his warmth, but that still wasn’t as good as the real thing. Maybe he could pull the covers halfway out and roll himself up in them.

“Aaagh, no—Jon”—Martin’s cool hand on top of his as he tried to hook his fingers round the counterpane— “we’re trying to leave the room the way we found it, remember?”

“Hmmmrrgh.” He consented to leave his hand still when Martin’s departed from it. A few seconds later, a rustle against his ear, the smell of smoke and old clothes.

“Here.”

Jon crunched the jacket down so it wouldn’t itch his ear. “You won’t need it?”

“Probably not.”

“Hm.”

“I’ll be back for it if I have to go outside again, yeah?”

“Okay.”

In his mind’s eye they trudged into the wind, hand in hand. It blew Martin’s hood off his head, and inverted Jon’s cane like an umbrella. He shrunk himself further under Martin’s jacket, relishing the new pockets of warmth he created as his calves met his thighs and his hands gripped his shoulders.

“Ooookay…! Wish me luck?”

“Good luck,” managed Jon around a yawn.

Martin had been right about the wallpaper. Not only was the red too bright to look at comfortably; it also had the kind of flowered pattern just complex enough that every time you look back at it you’re compelled to double-check where it repeats. Every fourth stripe was the same as the first, right? Not every second? And that weird little scroll-shaped petal—he’d seen that one too recently. Was it the same as?—No, that one was a bud. He pulled Martin’s jacket up so it covered his eyes.

They’d put their jackets through the laundry with everything else, their first day here, but that hadn’t got the smell out. Enough time had passed between the burning building and their arrival here for the smoke to embed itself permanently into their jackets and shoes, like how duffel bags once taken camping always smell like barbecue. And everything they’d ever shoved in those backpacks still had some of that odd, sour, Ritz-cracker smell of clothes left unwashed too long.

Daisy used to smell like smoke and laundry, too, once she quit smelling like dirt. It was the smell of the old green sleeping bag she’d zipped up to Basira’s. She said she’d have showered it off if she could; she didn’t like it. To her it was a Hunt smell—it reminded her of her clearing in the woods. But there weren’t any showers in the Archives. She’d point this out every time, in the same wry voice, so Jon was sure she’d intended the metaphor. No showers in the Archives: you couldn’t hide your sins in a temple of the Eye. This had comforted Jon—or maybe flattered was the word, though he knew her better than to think she’d have done so on purpose. He just wasn’t sure he agreed. He’d hid his sins pretty well from himself, after the coma. It was easy; you just had to lose track of scale. No one could remember all of them at once, after all. Others had had to point the important ones out to him.

Were those footsteps he could hear out there? Not Annabelle’s—? No; her clicky shoes. These were blunter. Could be Salesa, awake at last, come to invite them to play a game with him. “How do you two feel about… foosball?” he would say, drawing out the last word in a husky whisper. Only then would he swing the door wide open to reveal himself in a shiny jersey, shorts, and studded shoes. He set his fists out before him and turned them in semicircles, pretending to manipulate the plastic rods of a foosball table. Jon curled still more tightly into himself at the thought of Salesa’s face, how his showman’s grin would crumple like a hole in a cellophane wrapper when he realized the fun one had gone and that he faced only the Archivist. “Oh—hello. Jon, is it? Where has your lovely Martin gone?”

“Oh, uh. Martin needs a screwdriver to fix our door, so I.”

He watched Martin march his silent way slowly, solemnly down a corridor that grew darker, grayer, vaguer with every step until the webs that lined its every side and hung in laces from the ceiling began to catch on his shoes, his belt, his glasses.

“I let him go off alone.”

Jon’s whole body flinched. He gasped awake—oh shit. How had he just let Martin go? He had to—couldn’t stay here—find Martin—keep him out of Annabelle’s clutches—

Stick-thin bristling spider legs tapped the floor of his mind like fingers on a table. Find Martin. Jon instructed himself to sit up, swing his legs over the side of the bed and reach down to grab his shoes. He twitched one finger. See? You can do this. In a minute he’d try again and be able to move his whole arm, push himself up onto one hand. Find Martin.

Also probably go to the toilet. With an empty bladder his head would be clearer, he could figure out which direction to look first.

After Hopworth, while he laid on the couch in his office waiting for the strength to throw himself into the Buried, Jon had imagined Martin and Georgie and Basira and Melanie all stood around that coffin, wearing black and holding flowers. Denise? No, it definitely had three syllables. A scattered applause began as Jonah Magnus emerged from his office, closed behind him the door printed with poor dead Bouchard’s name, and stepped up to the podium. Georgie, not knowing his face, began to clap; Melanie stayed her hands. Elagnus’s shirt, hidden behind suit except for the collar, was striped in black and white. A ball and chain hung from his sleeve like an enormous cufflink. He opened his mouth to speak, and a tape recorder began to hiss.

“What are you doing here?” asked Basira.

“Never underestimate how much I care for the tools I use, Detective. I wouldn’t miss my Archivist’s big day.”

“So they just let you out for this.”

Elias shrugged with false modesty. His chain jingled. “When I asked them nicely.”

“How did you even know he was dead?” interposed Melanie. “Basira, did you tell him about the—”

“She didn’t have to,” said Elias, raising his voice to cut Melanie’s off. “Nothing escapes my notice, and I like to keep an eye out for this sort of thing.”

“Well—it’s—good to see you.” Tim’s voice. Unconvincing, even then.

Jon steeled himself to hear his own voice stammer out, “Yes—y-yes!” but heard nothing except the hissing of the… tape. Yes, that was the wrong tape—the one from his birthday.

“Anyway. Somebody mentioned cake.” Elias jingled as he arranged his hands under his chin.

Tim scoffed. “They didn’t serve cake at my funeral.”

“I preferred going out for ice cream anyway,” pronounced Martin, his arms crossed and his nose in the air. Jon pushed himself up on shaking hands. Find Martin.

They had gone for ice cream at John O’Groats before the change, while living at Daisy’s safehouse. Martin had apologized on behalf of the kiosk for its measly selection—no rum and raisin. Jon pronounced a playful “Urgh,” assuming Martin had cited this flavor as a joke. “I think I’ll manage without that particular abomination.”

“Wait, what? Why did you order it at my birthday party then?”

Jon stood still with his ice cream cone, squinted into space, and blinked. “I did?”

“My first birthday in the Archives, yeah!”

“Huh. That’s… odd.” Martin placed a gentle hand on Jon’s back to remind him to resume walking. “I suppose I must have been—huh. Yes,” he mused, nodding slowly as his hypothesis came into focus between his eyes and the ground. “I must still have thought I was tired of all the good flavors at that point.”

He heard Martin scoff a few steps ahead of him. “What, and now you’re happy with plain old vanilla?” Then he heard arrhythmic footsteps thumping toward him from Martin’s direction; he looked up to find Martin reaching his napkin-draped free hand out toward Jon’s ice cream cone. “You’re dripping again,” he explained.

Jon mumbled thanks and shrugged a laugh. “I-I’ve, uh. Come back around on most of them.”

“Except rum and raisin?”

“No—I’ve come around on it, too, just, uh.” He tried to make the shape of a wheel with his ice-cream-cone-laden hand. It flicked drips of vanilla across his shirt. Martin came at him with the napkin again. “Thank you. I just disliked that one to start with.”

“…Right. Okay, so what revolution occurred in your life before the Archives that overturned all your opinions on ice cream flavors?”

So Jon had told Martin about that summer when his jaw kept subluxing. He’d used that word, assuming Martin was familiar with it already—incorrect, as he knew now. Presumably Martin had gathered from context that Jon meant he’d hurt his jaw, in some small-scale, no-big-deal way whose specifics he’d let slide as an unimportant detail. But then as the anecdote wore on he must have begun to feel the hole in his knowledge. And lo, at last Martin had invoked that dread specter the clarifying question.

“Okay but so your grandmother had no problem with you basically living off ice cream all summer?”

“Well, she did when I could chew. But not when it was that or tinned soup.”

“Ah—right. ‘Cause you hurt your… jaw, you said?” Jon nodded. “What happened exactly?”

“Oh. Uh. Happened? Nothing, just my—I was born, I guess. Just part of my genetic condition; I happened to get it especially bad in the jaw that year. I-it’s much better now, though,” he hastened to add when he noticed Martin’s frown.

“What genetic condition? You never told me you had one.”

“Didn’t I?”

At the time, the anger in Martin’s answering scoff had surprised him. “No, Jon, you never said.”

“Oh. Sorry? I—I mean, you’ve seen me with this for years—I just?—thought you knew.”

“Seen you with—what, the cane, you mean? I thought that was Prentiss!”

Jon glanced to the doorway to double-check that was where he’d left his cane.

“What? No,” he had mused. “Of course not. I’ve had this since….”

“But you never used it.”

“No—surely, I—”

“Not once before Prentiss.”

Even as he’d said the words, Jon’s memory of that time had returned to him and he’d known Martin was right. Before Prentiss attacked the Institute he’d brought his cane with him to work in the Archives every day, and every day left it folded up in his bag. All out of an obscure notion that if he’d used it before Elias and before his coworkers, they’d take it as a plea for mercy, an admission of weakness or incompetence. God, he was naïve back then. He’d used the cane often enough back in Research; why hadn’t he worried Tim and Sasha would find its new absence conspicuous? That they’d worry just as much about his refusal to use it? The whole thing seemed even more stupid, too, now that he knew Elias must have noticed the change. How it must have pleased him, to see his shiny new Archivist so obsessed with proving he was fit for the job.

“Yeah but,” Jon pursued, instead of voicing any of this, “Tim never—?”

Martin nodded and shrugged. “I don’t know; I figured Tim didn’t get them in the legs as much as you did. I didn’t see you guys after the attack, remember? Not ‘til you got out of quarantine.”

“Right, no, of course you didn’t. I’m sorry,” said Jon mechanically, already consumed with the question he asked next. “Martin—did you think it was the corkscrew?”

From Martin’s sigh Jon figured he’d been expecting this question. “Kinda? At first, yeah. Half for real, half just—you know, as a habit? Like, ‘Look, a way to blame yourself!’” He splayed out his hands, rolled his eyes.

“Yes—I do that too.” Jon barely got the words out above a whisper; he couldn’t not smile, but fought to keep it from showing teeth. A muscle under his chin spasmed with the effort.

“But then I noticed you switching sides with it a lot, so, yeah. I knew it couldn’t be just that.”

“Really?” He waited for Martin’s answering shrug. “You’re the first person who’s ever noticed that. Or at least commented on it.”

“Sorry?”

“No—it’s.”

This attempt to communicate a similar sentiment, Jon recalled as he reached for his shoes, hadn’t gone as well as the one a few days later (over unseen horror &c.). Beholding had at that moment presented him with the image of a fat, hunched woman in shorts. She shuffled forward a few steps in a queue at Boots, next to him, and shifted her weight so the cane in her right hand supported her nearer leg. He felt a strong impulse he knew wasn’t his own—one born partly of resentment, part exasperation, part concern—to tell the woman that was bad for her shoulder, that she should switch hands too. But knew if he tried she’d either pretend she hadn’t heard it, or tell him off for criticizing her. Jon didn’t know what she would say more specifically; the Eye didn’t do hypotheticals. It had given him no more than this single moment of preverbal intuition. After the change he could have sought out other conversations Martin had had with his mother, and they might have given him a pretty good idea. But he’d promised Martin not to look at things like that.

He managed to dislodge a finger while tying his shoe. The other shoe he’d pulled off without untying; in a fit of impatience he tried now to shove his foot into it as it was. No good—he got the shoe on, but it just made the other index finger, the one he’d hooked into the back of the shoe behind his heel for leverage, pop off to the side too. Jon was afraid to find out what shape it would end up in if he pulled his finger back out of the shoe like that, so he had to untie it after all, one-handed. Then carefully extract his finger. It sprung back into place as soon as he removed the offending pressure (namely, his heel), but he still whimpered and swore. The corners of his eyes pricked with indignation when he remembered he still had to pee.

In this case, for once, Beholding had told him the important part: that that was why Martin had noticed. Had he noticed Melanie, too, Jon wondered, when she got back from India? She would switch hands sometimes, too—but, of course, without switching legs. He wondered if that had picked at the same unacknowledged nerve of Martin’s that his mother’s habit had. It had bothered Jon, too, but in a different way. He’d resented it a little, but also felt humbled by it, the way he always did by others’ discomfort. Getting shot in the leg seemed so big? Like such an aberration. So uncontroversially important—probably because it was simple, legible. Georgie could convey its hugeness to him in three words. She got shot. Obviously there was more to the story than that; there were parts he could never…

Well, no. There was a part of it he felt he should say he could never understand: that she’d kept the cursed bullet because she wanted it. In fact he was pretty sure he did understand that. But he didn’t have the right to admit it, he didn’t think. And no reason to hope she would believe him if he did. The second he’d learnt the bullet was still in there, after all, he and Basira had rushed to dig it out. Surely, from her perspective that could only mean he didn’t and could never understand. Or maybe he just wanted her to see it that way—wanted her to get to keep that uncomplicated resentment of his ignorance. It made his perspective look stupid and ugly, sure. But the truth made it look self-absorbed and pitiful. The truth was that until Daisy insisted otherwise, he’d assumed only he could see his own corruption and assent to it: that the others must not have known what they were doing.

Then again, maybe even if Melanie knew that, she would see only that he had underestimated her. Maybe it didn’t matter how much she knew.

Melanie switched off which hand she held her white cane with now, too. But that was probably healthy? Jon knew no more than the average person about white-cane hygiene. He just remembered feeling the floor drop out of his stomach when they’d got coffee together during his time in hiding and he had seen her switch her original, silver cane from hand to hand. Part of him had wanted to scoff or rationalize it away. How much could the shot leg hurt, really, if she still noticed when her arms got tired? But another part of him shuddered at the thought one arm alone couldn’t compensate for the weight her leg refused to take—that she had to keep switching off when one arm got weak and shaky from supporting more weight than it should have to. It wasn’t that he hadn’t experienced pain or impairment on that scale. He had, though the thought of a single injury sufficing to cause it still made him feel cold inside. It was that he kept seeing proofs, all over, everywhere, that the parts of his life he’d only learnt to accept by assuming they were rare weren’t rare.

Leitner hadn’t made the evil books; he’d just noticed they were there. And then had his life ruined by their influence, like everyone who came across them. Jon had had no time and no right to deplore the holes Prentiss had left in him and Tim, because on the same damn day he learnt someone had shot the previous Archivist to death. Alright, so it was him, then, right? Him and Tim—just doomed, just preternaturally unlucky. Tim, handsome face half-eaten by worms, estranged (as Jon then assumed) from a brother who seemed so warm and accepting in that picture on his lock screen; Jon, saved from Mr. Spider only by his childhood bully, now fated to take the place of another murder victim—and also half-eaten by worms. But no; he and Tim had got off lightly. Look what had happened to Sasha the same fucking night. The very thing whose influence convinced him the world had it out for him? Had killed Sasha. Literally stolen her life. How many lives around him got stolen while he mourned his own?

“I want you to comment on it,” Jon had managed to clarify. But Martin had scoffed as he stood in the foyer of Daisy’s safehouse, hopping on one foot to pull off the other shoe:

“Yeah, well. You haven’t exactly led by example on that one.”

“How could I?”

He accepted Jon’s scarf and long-discarded jacket, hanging them up beside his own. “Gee, I don’t know—commenting on it yourself?”

“On… switching which side I used the cane on.”

“Don’t play dumb, Jon. On this ‘genetic condition’” (in a deep, posh voice, with a stodgy frown and fluttering eyelashes) “you’ve apparently had this entire time. Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

“I thought you knew, Martin! Why would I mention it in a childhood anecdote if I didn’t think...?”

“Well I didn’t know, okay? You never told me. You never tell anyone anything about what’s going on with you, you just—you just make everything into another heroic cross to bear.”

“That’s not—?” He wanted to tell Martin just how little that made him want to say about it. But he guessed Martin was really talking less about the EDS thing, more about how he’d spent their whole first year in the Archives pretending to dismiss the statements that scared him. How he’d sent Tim and Martin home when he’d found out about Sasha. How he’d stayed away from the Institute even after his name got cleared for Leitner’s murder. “What do you want to know.”

“Why you never—?” In a similar way, Martin seemed to reconsider his initial response. “Yeah, okay, right. Object-level stuff, yeah?” Jon nodded and wanly smiled. “Okay, so. What’s it called?”

After taking a minute to ditch his shoes, wash the sticky ice-cream residue off his hands, and drink some water, he’d sat down on the couch with Martin and told him its name, what it was, what it did. What does that mean, though, Martin kept asking, so he’d explained how it applied to the anecdote about his jaw. Martin asked why it meant he needed a cane.

“Be…cause all my joints are like that.”

“Yeah, but why does it help with that? What is the cane actually for, is what I’m asking.”

Jon hated being asked that question. “It—it means I don’t fall over when one of my joints stops working? A-and… also makes walking hurt less. I suppose.”

“So, when they’re working right, that’s when you don’t need it?”

“No—yes?—sort of. Now sometimes I just need it when it’s been too long since I had a statement. I get sort of. Weak.” Quickly Jon added, “But I don’t need it for stability so much since the coma.” He’d shown Martin how now, when he pulled out his finger, the Eye would just sort of erase that version of reality—how the dislocation wouldn’t snap back, but simply cease to exist. As if his body were a drawing on which the Beholding had corrected a mistake. He put his palms together behind his back, in the way he’d been told one couldn’t without subluxing both shoulders, and told Martin to watch how the hollows between his shoulder bones vanished. He opened his jaw ‘til it jarred to the side, and told Martin to listen for the static.

But Jon had never shown Martin how these things worked before the coma. Martin had no reference for this kind of thing; he understood only enough to find the sights unsettling. “That’s—no, that’s okay, I’ll”—he stuttered as Jon fumbled with his kneecap in search of a fourth example—“I-I get it. I’ll take your word for it.”

“I just thought.”

“No, I—? I don’t need you to prove it to me, Jon.” (The latter nodded, blushing, trying to smile.) “I get… I’m sorry. I guess I get why it’d feel easier not to say anything if? If you think it’s either that or have to convince people it’s a thing.”

Again Jon nodded. He suspected Martin wasn’t through talking yet. But Martin still wasn’t looking at him, eyes squeezed tight against Jon’s party tricks. So, to show he was listening, Jon said, “Yes. Er—thank you, Martin.”

“I just don’t like it when you hide things from me.”

“I wasn’t—”

“You could at least ask if I want to know about them, yeah?”

Even at the time, Jon had doubted this. If they’d had this conversation after the change, he might have pointed out to Martin that when you mention something the other person has no inkling of, you make them too curious to decline your offer of more information, even if afterward they’ll admit they wish you’d never told them.

“Or ask me if I even recognize what you’re talking about, the next time you start going on about some childhood anecdote where you incidentally had a dislocated jaw. Honestly, would it kill you to start with, ‘Hey, did I ever tell you about x’?”

“No, it wouldn’t. You’re right. I’ll try. What… kinds of things did you—? For the future, I mean. What kinds of things did you want to make sure I tell you about.”

Martin sighed, in that way he did when he thought Jon was going about something all wrong. But after a pause to think, he did ask, “About this, or in general?”

“Either—both—first one, then the other.”

“Okay. I guess… I want to know when you’re hurt, mostly. Like—I can’t believe I even have to say this—that’s kind of important, actually? How am I supposed to know how to behave around you if I never know whether you're secretly in pain or not?”

This seemed weird—both now and at the time. Jon figured he must be missing something. If Martin thought he only needed the cane because of Prentiss then, sure, that might have affected how he imagined Jon’s discomfort to himself, but? Wasn’t the cane itself an admission of pain? Why did Martin think he owed him more than that—that he had owed him more than that at the time, no less? Did he not realize how fucking private that was? What a surrender of privacy the cane represented?

But, no, he reminded himself now; nondisabled people don’t realize that, unless you tell them about it. Repeatedly. Over and over. It only seems obvious to you because you lived it already.

“Er.” At the time he’d just shown Martin his teeth, with the points of his left-side canines joined. Nominally a smile, but more like a show of hiding the grimace beneath than an actual attempt to hide it. “That’s harder than you might think? Technically I’m always….”

“Oh.”

“Sorr—”

“—What do you mean, ‘technically’?”

“I’m—not always aware of it?” He disliked that phrase, in pain—how it implied a discrete and exclusive state. One could not be in Paris and at the same time in London; similarly, most people seemed to assume one could not be in pain and also in a good mood. In raptures. In a transport of laughter. That when one admits to being in pain, one implies that’s the most important thing they’re conscious of.

“Well that doesn’t make sense.”

“Yes, I know—‘if a tree falls down in a forest’—blah blah blah.” With a gentle smile to acknowledge he’d picked up this mode of speech from Martin. He turned his wrist in circles so it clicked like an old film reel. “Philosophically speaking, if you’re not aware of pain, you can’t be in it. Maybe ‘technically’ isn’t the right word.”

“Oh yeah ‘cause that’s the angle I want to know about this from.”

Jon sighed. “I know. I’m sorry. I just mean, it doesn’t always matter to me.”

“Well it matters to me,” Martin scoffed.

“Yeah—I’m getting that. Is there any way I can explain this that you won’t jump down my throat for?”

Martin sighed, groaned, pulled at his hair a little but made himself stop. (He doesn’t pull it out, Jon knows—he just likes having something to grab onto during awkward conversations. Usually emerges from them looking like a cartoon scientist.) “Okay, yeah,” said Martin. “I get it. I’m sorry too.”

“I mean—when you get a paper cut, that hurts, technically, right?”

“Well yeah, a little, but that’s not the kind of—”

“But just because you notice that hurt doesn’t mean?” He paused to rearrange his words. “You’re not going to remember it later unless someone asks why you’ve got blood on your sleeve.”

“Y—eah. Sure.”

“Is that…?”

“When you’re suffering, then. I want you to tell me that. And—whenever something weird happens? Like, before it stops being weird and you talk to me like I’m stupid for not already knowing about it.”

“What if”—this far into his question, Jon worried it might come off as a smart-alecky, devil’s-advocate thing. So he paused, pretending he needed time to formulate its words. “What if I haven’t decided yet whether it’s weird or not.”

“That in itself is pretty weird, Jon.”

“Fair enough.”

“I want to be part of that conversation. I want you to trust me enough to bounce ideas off me! It’s not like—? I mean why wouldn’t you do that?”

Jon had shrugged and grimaced, hands in his trouser pockets. “Not to worry you?” he’d suggested. But as he bit his lip and shimmied down from the bed Jon knew now that that was the sanitized version—and probably, if you’d asked him a day before or afterward, his past self would have known that too. Most things you told Martin, he’d either ignore them completely or latch onto them, refuse to let them go, and interpret everything else you said in the light they cast. Jon had learnt not to raise any given topic with him until he was sure he wanted to risk its becoming a long, painful discussion. This was part of why he hadn’t kept his promise, he told himself as he turned their interim bedroom’s doorknob. Why he’d said so little about anything weird that had happened to him at Upton House.

“Martin?”

“Oh hey, Jon—you’re awake.” Martin glanced in his vague direction but stayed bent over his work, so Jon could not meet his eyes.

“You found the screwdriver.”

“Yeah! And a screw that matches better, see?” He fished the first one they'd found out of his pocket and held it up next to the door for comparison. Jon supposed they looked a little different—bright yellowy gold vs. a darker gold. “They were in the library, of all places. There’s a little box full of ‘em that he keeps right next to his reading glasses, apparently. Guess he must break them a lot. How are yours, by the way? Any bits feel loose?”

Dutifully, trying to keep his dazed smile to himself, Jon pulled off his glasses. Folded and unfolded each arm, jiggled the little nose pieces. He shook his head. “Don’t think so. You can have a look yourself though, if you like.”

“Remind me later. Should’ve brought the whole box, probably,” Martin said, voice strained as he twisted the screw that last little bit. “There!” His open mouth broadened into a smile. “Time to see if it worked. You wanna do the honors?”

Jon shook his head, breathed a laugh through his nose. “You should do it. You’re the reason it’s fixed.”

“I mean, yeah,” shrugged Martin as his hand closed round the doorknob, “but I’m also the reason it broke.” It opened with a click. “Ha-ha! Success! Statements—our own clothes—our own bed! Er. Ish.”

Something tugged in Jon’s chest; he’d forgot the statements were why Martin thought this quest so urgent. He lingered at the side of the bed while Martin rummaged in his backpack, remembering for once to toe his first shoe off while standing.

“Man. Looks sorta underwhelming now, after the other room, huh?”

“Least our wallpaper’s better.”

“Tsshhyeah, and our view.”

Jon didn’t turn around, but surmised Martin must be looking out at that tree he liked. “Is it four already?”

“Uhh—nearly, yeah. You were out for a while; took me ages to find that damn thing. Here you go,” announced Martin as he slapped a zip-loc bag full of statement down on the bed.

(“So they won’t get water damage,” he had answered a few days ago, when Jon asked him why he’d individually wrapped each statement like snacks in a bagged lunch. “What? It’s not like we have to worry about landfills anymore. If I put them all in the same bag, you’d take one out and not be able to get it back in.”)

“What happened to my jacket, by the way? And yours?”

“Uhhh.”

“Right, okay,” Martin laughed; “I’ll go get them before I forget. I’ll put this away too, I guess” (meaning the screwdriver still in his hand). “Don’t wait for me, yeah? I don’t mind missing the trailers.”

Jon smiled. “Sure.”

As Martin hurried off, Jon sat down to untie and pull off his other shoe, threaded the lace back through the final eyelet from which it’d come loose, picked up the first shoe and untied that one, then stood up and set them by the door next to his cane. Both hips and all ten fingers behaved themselves throughout. As he walked by the vanity he grabbed the coins he’d removed to do laundry the other day and stuck them back in his trouser pocket. Useless, of course, but he’d missed having something to fidget with. He squatted down and peered under the vanity for the hair tie he’d dropped, for the fifth or sixth time since he’d misplaced it. Didn’t find it. That was fine; he had another one around his wrist. His knees felt weak, so instead of standing back up he crab-walked to the foot of the bed and sat down with his back against it. Straightened his legs out before him on the floor. Then he dug the coins from his pocket and counted them. Yup—still 74p.

Danika! Not Daniela—Danika Gelsthorpe. God, he would never forget one of their names out there. Never underestimate how much I care for the

“I'm back. What’s down there? Did you find the screw?” asked Martin as he hung their jackets up behind the door.

Jon shook his head. “Forgot about it. I was looking for that hair tie.”

“Well you’re on your own there; I’m done finding things today. The screw can wait,” Martin laughed—“he’s got a whole bag inside that box in the library. Do you need a hand getting up?”

He let Martin help him. Both knees cracked; the world’s edges went dark for a second. “Thank you,” he said, and it came out more peremptory than he’d meant it.

“Statement time?”

“Right. You don’t mind? I can wait ’til we’ve both had a rest, if you don’t want to be in the room while I.”

“No, I’m alright; I’ll stay here.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“I thought you hated statements.”

Martin shrugged. “Not these ones so much, now that. Heh—they’re almost nostalgic, if I’m honest. ‘Can it be real? I think I’ve seen a monster!’”

“They are a bit,” agreed Jon, looking down at the plastic-sleeved statement and making himself smile.

“Go on. Seeing you feel better will make me feel better too.”

That made it a bit easier to motivate himself, Jon supposed. From the moment he’d lain down on the bed he’d felt like he was floating on gentle waves—like if he let himself listen to them he could fall asleep in seconds. But that wouldn’t make Martin feel better. And no guarantee it would him, either, once he woke up again. He rearranged the pillows behind himself so he’d have to sit up a little; this might help keep him awake, and it meant he could rest his elbows on the bed while he held up the statement, rather than having to lift them up before his eyes. It made his neck sore, a bit, this angle, but that was fine. That might help keep him awake, too.

He sighed, readying himself for speech. Then heard a click, and felt a familiar buzz and weight against his stomach. The tape recorder had manifested inside his hoodie’s kangaroo pocket.

“Statement of Miranda Lautz, regarding, er… a botched home-repair job. Heh. Seems appropriate. Original statement given March twenty-sixth, 2004. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, the Archivist.”

[Image ID: A digital painting of Jon and Martin on an old-fashioned canopy bed with white sheets and orange drapes. Jon sits on the near side of the bed, reading a paper statement. He frowns slightly, looking down at the statement in his hands; he wears round glasses perched low on his nose. He’s a thin man, with medium brown skin dotted by scars left from the worms, and another scar on his neck from Daisy's knife. His hair is long and curly, gray and white hairs among the black. Jon sits supported by pillows—several big, white, lace-trimmed ones behind his back, and one under his knees. His right leg is slightly crossed over his left ankle, on which a clean white bandage peeks out beneath his cuffed, dark green trousers. He wears an oversized red hoodie and red-toed brown socks. Sat on the far side of the bed, next to Jon but facing away from both him and the viewer, is Martin—a tall and fat white man with short, curly, reddish brown hair and a short beard. He has glasses and is wearing a dark blue jumper and gray-brown trousers. Past the bed on Martin’s side, the bedroom door hangs ajar; in this light, it and the wall glow bluish green. On the near side, though, the light grows warmer, the orange canopy behind Jon casting pink and brown tints onto the white pillows and sheets. End ID.]

It seemed to be a Corruption statement, or maybe the Spiral. Possibly the Buried? A leak in Ms. Lautz’s roof caused a pill-shaped bulge to appear in her kitchen ceiling, about the size of a bread loaf. Water burst from it like pus from an abscess (as she described it. Nothing else Fleshy though, so far). Ms. Lautz repaired the hole in her ceiling, but every morning a new one reappeared somewhere else. Sometimes they appeared bulging and pill-shaped like the first one; other times she found them already burst, covering the room in water shot through with dark specks like coffee grounds.

Jon wished he’d refilled his empty water glass before starting to record. His mouth was so dry that every time he pronounced an L his tongue stuck to its roof. At this point he’d welcome a hole to burst in it and flood his mouth with water. Then again, he did still have to pee.

Eventually she and her spouse hired someone to find out what was wrong with the roof. She described hearing boots tramping around up there for half a day while they checked out all the spots where she and Alex had reported leaks. The inside of Jon’s trouser leg pulled at the bandage on his shin, making it itch. The repair men told Ms. Lautz it’d be safer and barely any more expensive to replace the whole thing. The ring and little fingers of Jon’s left hand were starting to go numb from having that elbow too long pressed against the bed. Miranda and Alex thanked the roof people and sent them off, saying they’d think it over.

He began to regret crossing his legs this way. He’d balanced his right heel in the hollow between his left foot’s ankle and instep, and in the time since he’d arranged them that way gravity had slowly pushed his foot more and more to the side, widening that gap. By this time he was sure it was hyperextended—possibly subluxed? It hurt already, and, he knew, would hurt more when he tried to move it. This rather ruined his fantasy of heading straight for the toilet when he finished reading.

Martin was right; these old statements seemed positively tame, now. He knew he owed it to Ms. Lautz to engage with her fate, but?

No. No buts. Whatever hell she lived in now, it looked just like the one she was about to describe for him, only worse. You can’t even pretend you’re sorry she’s living out her worst fear if you stop in the middle of reading that fear’s origin story. Never underestimate how much I

Once the repair men had left, Miranda Lautz wandered into her kitchen for lunch. She found her ceiling bulging halfway to the floor, with the impression of a face and two twisted arms at its center. Like someone had fallen through her roof, head first. Jon’s stiff neck twinged in sympathy. Miranda screamed and strode to the other side of the house in search of beer, figuring she'd find better answers at the bottom of a bottle than in her own head. When she got back to the kitchen with them, the beer bottles didn’t know what to do either, but said—

“God damn it. Not ‘ales’—‘Alex’. Obviously.”

He let the statement’s pages flop over the back of his hand, let his head tip backward until the top of it bumped against headboard and his eyes faced the ceiling. That settled it, then, didn’t it. If he had the Ceaseless Watcher looking through his eyes, he wouldn’t make a mistake like that—and he certainly couldn’t change position while recording. On top of his more substantial regrets, Jon had spent their whole odyssey before they came to Upton House ruing that he’d sat at the dining-room table to read Magnus’s statement, rather than on the couch or the bed. The chairs at that table had plain, flat wood seats—no cushion, no contouring for the shape of an arse. When he opened the door to the changed world, the cataclysm had preserved his bodily sensations at that moment like a mosquito in amber. He’d had a sore tailbone and pins and needles down his legs for untold eons. Right up until he and Martin crossed from the Necropolis onto the grounds protected by Salesa’s camera, where his tailbone faded out of awareness and his head filled up with cotton.

“Ohhh. ‘Alex’. Okay, that makes a lot more sense,” laughed Martin meanwhile. Jon could feel Martin’s shoulder bouncing against his. “She must’ve written it in cursive, huh.”

“I can’t do this right now, Martin.”

“Oh—okay, yeah. You rest; I’ll finish it for you.”

Jon closed his eyes and let air gush out from his nostrils. But you hate the statements, he knew he should say. Wouldn’t this make it easier, though? To let Martin have out this last bit of denial first?

The tape recorder in his pocket still hissed, still warmed and weighted down his stomach like a meal.

“Thank you,” he said.

The operator on the phone said she and Alex should wait for the ambulance to arrive, rather than try to free the man in the ceiling by themselves. Jon turned his neck back and forth, hoping Martin couldn’t hear its joints’ snap/crackle/pop. He picked his elbow up off the bed and shook out his hand. But when the paramedics cut the ceiling open, only a torrent of water gushed into their kitchen—water flecked with a great deal of what looked like coffee grounds. A day or two later the roof people called, to ask if they’d decided whether to have the roof repaired or replaced. They assured her none of their employees had gone missing. At the time of writing, Miranda and Alex still hadn’t decided what to do about the roof. A week ago, they’d found a squirrel-shaped bulge in their bedroom ceiling; they’d packed their bags and come to stay with Alex’s sister in London.

“Right! That wasn’t so bad.” Martin set the statement down and stretched his arms over his head. “Huh.”

“Hm?”

“Oh, I don’t know, just—it’s been a while. Thought it might feel, I don’t know, worse than that? Or better, I guess, since the Eye’s so ‘fond’ of me now.”

“I don’t think they work here.”

“What?”

“The statements. The Eye can’t see their fear.”

“Oh.” Jon could feel Martin deflating. He let himself avalanche over to fill the space. “You don’t feel better, do you.”

“No.”

“Maybe it’s just—slower here, like it’s taking a while to load or something. Remember how long the tape recorder took to come on last time? It was like—you were like— ‘“Statement of Blankety Blank, regarding an encounter with”—Oh, right,’ click.”

That was true. The tapes had known Salesa would give a statement before it happened, but with these paper ones they’d seemed slow on the uptake. Martin had also sworn the recorder that manifested to tape Mr. Andrade’s statement was a different machine than the one Salesa’d spotted that first morning. Jon wondered which machine the one in his pocket was.

Not relevant, he decided. He shook his head in his palm, stroking the lids of his closed eyes. “No—if they worked here I wouldn’t be able to stop in the middle of one.” As soon as he said it he winced, bracing himself for argument.

After the change he remembered wailing to Martin about how he couldn’t stop reading Magnus’s statement—how its words had possessed his whole body, forced him to do the worst thing any person ever had, and forced him to like it, to feel Magnus’s triumph as they both opened the door. Martin had pressed Jon’s face into his clavicle, rubbed his nose in the scent of Daisy’s laundry soap, covered the back of Jon’s head with his hands. Tried to interpose what he must then have still called the real world between Jon and what he could see outside. He’d said over and over, I know, and We‘ll be okay. Jon had known that meant he wasn’t listening, and yet still hadn’t been prepared for the argument they had later, when he mentioned in sobriety the same things he’d wailed back then.

“Hang on”—Martin had pleaded—“no, that can’t be true. I’ve been interrupted in the middle of a statement loads of times—and I know you have too.”

“By outside forces, yes, but you can’t decide to stop reading one. Believe me, Martin, I wouldn’t have—”

“Tim did.”

“No, he didn’t—”

“Yes he did! He was gonna do one and then Melanie—”

“No, Martin, I’ve heard the tape you’re talking about. Tim introduced the statement but didn’t actually start—”

“He did so! He read the first bit, and then stopped. ‘My parents never let me have a night light. I was—’”

“‘Always afraid, but they were just’....” Behind his own eyes he’d felt the Eye shudder and throb with gratitude. Just that sort of stubborn, it had seemed to sing, in a bizarre combination of his own voice with Jonah’s with Melanie’s, which doubled down when I screamed or cried about something, instead of actually listening.

“Yeah,” said Martin, forehead wrinkling. “And then he said, ‘This is stupid,’ and stopped.”

“You’re right.”

Jon still had no satisfying answer to that one, and cursed himself for having opened that can of worms back up again. It had been Tim’s first-ever statement, he reminded himself, and maybe Tim had never intended to get even that far. Maybe he’d been waiting for someone to interrupt him, as Melanie eventually did. Even out there, the Eye couldn’t really show him things like that. He could find out what Tim had said—could look it up, as it were—and what he’d thought, but motivation was a bit too murky, multilayered, complicated. It wasn’t real telepathy? The vicarious emotions the Eye gave him access to worked in broad strokes, generalities—just like common or garden empathy. Sure, he could imagine other people’s points of view more vividly, now that he could see through their eyes. But he still had to imagine them to life, based on the clues around him and what emotions those clues stirred in him. It didn’t work well for situations like this; he could hear Melanie’s footsteps and feel Tim’s reluctance to read a statement, but that was it. Enough to concoct plausible explanations; not enough to pick out the truth from a list of them. Plausibilities were too much like hypotheticals.

In the timelessness since that argument with Martin, though, Jon had also wondered whether it mattered if Tim had read the statement before recording it. He didn’t have footage, as it were, of Tim doing so; either the Eye had more copies of the statement’s events than it needed already and so had deleted that one from storage, or, conversely, perhaps it could no longer see versions of it that relied too heavily on the pages Mr. Hatendi had written it on, since Martin had burned those. But Tim’s summary, before he started reading. Blanket, monster, dead friend. It was bad, sure (like the assistants’ summaries always were, a ghost of past Jon interposed). But it sounded like the summary of a man who’d read it with his mind on other things. Inevitable and gruesome end. How he tried to hide; he couldn’t. Not at all like that of someone skimming it for the first time as he spoke. He did rifle through the papers though? So Jon couldn’t be sure. The suspicion ate at his mind, especially here. Could he have kept the world from ending just by—reading Magnus’s statement, before he went to record it? The way he used to way back at the start, before he trusted himself to speak the words perfectly on the first try? You didn’t mean to record it, did you? No, I’m sure you told Melanie and Basira you were just going to

“Guess that makes sense,” Martin said now. “So, you’re still feeling…?”

“Not great?”

“Yeah.”

“I… I feel human, here.”

“Oh wow. That’s—”

Jon told himself to put the hope in Martin’s voice to bed as soon as possible. “I know I’m not—not fully.” He allowed a smile to twitch the corners of his lips, flared his nostrils around an exhale that almost passed as a laugh. “Most humans don’t spontaneously summon tape recorders. Or sleep with their eyes open.”

“Yeah, but still, you don’t think maybe—?”

Again Jon hastened to cut Martin off. “A-and even if I was, it’s. I know that should be a good thing? But—”

At this point Martin interposed, “Should be, yeah! You don’t think it might mean you could—I don’t know, go back to normal? If we stayed here for a while?”

“Maybe? I-I might stop craving the Eye so much, but we’d still have to go back out there eventually, to face Elias, and. To be honest with you, Martin?” He huffed a laugh out, bitterly. “My ‘normal’ wasn’t exactly...”

“Right.” Martin sighed. “So you mean you feel like you used to, as a human. Which was…”

“Not great.”

“Right.”

“I haven’t been very well, here.” Jon shrugged for the excuse to duck his head. He could feel himself blushing, the heat spilling from his face all down both arms. Good thing the tape recorder in his pocket had gone cold.

Next to him, Martin puffed air out of his cheeks. “Yeah, I know.”

“I’m dizzy and confused without the Eye, and it—it can’t fix me here? When I.” He drew in breath, lifted his heel off his ankle and set that leg to the side, letting its foot roll into Martin’s shin. Bit his lip and scrunched his nose in preparation. Flexed the other foot’s toes, trying to isolate the lever in his ankle that would—there. Clunk. Then a noisy exhale: “Jyyrrggh. When that happens,” he choked out, voice strained by both pain and nerves. “It’s like before I became an avatar. I have to fix it myself, and it doesn’t just.” Magically stop hurting, he hoped went without saying; already he could hear Martin sucking air through his teeth. It made Jon’s cheeks itch. “Shouldn’t have let myself get used to a higher standard, I suppose.”

“What? No—of course you should have. Did you think I was gonna say that?”

“No, of course not; I just meant—”

“You deserve to feel healthy, Jon.”

“Do I? Health is clumsy, it’s callous, it, it lets terrible things happen because they don’t feel real—it can’t imagine them properly, can’t understand what they mean….”

“Okay, first of all, ouch.” Jon snarled a laugh at that, without knowing whether Martin meant it as a joke. “Second of all, that is not why you—why the world ended, okay? Especially, ‘cause, you weren’t ‘healthy’ then. You read Elias’s bloody statement because you were starving, remember?”

“Hmrph,” pronounced Jon, to concede he was listening without either confirming or denying the point.

“And thirdly, you’re not ‘callous’ out there? You don’t”—a scoff interrupted his words. “You don’t ‘let things happen because they don’t feel real’—that’s sure not how I remember it. Okay? I remember you crying for—god, I don’t know, days, maybe? Weeks?—about how you could feel everything, and couldn’t stop any of it. That’s the thing we’re hiding from here, Jon, so if you don’t actually feel any healthier here then what even is the point?”

In a voice embarrassment made small Jon managed, “I mean? I’m still kind of having fun.”

“Really? You don’t seem like it—”

“Not today, maybe—”

“Right, yeah, no; spending all day trying to fix a doorknob isn’t exactly—”

“But I don’t want to leave yet. I should still have a few good days left before the distance from the Eye gets too….”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.” For a few seconds he tried to think of something better to say, then gave up and told the truth, though in a jocular voice to hide his self-consciousness. “Always was the person who got ill on holiday.”

“Oh, god, of course you were—”

Voice growing higher in pitch, Jon pleaded, “It didn’t usually stop me from enjoying it?”

“What about America?” laughed Martin. “Did you still enjoy that one?”

“Of course not—I got kidnapped.”

“I mean, yeah, but you were pretty used to that too by then, right?”

“God.” Jon sniffed, crunchily, reeling back in the snot he’d laughed out. “Besides. That was a business engagement.”

Martin acknowledged this comment with a quick Psh, as he turned himself around on the bed to face Jon a little more. “Can I trust you to”—he stopped.

“Yes.”

“No, let me—that wasn’t fair; I can’t ask you that yet.”

“Oh. I’m sorry, Martin; I didn’t—”

“Of me, I meant, it wasn’t fair.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. I’ve been ignoring your distress all week because I wanted it not to matter.”

“I don’t know if I’d call it ‘distress,’” pointed out Jon. “Plus, I have been sort of, er. Secretive, about it.”

The exasperation in Martin’s sigh was probably meant for him, not for Jon, the latter reminded himself. “Yeah, but you’re not subtle. I can tell when you’re hiding something. It wasn’t exactly a big leap to figure out what. But I told myself it was temporary, and that you were acting like.”

Jon laughed preemptively. “Yes?”

“Like a little kid in line for a theme-park ride.” Again Jon laughed—less at the comparison itself than at how much Martin winced to hear himself say it. “I’m sorry. I should’ve taken you more seriously.”

“And I should have told you what was going on with me.”

“Yup,” concurred Martin at once.

“I know you hate it when I keep things from you.”

“I do—I hate it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m sorry too.” Martin waved this away like a fly. “I just—you said you think we’ve got a few more days, before it gets too much or whatever.”

“Yes.”

“Can I trust you to tell me when we need to leave?”

Jon tried not to answer too quickly, knowing vaguely that that might sound insincere. “Yes,” he said again, after pausing for a second. “You can trust me.”

“Okay? Don’t try to spare my feelings, or anything like that. Like—don’t just go, ‘Oh, well, he’s having a good time. That’s fine; I don’t have to.’ Yeah? ‘Cause I won’t have a good time if I’m worried you’re secretly suffering.”

This Jon did know; it sent a thrill of recognition down his spine, as he remembered their first day’s ping-pong adventure. “Right. I’ll do my suffering as publicly as possible.”

“Uh huh.” Martin’s arm tightened around Jon’s shoulder. “Just don’t worry about disappointing me? I mean, sure, I like it here, with the whole ‘not being an evil wasteland’ thing, but I’d much rather be out there with you happy than with you than spend one more minute in paradise with her.”

With a smile, Jon replied, “That might just be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“Yeah, yeah. Come on. We’ve got a job to do.”

“I suppose we do.”

As they walked on out of the range of Salesa’s camera, Jon glanced backward one more time and thought, Yes, that makes sense—but couldn’t quite recall what he had expected to see. It was like when you look at a clock, and tick Check the time off your mental to-do list, then realize you never internalized what time it was. “Pity,” he mused.

“What?”

“It’s, er, going away. That peace, the safety, the memory of ignorance.”

“That’s… Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Do you remember any of it? W-What Salesa said? Annabelle?”

“Some, I think. It’s, uh… do you mind filling me in?”

“Wait, you need me to tell you something for once?”

“I guess so. It’s, er… it’s gone. Like a dream. What was it like?”

After a pause Martin said, “Nice. It was… it was really nice.”

“Even though Annabelle was there?”

“I mean, yeah, but she didn’t do anything,” shrugged Martin. “Except cook for us. That was weird.”

“She cooked?” Jon watched Martin nod and smile around a wince. “And we let her do that? I let her do that?”

With a scoff Martin answered, “Under duress, yeah.”

“Huh.” Jon twirled his cane in circles, wondering why he’d thought he would need it. “Well, she didn’t poison us, apparently.”

“Nope. And believe me, we had that conversation plenty of times already. Er—maybe just let me put that away for you before you take somebody’s eye out, yeah?”

Jon nodded, folded his cane and handed it to Martin, then made himself laugh. “Was I… a bit neurotic about it.”

“About Annabelle?” Again Jon nodded. “Oh, we both were. We kept switching sides—one day I’d be like, ‘But she’s got four arms, Jon!’ and the next you’d be like—”

“She had four arms?”

“Yup. And six eyes. But your powers didn’t work there, so we thought maybe hers didn’t either? Never did find out for sure. God—you remember the day we got locked out of our room?”

“Er….”

“So that’s a no, then.”

“Sorry.”

Martin’s lips billowed in a sigh. “No, don’t be sorry. It’s not your fault.”

“So… what happened? Who locked us out? Was it Annabelle?”

“No, no, no one locked us out. It was just me, I uh—I sorta broke the doorknob? God, it was awful. Went to open it and the whole thing just came off in my hand, like” (he made the motion of turning a doorknob in empty air, and imitated the sound Jon figured it must have made coming off) “krrruk-krr.” Jon fondly laughed; he could imagine Martin’s horror at breaking something in a historic mansion. “It was just one screw that came loose, though, so you’d think, easy fix, right? Except the bloody screwdriver took forever to find. Turns out Salesa kept them in the library, of all places.”

“S-sorry—what does this have to do with Annabelle?”

“Oh—nothing ultimately, just.” Martin grimaced at his own recollection. “God, we had this whole argument over whether to ask her about it, and when I finally did can you guess what she told us?”

“What?” managed Jon; his throat felt small and weak all of a sudden.

Martin put a finger to his chin, and blinked his eyes out of sync. “‘Perhaps he keeps them next to something that breaks a lot,’” he recited, with an inane, self-congratulating smile. For a fraction of a second Jon could recognize it as Annabelle’s I’ve-just-told-a-riddle expression. But the memory faded and he could picture her face only as he’d seen it in pictures before the change.

“O…kay. And was that… true?”

“I mean, yeah, technically. Useless, though. And after we spent so long agonizing over whether it was safe to ask her….”

Jon allowed himself a cynical laugh. “Are you sure she didn’t orchestrate the whole thing?”

“Ugh—no, it wasn’t her. We had this conversation at the time. You made me check for cobwebs and everything.”

“And you… didn’t find any?”

“Of course not, Jon; it was a doorway.”

“Right. Doorway, yes.”

“Are you sure you’re feeling better? You still seem a bit….”

“No, I’m—I feel fine, I just can’t seem to. Retain anything concrete about… where did you say it was? Upton House? God that’s strange, that it would just be….”

Part of Jon felt tempted to deplore it as a waste of space, on the apocalypse’s part. These stretches of empty land were one thing, but a mansion? Couldn’t they at least get a Spiral domain out of it?

“I mean, not really. He told us all about it, remember? With the magic camera?”

“Right, yes,” Jon agreed.

“Well, we got it all on tape, if you want to listen to it later.”

“Yes, that sounds—all of it?”

“Well not the whole week or anything. It just came on whenever it thought it was important, I guess.”

“So not the part about the doorway.”

“Nope.”

“Pity.”

[poesparakeet-fics]

Here you go, you thirsty beasts.

This one got long so it’s a 2 parter! It’s SFW, so enjoy it at the link or here in the post.

Chapters: 1/2 Fandom: Critical Role (Web Series) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Caduceus Clay & The Mighty Nein, Caduceus Clay & Jester Lavorre, Caduceus Clay & Mollymauk Tealeaf, Caduceus Clay & Yasha Characters: Caduceus Clay, Jester Lavorre, Mollymauk Tealeaf, Yasha (Critical Role), Nott | Veth Brenatto Additional Tags: Tickling, Revenge, Shrinking, wild magic mishaps, safeword, Teasing Summary:

Caduceus has made a habit of tickling some of his companions, be it as a cheer-up, a settle-down or a playful punishment. When a mishap with some wild magic makes his smaller than his friends, a few decide to get a little revenge.

FIC

Caduceus didn’t mind arcane magic most of the time, after all, Caleb used his with great expertise.  But he was getting real tired of wild magic, real fast. 

When Jester had cast her guiding bolt she’d gotten butterflies, for Mother’s sake. He’d tried to heal Fjord and saw everything around him start to stretch and grow. They kept fighting, of course. It wasn’t until the last of the shrieking horrors was lying dead that he realized what had actually happened. 

The world hadn’t grown, he had shrunk. Which was, to be fair, easier to deal with. Still, he was feeling pretty sorry for himself as he sat with his feet dangling from the side of their kitchen table, now only a few inches taller than Veth.

A visiting Shadowhand was peering at Caduceus with a small frown on his face before scratching his head and sighing. 

“Alright. The bad news is, I don’t think we can dispel it. Jester said you tried a restoration spell?”

Caduceus nodded glumly. 

“Well the good news is, it will almost certainly wear off. The spell is using energy to maintain this form in you, it will run out of that energy eventually. But… I cannot tell you how long it will last. Based on the rate of decay I would guess a few days but that is some conjecture on my part.”

Caduceus let out a sigh. 

“Thank you for your help, Essek. I guess I’ll just have to live with my current… uh… change in perspective for the time being.”

“Yes, a good attitude to keep. I’m sure it’s been a long time since you were that small.”

“Huh. Yeah, I guess I would have been a baby. Maybe I’ll ask Veth for pointers.”

“I think that all of her advice will involve climbing, Herr Clay. You might need to make your own way.” Caleb chuckled from his seat nearby. He was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. He had been watching Caduceus like he was a puzzle, but now he was smiling, having been assured that the situation wasn’t too serious.

“Yeah, you might be right.”

Caduceus hopped off the table, turning to see Caleb smothering a little half smile. Caduceus pointed a finger accusingly.

“You cut that out.”

“I’m very sorry. It’s just… it is very cute.”

…

“Caduceus, can I hug you?”

Yasha had walked through covered in rainwater not ten minutes before, but she’d returned in dry clothes. Caduceus, about halfway through drinking a now comically large mug of tea, looked up to meet her gaze. He could see the little haunt of loneliness in her eyes that sometimes creeped in, even in a house full of lovers.

“Yeah, of course.” 

He put his tea down carefully before hopping off his seat. He started to pass her into the living room, but Yasha sat at the table and pulled him into her lap instead.

“Woah!”

“Sorry!” Yasha rushed out, “I didn’t mean to surprise you! You were lighter than I thought you’d be!”

“It’s OK,” Caduceus assured her, “I’m just not used to being picked up.”

Yasha wrapped him up in her arms. “Is this alright?”

He relaxed as she coiled herself around him, face buried in his soft hair. 

“Yeah. That’s very nice.” Being held so literally felt old and new at the same time.

Yasha nuzzled his head. “I’ve wanted to do this since you shrunk. I love you when you’re big, but it’s so nice to get to squeeze you for once!”

Caduceus chuckled. “It’s nice to be squeezed, honestly.”

“And you’re so cute! I just want to eat you up! Omnomnom!”

Caduceus felt his whole spine twist on instinct when Yasha gnawed playfully at the back of his neck.

“No-ho!” He squeeked, so high pitched that both of them froze in shock. 

“Aw, Caduceus…”

“... It would be really unfair to tickle me. Just because you’re bigger than me now--” He was cut off when he had to press his lips together to smother another peel of laughter.

Yasha grinned with her teeth still pressed against his skin.

“I dunno, you tickle the others plenty.”

“Because they need it!”

“Hehe. I think that’s probably true, but they never get you back because you’re always so scared of hurting them by accident. Isn’t that because you’re bigger than them?”

She blew a raspberry on the side of his neck that made him squeal far too loud. He heard approaching footsteps. 

“No no no nonono!” He squeaked when he realized what they meant.

Jester bounded through the door first, magnetically drawn to any ticklish sounds in her vicinity. She stopped in her tracks when she walked into the kitchen to see a smiling Yasha with a giggling fun-sized firbolg in her lap, now curled in a desperate little ball within her embrace to avoid the fingers pinching at his tummy.

“Oh my goodness, is little Caduceus ticklish?”

“Nohoho!” Caduceus tried to plead or run, but his laughter was blocking the former and a meaty arm was blocking the latter.

“Mmhmm,” Yasha answered with one hand clawing his belly, not even out of breath for the effort she was expanding to thwart his escape, “I think big Caduceus is too, he’s just easier to tickle now.”

Molly and Veth stumbled in behind Jester. Molly had a grin on his face, coming to stand behind her and rest his chin on her shoulder. His eyes narrowed.

“Hey, he’s being real loud, eh?”

“Huh?” Jester answered.

“Well, it seems like he might need to settle down a little.”

“Ooh,” Jester giggled, “I think you’re right Molly!”

Caduceus felt a cold chill splash down his back. Sure, he’d seen this coming, but it didn’t stop the escalation of shivery, giggly panic through his system. And running was not working out for him.

“Well,” Molly purred, “Isn’t it lucky that we have such well established guidelines for getting someone to settle down.”

Caduceus switched gears, climbing further into Yasha’s lap instead and clinging to her shoulders.

“Please! Don’t let them get me!”

“I dunno…” Yasha teased as the tieflings stalked closer.

“No! Yasha, they’ll kill me!”

“Oh, don’t worry, I won’t let them kill you. But you do deserve this just a little, don’t you?” Yasha lowered her voice, all but whispering in his velvety ear, “Don’t forget, licorice works for you too.”

Caduceus whimpered. Ok, so did he deserve it? Yes. Probably. A little. Had there been a few times where he’d tickled a tiefling to pieces less because they needed to settle down and more because it was fun? Maybe. Perhaps. A couple of times, tops.

He took a deep breath to try and steel himself, shutting his eyes tight in the hopes that not seeing them coming would somehow save him. Yasha chuckled in his ear, seeming to sense his acceptance of this fate. 

“Heh. OK,” she whispered in his ear.

Fingers as strong as barrel bands gripped his ankles and Yasha stood up. The world spun. Balance upended, Caduceus eye’s shot open to see the devilish forms of his approaching friends as they cheered Yasha on, only upside- down. Yasha was hanging him by his ankles. 

“Don’t be too mean or I’m eating tief toes for dinner, got it? He’s not used to it.”

Molly’s smile became razor sharp and Jester clapped her hands. Caduceus could only hug himself and try to keep his shirt from falling over his head. 

“Not used to getting a taste of his own medicine, you mean? Seems to me that should be corrected.” Molly purred.

"Ah! Can we please talk about this?" Caduceus asked, the tiniest hint of a whine making its way into his usually rumbling voice.

"You can talk all you want, Caduceus!" Jester bent over to put her face next to his. She gave him a teasing wink before planting a sweet little kiss on his cheek.

"Veth?" He asked, looking pleadingly at his fellow (currently) small creature, "Solidarity? Please?"

Veth just laughed at him. "Nah."

"But you're going to help us though, right Veth?" Jester asked, voice full of mischief. "When will you get the chance to tickle Caduceus again?"

"Heh. Nah." The halfling answered, strolling out of the room. "I'm good, thanks." 

"Humph." Jester pouted for a moment, but it quickly morphed into a wicked little smile as she reached out to tickle Caduceus' long velvety ears.

"Ahhahaha- hehe- ha... no... no... MOLLY GET AWAY FROM THERE!"

The other tiefling cackled with glee, pinching Caduceus' knees. The firbolg’s legs pumped on reflex, his body wiggling like a worm on a hook. 

"So loud! You're not settled yet, love, just relax."

"I wahahahas born settled!"

"Oh reeeally? Jester teased him, hands jumping up to poke and pinch at his ribs, effortlessly dodging any attempt he made to block her. "Then why are you so loud and wiggly, huh?"

'B-because you- eeheeheehee! Tiheheheckles!"

"Does it?" Molly taunted, dropping down to Jester's level and fluttering his hands across his belly. 

"Yehehes!"

"Excellent!" Molly cheered, before grabbing the hem of Caduceus' shirt and yanking it down over his head. 

Caduceus squawked, temporarily blinded by the homespun linen that was now tangled around his elbows. He started to fight with it, trying to push it down (up?) again to cover his downy torso, for all the good it was doing. Then he felt a cool pair of lips press against his belly, and he squealed before Jester could even begin.

Ppppbbbbtt

“Aaaaiii! NahahaHAA! STAHAP!”

Caduceus’ pleas fell on deaf ears, Jester only pausing long enough to take a deep breath and giggle to herself before she hit him again. 

"Yes! Wish I could grow a beard just for this, you fuzzy bastard." Molly crowed.

Caduceus whimpered frantically, his shirt somehow transformed into an impossible maze that kept him blinded and defenseless.

An ominous silence was followed by a deadly double attack made Caduceus’ voice crack with the force of his squeal. “AHAaaA! LICORICE!”

The both backed off right away, leaving Caduceus dizzy and catching his breath. Jester started to help him get untangled from his shirt. Molly grinned down at him before taking a deep, threatening breath to make Caduceus shriek in anticipatory panic.

Molly didn’t get a chance to make good. In one more dizzying instant Caduceus was set upright on his feet, watching Yasha chase Molly out of the room. 

“WHAT did I say?”

“C-come on I wasn’t gonna do it! Yasha! Please! He threatens me like that all the-- Nooo!”

Jester chuckled at Caduceus’ dazed expression, pulling him into a cuddle where they stood. 

“You OK Caduceus?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah.”

“That’s good. It was fun to tickle you for a change!”

“Well I’m glad it was fun, because when I’m big again there are going to be consequences.” 

Jester just giggled at him, then tugged him to sit on a chair and put his tea cup back in his hands with a kiss on his cheek.

[typewriterghcst]

Title: mother, forget me

Fandom: Kung Fu Panda

Characters: Shen, Soothsayer

Summary: He’s lived his life in a burning house, and now he is wasting away inside it. Why should he be at all surprised that she would fight the flames to traverse back into it in order to rescue him? At this rate, though, perhaps they’re simply burning to ash together.

Notes: whispers kind of an affectionate maybe Send Off written for @infini-tree regarding our Shen and Soothsayer muses, since we’ve both sorta halfway-ish moved into different fandoms and don’t write together very often anymore `~`

So of course this is based on the main verse on my Shen blog, where he Somehow survives the end of his canon and starts hiding out at the Soothsayer’s home like a particularly deviant NEET

I’ve long enjoyed our interactions, and even if we don’t write together again, I’ll still think back fondly on those interactions, ha. So. Just sort of a gift, then!

                                                        +++

Shen forgets he is no longer a skittish, sullen teenager sometimes, though he isn’t certain how. There’s an aching stiffness in his bones that has followed him into his miraculous second chance survival which had never assailed him back then. He lives now in a dream world where time stands still at inopportune and awkward moments, only to pass in an instant when he blinks. He doesn’t know how long he’s lingered here. He can not force himself to think of the future; it’s like futilely plucking at a minuscule piece of shell in the egg white.

Yet unlike those dream worlds he remembers from his childhood, he is not alone this time. No, he has become someone’s burden again, and he might relish in that newfound purpose were it not for who it is that has undertaken the burden.

The Soothsayer joins him at the window, once, and leaves a thin jacket of her own thrown across his shoulders, and it’s then he realizes he isn’t sure who has imprisoned who. 

It’s then, also, he thinks he should leave.

                                                        +++

Quite often he will find himself reluctant to ask those questions he so dearly covets answers for, simply out of a fear that those same answers shall prove ultimately devastating. Tonight, his courage refuses to falter.

"Did you know?" Shen asks his old caretaker (a position she's rather wordlessly slipped back into, though he will not dwell on the similarities now). "Did you know I'd do it?"

"I knew you had the potential to travel down a very dark path," she eventually answers with a measured cadence, and Shen fills in the blanks that she hadn't foreseen just how much darkness that path had had the capacity for.

                                                        +++

He had tried to promise himself once, in a fleeting, blinding instant of childish fury, the source of which has been long obscured by time. 

He had tried to promise himself that anyone who tried to harm her would meet with an agonizing fate, and he had taken a certain amount of comfort and pleasure in imagining just how he might make good on that promise.

He thinks of it nowadays sometimes when she leaves early in the morning, when he pretends to sleep so she doesn’t know he knows he wasn’t the only one unable to sleep through the night. 

(They are both such prideful creatures.)

He thinks about how he is in a far more convenient position to keep his word now, how he would not hesitate, and he wonders if that is perhaps the closest he will ever come to real love.

                                                        +++

What will he do, he wonders sometimes against his will, when she is gone? He has but one friend left in the wide, blue world, and being a creature quite comfortably accustomed to a literal army of supporters kept in line with fear, the instability inherent in this new status quo is perhaps more distressing than even he realizes.

Shen spies the Soothsayer drifting off at her table as she works once or twice, and it lights in him a difficult to define, frenzied knot of half-emotions. He makes mention of her fatigue once. Her response, he assumes, is to put more effort into keeping up her composure in his presence, as he doesn’t catch her dozing again.

It isn't fair, it isn't fair, and sometimes he's so frustrated by what he’s managed to do how things have ended up that he can't stand it. It's then, again, that he thinks he should leave.

                                                        +++

He doesn't know her story. Somehow in all their years together, interrupted as they've been, she has never been compelled to share it with him. It's fine that way. It's the way it ought to be, he supposes.

Yet, every now and again, he will glimpse some shared similarity, some shared response to a petty trauma, and for the first time find himself musing on what other familiarities might linger in their pasts. 

                                                        +++

Even now, the memory will so often come back to him, unwanted, unprompted. Pulling himself up over a balustrade in a clumsy attempt to see over it, to catch a faraway glimpse of Mother, needling curiosity and awe always tempered so expertly by the lingering haze of unbelonging.

For so long he has recalled this moment as one of solitude and numb resentment, but like a buoyant balloon eventually resurfacing after being shoved under bathwater, he remembers the Soothsayer calling to him from down the hall, and how he'd so eagerly abandoned his hiding spot to bound to her side. She had smiled at him, had asked what it was which had captured his attention so thoroughly.

And something rises in him, then, a sharp stab of remorse so powerful it aches in a way he’d never thought possible.

If only. If only.

                                                        +++

Too often she approaches his occasional fleeting tantrums with nothing more than mutely exasperated resignation, her hooves folded neatly on the top of her cane as she surveys the petty devastation he's left behind— an upended side table, scattered incense and old, singed bowls now lying in disarray.

"Was it unworthy of me?" She eventually asks flatly, and Shen barks out a harsh laugh despite himself.

“Yes,” he says, with an unhinged lightness he hasn’t felt in decades. “It should be better. It should be ornately and ostentatiously decorated and well-constructed enough to last literal dynasties. Then it’d be a worthy addition to your meager collection of furniture.”

There she smiles at him, familiarly, a half-crooked one that speaks to decade’s worth of dealing with his childish temper. He’d seen it, too, all that time ago, in the feverish and sleep-deprived days of his biggest scheme, but at the time it’d only infuriated him, made him feel intrinsically small. Here, now, the sight of it elicits a wash of comfort to come over him, and tears prick at the corners of his eyes.

He laughs, but the sound is thick with emotion, and he flees shortly after.

                                                        +++

"I should leave."

He speaks it into existence with all the strength of a flickering candle, hoping it might pass by unnoticed, perhaps. Yet like a candle in a darkened room, this hushed murmur's reach in the silence of the midnight stillness betrays him.

The clatter of the Soothsayer’s pestle somewhere across the expanse between them tells him she’s heard him. When she speaks, it’s soft but reluctant.

“...Where will you go?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t have to leave.”

“But I should.”

She doesn’t respond to that, but he can feel that she wants to. He can imagine her when he closes his eyes, searching desperately for something to make this all alright. To make it work for the best. Something that makes it not so hopeless. But she’s smart, he knows. She’ll come to the same conclusion. If she hasn’t already.

Somewhere, there comes that same memory of running to her side, taking her outstretched hoof in his wing, already starting in on some inane factoid he’d picked up in his studies that day, eager to share with her his discoveries.

"I-I'm sorry."

It slips away from him without his approval, before he has a chance to stifle and drown it with any kind of success, and it comes out as a broken whisper. His vision as he stares out the window has started swimming. Some part of him wishes it was because he has begun breathing his last breaths.

Even now, he remains selfish and weak— were he truly so sorry, he thinks, he would have simply disappeared from her life in the night, with only a letter to explain his thoughts; he would have vanished just as unceremoniously as he had arrived, and left her in peace.

But he had done that once, he remembers abruptly.

I thought you died. It comes back to him in pieces.

And now he knows what he is apologizing for. There’s no one left to blame it all on. There is only him. And now for the first time does he feel so thoroughly where he has ruined himself with his own hands only to have pointed the bloodied finger outward to everyone else.

This is a mistake which can not be mended, and he’s known it all along.

Somewhere in the midst of it all he’s aware of a ginger touch to his wing. It’s the Soothsayer, looking up at him with an expression he finds quite difficult to interpret— the furrowed brow of regret, of heartache, but the quirk of hesitant hopefulness. When she speaks, her voice is just as frustratingly troublesome for him to comprehend, soft and sad and vastly unfitting for the words she has decided upon.

“...I’ve wanted to hear you say that for a long time.”

“It’s not enough—” Shen starts, and he can already hear the beginnings of his old hysteria rising in his protest, can feel his age-old pessimism awakening, but the gentle shake of her head in apparent, paradoxical agreement prompts him to hold his tongue.

“No. It’s not.” Then, more firmly, with a tenacity he finds quite startling in its unexpected familiarity, “But it’s a beginning we can work with.”

[hale-13]

Syncope

By Hale13

For the Summer of Whump Day 18 Prompt - Collapse

Peter Parker was weirdly magnetic. He was also an absolute dumpster fire of a person much to Tony’s chagrin.

Words: 1552, Chapters: 1/1 (Complete), Language: English

Fandoms: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)

Rating: Gen

Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark

Characters: Peter Parker, Tony Stark, Bruce Banner

TW: Fainting

Read on AO3 of below the line break.

Tony would be the first to say that Howard Stark was a pretty shit parent. He would also be the first to say that, when he met Peter Parker and drug him off to Germany to fight the Avengers that he could be considered to be a pretty shit mentor. He was determined not to repeat the sins of his father if it was the last thing he did which is why, after Peter turned down his spot on the team, Tony groveled to May Parker and, finally, offered the kid a real, bonafide Stark Industries internship.

Tony tried to remain professional – just some tinkering with the Spidey suit, the chance to play with some cool tech – but Peter Parker was oddly magnetic and, well, could you really blame Tony for quasi-adopting the kid? Once their weekly meetings evolved to twice a week and then into movie nights May Parker set up what she coined ‘co-parenting lunches’ and gave Tony a very firm talking to on what his behavior better look like going forward.

He resolved to never introduce her to Pepper after that conversation – he’d never survive.

That was months ago, though, and things were going pretty swimmingly if Tony said so himself. Peter was over increasingly often and had his own room in the penthouse, May had started to warm up to him more due to their bi-weekly lunch dates and Ross was – for once – off his ass.

Yeah everything was coming up Tony.

“Hey kid,” he called as the music in his workshop cut down and the doors slid open to admit Peter. “Be with you in a sec!” He was so close to finishing this segment of his repulser – it had been a right pain in the ass the whole day and he was ready to just be through with it. Peter didn’t respond but he sometimes didn’t when he could tell that Tony was super busy so he just carried on, finishing about ten minutes later with Dum-E’s… assistance… and he dropped his precision tools with a sigh and a pop of his back.

“Sorry about that buddy,” Tony called as he turned around. “You wouldn’t believe how long that’s been – what’s wrong with you?”

Peter ducked his head quickly but not fast enough to keep Tony from seeing his bright red cheeks, pale features and gigantic eye bags. He was wearing the MIT hoodie Tony had given him (definitely a comfort item whether Peter wanted to admit it or not) but also subtly trembling. Peter let out a suppressed and hoarse cough and muttered a unconvincing ‘Nothing,” that had Tony rolling his eyes.

“Yeah sure,” Tony agreed, standing from his stool and coming to stand in front of Peter, reaching out with the back of one hand to feel the kid’s sweaty and clammy forehead – Peter failing spectacularly at dodging and nearly falling off his stool in the process – and grimacing at the clear fever he could feel. “Your brains melting a little there kiddo.”

“I’m fine,” Peter insisted, his voice cracking and nasally doing nothing to assuage Tony’s concern. “Seriously I am,” Peter said after shirking under Tony’s raised eyebrow. He followed this up by sneezing violently three times and then having the gall to try and paste an innocent look on his face.

Teenagers. Gremlins the lot of them.

“You’re really doing great work making me believe you,” Tony told him pointedly. “I mean look at me – totally convinced.”

Peter deflated a little and pouted, full on sulking now. “You don’t have to rub it in,” he groused and Tony chuckled at him.

“Want to actually tell me what’s going on? Or do you plan to just suffer? That’s a Gen-Z thing right? Suffering?” Peter ignored his jabs and coughed Welty into his elbow before wiping his nose on the sleeve of his sweatshirt making Tony crinkle his nose in disgust.

“Just a cold,” Peter tried, not even trying to meet Tony’s eyes. Guilty. Oh so guilty.

“Uh huh. A cold,” Tony nodded. “And how long have you had this cold that comes with a… uh fever check FRI?” He called out to his AI, making Peter whine in protest and drop his forehead down to rest on the lab table where he was seated.

“103.1 Boss,” FRIDAY called out in her soothing lilt and Tony winced a little in sympathy.

“Thanks dear. A 103.1 degree fever apparently. Jeez kid please tell me you didn’t go to school like this,” the set in Peter’s shoulders, however, told Tony all he needed to know and he let out a put upon sigh. “So you went to school like this. Great. You’re in luck – Bruce happens to be around today to take a look at you. Come on – up!”

“Noooo,” Peter griped, not picking his head up from the table or making any effort to stand at all. “I said I’m fine! I don’t need to go to the MedBay!”

“You’re resting temperature is usually around 96.5 so, yes, your fever alone qualifies you for an all expense paid visit. Don’t make me drag you – neither one of us wants that.” Tony said firmly, poking the side of Peter’s head insistently. Peter groaned again and clumsily batted Tony’s hand away before going to stand up. Halfway to his feet Peter’s eyes rolled back into his head and he dropped like a lead weight, Tony only barely able to catch him before he knocked his head on the side of the table.

“Should have expected this,” Tony grouched, lowering Peter carefully to the floor to rest with his head on Tony’s thigh. It wasn’t the first time the kid had fainted on him and Tony was regretful to say that he was old hat at it now. Tony cared about the kid but, Lordy, if Peter wasn’t an absolute magnet for danger and problems. “FRI?”

“Dr. Banner has been notified. He says to bring Peter up when he regains consciousness,” FRIDAY relayed and Tony nodded, expecting as much.

“Alrighty then. Time to wake up Pete, this isn’t a good look. You don’t want me to have to call May at work do you?” Tony threatened without heat, he would be texting May an update later but there was no need to pull her from work, rubbing the ridges of his fist against Peter’s sternum to stimulate a response.

“Ugh,” Peter groaned, pinching his eyes shut further and flinching away from Tony’s hand. “Stop,” he grunted, turning his face into Tony’s stomach to block out the light.

“No can do kid,” Tony told him, tapping the side of Peter’s face with a couple fingers to keep him awake and alert. “You just took a lovely little nose dive so no sleeping until Brucie looks at you comprende?”

“I passed out?” Peter asked, confused but cracking his eyes open to slits and looking more irritated than anything.

“Oh magnificently,” Tony confirmed, slipping an arm under Peter’s shoulders and lifting him up to sit, leaning, against the leg of the desk. “You feel dizzy or anything? Gonna faint again if you stand?”

“I’m good,” Peter said, swaying for a moment before listing into Tony’s side. It didn’t inspire much confidence.

“Sure you can,” Tony sarcastically mumbled with an eye roll before slipping one arm under Peter’s knees and the other under his back, lifting him into his arms with a grunt. Peter groaned out his displeasure but made no effort to try to escape, solidifying Tony’s decision to just carry him upstairs.

Bruce, to his credit, didn’t seem too surprised by this turn of events and was well aware that Peter was a little human disaster with no self-preservation instincts at all and was quick to get Peter situated on the exam bed much to the kid’s obvious displeasure. “How long have you felt sick and what are your symptoms?” Bruce asked brusquely, rolling a stool over to sit next to the bed, StarkPad perched precariously on his crossed legs.

“It’s just a cold,” Peter told him prompting yet another eye roll from Tony and a put upon sigh from Bruce. Peter rolled his shoulders inward and crossed his arms over his chest in submission. “Since yesterday,” he admitted.

“Symptoms?” Bruce prompted, typing something onto the screen of the tablet.

“Coughing and sneezing for sure and I’m assuming a headache as well. Obviously the fever and the fainting. Am I missing anything Pete?” Tony asked, answering for the kid when it was clear Peter wasn’t going to himself without them literally pulling teeth.

“That about covers it,” Peter said, staring into the corner with his arms still crossed over his chest.

Bruce nodded like it was all to be expected. “Probably some sort of virus then,” he said. “Not a cold but we’ll do the normal battery of bloodwork and cultures to be sure. I’ll send a nurse in to get everything in a few minutes.”

And with that the man bustled out of the room, leaving Tony to perch on the abandoned stool next to Peter’s bed. “Can we just agree to have you tell me the next time you’re sick instead of passing out on me?”

Peter just groaned and tried to smother himself with one of the pillows while Tony laughed – at least he wasn’t stabbed again.

[snarkwrites]

six sexy words | reggie mantle; let me take care of you.

Notes:

Oh hello, hi. Guess whose inspiration has finally come back from the war? A while back, I was linked this really neat prompt list by a dear friend of mine and it.. Sparked a few things. So… I guess this is me, starting a new one shots collection?

All of these come from my own mind and I don’t take requests for one shots / prompts, btw.

This is the prelude to my Riverdale fic Gangsta. It kind of... explains how Alyssa wound up getting with Reggie in the first place. Events have been moved around / misplaced, etc.. Anyway.. yeah. I know nobody asked for this but here ya go.

Prompts:

taken from either [ HERE ] or [ HERE ] give or take. It could be one or the other or a mix of both at my own choosing.

catching his gaze lingering on you, i still remember everything about you, let me take care of you were the prompts used here.

Fandom / Character:

Riverdale | Reggie Mantle x Andrews!Sibling OFC, Alyssa

Fic Alyssa Appears In:

[ here ] - read at your own risk. looose af canon compliance and some kind of dark themes are present (kind of an older guy manipulating a younger girl then stalking her sitch so be warned) and are hinted at here.

Warnings:

This one is kind of.. angsty. And there are some dark hints that people reading the fic linked above will pick up on. They're only vaguely hinted at here, btw, so... yeah.

A backstory literally no one asked for, lmaoooo.

Tagging:

@BRITHEDEMONSPAWN is the only one currently on my Riverdale tag list, so…

** if you want to be tagged in my Riverdale stuff, lmk!!**

Other Stuff:

[ ABOUT MY WRITING | TAG LIST DOC - IF YOU WANT TO BE TAGGED, THAT IS. | FANDOMS I WRITE FOR]

I looked up just as Reggie looked down. I could feel the weight of his stare every single time he shifted his gaze towards where I sat in the back booth of the diner.

A strawberry milkshake sat in front of me, untouched. I wasn’t even sure why I was at Pop’s. It’s pretty much the only place for all the lovey-dovey couples of Riverdale to come out on a Friday night anymore and I had to be a glutton for punishment because I knew that this meant the odds of me having a Valentine’s solo date in public, where people would look at me and judge or feel sorry for me for whatever reason, were high.

Not that it bothered me, but when you can feel everyone around you watching you like you’re a landmine or something, it gets old real quick.

A chair scraping loudly against the tiled floor of the diner as it was dragged over drew me out of my own thoughts and I braced myself. Preparing myself to look up from my phone and Snapchats that I had open to find Cheryl or Veronica or Betty sitting there, a sympathetic look in their eyes.

Instead, I looked up from a Snap my friend back in Chicago had sent me and my mouth opened in surprise a little because Reggie sat there, the backwards facing chair pressing into his chest.

“Happy Valentine’s Day.”

“It’s just another Friday.” I muttered, shrugging as I took a few noisy slurps of my milkshake and eyed him. “No hot female company tonight?” I gave him a mocked look of shock as I said it, laughing softly when his response was to pout right back at me.

“I mean, if you count the red-head I’m currently lookin at and I’ve been tryin to talk to all night, then yeah.” Reggie answered.

His answer caught me off guard and as a result, some of the strawberry milkshake went down the wrong way and I choked a little. Reggie chuckled, reaching over to lightly pop me between the shoulder a few times as he gazed at me in concern and amusement. “You good, princess?”

“Super. That would’ve been one hell of an obit though. Girl dies on Valentine’s Day while drinking a milkshake alone and nearly choking to death on strawberry bits.” I laughed and Reggie raised a brow.

“Guess dark humor isn’t your forte, huh?” I teased gently and Reggie gave a quiet chuckle.

“So… How are you feeling about being back in Riverdale?”

“It is what it is.” I answered, shrugging as my eyes wandered around the diner, taking in all the happy couples of Riverdale High.

My gaze settled on Reggie again and I struggled to come up with something even halfway passing as a conversation starter. Maybe that wouldn’t have been such a struggle for me if I’d stop getting lost in the depths of dark brown eyes… Or the way his tongue trailed ever so slowly over the outline of his mouth.

I found myself wondering why he was even over here talking to me to begin with. There was a booth full of River Vixens further towards the back, all laughing and whispering, and yes, occasionally calling his name.

I locked eyes with one of them and the sour look she gave me had me rolling my eyes.

“Hey, it’s gettin late. I doubt Andrews would want his sister walkin home alone…” Reggie trailed off under my amused gaze. I gave a soft laugh, finishing the last of my milkshake.

“Are you asking permission to walk me home, Reggie?”

“What if I am, baby girl?”

“First of all, it’s Alyssa…” I reminded him knowing fully well that it’d go in one ear and out the other, because it always has with him. Reggie’s been a nickname kind of guy for as long as I’ve known him and been friends with him. It’s nice to see that some things haven’t changed, even if at times that can be a little bit grating.

Baby girl just… has negative ties to it for me at the moment.

I winced at the thought and Reggie chuckled. “Okay, princess. Gotcha.” he muttered, leaning in a little. Reaching out and swiping his thumb over my bottom lip. I tried so hard not to tense up or flinch and I found myself hoping against hope that the little bit I did tense up went unnoticed.

I didn’t feel like answering questions and I didn’t want Reggie thinking I was weird or he’d offended me or something because honestly, he hadn’t. The whole thing was a me problem and it was one I was trying not to think about because I just wanted it all completely behind me. Forgotten about.

“You okay?” he asked, a brow raised as he eyed me in concern.

Crap. He noticed.

Apparently, the fact that he’s observant as hell hasn’t changed either.

I gave a soft laugh and nodded. “I just wasn’t expecting that. But it’s okay.” I quickly offered.

Deeper down, I have to admit… If so much hadn’t happened to me in Chicago, I’d definitely be falling hard and fast for Reggie Mantle all over again right now.

I did feel something. A sliver of a spark.

,, Don’t even think about it. The last time you felt sparks, you wound up getting in way over your head. Look where that got you, Alyssa…” that nagging little voice in the back of my mind spoke up, drowning out any and all other thoughts.

He’s my friend. Walking home with a friend isn’t a bad thing.

,, as long as it stops at friendship. Do you really think he’s just going to settle for you? He’s one of the big men on campus. Every girl wants him. Why would he choose you with all your current issues and that big nasty past of yours hanging over your head, threatening to ruin everything?” - and with that thought acknowledged, I smiled and cleared my throat. Breaking through his thoughtful daze with a soft laugh. “Earth to Mantle… You in there?”

“Yeah, yeah. I was just thinkin.”

“About?” I asked the question before I could stop myself.

“About how nice it is havin you back in Riverdale, Alyssa. You were always one of my favorite people.”

I smiled fondly.

Sitting down the styrofoam cup I’d drained of it’s contents, I rose up from my spot on the booth and held out my hand. “C’mon, lug.. If you insist on walking me home, we should probably get going… Stupid town curfew.”

“It is kind of dumb, huh? I mean, it’s not like we actually have a serial killer here.”

“It’s not like we don’t either. Sorry. I watch too many true crime documentaries.”

“No, you just lived in that big city too long. You forgot how safe and isolated it really is here.” Reggie chuckled. He slipped an arm around me and I tensed a little before I could stop myself.

I know he noticed it again, but he lowered his arm. Gave me an apologetic smile.

“Hey… do they still have those swings out behind the elementary?” I asked as we stepped out of the diner. He eyed me and smiled. “Yeah, why?”

“Well, since we do have a little bit of time left before I absolutely must be walking in my father’s door, I thought maybe we could go sit on them and talk? Like we used to? For old times sake?”

Reggie gave a soft grin. “I’d like that.”

“Just don’t try to send me into orbit like the last time I let you push me, okay?”

Reggie chuckled, rubbing his chin thoughtfully as he stared down at me.

I snapped my fingers in his face. “Hey…”

“Yeah, yeah. Look, I make no promises.” Reggie teased. I pouted up at him and we started to walk across the parking lot.

“You’re a lot quieter now, Alyssa. Skittish.. Are you sure you’re okay? I still remember everything about you and you weren’t skittish at all… If you wanna talk about it, you know you can talk to me, right?” Reggie asked as we walked towards the playground down the block. I sighed quietly.

“I’m not!” I spoke up, glancing up at him. Hoping he’d buy it and not keep pushing. Because I’m just not ready to talk about what I managed to get myself caught up in. And you just don’t want to see the disgusted look in his eyes when you do talk about it and he realizes just how stupid and pathetic you really are, the thought came but I shoved it out quickly. For the next minute or two, that heavy silence settled between us. I didn’t address the fact that he said I could talk to him. I know I could but… I just can’t right now. I need time. I need to get my head around everything.

And I don’t want to deal with the disgust I know he’ll probably feel. I know he will because I feel it, every single time I look at myself in the mirror. My parents and Archie keep insisting it’s not my fault, but all I can see is that I was the one who willingly got involved with the people I got involved with in the first place. I’m not stupid. I had to know that Dave didn’t really give a shit. That he was probably using me to stroke his own massive ego. That he purposely picked me when he sensed some deep hidden vulnerability. But I’m the one who let it happen. And I’m the one who let it go on for as long as it did and I allowed it to get to the scary point that it got to…

So yeah.. Pretty sure I don’t want to dump all this on Reggie Mantle and then see him look at me differently. I just… can’t.

I want to, but I can’t.

I hugged myself when the wind picked up, wishing I’d had the common sense to grab a thicker jacket before I left my dad’s house earlier. Reggie stopped our walk and slipped off his letterman’s jacket, holding it out. I eyed it and then him.

“Oh no. No. I’m not about to get my ass kicked by your fanclub.” I teased gently.

In reality, I knew that having the scent of his cologne so close to me would probably stick with me. It’d be too much temptation. Taking his jacket was a slippery slope.

“C’mon. Stop being so stubborn, woman. Look at you, shivering right now… You always took care of me back then. Let me take care of you, okay?”

He stepped closer. Not too close. Close enough that I knew if things were different, I’d totally be pouting right now because I’d want him closer. Before I could answer him, he slipped the jacket around my shoulders and I gave a soft and amused laugh. “Better, Reggie?”

“Yeah.” he answered. I tried not to notice it, but I couldn’t help myself. His eyes darted down and settled on my lips. His gaze lingered.

My heart hammered just a little harder against my chest.

I swallowed hard and cleared my throat, trying not to think about the way he was looking at me currently and the way it made me feel. Because someone’s made me feel that way before but they turned out to be the most toxic person I’ve ever known.

I just.. I don’t know if I can trust myself or anyone else right now.

But I want to. God, I want to.

[ghostnoms]

For the ship ask: ereri, of course 😎

hehe i been waiting for this one >:)

1.) what made you ship it?

well, i definitely came into snk knowing of ereri and that it was a popular ship. when i first started watching i was like ??? why is this a ship?? but then... the little things, man. levi’s face after eren confesses in the dungeon. eren’s obvious hero worship. levi asking eren if he hated him. the budding trust as eren joins levi’s squad. then, just how the two of them seemed to understand each other so well. levi’s instinct to protect eren. the way they just seemed to fit together like puzzle pieces. by the time i finished the first season, i was in wayyyy too deep to get out lmao

also i started reading a lot of fics/watching cmvs and amvcs halfway through the anime and i said hold on.... this shit be hitting different. their dynamic will always be my favorite thing. a little grumpy sourpuss with a soft spot for the raging ball of hormones and anger? just fuck me up, dude.

2.) what are your favorite things about the ship?

OHH boy. so, so, SO many things. like i couldn’t even possibly write them all down. i’ll just do my best and try to keep it short hbdjsnc.

okay, so. the parallelisms. the way they just seem to be two sides of the same damn coin. isayama was really quite genius in his creation of these characters. i feel like he really knew what he was doing, making them so similar. the way their pasts coincide, their goals in the war (this is shown in the same episode! “i will eradicate all the titans,” levi says it at the beginning and eren says it at the end. to levi. beautiful, gorgeous, poetic cinema 😩) their core beliefs about freedom and choice, the way they view the world.... i could go on.

on the subject of their character, the first thing i fell in love with was how they SEEM so different, but in the end are so similar. while levi may seem like a jaded, apathetic older man, and eren a passionate, fiery new recruit, when you peel back the layers they both share some very core beliefs. they have an intense hatred for titans, are fiercely loyal, and have a deep love and desire for freedom.

they bring out the best in each other. i previously said they fit together like pieces of a puzzle, and this is one of the biggest reasons why. they are undeniable each other’s pillars of strength. levi is always there to provide eren with guidance, reason, and is a very grounding presence for the eren. when no one else seems able to reach eren, levi always manages to bring him back to reality, lend him strength and courage, and give him the tools necessary to fight his own battles. eren trusts levi so much for this specific reason, and leans on him in a very special way that i feel is very unique to their relationship. now, on to levi. eren is undeniably levi’s beacon of hope. for so many years levi has fought on in a seeminly hopeless situation, his eyes on the horizon and never looking back. but in comes eren, in a blaze of rage and passion, and levi finally feels something. hope. hope for freedom, for a life beyond the walls. he sees himself in eren. a boy who sees the world in black and white, with an unwavering determination and force of will, a “monster” (to quote the vn hehe) that can and will never be tamed. while eren possesses such a fiery will, though, levi sees the broken and confused boy underneath. he acknowledges this part of him that so few others see, and communicates with him. they learn from each other, levi learns through his relationship with eren how to better communicate, how to be a better friend, soldier, leader, and man. levi’s world, so long plunged in darkness, finally starts to change. a light begins to illuminate path forward. he sees where he’s going now, thanks to eren. and eren has a better understanding of the world, of himself, and of the relationships he has with his comrades, thanks to levi. he has someone to lean on. ok i have to force myself to stop on this point now but honey, i could go on for DAYS.

okay last one i promise. this one was just honestly my first impression of the ship, and i just loved it so much i had to include it. kind of an old take by now, but whatever. they’re literally the wings of freedom. levi is humanity’s strongest soldier, and eren is humanity’s hope. (again, two sides of the same coin bitch!!!!). when eren first sees levi, its in the haze of battle, the wings of freedom flowing on levi’s back as eren opens his eyes for the first time. when levi first “sees” eren, its in that cold, dark dungeon, his eyes blazing with a fire levi believed had so long been extinguished within himself. levi chooses to become eren’s guardian because of this, and eren accepts levi despite all his quirks and flaws, all because of the trust and understanding that is so integral to their relationship. i believe these two souls were destined to meet, and will continue finding and loving each other in any other future lives they lead.

3.) Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

this got mushy and long really fast so i’ll try to wrap it up quickly lol. honestly, i don’t think so? the fandom and ship is so old and has evolved so much over the years that i feel any “hot take” or unpopular opinion i may have is old news by now. uhh, i guess maybe i think levi would be more submissive? i feel like he’d crave that sensation of relinquishing control to that one special person that he KNOWs he would be in good hands with. which is eren lol. also, i feel like levi isn’t as old as people make him out to be. since his age in unconfirmed in the manga, i’ve never seen him as older than 30 when the anime starts out. i think he was around 20 in acwnr, so there isn’t a bigger than 10 year age difference between him and eren. idk i think thats it lol.

thank you so much for the ask! i had a lot of fun rambling on about my two favorite dorks lmao :) i appreciate it. sorry this is so long!

[bloodsweatandpotato]

Whumpay day 6

“I can’t see you”

Fandom: Original work

Characters: Kieran (OC), Cole (OC)

Tw: Mild blood/gore (especially concerning eyes)

Summary: An eye for an eye can be taken quite literally. Kieran bears the consequences. Start of an original series? I have too many OCs save me... But they’re all my babies...

Cole hadn’t been able to relax since Kieran’s disappearance. And by disappearance, Cole means Kieran’s failure to show up at their meeting place, his failure to lurk silently in the shadows, watching Cole from the trees.

It had been almost two days now.

Cole had tried to find Kieran’s camp, but after a few hours, all Cole had found was a burnt out campfire from what looked like months ago. He doubted it was Kieran’s.

Maybe it was time to accept the fact that Kieran had moved on. He always had been twitchy, never staying in one place long, darting through the trees with an agility Cole could only hope to one day possess.

Two weeks since they had first met, and Cole had gotten used to Kieran’s constant watching presence. Cole normally didn’t make friends, going where the river took him.

Cole told himself he would stay one more day. One more day, and that was it. Until then, he would wait. Cole sat by the edge of his own fire pit, reaching into his bag to grab the box of matches.

Two matchsticks rattled in the cardboard container. He would need to get more before he moved on. Who knows when he would find another trading stop.

People were scare in this wasteland, and civilization was even scarcer. That was one of the reasons Cole had stationed himself here, on the bank next to the forest.

One the road, only two miles away, lay a trading post. And by trading post, Cole meant an old gas station, hollowed out and looted long ago, but now refurbished and restocked, with survivors and merchants from all around. One of the last remnants of civilization.

Gang controlled land wasn’t Cole’s favorite, but if it meant relative order and a chance to rest for a week or two, Cole would take it.

Cole didn’t like the trading post much. It had everything he needed, but the prices were high and the people were shady. Osiris wasn’t that great of guy, and the residents of his land had about the same reputation.

But he needed matches. And he had some canned food to spare.

Cole set off walking, checking his raft was tied well before leaving.

He reached the trading post just as the sun peaked in the sky, bathing everything in a washed out, almost bleached glow. The overhang was covered in half-dead vines, the four fuel pumps beneath dry and useless.

Cole adjusted his bandana, making sure the wrinkled fabric covered his nose and mouth before stepping in. The bell gave a dull ring, still working after three years. Cole moved to the back of the trading post, near the restrooms. He looked at the small array of supplies spread out on an overturned milk crate.

“How much for the box of matches?”

The figure sitting on the floor placed a protective hand over the matchbox, as if shielding it from being stolen.

“Whatcha’ got?” Asked the figure.

“I got canned food... How many cans?”

“How much you need em’?”

“Two cans for the matches?”

The figure didn’t miss a beat. “Five.”

Cole frowned, gripping his pack tighter. “Two.”

“Four or I burn em’ in front of you.”

The figure was bluffing of course, matches were far to valuable to waste, but Cole got the point. “Three or I step on your hand and walk out of here without buying anything.”

“Pleasure doing business with you.” The figure smiled. “The cans please.”

Cole pulled open his backpack, lifting out three cans of corn. The figure lifted their hand from the matches, reaching to grab the cans. They took the corn from Coles hand, and he picked up the matches.

Cole turned and walked away.

He was halfway out he door when he heard a low whimper.

He looked around, scanning the area. At fist, Cole saw nothing, but then a shoe caught his eye. A faded white and blue sneaker, dirty to the pint of being brown. That was Kieran’s shoe.

“Kieran?” Cole called, stepping forward and picking up the discarded shoe.

An answering whimper and Cole was jogging towards the back of the trading post.

“Kieran!?” Cole yelped, tripping on an exposed stone and landing right at Kieran’s feet.

“Who are you...” Kieran rasped, grabbing Cole’s Jacket with a white knuckled, bloody grip.

“It’s me, Cole. Are you alright?”

“I... I can’t see you.”

“What?”

Cole pulled himself up until he was crouching, staring into Kieran’s eye.

Eye. Not eyes. His left eye was hidden under a bloodstained curtain of dirty blonde hair. Where his right eye should be, a bloody, gaping hole.

Bile rose in Cole’s throat as he found himself unable to look away from Kieran’s mangled eye socket. He reached out slowly, pushing back the hair until one glazed green iris stared out from Kieran’s pale, blood spattered face.

“Cole...” Kieran whimpered again, and Cole ripped off his bandana.

“Hang on Kieran, hang on.” Cole folded the bandana with shaking hands, pressing the yellow fabric to Kieran’s face.

Kieran let out a strangled cry, jerking back violently. Cole kept the fabric pressed to the wound, reaching down with his other hand to grab Kieran’s wrist.

“Hold this.” Cole said shakily, moving Kieran’s hand up to press against the bandana. Almost immediately, blood had begun to soak through their interlaced fingers.

Cole pulled his hand away, trusting Kieran to keep pressure on the gaping wound. He dug through his bag, pulling out a bottle of pills. He pored out two, quickly digging through his limited first aid knowledge. Aspirin was a blood thinner right? But Tylenol wasn’t?

Cole pressed the tablets into Kieran’s free hand, before grabbing a bottle of water.

“Take these.”

Kieran managed to maneuver the pills to his mouth, swallowing them dry before gulping down the water.

Cole pulled the bandana away, pouring the rest of the water over it. He pressed the now wet bandana back, cringing at Kieran’s keen of pain. He fumbled to grab a roll of gauze, wrapping Kieran’s head to secure the bandana.

With all that he could do with his backpack supplies completed, he sat back to look Kieran over for any other injuries. Only then did he really see Kieran. The rope burns around his neck and wrists, the bruises peppering his exposed arms, the scrapes denting his bare foot.

“Kieran... Who did this to you?”

Kieran didn’t answer, eye squeezed shut and breathing rapid.

“Kieran, what happened?”

At first, Cole wondered if Kieran was ever going to answer, but then the blonde whispered out a name.

“Osiris.”

Cole frowned deeper, standing up and reaching to grab Kieran’s wrist.

Kieran groaned as he was eased to his feet, leaning against the building heavily. Cole kneeled down to slip Kieran’s sneaker onto his exposed foot.

“Osiris... That’s what he called himself. He... We got into a fight over some supplies about a week ago.”

Cole stood back up, holding Kieran steady.

“I... I hurt one of his men. Slashed his eye. Osiris wasn’t happy about that. An eye for an eye... nghh.” Kieran trailed off into a groan, pressing the palm of his hand against the bloody gauze bandage.

“He jumped me... C-carved out my-my eye. Made a whole ceremony out of it.

“And he just dumped you back here?”

Kieran nodded mutely, leaning against Cole.

It was a long walk back to camp. Cole was leaving this place, and Kieran was welcome to come with him.

[love-fireflysong]

Until Dawn’s Fifth Birthday

Welp, congrats Until Dawn, you’re officially old enough to start kindergarten. You’re off to learn to read, tie your shoes, recite yous ABC’s, and learn to count to 100. Your such a big kid now, and I’m proud of you for making it this far.

I know I have done literal jack shit for the entire month, but I have been immensely enjoying the things that everyone’s been putting out for this month. So I’m gonna make this text post, not just because of it’s the five year anniversary, but because it’s actually a post I’ve been wanting to make for a while.

So here it goes:

I first learned of Until Dawn when it first came out hilariously enough. My roommate at the time had boughten it for her ps4 and I had been seeing it all over my dashboard on tumblr at the time. I didn’t play it myself though until close to a year later, when I finally had my own ps4 and I bought the game used for like $20 or something from my local game rental store. And I was hooked.

I remember jumping the first time the UD logo pulls that jump scare on the title screen. And laughing because I’m normally pretty good with jump scares, but that one managed to get me because I hadn’t been expecting one before I even started the game. (The one thing in the game that manages to make me jump every time is the mine cart you stop as Mike. For whatever reason it doesn’t matter how dark my room is when I play the game or how many times I’ve played it, I can never see the mine cart until its literally on top of Mike and the QTE is almost up and I squeak in surprise every fucking time.)  

Of course I didn’t manage to save everyone during my first playthrough, I definitely lost Matt to the hook and Ash to the trapdoor (RIP darlings), and for the life of me I can’t recall how the lodge scene at the end went. I’m one of those players though that try to make choices that the characters I’m playing as would, I throw my feelings by the wayside. For example, being in the shed when the game’s making me choose Ash or Josh, and I was debating on whether or not Chris would save the girl he’s had a major crush on for a while at least, or his best friend for the last ten years. I distinctly remember wincing and sucking in air through my teeth and going “Sorry Ash, bros before hoes” and choosing Josh. And then being confused and convinced that I misunderstood the instructions? I mean I wasn’t complaining, just really, really confused. I definitely choose Ash to live at the gun one though, like there was no hesitation. I watched the whole ‘only thing I’ve ever wanted to do with my time’ scene and talk and the moment control was given back to me, the gun was under Chris’s jaw and I fired.

I’m also one of the players that didn’t know that Josh had been behind everything until the reveal either. I had gotten Sam captured so I never got any of those clues and I managed to miss the other clues that hinted at it being a set up (like the bundle of newspapers). So until the reveal I was still convinced that someone was out there killing all of them. Listen, I like mystery games but I’m not very good at connecting the dots okay.

I think I stuck around for a couple of months, gorging myself of fanfiction (all ff.net stuff by the way, I can’t remember if I knew about ao3 at that point or not) but like all interests do with me, the obsession eventually faded (helped in a large part by the rampant Ashley hate going around at the time) and I moved on.

Until February of this year. I was trying to kill time till the end of March when Persona 5: Royal released and I decided to try and see how many games I could platinum until that point. I had made it through the ps3 tomb raider games, Prince of Persia 2008, and decided on replaying the Uncharted games because the ps4 collection didn’t have multiplayer trophies. I hadn’t even thought of replaying Until Dawn. I mean, I had looked at the case and I remembered the game fondly, but that was it. There was no urge or want. 

I was halfway through Among Thieves when I was bored and chilling time on Youtube. And because I had been watching a couple of videos for the treasure locations in Uncharted, one of the recommended videos for me was a game sins for the series. I decided sure why not, and watched it. And watched a few of his other ones as well, Until Dawn included.

That’s right, what got me back into the series wasn’t fond nostalgia for the characters or story. It was a fucking Game Sins video. I’m so sorry.

I was devouring UD content again. I spent like 2 or 3 weeks reading everything Chrashley (with the hyper-fixation for the game back came the ship, what can I say) based on ao3 that I could get my hands on. I was back into the tag on tumblr, going through art I remembered seeing way back when and looking at usernames that didn’t mean a thing then, but mean the world to me now. And then near the end of February, when the obsession was once again starting to flag, I decided to hell with it, and clicked on the The (Almost)s.

I’m not going to expunge all my praises for the story, everyone else has done that better then I ever could. But guys, it was so good. So so good. I was hooked back into the series once again, just as I was starting to flag. And when I saw that @queenofbaws had mentioned that she was tumblr... I didn’t do anything right away. Too scared really, figured she might find it creepy, so I didn’t do anything for like a week. And then I decided fuck it, sent a message about Chris giving Ash his sweater, and following her.

And that was it. I figured I would stick around to see the story completed and just dip. Not even make a splash, just enjoy the content from the sidelines and no one would know that I was here in the first place. Same old, same old. But that was also when I started turning around the kernel in my mind that Baby It’s Cold Outside (so hold me tight in your arms and don’t let go). I didn’t even intend to write it, it was just going to be the fanfic that lived in my mind for me to stew on before bed every night. But I couldn’t sleep one night, my brain was too on and the words just weren’t stopping, so I pulled out my computer and wrote the first part from Chris standing in the snow outside to him reaching the lodge at like 3 in the morning. 

I started becoming more involved in the fandom when queenie started her wip wednesdays and asked to be tagged. Hilariously enough, those days are what started me cross-stitching again too, I hadn’t touched the pattern in months at that point. So I started posting snippets of my writing, and that one day a week was the only thing pushing me to continue writing. By that point, I had stopped hanging around the edges, now trying to push myself closer into this little fandom circle. 

The day I posted the story, I was fucking terrified. It wasn’t my first story, not by a long shot, but I had always considered my writing to be shit. I thought I had good ideas, but I never felt that I was able to truly bring them to life. English and grammar had never been my best subject, I was always more of a math and physics person growing up. But then that first comment from @elliepollie came in and I almost burst into tears. I couldn’t believe that someone out there liked it so much, that they were willing to leave me a review in the first place. I’m still so blown away that she was willing to recommend it as a Chrashley story for other people to read. I think that was the point I stopped hesitantly pushing my way through, and I just kicked down the doors and just yelled ‘Hey fuckers! I’m here now and you are going to fucking deal with it!’.

That was the event that opened the floodgates for me. Suddenly I was talking to people, I had friends online with the same interests as me. I’ve written more in the last six months then I’ve done in the last ten years! I’m feeling inspired to create again. I actually went out to do the first commission I’ve ever requested (speaking of which, please please please go commisson @fudgeroach. I cannot wait until he can post and show you guys the stuff he drew for me. It was worth every fucking penny let me tell you.)

I’m going to be honest, Until Dawn isn’t my favourite game. Sure it has some of my fav lines (it had been years since I played the game, and the moment Jess started her rant outside the guest cabin I was screaming it along with her) and great characters, as horrible people as they all are, but it’s never been my favourite game and likely never will be. But Until Dawn has the best fandom I’ve ever been in and I’m so, so happy to have met and known every single person here. I seriously love every single person here so, so much. You all make my life better and I’m so happy to have all of you in it. Just to quote Chris because I can: “Every second I spend with you is all I ever wanted to do with my time.” This is how I feel. This is how I feel every goddamn day now.

So yeah, I got back into this fandom from a stupid Game Sins video. But by god if it wasn’t the best choice I’ve ever made.

(PS: for those wondering, I never did finish Uncharted 2. Maybe one day...) 

[tsarisfanfiction]

Melt III

Fandom: Thunderbirds Rating: Teen Genre: Hurt/Comfort/Angst Characters: Scott Tracy, Gordon Tracy, Virgil Tracy

Part 3 of my entry for @gumnut-logic‘s SensorySunday: Smell. Part 1 | Part 2

So I decided I was not going to do more than basic research for these SensorySunday fics because they’re supposed to be quick little things.  Ended up in a two hour Q&A with a paramedic-in-training I know about how he/his team would handle this scenario and dumbed it down/handwaved half of it after all that.  Oops.  Very interesting discussion, though!

When he was thirteen, Scott had burnt his hand on the stove.  Dad had been at work, and Mom had been busy with a fussy Alan, so he’d taken it upon himself to get started on dinner.  It hadn’t been his first time in the kitchen – far from it, with his mother determined that he would not inherit the Tracy line’s lack of cooking ability (their Dad might cringe from his mother’s cooking, but with the exception of pancakes he was no better), Scott and his brothers had been subjected to many a cooking lesson.  Even little Alan was learning to throw flour around when they baked cakes.

It had, however, been his first time in the kitchen unsupervised, and with a five year old brother running into the room and pretending to be an octopus – got your legs, Scotty! – the young teenager had stumbled and made the dangerous mistake of not looking at where he’d put his hand to brace himself.

That had been the last time he’d screamed, summoning a frantic mother and several brothers to where he was being assaulted by a tearfully apologetic younger brother – I didn’t mean to hurt you, Scotty!  I’m sorry!  Gordon had learnt a lesson about playing in the kitchen, and Scott had learnt to watch where he was putting his hands.

The urge to scream now was strong.  Scott had suffered many injuries, some serious, in his life, mostly through his work for International Rescue, but there was nothing that could quite compare to the all-encompassing, overpowering burn of hot metal.  It seared through his suit, pressing the neoprene against his skin and channelling agony all the way across his chest and abdomen, where the metal sat, immovable against both his and Gordon’s best efforts to move it.

Through the haze of pain, he heard Gordon shout for help, almost a scream in its own right.  He sounded hurt himself, but Scott couldn’t focus through the excruciating pain of his flight suit – designed to protect him, but not from this – enough to see what had happened to his brother, how badly he was hurt.  He couldn’t even ask, reduced to rasping his brother’s name over and over again with a throat restricted by pain.

And then the rumbling began. Scott knew that rumble, heard it in his nightmares, sometimes imagined a phantom of it on snow rescues.

This wasn’t a phantom. This was real.  This was the same monster that had torn their mother from them, and it was no doubt coming straight for him.

“Run,” he rasped, begging Gordon to go, to find some escape or at least better shelter than the burning remains of a HeliPod.  If Gordon replied, he didn’t hear it over the pounding of blood in his ears and the ever-increasing thunder approaching.

He felt a grip on his wrist, a desperate tug that yanked him partway from under the metal and elicited a cry of pain, and then everything went black as the snow hit.

While he knew what an avalanche sounded like, what it looked like, he’d never been caught in one himself. The one that had stolen his mother and made a good go at his younger brothers had passed him by, travelling a different slope to the one he’d been naively snowboarding on.

There was a lot less being tossed around than he’d thought, the snow slamming into him with less ferocity than expected.  It didn’t even free him from the metal, although the frigid cold doused him, leaving part of his body numb.  Numb was, for the moment, better than pain.  It let him think.

“Gordon?” he croaked. There was no response and terror gripped him.  “Gordon!” The grip on his wrist had gone, and snow encompassed his vision.  He pushed at the metal again, breaking the numbness on his hands as searing hot metal once again came to contact with his already burnt and blistered fingers.  Around him the snow was melting, giving him a greater hollow to manoeuvre in and finally letting him slide from underneath the metal.

Almost immediately he slammed into something else hard and unmoving, gasping as the movement and subsequent sudden stop jarred the snow-numbed area.  It didn’t seem hot, as best as he could tell, and Scott awkwardly pushed against it, trying to get past it.  He needed to find Gordon, and this lump of-

He got a good look at it and another gasp that had nothing to do with pain tore itself from his lips. It was metal, a silver that was as familiar to him as his own hand, but-  That couldn’t be possible.  He followed the metal, pushing and pulling his way through the snow until he reached something big.  Something that shouldn’t be there.

Buried in the snow, immediately up the slope from them and clearly the reason Scott hadn’t been jumbled halfway down the slope, was his precious Thunderbird.

The how and why could wait.  His Thunderbird had – somehow – shielded him from the worst of the avalanche but he was still buried, if in a decent-sized air pocket beneath her extended wing, and Gordon was still missing.

In an avalanche.

It was as though he was fourteen again.  The snow-numb parts of his body meant nothing as he turned away from the silver hull of Thunderbird One and dug his way through the snow downslope, ignoring the red streaks from where his damaged hands swiped the wet stuff out of his way.

Gordon.  He had to find Gordon.

“Gordon!” he shouted. They’d both been wearing their helmets when they’d crashed.  Gordon had a better knee-jerk reaction to keeping his helmet on than Scott did, and as Scott was still wearing his that meant Gordon probably hadn’t removed his, either.  There was no response and he scrabbled harder, following his ‘bird’s wing and praying the Thunderbird’s protection had extended to Gordon as well.

The wing was slanted down, at an angle it would never be if landed properly with landing struts extended. Scott could even see the strut, still in its housing inside the wing.  In the back of his mind, the section not occupied with thoughts of Gordon, must find Gordon, he realised that however Thunderbird One had ended up buried with him, there was a high chance that she wasn’t going to be flying out of there again.

Red-stained snow parted in front of him to reveal blue, and he dug all the more ferociously, ignoring the pain starting to make itself known through the numb again as he uncovered the crumpled form of his younger brother.  Gordon had been caught rather more literally than he had by Thunderbird One, with his back cushioned by the wingtip.  It was obvious immediately that Gordon’s left leg was broken, although Scott had no idea if that was from the crash or the avalanche.

More pressingly, despite wearing his helmet, complete with rebreather in place, Gordon’s eyes were closed and the aquanaut was clearly unconscious.

“Gordon!” he called, fumbling for his shoulder but unable to get a hold on the neoprene.  Red streaks marred the blue from his attempt.  There was no response and he tried to dig further, to completely expose his brother, but the pain in his chest and abdomen flared up with a sudden intensity that drew another sharp cry of pain from him and had him collapsing in a heap over Gordon’s unmoving form.

He heaved for breath, but each inhalation hurt as it pulled on the parts of his body subjected to the burning metal.  Attempts to push himself up failed, the adrenaline that had pushed him to find Gordon ebbing away now that he had, in fact, found Gordon.  Apparently his brother’s unconscious state wasn’t enough to give him that additional kick to get him moving again, or maybe being under the protective wing of his Thunderbird was making him feel safe, despite still being buried.

Alternatively, his body had decided it’d been ignored enough and was collecting its dues.  He hadn’t looked at his uniform to see the damage, was now in a position where he couldn’t.  Slumped over the top of his brother, he just couldn’t get his breathing under control from where it kept hitching in pain.

They had to get out. Survival rates dropped dramatically after fifteen minutes, and even with a Thunderbird buried alongside them, Scott wasn’t naïve enough to think that that rule wouldn’t apply to them, either. Not Gordon, unconscious as he was, and not himself, with blood staining everything he touched and undetermined damage from the crash.

They had to get out, but his body wasn’t responding, his strength sapped by the cold, cold snow and before that the flaming hot metal.  He could still feel the heat, getting closer and closer…

Wait, what?

A white-hot tip burst through the snow near him, quickly followed by the familiar dark green of a Sherpa Pod.

“Scott!  Gordon!”  Virgil leapt out of the pod and hurried over to them.

“Virgil,” he replied, voice still a shaky rasp.  “I’m- I’m okay.  Gordon’s… unconscious… broken leg.”  He tried to push himself back up, off of Gordon so Virgil could get to their younger brother, but his body refused to co-operate.

“Like hell are you okay,” Virgil responded, crouching down beside him.  “Come on, let’s get you-” he stuttered to a stop, and Scott could see just enough of his face to see that he’d paled.  “Shit,” he hissed.  “Have you seen yourself?”

“No?” Scott offered, his attention still on Gordon even as warm hands gripped him and guided him off of Gordon, laying him down on his back.

“That’s probably for the best,” Virgil muttered.  Scott was relieved to see him assessing Gordon, splinting his leg before moving him into the cargo bay attached to the back of the pod.  “Gordon’s okay.  Broken leg and wrist, but nothing else.  You, on the other hand.  How the hell are you still conscious?”

“It’s not that bad,” Scott protested, once again trying to move.  It hurt, but he was conscious.  “Gordon-”

“Will be fine,” Virgil repeated, and Scott let out a pained gasp as he found himself being lifted. His vision fuzzed around the edges and threatened to grey out entirely.  “I’m more worried about you.”

Scott made to protest again, but just as he opened his mouth his vision cleared again.  From his new position in his brother’s arms, he could see his body for the first time and bile surged.  The entire right side of his uniform, from shoulder to leg, was blackened and looked almost as though it had been melted.

He shut his mouth again, fighting back the nausea at the realisation that a large part of his uniform had been fused to him.

“We’re getting out of here,” Virgil said.  “John’s keeping an eye on the snow stability but the less time we spend here the better.” Scott wasn’t complaining, hissing as the pod started to move and the harness knocked against his right shoulder.

“What about Thunderbird One?” he asked, realising they were leaving his ‘bird behind.

“Lives first, machines second,” John butted in, hologram appearing in front of him and looking concerned.  “I’ve still got her location signal, and no-one else knows where she is.  Thunderbird One will be fine until we retrieve her.” That made sense, as much as part of Scott protested at leaving his damaged ‘bird buried under snow.

Sunlight streamed in through the glass as they broke the surface, showing a beautiful white vista of snow.  Scott couldn’t appreciate it, though.  Not now.

Thunderbird Two was ready and waiting for them, three climbers in a vibrant orange that Scott had almost entirely forgotten about despite them being the reason they were out there in the first place hovering inside the module.  They were saying things, babbling apologies, but Scott couldn’t respond as he was lifted back out of the pod and placed on a stretcher to more temporarily-greying vision.

“Gordon,” he insisted as engines hummed into life and the green behemoth took off.  Virgil sighed.

“He’s secure in there. John’s keeping an eye on him.  Now let me have a look at you.”  Scott didn’t have the energy left to fight as Virgil cut off his uniform as best he could, trying not to think too hard about the fact that a large part of it still remained where it was firmly stuck to the skin. Virgil’s face did not look reassuring, and to Scott’s internal horror he was approached with a needle.

“Is that really necessary?” he asked.  Virgil rolled his eyes and pawed at his left arm.

“You know it is,” he said as the needle went in, and Scott scowled.  “Let’s get you warming up and hydrated, then I’ll see to Gordon.”

The unsaid message was clear.  The less fuss you make, the faster I can look at Gordon.

Scott swallowed any and all urges to make a fuss.  Despite Virgil’s reassurance that the aquanaut would be fine, he was still worried, but he knew when he was facing a losing battle.  With his compliance, Scott found himself soon warming up and relatively pain-free, despite the cool water running over his burns.

“Stay right there,” Virgil warned, John’s hologram now appearing by the stretcher.  “John is here if you need me-”  Scott had no intentions of needing anyone until Gordon was awake “-and I have three volunteers here to make sure you don’t move.  I’ll be back to deal with those burns of yours in a minute.”

With that, Virgil headed for the pod, leaving Scott with his immediate brother in holographic form, and three nervous climbers for company.

Part 4

[raywritesthings]

Death and Taxes

My Writing Fandom: Doctor Who Characters: Eleventh Doctor, River Song, Clara Oswald, Kate Stewart Pairing: Eleventh Doctor/River Song Summary: River wants a house now that she's out of prison, and the Doctor must embark on the dreaded task of personal finance. / Canon Compliant *Can be read on my AO3 or FFN, links are in bio*

He took Professor Song to see the premiere of the Galactic Federation Symphony. The musicians consisted of Draconians, Alpha Centaurians, and humans, with an Ice Warrior serving as conductor. It was a pleasant evening, music and champagne — the latter of which he did not partake in, content to watch his wife sip at her flute with a smile curving her lips. Much better than the first time they’d met after Manhattan. Even so, they carefully danced around the subject of his travels or companions. It hardly mattered; Clara was home with the children again, so he may as well have been alone.

“So then, back to the Luna University? Or perhaps dancing under the Karaveen Nebula? The night is still young,” the Doctor remarked as he led them arm in arm back through the TARDIS doors.

“Actually, Doctor, I’ve got a matter of business to discuss with you,” River countered in a way that surprisingly enough did not at all sound like an innuendo, and he was getting rather good at picking those up from her.

“Oh?”

She slipped her hand into his, and they walked past the console, up into the corridor and through a door which today led into his study. He perched himself on the corner of his desk, arms folded and legs crossed at the ankle.

“Well, Professor Song, what can I do for you?”

She smirked. “I was hoping you'd ask.” Then she pulled out a stack of paper and files far too large to have fit in an ordinary clutch and set them down just to the right of him with a very heavy thud.

The Doctor blinked. “What’s this?”

“It's what I need you to do for me,” she answered. “I’m buying a house near the university, and there's a lot that needs filled out as far as mortgage payments and property taxes are concerned. Not to mention the loan I’ve got to take from the bank. You’ll have to co-sign on that, by the way.”

The Doctor, whose lip had been curling in distaste with every word she spoke, looked at her with wide eyes. “Co-sign?”

River gave a well-worn sigh. “Yes, Sweetie. I get a better deal if someone does, and you being my husband makes you the ideal candidate. Joint filing.”

“Taxes?” He echoed numbly, thumbing through the stack once. There were all sorts of official looking titles and tiny boxes and very fine print he would most certainly need Amy's glasses for. The Doctor shook his head. “No. No, I haven’t done taxes in — well, er, come to think of it I’m not sure I’ve ever done them. I won’t start now.”

“And what am I supposed to do then? Sleep in my office?”

“Well, no,” he acknowledged. “Couldn't you just — I mean it's not like you haven't before — couldn't you, ah, find some money somewhere?”

“Oh yes, that’ll go over lovely. Paying off my mortgage with undisclosed income. Then they can arrest me again for tax evasion — that’ll be twenty life sentences at least.” Her unimpressed look morphed into something a little more earnest, a little more beseeching. “I’m only trying to get a life after prison started, Doctor.”

Oh. Well, that just wasn’t fair. There really was no faulting her, was there? After all she'd done for him in saving his life, River Song was just asking for a little aid in getting the next chapter of hers going. The last chapter, of which he could never tell her even as it drew ever nearer.

The Doctor stared. River stared back, one perfectly sculpted eyebrow arched imperiously.

“So, you’ll bring it round the next time you stop by? Lovely.” Without another word, much less waiting for his response, she turned and swept from the room.

“River. River!”

When after a moment she did not return, the Doctor was forced to half-run to catch her up in the console room, where she was already working the controls.

“River, I am homeless. Stateless. Planetless, even! My estate consists of a Type 40 Time Capsule, and it's stolen property.”

“You think my credit’s much better, honey? I'm an ex-con.” She glanced back at him, curls falling in a wave down her shoulder. It was quite the look. “Seeing as we both know how that happened I shouldn't think it’d be that unreasonable of a request.”

The Doctor’s mouth fell open, but nothing came immediately to mind.

River smirked. “I didn’t think so.” The time rotor pulsed once more, then quieted, about the only indication they’d landed whenever his wife was the one driving. Then she continued down the ramp to the doors.

“You could always stay.” The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them, and yet hopeless as he knew it was he carried on. “Keep a vortex manipulator onboard, pop over to the University whenever you felt like teaching, then back here. You’re welcome here.”

You’re wanted here, was what he wished to say.

River had paused in front of the doors, and when she turned around this time she looked pained. “Thank you, Sweetie. But we both know that isn't what we are.”

How could they know without ever having tried it? That, at least, he managed to reign in. She already thought him enough of a sentimental old fool, after all.

“I’ll have to have a look around the place sometime,” he came up with instead. “Seeing as it’ll be half mine.”

“Oh honey, that's a promise,” River replied with a wink, and he dredged up a smile just for her. Then she was out the doors and out of his life once again. The Doctor bowed his head briefly, then reached for the dematerialization lever to head back into the Vortex.

Returning to his desk, the Doctor eyed up the stack that waited for him. To his view, it appeared to tower over everything else, particularly once he’d taken his seat. His Everest. He blew out a breath and took out her mother’s glasses. “Right then. Taxes.” The Doctor shrugged. “How hard can they be, really?”

—-

Taxes, as it turned out, could be very hard.

The forms were printed as tiny as he’d suspected and were twice as tricky. To fill one out, he needed to know something called a credit score. The Doctor did not know what a credit score was, and when he asked Clara her eyes went the biggest he’d ever seen them.

“Why do you want to know something like that?”

“Idle curiosity.”

Clara snorted and turned away. He never actually got an answer.

There was a helpline number in incredibly small print at the bottom of the phone. The Doctor liked helplines. A helpline had directed his new friend into his life. Or back into it. He still didn’t know exactly how he had met Clara twice before without her remembering it.

Nevertheless, the Doctor called the number. There was a funny automated voice someone had tried to make sound like a human but seemingly gave up halfway through, and it listed off a whole lot of options and numbers to press accordingly. The Doctor waited until the end of the list, where it told him that if he stayed on the line a real person might actually talk to him. That was much better.

He was tapping his toes along with a very mellow xylophone playing a repetitive verse for several minutes before the music abruptly cut off.

“This is Keisha with Lunar Revenue, how may I help you this morning?”

The Doctor jumped and nearly fumbled the phone. “Keisha! Ha! Yes, you can help me. I need to know what a credit score is.”

“What a credit score is or what your credit score is, sir?”

“Both, preferably.”

There was a pause.

“Uh, well, a credit score is a number a person’s given based on their financial history, and depends on factors like bill payments or outstanding loans,” she explained slowly, as though waiting for him to stop and assure her he understood at any moment. “And to get your credit score, I’m going to need some information from you, sir. Can I have your name?”

“The Doctor,” he readily supplied.

“Alright, and first and last name, sir?”

“No, no,” he said, waving a hand cheerily though it presumably made no difference to her. “Just the Doctor.”

“I’m afraid that’s not a name, sir.”

“Well, of course it isn’t just a name. It’s my name. It’d be silly if you had multiple people running around calling themselves the Doctor — there’s already enough of me doing that.”

There was another long pause. “Well, sir, I will try to find your information in our system, but it might take some time.”

“How much?”

“If you could please hold.”

“Er, yes? Hold what?” He pulled the phone back to look at the receiver. “Keisha? Hello?”

Keisha’s voice had been replaced by the xylophone. And maybe some strings.

“Keisha,” the Doctor grumbled under his breath. He sighed and set the phone down on its side, where he could still make out the music. The Doctor paced around a bit on the main platform, then up on the second level. He went down below to do some maintenance, then came back up.

The music was still playing. He hated waiting.

“Right, okay. Time to jump the line.”

The Doctor hung up the phone. A short trip through the Vortex later and he was striding out into a very tiny cubicle in which was sat a very startled woman with very nice, intricate braids woven into her hair.

“Keisha, right?” The Doctor checked. “I was on the phone with you an hour and a half ago. The Doctor, remember?”

“How did you—”

“I was in the neighborhood. Listen, the way I see it, the faster we get this all sorted out is the less time we have to spend on it, right? So let’s sort it out.” He dropped the files on her desk and gestured at them. “That’s everything I’ve got so far, but I can’t get anywhere without the credit score.”

“This is to co-sign for a house?” She asked after briefly skimming the top form. She was either very clever or just very literate. Possibly both.

“Yes, my wife wants one. It seems very tedious, but her 150th is coming up, so.” He shrugged.

“Right…” She rolled her shoulders and opened up a new window on her computer, which was a flat screen embedded into the cubicle wall. “This is your first time filing with us?”

“Yes.”

“Then we’ll need to open an account. Let me see what I can find in terms of identification.”

After some tapping on the screen interspersed with checking some of the things he had written down, she turned back around in her chair.

“We have on file here that you’re dead.”

“Ah. Yes. Well, that would be spoilers for me. See, I clearly haven’t died yet.” The Doctor splayed his arms wide in demonstration. It wasn’t as though he could tell her that what they had on record was his fake death. That just wouldn’t do.

“I’m not sure what you mean,” said Keisha.

“Neither am I, most days. But since I am not dead, could I have the information I need to fill out the paperwork for my wife?”

“I’m afraid not, sir. Even if I ignore the claim that you’re dead, you don’t seem to have a record of any credit.”

He rocked back on his heels, hands planted at his waist. “Well, how exactly do you go about getting one?”

“Making purchases and paying them back,” She answered blandly. “Loans. That sort of thing.”

“That’s what people do?”

“Yes. Usually with money they make at their jobs, sir.”

Well, there was a thought. “I’ve had one of those! Maybe they can get me a credit score.”

“Maybe, sir.”

“Alright, then, I’ll be back in a mo’,” he told her, seizing the stack of papers River had given him once more, though he staggered under the additional weight as Keisha through another heavy-looking file. “What’s this, then?”

“Life insurance policy. You may want to take one out before you are dead, sir.”

The Doctor considered, then shook his head. “I’ll be dead before I’d have sorted it out, I expect.” At least he hoped.

Just a quick trip, and then he might soon have all this bureaucratic nonsense out of his life. If the Time Lords could see him now.

The things one did for love.

—-

Kate Stewart had been enjoying a cuppa at her desk until the peace and quiet was shattered by the sound of a wheezing engine, and the papers in front of her were scattered in a sudden strong wind.

She looked up to find the TARDIS materializing right in her office doorway.

“Kate!” The Doctor came bounding out the doors in a purple coat and vest this time, though the bowtie, it seemed, was a constant. She mentally made a note to add that to the file.

“Doctor, this is a surprise. Are we under attack?”

“Not at all, just looking for a bit of assistance.”

Kate raised an eyebrow. “With?”

“Taxes,” he answered plainly. Kate nearly fell out of her chair. “River’s eyeing up a house near the Luna University, and there’s a whole thing about payments and whatnot that she’s asked me to sign on for with her, but I haven’t got much in the way of financial history.”

Kate scrambled for a pen and a notepad to start writing this down. At the top of the page, she labeled River? with a large circle surrounding the name.

“See, as of now I have absolutely horrible credit because there’s very little way for me to establish a record of buying and paying for things,” he continued on. “But then I thought, you know who has records? UNIT has records! Loads of records. Records by the bucketful! Surely if anyone has a record of me holding a steady position where I incurred expenses and compensated them, it’ll be UNIT.” The Doctor paused and looked at her. “So would you happen to have something like that?”

“Er, yes, I imagine.” Kate placed a call down to their records keeper, then asked for a pot of tea to be put on while they waited. Her own cup, she requested to be made particularly strong.

“So, you’re buying a house?” She asked to make conversation.

“River’s buying the house,” he corrected her.

“Still, not very like you.” He had lived on Earth for years while working full-time with UNIT and had, by all accounts, slept in the TARDIS parked in his lab.

“Yes, well, River has a habit of making me do things not very like me,” he said, in a tone that was as exasperated as it was fond. He perked up as their records keeper entered with a very old cardboard box. “There we go. Excellent! Give the man a raise.”

“You won’t be getting a raise, Jeremy,” she informed the records keeper matter-of-factly. He nodded and left the room.

The Doctor had popped the lid of the box and was thumbing through the papers. “Credit, credit… not actually sure where I’m meant to find it. Ah well, Keisha will know.” He replaced the lid and hauled the whole box into his arms. “Thanks very much, Kate.”

“Actually, Doctor, since we’re on the subject and if my recollection serves me, we don’t seem to have an accurate date on when you held the lab position with us. Would you be able to—”

The Time Lord was already walking back into his box, and he waved a hand over his shoulder. “Oh, just pick one.”

Kate’s sigh was covered by the departing TARDIS engines.

—-

Clara entered the TARDIS Wednesday morning with a skip in her step. “Mine turn to pick, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Chin Boy agreed, stepping away from the controls as though ceding them to her. She wasn’t actually going to fly this thing, mind. No matter what he’d said about the old cow starting to warm up to her. “Where to?”

“I’m glad you asked.” Clara lifted her old book out of her satchel and hugged it to her chest for a moment. Then, just as she’d opened the cover, the phone rang outside.

“That’s odd.” She knew she’d called him on it, before, but just how many people knew that number anyway? Apart from that woman in the shop, she supposed.

“Ah, hold the thought, Clara,” he said, hurrying around her with a slide of the heels and leaving the ship. “Hello? It has? Approved? Keisha, I could kiss you!”

“Not a snog box, my arse,” Clara muttered under her breath. She hurried to the doorway and leaned out. “Oi, mind not shouting for the whole street to hear?” Artie and Angie were getting curious enough about where she always went on her days off, especially since the latter claimed Clara never used to go anywhere at all.

The Doctor put his hand over the bottom of the phone. “Sorry,” he said, not sounding sorry in the least. “Just got some very good news for one Professor Song.”

Clara raised her eyebrows. “Friend of yours?”

He nodded distractedly, then half-turned away as he continued to speak into the phone. “Yes. Yes, I can stop by. I’ll take the papers over myself to have them signed. You’ve been a saint, Keisha, you’ll do great things. I’m sure of it. Keep working wonders. Yes, bye-bye.”

He hung up the phone and dropped back against the doors with relief as though he’d just completed a marathon.

“You okay?” She asked wryly.

He popped right back up. “Okay? I’m more than okay on this day of days.”

“Right, this day where we’re apparently going to fill paperwork with professors?”

The Doctor paused. “Er, no. I’ll take care of that. Alone.” He tugged at his ear, looking uncomfortable with twitching limbs.

“Something the matter?”

“What? No, nothing. Just, best for me to pay a private visit.” He nodded to himself. “Yeah.”

Perhaps Professor Song didn’t like unfamiliar visitors. Clara pictured a stuffy, studious bloke surrounded by bookshelves and nodded to herself.

“Well then, I suppose I will pick after all. Any further expected interruptions?” She asked, fixing him with a mock arch look.

“None whatsoever.” He gestured back inside of the box. “Lead on, Clara.”

The leader, was she? She quite liked the sound of that.

—-

River did not like being led places. “Where are we going?”

“You’ll see,” was all he said, his breath tickling her ear while his hands rested over her eyes. Oh, he was infuriating sometimes.

“You know I can get out of this any time I like.”

“Yes. And you can get out… now!” He pulled his hands back, and River stood blinking at a front door.

Not just any front door. Her front door. The one she wanted.

“You just fancied a look, then?” He hadn’t brought up the favor she’d asked of him, though she knew by their diaries that he had been asked, and River hadn’t brought it up either. She didn’t want to be too pushy, or else he’d get his back up. It was his way. 

“Nope,” he told her, then withdrew a pen and a form from his vest pocket. “Sign here, please.”

His signature was already affixed under where she was meant to. “Is this…?”

“It’s yours. Already is, actually, I’ve jumped us ahead a few days after I’ve filed the papers, which I’ll do after you sign them. You are the proud owner of four walls, a door and the dimensionally-proportional space contained therein.”

River numbly took the pen and paper and signed her name. It hardly seemed real. It felt like a dream.

She’d never had a home of her own. There was the TARDIS, of course, but no one owned her. Her mother’s childhood home had been Amy’s house and same as her dad’s. Her parent’s place — well, there had been a guest room she’d used now and then. So had other people. They all knew she didn’t live there with them.

But this… this was a space for her to be and to do with as she pleased. She could put things up on the walls or in a drawer without worrying about them being monitored by the Silence or taken during a cell inspection or missing the next time she met up with a younger version of her husband.

“Why anyone would want to be is beyond me, of course,” he was saying now with an exaggerated sniff. He was putting on a show to hide how secretly pleased he was as she gazed on him in wonder.

A part of her had thought he’d never do it.

“You have the keys?” A second later, they were dangling in front of her face, and River snatched them out of the air. She hurried to throw open the door and entered. A sitting room, kitchen, table with chairs. A hallway leading back towards a bed and bath. Tiny and utterly mundane and beautiful.

“You don’t have to go and file those right away, do you?” She asked, reaching back blindly for his hand. He grasped hers loosely in his, twining their fingers.

“No, not right away. Why, have a celebration in mind? We could watch telly, pick out new paint colors…”

River looked back at him with a smirk. “I was thinking we could break in the rooms, honey.”

It was her husband who smirked right back at her. “Now you’re talking.” He kicked the door shut with a ridiculous flail of one leg and was in her arms the next breath.

“Home, Sweetie, Home,” River whispered against his lips.

—-

The Doctor waved goodbye to Clara as she exited the TARDIS once more. They’d had an interesting time of things in the Sombrero Galaxy which, disappointingly, had not included sombreros. But they’d made it back in one piece; frankly, he counted it a mark of success each time Clara came back in one piece. He wasn’t sure whether the third time really was the charm in her case or not, but he was very sure he couldn’t lose her the same way he had lost the other two Claras. Not when he’d already lost so much.

Before he could take off again, there was a flash of light that caused him to duck down under the console for a moment before realizing it wasn’t coming at him. Instead, it hovered across the room, slowly taking shape.

Ah, a delivery. He occasionally received deliveries — perhaps that fez he’d ordered was finally here — but when the light faded, it was not a mechanized courier who stood there, but a letter that dropped to the floor.

The Doctor hurried round to that side of the console and picked it up. It was labeled with the logo of Lunar Revenue. He pinched the bridge of his nose and opened the envelope, bracing himself for what new form or inquiry he needed to fill.

Inside was a single sheet of paper. It read:

Dear The Doctor,

Lunar Services was notified June 7th of the passing of Professor R. Song, the borrower of an outstanding loan on a residence. While we are deeply saddened for your loss, as co-signer you have inherited the remaining balance of that loan. If you wish to have the property taken as collateral to settle the debt, no further action need be taken. Please be advised that this may harm your credit score.

If you would like to continue paying the remaining balance and retain the property, please contact one of our Customer Care Reps at the following number.

He didn’t read the number, for the letter slipped from his fingertips and fluttered to the floor. His hand went to his lips. He had known, yes, that this day was coming, but he hadn’t thought- he’d never expected—

He’d never realized he would be notified of his own wife’s death with such an afterthought.

Anger flaring up within him, he kicked at the letter. It skidded across the floor and stopped, the outline of the tread of his boots printed over one corner. The envelope went next in the opposite direction. It looked rather pitiful and useless, which matched his mood.

He sunk down on the steps and didn’t hear the door opening again. But he heard Clara’s voice. “Everything alright? You haven’t gone yet.”

The Doctor leapt up as if scalded, spinning on his toes as his face contorted in an effort to force the water welling up in his eyes back down. Clara was bending down towards the letter from Lunar Services.

“Don’t touch that!”

She jumped back as he tore it from her grasp, pressing it to his chest. “No need to get tetchy,” she snapped, though she seemed taken aback when their eyes met. “Chin Boy?”

Clara reached towards him, but he stepped back, turning to brace a hand on the control panel as he tucked the letter away.

“Sorry. Just some… private correspondence,” he muttered to the buttons and levers.

“Was it from Professor Song?”

His head bowed, bracing himself.

“I only saw the name, I didn’t read anything else,” Clara hurried to say.

A breath released. She hadn’t seen. He didn’t have to talk about this, this thing he had never talked about ever. “yes, it was from Professor Song,” he lied, and the lie came easy.

“Okay. Well… I guess I’ll leave you to answer it.” She said, and he could hear her drift one foot back towards the door.

“Thank you, Clara,” he said, and he looked once at her over his shoulder. “See ya Wednesday.”

“See ya,” she echoed, the barest of smiles gracing her lips, a mark that he’d at least done a little to reassure her. When the door closed a second time, he immediately pulled the lever to dematerialize. He couldn’t afford to stick around again by mistake.

Once safely alone, the Doctor took out the letter again, eyes scanning over the words. If you would like to continue paying the remaining balance and retain the property… Retain the property?

It had been River’s house, not his. River would be in every room. Her things and the scent of her perfume and the sound of her laugh — just thinking of it was enough to fill his lungs and head so much that he could hardly breathe, could hardly think.

If you wish to have the property taken as collateral to settle the debt, no further action need be taken. Please be advised that this may harm your credit score, the letter said, and that felt better. No action could be taken. There was nothing he could do, nothing he could change.

The Doctor marched back to his study and opened a drawer. He placed the letter inside as far back as it would fit, then shut it. He knew already that he would never open it again nor speak to anyone from Lunar Services, tax evasion and bad credit be damned.

He’d never wanted the score or the house. He just wanted her. Now he would have none.

[saiilorstars]

It Had To Be You

Ch.16: I’m Crazy For You // Story Masterlist

Fandom: The Flash

Pairings: Barry Allen x Original Female Character

Pronunciation of OC’s name: Bell-en. The last syllable has an emphasis so it’s not pronounced like ‘Helen’ would be.

~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~

Chapter Summary: Caitlin prompts Barry to start facing his thoughts regarding Belén. Some of those thoughts are actually feelings and Caitlin might have a way to make it so that Barry can come to a conclusion. If only either of them knew what plans Belén made for her dating life a while ago.

"Pay up!" Belén laughed and held her hand out to her older sister. "Hey, just remember that it was you who wanted to play Monopoly. I just wanted to watch a movie."

With a glare, Maritza handed the required cash over to Belén. "You are so cheating."

"See this is why I don't like playing games with you - you are a sad sore loser!"

Maritza gasped in offence while Belén counted her fake Monopoly cash. Suddenly, her cell phone went off. She picked it up beside her and took the call without even seeing the ID. "Yellow?" she said then blinked ghastly. "Oh my, that was such a dorky thing to say. Forget I ever said that please-"

While Maritza could not hear who was on the other line, she had a good idea who it might be judging by the sudden rapidness in Belén to leave the house. There went her tenth attempt to have a proper family night.

"Where are you going?" Maritza called but Belén was already halfway towards the door.

"I, uh, completely forgot I had to go help Caitlin with, uh...painting!"

"Painting?"

"And drinking!" Belén closed the door behind her, figuring that excuse could be valid. She rushed off the porch steps and ran down to the streets where, in a couple more seconds, she turned into nothing but vines and went towards her destination.

~ 0 ~

An upturned car under a livewire was the center of the needed appearance of the vigilantes. A couple was trapped inside, and neither could figure out how to get out of it. Outside there were several firemen arriving on the spot to help.

There was a tap on the passenger seat, and the woman glanced to see a woman in green smiling kindly from the other side. "Hang on, we're gonna get you out."

While Belén worked on her side, Barry stood on the other side intending on helping the man there out. Using his vibration methods, he was able to get the driver's door off its hinges and thus the man out as well. Meanwhile, Belén was using her thick vines to pull the door off its hinges. As Barry took the man out of the car and brought him towards the firemen, Belén reached in for the woman.

"You'll be okay now," Barry promised the young man who literally feared for his life.

Just as Barry glanced back towards the car to see how Belén was doing, a spark from the livewire managed to touch spilled gasoline on the ground. A great flame sprouted that quickly spread towards the car and immediately caused an explosion.

The man beside Barry nearly lost it thinking his girlfriend had been consumed by the flames. Barry was in a similar state thinking Belén had not been fast enough. In his mindset, he forgot who they were at the moment and where they were as he called out to her. "Bells!"

"You know, the whole point of having secret identities is so people won't know who you are," he heard a perfectly calm voice behind. When he turned around there stood his partner with a scared woman beside her, both untouched from the flames.

"Dana!" the rescued man called with great relief as his girlfriend ran to his side.

Barry wasted no time in coming up to Belén to inspect her for any noticeable injuries. When he saw nothing, he gave her great, big hug. Surprised, Belén just laughed.

"Thank you," the phrase from the saved man cut their moment short.

"You're welcome," Belén cheerfully waved them goodbye before taking off with Barry.

~ 0 ~

Once the two metas were back at STAR Labs, Cisco got to work on a mildly charred suit.

"Dude. That was insane," Cisco was still in awe over the recent incident. "I mean, that was just...wow! Although," he sobered a little then, "I'm having trouble understanding how you dirtied up my suit while Bells here came out without a single mark."

"Mm, that's because girls are neater," Belén called from the computer desk where she, Caitlin and Dr. Wells were.

Barry, who sat nearer Cisco, frowned. "That's not true for every guy."

"Yeah, it is. Look, my brother was a slob and he was a genius. My dad, same story. Cisco, I'm sorry but it's true as well. And you, Barry, are the same story. Don't forget I stayed in your old room for sometime. You're all slobs!"

Caitlin snickered from the side, while Barry and Cisco exchanged unamused looks.

"I think perhaps it's time to call it a day," Dr. Wells declared after a minute, eyeing them all with a slight smile. "Proper rest is what you all need."

As he left the room, Cisco came up with an alternative option. ""Better yet, what we all need is a proper drink. Who's up for a round?"

Barry got up and went up to his draped jacket left near his suit. "Oh, dude, it's... It's movie night with Joe. I can't. But I'll see you guys tomorrow, all right?"

"Yeah, I can't either," Caitlin shook her head, getting ready to leave as well.

"I'll go," volunteered Belén, having Cisco perk up instantly. "I don't feel like playing monopoly anymore. I could do with a drink."

"Excellent," Cisco pointed at her. "And I know your favorites!"

"I'm not drinking vodka, though!"

Silently, Barry watched them go back and forth about what drinks they would be buying. He couldn't understand it yet, but he didn't feel too ecstatic about the two going out...on their own. Why would they need to go out on their own anyways? Why couldn't they wait until they all went out as a group instead?

"Barry," Caitlin's call made him snap out of his thoughts. He looked at her with slight widened eyes. "Your phone is ringing," she pointed.

"Oh," he fished out his phone from his pocket and saw Joe's name on the ID. "It's Joe, I'm late. I should...go…" Caitlin smiled and nodded for him to leave, but as he left he kept throwing looks back at Belén and Cisco who were in deep conversation of where they were going.

Caitlin waited for the two to sort of end that conversation so she could get to something important before she too left. "Cisco?" she called and grabbed his attention. "Funny thing, I was looking for my tablet at your workstation, and I found this." She held up his tablet that was on an article of F.I.R.E.S.T.O.R.M.

Cisco blinked rapidly. "I can explain. I know you said we should stop looking for Ronnie, so I... didn't stop looking for Ronnie."

Belén giggled at his honesty.

Caitlin was in no mood to laugh at the moment. "Why?"

"Hartley. He said he knew what happened to Ronnie-"

"Oh, Hartley Rathaway, who is currently locked up in our super-villain basement jail for going psycho with sound waves?"

"Yeah, he's not a very reliable source," Belén apologetically looked to Cisco.

"He's made some poor choices. There's no argument there," Cisco nodded his head in agreement. "But I looked into what he was saying and…"

"Cisco," Caitlin interjected, "Ronnie's gone, and it's time for me to move on with my life,"

Cisco looked at her a moment before mumbling. "Doesn't seem like it."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Look, I'm not an expert on love, but I think in order to move on from Ronnie, you actually have to move on."

"And he means that in the nicest way possible," Belén added after an awkward pause, throwing Cisco a warning look to stop talking. He did, and with the nicest smile possible, Belén led him out of the room, leaving Caitlin to ponder on Cisco's last words.

~ 0 ~

Next morning, early morning, Iron Heights became the new spot for a CCPD crime scene. Barry inspected the lonesome cell that once belonged to a Clay Parker who, as of last night, had mysteriously made an escape without needing to unlock the cell door. There was no clue as to how he did it.

"Hey," Joe walked into the cell holding a small notepad in hand. "The security cameras in half the prison are shut down. Then Clay Parker, according to this data log, who was still locked in his cell, somehow vanishes."

"Not completely," Barry shook his head, coming to show Joe a small vial that seemed to contain black specs of some sort.

Joe eyed the vial. "What's that?"

"It's some kind of organic particulate residual. I found it on the floor in here, just outside the cell, out in the hallway. Trail led me all the way outside…" Barry stopped at the sight of his father walking in from the corridor. "Dad!"

Henry chuckled at his son as he was given a hug. "So... Word around here is, Parker pulled a Shawshank?"

Joe nodded. "Yep, and none of the other prisoners heard or saw anything."

"Well, they wouldn't talk to you about it."

"Leaves us with not a lot to go on," Barry sighed, though he could not feel an ounce sad about it when he had his father right in front of it.

"Well, if there's anyone who can figure out how Parker got out of here, it's you, Son," Henry smiled.

The guard that had brought Henry by rugged him by the arm. "Come on, Allen, let's go."

"Duty calls," Henry sarcastically told the other two.

Barry waved him goodbye then turned to Joe suspiciously. "So, my dad just happened to come by?"

"The guard owed me a favor," Joe shrugged.

"Thank you," Barry sighed, for once actually happy.

~ 0 ~

"Where are you going?" Belén asked Noah when she saw the young man leaving his desk to accompany two other of their colleagues.

"Working on the new escape case in Iron Heights," Noah studied Belén's reaction. "You...don't know about it?"

"I know about it but not that we were working on it," Belén clarified, rising from her chair to look at the other two colleagues behind Noah. "Why wasn't I asked to join?"

One of the colleagues, a middle aged man, gave her a scornful look. "We figured you wouldn't want to tell us anything you knew of."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Belén frowned.

The second colleague, a brunette woman, responded equally rude. "Since you don't want to let CC Picture News in on anything why bother to write with us?"

Belén blinked, but said nothing more. She knew exactly what they were talking about then. Noah gave her an apologetic look before following the other two away. A couple minutes later arrived Iris, who more or less assumed what had happened.

"I can't believe they're still holding my own kidnapping over my head," Belén plopped back on her chair. "I can't take more of this I swear."

Iris comfortingly patted her shoulder. "It'll blow over, you'll see."

Belén scoffed. "It's been weeks now, Iris, and they still won't give it up."

"Give what up?" Linda walked by and stopped at the sight of Belén. "What's happened to you?"

"They still think Belén is holding back on them with her kidnapping details," Iris explained, but Linda remained unfazed.

"Still?" she looked at Belén again. "Well, we are dealing with journalists. It's their job to hammer people down."

"But she says she does not know anything," Iris then spoke lower about the real problem. "She didn't actually meet the Flash."

Linda sighed, but she looked almost as disbelieving as the rest. "Well, maybe Belén is...you know, holding out. Which I Would totally understand considering the parahnas we have around here."

Belén looked up to Linda with a disappointed face. "Thanks, Linda, my mentor and she isn't on my side."

"Oh calm down," Linda playfully rolled her eyes. "I'll see what I can do, but you'll have to toughen up in the meantime and, you know, it wouldn't hurt to come up with a killer story for this week."

"There's no way to do that when they won't let me into the group anyways," Belén huffed as Linda walked away, letting her head drop into her desk. Iris came back and amusingly smiled at her friend while trying to cheer he up a little.

~ 0 ~

Figuring there was something overly odd in this case, Barry and Joe moved to STAR Labs for some help. They pulled up on a computer the evidence Barry had found in the cell.

"Not even Barry's cells move this fast. I've never seen anything like it," Caitlin remarked in awe.

"So Clay Parker is a meta-human?" Joe asked for some confirmation.

"Not so fast. The particulate residue Barry gathered at Iron Heights does contain Clay Parker's DNA, but also DNA of a woman," Dr. Wells revealed and made everyone look back at the screen to see for their selves.

"Run her DNA against the CCPD criminal database," instructed Barry. "See if you get a match."

Cisco typed for a moment before exclaiming, "Yahtzee!" and pulled up a profile of a young, dark-skinned, woman on the screen. "Her name's Shawna Baez. Mostly petty crimes, and this girl likes to party, apparently. Long list of disorderly conducts at local bars."

"So I'm guessing we find her, we find Clay Parker," Joe concluded.

"Yeah," Barry moved to leave with Joe.

Wells did the same with his team. "In the meantime, let's track these particulates and see how they work."

"I'll be right with you guys," Cisco called towards them, but after they left he moved in an entirely different direction...towards the pipeline.

~ 0 ~

Later that evening, Barry met Iris for some coffee before going home. He was pleasantly surprised to see Belén arriving with Iris. He realized he hadn't seen Belén all day since last night...when she went for drinks with Cisco. The mere thought put him in a mood he did not yet understand why.

"What's your smile about?" Iris greeted him with that.

"I saw my dad today. No glass, no phones. Just me and him, face-to-face," he shared delightfully. "Joe arranged it,"

Iris smiled softly. "That must have been amazing, Barry."

"Yeah. I really needed it."

"Were you there investigating the breakout?" Belén curiously wondered as she walked to their table with a to-go cup tray.

"Mm-hmm," it was then that Barry noticed something was off with her.

"That is a big story," she sighed, sliding Iris her cup. "That I am not a part of."

"Why not?"

Belén wondered if it was right to tell him considering it had a lot to do with him, well...most of it. Iris saw no problem in sharing for her.

"The editor and the writers think she's holding out on the deets of her kidnapping."

"Which I told them a gazillion times I'm not," Belén clarified meaningfully to him.

"But no one believes her," Iris finished for her. "They think she knows the Flash and is just hiding it. They want the story. Even Linda seems to doubt her."

"Yeah, but I'm okay with her - I know her," Belén waved that one off. "Plus, she would never do what the others are doing to me. She's a good colleague."

"Uh, hello?" Iris sarcastically waved at her.

"Along with Iris West," Belén added with a small smile. "And, I guess, Noah. But other than them I'm screwed. I really think I could lose my job if this keeps up."

"What can we do?" Barry quickly asked, but Belén knew what he really meant. What could he, as the Flash, do to help her?

"Nothing," Belén gave him a sharp look. She didn't want him to do anything on her behalf that could jeopardize his secret identity.

"I think what Linda said is true," Iris said, missing the exchange of looks. "I bet if Bells writes a killer story about this recent breakout in Iron Heights, this will blow over." Unfortunately, while Iris seemed sure, Belén failed to do the same.

~ 0 ~

Caitlin moved to the computer desk after seeing Belén and Barry coming in. She had found something interesting she needed to show them in case they came across either Shawna or Clay, or perhaps both.

"Little down, Bells?" Caitlin asked as she turned the computer on.

"Nothing to worry about," Belén discarded it, much more interested in what Caitlin had to show them.

"I was analyzing the particulates that Clay Parker and Shawna Baez left behind, and I found something very interesting," she began to explain. "When Clay's cells come into contact with Shawna's, they adopt her properties," she began biting her lip endlessly that both Belén and Barry had noticed in a snap.

Amused, Barry asked, "Something bothering you?"

Caitlin let go of her lip and looked at them. "Why would you ask that?"

Belén chuckled. "Because you're doing that biting your lower lip thing that you do when something's bothering you."

Caitlin cleared her throat and straightened up, looking positively offended. "Cisco basically said I don't have a life! And Bells was there as a witness."

The pointed finger her way made Belén chuckle. "He said it in the nicest way possible."

"There is no nice way to say that!"

"But, I mean," Barry awkwardly coughed, "You don't, do you?"

Caitlin frowned. "I do! I cook and I eat and I read and I help you guys-"

"So, what you're saying is, you do everything that has nothing to do with having a life."

This time, Belén smacked him on the arm. "And he means that in the nicest way possible."

Caitlin grumbled, crossing her arms. Barry chuckled. "If it makes you feel any better, I'm not doing any better than you. My social life consists of running at superhuman speed and Netflix."

"I'm more or less the same," agreed Belén with a weary sigh. "The only good thing right now is me getting my practice on with the aerial dance team. Oh, and, Hulu is much better."

Caitlin was about to declare them all losers when the computer chimed an alert. "There's an armed robbery in progress. Two suspects, male and female in their 20s. Sounds like our meta-human Bonnie and Clyde are at it again."

"We should go," Belén started for her suit.

"How could you think Hulu is better than Netflix?" Barry still found time to ask about that as he followed her. "It has commercials!"

"Then pay you cheapskate!"

"It's free on Netflix!"

Caitlin smiled to herself while the two metas went back and forth. She was just glad they were able to get a move on despite ending on disagreeing sides.

~ 0 ~

Shawna and her recently freed boyfriend, Clay, were certainly in action stealing money from a bank truck. While Clay kept the driver and passenger of the truck occupied via gun point, Shawna grabbed two full bags of money and teleported to their getaway car. When she finished placing the bags in the trunk, she heard a wind pick up and looked around to see the Flash.

"Oh, I've read about you," she mused, putting her hands in her back pockets like it was a casual moment. "You're The Flash. I've heard you're real fast. Let's see if it's true." She teleported a distance behind Barry, calling out, "Catch me if you can."

Barry took the easy challenge and sped up behind her, easily grabbing her. "I can."

Shawna rolled her eyes and teleported again, this time appearing on a staircase landing of a construction building.

"Oh, you gotta be kidding me," Barry groaned. Perhaps he could have instead taken up the task of getting Clay and the two civilians, but Belén had quickly volunteered to do so herself. So, he sped up to the landing but the moment he touched Shawna she teleported, and this time with him, to the second floor. Hanging awkwardly from the rails, Shawna smirked down at him.

"Not too many men can keep up with me," she waved and teleported near the car again.

"Then let's make it a ladies' fight," Belén had appeared beside her and flat out punched Shawna across the face. "I can disappear too, you know."

Shawna, clutching her cheek, got back up with a fury of danger. She teleported behind Belén and effectively kicked her on the back. She wished she had some sort of weapon to have a better defence.

Belén whirled around, angry herself. "Well!" She felt the other side of her powers absorb that anger to turn it into something else. You can't lose control, you can't, she told herself repeatedly. She flexed her hands and took in deep breaths in hopes of calming that side down.

She didn't get the chance to actually retaliate when she heard a ringing shot behind her. Halfway turning, Barry pushed her out of the way and the two rolled to a stop on the ground. Belén blinked rapidly out of shock and looked up at Barry. Their closeness factored in pretty fast for the two but their masks were enough to hide their red faces.

"Your arm..." Belén gasped when she saw the bullet embedded in Barry's right arm.

"What...?" he got off her and spotted the bullet in his arm. He'd barely felt the thing!

~ 0 ~

Caitlin was not an ounce happy treating a particular injury on Barry. "This is a bullet wound," she declared as if repeating it would make it more severe. "You're lucky it just barely grazed the skin."

Barry took her scolding silently, more or less bored. Meanwhile, Belén who stood on his side, looked more concern for the both of them. "I thought I knocked Clay out," she said once again, "I don't understand how he was up and ready to shoot me."

"We're thankful he didn't," Dr. Wells said, less concerned and less upset than both women.

"Barry, I'm sorry," Belén turned to him. "That is the last time you literally take a bullet for me, okay?" she blamed herself for being so focused on her powers. She missed the obvious - a man with a gun - and nearly caused her friend to get shot.

"It's no problem," Barry shrugged as he grabbed his jacket lying on the end of the bed. "I don't even feel anything."

"I owe you big time," Belén sighed, thinking of how long that list must be by now.

"It's fine, Bells," Barry said for the last time before going into their main discovery of the day. "Shawna Baez. She can teleport."

Caitlin blinked. "As in, 'Beam me up, Shawna'?"

Wells seemed much more excited as he laughed. "Yes, of course. Quantum entanglement. The ability to manipulate interconnected particles over an infinite distance. Or, as Einstein put it, 'spooky action at a distance'."

"Every time I got close, she'd disappear," Barry sighed. "It was like we were playing a game of…"

"Peek-a-boo!" Caitlin suddenly exclaimed, receiving odd looks from the trio. "Come on. Can't I name one?"

Belén smiled at her a moment then moved on. "How can we capture someone if we don't know where she's gonna be?"

"Everybody has limits," Wells reminded. "Now that we know Shawna's powers, we'll focus on those limits."

"That would be great," Belén sighed, now more determined than ever to capture Shawna.

"C'mon Bells," Cisco led her out the room. "Let's just get you home, yeah? It's all fine."

"Mhm," the woman gave a small nod as they left.

"I told her I was fine," Barry said after it was just him and Caitlin. "Why did she go off with Cisco again?"

Caitlin smiled to herself, something Barry caught, as she returned to the cortex. "Any particular reason why that's bothersome?"

"I didn't - no, I didn't mean it like that," Barry came walking after her. "I was just...I was just asking a question-"

Caitlin bumped into him when she turned around, surprising him in the process. "Really? So that face is just meant to be casual?"

"I - Caitlin!"

Caitlin chuckled as she went around the desk. "It looks like I'm the winning the bet after all."

"What bet?" Barry frowned at her.

She sheepishly smiled and pushed some of her hair behind her ears. "Well, don't get mad, but, um...Cisco, Dr. Wells and I made a bet about you and Belén."

"What?" Barry's frown further deepened and was mixed in with some offence. "How...this is a joke right? Right?"

Caitlin shook her head. "I thought it was a playful thing, you know. But I ended up winning. Three months and you're ready to ask her out!"

"Caitlin Snow I never thought you were capable of such a thing!" Barry turned away, mostly because his face was getting warm and red.

"I know," Caitlin said, but her laughter made her sound not that apologetic about it. "But if you ask me about it, I think you and Belén would make a nice couple."

"Caitlin..." Barry gave her a sideways glance, "I'm not...asking...no. I...I'm not."

"Why not?" Caitlin earnestly asked.

Barry gave a little smile, almost nervously laughing. "We're not actually doing this, right?"

"Doing what?"

"Talking about...this?"

"We don't have to," Caitlin raised her hands, showing him this was all up to him. "I just gave my opinion, but no one is forcing you to do anything you don't want to."

"Well, it's not that I wouldn't like to..." Barry swayed his head, really trying to ignore how warm his face felt. He had been admittedly thinking a little more about Belén than any other friend. In a very short time he discovered she was incredibly sweet, quirky and she definitely rambled a lot. He liked when she rambled a lot. "She's...she's my friend..." She was a really good friend...and perhaps that was the problem. There was a risk that maybe Belén didn't even see him that way and it would just end their friendship if he did anything beyond that. "What if I end up ruining it by actually asking her out?"

Caitlin warmly smiled. "Being scared is normal, especially if it is between friends. But I guess you just have to ask yourself if you really want to try things with Belén - do you think it's worth it?"

"I...I don't know," Barry felt terrible answering. "I've only just started thinking about this. I'm not sure about anything."

"Then just think about it," Caitlin said. "No rush at all."

"Yeah," Barry nodded, really intending on doing that. He bid her goodnight and returned home. He found the West residence completely empty. Joe and Iris must be still working. He found the kitchen empty and, unfortunately, empty of food as well. After a moment's pause, he pulled out his phone and dialed for Caitlin.

"Hello? Still need to talk?"

Barry playfully rolled his eyes. "Ha, ha, no. I just wanted to know what bars did Shawna go to again?"

"Uh, mostly south side dive bars. Why?"

"I was just gonna check 'em out. See if they fall into any old habits."

"That's a good idea...mind if I join you?"

"Sure!"

The two exchanged details of their first stop before hanging. Just as Caitlin was about to put her phone down she got another idea. Oh, she was being sneaky and she was never sneaky. Cisco might have been proud of her right there.

~ 0 ~

The bar Barry chose had a karaoke stand where literally anyone could get up on and unfortunately not everyone who went up had the right singing voice. He was having himself a drink, just for show considering he couldn't actually get drunk, while watching a man attempt to sing. He was on alert for Caitlin who was supposed to be coming in any moment now. So, when he saw not Caitlin but Belén crossing through the doors, nicely dressed, he nearly choked on his drink.

"Bells…?"

Belén seemed just as surprised as Barry was when she saw him. Still, she scurried through the bar towards Barry's table in a pair of black heeled shoes. "Barry, hi," she said rather breathlessly as she set her purse down.

"What are you...doing here?" Barry couldn't help giving her a look-over. She was dressed in an off-the-shoulder emerald blouse with short sleeves, tucked underneath a black leather skirt. Her lips were painted a deep red which were twisted into a smile. It was quite a sight.

"Caitlin called," Belén answered, never noticing that her appearance was being checked out. It's also why she missed Barry's face falling flat when she mentioned Caitlin's name,

Caitlin you sneak, Barry silently cursed.

Belén pushed back some of her curled hair after taking the seat next to Barry. "She was in a hurry but she said if I wanted to go out and since I wanted to get away from Maritza I said yes in a heartbeat. I guess she just forgot to mention you were here too."

"Is that a problem?" Barry asked, momentarily confused.

"No," Belén laughed. "Although now I'm self conscious of my clothing choices. I guess this is metahuman work time?"

"No, no, you look nice," Barry assured, and by the third look over Belén caught on and blushed.

"So tell me, what are we doing?" she cast a look towards the karaoke stand. "That looks...interesting..."

"Uh, well, so far just...listening," Barry pretended to flinch when the singing man didn't hit a high key the right way.

"Guys!" they heard Caitlin calling for them. She arrived wearing a tight, shiny black dress with her curled hair. With a beam she plopped down across them.

"Thanks for half explaining things to me," Belén mocked a scold.

"This is where Shawna Baez and Clay Parker used to hang out?" Caitlin looked around but discreetly smiled at Barry. There was no shame in pushing a little, she told herself after she made the call to Belén.

"It is, according to the files," Barry nodded.

"Is that what we're doing?" Belén said glumly as she looked down at her clothes. "Man, I could have worn jeans for this."

"I thought we could kill two birds with one stone," Caitlin shrugged.

"And what would that be?"

"Look for them and get ourselves back out there," Caitlin announced, startling the two. Yes, maybe she was pushing a little but it was fair game as long as she did not disclose anything both Barry and Belén had told her about them.

This surprised Belén, and for some reason she glanced at Barry. "You want to date?" she definitely did not mean to ask that in a disappointed manner. The words just came out of her mouth before she could even think.

Barry blinked, caught off guard by her question. "Uh - well, n-not...not e-exactly…"

"Oh, c'mon!" Caitlin ignored their awkward moment and reached for the drink Barry had been mindlessly drinking. "I'm pining for someone who bursts into flames and wants nothing to do with me, Belén's a bit traumatized from her last relationship and Barry's not gathered enough courage to ask someone out. We're kind of - for a lack of a better word - losers."

"Well, I mean, she's not wrong - wait, you want to ask someone out?" Belén had just processed all of Caitlin's words and now looked at Barry again.

"What? You're afraid of moving on from Carlton!" was Barry's genius response.

Caitlin buried her nose into the drink that wasn't even hers. She might have gotten a little carried away there. Whoops.

"Well, I think I'm justified," Belén said, mildly offended. "My last boyfriend kidnapped me. That's far worse than anything. Your petty fears are nothing. Girl's going to be lucky," she looked down at the table, processing the way she felt at the moment. She didn't want to say she was upset or anything just because Barry was thinking about asking someone out, but...yeah, she might be actually.

Caitlin had finished the glass in her hand and shifted on her chair to call a nearby waitress. ""Excuse me? I would like to start a tab."

"Oh, this cannot go well," Belén mumbled to Barry.

True to her word, Belén was witness to a different version of Caitlin...a much more drunk version of Caitlin. She and Barry tried stopping Caitlin at one point but she was adamant to keep going and to have some fun. Belén went up to the bar counter in an effort to get some water for Caitlin, but she had to wait for the bartender to get rid of other customers. Barry had volunteered first but for some reason the bartender seemed to ignore his calls. Still, Belén was taking an awful long time, so much that eventually Barry went over to check on her.

"Hey, what's going on?" he asked, taking a seat on the empty stool beside her.

"Long line," Belén gestured to the crowd at the end of the counter. "Um, where's Caitlin?"

"At the table," Barry pointed to...their empty table.

"Where is she!?" Belén straightened up, ready to jump off and go in search for their drunken friend.

There was a noise from the stage up ahead and next thing they knew, someone was calling for…

"Mr. Barry Allen! Come on down! Or up!" Caitlin giggled to herself, using the microphone to sustain herself.

Belén covered her mouth with her hand to hide her growing smile. She was wrong- this could possibly end well.

Barry, mortified with the extra attention he was now getting from the audience, repeatedly rejected the idea. "I'm not doing it…"

"Come up here with me!" Caitlin insisted, motioning with a hand for him to come over. "Oh, come show 'em what you got!"

Barry did a cutting motion across his neck, shaking his own head. "No...n-no…"

Caitlin refused to take a 'No' and called upon the audience to encourage him on. She was a relentless drunk by the looks of it. "Barry! Barry! Barry!"

Barry rubbed his face, thinking of an evil way to get back at Caitlin for all of this. He owed her a lot tonight! Suddenly, he heard a distinct voice joining the cheering crowd. He dropped his hand and glanced to his side to see Belén teasingly smiling his way, actively cheering.

"No, not you too…" he shook his head.

Belén laughed, gently pushing him forwards. "Go on, Barry!"

Caitlin raised a fist pump into the air when she saw him coming up to the stage. "Ooh, look at him go. He's so fast!" she slapped a finger to her lips and made an 'Oops' face as he stepped on.

Barry shook his head at her. "You know I'm not much of a singer. And you're not much of a drinker."

"We are gonna bring this place down!"

Barry could not see himself getting away from this situation anytime soon. "Okay, just…"

Belén made herself comfortable on her stool as the song 'Summer Nights' began playing. She was not surprised to hear Caitlin singing off key - it was rather amusing. She pulled out her phone in time to catch the singing session.

"Summer lovin', had me a blast…"

"Summer lovin' happened so fast, I met a girl, crazy for me…"

Belén was shocked to hear Barry's perfect singing voice. In comparison to Caitlin, it sounded like Barry had been practicing forever. She abandoned her teasing plans - sort of - and listened to the entire song.

When the song was over, she purposely cleared her throat loudly. "You're fast, you're a scientist and you can sing?" Barry responded in a light chuckle, not realizing Caitlin was lagging in catching up. "I'm starting to think you are the triple threat here."

"No...no," Barry sat down beside her, blushing red as she laughed.

"I'm so happy I can show this moment to everyone else tomorrow," Belén waved her phone in front of him, showing him the video of him and Caitlin singing.

Barry's eyes widened in alarm. "No!" Belén jerked her hand to her chest before he could snatch her phone away. "You are….evil!" Barry couldn't find the right words to express his horror.

"Mm, I think I was more...smart...or clever...no wait, that's the same thing," Belén tilted her head as she thought out loud. "I wonder what I would be like if I was evil?"

"You can't be evil," Barry flat out told her, almost laughing at the idea.

"What? Why?" Belén eyed Caitlin who was failing to show up because she had stopped at a random person's table. They would eventually have to go get her.

"Because you're too sweet to be evil."

Belén felt her face warm up at the comment, and so she smiled. "Aw, thank you."

"Guys! Look who I found!" Caitlin exclaimed, making them look over to see her walking with Noah and Linda.

"Hey!" Belén beamed at the sight of her two colleagues, missing the sort of disappointed look on Barry's face. "What are you guys doing here!?"

"Noah owed me a drink," Linda shrugged.

"For what?"

"My team losssst," the man glumly said, although there was something quite off about him.

"He's kinda drunk," Linda mocked a whisper tone as she explained.

"Ah," Belén eyed her indeed drunken co-worker with some amusement. "I think he and Caitlin are about to hit it off then."

"We were about to leave…" Linda grabbed Noah by the arm but the man shook her off and stumbled his way to the counter, howling towards the bartender to give him another round.

"Don't you dare, Stevie," Linda called to the bartender who was halfway down before she told him to go away.

"Guys," Caitlin's face had suddenly turned pale, and she placed a hand on her stomach, "I don't feel so well."

Both her friends could easily see she had finally reached her drinking limit. Barry nodded, half reluctant, towards Belén signifying he would take care of it. "C'mon, Cait," he quickly got up and hurried out the door, speeding away once they were outside before she would end up vomiting.

"Woah, where'd your friends go?" Noah laughed and took Barry's place beside Belén.

"Noah," Belén chuckled, placing an elbow on the counter to rest her cheek on her palm. "I think it's time for you to go home too."

"Yeah, I'm gonna go close the tab," Linda said, moving towards Stevie the bartender.

"I thought you said drinks were on Noah?" Belén glanced back.

"You really think I'm gonna let him pay right now?" Linda shook her head. "I do have honor, Belén."

Chuckling, Belén returned her attention to Noah, squealing when she saw him so close to her face. "Noah! You scared me!"

"I like your eyes, you have pretty eyes," he remarked without a car in the world.

Belén smiled. "And you have a freckle on your nose. We're all discovering new things about our friends tonight apparently," her smile widened as she thought of Barry and his apparent singing talent.

"What color are your eyes, Belén? Are they black?"

"No, they're brown. And sit back down before you fall!"

Noah ignored her and continued asking questions of her facial features. "Your cheeks are pink!"

"Because it's hot here! Now sit down-"

"You have straight teeth too!" Noah poked Belén's cheek which made her laugh.

"I should take a video of you and show it to you tomorrow," she thought out loud. "I'm just scoring videos tonight!"

"Belén, I like your lips too…"

"You're losing it, Noah. For real."

At this time, Barry had returned to the bar, after leaving Caitlin safely in her apartment. He saw Noah sitting in his place and quite close to Belén.

"Do you think...I could…" Noah's other fingers joined Belén's cheek then lowered near her jawline. Before Belén knew it, he had planted his lips over hers for a kiss.

A twinge of actual jealousy surged through Barry as he saw this literally feet away from them. Linda returned from paying the tab at the same time and had gasped in honest surprise when she saw them.

Belén pulled away as soon as she could. She was a bit disoriented for the first couple of seconds. She had no idea where that came from and she genuinely wasn't quite interested in having it repeat itself. Putting a hand over her mouth, she slid out of her stool. "Oh my God…"

"Glad to see you two are having fun," remarked Linda, arms crossed, as she walked up to them.

"H-he's drunk," Belén was still gathering herself from the moment, one hand in her hair. She met eyes with Barry, and instantly he could see her discomfort- which did put him in a less tensed stance. "Can we go home, please?"

He nodded. "Let's just get the tab closed, okay?"

Grateful, she grabbed her purse, intending on waiting for him in her spot. However, halfway passing by, Noah made an attempt to grab her arm, making Barry backtrack and practically yank Belén to his side.

"Goodnight," he spat to the drunken journalist, giving a somewhat lighter look at Linda.

"That was something I so did not expect," Belén confided in him after paying the tab and walking out of the bar. "And I...I didn't think I gave him signals to - oh my God, he's gonna think I gave him signals. Oh my God!"

"Bells, it's…" but Barry couldn't really find the right words to say at the moment. He was fighting the urge to go back and punch Noah. At the same time, he saw Belén feeling guilty, like this was her fault.

Belén sighed, speaking without receiving an ounce of comforting. "Can you drop me off at home please? I don't want to think about this."

"Of course," Barry nodded, hoping this would blow over by tomorrow.

Swooping in on Belén's porch was quick and easy. But, much like Caitlin had earlier, Belén was a bit rocky on her feet in the first couple of seconds after coming to a stop. Nearly losing her balance, she latched onto Barry's arms and he grabbed her tighter as well. She chuckled in her embarrassment and looked up, intending on apologizing but she realized how close they had gotten and immediately blushed. Barry too had stopped to look down at her, and for the first time thought about her as above what a 'friend' was to him.

For one, she seemed to easily fit between his arms. He could probably hold her and sway her for hours. Her hair was neatly curled over her shoulders, still looking as if they'd just been done minutes ago. Her blonde tips seemed to shine with the street lights. Even her deep chocolate eyes were looking different to him. For a minute, Barry remembered the last time he'd gotten the same feeling. Right after Oliver and Felicity had come to visit, at Jitters. He never figured out what made Belén seem so different to him that day but he did know that she had looked more pretty than usual. It was the same 'different' that made it harder for Barry to want to stop holding hands with Belén that day. Now that feeling was back and it was stronger.

Even the way Belén was smiling was different but this time Barry knew why. It was still the same soft smile she always had on for everyone, but tonight's smile was causing a swirl of feelings to start in the pit of his stomach. They were tantalizing. He wouldn't have to lean so much to touch her lips with his.

Belén was very aware that she had Barry's face just inches from her but unlike with Noah, she didn't feel uncomfortable. - actually, she felt quite a home. She felt safe. He has taken several bullets for you, she reminded herself. She knew there were moments where she would inevitably steal glances from Barry but who could blame her? He was cute, he was incredibly intelligent - she knew he was far too smart for his own good - and he was far too kind to people even when they didn't deserve it. All this Belén had decided a while ago but she kept it all in the deepest parts of her mind. She thought she had a good handle on it, but then came moments like these. She was too close to Barry and now she could see his perfect features.

Forget 'cute' he's hot, Belén blushed like mad when she thought that. Her eyes dropped from his gaze but that hadn't been the right choice because now she was realizing Barry's lips were right in front of hers. Maybe she could lean just a bit...

You can't! Belén remembered. She couldn't think about him like this. It was Barry, after all, and he deserved someone better. With that mindset, she pulled away, out of Barry's arms, to a safe distance from him. The abrupt action startled Barry but he kept himself in his spot. Belén offered him a small smile from where she stood. "I know it was unplanned, and perhaps not the ideal night out...but I had fun. I'll have to thank Caitlin for that tomorrow...if she can remember."

Barry gave a slight nod, unable to will himself to speed away just yet. Belén moved to unlock the front door, and before going inside, she turned around again, hand on the doorknob.

"You know, if what Caitlin said about you earlier was true...then I don't think you should be afraid of asking that girl out." Belén smiled, and for a split second Barry could swear it was a sad smile. "I think any girl would love to go out with a…" she paused and titled her head to the side, her eyes drifting up in thought, "...a fast-moving, signing scientist."

A smile broke across Barry's face, as well a surge of heat that rushed up to his face. "One could say the same thing about a fast-talking, passionate journalist who can dance in the air."

Belén chuckled, momentarily looking down to cover her own blush. During that moment she missed Barry almost making a move towards her but he stopped himself. He heard Caitlin's words about him all over again. Would he be willing to risk a friendship in the hopes of something more with Belén? Did he consider it worthwhile? Because after all, this was Bells, his fighting partner, his friend.

"Goodnight, Barry," Belén said softly, waving as she turned the doorknob and went inside.

Almost immediately, a deep exhale came out of Barry. His thoughts rearranged in that one second.

Ooh..but this was Bells...

A quirky girl who just happened to make him feel things he hadn't quite understood till then.

~ 0 ~

The next day, Belén came into work like nothing, thanking God she had not drank as much as Caitlin because she was sure a migraine would make things even worse. She was suffering, once again, at work because everyone refused to speak to her. Thinking she knew the Flash and was just being snobby by keeping all the details from them, they left her out of nearly every article being written for the week. If this kept up, Belén was 99.9% sure she would lose her job.

Hell, even Iris was being admitted into the group and she was barely a couple weeks old at the place. But, unlike the others, Iris was far kinder.

"I keep trying to tell them you've got nothing to hide," Iris sighed and crossed her arms, looking disappointed she was failing to help her friend. "But...they're all snobs."

"I learned that on my third day in my internship," Belén in a weak attempt to lighten the mood between them.

"But this is so unfair!"

"Yes, it quite is."

"Belén?" Noah was cautiously coming up to the desk, looking worse for wear. Belén imagined Caitlin looking something like him considering the amount of alcohol they drank last night. "Can we talk?"

Belén gave a small nod and motioned to Iris she'd only be a minute. Moving a safe distance from the desk, she crossed her arms and waited for Noah to begin what she knew must be related to last night.

"I just want to apologize for last night. I...I was so drunk and not right in the head," he clapped his hands together. "I don't want you to think I'm that kind of guy, because...because I'm not. I'm really sorry." He was sure Rayan would kill him if he ever found out what happened last night so Noah hoped to God Belén wouldn't tell her sister about it.

"Now that you got that out of your chest…" Belén started to softly laugh, much to Noah's surprise. "...go get yourself a headache pill because I bet your head is just killing you right now."

"What? You're...you're not mad?" Noah sounded doubtful, and with great reason too.

"I was never mad, because like you said, this wasn't you. I've done my share of bad things when I get drunk. Although I will admit to being caught off guard and a bit uncomfortable."

"I'm so sorry about that. Trust me, it will never happen again. I promise."

"I'm holding you to that," Belén pointed at him with a kind smile. "I think we work best as a writing team."

"Yeah, I think so too."

Belén gave him a last smile before returning to her desk where she was sure Iris was merely pretending she had not heard anything. The woman fiddled with some papers left behind on the desk.

"How much did you hear?" Belén decided to get straight to the point.

Iris dropped the papers and got to business. "Everything. What happened? Where did you go last night?"

"I was at a bar with Caitlin and Barry and we met up with Linda and Noah."

Iris stayed motionless for a couple seconds while Belén went around the desk to take a seat. "What...what were you, uh...what was the reason-"

"It was a friendly get-together, Iris, nothing more," Belén warned before Iris could finish.

Iris began to laugh mirthlessly and whirled around to face her friend. "N-n-n-no, the last time you were out with Barry, you came home with this goofy grin and-"

"Caitlin was there too," Belén reminded sharply.

Iris crossed her arms, now smirking. "Then why are you blushing?"

Belén clapped a hand to her cheek to feel the warmth she didn't realize she was giving off. "Am not." She was definitely not thinking about how close she'd been to Barry last night, nope.

"So are," Iris rolled her eyes. "You guys are slower than sloths."

"Iris...go away, please," Belén said in a hushed voice, preferring no one heard her. Iris shrugged and walked away, but Belén was sure this wasn't the last she would hear of this.

At the same moment, she heard her phone 'ding' on her desk. She didn't know if it was because of what Iris said, or perhaps of what happened last night, but she felt a jolt of nervousness when she read Barry's name written across. It was a simple text message with a simple question - why was she acting like a such a dork?

I'm heading to STAR Labs, do you want a pick up?

Belén smiled and immediately texted a response back.

Yes please! I want to share my video with the others!

Very soon, she got another text back.

...you suck. Be there in a bit.

Belén laughed to herself, acquiring some looks from co-workers passing by. Shyly, she put her phone down on the desk and started gathering her things together.

"Going out?" Noah called upon her, walking by with a file in hand.

"Uh, yes," Belén smiled sadly. "I don't think anybody here really cares if I skip out a couple hours before."

"Hey," Noah put a hand down over hers on the desk, "This will blow over okay? You'll see."

Belén tried to keep his optimism in her heart with a tight smile. "Put in a good word for me, though?"

Noah chuckled. "I will do that as much as I can."

There was a clearing of a throat from a distance. "You ready to go, Bells?" Barry stood there, attempting to hide his dislike as best as possible. He had seen them 'holding hands' from outside and he resisted the idea of speeding in and taking Belén without announcing himself. That was rude...apparently.

"Yes!" Belén exclaimed, then silently questioning herself if that had been too fast of a response. She pulled her hand from underneath Noah's and stood up from her chair, swiping her phone off the desk and dumping it into her bag. "Can you tell Iris I probably won't be back today?" she asked Noah.

"Don't worry," Noah smiled. "See you later," he told both Belén and Barry then walked off with his file.

"Soo…" Barry awkwardly began as they walked out, he letting her out first.

"He apologized," Belén turned to face him, figuring where his thoughts were at the moment. "And I forgave him. He was drunk, and he had no idea what was going on."

"Oh, really?"

"Yes. Besides, both he and I agreed we didn't exactly want to go further than...friendship you know. We work fine as co-workers."

"Alright, c'mon. It's time to go see what Caitlin did to get up today."

"I suck apparently?" Belén arched an eyebrow before he could move them.

"Uuh…" Barry thought about a good response but came up with nothing. Instead, he sped them off for STAR Labs and hoped she would forget about it all.

Five minutes after they had gotten to the place, the elevator doors dinged open and out stepped Caitlin in thick black sunglasses clutching a water bottle like her life depended on it.

Holding the urge to laugh after glancing with Barry, Belén stepped forwards to greet her. "Hi there Caitlin-"

Caitlin flinched like Belén had just screamed at the top of her lungs. "So loud. Oh, ho-ho."

Barry stepped up beside Belén, and added, "Everything...okay?"

Caitlin sucked in a small breath. "Let's just say I envy your inability to get drunk. I don't remember much from last night."

She walked past them, heading for the cortex. Belén turned and walked beside her, leaving Barry to do the same. "Well, if you ever want to remember I think Bells has something that could help…" Barry sideways glanced at Belén.

Caitlin, confused, did the same and Belén pulled out her phone from her bag. She pulled up the video of Caitlin's and Barry's karaoke session and waved it at them, mimicking for them, "Summer lovin'..."

"Oh, God," Caitlin gasped in absolute horror. "That I do remember!"

Belén burst out laughing. She only stopped upon entering the cortex room where Cisco and Dr. Wells were, the latter with arms crossed at the former. It was easy to tell something was off.

"What's wrong?" Barry was the first to break the silence.

"Cisco... Has something he needs to tell you," Dr. Wells sarcastically said.

When all eyes turned on Cisco, he took a breath and declared, "Hartley's gone."

Belén gasped. "He escaped again!? How?"

Cisco shook his head and clarified. "I let him out." He took a moment to see how Caitlin was reacting but he was at a loss. "Are you mad? I can't tell with those glasses on."

Caitlin had remained perfectly still throughout the discussion, and for a good reason. "I'd like to yell and wave my arms, but I'm afraid I'd throw up."

"Why? What were you thinking?" Barry exclaimed, completely lost on this ridiculous idea of Cisco's. "You know how dangerous he is."

"Hartley said he knew what happened to Ronnie-"

"I told you to let it go," cut in Caitlin, removing her glasses. "I didn't want you looking into that for me."

"I wasn't doing it for you. I…" Cisco sighed, deciding to come clean once and for all, "I sealed Ronnie into the accelerator before it blew. He told me to wait two minutes, and I waited, but he didn't come back. And I can't stop thinking, 10, 20 seconds and... Ronnie wouldn't be like he is right now. I've wanted to tell you so many times. I'm so sorry."

Caitlin softened up as she went around desk towards him. "So you carried that around this whole time?" Cisco nodded silently. "Do you know what Ronnie would say if he was here? He would say that you did the right thing. It wasn't your fault. What happened that night wasn't anybody's fault. Come on. Don't we have a teleporter to catch?"

"Do we have progress on that by the way?" Belén asked once they had moved on.

"We do," Wells was happy to announce as he went up to the computers. He pulled up a tab of Shawna's cells that were flickering in and out. "Take a look at this. Now, this is the normal behavior of the particulate that Shawna left behind. Watch what happens when we remove light." The tab was exchanged for one of Shawna's cells in a neon green background that now had each cell motionless. "Shawna can only become entangled with something she can see. Take away her ability to do that…"

Barry realized, "She can't teleport."

"So, we just need to get her into a dark space," Caitlin commented and got to thinking. "How do we do that?"

Barry's phone began to vibrate and so he moved a distance to take the call while the others continued discussing.

"It's a valid question," Wells agreed.

"What...we can wait till night and fight her off in the dark?" Belén made faces as no other better ideas were being given at the moment. "Or...turn the lights off."

It was easy to tell something was completely wrong with Barry after he hung up his call. His face was pale and his eyes widened with distinctable fear.

"What's wrong?" Wells asked him instantly.

"M... My dad. He's been stabbed," he shuddered a breath just thinking about it. He was then ushered by the group to go see his father, but one of them - a tall ombre-blonde predicted an angry flare would soon rise and then something would then occur.

~ 0 ~

By the time Barry got the Iron Heights, Joe was already there with Henry, who was put to immediate rest after his injury. "Dad, what happened?"

"A rather stern reminder, I'd say, not to poke around Marcus Stockheimer's business," Henry was none too pleased that the only job he had, had been terminated so quick and easily.

"Dad, I told you to stop-"

Joe cleared his throat before Barry could finish. "Your dad called me with more intel. It helped us track down Clay and Shawna and arrest Stockheimer."

"I managed to screw up Marcus's big heist, too, so…"

Barry looked between the two men in disbelief. "You two kept working together, and you didn't tell me?"

"It isn't his fault. I did it to help you," Henry said before Barry would have a go at Joe. It didn't, however, ease things between him and his son.

"You getting stabbed and beaten is not helping me!"

Henry sighed, knowing Barry had a right to be upset with him. "Look, I... I... I don't get to feel useful very much in here. So if I can help you for a change, I'm gonna want to be there for you. Just like you've been there for me all these years."

Barry hated that he could, on a level, understand that. It was family, after all, that made people do crazy things sometimes.

"You said Marcus had a big heist coming up? Do you know anything else about it?" asked Joe.

"Dad, tell me who did this to you," Barry very much ordered. The anger inside him was flourishing just at the thought of the culprit thinking he could get away with stabbing his father.

Henry shook his head. "No, it doesn't matter, slugger."

Barry moved over to the side of his father's bed. "But you said you want to help me. So help me."

Henry saw that even though he wouldn't say a word, Barry would go on and find the answer himself. With another sigh, he answered, "One of Marcus's boys. Julius."

~ 0 ~

"I should have I bet on it," Belén sighed earnestly after Barry informed them all of how they would be getting some information on Shawna Baez. He'd gotten ahold of a specific inmate and extracted the needed information to get Shawna's location.

"Was that a joke?" Cisco sent her an odd look as she walked past them all ready in her suit.

"Of course…" but the way in which she assured him left him, well...not so sure.

Barry had stopped Shawna and her boyfriend underneath a tunnel and was having trouble keeping her from teleporting. In the car, Clay impatiently waited for Shawna to finish up fighting the metahuman. When Belén arrived, Shawna had just pushed off a construction worker off a machine. As Barry went to rescue the man, Shawna took opportunity and teleported back into the car with Clay.

"We have to get the lights!" Belén told the other speedster, looking up the light bulbs planted on the ceiling in a straight line. Who knew her idea of turning off the lights would become so relevant. She flinched as the car zoomed past her, but she didn't wait for an exact plan either. Thrusting both her hands upwards, she smashed the nearest light bulbs and swung forwards to continue smashing the next ones.

Seeing her plan, Barry sped forwards and passed Shawna's car to take a turn at the end. In a powerful blast, he smashed the front window and forced the car to an inevitable stop. Belén dropped beside the car and opened the car door to find a lonesome Shawna inside.

"...he left me," Shawna whispered, glancing at the now empty driver seat beside her.

"Men," Belén rolled her eyes, and as sorry as she felt for Shawna, she pulled out Shawna to bring her down to the pipeline. A bad relationship did not excuse crimes.

~ 0 ~

Shawna was placed into a cell in the pipeline, and as much as she tried teleporting out of it she would only reappear mere inches from her spot inside the cell. On the other side, which she could apparently not see, stood the rest of the team except Wells.

"Is there any way she can teleport out of this?" Barry curiously asked Cisco beside him.

"She's not looking at us," Belén commented from Cisco's other side, making a face, "So that's a clue…"

"It's one-way glass," Cisco answered the both of them. "It's mirrored on the inside. No one dangerous is ever gonna get out of this thing again."

Belén patted his arm, glad to see he was feeling a little better from his Hartley experience. "Next time don't let them out in the first place," she whispered with a teasing chuckle and walked away with him.

Meanwhile, Barry was going to have one last word with Shawna, at least to make her realize the reality she was now in. "Shawna. Clay left you. He's out there, and you're in here."

Shawna stopped teleporting, and looked to the side in utter disappointment. "You know what the crazy thing is? I still love him."

"Crazy is right," Caitlin made a face as she closed the pipeline down.

"Some people are worth being crazy for," Barry walked her pace back into the cortex.

Caitlin's smile widened in embarrassment. "Look, I'm sorry if I was a bit - well, a lot - of a drunken mess last night."

"Actually, it was pretty fun," admitted Barry.

"Even the part where Bells got a video she can now blackmail both of us with?"

Barry reluctantly gave a small nod. "Sort...of…"

Caitlin chuckled. "I'm also sorry for...pushing things a little too hard on you and Belén. I-it wasn't my place."

Barry took in a breath and motioned her not to continue. "Actually, I'm glad you talked to me and that you got us to the bar. It made me think and it made me realize...that maybe getting out there isn't such a bad idea."

Caitlin nodded her head. "If what Cisco says is true, that Ronnie merged with Martin Stein, then he's not alive anymore. Time for me to move on. Find someone new to be crazy about."

"Crazy thing is...I think I found someone I can be crazy for," Barry smiled to himself. "You think you and Cisco can help me out with a little something?"

Curious of what he had in mind, Caitlin nodded and paid close attention to what Barry was beginning to tell her.

~ 0 ~

"I don't even know why I'm going back there," Belén huffed like a child would, ignoring the laughter from Iris on one side and Linda on her other side while the three walked down the street.

"Because it's your job you worked for years now?" Linda tried to be funny but earned herself a small glare in return.

"I could be sleeping right now!"

"Oh shush!" Iris whacked Belén's arm, rolling her eyes. "And woman up - you are not going to let those co-workers intimidate you out of your own job because they don't believe you."

Belén said nothing more. She was resigned to yet another workday where people would give her dirty looks and scorn at her. All three women stumbled back when a strong force of wind hit them. Two out of the three were familiar with that 'wind', but only one was happy to see the other.

What is he planning? Belén wondered, admittedly concerned, as she turned the corner into an alleyway with Iris and Linda behind her.

As the Flash, Barry stood at the end of the alleyway. He was enjoying the look on Belén's face due because she had no idea what he was doing. "That's for you," he pointed towards a lone file left on top of a dumpster.

"That's the Flash," Linda gaped.

"Why are you here?" Belén could not help the tiny bit of anger in her tone - a concerned anger that Barry recognized. She was probably thinking how stupid it was for him to expose himself to yet another woman.

"I thought maybe you could help me out if you're willing," Barry shrugged oh-so-innocently it tugged a smile out of Belén. She got what he was trying to do.

"Oh, really?" she crossed her arms.

Iris moved behind them to pick up the file designated for Belén and skimmed a couple pages. "This is about the breakout at Iron Heights."

Linda snapped out of her stupor to check the file herself. "Belén do you know how big this is right now!?"

"Yeah, I do," Belén released a breath as she reached for the file herself, eyes still on Barry. "It's the story they're not letting me do right now."

"Why are you giving this to her?" Linda then asked him, no upset of his choice but overall curious. All in the meanwhile, none of them saw Iris discreetly pulling out her phone.

"Because she's an underestimated reporter and I want that to stop," Barry met gazes with Belén, the woman already flushing, "The world needs a woman like her putting the stories out there."

Belén had that look that said 'I'm gonna get you for this' with the widest smile ever. With a rather smug smile, Barry sped out of the alleyway.

"Oh my God, you have met him!" Linda exclaimed, still awed. Belén turned to her friend with a growing smile, taking Barry's plan with a small laugh. He would pull something like this.

~ 0 ~

That night in his lab, Barry got word of how his plan had gone. He'd heard it from Iris earlier and he did his job of pretending to be so surprised. Now he only had to wait for Belén to come see him. So he waited. He was working on a new case when he heard the familiar squeals nearing the lab. Barry jumped out of his chair though seeing how excited he was too, he took the few seconds to calm himself down.

"Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!" Belén ran into the room and went straight for him. "Oh my Goooood!" she threw his arms around his neck and hugged him tight as ever. Pleasant with this sort of greeting, Barry hugged back. "I thank my lucky stars every night for meeting you," Belén whispered, dead serious yet enough to make Barry laugh.

"I take it all is well at work again?"

Belén pulled away slightly to look at him, eyes filled with suspicion yet happiness. "What the hell was that for, Barry Allen? You exposed yourself to Linda Park and you basically confirmed to them that I indeed I know you."

"And they told the others at work right?" Barry asked.

"Well, clearly!" Belén whacked his arm but ended up laughing. "You should have seen Larkin's face when I put my article together with what you gave me. And then when Linda started telling them how I got the story. Suddenly, I'm everyone's favorite now."

"Well, you're my favorite," Barry cheekily smiled, making her laugh.

"And you are my favorite!" she was so happy that she needed to give him another hug.

Barry forced himself to sober up enough in order to find some courage and ask her - as casually as possible - a question. When he pulled away, she was still smiling but more flushed now.

"Bells, you think...do you think we could...I don't know, go get a cup of coffee or...something…?" Yes, that had not been exactly how courageously he wanted to ask but at least the question had been put out there, or so he thought.

"Oh yeah, sure!" she exclaimed, misunderstanding the intention of the question. "We could get everyone down at Jitters and-"

"No, no," Barry gestured that he needed another moment. "I meant...um...do you, maybe, want to have coffee or lunch or...maybe dinner, I don't know...together?" he pointed between them. "Alone."

"Oooh…" Belén's smile faded and her hand gripped the strap of her bag. Her heart hammered under her chest. "...alone…" She looked to the side, so many things popping into her head yet she knew that one thing overrode them all, no matter how many butterflies those other ideas gave her. She couldn't be selfish, not to him.

And so, as much as it pained her, she gave her answer in one word.

“No.”

[mobius-prime]

200. Sonic the Hedgehog #132

Can you believe it? We've reached the two hundredth issue, everyone! It seems like not that long ago that we had only reached one hundred, yet here we are! Of course, the actual comic itself is nowhere near two hundred yet, but we're counting total volume of issues here. We're over halfway done with reading the preboot by now, but we still have over a hundred left to go in front of us, so we'd better dive right in!

Home (Part 3 of 4): A.D.A.M. and Evil

Writer: Karl Bollers Pencils: Dave Manak Colors: Jensen

Eggman can't believe what he's seeing as Tails and Sonic fly overhead, having been certain that Sonic could never be fast enough to reach him in time to stop the missile launch. Sonic leaps down from the Tornado with a pair of handcuffs to arrest Eggman with, but Eggman isn't worried, as he has M to protect him… and as Tails hacks into Eggman's database to stop the missile launch countdown, he finds he has another problem to worry about.

Well that's worrying… Meanwhile at Fort Acorn, as General D'Coolette gets the soldiers under his command ready for battle, Julie-Su argues with Knuckles inside the fort. Knuckles apparently wants to take point in the fight, but Julie-Su is adamant that he not put himself in such direct danger, as now without the power of the Chaos Emeralds, the only power he can rely on is his natural strength, which while formidable pales in comparison. She's doubly worried since last time he put himself in direct danger like this he literally died, but he still insists that he can handle it, pointing to his backup.

Uhh… looks like Amy has seriously powered up since last we saw her! Vector is in charge of heading off the swatbots' first advance, which he does by blasting his music loudly enough that it literally blows all the robots apart before they can reach the fort. While this is going on, Sally, her parents, and Uncle Chuck monitor the situation from the Technolo-Tree, as now that A.D.A.M. has taken control of the Tornado Tails is in serious danger. However, Chuck reasons that with A.D.A.M.'s attention split three ways, he may not be able to properly concentrate on controlling the plane, the missile countdown, and the robot army at Robotropolis effectively. A.D.A.M. forces the controls of Tails' plane down, intending to make him impact with the water of the ocean to kill him, and with M attacking Sonic in revenge for hurting her "father," things look bleak. However, Tails, thinking fast, decides to test A.D.A.M.'s skills with riddles, asking him "Why does the chicken cross…"

I think you've found A.D.A.M.'s weakness, Tails! As he keeps the virus distracted with some more puzzles, Vector laments the destruction of his stereo equipment due to the sheer volume of noise he just unleashed on the swatbots. However, that's only the first wave - and Amy Rose is ready to take on the second wave single-handedly. M starts viciously beating up Sonic while Eggman gleefully "introduces" her to him, noting that unlike A.D.A.M., she was an intentional creation to act as his personal enforcer. She flings Sonic into the water nearby, and Sally, watching from home, is horrified, as she knows Sonic can't swim.

This is kind of the beginning of the era where the comic started to clip Sally's wings. A year spent thinking her closest friend was gone has robbed her of some of her usual fire, and though many people call it out of character for her, while to some degree I agree, in other ways I kind of don't. Sonic is in many ways the opposite of Sally - he rushes into things, acts first and asks questions later, while Sally is much more calculating and prefers to have a plan before jumping into action. With the wild attitude of Sonic gone from her life, she's had her parents in her ears for the past year, once again pushing her to act like a princess and not get involved the way she used to. Instead of being the general, the leader of the rebellion that she's always been, she's being pulled back, reined in, told that she must only direct her troops' movements from the safety of her home. While certainly Sally isn't the type to meekly listen to whatever her parents tell her to do, I think the trauma she's faced has affected her in more ways than even she's aware of, and she's not nearly as certain of herself anymore, leaving her more open to manipulation from her parents than she once would have been.

At Fort Knothole, Amy is only half-conscious after the battle due to exhaustion, but perks up when she's told that she managed to wipe out half the attacking swatbots… on her own. If there's one thing I love about the comics, it's that they never downplay Amy's immense strength. She's a one-woman army in her own right, as long as she has her hammer in hand, and ultimately the comics give her a lot of chances to shine as the badass she is. Everyone prepares to fight the rest of the bots, but a shadow above alerts them to the arrival of the special GUN team from Station Square, heralded by Rouge the Bat. In Old Megaopolis, Eggman tells M that he won't believe Sonic is dead until he sees a body, so she dives into the water, just as Sonic manages to pull himself from the water after finding a lucky ladder close by.

M's eyes begin to glow, glaring at Sonic as she prepares to attack…

Mobius 25 Years Later: The Unveiling

Writer: Ken Penders Pencils: Steven Butler Colors: Jensen

There isn't much teen interaction in this second installment of Mobius 25 Years Later, so there isn't as much to complain about compared to last issue, but there are still a few things to cover. For one, we get our first introduction to Kenders' weird attempts to include some diversity of sexual orientation in his work! We open at Lara-Su's Unveiling, as Julie-Su proudly watches her dance with her father in the middle of the festivities. An echidna named "Mace" arrives, and from his dialogue we can gather that he's Knuckles' half-brother, the one whom Lara-Le was pregnant with before Sonic's space adventures. Julie-Su questions his friendship with a friend of his, Demi-Na, but he insists that the two of them are just friends and it's "nothing serious." She then warns him away from flirting with any of the other people present, as they're all already married. Apparently, Kenders' intention here was to indicate that Mace is in fact gay - that he's not interested in Demi-Na because he's not into women, and that Julie-Su never specified the gender of the people he shouldn't be flirting with. However, there's not even the slightest hint of any of this in the dialogue - y'all know how online fandoms will grasp onto any tiny hint of two same-gender individuals being cordial to one another as being true love and ship them accordingly, but I doubt even the gayest of fans would look at the dialogue surrounding Mace and think "Oh, he's definitely A Fellow Gay!" I do get that at the time this comic was released, acceptance of LGBT individuals wasn't nearly as widespread as it is now, which would actually make Kenders a bit ahead of the curve of society as a whole in terms of acceptance, but this is still a really, really weak attempt at including a gay character in his work - and it's not even the weirdest example yet.

See, even here, something that could have been an opportunity for gentle ribbing from father to daughter is instead used as an excuse to essentially pull a "well, other people have it worse" on Lara-Su. The dress really doesn't suit her personality-wise, making me wonder who even decided that was what she should wear in the first place. Meanwhile, we finally get to meet Cobar, Rotor's old friend, as the two meet up and discuss a very serious matter.

Okay, this is definitely the most interesting thing we've seen so far in this world. This is a problem much more reminiscent of the types of conflicts we see in the main storyline of the comic. However, we're already facing another weird "LGBT inclusion" scenario! Go ahead and take a look at the way Rotor and Cobar interact with one another. Seem shippable to you guys? Well, despite the fact that they seem no closer to each other than two ordinary scientists with a polite working relationship, Cobar is basically supposed to be Rotor's husband! That's right, Kenders apparently always saw Rotor as gay, and while I'm 1000% on board with that interpretation… well first of all Cobar looks like he has one foot in the grave while Rotor would barely be like forty-something in this timeline, but also, again, there is no noticeable hint they they're even slightly into each other, let alone in a long-term relationship. Frankly, Rotor deserves better if we're looking to set him up with a nice man.

Meanwhile, back at the Unveiling, Vector and his son Argyle arrive fashionably late to the party, and Vector and Knuckles step aside to have a chat while Argyle moves in to dance with Lara-Su. Vector frets, thinking that Argyle essentially isn't cool enough to know how to charm a lady, but his fears are totally unfounded.

Hmm, seems serious, Knuckles… I'm sure this interesting part of the plot isn't going to get sidetracked by trite teenage drama and a bunch of adults yakking at each other about Adult Stuff, right?

[snarkwrites]

fake fic title - Glass Houses

Bless you for this title, anonymous. I wanted to say that before I say anything else. Now that I have, I just want to say that my brain wanted to go two totally different directions with this ( and I’m lowkey afraid you’re not in either fandom, but I hope you enjoy it in the same ) so that’s exactly what I did. It’s one title done two totally different ways?

Heads up, the stranger things one is kind of an au of my own au, oops rip me.

Both are kinda angsty. Kinda. There’s also banter.

Tag Squad : ( for the SOA version ) @rampagewriting | @chasingeverybreakingwave | @kyleoreillysknee | @sassymox 

( for the stranger things version ) @rampagewriting | 

[ tag list doc - add yourself or I won’t tag ] | [ masterlist ] | [ keep ‘em comin - these are hella fun ] 

                                  { STEVE HARRINGTON x CHARLOTTE (oc) }

Nancy caught up to me just as I got out of Jackson’s car and started to walk towards the double doors of Hawkins High. She glanced from me to the retreating black Impala and bit her lip as if she wanted to say something. Before she could, Barb caught up to both of us.

“Did your dad get a new car?” Barb asked, letting out a low and appreciative whistle at the car driving away before meeting my gaze.

“Nope.”

“Who was that? He looked like he was at least 21.” Nancy’s question was blunt and filled with concern when she asked it. I shrugged and bit my lip, waiting a second or two before answering.

“That was this guy I met over the summer. His name’s Jackson. He was one of the other counselors at that camp I worked at. Speaking of guys, where’s your new one?” I asked the question mostly to get her off my back, the last thing I wanted this early in the morning was one of her lectures.

It wasn’t like she had any room at all to talk, her letters over the summer had been filled with instances of her sneaking out, sneaking around with some guy. She’d been vague about a name, but honestly, I half expected it to be Jonathan Byers. This sweetheart of a guy in our grade that we’ve known since we were babies… And maybe I’ve always thought Nancy made goo goo eyes at constantly, even if she’d die before admitting it.

Before she ever even got to answer me, Steve Harrington appeared out of nowhere and I swallowed hard, giving him my best blank look for a few seconds. “Are you lost, Harrington? The jackasses and their cackling hens are all that way.” I nodded towards where he’d parked his new BMW, where Tommy H currently stood, exhaling smoke through his nostrils and laughing about it. I rolled my eyes before tearing them away.

“Ouch. I totally forgot how grouchy you are first thing in the morning, Charlie.” Steve mumbled, lazily pulling Nancy closer.

I tried, but before I could stop myself, I was flinching a little. Luckily, no one seemed to notice it because Nancy and Steve were all over one another and that only had me tensing just a little more. Yep. this is going to be one hell of a long year.

“It’s Charlotte. I like Charlotte now.” I licked my lips and finally retorted at Steve as I  shifted my backpack from one side of my shoulder to the other, tapping my foot impatiently against the concrete of the sidewalk.

Nancy looked from me to Steve and when he pulled her closer, I couldn’t help the split second flinch that came. I bit my lip and spoke up. “This is the dreamy guy, Nancy?” I gave a light snort of laughter and blatantly ignored the pout Steve sent my way as he stared at me over the rim of his dark tinted sunglasses. 

What, did she lose her entire goddamn mind this summer? Steve? I’d gotten my hopes up to coming back to find out that she and Jonathan were finally a thing because I just have a feeling about those two.. And I wasn’t the only one, either. One look at Barb quickly told me how she felt about this whole thing and I gave a covert nod, sure we’d both be trying to puzzle it out later between the two of us. I couldn’t wait to hear what Barb had to say about it, actually, because I wasn’t the only one Steve ditched as a friend back then.

“Mhm!” Nancy gave a soft and happy laugh and I had to really bite my tongue. 

,, hello, has she totally forgotten the sleepover in 8th  where I cried because Steve told me he couldn’t be my best friend anymore because it was ‘weird’? She was all about calling him a jerk then.”  I had to literally fight to keep from saying it.

Rather than say any of what I was thinking, what Barb was probably also thinking, I gave a soft laugh and eyed Steve, shrugging. “Have fun with that, I suppose.” was the best I could come up with. Nancy eyed me and bit her lip nervously and Barb tensed, her hand going to her mouth. I literally couldn’t take another second of Nancy and Steve all over one another, so I turned to Barb and asked mildly, “Hey, do you wanna walk down to the girls room with me? So I can show you that thing my aunt got for me?”

“Wh-” she almost asked what thing but I carefully nudged her side and she nodded, the two of us hurrying away. The second the door to the girls room shut behind us, I was pacing and ranting about the whole thing and when I lightly punched the paper towel dispenser on the wall next to the row of sinks, I cradled one hand in the other and swore quietly.

“Feel better now? Did you get it all out? Look… All I’m saying here is that I got over the way Steve  ditched all of us a while ago… Maybe there’s another reason you haven’t?”

“Don’t you dare shrink me, Barbara Holland.” I pouted, going quiet before finally admitting to it quietly. “For as long as I can remember, it’s always been me and Steve. We were so close. So close and I just…”

“You kinda fell for him.” Barbara finished and I sighed, putting my back to the bathroom stall and dramatically rolling my eyes upward. I didn’t even have to nod to acknowledge that yes, she was 100 percent right. Somewhere between kindergarten and 8th grade, even though I know it’s stupid and I realize that nobody knows who they love until they’re much older, more mature.. A small sliver of my heart was Steve Harrington. Then he took it and he broke that sliver that belonged to him and since then, I’ve just kind of… Silently been bitter.

The bathroom door burst open and Nancy stepped inside, laughing and lit up, practically glowing. I shared a look with Barb and prepared myself to put on a tolerant face. A happy face, even. Barb gave me a nod and Nancy spoke up.

“What’d your aunt get you?”

“Oh, uh…” my brain crapped out for a minute, and she raised a brow, looking from me to Barbara.

“She thought she bought it but she left it home.” Barb stepped in with the quick save and I mouthed a thank you to her when Nancy was too busy reapplying her lip gloss to notice. “So, what do you think? I mean, I’m still shocked that he likes me.”

,, you’re honestly not the only one.” the thought came accompanied by an almost crippling wave of guilt, especially in light of what Barb and I just discussed. I was getting the distinct impression that this year was not going to be an easy one at all. 

The tardy bell had the three of us dashing down the hall for class and I slid into my seat with such force that I bounced lightly off of Jonathan Byers side. He glanced up and over at me for a few seconds. 

“Are you okay?” he gave a smirk as our eyes met and he asked the question.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m good.” I said it quickly. Way too quickly. He chuckled quietly and nodded to the textbook I’d just dug out of my backpack. “This is History. Not Biology.”

I locked eyes with him, cheeks burning hot all over. And this literally had me blinking in shock because everything I’d just thought about Nancy being with Steve -and exactly how flustered he’d gotten me in the hallway just popping up like he had, it all came rushing back and I really had to work at shoving it down.

Because I wasn’t like her. I was not going to break girl code. I knew that she’d always kind of secretly liked Jonathan and that most likely, Steve Harrington was just a phase. I also knew that I was totally overreacting and yet...

,, Says the girl whose still being so silly enough to even remotely think she actually loved Steve at one point in time. Or that it matters at all in the grand scheme of life and stupidly refuses to just let go like she needs to.”  

“Thanks.” I muttered, digging around a little more in my backpack. When I produced the pack of cinnamon flavored gum, I caught Jonathan gazing at the pack in my hands almost longingly, so with a shrug, I did my best covert lean-in, holding the pack out to him, giving a playful pout when he didn’t reach and grab immediately.

“Oh come on, Jon. Live a little, doll. The teacher’s old, nearly blind and mostly deaf. He’s never gonna know you’re chewing gum.” I giggled softly. Jonathan chuckled at what I said and he took a stick from the pack. 

I went back to paying attention to the textbook and about halfway during the class, a folded square of paper landed neatly on the corner of my desk. I glanced up and around, and after confirming that the teacher obviously hadn’t seen it happen, I slipped my hand out, gripping the folded square and slid it back towards me, my bracelets jingling and making me pause a second.

The note was from Steve.

I’m sorry. I miss being your friend, okay? I really miss it. I hope this doesn’t get weird...

There were several different ways I could’ve gone. If I bothered responding. But frankly, the fact that he’d ditch me and Barb like we hadn’t been best friends our entire lives… just because he wanted to be popular and we weren’t good enough at the time… I didn’t bother answering. Letting him sweat it out was way easier. 

                                   JUICE ORTIZ x HAZEL TELLER (oc)

“ What’s she doin here, huh?” Juice asked the question to my brother Jax as loudly as possible and I tensed at the chill in his voice, biting my lip. I didn’t turn around immediately because if I did, I knew he’d take one look at me and know he’d hurt me a little. But he was getting good at that lately. So dismissive.

“She’s gonna work the bar for us until she finds a job, man.” Jax exhaled a drag from the cigarette pressed between his lips and finished off the glass of bourbon I’d poured him before the others came in. “Is there gonna be a problem, Ortiz?”

“Just wonderin.” Juice grumbled quietly.

I was finally pulled together enough at this point that I could turn around and face him. With the sweetest smile I could muster, I poured him a glass of his favorite beer and silently shoved it right at him. When a little of it sloshed up over the rim and splattered on the front of his white tee shirt, I shrugged and bit my lip before turning away again.

Naturally, it was Tig who spoke up, clearing his throat. “You two gonna act like this all the time? If the tension gets any thicker in here, I’m gonna bust a nut.” 

“Jesus Christ, Trager.” Jax coughed, glaring at the other man. “That is my sister, man. I don’t wanna think about that shit.” 

I turned and gave Tig a teasing smirk. “What tension?”

Oh, I know perfectly well what he’s talking about. Nobody’s forgotten the fact that way back… before this MC bullshit crept into his life… Juice and I dated. Then when he pledged, we broke up because at the time, I didn’t want the danger and the pain this life has been known to cause.

Not to mention dear old stepdad. It was pretty much either break things off or risk Clay trying to kick his goddamn head in. Or so I thought at the time. Apparently, I found myself thinking bitterly as I wiped down the bar top, I was wrong because here Juice is, a full member of the Sons. 

Obviously, the fact that I’m here and working at the MC would show that my stance on that is changed. And you wouldn’t be wrong, it has. It took me leaving to realize that I threw away a really good thing. A near fucking perfect thing. Just because I was afraid of both letting down my guard and allowing myself to really love Juice Ortiz like he deserved and the thought of losing him due to something happening. 

So, I came back. And naturally, now he hates me.