#she cannot go a single second without mentioning beau can she

[primrose-path-of-dalliance]

jester began falling in love with caleb in episode 103.

not any earlier in my opinion, and not later, either.

there's two elements to why i believe e103 is the turning point.

(1) the first is caleb's actions and jester's responses to them during the night they all sleep by the waterfall—his support of her idea to sleep underwater, his conversation with her after her commune with artagan, and his casting of programmed illusion in the dome.

(2) the second is the way her behavior toward caleb pivots around e103. before e103 is a noticeably different beast to how she begins to treat him after e103—the attention she pays him, her efforts to hold more standout interactions with him, and a dramatic swell of emotion and thematic meaning in these scenes’ respective subtext.

the rumblecusp arc is the point in which jester’s character growth, and caleb’s efforts to unconditionally support her, really begin to shine. throughout the complex growing pains that jester and artagan's relationship was experiencing, the one person who truly takes a moment to offer her support without any agenda or judgment is caleb.

(e103, 1:22:55, bold mine)

CALEB: You okay over there?

JESTER: (tearful) Yeah, I'm fine. Just—I'm just drawing.

CALEB: Maybe didn't go as well as you were hoping?

JESTER: Um... In some ways it went better. But no.

CALEB: I can't speak for him. But you do have us.

JESTER: I know.

CALEB: So whatever you land on, Jester, we'll make it happen.

JESTER: (shaky laugh) I have to figure out what I want to land on.

CALEB: That is the, uh—sticky wicket, isn't it?

JESTER: Yeah. Everything's confusing.

CALEB: Maybe... Maybe we sleep on it, it'll make more sense in the morning.

JESTER: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, Caleb.

CALEB: I didn't do anything.

jester confesses that her commune with artagan didn’t provide the answers she was hoping for—that he knew about the curse on the island—and caleb doesn’t remark on what that seems like. he deliberately avoids speculating on why artagan is doing these things because “he can’t speak for him.” he doesn’t assume anything about what she might choose to do and explicitly leaves that choice up to her. jester vents briefly about how difficult the choice is, and caleb offers her reassurance, a reminder that some time will make things clearer. he doesn’t suggest solutions.

unlike fjord or beau, caleb doesn’t ask her to voice outright whether artagan is being a good friend. he doesn’t continually question his character and imply any personal opinions to her or what he thinks she should do. instead, he asks whether she’s okay. he listens. and he offers unconditional support.

this is consistently the stance caleb takes in the rumblecusp arc. and it’s not discussed much, i think, exactly how monumental that was to jester.

(hold on, this is a long one.)

jester is a young woman who grew up sheltered and wants to define herself outside of that shelter. for her, this campaign has essentially been a coming-of-age journey (talks for e76-77, 14:12). she is deeply sensitive to whether or not she’s respected because she’s aware of how her personality and general lack of experience makes others think she’s naive, immature, or incapable (talks for e79, 31:51).

it’s also incredibly evident that her relationship with artagan is unique. in e105 (1:15:01), jester tells the m9, “he really got me through a lot when i was younger, you know? and he was all i had, really.” he was her best friend from childhood in a home where she spent most of her time hidden in a single room. when she was younger, the few times she left the chateau, she was bullied by other girls (e110, 3:34:59). her best friend, though? her best friend was a god. a god with an incredible sense of humor, an aggrandizing attitude, and adoring respect for a young girl in a difficult situation who had as wonderful a personality as him. in every way that matters, artagan’s friendship undoubtedly saved jester’s life.

and she is so, so aware of this. she cares for him deeply, trusts him unconditionally, and is determined to be there for the one person who had been there for her when no one else was, not even her mother.

the renegotiation of this friendship after artagan revealed his full identity was clearly extraordinarily difficult for jester. she was having to reevaluate her entire relationship with the being that pulled her through a childhood of isolation and misery, question his intentions with her and whether they could even remain friends at all. and this was amidst her arrival at a dangerous island with her other friends to help him clean up his mistakes.

asking her to make a judgment on artagan before she’s ready to do it on her own, while managing some high expectations at the same time—not only is it a lot of pressure, it’s frustrating and painful. jester did not want to judge artagan without giving him his fair due and a proper conversation. knowing that her new friends dislike her old friend, besides being hurt by it, distracted her. she had to both defend him outwardly and interrogate him internally. and if she tried to explain how important artagan is to her, a lot of vulnerability would’ve been necessary when she was trying to be a leader and seem competent and capable, instead of a child who needs patronizing guidance.

this latter point is exceptional. because jester lavorre is so vulnerable when it comes to how much she thinks her loved ones respect her and consider her a valuable, equal, and trustworthy individual. and it’s difficult to feel like you’re being valued and trusted when people are repeatedly questioning you about a person and a relationship that they don’t understand in a way that, despite genuine concern, comes across as them doubting your own judgment of one of the most intimate parts of your life.

in this precise moment in e103, caleb is the only person who acknowledges—to her in person, even—that he doesn't have any place in judging her relationship with artagan. that it’s not what she needs from him or anyone else. that he’s content waiting for her to reach a decision. that he will respect that decision.

and jester can believe him. caleb’s done nothing but remain consistent on this stance. he repeatedly supports her choices to run travelercon, trust artagan, and come to his aid.

when other party members question artagan's legitimacy, caleb is the one who almost always speaks up to support jester (some examples: e61, 30:43 / e77, 49:17 / e95, 1:09:17 and 1:15:24).

he actively and enthusiastically offers his magical talents to her to provide for the event preparations. he has a whole conversation with her in e91 (beginning 1:53:41) where he expresses his immense respect for her and her personality, explicitly validates her faith in artagan, and shows her a tangible example of how he wants to help her during the upcoming travelercon. when she suggests some ideas, despite their arguable silliness, caleb takes them at face value and openly admits his lack of expertise in this area (e91, 1:58:35).

when they first arrive at rumblecusp, he directly reassures jester about the ‘travelercon 3000’ banner she leaves on the wrong beach by mentioning that he can make her a new banner (e101, 48:18). once preparations begin in earnest, caleb expends spells very freely, including ones of higher-level, to produce whatever jester requests.

in e103, he hears out her idea of sleeping underwater and gives it equal consideration in spite of other party members trying to shoot it down. the first time she suggests it (36:23), caduceus comments against it and no other party member acknowledges her except for caleb, who agrees with her quietly while the others move on. the second time jester suggests it (46:08), veth comments against it and caleb steps in to openly agree that it’s a good idea, even after fjord and beau join veth in being dubious.

compare these active, consistent moments of support and validation from caleb to similarly active and consistent examples of the other attitudes that manifest during the rumblecusp arc, in contradiction to people’s apparent claims of trust (one such claim of trust: e95, 1:00:21).

plainly insulting artagan to jester as if it’s a given, such as fjord’s “he’s generally full of shit, right?” (e107, 49:42);

fjord, beau, and caduceus’s conversation about “not ruining jester’s big day,” yet distrusting artagan to the extent of planning to keep her from being alone with him, preparing to attack him should he try to sacrifice 200 people for some speculated unknown ritual and/or hurt jester, and discussing all of this behind jester’s back (e108, beginning 15:41);

caduceus’s said shift to distrust of artagan because of a semi-disturbing conversation that jester was equally a part of (e107, beginning 20:40);

and the discussion right before jester’s commune with artagan where beau questions if artagan sent them to rumblecusp knowing of the memory problems, without regard for their well-being (e103, 29:40).

the unfortunate assumption being made by these party members’ repeated questioning and protectiveness of jester is that she cannot be trusted to have good judgment. despite their familiarity with some of the context of her relationship with artagan (especially after e105), they disregard her repeatedly-expressed support of him. they indirectly disrespect her ability to judge for herself whether someone is dangerous to her or her friends. they don’t acknowledge jester’s own role in creating dubious situations and instead direct all their negative feelings and sense of fault to artagan, minimizing her agency.

the e108 conversation is a dense microcosm of how the party perpetrates these assumptions throughout the rumblecusp arc as a whole. without qualm, they discuss deliberately controlling jester’s time with artagan to ‘protect’ her and their willingness to kill the evil image they’ve constructed of him, and dodge jester directly asking them what they’re talking about—even though it is a known given that the m9 would defend her with their lives with or without any prior discussion. the purpose of holding this conversation isn’t to make sure that jester is safe. like caduceus near-explicitly says, it’s to “feel better knowing” that “anybody else was on board with this” (20:26 and 18:57)—to validate their unacknowledged distrust of jester’s judgment with each other, behind her back.

and as laura has said: jester, with her very high wisdom, tends to know what’s going on even if she acts like she doesn’t (talks for e79, 32:39).

in e103, when jester is crying because she’s found out that artagan did know about the island’s memory problems, caleb doesn’t show any sign of taking this as proof of artagan's ill intent. what he does instead: he offers compassion for her pain with zero judgment. he promises to support her, no matter what she ultimately decides to make of this information. these are offers of safety and trust, ones that jester desperately needed.

then—caleb creates a programmed illusion of the m9’s lives. and it’s beautiful.

in comparison to all the analysis prior, this moment is straightforward. jester is an artist. she paints, draws, and creates, and she loves doing it. moreover, she loves making art for other people. though she doesn’t get many chances to do so, the mural of a flowery meadow that she paints for yasha’s room in the xhorhaus is a perfect example. similarly, she enjoys the art she makes when defacing other people’s property—altered signage or statue of the platinum dragon painted in rainbow—in part because they’re gifts to the traveler. she loves making those she loves happy.

happiness and love to jester is overwhelmingly about emotional intimacy. i’ve talked about this to some degree in a previous post about jester’s jealousy. please refer there for in-depth explanation. in brief, though, she puts value on how deeply she knows a person; how often she’s been able to be there for them. this is the love she learned from her mother and from artagan, and how she continues to love once she’s older.

caleb’s arcane rendition of the m9′s lives floating around the inside of the dome is a display of exactly this kind of love. not only is it art crafted from his magic and imagination and love—it’s blatant evidence of how much he cares for every member of the party and where they’ve come from. he remembers their stories and hangs them in the air in hopes that it’ll help them resist the memory erasing. he moves the memory of yasha and zuala in a meadow over to yasha’s pillow-side so she can watch it until she falls asleep. he creates a memory for vilya of her, her husband, and her daughter, listening to and respecting the emotional gravity of what she’s confiding in them.

only a few minutes after jester’s disappointing commune with artagan and her conversation with caleb, she walks into the dome and sees this art. she laughs and stares in wonder at all the memories (e103, 1:46:08). when beau points out the humorous memories of fjord being attacked by turtles so they can all laugh, she tells caleb with equal awe and joy, “wow. this is amazing, caleb” (e103, 1:47:04).

...of course, as lovely and meaningful as these back-to-back moments were for jester, it's not quite evidence of her starting to fall in love with caleb around this time.

that’s where the following episodes come in.

[id: three screenshots of messages sent in a discord channel by the user “prim” (the op). all are timestamped to friday, august 28, 2020, the day after the live premiere of e107. the first has an additional timestamp of 12:53 PM, the second 1:03 PM, and the third 1:30 PM. they read:

honest to god though i don't know if it's just the shipper brain that is making me think laura is trying to roleplay jester beginning to reciprocate caleb's feelings [...]

like........ the golden dick hunt teasing is definitely on par with jester's past shenanigans, but the compliments have been Catching My Attention bc it's honestly not normal for jester to compliment caleb of her own volition like that, just as a one-on-one "i appreciate you" reassurance

and i'm thinking less about the spells from last night's episode (although how much jester was emphasizing the compliments made me go "awwwww") and more of the moments like jester telling caleb "that was impressive" after getting cad out of the tunnel with beau's help

but laura is absolutely a shipping troll with jester this campaign so i'm here like "I'M MAYBE 80% SURE I'M BEING FUCKED WITH BUT IT MAYBE HOLDS UP????" [...]

basically laura keeps doing things that make the alarm in my brain go off and i don't know if i'm picking up something legit or if i'm projecting my hopes, like the recent pattern of compliments from jester LOL

/end id.]

i’m not going to lie, if i try to list every single receipt like i otherwise prefer to do in these metas, i think we (and especially i) would all lose our minds. so while i’m about to provide a lot of citations, they genuinely are just a few possible examples that will mostly be within the dozen episodes after e103.

the more important detail that can be observed from this is that e103 is a turning point.

prior to e103, jester does not particularly go out of her way to interact with caleb. by and large, most of their direct interactions are either initiated by caleb or prompted by the context of a general party conversation. the majority of other moments that could be referred to as ‘widojest’ are of caleb’s evident feelings. beyond early campaign days, jester rarely teases caleb about sexual topics while insinuating things about her own sexual life at the same time.

after e103, laura and jester begin to go out of their way to interact with and intertwine jester’s time with caleb.

the rate of jester’s compliments and enthusiastic gratitude to caleb skyrocket (some examples: e104, 30:36 / e107, 16:49 and 1:11:28 and 1:12:15 and 3:10:39 / e110, 15:58 and 3:37:24 / e111, 36:15 and 38:41 and 50:58);

several mature jokes/flirtations she makes involve both caleb and herself (examples: e107, 1:16:17 / e110, 1:18:07 / e115, 1:52:53);

she deliberately and specifically engages caleb in full-blown interactions, such as the conversations during the tour of her childhood bedroom (e110, beginning 1:11:38), hanging out with him on the icebreaker ship (e112, beginning 3:45:29), and the reading of der katzenprinz (e115, beginning 1:52:43);

as well as the expansion of more extended ‘conversations’ like their motif of dancing (e108, 13:39 / e109, 2:54:14), their parental relationships (e110, 20:44 and 3:38:41 / e115′s der katzenprinz / e121, beginning 1:52:12), and polymorph shenanigans (examples: e107, beginning 2:58:41 / e117, beginning 1:13:55 / e118, 43:57).

thrown in are additional background details that further tie jester to caleb, such as her determination to recover caleb’s amulet after their defeat of vokodo (e106, 25:33), the knowing comments on his purchasing of paper (e109, 22:32 / e111, 1:25:49), her deliberate choice to ride whaleb during the avantika chase (e113, 2:32:28), her retrieval of caleb’s coat when he’s attempting to remove the necromantic emerald (e115, 1:30:56), and her deliberate reference to der katzenprinz to iver (e120, 3:05:14);

and simply everything about the tower. it’s another example of the art and creativity caleb produces with his magic to make his loved ones happy, which jester acknowledges at least twice (refer to the e111 compliments). contrarily, jester also makes note of the signs that this tower shows less love to caleb than she thinks he deserves, in keeping with her value of emotional intimacy (e115’s der katzenprinz / e122’s floor 8, room 1).

the reading of der katzenprinz in e115 is arguably the pinnacle of these examples. it’s intentionally initiated by jester. she both takes the step to visit caleb's room and indirectly requests him to read the story to her. laura’s implication that she remembered this subplot because of beau’s reading of a very romantic letter from yasha is particularly suggestive. the story itself incorporates many similar characters and themes that are present in jester’s backstory: the lonely, sheltered boy and his single working mom as jester and marion; the dubious cat prince who ultimately gives the boy freedom and confidence as artagan; and the deep love between the boy and his mother because of how they only have each other, which compels a powerful being to have compassion and thus set the boy free so that they can be together. very similar to both jester’s depth of relationship with her mother and her pleas on artagan’s behalf to the moonweaver’s celestial servant.

and the post-story conversation—caleb’s confiding of its importance to him because of his mother. jester’s open willingness to compare the cat prince to artagan, knowing that caleb respects their friendship and has treated artagan fairly. jester’s lingering, repeated looks toward caleb while smiling and holding her copy of der katzenprinz to her heart.

with all this dramatic expansion of the emotional and thematic intimacy between jester and caleb beginning to roll down the hill after e103—in brilliant contrast to their more muted, less reciprocal dynamic before this episode—e103 is more than likely the turning point of jester’s feelings. and based on the events and context, it was caused by the combined emotional appeal of caleb’s offer of unconditional support and his display of love for his family in the programmed illusion of memories.

[finiteuniverse13]

home is people, not a place 2/?

Part 1

Summary: Clay gets attacked on base. DEVGRU finds an issue in that.

TW: Blood mention, physical assault, canon typical violence

Tag: @rebelwrites @chibsytelford @bravo-four-seal-team @velvetcardiganbucky @supervalcsi @abby-splace @itsonautopilot @thegirlwhoisalwayswriting @pinkrockstar19 @softi92 @mrsmarvelous1995 @jayhalsteadfan-2417

Lisa is pissed. She has every right to be. Clay had been attacked in the Bravo cages.

She’d watched the kid go from a strap who couldn’t stay in his own lane to an operator who could lead Bravo – and Tier One, for that matter – into the future. And then he’d been attacked in his team’s cages, in his own cage. Blackburn was still at the hospital – he’d found the kid in a pool of his own blood; Lisa wouldn’t blame him if it took an apocalypse to separate him from the kid – making sure that the kid got appropriate care.

She pushed open the door to Bravo’s briefing room, not that it actually had any members of Bravo in it. Alpha, Charlie and Delta were all there, waiting on her brief on the situation. Echo would have been there, if not for them being halfway through their first deployment as a team. There had been hesitation about deploying Echo – the loss of the last Echo line-up still sat heavily in the Tier’s mind.

The three team’s Master Chiefs and 2ICs had sat in Bravo’s usual chairs. Full Metal and Derek sat in Jason and Ray’s chairs, respectively. Beau and his second in command had taken Sonny and Trent’s, while TJ was sat in Brock’s. Delta Two had distinctively chosen not to sit in Clay’s seat, instead sitting in a chair usually used for either Cerberus or a support staff member, depending on the op.

(It was very funny to watch Brock and Clay push a wheely chair with Cerberus on it between the two of them, and they’d pretty much mastered the art of doing it in the last few months. Cerb had found that if he allowed it to happen, he’d get belly rubs and treats, so he was unbothered about it)

The other seats had a random assignment, seemingly first-come-first-serve. The ones unlucky enough to have not found seats stood tensely, arms crossed and grumbling under their breath to each other.

Nobody sat in Clay’s seat.

All 18 operators looked up when she walked in, attention snapping to the person with the most information. As she walked in, her gaze caught on the table space in front of Clay’s chair. Clay had left his book on the table. It’s about as thick as a brick, and Sonny would probably take a glance at it and tell Clay it was as dry as one. The embossed cover didn’t read English, and Lisa had a feeling that there would be very few, if any, people in the room able to read any part of the book.

She stood at the front and pushed her emotions down. These operators were here for information, not emotion.

“At 0145 this morning, 4 Green Team members entered Bravo’s Cage room. At 0157, they left, and returned to the Green Team barracks. 0204, Lieutenant Commander Blackburn entered the Bravo cages. He dialled 911 and was assisted by Alpha Four-”

She cuts herself off for a few seconds, as various operators slapped Jordan on the back, mumbled thanks spreading through the room as they reassured themselves that one of their own had helped their kid.

“Assisted by Alpha Four at 0207. Ambulance arrived at 0215. The Green Team members were apprehended by Alpha and Delta at 0248.”

She pauses again as a ripple of thanks goes through to room, Alpha and Delta thanking their Master Chiefs and each other and Charlie thanking both teams.

“Petty Officer Spenser was admitted to hospital at 0224, and was assessed as having a concussion, a broken nose and 5 bruised ribs.”

Alpha, Charlie and Delta’s medics all take note of this. They’re probably going to be on Clay’s ass for the next few months about this, right behind Trent.

“Bravo arrived at the Hospital at 0243. They are all with him. Hayes has asked that he is included in any appropriate punishments.”

Full Metal snorts. “Bet he didn’t word it like that”

A series of chuckles and grins echoes around the room. He did not word it like that. There was much more swearing, and much, much less formal language. He’d implied murder no less than 5 times.

Lisa allowed a smile to pass through the stony calm façade she had up.

“Command has delegated these appropriate punishments to be carried out within DEVGRU and have stressed the importance of leaving an impression on future graduates. This cannot be a recuring event.”

TJ pipes up first, almost before she’d finished talking. “I say we let Metal work his magic, make sure nobody finds them.”

This gets mixed responses, but Lisa isn’t surprised when none are wholly negative. They all had a younger brother in the form of Clay, and they had all trained for years in the art of killing their enemies as swiftly and efficiently as possible, and these candidates fell wholly and completely under the title of ‘Enemy’.

Metal gives a faux hopeful look to Lisa, and Lisa can tell that he’s not entirely dismissed the possibility, even as he does a terrible job at pretending to still consider it an option that Lisa could authorize. Lisa plays into the joke – god knows that Tier One needs some light in this disastrous day – and gives him the look mostly used for when Bravo (usually Sonny) suggests a stupid idea that shouldn’t had even crossed their minds. Blackburn jokingly referred to it as her “bad dog” look, and it worked for its purpose, making the operators put their tails between their legs. A few faces form smiles, and a few look to be wavering on the edge of smiling.

“No murder, and no death.”

This gets her grumbles, and not all of them are joking. Clay had gotten all of them out of sticky situations. Every operator in Tier One had a handful story where Clay had needed to be briefed on their op, and all of them had at least one where he’d taking calls at 2am to translate over a connection that he could barely hear English through. He’d never berated them for waking him up, and had often taken time to teach various operators key phrases, if he knew they were deploying somewhere where he knew the language.

Beau goes next, possibly the most level-headed of the Master Chiefs – both in the room and not. “Advanced SERE?”

Now this, Lisa can work with. Something about her posture must change, a twitch in her face, because the room suddenly erupts in sound. Charlie Two, Delta Five and Alpha Three all are in close enough range to clap Beau on the back, and they do so in quick succession.

“Gentlemen.” She raises her voice to be heard by the room. There’s nothing gentle about the looks on their faces.

“I’ll leave you to figure something out. Report to me with a plan of action.” And with that, she gives them a single nod and begins to leave. Her turned back does not block out the whispers of violence, but it does hide the vicious smile that’s stretched itself out along her face.

Nobody would even think about hurting their kid. Ever again.

+

As Clay blearily opened his eyes, he realised that he’d succumbed to pain-med-induced sleep. A few hours had probably passed since then, based on the fact that sunlight was now filling the room. Sonny was sat on his right side, gaze focused on the room’s TV screen, which was showing a play-by-play of a football game. The volume was cranked down, and even as Clay becomes more aware; he can only hear every other word.

“Son?” The word passes his lips without him meaning it to. Sonny’s head snaps over to Clay, so fast that Clay fears he may have given himself whiplash.

“Hey Bam Bam, how ya doin?” The toothpick moves hypnotically. Stop looking at the toothpick. Stop it. Stop it. Sonny’s casual expression is betrayed by the slight waver in his voice, a sliver of raw emotion that Sonny couldn’t fully supress. Clay gives him a strained smile in lieu of answering and reaches his hand out. Sonny catches the hand before it moves very far, holding it in a tight grip.

Sonny’s thumb absently runs across Clay’s unblemished because he hadn’t even been able to fight back knuckles, and his spare hand turns off the TV, leaving them in silence.

“Kid.” Clay’s eyes widen slightly, and he almost pulls his hand out of Sonny’s grip at the softly spoken word. He tries to get in the apology, the explanation, before Sonny can tell him that Jason is punishing him for being unaware.

“I should have being paying attention. I know I should have been paying attention, I was just so tired.” I’m sorry I’m so sorry don’t kick me out please

Sonny freezes. What?

“Clay. Stop. Stop-” he has to cut himself off before he says something that includes those really touchy-feely-emotions he’s feeling. Thankfully, Clay doesn’t take the pause as an opportunity to continue. “Stop trying to defend yourself. None of us blame you, Blondie. You were on base. You should have been protected. We won’t fail you again.” Sonny gives him facts, because he knows that if he tries to do anything else he’ll make it worse.

“Son?” Clay recalls a voice calling through the dark, through the black water he was floating in, a voice he’d recognised; “Did Blackburn find me? He- he had blood on his hands”

For a moment, Sonny curses Clay’s blessings as a sniper. He’d always been able to notice the little things, the things none of them would notice. “Yeah, he was checking that none of us were sleeping in the cages.”

Clay nods, and then his brows furrow. He breaks eye contact with Sonny and frowns in the genal direction of his feet. His face makes what Sonny calls his ‘Brainiac’ Face, and Sonny can only assume that he’s thinking about what happened with Blackburn, not rationalizing with himself that the beating was somehow his fault.

“Son, can I talk to him?” Sonny doesn’t want to think about whatever that conversation is going to be, so he nods and begins to gather his stuff. His cap is hanging precariously from one on the bed’s corners, his phone on the bedside table. He stands and ruffles Clay’s head, laughing despite the stink-eye he gets for it. Clay doesn’t mind it, and he has the feeling the next few weeks, if not months, are going to be filled with various forms of physical contact to reassure his teammates that he was still with them.

And now he’d asked Sonny to get Blackburn. God what do you even say to the guy who had found you beaten? ‘Hey Boss, I’m sure that what you saw was horrifying, but I’m alright now?’ God help him. Sonny hadn’t given him a weird look, so he’d probably been expecting Clay to ask at some point.

Clay’s train of thought is interrupted when a soft knock sounds on the door. There’s a second of pause before the door opens. Clay can’t think of a time when Blackburn’s looked worse. There are dark circles under his eyes, and a vaguely haunted look in his eyes. His eyes have a red tinge, and Clay can’t tell if that’s from sleep deprivation, or something else. His hands are rubbed red and raw, and Clay can tell that Blackburn had taken extra care to get every fleck of blood off his hands. He’s in a jacket that looks too big for him, and Clay suspects that Trent had a hand in that. Since the injured person – Clay – wasn’t someone he could immediately care for, Trent had gone for the next best thing, a shaken Blackburn. Under the jacket, he’s still in his fatigues, and by the time he’s finished the assessment of Blackburn’s top half, he’d moved close and sat down, hiding everything below his waist from Clay’s view.

Blackburn reaches out, putting a palm on Clay’s forearm, Clay’s hand mirrors it on Blackburn’s arm, and tension bleeds from Blackburn’s figure. His shoulders slump slightly, and he leans forward.

“How are you feeling?”

Clay considers lying, considers saying that he’s not in any pain, considers easing Blackburn’s mind. He decides against it. Blackburn had found him in a pool of blood, it’s the least he can do to tell him the truth. “My ribs hurt. But I’m, I’m glad you’re here. I’m glad you were there.”

Clay is the sometimes literally bleeding heart of Bravo, levelling out Sonny’s emotional constipation, and the admission is the balm of some of the burns on Eric’s soul. Eric leaned forwards, shuffling closer to the bed, trying to hide the blood on his knees. He hadn’t been home to change, a call to his wife at 8am had told her that he wasn’t going to be home for a while. She, like the amazing wife she was, had been understanding, and then grumbled at him to let her sleep. They’d both laughed and exchanged ‘I love you’s before his wife ended the call. Clay didn’t need the stress of knowing that Eric had knelt in his blood. Nobody needs that.

“Gave me quite a scare, gave all of us quite a scare.” Eric doesn’t tell him that he’d spent the last half hour scrubbing his hands raw, that Jason had needed to strong-arm him into the waiting room, that Trent had given him one look and offered up his jacket, that he’d had his head in his hands until Sonny had come into the room and told him that Clay wanted to talk to him. Doesn’t tell him that he’d stood outside for nearly a minute before he’d knocked, that he’d needed to barrel in before he lost the nerve to speak to his operator. He usually prides himself on staying calm, on being collected, but Clay had been attacked in one of the few places on earth that he could honestly and without reservation call home. That scared Eric. If he couldn’t keep his operators safe on base, where would they be safe?

“Davis is talking to command about adding locks to the cage room doors, make sure this doesn’t happen again.” If she wasn’t already talking to command about it, she would be soon.

Clay nods. He shifts and grimaces in pain.

“Do you want me to get a nurse?” It’s a safe question, one that doesn’t involve the emotions in the room.

Clay ignores the lifeline. “I’m alright as I am. Did you get the guys?”

Eric nods. Breaking the news to Bravo had been the highlight of his morning. “Command is letting DEVGRU work out how to punish them.”

Clay grins. “I bet Metal is having fun with that.”

It’s Eric’s turn to smile, and a soft chuckle makes its way out. “Davis is under strict orders to not accept a plan that involves murder. I’m sure Alpha’s disagreeing with that.”

Alpha was most likely to deploy with Bravo, and all were in line with their Master Chief’s ‘Bury-first-questions-second’ policy when it came to Clay. Eric had a feeling it wouldn’t take much convincing to get Delta and Echo behind the plan, and that Charlie would only argue on principle.

Tier One was a brotherhood that didn’t take kindly to injury, as the world would learn.

+

Echo One – Zack Greer – a newly promoted Delta Two, wasn’t a very outgoing man. One and Twos were meant to both complement and contrast each other, a precarious balancing act honed over years of living out of each other’s pockets. TJ had needed a level head, so his Two was calm in the face of crisis.

Echo Two, on the other hand. A Floridian man, Elliot Howe, promoted from Charlie Three, who was under strict orders to never drink unsupervised with Sonny Quinn, lest they empty a bar and then burn said bar to the ground. He’d chaffed under Beau’s tight ship, so when the opportunity to move to form Echo had arisen, he was hard pushed to say no.

Together with Echo Three (Alpha Three), Echo Four (Delta Six) and two Green Team graduates as their Five and Six, they’d created a tight brotherhood.

Echo Five, Dan Wilder, a multilingual K9 handler, had initially been lost at DEVGRU, not quite fitting in. He’d reached out to the youngest operator – Bravo Six – in order to get some advice. What he didn’t know at the time is that their languages had overlap. Together with Clay and Ares – his K9 – he’d been able to find someone to practice with.

Echo had long since lost count of how many times Clay had come into their cage room, with a well-loved book, offering it to Dan with a brief explanation of how it would interest him. The book was never in English, and neither was the explanation. For all they knew, Clay could have spent the last few months giving Dan anything from Harry Potter to The Anarchist’s Cookbook (he’d actually only given Dan one of those, and Dan was under strict instructions not to tell them which, and Dan had been recommending others back).

Sonny, on the days when they were hanging out after work, sometimes tagged along to these exchanges. He’d joked about a book club, and Echo Two had picked up on the joke immediately, and since then the pair had resigned themselves to the nickname.

Between Clay’s frequent interactions with Dan and the fact that all of DEVGRU was deadly protective of Clay, it was no surprise that when Echo had heard the news, they hadn’t been happy. Command had fought a battle with Echo to keep them deployed, and Echo had nearly won. Dan had been on many rants, talking to empty space in Pashto – Four only caught a few words, and those were all along the lines of murder and death. Ares was giving out a low, constant growl. Both of the DEVGRU K9s were as protective as their owners, it seemed.

The door to their dorms slammed open and Zack marched in. Echo looks up in sync, and if it weren’t so serious, Zack would be amused by how much his men look like Meerkats. “Got word from Virginia.” This sets his men on edge, Howe half-steps forward, and his shoulders visibly tense up. “They found the green team rookies. We’ve been asked to approve the plan of their punishment before it gets sent to be approved by command.” Malicious smiles break out among the barracks.

They may be 7000 miles away, but they wouldn’t let anybody off the hook because of it.

[redjennies]

Why do you think that b/j and w/j are so popular? Not asking you to engage in hate, you just seem level headed about this stuff

in general, Jester ships are so popular because Jester hits the Katara/Hermione Granger/Bella Swan/etc character mold where she's the fun, relatable, pretty but not too pretty girl that the audience can latch onto and imagine "character I'm attracted to is attracted to me." while this can lead to problems of "reducing a character to a shipping prop" especially when the extremely shippable character is female, this "character a is me and character b is what I'm attracted to" model isn't an inherently bad thing. it's where most shipping comes from. so when you consider that Jester ships are popular and that w/j and b/j were also the sort of "underdog" ships to fjorester, which anyone half paying attention saw coming from a mile away, it's kinda unsurprising that these two are so big.

speculation on contributing factors to the popularity of these ships specifically under the cut. full disclosure, I am specifically looking at these through a "how fandom works" lens, not a "how they are in canon" lens because it's a more interesting perspective for me.

so by this logic, w/j is popular because it's most popular guy character/most popular girl character. like seriously, Jester and Caleb could probably barely ever interact and not have anything in common and even actively not get along at all and this would probably still be an immensely popular ship. so the fact that Jester and Caleb do get along and do interact frequently and do have things in common and Caleb does have canon feelings for her only adds to this popular formula the ship already has going for it. in fact, the way fandom generally works dictates that this probably should be the most popular ship in the fandom, if not second to a Caleb m/m ship.

but it's not. which is insane.

from a "just how fandom works" perspective, b/j has everything going for it that w/j does: canon feelings from one party, the inherent popularity of Jester ships, not being fjorester, etc. while it's not most popular male and female character, Marisha and Laura were the only two female players at the table for the majority of the campaign so that's going to win over the f/f shippers. but for the life of me, I am amazed that an f/f ship beat out every single other ship in the fandom without being the central focus of the show (such as catradora or xena/gabrielle). like the beauyasha in me is *eye roll* at this development, but the lesbian in me is living for it.

here's a few of my theories as to how the fuck this managed to happen that were not mentioned above:

in the same vein as "beauyasha is a good shipmate for people who want Jester with Fjord or Caleb," beaujes is a good shipmate for m/m shippers who want to see Caleb and Fjord with Essek, Molly, Caduceus, or each other. I have thoughts as to why an m/m ship hasn't managed to get extremely popular but I do think this feeds into it.

it's relatively inoffensive as far as the major Jester ships go. where some people who don't have strong opinions on any Jester ships might still hate widojest and/or think fjorester is just god awful boring, beaujes is really only disliked by people who are really, really invested in beauyasha, widojest, and fjorester. while tons of nasty shit has been said about it during ship wars, I think the average multishipper probably has a positive, if not particularly invested, opinion towards it.

a friend pointed this out to me but it's actually the closest to a good girl/bad "boy" Jester ship. like Fjord and Caleb both have their dark sides but let's be honest, they're kinda dweebs. Beau actually has an edge to her and that's a very popular ship dynamic.

hell, I've noticed even FJs and WJs who don't particularly like beaujes tend to prefer it to the Jester/dude ship that they don't like.

anyway there's legit canon based reasons to ship either of these. I don't ship either, but they have their moments. this is just some of why I think these ships in particular flourish in a fandom environment.

I say this as someone who draws, Beau and Jester are extremely fun to draw and so there's a ton of fan art of it and some really fucking good fan art of it and that's gonna further the positive fandom opinion of it. shit I don't even like beaujes and you can still catch me liking art of it on a regular basis. it's fucking cute.

eta, because I cannot believe I forgot to add this back in after my app crashed and deleted the initial response: never underestimate the shipping power of "oh my god, they were roommates."

[iatethepomegranate]

We are not alone in the dark with our demons, Chapter 7

In which Caleb buys a house in Rexxentrum with Beau and Yasha, becomes a professor, is loved a lot by the Nein (including lots of Shadowgast in most chapters), and fights to protect vulnerable people from going through what he did.

Chapter summary: Time is of the essence. Caleb cannot let it end this way. He will not let more lives be ruined by Trent Ikithon.

Notes: CW: Caleb's backstory but REALLY BAD, references to child abuse, vomiting

More detailed warnings and a chapter summary can be found in the end notes on AO3.

If you need to skip, you can probably read up to Caleb telling Beau to use Step of the Wind. There is a reference to past child abuse a few lines above that. If that's an issue, stop reading as soon as Caleb flags down a villager.

Chapter title is from Eight by Sleeping At Last again.

****

Chapter 7: For the innocent, for the vulnerable, I'll show up on the front lines with a purpose

They landed. The stormclouds were heavy overhead. Caleb hadn’t witnessed a storm in Blumenthal for a long time, and it disoriented him.

“Caleb, which way’s north?” asked Beauregard.

He grounded himself, breathed, pointed. Beauregard angled herself in a northeastern direction and started off. He followed close behind; Astrid and Wulf were half a step behind him on either side.

Caduceus had mentioned an orchard. Caleb had his head on a swivel, but he couldn’t see any fruit trees. And the buildings seemed slightly… off.

Oh. Oh no.

Caleb felt sick.

“Wait,” said Astrid. “We’re in the wrong place.”

Caleb held himself very still, silently counting eins, zwei, drei, fier, fünf… “Okay.” He breathed deeply. “Around me, please.”

Of all the times for a teleport to send them off-target. He wanted to scream, but instead, he focused hard on every little detail Caduceus had provided. And he cast again.

Again, they landed. The orchard trees were in sight. Caleb pointed them in the right direction again. The road was muddy, squelching as they ran. There were a handful of people still in the street, making last-minute preparations for the storm, and they definitely looked askance at a group of (somewhat) strangers tearing down the street.

“Astrid, what’s the name of the family?” asked Caleb.

“Baumann.”

Caleb caught the nearest villager who didn’t look too freaked out, switching to Zemnian. “Excuse me. My name is Caleb Widogast. I am a teacher at Soltryce Academy. We are looking for the Baumann family.”

The man he had stopped looked him up and down for far longer than Caleb could stand under the circumstances. “What’s your business?”

“We need to discuss Nico’s tuition this year,” said Astrid. “He was set to graduate, but the seniors may need additional support after the departure of Master Ikithon.” She held out her hand. “Archmage Astrid Beck. I am Ikithon’s replacement.”

“All right. What’s the rush?”

Caleb sighed, because he had to let something out. “I had not wanted to speak of this in public, but if we must… Master Ikithon was arrested a few months ago for abusing his students. Nico and Felix have been missing since just before the arrest. We have located Felix, but we have concerns about Nico. This is time-sensitive.”

“This Master Ikithon did something to the boys?” The man’s face didn’t give much away, but he pointed down the street. “Head to the end of the road, turn right, and keep going until you see the house with the cabbage patch.”

“Thank you.”

They ran. That had taken far too much time. Caleb should have been pulled the abusive teacher card from the beginning. Fuck.

“Beauregard, Step of the Wind? We three can fly.”

“Got it.”

Caleb, Wulf and Astrid cast Fly on themselves, and Beau began to fucking book it. She was technically faster than them, even with flight, but she only pulled a little ahead. If they were too late, there wasn’t much she could do alone.

There was an odd scent in the air. Caleb wasn’t sure if he was imagining it, until Beau yelled over her shoulder, “I smell smoke!”

They turned the corner and pushed onwards, and soon it became clear looking for cabbages was the least of their problems. There was a house on fire.

Time stretched, before Caleb breathed and it snapped like a bowstring. They were coming up fast, and there was barely any more time to think.

“Wulf, find the boy,” Caleb said. “We’ll get inside.”

“I see him.” Wulf broke off towards a barn, where there was a young man half-hidden, staring at the flames. There was no time to determine his condition; that had to be up to Wulf.

They reached the house. There was a thick plank of wood jammed against the door handle. Caleb cast Telekinesis, threw it out of the way.

Beau charged ahead.

“Wait!”

Beau stopped. Caleb used the spell to throw the door open, and there was an explosion of flame outward, which would have hurt. Belatedly, rushing to open the door may have been a mistake, but there was no time to think about it. They raced inside and crouched low, coughing from the smoke. They could barely see, aside from flickers of orange light all around them. The heat was unbearable.

“I’ll start on the fire,” said Astrid, throwing out a Ray of Frost at the staircase. Aside from the roaring of the flames, there were not the noises Caleb could remember. It was almost… too quiet.

Beau got out her fan. “Split up?”

“I’ll go upstairs.” It would be safer for him to go. He could control the flames better than she could with her limited-use fan, or her Belabour. Best to keep her close to Astrid. “Be careful of backdrafts.”

She punched his shoulder and crawled deeper into the house, while Caleb ducked towards the staircase he could barely see through the thick smoke. Nico must have expended most of his spells to have burned the house this quickly.

Caleb had to douse and climb over a fallen beam to get up the stairs, pulling his shirt over his mouth and nose for a bit of protection. He could not shake his dread.

The smoke was thicker upstairs. Caleb’s eyes watered. He tamped down what flames he could see with his Control Flames cantrip. His hand found a doorframe. Door open, no backdraft risk. He peeked inside, squinting against the roiling smoke. But he couldn’t see far enough for just a glance. He cast Control Flames again, pushing down as much flame as he could.

He crawled inside the room, his hands quickly finding the frame of a single bed. Probably Nico’s. He felt around for a moment longer to be sure, but it was unlikely anyone was here. He moved on, coughing hard enough to tear his throat. His eyes streamed from the smoke. He cast again. But it would take time for the smoke to clear, even as the flames slowly dwindled around him.

Caleb crawled down the hallway, finding another doorframe. Felt for the door. Closed. Rested the back of his hand against it. Hot. Opening it was too risky without improving the conditions up here. Even if he was safely away from the backdraft by using telekinesis, if someone was on the other side of the door, they could get hurt.

Caleb aimed a Disintegrate spell for the ceiling above him and hoped it would punch a hole all the way through. Memories of what to do in a fire were slowly filtering through his scattered mind. Vertical ventilation mattered in a building fire.

He let the spell loose, and it punched a hole the size of Caleb’s head all the way into the sky. A horrible thought occurred to him, even as smoke began to escape and oxygen equalise, slow as it was.

Caleb knew a lot about fire. In a situation where a backdraft was possible, it was highly unlikely to find survivors. Caleb tamped down the flames around him again, which had grown with the presence of more oxygen.

Then he stepped back and Disintegrated the door, taking a huge chunk of it away. He kicked the jagged remains open and crawled into the room. Control Flames once more.

He reached out, and found a shape on the floor. Edged closer. A hand. Blackened. It twitched, and then fell still. Caleb gently felt the wrist for a pulse. Couldn’t find one.

He edged around the charred body, and found a second one. There were no discernible features left. Just a vague human shape, burned to a crisp.

Caleb flung out his Control Flames cantrip again, dousing the flames in the room. Then, he pulled out his copper wire. “Beauregard, call off the search. They are dead. Get outside. Astrid and I will finish putting it out.”

Beauregard’s reply was instant, raspy. “Okay. I’ll check on Eadwulf. Don’t take too long.”

Caleb was thankful she didn’t say anything else. He kept working his way through the upper floor, snuffing the flames until all that remained was smoke slowly curling towards the hole in the roof. His throat was raw from coughing. Fire gone, he opened all the windows he could find to help ventilate the building and make it safer for Astrid downstairs.

He found her in the kitchen, icing the flames over. “I heard.” Her voice was equally shredded.

Caleb wordlessly helped her put the rest of the flames out. They stepped out of the house. Beauregard had reached Wulf by now, who was kneeling in the grass, cradling Nicolaus.

They approached. Nico’s eyes were glazed over, unfocused, and he lay limp in Wulf’s arms. Astrid twitched.

“He got a little aggressive, but I handled it,” said Wulf. “Now he’s…” He looked up at Caleb. “Like you were.”

A muscle was working in Beauregard’s jaw, but whatever was on her mind, she said something else. “Take me back to the office and bring Caduceus. I’ll watch Felix.”

“Astrid,” Caleb said flatly, “do you have any teleports left?”

“Ja.” She approached Beauregard, moving stiffly. “I’ll be back.” She and Beauregard vanished.

Wulf gazed up at Caleb, his face serious but giving little away as it often did. “Lionett told me what you said.”

Caleb took a deep breath, which itched terribly, forcing him to cough again. “We have one thing left to try. It’s… a long shot.” He knelt in front of Nico, who did not react to his presence. “Do you…” He coughed again. “In your experience with me, do you know if he might…”

“You would sometimes react to things,” said Wulf. “Not often. I don’t know if you could make sense of anything we said. Astrid said you don’t remember anything?”

“I do not.” Caleb sighed; if there was even the slightest chance Nico could hear them, he had to say something. He switched to Zemnian, in case that would be easier for him to process on the off-chance he heard anything. “Nico, my name is Caleb, or Bren. Either is fine. I know you are not well at the moment, but we are going to help you. I promise we will help you.”

There was no reaction. Caleb hadn’t really expected one. Wulf certainly hadn’t. They caught each other’s eyes again over Nico’s head. Wulf’s expression cracked, just a tiny bit. Caleb breathed deep, and Wulf did the same.

Caleb coughed again. Breathing really hurt.

Astrid appeared with Caduceus a few feet away.

Caleb got up, every part of him aching. His fingers were blistered. “Caduceus, let us walk and talk.”

“You do not have to go back in there,” Astrid said.

“I know. I am choosing to go.” Caleb pulled his Transmuter’s Stone from his pocket. “I have a trick I want to try.”

Her eyes fell to the ground. “All right.”

Caleb turned back to the house. Blackened. Smoking. But the flames were gone. He led Caduceus across the ash-spotted grass.

“Beau said it was bad,” said Caduceus.

“It is bad.” Caleb cleared his throat, painfully. “Will you be all right here?”

Caduceus nodded. “We both know I’m not the one to worry about.” He cast a low-level Cure Wounds on Caleb as they walked, and his throat and fingers felt a bit better.

Caleb went through the front door first. A fair amount of smoke had cleared by now, but the acrid scent of burnt wood remained. They headed up the stairs; Caleb used Telekinesis to move the fallen beams.

Light streamed into the upstairs from the opened windows and the hole in the roof. Caduceus looked up at the hole.

“Huh. You did that?”

“Vertical ventilation reduces backdraft risk.” Caleb led Caduceus to the second bedroom. Now that enough smoke had cleared out, he could see the reality of the room, the blackened double bed, compromised dresser, scorched mirror, the two charred human bodies on the floor, closer to the door than he had realised. And a very familiar stench of burned flesh.

Caleb swallowed against nausea, and knelt beside the smaller of the two bodies. “I can try to Raise Dead with my stone. Like Molly. I can only do it once.”

Caduceus knelt beside the larger body, taking in the damage. “Caleb.” He was about to tell Caleb how bad the chances were that they could fix this, and he really really could not handle hearing that from him. Him specifically. Caleb could not afford to break. Not yet.

“I know.” Caleb placed his stone on the woman’s chest. He had researched the Raise Dead spell since figuring out he could use his stone in this way. He knew the spell could close all mortal wounds, but would not replace body parts or organs integral to survival. If the Baumanns had died from smoke inhalation, this would have a higher chance of success. In this state…

Unlikely. But he needed to try. Caleb poured magic into the stone. Beside him, Caduceus placed a large diamond on the other body’s chest and prayed softly to the Wildmother.

Caleb’s stone shattered, and he could feel for just a moment a catch of something. Like he had snagged the corner of the woman’s soul.

“Frau Baumann,” he muttered. “I don’t know if we knew each other when we were children. My name was Bren Ermendrud, and I am here to help your son. He needs you. And this does not have to be your end. The world will be much poorer without you in it.”

The stone glowed, and he felt the soul drifting, snagged by the spell. For a moment, the soul seemed to dip, like it wanted to return. And then, as the stone shattered, it drifted away. He tried to grasp for it, but it slipped through his magic. And then it was gone.

The body was still just a body. There was not enough left of her for him to even recognise. The air was empty. Or maybe there wasn’t any air.

Caduceus sat back, shaking blackened dust of the destroyed diamond from his fingers, and raised his eyes to the window opposite them. “Wildmother, a terrible tragedy has happened here today. This is not the natural way of things. I know this is a huge ask, but… we would like to have these people back.” He waited. A full sixty seconds passed. Nothing changed. He sighed. “I’m sorry, Caleb.”

It was done. They had tried everything they could. And everything had failed.

The nausea crashed over Caleb once again. He tried to breathe, and smelled burnt flesh. He shoved a hand over his nose and mouth, swallowing hard.

Caduceus pulled him to his feet. “Let’s step outside.” He led Caleb out of the room, down the stairs, out the front door.

Caleb gulped the fresh air down. “Go to the others. I… need a… moment.”

Caduceus squeezed his shoulder and approached the barn, where a crowd was beginning to gather. Caleb walked, tightly-controlled, around the side of the house, just out of sight, and threw up on the grass. Wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. Banged the side of his fist against the charred wood until he could think again.

Then he straightened, rolled back his shoulders, and approached the slowly-building clump of people.

Caduceus was doing most of the talking, with some input from a tense Astrid. Wulf had stood up, carrying Nico, who was still unresponsive. They were all out of teleportation spells, but Caleb had brought enough chalk and ink to draw a circle to the archives.

“All right,” Caduceus was saying. “We are going to take Nicolaus to Rexxentrum for care. I think we’re all a bit out of it after all of this.”

“Our gravekeeper will take care of the Baumanns,” said an older man, who Caleb recognised as the mayor. He’d avoided speaking to him last time he visited, so he had managed to not learn his name. “You take care of Nico, and send us updates as you can.”

“That can be arranged,” Astrid said, businesslike. “Thank you.”

“I’ll start drawing a circle to Rexxentrum,” Caleb said quietly. “May I use the barn? The chalk will vanish once we are gone.”

The mayor shrugged. “I suppose.”

Caleb stepped into the barn and cleared a ten-foot circle of hay so he could draw directly on the clay. “High Curator. It’s Caleb. May I bring Astrid and Eadwulf through the Rexxentrum circle? We will have Caduceus and a sick young man with us.”

“Hello, Professor. You may do that. If you are able to update me on your search on your way through, please do.”

Caleb would probably vomit again if he had to talk about it, but Caduceus could get the point across, probably. He knelt on the floor and began to draw the circle, honing down his focus so all he thought about was the next stroke of chalk and ink, and the specific detailing for the Rexxentrum Archives.

The others entered the barn seven minutes and thirty-two seconds into the drawing. “Caduceus, can you Send to Beauregard?”

“Can do,” Caduceus replied. “Hey. We’re coming through the Archives soon.” A pause. “She says she’s gotten Felix settled in a dormitory and is headed home to prepare for our arrival.”

“We should keep Nicolaus away from the Assembly, ja,” Astrid said quietly. “Until we think of something.”

“I have a spell for this, I think. Better to get away from here first.”

“Yudala wants an update on our way,” Caleb said.

“I’ll take care of it,” said Caduceus.

Caleb finished the last few strokes of the circle in silence. It came alight, and they stepped through.

He had to fight back the nausea again once they landed. Caduceus steadied him with a hand on his shoulder. Yudala entered the circle chamber, taking in the ash-covered group and the catatonic boy in Wulf’s arms.

“The monks have informed me the other boy is safe,” they said. “Is this as bad as it looks?”

“It is,” Caduceus replied.

“Very well.” Yudala looked at Caleb specifically; they were smart enough and had enough access to Caleb’s past specifically to put it all together. “We’ll talk later. You all look exhausted.” They turned to Astrid. “I will send a formal invitation in due time.”

“We’ll see how much it panics the Martinet first,” Astrid said without inflection.

“I have my ways around him if need be.” Yudala led them through the archive personally, letting them out into the overcast afternoon. The storm was on its way here. “Get some rest. You have earned it.”

[cynically-optimistic]

With a week to sit back and think “what the fuck did I just watch,” I thought I would now do a review of American Horror Story: Apocalypse.

As we know (and may or may not agree upon) ahs8 had its various strengths and weaknesses. Many aspects of this season I found riveting but unfortunately by the end of episode 10, the season is left chalked full of plot holes and continuity errors that effectively make so much of this particular story obsolete. This season had all of the components we have loved for years and the potential to be the most amazing season yet, however it fell flat either in the writers room or the editing room. They cultivated this story for 8 years but with the vast underdevelopment of this season and it’s protagonists, they have effectively caused us to ask more questions like what was the entire point of season 8 of American Horror Story?

So here are some notable plot holes and criticisms I have for AHS: Apocalypse.

First and foremost, my biggest problem with this season is that we have almost no information about Mallory at all and they never spend time developing her character. And what the actual fuck is she? There is no way she is a witch, and this season was drastically underwhelming in this regard. I think we were all expecting an epic, biblical battle for the end of days to be fought between the Antichrist and the second coming of Christ or even an Archangel, but no such luck. It is only ever said that Mallory is just a witch...just a witch who got on my fucking nerves. We spent the whole season in flashbacks pertaining to Michael and never developing Mallory any further beyond “oh well her powers are cool,” and honestly, what gives? She has these amazing powers, never before seen by the witches, and we’re just supposed to believe that she isn’t some sort of celestial being? By the time she does defeat Michael, she is not a character we empathize with, she was basically an empty shell of the potentially badass character she was supposed to be. She has all of these powers and runs a 4 year old Michael Langdon over with an SUV...thrice….three times… Mallory could have been an amazing character and I would have completely rooted for her to defeat Michael with all the righteousness of Heaven, regardless of his tragic backstory that the writers spent too fucking long cultivating. But since we know practically nothing about her, all I can say is that she’s just ended up being a dick who murdered a child. Yeah, he was going to end the world, but he had the potential to be turned around, as depicted in his extensive backstory. Too many people wanted him to survive and just be allowed to end the world because Cody Fern is hot and Michael Langdon falls into the typical “tragic backstory, white, villain dude who is moderately conventionally attractive and therefore should be allowed to murder people without scrutiny.” He fits in that trope to a T and it works regardless of it being a tired trope fandom culture tends to fawn over. But no, I truly think, because of the amount of time they cultivated his character in both the light and dark, he could’ve been not such an evil son of a bitch. I cannot say the same for other examples of this trope like Tate Langdon, or Kylo Ren from Star Wars, or even Loki to some extents. This paragraph was supposed to be about Mallory but here again, I have veered into talking about Michael since he is her direct counterpart with way more backstory. I wish I had more to say about Mallory but she was such a blank slate. It’s sad that Coco of all people had more of a personality and backstory. We knew everything we needed to know about Coco and we knew literally NOTHING about Mallory. Ugh. In no way is this a criticism of Billie Lourd, I honestly think she just fell victim to bad writing this time around.

How did Emily and Timothy conceive the new antichrist when in season 1, Billie directly states that the antichrist, who would bring about the end of days, had to be conceived via human and spirit - like Michael. Furthermore, what is this “special DNA” Emily and Timothy have? We can surmise that it makes antichrists but HOW? And how did the Cooperative isolate and identify this DNA makeup to send these two individuals to Outpost 3 in the first place? And if the Cooperative knew that they could potentially make a new antichrist, did Michael know about it? My guess is no, but we will never know. Which begs the question, is the new anti christ going to be worse and if so, what was even the point of this season? Either way, in a few years, the entire world is fucked…again. The only redeemable aspect of that for Michael was that he craved to be loved and spent most of his time looking for someone to care about him rather than carrying out the Devil’s plans. Constance didn’t do this so he went searching for it and was systematically turned away which lead him right into the arms of his true father. This new kid is deeply loved by Emily and Timothy, and without the potential failsafe of him wishing to be loved and cared for, I believe this kid will be so much worse than Michael.

What is the Rubberman? The only new information we have gotten on this since season 1 is from Cody who says that Rubberman is not always Michael or Tate, but something else entirely. Like what? A demon? And it’s literally never addressed. Rubberman shows up unexpectedly (unexpectedly because you know, the world ended…) in Outpost 3, fucks Mr Gallant (why doesn’t he have a first name by the way? ) and is then the catalyst for Mr Gallant murdering his grandmother. So what exactly is this entity?

Also, what was the Sanctuary supposed to be? I don’t think it was just bullshit on Michael’s part to fuck with the desperate people in the Outposts. I do believe there was a sanctuary but we never see it and we never get any further information. I saw some interesting theories that maybe the Sanctuary is the Murder House, which would have been so interesting given that everyone in there rejected Michael, but he might still care about them, and potentially save the house in the nuclear blasts.

{Trigger Warning for sexual assault on this one regarding Tate Langdon} I think the theory Madison has about Murder House is a little off base. She tells Violet that the house made Tate evil but… here’s the thing: yes, we have watched the house and it’s resident ghosts interfere and influence people’s actions, but ultimately they all make their own choices, like Lorraine who set the house on fire which killed herself and her two daughters, and then influences Ben’s sleepwalking and fabricating his obsession with fire, but nothing drastic ever comes from this. So, I honestly don’t believe the house forced Tate to set Larry on fire (as revenge for Larry killing Beau) and shoot up his high school, killing 15 people, because those atrocities did NOT take place in the house. I don’t even know if I can believe that the house possessed and forced him to r*pe Viven and impregnate her with Michael but that seems to be the only horrific thing he did that could even begin to be blamed on the house. The house is a Hellmouth but doesn’t affect those who leave it’s property lines apart from encouraging them to return, almost like an addiction, but one that you can dismiss by just not going back to the house. So while Return to Murder House is a lovely nostalgic experience, I call bullshit. Ultimately though, I do think Madison was just trying to help and give the souls trapped there a little peace which was nice of her, but I’m not fully convinced she was right about Tate.

What happened to Kyle? This season was a crossover between Murder House and Coven but he is never mentioned by Madison or Zoe and is never shown at Miss Robichaux’s Academy. So where is our favorite unproblematic zombie Evan Peters at?

One huge problem I had with this season was Cordelia. She spent this entire season fighting her own fear of decay and death, while trying not to be like Fiona, and ultimately bringing them all to their doom. She sees a vision of the future apocalypse and every single step she takes thereafter to avoid it is a contributing factor that leads them all directly to it. Michael only fully set his sights on murdering all of the witches after Cordelia burnt Ms. Mead at the stake. Mead wasn’t even a witch, so how was that acceptable under witch law? Cordelia wasn’t even allowed to light the fire to burn the warlocks, so how was she allowed to murder a normal human? Mead may have been a ruthless spy and a satanist, but she was human all the same. Then Cordelia tells Michael, as he is devastated to find the charred corpse of Ms. Mead, that he can still choose to be good. Let’s be real, anyone of us would tell her to fuck off and set our sights on revenge if she did that to one of our loved ones. By having another maternal figure taken away from Michael, the only one who accepted and loved him (in her own way) Cordelia put the nails in her own coffin and that of the world. She is among the notable figures that push him along the darkest path, such as Constance, Ben, Tate, Viven, the Warlocks, Ms. Mead (even though she loved him, she loved Lucifer more), the Satanists, The Cooperative, and Mutt & Jeff. He is manipulated at every turn to bring about a future of mass destruction that other people want, and Cordelia was a definite contributor, but let it be known that Michael’s actions are ultimately his own.

The fact that Madison never met Charles, Nora, or Thaddeus while she was at the Murder House is a travesty. That would have been SOOOO interesting.

What the fuck was Ms. Venable’s issue? She was such an asshole to everyone and we never really figure out why other than she works for a bunch of idiots.

I enjoyed the culture around the warlocks because it was so ridiculous, they were the whiniest bunch of assholes, but I also hated this because they were the whiniest bunch of asshole. They were so desperate to overthrow Cordelia, even though none of them even come close to being able to do so (sorry not sorry boys) that they basically invite the apocalypse into their school. The only one who was like “nah, this is probably a bad idea,” was John Henry Moore, played by the incomparable Cheyenne Jackson, who I wish had bigger role to play in this storyline. He was the only warlock worth a damn, but ultimately they were all murdered. Or wait, no they weren’t. Time travel..

Some of the things changed by Mallory’s time traveling:

The warlocks are never murdered but they are still a bunch of whiny assholes

Tate and Violet don’t get back together (good)

Michael never destroys those nice lesbians’ souls, or anyone souls, which is good but who knows what this new Antichrist is capable of and when he will begin to tap into those powers

Constance (as far as we know) doesn’t commit suicide in the Murder House

Moira never finds peace in the light with her mom

Viven and Ben never reconcile

Which also means that Ben is still spending all of his time with Tate and crying while he masturbates out the window so…

Michael never lives in the Murder House

Ben never connects with Michael, Tate never screams at him in disgust, and Viven never tries to kill him

Queenie is never murdered in the Hotel Cortez by Ramona Royale and James Patrick March

Cordelia never has to bring Myrtle back from the dead, so she is still gone

Madison is still trapped in her own personal hell and Mallory doesn’t feel the need to bring her back even though Madison was way more useful this season than Mallory was. We knew Madison, we cared about her, we watched her grow into being a caring person this season, and Mallory is the self righteous ass that thinks Madison doesn’t deserve to leave hell

Michael is never taken in by Ms Mead. He never attends Black Mass and he never eats that poor girl’s heart (all of this was encouraged and initiated by the Satanists - not Michael)

Marie Laveau is still in hell with Papa Legba. She was anyway because Michael ripped her heart out of her chest 2 seconds after she got back but she never returned at all thanks to Mallory

Dinah obviously never gets her talkshow but she is still out here being shady as fuck and will inevitably betray the witches and voodoo queens again, probably for a fucking talkshow, when the new antichrist is running around burning the world down

The end of days doesn’t come, but again, we don’t know that for sure. At best, Mallory only bought the world and the witches a few extra years. So we can only really say that the apocalypse might not happen the exact way Michael (the Cooperative) makes it happen

Some of the thing I actually liked about this season:

THE ENTIRE FIRST HALF WAS INCREDIBLE and it’s really the lack of development throughout the final 4 or 5 episodes I had an issue with

Cody Fern is undeniably a spectacular performer and I very much enjoyed all of the layer and nuance that he brought to the character of Michael Langdon even though in the end it didn’t amount to much. Still, I can’t wait to see what he does next.

I have always loved Cordelia, and even though I very much expected her to be an influence of growth for Mallory and she never really got there, she was still a lovely presence and she spoke some of my favorite lines in this season being “Satan has one son, but my sisters are a legion, motherfucker,” and “I only knew you for a short time, but I missed you forever.”

DayFoxx or MistyXCordelia. You cannot convince me they are not in love, you just can’t. Their interactions were nothing short of magic.

Other than DayFoxx interactions, hands down the best line was, “the stew is Stu!”

Return to Murder House was arguably one of the best episodes of the entire series, directed by one of our high queens, Sarah Paulson in her directorial debut. It had everything we loved about season 1 and I would have loved to watch 5 hours of Madison walking through Murder House, meeting all the ghosts, instead of the last 5 hours of the season we got.

As much as I grew to hate Constance this season, it was still so lovely to have our Queen Jessica Lange back.

Sign me up anytime to see Angela Bassett as Marie Laveau like holy hell yes

I absolutely LOVED the idea of Zoe being a teacher at the Academy.

We could have all benefited from seeing more of Bubbles. Joan Collins was a fantastic addition to the AHS family.

FRANCIS CONROY. Need I say more? I don’t but I will, Myrtle dragging the patriarchy cleansed my soul

It was actually really lovely to see Connie Britton as Viven again. I have always had a soft spot in my heart for Viven and I feel terrible for everything she has been through. She never gets closure because of Mallory’s new timeline but I just hope she does find peace at some point.

With this rich of a storyline, I think we can all agree that 10 episodes was simply not enough to fully deliver this story after a build up of 8 years. Other seasons of AHS range from 11 to 13 episodes, with the exception of Roanoke which was also only 10 episodes. But with those extra hours, Apocalypse could have been incredible. There simply wasn’t enough time, and what time they did have and utilize was almost entirely spent on Michael which we find didn’t matter at all by the end.

Leave your thoughts in the comments if you have anything you’d like to add.

[pvckerstud-blog]

SELF-PARA // BONES

WHO: Puck, Grams, Pistachio (the cat) WHEN: Saturday, May 25th, 2019 WHERE: Puck’s place NOTES/WARNINGS: I mean......the usual Noah Puckerman angst. Pretty dialogue heavy, be warned. MENTIONS: @bowtiedblaine, @halfsuperman, @snixual, @rxderslynn, mama puckerman + sarah puckerman

This has been the first day in what seems like weeks that Lima frickin’ Ohio hasn’t had any rain. Puck spent the whole day catching up on cleaning pools, and there is something satisfying about being so sore and exhausted from physical exercise when he’s been as frustrated as he has been for the last month or two. Lonely, his brain supplies unhelpfully. 

After grabbing the mail from a half-broken box outside of his house, Puck is met with a now-common meow from a scruffy-looking Pistachio. His sister is lucky he’s actually got a soft spot for the stupid all-black cat, or the damn thing would starve to death on her watch. Her ideal house pet should have been a rock, for all that she’s home these days.

Sarah and his mom are off with his mom’s newest beau, again. His fancy, overly expensive lake house cabin. With a roll of his eyes, he lets the cat inside, and the furball darts straight for his water dish, without so much as a thank you.

Puck throws his bag near the front door and kicks off his beat up sneakers, landing with a thump somewhere in the darkness. 

The voice in his head that sounds suspiciously like Sarah tells him that it’s Saturday and it’s been a few since he called his grandma. With school ending, he’s been too busy and too self-focused to have a chat with her. They’re never short and they always end with him being scolded. 

But there’s something comforting about the routine of it all, he thinks as his fingers automatically dial the keys he’s had memorized since he was a kid.

It rings a few times, and Puck’s sure she’s probably gone to bed already, and he’s just going to leave her a message when there’s a shuffling and a heavy sigh into the receiver. 

“Avi,” she starts, and there’s some more of that lovely deafening shuffling he’s grown accustomed to during these phone calls. “I see you finally decide to pay your grandmother some time, Tipesh.” She hums under her breath, finally settled in what he presumes to be her usual rocking chair. “You must have a good excuse?”

Puck laughs, plopping down onto his worn out couch. “Good to hear from you too, Grams. Just wanted to check up on you.”

“I could have been dead, you know. For how long you all leave me to my things. I raised you, Avi. I should worry you sick in my old age.”

“You’re 67, grandma. Not like you’re knocking on death’s door or nothin’.”

“I will beat your large head, yeled. Your mother doesn’t discipline you.” 

This woman brings a warmth to his chest that he doesn’t find in anyone else. He truly loves her. “Yeah, yeah. Just wait till I’m the one taking care of you and you can’t walk on your own, let alone try to beat me.” He can feel her frown through the phone.

“Respect your elders, Avi. Where is that mother of yours? She doesn’t call.”

“She’s with her new boyfriend. Sarah too.”

His grandmother is quiet for a long moment, “...Ah. Is this one good to you and your sister?”

Puck’s laugh is probably too bitter to be disguised from a woman who knows him so well, but he can’t stop himself before he says, “Well, he took her and Sarah to his fancy lake house for the holiday and left behind her delinquent son, so, yeah, probably better than the last.”

“Mm. Your mother is smart. She will marry a man with means, this time. Your father was an idiot. She was a fool to be with him, Avi.”

“Yeah, I know, Grams--”

“When will you change that name of yours? She was also a fool for naming you after him. What a trick, he played on her.”

“You used to like my name, you know.”

“That was before he up and left. Must run in the family, yes? Your grandfather was garbage too. You are not like them. You have stayed with your mother, no matter her bad decisions.”

“Well aren’t you just sweet.”

“Avi sounds much better, anyways.”

“You never call me Noah, it’s always Avi, so what does it matter if it’s legally changed?”

“That will be on your diploma, you know--” she talks over him like it doesn’t matter, and she’s pretty damn good at ignoring his protests.

“If I graduate.”

“You will, or I will beat your--”

“My head, I know. Can you even reach that high?”

“I will find a stool just to beat you with.”

There’s a moment where all he can do is laugh. She brings him such a stupid joy that reminds him of being a kid again. “Can I come stay with you tomorrow? They’ll be gone until Tuesday,” Puck finally says once he’s caught his breath.

“Of course. I haven’t made your room into my knitting studio yet.” She always says she will, but Puck knows it’s an empty threat. “Are you bringing that big friend of yours? The one with the dimples?”

The pang of hurt surprises him, and he’s quiet for too long because she’s repeating his middle name into the phone before he gets out a quiet, “No, Grams. Just me.”

“You should bring him. You know I like him very much. He always eats whatever I put in front of him.”

Puck rips off the bandaid just to get her to shut up about it-- “We’re not friends anymore.”

And then it’s his turn to sit in silence. He lets her stew in it though. Because she knows they’ve been friends since kindergarten, and that he always brings Finn with him to her place. And maybe that’s why he’s been avoiding her for a while now because he can’t stand how empty things are without him--

“That is a shame. Men are fools, Avi. You are a sweet boy, even when you are foolish. You will come together again.”

And like that, a weight is off of his shoulders, because wow, he finally told someone he’s hurting and he didn’t even have to say it out loud. “Thanks, Grams. Appreciate it.”

“Bring that cat of yours. There is a stray around my porch and I want them to have kittens.” And the subject is changed. No more Finn, no more thinking about the fact that he doesn’t even have Ryder thanks to Tina, and he’s so fucking lonely. Blaine’s the only person who even checks to see if he hasn’t drank himself into some stupor the evening before, and his mom always says she’ll call when she’s out of town and conveniently ‘forgets’ the moment she walks out of the door. Even his dad has sent him a ‘Happy Sweet 16th Birthday’ card, two years too late, with the short message of ‘To Noah Puckerman Jr; Happy birthday. Better late than never. Dad’ and a PS asking for 10 bucks and a lotto ticket when Puck gets the chance.

“Chio doesn’t like cars, Grandma. He’ll freak if I try and put him in the truck.”

“Then walk. That cat cannot control you, Tipesh.” 

Puck rolls his eyes, but concedes. His grandma’s rundown house isn’t too far from his own; just a mile or two, down dirty streets filled with old mattresses and littered with Coke cans and cigarette butts. 

He remembers walking down those same roads with Finn. And Santana, when they were closer. He feels like he’s been distancing himself from people, lately. The fact that it’s his senior year and he’s gonna have to pretend to be an adult soon has him on edge, and he’s afraid if he stays close with a single person, he’s gonna combust with all this anxiety he’s never had to worry about before. 

They talk a while longer before a silence overcomes them, and ever the conversationalist, his grandma is the one to break it, “You are a good boy, Avi. You have been dealt a hand that many would buckle under the weight of. Do not let others tell you what your cards should be. Whatever that means for you.”

Puck rubs at his eyes when the burning sensation gets to be too much, and he says, “Yeah, Grams. Thanks,” and he knows that she knows that he’s crying. He’s never seen her cry a day in her life before. “I will be over tomorrow after work, okay?”

“Yes, ben. I will see you tomorrow.”

And for a second he wants to tell her that he’s given up tobacco. That the ‘cancer sticks’ she’s always yelling about are finally gone, thanks to the all-consuming Blaine Anderson who’s slowly taking over his life, but then he knows she will ask about the ‘rat poison’ he drinks to get himself to sleep every night, and it’s not worth all of the trouble for some recognition. 

“I love you, Avi.”

“I love you too, Grams.”

A soft ‘click’ ends the call, and Puck is left sitting in silence, a small black cat curled onto his flat front shorts, in the darkness of his creaky, old, empty house. 

Puck throws his arms behind his head and breaths a long, heavy sigh. There’s a bottle of Tito’s waiting for him in the kitchen, and he hates that it’s become his bedtime routine.

[mnemememory]

happy people

They’re probably made up of 90% alcohol and 10% spite at this point. And good intentions. Spite and good intentions.

(or; "it's what molly would have wanted")

It begins – well.

Intentions had never really been a big part of the Mighty Nein before the series of unfortunate events that had begotten kidnapping and death, but that hadn’t stopped good deeds from squeezing themselves into the group’s shared vocabulary every now and again. Even as individuals, doing the right thing (though annoying) somehow was more appealing than just sitting back and watching the world burn. Depending on circumstances.

So here they are, sitting back and watching the world burn. Nott is, predictably, the one who says it: 

“It’s what Molly would have wanted.”

Beau’s eye twitches, because she’s somehow become the most sensitive to mentions of Mollymauk Tealeaf, despite the group having all-round misgivings when it came to conversations on the dead. “What? No.”

Nott gestures to the – whatever it is that is unfurling behind them. It’s a mess, is what it is. A lot of blood. Some fire (somehow, even with Caleb snoozing peacefully in the back of the cart, there always seems to be fire). The screaming has mostly stopped, but that’s probably more because they’ve moved out of audial range than anything else.

Up front, Fjord surveys the open road glumly. “I just wanted to buy some food.”

“Don’t be silly,” Jester says, sprawling out next to him and patting the top of his head. He makes a valiant effort to dodge, but it’s no good, and he sullenly gives over to his fate with all the good grace that seventy-three hours without sleep can give. None of them are in a particularly pleasant mood, but Nott thinks that as soon as they get away from that broken excuse for a settlement, things will get back to normal.

(Burning down the world is sometimes the right thing to do, in the end).

(Funny, that).

Nott has the buttons on Fjord’s vest mixed in with the rest of her collection; she has Jester’s ribbons looping through the holes in her bag; she has three of Beau’s throwing stars tucked tight into the lining of her coat. Nott has a satchel of Deuce’s tea pressed up against a paper-thin flower, both hidden inside one of Caleb’s old books.

Don’t steal from happy people, Molly said. Nott is trying.

The second time, Nott is less drunk, and also has had more sleep. It makes the reference simultaneously more and less tasteless, which seems on brand.

“C’mon,” she wheedles, tugging gently at the edge of Caleb’s jacket. She’s learned just the right amount of pressure to put on the fabric without making the movement overly insistent – too much, and she’s being pushy. Too little, and she doesn’t want it enough. Humans are weird, but Nott is determined to learn all of their strange idiosyncrasies, if only to be better able to dupe them. (Oh, and also to walk around without getting arrested, Nott wants that too). “It’ll be fun.”

“No,” Caleb says, with all the petulance of a teenager. Nott had thought she’d been lucky to skip out on that stage of developmental hell, but hey, at least she can cross teenage rebellion off her list of life experiences. Children these days. No respect for their parents.

“Caleb,” Nott sighs. The rest of the group are playing hooky doing some very important serious business – that is, trying to find some freelance jobs so they don’t starve to death. Being good people or whatever that’s supposed to mean isn’t really cheap. Nott hoards gold, but that doesn’t mean she can keep supporting these freeloaders forever. They need to come up with better investment strategies, and fast, or Nott is going to have to do it for them. Accounting hasn’t ever been one of her skills before, but travelling with these morons has helped her to refine down the important things in life. Like keeping track of party funds. And shooting straight while drunk. (Well, she’s had that last one for a while).

“Nott,” he sighs, right back at her. Nott makes a face up at him. They grow up so fast…

“It’s what Molly would have wanted,” she says.

Caleb’s eyebrow ticks up. “Molly would have wanted us to leave the rest of the group for an unknown period of time to go – gambling.”

Nott nods, vigorously. Jester’s been teaching her a few things she hadn’t heard of before (probably because they were really illegal, but Jester didn’t know that, and Nott isn’t going to tell her your mum is basically a genius when it comes to counting cards). The city rests on a riverbed of gold – “if you want to make a fortune, come here” is the unofficial motto, tacked onto “to all the people in need of a disposable income; who have no future plans for success; who are desperate around to gamble everything you own in a single sitting”. Nott loves places like this, she really does.

Though she should probably stop saying that within hearing distance of the rest of the group, because they’re trying so hard to make this “we’re definitely absolutely 100% the good guys now” thing stick. There have been…slips ups…but Nott is confident that with enough perseverance mixed into this powder keg (ha, get it?) of interpersonal family planning and parental issues, they can make the world explode in the best kind of way.

“Molly would have definitely wanted us to leave the rest of the group behind for three guys, Caleb, that’s all I’m asking, to go gambling. I’m very sure that Molly would have been in support of this plan.”

Caleb is still giving Nott the sceptical eyebrows, but Nott is right (Nott is always right) and Caleb should just give up now and accept this. She’s never gambled with actual money before (Jester trades in chores, which is fun right up until Nott loses) so this is going to be a thrilling new experience. And also Caleb will be there, watching her back and keeping her safe from the undoubtedly fierce card sharks that will be waiting in the seedy taverns and grand casinos (there are a lot of grand casinos around here). Nott has heard enough stories about gambling – mostly from Jester, now that she thinks about it – to know that she will definitely need her son there, watching, to make sure that no one else cheats.

Caleb blows out a breath, long and low. He looks around the intersection, which is full of people shouting obnoxious insults at bystanders from behind foods carts, which seems a little counterproductive to the whole “selling of wares” thing, but hey, what does Nott know? Nothing, Nott knows nothing about making money, except that being drunk and killing things generally provides favourable results. In her experience, anyway.

“I suppose I cannot argue with that,” he says.

Caleb has to set fire to the casino, because of course. Of course he does. Nott will never be able to go anywhere ever again without having to set fire to something, she just knows it.

Third time, and it isn’t even Nott – which is progress! Nott thinks that it’s progress, anyway; on the downside, Beau starts a barfight, but that’s not uncommon, so Nott is calling this a ‘win’ in her books.

They’re drinking, heavily, because if there’s one thing this group knows how to do, it’s drink. They’re probably made up of 90% alcohol and 10% spite at this point. And good intentions. Spite and good intentions.

“I just –” Beau says, with the kind of slurred voice that only comes with mixing caffeine and liquor. “I just miss her. A lot.”

Fjord sits next to her and pats her on the back. It’s a rhythmic, absent kind of gesture, like he started because of a reason, some reason, there was definitely a reason, and how he can’t quite get his arm to stop moving. Nott predicts that he’ll be passing out soon, the amateur. She takes another swig of her flask (less quality, more burning familiarity) and leans into Caleb’s warm weight.

It’s good, being here, watching her family make a mess out of themselves. Painful, in a way, but good. Letting things fester under loose bandages is a good way to lose a limb (Nott knows, she’s seen it) (she’s done it) (there is nothing more terrifying than watching your body disintegrate in on itself). Here, talking and drinking and crying their eyes out (no judgement!), Nott is watching them sew open wounds back together.

Now all the needs is Yasha, and she’ll almost have the full set.

“I should message her!” Jester says, sipping at her milk and watching her drunken friends with mild fascination. She still hasn’t really gotten the hang of socialising with drunk people, for all she’s very good at following weird conversation tangents. “I can definitely message her – we haven’t seen Yasha in ages, she’ll be wanting to know where we are –”

Beau blinks. Well, sort of – one of her eyelids goes down, but the other one is a little slower to follow. It’s a weird parody of a wink, is what it is. Nott snickers into her flask, but quietly, so she doesn’t draw attention to herself. She’s happy to let things fade into the background, for now. Look at them! Being so responsible, sorting out their relationship issues. Nott is so proud.

“Yeah,” Beau says, with the dawning light of drunk revelation. “Yeah! You should message her. Say – say, er –”

“Tell her we miss her,” Fjord says. His arm is still patting Beau’s shoulder.

“And how to find us,” Deuce says.

Caleb hmms. “And that we may have another big job coming up, soon.”

“And that she should take care of herself,” Nott adds.

“Yeah – yeah,” Beau says. She clears her throat and scrapes her chair back a little, like she’s trying to get more room. It slams into the foot of a passing waitress, causing her to stumble forward and drop a rather large bowl of soup onto the head of a man on the next table over. “All of that. It’s what Molly would have wanted.”

Jester frowns. “That’s a lot, you guys.”

(“WHO DID THAT?” the man roars, lurching drunkenly to his feet and swinging his meaty fists wide. The waitress ducks, and he brains the person of indeterminate gender sitting next to him.

“WHAT THE FUCK!”)

“Don’t worry, don’t worry, we’ll write it down,” Beau says. She paws at the table in front of her, like she’s waiting for a piece of paper to spring forth from the lacquered wood. After a few seconds of disappointment, she turns to stare forlornly to where Fjord is still patting on her back. “I’ve got a pen somewhere in my bag,” she says.

(“WHAT DID YOU JUST CALL ME?”

“YOU HEARD ME, YOU –!”)

Jester smiles and takes out her sketchbook.

(They don’t flinch at the name. Nott is counting this as progress).

It sort of becomes a thing, after that.

Beau is a tipping point; she’s the leverage, especially when it comes to mentioning Molly. Without the threat of her flying into fits of rage of despair (none of them knows which one is worse), they relax their chokehold. Well, Nott relaxes her chokehold, which is good, because she’s never been much for staying silent.

“It’s what Molly would have wanted,” Caleb says, resigned, when they somehow (she isn’t sure how, she will never be sure how) manage to bluff their way into the festival line-up. They are not musicians. They cannot play instruments. Nott has heard (at one point or another) all of them sing, and of the group, only Jester can do a passable imitation of pleasant. This is going to end in disaster.

(It does, of course, end in disaster).

“It’s what Molly would have wanted,” Fjord says, lightly teasing, when they hijack another boat (what is it with this group and boats?) to make sail down the coast, human cargo ferried safely to the proper authorities. The group has taken a somewhat dim view of kidnapping, and hasn’t been overly thrilled to find the hold full of scared, dead-eyed people.

“It’s what Molly would have wanted,” Nott says, firmly, when she swipes a jelly doughnut from a rude man with a goatee.

(Don’t steal from happy people).

Yasha comes back to the group with all the drama and mystery they have come to expect from her; which is, she trips of Beau’s sprawled leg and then claims confusion at finding them here, in this tavern, which Jester had mentioned in her last message three hours ago. Yasha is fooling no one. Nott wonders why she even bothers anymore. What does she think they’re going to say? No, go away?

Nott wants to laugh. If she’s learned anything from this group of sanity-deficient people, it’s that family sticks together. She’s not letting any of her children go and ruin themselves without being there to help. Oh, well. Yasha will learn.

(Nott is never going to get the full set, but for this, for Caleb and Jester and Beau and Fjord and Deuce and Yasha, she will settle).

(It’s as much a concession to fate as she’s ever going to give).

Caleb is telling a story, face animated, arms spreading out in lively, sweeping gestures. He knocks his mug off of the table and onto the ground, the ale spilling onto the floorboards and all over poor Frumpkin’s head.

The group stare at the hissing, furious cat in a beat of silence. Then Caleb says, almost automatically, “It’s what Molly would have wanted.”

Yasha pauses at that, tankard halfway to her mouth.

Then she throws back her head and laughs.

[hellomissmabel]

Little Monster part 1

MASTERLIST

Pairing: Professor!Steve Rogers x reader

Warnings: mentions of sexual activity (NSFW) and accusations of abuse. Oh, and foul language. Skip the NSFW by skipping the cursive part! (that’s why it’s cursive too hehe)

Word count: 1.707

Summary: You’re an arts student on the verge of graduating when you get the verdict: either you do an extra year or you take one extra, mandatory course to salvage your reputation. You hold a grudge against history and would rather be fooling around with your boyfriend than sitting in a bleak auditorium listening to some old fart’s war stories. Turns out that fossil isn’t as old as you thought he’d be and soon you’re begging for taste of Professor Rogers, taking advantage of the high life.

A/N: As I’m finishing up on Manhattan Mistress, I’d like to pitch this little series based on the newly released photographs Chris Evans did for Vogue (and Esquire). They just screamed recently divorced college professor/high society beau/sugar daddy to me so here it is!

The day you first let your mind wander to impure thoughts about your professor is the first day you dropped your panties on the bathroom floor of the ladies’ toilet. He’s everything you never knew you wanted and everything you know you shouldn’t want. That time you caught him palming himself through his skin-tight jeans, moaning sinfully, moaning your name and cursing under his breath, it changed your entire view on him.

Hell, it’s not a secret Professor Rogers had been screwing around here and there with a couple of his female students. The guy is notorious for his sex drive. Nor will you ever forget that night you were studying late for finals and on your way back from the coffee machine to the library, walking past his office and hearing him obscenely fuck the brains out of an exchange student that you knew for a fact would be gone the next week. A proper fucking and no loose ends, that’s how he operates. He bent her over his desk, ripped her panties down her legs and slammed into her without a warning.

Rumour has it that he wasn’t always such a tease but that since his divorce he’s been rather indulgent with his status as high society’s most favourite beau and the sexual perks that come with it. Professor Rogers can be described in three words and three words only: filthy fucking rich, emphasis on fucking.

His head is between your legs faster than you can turn around, his fingers digging into your ass cheeks and parting them so his tongue can lick a broad stripe from your clit to your cunt. Your palms sting with the coldness radiating from the tiled wall, your entire nervous system focused on one thing, your professor eating you out from behind. And to think that just three months ago you were going to quit this course.

Three months ago

“I’m telling you, Clint, if I ever get the opportunity to weasel my way out of this God damn assignment, I will seize it with both hands,” you whine to your best friend, absentmindedly drawing circles onto the cover of your notepad while waiting for inspiration to hit you like a speed train. Since you started dating Bucky Barnes, senior and notorious bad boy, your grades plummeted dramatically causing you to retake most of your exams and eventually resulting in getting assigned to a shitload of mandatory coursework for one of your least favourite subjects: history. As an arts student, you’re obliged to follow course on the history of art such as film and photography. So what’s the downside of this class, you must be wondering?

Clint casually shrugs, pausing the music he was listening to and taking off his earplugs. “You know, if you weren’t so busy sucking off Barnes, you wouldn’t be in this position. But I get it,” he says looking at you from the corner of his eye, “Barnes takes care of you. He loves you. So why not spend all your time riding his cock?”

You gasp at Clint’s brash words, covering his mouth with your hand as he laughs heartily. “We’re in a freaking library, Clint!,” you whisper forcefully, trying not to gain any unwanted attention from the librarian who’s been eying the two of you for a while now, stalking you like a hawk and waiting for a reason to kick you out without further notice.

“Come on, Y/N, don’t act all innocent,” Clint nudges your shoulder, “You’ve been going at it as soon as he took you out dancing which was, if I remember it correctly, only your second date. I didn’t peg you as the kind of girl to put out on the second date.”

“That’s because you don’t know me that well, jerk,” you shoot back playfully with a wink. “Buck and I, we have our own thing.” You shrug and card your fingers through your hair. “I can see myself marrying him, you know.”

Clint turns his body, facing you with obvious interest. “Marriage? You still have one year to go, Y/N. and then you have to find a job and make money. I think marriage isn’t something you should be worrying about now. First you should get your education right and then you can make as many babies with Barnes as you’d like.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, Clint!,” you exclaim in a fit of giggles, “You are insufferable. Marriage does not equal getting knocked up, you fool.”

“Ha! That wasn’t the case with…,” your best friend hesitates, debating the words swirling in his mind. “You know, Nat.”

Natasha. The name tastes both sweet and sour on the tip of your tongue. Natasha was Clint’s everything, his first and if it was up to him also his last love. But she got a better offer and took off with Bucky’s father, ultimately becoming your boyfriend’s step-mother. It’s an awkward situation to say the least, with Natasha scrutinising every aspect of your relationship with both your bestie and your bae. And on top of that, Natasha is pregnant with Bucky’s step-brother or step-sister, worsening the situation by tenfold.

You and Clint receive a couple dirty looks from the librarian and you know it’s time to clear out. Quickly grabbing your things and stuffing them in your bag, you grab Clint’s wrist and guide him to the inner courtyard, spotting an empty spot close by the fountain and out of earshot from the other students relaxing in the early spring sun.

“Clint, I gotta tell you something.”

He nods, setting his backpack down between his feet. “Shoot.”

You explain to him that you’ve found someone willing to study with you. Her name is Wanda and she seems like a nice girl. You’re meeting her for coffee after class. “She’s the professor’s assistant, hence my sudden interest in her. I have no clue who Rogers is but from what I’ve gathered so far, he seems like one tough asshole. Doesn’t hand out grades like Wilson did last year. I reckon an easy A will be hard to earn. I’m a fucking straight A student and I’d like to keep it that way.”

“And why is this of any particular interest to me?”

You sigh exasperatedly at his ignorance. “Do I really need to point it out to you?” You rub your temples and close your eyes as you continue speaking. “She’s got the hots for you!”

Clint’s expression changes from one of confusion to one of pleasure. “You want me to sleep with her, don’t you?”

You should feel at least a little bit bad, using Clint to help Wanda warm up to you just so you could pass a stupid course. Of course there’s more to it. “So, are you in or should I spill the beans to Sharon?”

“Don’t you dare.” Clint is glaring daggers at you and if looks could kill, you’d be roasted. “You do know that Sharon’s maiden name is Carter right? Then you should also know who she was married to.”

“Ah crap,” you mutter alongside a string of profanities. “She used to bang my new professor?”

“Yeah,” he confirms with a slight nod of his head. “She used to be Sharon Rogers but bailed out on the marriage after her miscarriage. He didn’t take it so well but a little birdie told me that’s not the real reason their love shipwrecked.”

Intrigued, you inch closer to make sure you’re not mission a single detail of juicy gossip because God knows it’s all you live for these days. “Go on,” you encourage Clint who’s smiling smugly at the fact he knows something you don’t.

Beckoning you, he whispers lowly into your ear. “She used to be his assistant and when he tried to get rid of her, she threatened to tell the dean that he raped her. She even got pictures to prove it even though everybody knows she only took the job because she wanted to screw him. There’s also a little home movie or something on her cell phone that might be incriminating to Rogers. I’m telling you, that sex tape is the reason they tied the knot all of a sudden because let’s get real here, he can do so much better than Sharon.”

“Agreed. She’s got a stick up her ass that one.”

“Hey, I’m not finished yet,” Clint grins cheekily and you listen attentively. “According to my source who shall not be named,” he chuckles and even though you already know who his supplier of secrets is, you’re willing to give him this just to keep Clint happy. “So, they told me that the pregnancy wasn’t planned and he wanted her to get an abortion. She refused and ran to her sister’s house where she intended to stay until the baby was born. But you know, the guy’s got juice so she was forced to move back in and sit her days out in that golden cage he calls a house.”

The pieces of the puzzle are falling together right in front of you. “Fuck, Clint, are you freaking kidding me?”

“Oh no, Y/N, I’m most definitely not. He held her hostage and then kicked her out when she conveniently lost the baby.”

“That’s sick,” you confirm, obviously disgusted although you’re also mildly intrigued by the inner working of such a twisted mind. “I really don’t want to take this course, Clint,” you whine and he wraps his arm around your shoulder, tucking you reassuringly into his side.

“You’ll do fine. You’re gonna nail this shit.”

“I hate history,” you deadpan dryly. “And you know why.”

“Ok, well, you’re gonna have to pass regardless. Though you can’t keep hating history just because of him. But if you really cannot deal with this shit anymore, you can always drop out. You got Bucky and his daddy’s money to keep you warm and comfortable at night.”

“Hell no, Clint, I’m an independent woman and I’m going to get that freaking degree so I can at least do something with my life. I ain’t no man’s bitch.”

“That’s my girl, right there,” Clint chuckles proudly. “Now let’s get outta here, you have a lecture to attend and I have a girl to swoon.”

Part 2

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