#then at least somewhere somewhen

[justporo]

Guilty as charged

A/N: So I saw this post about pre-vampirism law school Astarion by @lavendarr00 today and immediately my brain conjured up this idea of having a sort of friends with benefits arrangement with law student Astarion (to both of your benefit ofc) and I couldn't stop dreaming... So have this quick drabble before I move onto other writing...

~~~

You were repeating the same question for the third time to Astarion.

He answered for the third time - and still got it wrong.

The elf rolled his eyes. “This is useless, I need a break,” he pouted and let his head fall back, leaning back onto his hands, careful not to knock over the stacks of books, rolls of parchment and scattered notes.

You just enjoyed the sight: how his chest heaved when he took another deep and dramatic breath in, how the muscles in his arms moved, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. A sight to behold. But unfortunately looks were no characteristic that helped one to pass law school.

The two of you were sitting on the polished wooden floors of Astarion’s small but luxurious dorm room, studying for the bar exam - or some of you were.

This was the final challenge you had to pass, then you would finally be done with school.

“If we’re taking another break, we will never get through all of this,” you muttered and motioned towards all of the material surrounding you.

Astarion replied with a pained noise, head coming around again to watch you.

“Have mercy on me, my love,” he begged and threw one arm dramatically over his face.

“Astarion, tell me how you will pass the bar exam if you’re not at least trying to study,” you scolded him and watched as he gave you his best puppy eyes - the gold in them glinting.

“But I am trying,” he moaned and then sat back up again. His hands shot forward to grab your wrists still holding the book you had been reciting questions from.

“But we can’t all be as smart and scholarly as you, darling,” he murmured and dragged you towards you. “Or as beautiful. Or… distracting.”

As much as you tried to make a face at him for wanting to distract you, you failed. You lightly giggled as the beautiful elf pulled you onto his lap.

Sometimes you wondered if he had solely sought your friendship so you could help pull him through law school. Not that you minded. But then he really wouldn’t have needed to fall into bed with you - frequently. You would have helped him only because you liked him and enjoyed spending time with him. Not that you minded the time spent in his embrace at all as well.

Somewhere between you first arriving at Baldur’s Gate’s esteemed law institute where you had met Astarion - who always seemed to have a sharp quip or cheesy line on the tip of his tongue - and now, you somewhen had formed the habit of repeatedly falling into the elf’s arms and tangling in the sheets with him.

Neither of you had been seeking a strict commitment so this semi-exclusive companionship you indulged in was as much of a bond you both could work with.

How things would develop once you both left law school neither of you had addressed yet.

Maybe tomorrow you would bring it up. Maybe when you would have both passed the exam, celebrated with drinks and your friends and you would have undoubtedly found your way into his bed again.

But now, there were other things to focus on.

“How exactly is this going to help you study, Astarion?” you asked as his hands were wandering up your thighs and his gaze had fallen to where your chest peeked through the laces of your top. You couldn’t help but arch your back a little - make the sight a little more alluring to him.

He noticed and threw you a haughty glance and smirk, one eyebrow cocked teasingly.

“Oh, I don’t know if I’m being quite honest. But I want to test out a theory of mine,” he murmured as long, elegant fingers wandered up your body, immediately making it hard for you to focus on anything else.

“And what’s that theory?” you almost moaned in response and shifted your hips to get even closer to him. The movement bringing the delectable advantage of creating delicious friction for both of you.

“That you will stop bugging me about this damned exam once I have you naked beneath me,” he explained in a low, breathy voice as his fingers were already starting to unlace your shirt.

“Anything to get my clothes off I see,” you replied with a last rest of your wit before Astarion pressed his hot lips to yours and truly made you forget about really anything else. His tongue slipped into your mouth and you leaned into the kiss, drinking it all up desperately. Until the elf broke the kiss again, the gold specks in his blue eyes glinting mischievously.

“Guilty as charged, darling,” he murmured with the smirk you had gotten so used to and adored so much.

Then Astarion pushed you onto your back, knocking over books and scrolls. He immediately followed, lowering his body onto you, tangling your fingers with his before he pressed down your hands on each side of your head and showed you just how much of a convincing case he could make if he wanted to.

[librathefangirl]

Got any rambles for any of these?

Thanks for sharing your wip list!

OH DO I!

Demon Bros Comfort Nuzzles

This is a fic solely dedicated to the headcanon that demons nuzzle to show affection. It all started with me seeing a post about affectionate nuzzles from caretaker and I then promptly had two thoughts: 1. What if demons nuzzle to show affection? And 2. I wanna write about Mel and Zel giving each other comfort nuzzles. So basically, it's gonna be a fic about times throughout the years when the brothers have done just that. It might be organized as a 6+1 fic, but it might also be more times than that, or just an "x times..." styled fic. I haven't decided yet. I guess it depends on how the inspiration goes. (That said, if anyone has any cute or angsty scenarios they wanna see, I'm all ears!)

Also, this hc has taken up permanent residence in my brain (along with the "Mel used to call Merlin 'kiddo'" and the demon thermoregulation hcs, and possibly also the demon heartbeat hc (see below)). So don't be surprised if affectionate demon nuzzled start showing up in my other fics too - especially from Mel, but also from Zel, and maybe even Ellie (having picked up the behavior from Mel).

Whumptober - Meliodas & The Boar Hat Regulars

This one is all your fault thanks to you actually, for getting me attached to the idea of the Boar Hat Regulars and their weird but caring relationship with Meliodas, and also for inspiring the plot of this fic. I was originally aiming to write it for Whumptober, but never got around to it (because of life and mental health and October doesn't like me and whatnot). The prompts for Day 15 were "Makeshift Bandages", "Suppressed Suffering", and "I'm fine" - which I decided went together perfectly for poor Mel, in a fic taking place during the 10 years of the Sins being split-up and framed.

Basically, Meliodas gets into some trouble (of yet-to-be-determined origin) and then decides to go on with his day as if nothing happened. He learns the hard way why running a tavern while actively bleeding is a bad idea. Our heroes of the story are going to be two regulars and one very confused/freaked out first-timer (possibly with some other patrons around too - I haven't decided on how big of a character group I wanna work with yet - oh and Hawk I guess).

Zel gets distracted by Mel's heartbeat and everything changes

I actually shared a bit about this one back in July. Unfortunately, I haven't made much progress since then - mostly because I'm not exactly sure how the plot is gonna progress from here. I had an idea, then changed my mind about part of it, then had a better idea, but forgot about it, and now I'm just trying to figure out where I want to take the fic.

Sometimes a story starts with a demon bros thought and some demon lore. - a note from the actual document lol. But yeah, this is a demon bros angst fic taking place, or at least starting off, during the fight between Mel and the 10C in Vaizel; then it goes canon-divergent (when and how is the thing I haven't decided on yet). The lore part comes in with the fact that demons can tell each others' heartbeat apart, and the heartbeat also changes subtly (but noticeably to a demon) depending on number of hearts and stuff.

Somewhere, somewhen, somehow since his last death, Meliodas lost a heart (not like ripped from his chest, but broken/damaged/not beating). So Zeldris ends up having an internal crisis during the Meliodas murder, over the fact that Meliodas' heartbeat (which he still knows by... well, heart(s)) has changed and the wrongness of it all and being faced with the reality that the big brother who had always felt invincible was in fact not that. This is what leads to the canon-divergence, because Zel can't just forget about it (which means "everything changes" either during the fight or sometime after it - again, to be determined).

A little sneak peek (even though I've shared it before because this post doesn't have any sneak peeks yet!):

It shouldn’t have been such a staggering thought. A demon only needed one heart to survive. Zeldris had grown up in war. He knew plenty of demons who had lost hearts. But at the same time, to him, his brother had always felt invincible. He’d led armies way older than himself. He’d turned every demon against him without fear. He still stood here after 3,000 years, opposing their father once again. Even like this, surrounded in a nine-to-one fight, the idea that Meliodas was just as vincible as the rest of them felt almost foreign to Zeldris.

(Full sneak peek can be found in this post)

Wrath of Light (You'll have to go through me)

This is one of my remaining Febuwhump stories (hoping to get them all done this year at least lol). It's for Day 23, and the prompt "You'll have to go though me" (so the actual title of the fic is just "Wrath of Light").

I've shared a little sneak peek about it before (here - I think you saw that one back when I posted it?), but here's some proper info: it's taking place in some undefined-timeline (Elizabeth has her full powers and memories, but there's still a war against the demons?), there's a big fight happening, and tbh our heroes are getting their butts kicked for the moment, Meliodas gets badly injured, and Elizabeth snaps. Or, in other words, she reminds everyone that while she mostly uses her goddess powers to heal, she is no less dangerous than the demons they fight. It's also from Hendrickson's perspective, which I thought was an interesting pov for this fic, given his history with the druids and their view on the goddesses and demons.

You could also summarize this fic in three words: Protective Badass Elizabeth.

Here's another sneak peek:

Never before had Hendrickson truly considered the destructiveness of her power. He’d always seen it like the princess herself; bright and gentle. Before now, it had been healing. Offering miracles at death’s door. Saving soldiers in battle. Even after her true self had shown, even as the light proved lethal to demons, it had always felt safe. There was nothing gentle about the light surging from Elizabeth now. Hendrickson had only ever seen Meliodas' wrath when Elizabeth’s life was threatened. Never the reverse; not until now. Perhaps in the end, the two weren’t that different at all.

As you've seen by now, I talked about the other wips you asked about (and more) in another ask.

WIP Tag/Ask Game!

[snippychicke]

Aftermath--Chapter One

Summary:

Raymond Chestnut gets a harsh surprise when he realizes the body in his living room isn't actually dead. Now he has a severely injured white man, who tried to kill him, to deal with. Thankfully he knows a friend who might be able to help.

Lorelei was used to people coming to her for medical attention. But when Raymond brings Otto to her home, nothing could prepare for how her life was about to change.

--------

Well, if you followed me like... 3-4 years ago, you may remember I was quite into the Swedes from The Umbrella Academy...

I never got over them to be honest.

So here we are, I am proving my screen name yet again with a rewrite of an old story! That I never finished! But hey, my writing skill have definitely improved.

For those unfamiliar, go watch season 2 of the Umbrella Academy. The blonde assassins? Those were the boys that inspired the rise of ol' Ikea Mafia Fam. As well as the following story in which a white woman born in the 80's tries to write the perspective of a poc woman in the 60s. (and prays she is not being offensive in any way and begs forgiveness if she is.)

Also:

Herb did not, in fact, take away the dead body of the Swede Assassin. 

It was still laying in Raymond's living room, long after everyone else had disappeared in flashes of blue lights. Wrapped tightly in the rug his sister had gifted him and Allison on their wedding day. 

Silent. 

Foreboding. 

Raymond watched the unmoving figure as he sipped at his scotch. There was no way in hell he could move it by himself. And who could he trust to ask for help to move it? 

To move him, Raymond reminded himself harshly. It wasn't an it, it was a ‘him.’ That was a human body resting in his living room. 

Who, admittedly,  had tried to kill him and Allison. But still, Raymond could at least acknowledge him as a fellow human. After all, Raymond had tried so hard to be the respectful and peaceful man his grandmother raised him to be. Even when faced with the violence because of his involvement with the protests, or being unfairly treated time after time because of racism, he never raised so much as a hand to another human being. 

He shouldn't try to deny another man his humanity, even if he was a dead would-be murderer. 

But he was still stuck with a dead white man in his living room. It didn't matter that the man and his brother had forced their way into their home (his home, now that Allison was gone, but he didn't want to deal with that heartache on top of everything) with intent to kill both of them. 

All the law would see was a white man dead in a colored man's house. 

He would go to prison… No. He was going to be lynched for this. Old-fashioned hung from a tree for the whole city to see. 

Raymond tipped the rest of the scotch back and poured another full glass as the liquid burned its way to his stomach. All of his work, gone. He had abandoned his education and teaching position so he could do his part for the Civil Rights movement. He had hoped he could do some good.

And instead, he had made things worse. 

It was probably a good thing Allison had…left to be with her family. It was comforting to know she was safe and alive somewhere somewhen. A small, cold, comfort, but a comfort nonetheless. 

His lips touched the glass for another swig when he heard it. A noise so soft and quiet he was sure he had imagined it. Still, it made him freeze, his body tense as he held his breath, eyes darting to the rug. 

No. The man was dead. It had been hours since the attack. There was no way he could be somehow still alive. 

Raymond shook his head, deciding it was probably just the house settling, and shot back the drink once more, feeling the burn in his throat match the burn of his eyes. His whole life had just ended. It wouldn't be long before he would join…

His somber thoughts were cut off by another sound, this one unmistakable. 

A groan of pain. 

Raymond startled and jumped to his feet, throwing his glass out of reflex towards the body, which grunted as the glass bounced off the rug and shattered on the floor. He grabbed a butterknife off the table and held it towards the body; the cutlery shaking in his hand as he stared at the body. 

But there was only silence. For what felt like hours, Raymond stood frozen yet mentally daring it to do something. Anything. If it did, he would… he would…

The rug moved as another groan cut through the heavy silence. There was no doubting the haggard breathing and muffled moan of pain that quickly increased in both volume and frequency. Raymond cursed every foul word his grandmother would've washed his mouth out for and ran back to the kitchen to grab an actual knife. The long thick butcher’s knife his wife had used so skillfully once upon a time. 

He pushed that thought away and stalked back to the living room, gripping the wooden handle tightly in his shaking hand. Raymond towered over the rug, knife poised to strike where he assumed the man’s chest was. He had to do something swift. Otherwise…

Otherwise what? He was already a deadman walking. 

The knife clattered harmlessly to the floor as Raymond regained his senses. He was going to die either way, but wouldn't it be better to die innocent than guilty? Not just for his soul, but for the Civil Rights movement? His brother and sisters? 

Raymond dropped to his knees and desperately undid the knots he and Allison had tied, allowing the rug to fall open. The man's face was no longer placid with death, but grimacing in pain, pale lips pursed as he sucked in haggard breaths.  Blood was caked dry around the remains of his right eye, dark purple and black bruises colored his neck, while the rest of his skin was as pale as his blond hair. 

"Hey, uh buddy," Raymond said as he placed a hand on his shoulder, earning a painful grunt that caused him to yank his hand away. "Right. Sorry. Let's… let's get you to a hospital." Except questions would be asked, and Raymond would definitely be arrested. 

But… what if there was a chance he could avoid that? Someone that could help him and the man before him. 

"Actually, on second thought..." 

~❖~

Lorelei groaned as she fell into the old couch, slipping off her shoes and rubbing the ache from her feet. The third twelve-hour shift in a row at the hospital had left the young nurse sore and exhausted. This week had been crazy between the street shooting and the asylum patients escaping.

Then there was the man found in the woods. She grimaced at the memory of being briefed by the operating room's recovery nurse as she was assigned to John Doe for the rest of her shift because the white nurse had been overwhelmed and needed help (nevermind the black's unit had been just as understaffed before they had dragged her away). Even though the nurse had rattled off the injuries--including the traumatic amputation of his leg-- seeing the young man as white as the sheets, covered in bandages, left her heart sore. 

Dr. Wilson and his team had done their best, but they all had their doubts. No one knew how long the man had been in the woods, wounded. It had been a miracle he hadn't bled to death. But there had been plenty of time for sepsis to set in.

Lorelei's eyes were starting to drift shut when somebody desperately knocked at the front door; hard and frantic enough to rattle the glass panes of the windows. Her eyes shot back open and she jumped up out of instinct, her heart thundering in her chest as she stumbled around the coffee table to open the door. 

She knew it was going to be an emergency, knew that she should expect anything, but yet she wasn't prepared for Raymond Chestnut to be standing on her old porch, a man nearly twice his size leaning heavily on him with an ill-fitting tan suit covered in blood.   

A very pale, very white man.

"What the hell?" she started, automatically shifting to the white man's side, having to lift his arm to sling it over her shoulder to help support his weight. 

People coming to her was no surprise. It was normal for her the way people in their neighborhood would knock on her door for help, ranging from childhood bumps and bruises, injuries from teenagers getting into fights, and other emergencies. 

But that was from people in their neighborhood-- which was very much a black community. And while she was about as white-passing as they could get-- barely passing the paper-bag test most days--her skin was still far darker than the man she helped Raymond half-drag inside. 

Her stomach curdled at the wounds she saw, though the bloody mess of an eye was probably the worst. One slight touch to the unconscious man's cheek and he snarled as he shifted away, his other eye fluttering beneath its closed eyelid. "Shit. We need to get him to a hospital, Ray!"

"I know!" he hissed back, keeping his voice low despite the fact the door was closed and no one else in the old two-story house but them. "But can you imagine me pulling in the ER with him like this? I'd be lynched by dawn!" 

"What even happened?" She asked, noticing the darkening bruise around his neck. Without hesitating  she quickly undid the silk tie and ripped the white shirt open. There was no mistaking the shadowing of hand-prints that wrapped around his neck. Obviously not an accident, but if Raymond got in a fight, and one serious enough to do this kind of damage, why would he bring the man here?

Nevermind that Raymond was as pacifistic as it got, and she couldn't see him doing this. Hell, even if Raymond was fighting for his life, she doubted he could cause this kind of damage.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," he said with a dry tone, wiping the sweat from his brow. "Hell, I barely believe it, and I lived through it."

She shot him a look, "I worked in the ER on a full moon on Halloween this year. Try me."

Before he could begin, however, she stood and quickly disappeared into the kitchen. Raymond could hear the faucet running as she rummaged through drawers, and within a minute she was back with a basin of water and more than a few washcloths. "Well?" She snipped as she soaked a washcloth and wrung it out before starting to work on the caked blood around his eye, making the man hiss and flinch but not wake up. 

"Him and his brother came to my house and attacked Ally and I. Allison did that," he gestured to the eye covered by a washcloth, "before telling his brother to kill him. Which I certainly thought he did when he strangled him, but…obviously not. So, here we are."

Lorelei paused and looked at him, confused and sure Raymond was lying to her. In fact, she was about to call out bullshit when she noticed the solemn look on his face. Raymond was a poor liar, and there was no way he could lie about something like this when he could barely keep a straight face about who had stolen the collards out of her abysmal attempt at a garden.

Yet there was nothing but complete honesty when he met her gaze, making her swear under her breath. 

Allison, while always a bit different and headstrong for sure, was still a lady. Lorelei had a hard time seeing the hairdresser stabbing someone. Granted, being attacked in her own home would make anyone lash out.

But the attempted strangulation? And she told the man’s brother to do so, and then he apparently followed through with her command? How? Why?

As perplexing as the mystery was, right now it didn't matter. She had a patient to tend to, the ‘hows’ and ‘whys’ did really matter. She shook her head to clear her thoughts and shifted to stand. "Come on, let's get him back in your car and get him to the hospital.  We can say we found him on my doorstep like this. Dr. Cahoy is working tonight, and..."

The man's hand suddenly shot up and gripped Lorelei's wrist tightly, making her freeze and Raymond tense. The man's other eye was open and staring hard at her, the soft blue somehow violent. "No," he said, his voice hoarse and barely a whisper.

"No?" She repeated, incredulous. "I can't treat the trauma to that eye. We need to take you to the hospital."

"No," he repeated, his hand tightening slightly, his fingers easily encompassing her small wrist. For a moment, Lorelei feared he would pop her wrist out of joint. Yet after a brief moment his grip relaxed, though he didn't let go. 

"You do realize you could lose your eye," Lorelei started, mentally adding 'if you haven't already.' The bloody mess concealed most of the damage, but she feared the worst already. Eyes couldn’t take a lot of damage before becoming blind, or needing to be removed. And, well, this one had been rather severely damaged.

The man stayed silent, his gaze not leaving hers. There wasn't an ounce of fear or worry in his expression. Just stubbornness and acceptance. "Fine," she sighed, giving in. "But in return for my services, you have to promise not to go after Ray and Allie, okay? Or any negro for that matter."

That was a big bluff for her to take, trying to demand that a white man make her a promise? Yet instead of being incensed, his gaze glanced briefly at Raymond before his eye fluttered close and he let go of her in apparent agreement. 

Lorelei stood, rubbing her wrist as she mulled her options. This was a bad idea. A terrible idea. White men could get the care they need at the drop of a hat. They could get quality care no matter where they went. She needed to save her stores for those not so fortunate. 

Yet something in her gut was leading her towards an idea that there was something was not quite right with the situation beyond the obvious. He only said one word, but there was a definite accent to it, and not one she was familiar with either. Her gut was telling her that she had to help him, and not just dump him off at the nearest ER. 

"Ray, start boiling some water.  Grab the pack of gauze and gloves under the sink too."

Raymond didn't ask any questions but nodded his head and followed her directions. Lorelei sighed as she touched the man's shoulder, making him crack open his good eye once more. "I'm serious here,” she continued softly yet firm. “I am not a doctor. I can do my best, but I doubt I can do anything to save your eye. You need a hospital."

"No," he repeated, though this time softer. Almost apologetic, as if he understood the moral quandary he was putting her through. Which, sympathy from a white man was just about as unbelievable as the rest of this.  

She pushed the thought away. "Do you have any plans to hurt Ray or Allie?"

"...no." he closed his eye, becoming stoic but not before she saw a flash of something. Anguish? Regret? Or just pain? 

"I'm holding you to that.” She didn’t much care about herself, but she wanted to protect her old friend and his wife. “Now, give me a name I can call you-- I don't need to be your real one," she continued as he looked at her strangely. "I just need a name you'll answer to."

"...Otto." That time she caught the accent but still didn't have an idea of where. Definitely not any of the local American drawls. Maybe that was why he was so much kinder than the usual white.  

"Well, Otto, I'm Lorelei,” she returned with a tight smile. “And this is probably going to hurt like a son of a bitch."

[semperintrepida]

Despite my current creative uncertainty, one thing's for sure: I'll be writing at least one more fanfic before everything's said and done. Perhaps it will be yours?

My Fandom Trumps Hate profile can be found here. Bidding starts March 5th!

Organizations this auction benefits: Winning bidder's choice of any of the listed non-profit groups (See full list.)

Type of fanwork: Written fanwork Subtype(s): fan fiction (new) Fandom(s): Assassin's Creed, Horizon Zero Dawn, A Plague Tale (Videogame Series) Highest rating: E Length/scope: 5 -10k words. Minimum Bid: $5

Especially interested in: I write F/F and gen stories about "Assassin's Creed: Odyssey", but could write for the "Horizon Zero Dawn" and "A Plague Tale" series of games as well. I'm at my best writing stories from the POV of the main protagonists or major NPCs: Kassandra, Kyra, Aloy, and Amicia, but if you've got someone else in mind, let's discuss. I'll write F/F smut if you want; please take a look at my profile for examples. Prompts involving consensual BDSM/power play are welcome if that's your jam. My OTP is kyssandra (Kassandra x Kyra) but if you're my highest bidder, I'll make an exception for you if you're hankering for something else. (That said, please do review my NO list below.) I can write fluff, angst, and pretty much anything in between. Third person, first person, past or present tense are all fine by me.

Things I won't write: male protagonists (sorry, I can't do them justice!), kasspasia (Kassandra x Aspasia), X-reader/reader insert, Omegaverse, genderbent characters, non-con/dub-con, underage, BDSM involving scat/watersports/bloodplay

Other notes: The development of your prompt will be a collaboration between us. You've gotta bring big ideas you're excited about, and I've gotta vibe with your prompt to write something good. I work best from generalities and broad sketches—if you're looking for a very specific scenario with lots of fine details you're expecting me to include, I might not be the writer for you. After we agree on a prompt, I'll write a brief plot treatment and run it by you. Then I'll write the first draft, which you'll be welcome to advance read (AR) and offer feedback. Then I'll edit the work to the best of my ability, and if all goes well, we'll end up with something we're both proud of. My goal as a writer is to make you feel like you're right there in the action, fighting and fucking, laughing and playing. I will make you feel like you're somewhere else, somewhen else, someone else.

[Bidding instructions soon to come...]

[practically-an-x-man]

OC ask time once again :3. I honestly have no idea if you've answered something like this before already.

Your characters are given the ability to time travel once as a one way trip to whenever/wherever they'd like. Who uses it immediately without hesitation? Who never uses it? What do they do once they're in their new time?

Oooh man, a one-way trip? That's got the potential to get a little dark... interesting

Thank you for the ask!! This one's really interesting!

Rae: Decides she's going to save it for when things go really wrong, and never actually ends up using it. She doesn't want to change what already happened, even the traumatic stuff, since she doesn't want to change where they ended up

Robin: Goes back and avoids her TBI - keeps herself and Six out of the room with the feral Beast clone, blocks up the door, and continues on. She recovered from it, but it took time and she'd really rather not have to go through it at all.

Madison: I feel like she'd actually weigh the merits of a bunch of different times, just for the hell of it, but would end up balking at the fact that it's a one-way trip and wouldn't end up using it at all. It does become a running boredom buster, where she'll daydream about going to another time and how good or bad it would be to live there. (like my irl boredom buster of debating the merits of whatever building i'm in as a bunker in the zombie apocalypse. i maintain that movie theaters would be the best)

Ophelia: Stops her father from running his experiment with the tritium reactor, which effectively spares both her parents. It means she has to go through all of college and her doctorate program again, but it's worth it to have her parents alive with her again.

Katherine: Hm... realistically, she wouldn't use it at all since she's happy with the life she has, but just for fun I'm imagining her going back to Ahk's reign in Ancient Egypt and meeting him there, stopping his murder, and eventually resulting in the two of them being remembered in history as benevolent rulers. Their tomb is eventually discovered and, in a cyclical and slightly paradoxical way, both become exhibits in the museum.

Kestrel: Saves it for some split-second moment - if they, Warren, or someone else they care about ever ends up being badly injured or killed in a way that can't otherwise be fixed, that's their get-out-of-jail free card.

Quinn: Goes back to stop what happened in Kyiv - stops herself and Billy from falling, herself from being injured, and warns him of everything Lex was planning with the Kalahari. It's not quite as emotionally rich of a story for her, but it saves them a lot of pain and trauma

Jasper: Goes back to just before that fateful frat party and begs Kyle not to go - he's incredibly confused by all the intensity, but trusts them enough to listen. They have a quiet night in instead, studying and playing Minecraft on their survival server, and the bus crash is on the news the next day. Crisis very much averted.

Eris: Saves it, but with the full intent to use it in the future. His plan is to save it until Rick passes away (hopefully of old age), then to go back to just before they met him and do it all again. It still doesn't compare to their immortal lifespan, but it at least would stretch the time she gets with him. (but eh I'm a metahuman Rick Flag truther anyway so Eris probably never has to actually use it)

Nikoletta: Just about the only one who would just jump to some other historical period and start a new life - she'd go somewhere (and somewhen) where she could use her modern knowledge and shadow abilities to be seen as some kind of witch queen or oracle, lives in wealth and power for as long as she can... and probably dies of some illness that's eradicated in the present.

[trainingdummyrabbit]

✨ please tell me all of your thoughts on kaigaku talk like you will never have the chance to talk about him again

oh hell yeah i can do that. o7

first as a quick baseline though, ive actually spoken about him before a. fair amount. in this post [here]! which is to say im gonna try not t make the same points i did in that one! which! is going t be a lil hard actually. so instead of focusing mostly canon-textual angle with him (or about as much of it as you Can get for him..) we'll go hypothetical, aka: the inherent tragedy of being an antagonist with like two chapters of screentime.

like yeah, hes a self-centered piece of shit that exists just to kind of be a bastard for like two characters if you Squint, and thats definitely all well and good! characters can just be Awful because its Fun! but like... for a series like kny, i just cant help but wonder-- how accurate really is that? its the same series that said that Theres Only One True Demon-- The Rest Are Victims. so... really. is that all there is to him? play with me in this space a moment.

//

i do say it a lot, but i really do mean it when i consider him a tragic character. not just in regards to him and his dynamic with zenitsu, but just on the matter of... being Him. but the way that he carries himself is just. so painfully human, in a weird way. im not quite sure if i could explain it if i tried-- hes just an awful tangle of bad luck and bad decisions and even worse coping mechanisms that just makes a complete mess of who he is.

he does not have a character. which is to say, he is not a person. not narratively, at least. he's reactions to things around him, reactions to people around him-- everything about him is just completely detached from... Him. (walking tragedy, becoming a Role.) and, sure, a lot of it is that we just dont get the chance to see him due to the tight timing of those latter arcs, but it really does make you wonder... was he ever a person? did he ever get the chance? did he ever Live?

has he ever once really, truly smiled?

and. well. that's a complicated question, because the answer is. Maybe?

surprise! we have exactly One panel of him smiling as a kid! from one of the panels in gyomei's flashback. (hysterically, he only seems to have one bead on his necklace here, implying he got more somewhere, somehow, somewhen.) the question is just how genuine is this? how accurate? we just don't know. the mortifying ordeal of looking for character beats in. [ruffles pages around.] One panel of him smiling in the corner. sighs.

all that to say!! after all that, it really does feel like he just... hasn't been living. surviving, sure, but Living? everything we ever get to know of him is just, again, in response to something in an attempt to stay alive. and yeah, thats a good enough reason to live as any, but it really makes you wonder... what's he living for? what's he aiming for?

climbing the ranks to gain respect-- human and demon alike. but what then? is his reach for greater heights also just a response to protect himself? (nobody can take advantage of you if you take advantage of them first.) is this really what he wants? does he even know?

did he ever do anything other than try to get stronger? what is he like? does he have any hobbies? favorite places to be? friends? (ha.) who is he? has he ever once truly smiled? who is he?

maybe its that casting off of any of that that really marked his narrative descent into being a Demon.

and like. all that really does make me wonder: could it have been different? was this all inevitable from the start? was it just a series of bad decisions that lead to this? was he really as alone as he thought he was-- as alone as he tried to tell himself he was? did anyone notice? could anyone have noticed? a lot of people sure didn't-- in and out of canon.

he's a horrible person. there's really no way to think twice about it. the question is, could he have changed? (theres something to be said about him and inevitability.)

which isnt to say "maybe if someone was nice to him he would be nice back <:)"

it's to say "someone needs to shove him down several flights of stairs repeatedly until he gets the fucking hint."

the problem is that he's utterly incapable of taking accountability for his actions-- and responds to that by pinning the blame on others and completely alienating himself further in the process. he just refuses to acknowledge others as People-- they're either below him and not worth his time, or a threat he needs to one-up in any way possible. (Everything is some sort of conflict. he's always been alone, in his mind.)

what happens if something forces him to acknowledge others as People? breaks that view of the way things should be that he clings onto? that the people he's seen as "worthless" never really were? that those "threats" were often people just trying their best to make it-- and often trying to help Others make it as well? or in other cases... that they were often fearful people taking it out on others as an excuse to feel in control?

what happens if he understands what he's missing-- and where he's going?

would he be able to recognize that in himself? would he have it in him to overcome everything he is to turn away from the familiarity of how he thought the world worked and look to the unknown? does he think he deserves it? does he care? and crucially...

he's always been someone who had nothing to lose. what happens if, suddenly, he does?

[ihaveatheoryonthat]

This is based on this prompt from @dragonofthedepths. Fun fact: part of it was, in fact, written in a hospital. Not the greatest way to check your fic for accuracy, let me tell you.

---

Dawn had played a lot of video games with Barry in her youth. Games with magical fairy-inspired guides or mysterious waifs that teased a player with breadcrumbs of information as the plot progressed. Games in which the tutorial held your hand a little too much, or whose advice was obtuse to the point of uselessness.

She’d never expected to find herself smack dab in the middle of one such setting, aided by a ghost who couldn’t have clashed with the landscape any more if he’d tried-- but that was perfectly fine, since nobody else could see him.

It was counter to everything she’d learned from the media form when her quest ended-- with Volo and Giratina both defeated at the crest of the Spear Pillar-- and nothing happened on that front. Usually there was some kind of goodbye at the conflict’s end, whether tearful or long awaited, but no; Dawn continued to live her life in Hisui, dutifully filling out her Pokedex as Galaxy Team’s most haunted surveyor.

Not that she wanted the Conductor to leave her! He’d been the single biggest factor making her stay bearable-- someone to commiserate to in matters she couldn’t discuss openly, who’d stuck with her when Jubilife had wiped their hands of her, the only one who actually knew her name. It just… it didn’t resolve anything. They were no closer to understanding why she and the Nobles could see him when others couldn’t. They didn’t have any idea why he was in Hisui when everything about him screamed that he was from somewhere-- and likely, somewhen-- else entirely. They didn’t even have the first inkling who he was or what his name might have been. The most they could work from was a stringent adherence to the concept of ‘safety first’ and the railway jargon he couldn’t help but pepper into every other sentence.

Hence her name for him. He’d acted as her guide through Hisui, he talked like a rail enthusiast, he was the Conductor.

Or Ducky, if she was feeling… well, ducky.

And even now-- even with the Pokedex complete and Arceus defeated-- the status quo had not changed. Sure, she was back in her time of origin, but she wasn’t home; she was in a foreign land again, still visibly a fish out of water as she listened to the guiding words of a man nobody else could see.

At least back then she’d had a baseline as to the native Pokemon, but not here.

Fortunately, the Conductor was inexplicably knowledgeable whenever she asked after a Pokemon or started down a dead end. It had made sense in Hisui-- he’d spent two years as an invisible observer prior to her arrival, so of course he could offer helpful insights-- but didn’t add up in Unova. It seemed to indicate that he’d been here at some point, but, of course, he couldn’t confirm or deny.

They would get to the bottom of it, Dawn decided. Just as soon as they made it somewhere with a Pokemon Center.

Unfortunately, they’d landed in front of a remote shrine, and the only town they’d passed through thus far boasted limited services within what was clearly some manner of battle facility. While she didn’t doubt she could compete, fighting her way up a giant tree was not on Dawn’s agenda for the time being; the Conductor seemed oddly interested, though, which marked it as a site to revisit at a later point in time.

It could wait until she made it somewhere she could call home, though.

Eventually, after a bridge, a close call on a rocky cliff face, and being steered away from a forest, they made it to a city.

And not just a city-- a massive city! It was so far removed from anything in Hisui that it wasn’t even funny. Dawn didn’t even know if anywhere back in modern-day Sinnoh was of a similar scale. Maybe-- maybe-- it was roughly comparable to Veilstone, with its department store, or the bustling port of Sunyshore, but even compared to the most lively Sinnoan cities, this place still felt enormous.

It was overwhelming, and, even though he tried to help, the Conductor’s innate sense of direction led them not to the Pokemon Center Dawn had been hoping for, but some kind of public transport. She shouldn’t have been surprised; ever since they’d gotten here, he’d been able to drift through the landscape with a vague sense of recollection, but any specific requests were too far out of his ephemeral knowledge base.

And, so, she’d made a mistake. As she’d often done when studying-- or fleeing from-- Pokemon, she’d asked him to scout ahead, to see if he’d be able to find their end destination without the limits imposed by the physical world. Dawn hadn’t counted on just how much busier the city was, how much harder it might be to pick a person out of the omnipresent crowds or how damningly easy it would be to drift along them, unaware of what she was doing. Before she knew it, she wasn’t outside the row of shops they’d diverged before, but nestled among patrons of a fairground.

She didn’t know how she’d gotten here. She didn’t know how to get back.

She tried once, in vain, to call for her friend, but it was immediately swallowed by the din of modern life.

For the first time since that emphatic promise that she wouldn’t be alone in Hisui, Dawn wanted to cry.

---

The Conductor didn’t know much, but he knew proper procedure if one was lost in an unfamiliar environment. It hadn’t done him much good when he’d awoken in Hisui, absent everything that made a human human, but better late than never, he supposed.

He’d been unable to locate a Pokemon Center within a reasonable amount of time, and returned to where he’d split from Dawn to find her gone. Though he hated phasing through other people, he hadn’t had much of a choice as he sifted through the crowd, trying to work out where she might have been shunted to the side. When night began to fall and he hadn’t had any luck, he was forced to conclude that the strategy wouldn’t lead to any meaningful result; while common sense dictated that one was more likely to regroup where they’d lost their companion, he dearly hoped that Dawn would have better sense than to return here after dark.

So he’d done the next best thing: he gone back to seeking out a Pokemon Center. It was the one landmark they’d been looking for since arriving here, and what Dawn had specifically asked him to find for her. If it was so important, surely she’d look for it on her own.

If he could find it, there was a good chance he’d be able to locate her, as well.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t entirely sure what a Pokemon Center was. There was a lingering sense of asylum that he couldn’t explain, but he didn’t know what purpose it served, beyond being a place Dawn could theoretically contact her family. He’d been told he would know it by the red roof, and while the darkness didn’t make navigating by color alone ideal, the streets here were brighter than even Jubilife Village’s after sunset. While he hadn’t found success before, given enough time, he could do this.

He could and he did. But there was still no sign of Dawn.

After some observation, he concluded that a Pokemon Center was a place to rest and heal. With a further hour’s study, his understanding grew to include the fact that people-- specifically people who traveled with Pokemon-- could find shelter here for the night. It was entirely possible that Dawn really was here, and the late hour had forced her to find a place to sleep.

While there was nothing stopping him from searching to see if that was true, he absolutely could not, under any circumstance, trespass on another’s space uninvited.

And so he waited in the facility’s main body, watching the trickle of people who sought assistance in the deepest hour of night-- watching as it opened into a stream of bodies departing for the day. He stayed stationed there, where he could pick out every face as they exited the temporary lodging, until morning had well and truly passed.

With a sinking heart, he realized his companion might not have made it here.

He didn’t know what to do.

---

The last several days had been incredibly hectic for Emmet, in spite of the fact that he’d spent exactly half of one shift at Gear Station.

It could largely be chalked up to the fact that, midway through said shift, an anomaly had been reported along the green line. Isadore and Ramses had been sent out to survey the area, but only made it a handful of minutes before hastily calling in, reporting that Emmet needed to get over there, asap.

That was when fear had first clenched his heart, and it had yet to relinquish its grasp.

Because, when he’d arrived onsite, he’d found exactly what he’d afraid of: his brother was laying, limp and unresponsive, along the tunnel floor. In the moment, it hadn’t mattered that he looked none the worse for wear-- only that he was still and silent.

With the gentle rise and fall of Ingo’s chest, however, hope managed to slip through anxiety’s hold on Emmet.

That had been days prior. There had been no change in the time since, no indication that his twin would wake, and with doubt constricting his every move, Emmet was beginning to resent the space that tiny bit of hope occupied. He’d had days to pose every question imaginable, from the practical to the grandiose-- what was going on, why couldn’t his brother wake up, why would the universe return him only to keep them apart?

So when that same universe forwarded a message from the local precinct-- non-emergency, but concerning the outdated missing persons case-- Emmet had had enough of asking questions that might never see an answer. He tasked Haxorus with guard-dragon duty and marched down to meet the responding officer and her witness in the waiting room.

The girl was vaguely familiar-- in a way that neither he or Ingo would likely work out until they pooled their information-- but it seemed the same couldn’t be said for him. Her eyes widened the instant she realized who she was looking at and a hand gravitated toward her mouth. Officer Jenny didn’t touch as she steered her away, to an aside room, and Emmet had to grant her points for that, at least.

Dawn’s story was this: she’d been stranded in Unova with only a friend at her side. They’d been lost for days-- “kind of”-- and, upon reaching Nimbasa City, had gotten separated. The kicker was that, once she’d found safe harbor at the station and was asked to describe her missing companion, she’d described Ingo. Perfectly. She hadn’t used his name-- hadn’t even known his name-- but every detail she included matched.

Only that wasn’t possible. If she’d been in Unova for longer than a week, maybe, but for the first time in years, Emmet knew exactly where his brother was. He couldn’t have been wandering around with Dawn when he was out cold in a hospital bed. And how could they have been lost if it was Ingo with her? The two of them worked in regional transportation, for the dragons’ sake; the idea that he could’ve gotten lost so close to home was laughable.

When he voiced this skepticism, Dawn went quiet. Understandable-- he’d all but kneecapped her story-- but, instead of insisting, she took up the burden of asking questions. Why was he here, in a hospital? How long had his brother been here? And for what? Did they know why Ingo wouldn’t wake up?

He kept his smile in place, but was keenly aware of the edge to it. Emmet might have excused himself shortly thereafter, if Officer Jenny hadn’t stepped away to answer a call at the same moment.

“He’s not there.” Dawn said bluntly, as soon as the door shut. “That’s why-- it’s just his body. The rest of him was helping me.”

Emmet raised a single, doubtful brow.

Frustrated, she set a hand on either side of her bandana and briskly ruffled her hair, “That’s kind of what I thought when we met, you know? That he was a ghost. I guess I was kinda right.”

“A ghost.” Emmet echoed, and while there was still a dubious hint to the twist of his lips, his mind kicked into overdrive.

Dawn didn’t seem to catch onto the fact. “It didn’t explain a ton, but that was the only way some stuff made any sense. Ghost Pokemon can disappear and float through stuff, so-- uh?”

She stopped abruptly, waylaid by the pokeball Emmet set on the tabletop between them.

“This is Chandelure.” He said without preface, “She is Ingo’s partner Pokemon. She is also a ghost. I believe she may be able to test your theory.”

“Chandelure,” Dawn echoed, testing the syllables, wondering, “I think he remembered her. A little.”

There was a beat of silence. Dawn winced at her gaffe.

“Explain.”

Looking firmly off to the side, Dawn’s hands found one another, tangling together nervously, “That’s the other thing that made sense if he was a ghost. He didn’t really… know anything about himself? I didn’t even get his name until Officer Jenny showed me the missing person flier. The only things that ever came back were someone he battled next to and a fire type Pokemon. I thought it was just… part of being dead or something.”

“He is not dead,” Emmet snapped for the umpteenth time, more out of habit than because she needed to be told.

“Yeah,” She said, immediately, but with an unexpected softness to her voice, “Yeah, I think you’re right.”

---

He hadn’t meant to become so thoroughly misplaced. Truthfully, he hadn’t.

It was just… there was a Pokemon.

That didn’t explain it satisfactorily; there were Pokemon everywhere, of all shapes and sizes, but not like this. Some rang a distant bell, but this one-- this one was so achingly familiar. The wrought iron limbs and perfect globe of its body, the flickering purple flame at its core-- he’d suffered a vague recollection of it, once, but the experience had been difficult to weather.

Parts seemed… different, but not necessarily wrong, and the Conductor had found himself trailing after it without quite meaning to. Like all others, the Pokemon didn’t acknowledge his presence-- however, its flame grew subtly brighter as they lingered together, and with time, more appeared. Not lanterns, like the first Pokemon, but smaller, waxy white bodies that shared the same gentle glow.

The Conductor had no recollection of these Pokemon, but he was certain one of their ilk had been important to him. Precious, even.

Slowly, the midday sun waned, and with it the afternoon he’d wasted. He knew he should depart immediately-- he still had to locate Dawn-- but at the same time, he didn’t know how to turn away from something that resonated so strongly with his missing memory.

Before he knew it, dusk had begun to fall.

It was hard to notice beyond the haze that settled over his mind.

---

The instant she began to manifest, Chandelure was off like a shot. Without a word of command or clarification, she phased through the wall and, when the humans-- tragically solid-- didn’t immediately follow, cried from somewhere out in the waiting room.

For his part, Emmet had already leapt up and was reaching for the door, but Dawn spent a moment maneuvering around the side room’s furniture.

The ghost barely waited for them to catch up, swiveling impatiently in the air until she’d deemed them ‘close enough’ and resumed her mad dash through the city. It was only by virtue of having lived in Nimbasa for so long that Emmet had even the slightest edge on navigation, and, frankly, he was a little surprised that Dawn was managing to keep up so well.

Even when properly lit, the side streets could be treacherous past nightfall, but Chandelure kept them safe twice over: her light illuminating any hidden faults in the walkways, and her single minded determination scaring any potential encounters away before they could challenge, question or mug either of the humans charging after her.

Chandelure only began to slow as they reached the edges of the park beyond Gear Station. She started to twirl in the air again and, for a moment, it seemed that it might have been a signal that they’d arrived, but as she drew higher into the air, it became apparent that she was taking a moment to reorient herself, to pinpoint her station now that they’d crossed the bulk of the distance. Then she froze, shrieked in outrage, and took off again, toward a cluster of slightly-distant, twinkling lights.

Litwick, Emmet realized as the shapes grew beyond their pastel flames, led by a single Lampent. Quite suddenly, he understood Chandelure’s umbrage.

While the folktales were greatly exaggerated, they were built upon a kernel of truth: feral Litwick led people astray in order to feed upon their energy, wasting time weaving convoluted circles while their prey wasted away. And the Lampent… well, perhaps its presence shouldn’t have been a surprise, given the circumstance. They were, after all, renowned for haunting cities in search of fuel.

The younger Pokemon scattered with Chandelure’s furious arrival, but the secondary form was slightly more stubborn; it crackled back, indignant, refusing to bow to its fully evolved kin.

And between them was the object of their animosity.

Even more ethereal than the ghost Pokemon, he knelt on the ground, shoulders slumped from exhaustion as he raised his head to look from one to the other. Neither of the lanterns acknowledged the motion, fixated on one another as they were, their hissing raising from a simmer into the boiling keen of a kettle.

The Lampent flared brighter in challenge, and what might have been the dimmest flicker of recognition was burnt away from the form below.

That would not stand.

“Chandelure,” Emmet called, and she immediately shifted her arms, anticipating his orders.

If the Lampent wouldn’t depart on its own, they would simply have to make it leave. Disruptive passengers and sore losers could only hope to find themselves ejected from the platform with merciless efficiency-- so if her Shadow Ball landed just a heartbeat before the directions could feasibly reach her, if the attack seemed ever so slightly more vicious than usual, what could be said, other than that she was verrry good at her job?

Lampent-- conscious only because Chandelure wanted it gone-- fled as soon as it regained its bearings.

In the crisis’s wake, neither trainer or Pokemon seemed quite sure how to proceed-- so it was Dawn, more accustomed to dealing with this phenomena, who stepped up.

Or, rather, ran up and fell gracelessly to her own knees.

“Conductor?” She asked, waving a hand in front of the spectral image of his twin, “Ducky?”

“Ingo.” Emmet said, more firmly, and the man in question blinked rapidly, trying to clear his vision.

Following Dawn’s lead, he knelt down so they were on the same level. Chandelure looked between them-- the two of them, oddly, Emmet and Dawn-- and gave a low, uncertain whistle as she lowered her hovering height.

Though they were mere feet apart, her searching eyes couldn’t seem to land on her trainer.

As he looked back to the apparition before him, Emmet found himself on the cusp of reaching out and had to fight the instinct, clasping his hands together to still them-- but the motion, small though it was, seemed enough to draw Ingo’s attention. With a bleary, barely-there focus, his eyes fixed, first, on the folded hands, and then on their owner’s face.

“Emmet?” He managed, so faint that even a whisper might overtake it.

Heart pounding, all but strangled by the last-ditch effort of fear digging in its nails, Emmet beamed at him.

Woozy but determined, Ingo veered closer. One fist uselessly braced against the ground, he leaned into his twin’s space and reached up, hesitating only when the reality of the situation seemed to dawn on him.

There was a small, almost disappointed, “Ah,” and Emmet decided to hell with it, unlacing his hands to meet the gesture, intangible though its terminal was.

Chandelure let out a muted chime, looking from Emmet to where his hand lingered in the air, and then the same distance opposite him. Her eyes were still unable to hone in on her human, but she was trying. She was trying so hard.

They would fix this, so she could finally see him again. So Emmet could finally hold him again. So he could finally live again.

---

Haxorus’s tail gave several restrained wags as they returned to the hospital room. Gentle though the thumps were, Emmet still grimaced on behalf of whomever happened to occupy the space below them and hurried over to her, ruffling her snout and praising her for keeping watch.

He wasn’t sure how, given that his brother didn’t currently match up with the physical plane, but he was keenly aware of Ingo hovering by his shoulder, curiously looking her up and down. It was difficult to fault him for honing in on the six foot tall dragon but, at the same time, the thought that he didn’t notice his own body laying half a room away was… amusing, to a point.

It was less amusing to consider where the inattentiveness might have stemmed from-- the pack of ghosts siphoning off his life force, or whatever had reduced him to this state in the first place.

Emmet recalled Haxorus and turned to where their attention was needed, only to come to an abrupt halt when the motion put him nose to nose with Ingo, who startled and moved back.

“Can I help you?” He asked, entertained, to an answer of averted eyes and sheepish, “Not used to anyone else seeing me...”

That would certainly be a track they’d need to clear, in time. For now, however, their task was making it a possibility in the first place.

Where Ingo had failed to spot the room’s focal point, Dawn had not; she idled at the foot of the bed awkwardly, nibbling on her bottom lip. Every so often, she’d tear her eyes away to glance at the both of them, as if reminding herself that this was legitimate. Emmet offered a level smile and stepped nearer, assuming his usual vigil. Automatically, he took the hand laying atop the blanket, exactly where he’d let it rest before.

Almost apprehensive, Ingo drew nearer, inspection of his own body cut short by frequent looks in Emmet’s direction.

Finally, he said, “We’re twins?”

There was a beat of silence.

“Are you just realizing this?”

He opened his mouth to little effect, and snapped it shut in favor of pointing-- to Emmet with one hand and his own still form with the other.

“Yes,” Emmet said, voice deliberately flat to mask his amusement, “I have been made well aware.”

“Give him a break,” Dawn said, and in spite of her words, she was clearly trying to tamp down on a grin of her own, “Ghosts can’t use mirrors.”

Ingo ducked his head, embarrassed and-- perhaps simply to give himself an out-- reached for the hand in Emmet’s grasp. He vanished instantly; for just a heartbeat, Emmet’s anxiety gained ground again, but then there was a sputtering cough and the limp hand instinctively began to curl.

“I had forgotten about breathing.” Ingo wheezed, just in time for Chandelure to complicate the matter by knocking the breath out of him.

“That is concerning.” Emmet said, and then proceeded to do nothing as she kept him pinned, secure in the knowledge that her cheer meant nothing was actually wrong.

Chandelure, spectral angel that she was, spent only a few moments there, then looked up at Emmet with big eyes-- globs of luminous lantern oil slowly arcing away with her movement-- and inched herself to the side, out of her trainer’s one-armed hug. The free hand made to follow her, until its owner followed the ghost’s line of sight.

When, instead, it diverted toward him, Emmet seized it and wasted no time pulling his twin upright, into the gentlest hug he could muster. It was hard to maintain. The rapidly loosening bindings around his heart had to go somewhere, and his arms desperately wanted to pick up the slack, to hold on and never let go-- but stubbornly, carefully, he did his best to match the infinitely more welcome pressure around his own chest. It was… faint, and he didn’t entirely succeed at reining in his enthusiasm, but it was also perfect.

A weight rested against his shoulder and he immediately turned into it, pressed a kiss to the short grey hair. Whispered a near-frantic, “Thank the gods.”

There was a soft snort against his neck, echoed by an audible scoff somewhere else in the room. It didn’t escape his notice, but he just didn’t care enough to pursue the point right now. He had much more important matters to attend to.

Three things happened in rapid succession, at that point: the limbs tangling around him went slack, there was a brief, startled, “Oops,” and, before Emmet had the wherewithal to do more than tilt his head up, he caught a glimpse of Ingo-- firmly back outside of his body-- leaning into place again.

Situated as they were, it was impossible to read his expression, but the embarrassment was clear in his tone as he rasped, “I will… endeavor to prevent that from happening again.”

Internally batting away fear’s second swipe, Emmet patted his brother’s back. “A project for another day. I will be right here to assist.”

A beat of silence, and then a heavy exhale. It could have been from reacclimating to physicality, but something in the back of Emmet’s mind told him it wasn’t; it was a veritable sigh of relief. He wondered if he’d done the same, before, when he’d finally had his twin back in his arms. He wondered if he’d been just as obvious to Ingo.

Emmet only let go when Chandelure began to get impatient-- which meant it had been substantially longer than even his time-table-oriented mind had caught-- and his brother reluctantly leaned back, only mollified when she clambered into his lap. One hand cradling her globe, he looked up to the foot of the bed and quirked what could be called a smile.

“Hi, Ingo!” Dawn chirped, moisture still gathered shamelessly in her eyes, “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

“Hello, Dawn,” He echoed, tired, but voice warm, content. Though he didn’t look, he subconsciously gave Emmet’s hand a squeeze, “It’s nice to finally be met.”

[songofdefiance]

thinking about like... yearning.

not for another person or a thing, but for yourself. the you that you know exists somewhere or somewhen, but is beyond your reach right now. you feel like there's a wall between you and them, and you wish you were them so badly that it hurts.

it feels... like having restless energy, i guess? for me, at least. but there's nowhere to put it. or maybe that's the lie my brain tells me.

... or maybe i just need to go to bed.

[moonshadowed]

Sam’s sitting in a coffee shop in the middle of anywhere for what felt like the fiftieth time. He’s not sure exactly when or where he is, but it feels like somewhere and somewhen a little closer to home. If he closes his eyes and thinks real hard, he can almost pretend that it is, at least for a minute. 

That is, except for Al over his shoulder, leaning up against the counter in a bad leisure suit and looking bored. Very bored. 

He sighs, leaning his head on his hand, enjoying the rare moment of relaxation. He can’t think of the last time he just sat and watched people go by without having to put on the performance of his life or saving somebody else’s.

A pale form weaves between the tables, silver eyes lowered, hair falling around her shoulders. He straightens.

“Al?” Sam murmurs. “Al, there’s nobody else from the project here, is there? Just you and me?”

“What?” Al repeats, crossing his legs. “Of course not, Sam, you’ve cornered the market on crazy. Now shut up and eat.” 

He finds himself standing.

“Wha—Sam!” Al yelps, indignant. “Sam, get back here!”

“I gotta talk to her, Al. I’ve seen her before.” 

“Sam, we’ve talked about this. If you’re thinkin’ about hookin’ up with one ‘a your old girlfriends—“ 

“No, I mean, I’ve seen her leaping before.”

“Porca puttana, Sam,” Al moans, smacking his palm to his forehead before raking his hand down his face. 

He doesn’t stop to listen, instead following @fateprotected​ until she comes to a stop on one of the side streets. He looks at her, getting the sense, somehow, that she sees him. Really him, not whatever poor guy’s body he’s managed to hotwire this time. Though, he hasn’t looked in a mirror yet. Maybe he somehow managed to leap into himself.

“Who are you?” Sam asks, voice soft and eyes searching hers, one hand reaching out to touch her, but stopping in midair as if he’s afraid. Maybe he is, a little. “Why are you following me? How are you following me?” 

[beardedhandstoadshark]

Have you ever been a fan of a creator or artist but later lost interest in their work? If so, what do you think caused you to lose interest?

...does Matpat of Game Theory of TheGameTheorists count? Because if it does, that might be the biggest one (that isn't from "whoops turns out they're sending nudes to 10y olds!") . Somewhen between:

failing basic 9th grade physics (fortnite comet video),

trying to sell basic wiki articles or regular lore so wellknown its the series' biggest meme as some kind of shocking discovery (kirby vid that never got a 2nd part probs for that reason),

allegedly having pretty shitty bts working conditions at the channel at least when I still watched it (or at least they dumped everything on Austin of The SCIENCE! ...of, aka the (until last year) other show on that channel everyone keeps forgetting about)

And also. Just. The entirety of the first Petscop "theory" (to say it kindly: That sure Is...A Choice for a thumbnail dealing with a topic Like That in the video. Just...dude.)

Anyways, somewhere along the lines of incidents like that hapening, and they kept happening, it just. Started feeling weird to watch those vids. So after a while I lost interest in watching Game/Film Theory, only sticking around for The SCIENCE! ...of, and the moment my man finally left, I did the unthinkable and actually for once clicked unsubscibe.

Was a fan for a solid decade, predated even the fnaf theories, channel is probs a major reason for my love of hidden details in media; wish that guy the best cuz he did recently quit to focus on family which is admirable, I'm sure the new guys' gonna do his job great, and the intro music's always gonna have a nostalgic place in my heart, but yeah. It was a long and fun ride, but just like with rollerocasters, after too many rounds and with shitty fast food in the stomach, it's bound to turn into nausea if you continue going in. ...Uhh. Anyways. That's my answer lol.

...

AN ANON ASK ANSWER!

Thanks for reading!

XD

[rosereflects]

12/24/2023

Broken, confused, and tired. Today’s dose of hallucinogen induced existentialism was especially filling. I have had a change in (perspective?), difficult to say how severe. I saw myself as I truly am, sort of, and it cost me. As I am now, as I feel now, I am running out of time. I cannot imagine existing much longer. I am just so tired of pretending I’m not insane. I am tired of others pretending this is all normal. I did not ask to exist, why can’t I at least understand it?

I’ve constructed a fantasy in my head. It keeps me going for the time being. I imagine that somewhere, somewhen there is someone or something that will understand what I am. I cannot be the only one living in this sorry condition. I imagine you reading my words and understanding. I imagine you hearing the desperate cries for help hidden behind the ink. I imagine sending you letters and receiving yours as well. They’ll make no sense, just like my own. Perhaps they’ll be precisely crafted, paying close mind to detail as you aim to create a piece of art, for no real reason than you wanting to at that very moment. Perhaps it’ll be a mess of words that you just barely managed to scribble on the page as your poor hands could not keep up with the pace of your mind. I imagine you standing before me, finally, and I’ll look in your eyes and say “I don’t get it”, and you’ll reply “Neither do I”, and we’ll laugh and cry together, finally, yes finally. And it will have been worth it. “What will we do now?” You’ll ask. “I don’t know” I’ll truthfully reply. And that will not make us happy, but neither then will we be sad.

I do realize just how ridiculous this sounds. I know that most likely I’ll die alone, without understanding, and without being understood. Yet the hope that there is another like me and that we might meet prior to me losing what remains of my mind keeps me motivated, though I’m not sure for how much longer that will be. I will thus devote my energy to writing the story, best I can, in the hopes that you read it some day. For you, I will live. I only hope you will find me in time. I really, sincerely, and truly hope so.

-Rose

[boosterrs]

VERSE ONE / MAIN VERSE : meet booster gold, the greatest superhero you've never heard of! after coming back from the 25th century and spending years trying to make a name for himself as a popular superhero and failing, booster is enlisted by one rip hunter to protect the timeline & multiverse from an array of threats. a responsibility some would question giving to booster given his reputation as a "lightweight." and second rate hero, only in it for his own gain, however this line of thinking only helps for booster to protect the timeline and do his job properly, as not only can he not tell anyone what he does, but who would believe him anyway?

VERSE TWO / JLI : fresh from a fantastical time four hundred years in the future after fucking up his own life, michael jon carter, also known as booster gold is the tall, blonde sell-out belonging to justice league international. the public love him while his co-workers and peers largely only see him as a joke but booster thinks he's living his best life, though sometimes it'd be nice if other superheroes took him a little bit more seriously.. or at least if skeets could be less sarcastic.

VERSE THREE / BAD BOOS : michael's never really had the easiest hand in life, his father left when he was young to persue his one true love of gambling while leaving his wife and children behind to fend for themselves. as such, money was always a struggle despite how much michael's mother worked. then, suddenly she grew sick and michael and his sister were informed that she could be saved, if they had the money for the treatment and of course, neither of them did. but michael was not going to let that stop him. he started out rigging his own games, throwing them in a bid to make enough money to pay for his mother's treatment. then, then things escalated. he went from throwing games to holding money, to running deliveries then eventually to being involved in thefts and it wasn't all to help his poor, sick mother anymore who had rejected him and any further help from him once she found out about his secret. during a job that took him to a museum in metropolis that'd went wrong, michael had to think of a way to escape capture by the police and think of it fast! fortunately he'd found himself in just the right place and right time to find a time sphere that could take him not only somewhere else, but somewhen and after stealing the security robot that'd been following him around, michael did just that, landing in the late 20th century.

VERSE FOUR / VAMPIRES : uh-oh! something has went horribly wrong! the planet has suddenly, almost overnight been overrun with a vampire plague which has shown no discrimination in taking heroes, villains and regular people. the undead army grows by the day, booster is quickly running out of friends to rely on as he tries and scrambles in the how of fixing this whole mess! he was only gone for an hour!

[afaimscorner]

The Flash 9x05

Well, that was the underwhelming conclusion to Eric Wallace’s worst “graphic novel” yet. I mean, he always runs out of time with his strange “Oh, no, we can’t use more than a handful episode for a graphic novel because the Mirror Verse Arc was too long and did not work out because of this” thought-process, but this one did make even less sense than the Finale of Season 8 and that is saying something.

Like:

+ By this point the show has kissed anykind of continuity goodbye, but you know: back after Crisis in Season 6 it was said that Gorilla City is now on Earth Prime. Was Cisco lying to us or are we to assume that Gorilla City is here but the sentinient gorillas for some reason aren’t?

+ Did they not say just three eps ago that Ryan Wilder did vanish? Where to and why? And why did she show up at all in this episode, if she was not involved with the Red Death Storyline before? Would it have hurt to have her say anything about her actual whereabouts?

+ They are expecting us that Ryan, who never even meet any of the Superfriends, is now meeting once a month with Kara, Alex and Nia? Why is Kelly not invited (or *sigh* LL for that matter)?

+ Maybe I missed something but what ever happend to the Rogues in this episode? Captain Boomerang, Murmur and Fiddler just - what?-  split at one point because they weren’t needed anymore? Or are they still out there as a gang causing chaos and everyone is just fine with this?

+ Eric Wallace’s logic of decent human behaviour and what is considered normal struck again with Joe basically taking Jenna from Cecile and ordering her to only see her (and him) on the weekends. Because you know no crime ever happens on the weekend and Team Flash does only need Cecile five days a week and will totally not die when their most powerful member is not at hand on a sunday because the father of her child has ordered her that this is family time, but she is also not allowed to live with him and her child for the rest of the week. (Yes Jenna is totally not going to come out with a damage out of this situation). And of course everyone is acting like this is totally normal. Bty where is Cecile supposed to live now? Alone in the House? Are Barry and Iris moving in there instead with her? What about the Loft?

+ That whole arc would not have happend if Barry would have had the decency to check in on Grodd somewhen in the last three years! But as we know by now the Earth Prime Barry Allen forgets about his friends on a regular basis, so no surprise there.

+ What was wrong with the writers of this episode anyways? Five minutes after Iris tells her you can be useful as a normal person Khion discovers that she has powers. Five minutes after Barry tells Joe he is useful for the team and he needs him in CC, Joe tells Cecile he is taking Jenna with him to bring her up somewhere else and that Team Flash only needs Cecile.

* If Iris gets pregnant three months too soon, the baby actually won’t be Nora, just saying. So either Barry was wrong or they just erased the lastest version of Nora from existence.

+ Also, let’s just say it at least once: Barry did not need the Rogue Squad. Cecile, Allegra and Kramer are so  powerful  that the city would not even need him for anything, if they would just explore their powers properly or just - you know - actually use them! (Hence the Meta-Cuffs for Kramer in the most akward moment of the episode).

On the plus side: No more overacting from Javica in this episode. See, a director can make a difference.

But this sadly is not enough to make this “graphic novel” anything other than a desaster.

[29pageshomestuckeveryday]

Homestuck, page 440

==>

She's not finished with this yet! Jeez, cut her some slack.

Maybe you could go bug someone somewhere else for a while? Or at the very least, somewhen else.

Author commentary:

Reader: click on winnie the poop 2's walkthrough so hard that all your wishes come true and you are able to read it.

Homestuck has a very high word count. Close to that of a fairly thick novel trilogy. But the frightening thing is, there are a lot of words embedded in things like Flash files, or GIF image files, as the FAQ notes like this were, and thus don't even count toward the word total. Microsoft Word can't count words that are stuck inside image files. Yeah, way to solve THAT problem, BILL GATES.

Rose is easily flustered when she can't type in purple.

[sapphiresands-moved]

Starter call | @bishonenprince​

“The ocean? Did I go wrong somewhere...?”

Somewhen.

The air felt nice here at least. Islands seemingly clear, and peaceful. The issue was he didn’t mean to arrive here. Did something interfere during his travel?

Sevren figured he should make the most of it. There was little use in panicking. Instead, he gazed around, finding a nearby figure in view, who was soon approached.

“I know this is going to sound odd, but!”

“Where is this?”

[cuubism]

After Life

Alec doesn't know how to live in a world without Magnus's soul in it.

(MCD)

AO3

-

Magnus isn’t sure if he believes in an afterlife.

He believes in the existence of the hell realms, of course. He’s been there, he’s from there, in a sense. And he believes in heaven to the extent that he knows angels exists and they must live somewhere. But he doesn’t know if he believes that mortal—or at least non-divine—souls go to either of those places. He’s never seen any souls in Edom, unless, perhaps, they turn into demons. Perhaps heaven is different, he doesn’t know.

He also recognizes that there are things outside human understanding. He isn’t so arrogant as to think that something can’t exist because he hasn’t experienced it. So Magnus is open to the existence of an afterlife. But believing something is possible and believing something actually exists are two different things.

He also isn’t sure if he believes that consciousness carries on after death. He’d like to believe it, it’s a comforting thought. But wanting something doesn’t make it real.

Try as he might, Magnus can’t quite make himself believe in any sort of afterlife, not even for his own comfort. He doesn’t know if it exists.

But apparently, he’s going to find out.

“What are you thinking about?”

“What do you think?”

“You know he’s still out there, right? Somewhere.”

“…Is he?”

Alec has had the foundations of his understanding of the world shaken many times. He supposes it’s a natural result of growing up in an insular culture where children are repressed and lied to. He would have thought nothing else could shake him so much at this point.

He was wrong.

“I thought I believed in something,” he whispers to Izzy. He shifts on the couch, pressing his thighs into it to find some kind of grounding. The loft feels so foreign right now. Alec never realized how drafty the building is, Magnus must have taken care of that magically. “We were brought up to believe in something. What if they were wrong, like they were about everything else?”

“The Clave doesn’t get to decide what’s true about this,” Izzy says, voice incredibly gentle. She has her hands wrapped around his, but Alec barely feels it. “It’s either true, or it isn’t. Just like anything about the world. What do you believe?”

“I don’t think it’s that simple,” Alec says. His gaze blurs on his ring and he resists the urge to take it off just so he won’t be destroyed all over again every time he looks at it. “Magnus didn’t believe it.”

Doesn’t. Didn’t. He thinks that’s the first time he’s said that.

Izzy’s lips press together. “He didn’t? I would have thought, with magic and everything—”

Alec shakes his head. “He definitely didn’t believe in some good people versus bad people system. Said that was way too simplistic.”

“Well, of course Magnus would think outside of those boundaries.”

“I asked him if he believed in something else and he said, ‘I want to believe it, but I’m not sure that we could be so lucky.’”

Izzy doesn’t seem to know what to say to that. Alec frees his hands and takes a sip of his coffee. It’s bitter; they’ve run out of sugar because Alec never realized Magnus just magicked it full.

“What if believing it makes it real?” he asks, voice dry. “And it does exist and Magnus is just—”

He presses a hand to his mouth, suddenly ill, and can’t finish the sentence.

Magnus had always thought there was either somewhere (or maybe multiple somewheres), or there was nowhere. But now he chides himself for his binary thinking, because where he is now is definitely not somewhere, but he doesn’t think it’s quite nowhere either. If it was nowhere, then he shouldn’t exist at all, should he?

Then again, he thinks somewhere might have a different definition now. His mind feels all upside down and turned inside out, but he’s pretty sure somewhen feels more accurate.

Alec? he thinks. He left Alec alone, didn’t he? He didn’t mean to. He didn’t mean to.

He wishes he could have Alec now, but he doesn’t know what having means in a not-place like this. Having requires being. What does being mean here?

Being means going forward, Magnus thinks. Being means going around again.

He wishes he could feel the sun on his skin.

Every couple of months after his death, Magnus went to Ragnor’s grave. Usually, he went alone, though he knew Cat had her own rituals. He wanted to be able to break down privately.

Ragnor was buried outside his country house in Yorkshire. His grave marker was a small black stone with an emerald pressed into it, which Magnus had enchanted so it was impossible to steal—though he was sure several mundanes had tried and come away with scorched palms. Kneeling in the warm soil before the stone, summer wind tickling the back of his neck, Magnus pressed his hands to the last marker of his vanished friend.

“I want to know where you went,” he whispered to the ground. “You have to be somewhere, don’t you? Seven hundred years of knowledge can’t just disappear. It violates the laws of thermodynamics.”

Magnus received no answer but the call of a bird in a nearby oak tree.

“Then again, it’s impossible to say if knowledge has any mass. Or any energy to it. If it does, perhaps it doesn’t disappear. Perhaps it merely transmutes into something else. Oh, you would have loved this puzzle, wouldn’t you?”

The ground was silent. Magnus imagined countless worms and insects and subterranean creatures devouring Ragnor’s body. The thought didn’t bother him as much as he’d thought it might. Most warlocks didn’t believe in embalming or preserving the body after death. They took a more naturalist approach, as Magnus and Cat had done with Ragnor. Magic was mostly composed of energy, and dissipated when its wielder died, but some vestiges remained in the body. Returning it to the earth ensured that the area would bloom for generations. Magnus found some peace in the thought of this spot being overrun by ivy and trees and wildflowers until Ragnor’s house and even his headstone were consumed by his own personal forest.

“If you are somewhere, you owe it to me to try to communicate,” he continued. “Consider it recompense for that time I stopped you from testing your ‘magical wings’ off the edge of a one-hundred-foot cliff. I was very irritated that you did that, by the way. That’s the kind of thing I’m supposed to do, not you.”

If Magnus pressed his fingertips into the soil, he could feel Ragnor’s magic feeding the nearby roots, accelerating their growth, even if his friend, as an entity, was gone. He supposed that, in itself, was a kind of afterlife.

“Speak to me if you can,” he said, and then stood, dusting the grave dirt off his knees. He conjured a sapling and carefully planted it in the shadow of the headstone. This tree, he thought, would remember Ragnor. Even if, at some point in the future, Magnus was gone.

“Can you leave me alone with him for a moment?”

“Of course. Let us know when you’re ready.”

“…Magnus, I— I’m sorry, I don’t know how to do this. You don’t… deserve this. Any of this. You deserve to be here. In our bed at home, or drinking your favorite wine, or— fuck, even sitting in the park with me right now. Not buried.

“It’s so nice today. You would love it. Warm spring air. All the flowers are blooming. I wish you were here with me right now. I don’t know why I’m saying that to you. It’s not your fault.

“I would give anything for you to be here right now. Even just for one minute. I’d give my whole life for one minute…

“Anyway, I hope you approve of this choice. I know you always liked this tree.

“…It took me forever to decide whether to— to— to let you keep your ring with you or not. I was going to, at first, but then I imagined you underground with it forever and I started kind of… panicking. Plus, I imagined what you’d say and I knew you’d think it was foolish to bury it when your— your body isn’t really you anyway. But I wanted you to have something. So… I kept yours, and I gave you mine. I’m wearing it now. It’s nice to have it to hold onto.

“I still don’t know what I believe in terms of where you… are. Or whether you are. I just… I hope you’re safe. I hope— I kind of hope you don’t remember any of this cuz I don’t want you to be in pain. I want you to just— to just— be. If you can.

“I miss you.”

“…Alec? Are you still out here?”

“Hmm? Izzy?”

“You’re still sitting out here? It’s getting dark.”

“Yeah, I— yeah.”

“Alright. Do you want me to sit with you?”

“I— okay. Yeah.”

“…”

“Thank you.”

“What did Magnus want done with his body?”

Something breaks in Alec’s brain when Izzy asks him this question. Magnus’s body. They shouldn’t do anything with Magnus’s body. Even if Alec knows that Magnus is no longer in it.

“I don’t know,” he says dully. He does know, though. They hadn’t talked about it in such explicit terms, had never expected that Magnus would go, but the topic had fallen into their conversation once.

Alec had been struggling with the idea of Max being interred in the City of Bones. They didn’t even respect him enough to include him in their idea of heaven, he’d hissed. They don’t deserve to have him.

That’s not our only option, Magnus had said, carefully laying a hand on his arm. Did you know that warlocks, generally speaking, don’t practice embalming, or use mausoleums or any other permanent way of preserving the dead?

Alec had relaxed into his touch, the first thread of hope winding through him. He’d been under the impression that even most mundanes embalmed their dead, or at least cremated them. Alec couldn’t stand the idea of Max burning, either. What do you do instead? he’d asked.

And Magnus had told him about the earth, and how the body returned to it. How magic fed and restored the ground. I’m not sure if it works with angelic magic, he’d admitted. But I don’t see why not.

It was far outside his culture, but Alec had far preferred the idea of relinquishing Max back to nature, rather than forcing him to remain in some capacity.

I’m not sure if my family will agree, he’d said, but I’ll try.

“He’d want to be buried naturally,” Alec tells Izzy, however much it pains him to imagine, however much he wants to drag Magnus back into his arms and hold him—illogical though that is. “Warlocks believe in being returned to the earth. Cat can help us make sure it’s done properly.”

“Okay.” Izzy seems relieved. “Do you know where?”

He has no way of knowing Magnus’s preference, now. “Central Park,” he says, “unless Cat says he really wanted to be somewhere else. He loved New York and— and I want to be able to visit him.”

“Pretty sure that’s illegal,” Izzy says, with a small, grim smile. “I’ll prep some strong glamours.”

Once, not long after they’d been married, Alec almost died.

Of course, he’d almost died before in his life, but, even on that horrible night when the Owl had plunged an arrow into his heart, Magnus had at least been able to call Cat to help before the situation became truly dire.

This was much worse. Magnus sat in the infirmary for days, praying to gods he didn’t believe in. Praying to demons he did believe in. Praying to angels that wanted him dead.

At one point, Alec crashed, and, having nothing else to do, Magnus prayed harder. He prayed for Alexander’s safe return from— from wherever he had gone. Or, if he couldn’t have that, then at least his safe arrival there.

He didn’t know where there was, or if there was a there. He had never quite believed in a there. But in the moment, when his brain was conjuring images of his husband smashed into irreversible pieces, he clung to it. He deserved peace somewhere, didn’t he?

Not that the universe had ever seemed to care much about what Alec deserved.

Afterwards, Magnus forced him into a long vacation. Not that Alec had much of a choice. He could barely walk, never mind work. Magnus hovered shamelessly over him, poking and prodding at his injury like it might split apart again if he took his eyes off it, taking Alec angels knew where.

Eventually, they went for a tentative walk in Central Park. Alec leaned heavily on Magnus’s arm, but refused all of Magnus’s offers to take them back home. He needed the fresh air, he said. Magnus supposed that was reasonable when one had come so close to losing air entirely.

When he got too tired to continue, they stumbled over to a stand of nearby trees, collapsing in the shadow of the tallest one—a massive elm that must have been almost as old as New York itself, its branches a zigzagging canopy of grey bark, roots a web that stretched out all around them. If Magnus concentrated, he could feel them, alive under the ground. Reaching, anchoring, feeding the trees around them.

As Alec settled against him, leaning his head tiredly on Magnus’s shoulder, Magnus leaned back against the ancient trunk and tipped his head up to look up at the leaves. They were so thick and vibrant above him that the sky was nearly blocked out entirely, cool shadow eclipsing the summer day. He felt cocooned, almost. Protected.

“I like this tree,” Alec murmured into his neck, just as Magnus was thinking it.

“It’s very old,” Magnus said, touching the bark with his hand.

“Just like you,” Alec said, grinning, and Magnus huffed, affronted.

“Teasing me? You’re the one who married this old thing, you know.”

Alec’s grin never faltered. “I know.” He looked up at the tree’s endless canopy. “I wonder what it’s seen.”

What, indeed.

Alec was still looking up at the tree. “You seem rather enamored with this tree,” Magnus teased. “Should I worry about being replaced?”

Alec laughed. “Who could ever replace you?”

His words put a lump in Magnus’s throat. He held Alec closer, pressing his face into his husband’s neck.

Who, indeed.

Alec had always liked to sit up on Magnus’s roof, looking up at the sky. It felt so freeing, being above it all. Magnus would always sit with him, even though he’d surely seen better skies, better stars than this.

It was always easier for Alec to speak up here.

“When Max died,” he said slowly, hand entwined with Magnus’s as they lay on the rooftop floor, “I think I lost myself for a bit.”

Magnus squeezed his hand. It was Alec’s sole point of warmth in the cold night. “I remember that.”

“It wasn’t even the grief,” Alec continued. “Well, I guess it was the grief, but not in the way I thought. I missed him, but more than that I couldn’t stop thinking about where he went. I thought, if I knew he was somewhere, then I could figure out a way to move forward. I understood then why so many mundanes are so insistent in their belief in something after.”

“Shadowhunters don’t believe in heaven?” Magnus asked, surprised.

“They do, but not in the way mundanes do,” Alec said. He was still looking up at the sky, instead of at Magnus. Post-rainstorm, it was an unusually clear night for New York, and a few stars were twinkling above them despite the haze of light pollution. “They believe that heaven is a reward bestowed on Shadowhunters who distinguish themselves in battle.”

Magnus finished the thought. “And Max never even got the chance to fight. God, Alec. That sounds like an awful theology.”

“Like anything else the Clave does, it was designed to make more people sacrifice themselves in our eternal war against evil.” Alec pressed his lips together. “I always hated that idea. It took me a long time to figure out why.”

“It’s unfair,” Magnus said. “Unjust.”

“Isn’t the universe unfair, though?”

“I suppose so. Sometimes I want to have more faith in it,” Magnus said. Alec finally looked over at him to find he was already looking in Alec’s direction, his gaze soft and melancholy. “It’s always hard to say if it deserves it, though.”

Alec squeezed his hand. Looking at Magnus always made his sadness recede a little bit, no matter how heavy it was. “What was that thing you once said? ‘Everyone deserves a chance to prove themselves better than we think they are?’”

Magnus smiled. “Are you giving the universe a chance?”

“I don’t know.” Alec blew out a breath, watching it crystallize in the cold air. “Maybe I am.”

Sometimes, Alec thinks he can feel Magnus beside him. He knows it’s just wishful thinking, memory intruding on the present, or the aura of Magnus that lingers in the loft making him think Magnus is still really there.

But he clings to it anyway. He lets himself lean on Magnus’s memory because he has nothing else to lean on. It’s not like Magnus will mind, anyway.

When he gets back from the funeral, something about that presence feels… different. The windows in the living room are open, and Alec can’t remember if he left them that way or not. It’s chilly inside, but he doesn’t close them. He stands in the middle of the room, chest tight with insane, breathless hope.

He feels like he might be losing his mind, but he calls out anyway. “Magnus?”

All he gets in response is the whooshing of the night wind through the curtains.

“I can’t tell if you’re really there or if I’m having a psychotic break,” Alec says to the air around him, “but at this point I think I’d welcome even a hallucination of you.”

Nothing. Alec isn’t sure what he expected. For Magnus to just appear? Then Alec would really know he’s losing his mind.

Then one of the windows swings shut. A candle on a side table flickers on. Alec stares at the small point of light, heart thudding.

“I think,” Magnus’s voice says, quite small, coming from everywhere and nowhere at once and possibly just inside Alec’s own head, “I’m really here.”

Alec’s breath shudders out in a long gust as the pain crashes over him again, as fresh and cold as the day he lost him. But in its wake is more gratitude than he can ever remember feeling. Hearing Magnus’s voice, sounding as real and clear as if he was standing there, even if it’s in Alec’s head—he needed that. He needed that.

Magnus sounds uncertain, frightened. Alec wants to hold him so badly, but he can’t. “I love you,” he says before he says anything else.

Magnus laughs, sounding choked. “I love you, too. I’m so sorry.”

Alec’s heart aches. Tears prick at his eyes, and he’s not sure if Magnus can see him, but he doesn’t try to will them away. “Shhh. None of this is your fault.”

“I didn’t want to leave you.”

“I know, baby. How— how are you here?”

“I don’t think I am, not really,” Magnus says, and Alec doesn’t know what that means, but Magnus continues, “I’m not really sure where here is. Are you at home?”

“Yes. What can you see?”

“It’s… blurry. I think I’m… between states, or something.” Magnus sounds mournful, confused. “I don’t know how I’m… here. I just wanted to talk to you again. I don’t think I have very long, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Alec says, even though it isn’t. “Are you safe?”

“I don’t think that has much meaning anymore. But yes, I think so.”

Alec exhales. That’s something, at least. “Will you—” He almost doesn’t want to know the answer to this question. “After you go… wherever you’re going, will you still be— be you?” Can I talk to you again? he wants to know. But even if he can’t, he wants to know if Magnus will still be out there. Somewhere.

Magnus hesitates, and that alone gives Alec his answer. “I don’t really know. To be honest, there’s not a lot I really know right now. But I don’t think so, no.”

Alec’s tears start flowing in earnest, then. He doesn’t think he can handle that thought. He feels like Magnus has opened a black hole in the center of his chest. But he doesn’t say so, because Magnus doesn’t deserve to feel bad right now.

“I think the universe is a lot messier than we ever thought,” Magnus says. His voice wavers, and Alec thinks he must be crying, too, whatever that means for him now. “I always thought there must be some kind of defined answer after death. But there— it’s more complicated than that. Please don’t go looking for answers. You won’t find them, and I don’t want you to— to spend your life like that.”

“Okay, Magnus,” Alec says, because he’d give him anything right now. Magnus sobs when he says his name.

“Say it again, please, darling.”

“Magnus. I love you.”

“I love you, Alexander.”

Hearing Magnus say his name almost breaks Alec entirely. “Please stay safe,” he whispers. “I’ll miss you.” He already does. More than anything.

Alec doesn’t get a response, and he crumples to the ground, hands pressed to his eyes, sobbing. He wishes more than anything that Magnus would come back but he knows that isn’t going to happen now. It’s permanent this time. It’s permanent. Alec has to live without him. There is no Magnus now.

Alec doesn’t know how he’s supposed to live with that.

Magnus doesn’t know if visiting Alec was real or just a lasted twisted attempt of his mind to cling to some form of presence, of being. He hopes it was real. For Alec’s sake.

Then again, he’s not sure he understands what real is. Everything he knows is rapidly receding into a sort of… universal sense of everythingness. There is everything, and there is nothing, and somehow these are both true at the same time. He can feel time slipping around him in twirls and streams like the wind rushing down the long corridors of Manhattan. All times exist at once, layered around and over each other. Going backwards is the same as going forwards.

He thinks he’s somewhere— somewhen— else, now. It feels… early. Early in his life, early in the world. Earlier, anyway. Somewhere around him the sun is rising and bringing a new and watery day. Springtime. Morning. Birth.

He can feel the wind rushing past him now. Somehow. And the sun, and the light sprinkling of a sun shower. Somehow. And he can feel the restless energy of the world, changing, growing, ripping through time. He’s never felt it quite like this before. The world feels earthier, now, more organic, more green, more growing. He feels a part of it. He feels… he isn’t he anymore.

He feels…

Alive.

People keep telling Alec, Magnus is still here, because you remember him. But that isn’t true. Magnus isn’t here. Alec does keep him in his heart, but that doesn’t mean he’s here. If he were here, Alec would be able to hold him. Would be able to apologize to him, for not stopping this, for not protecting him, for not going in his place.

There are traces of him around, though, and Alec clings to them. His unfinished notes and projects are still scattered across the loft. His clothes are still in the closet, his cosmetics in the bathroom, pieces of his jewelry lying on the nightstand. Alec finally reopened his box of memories, determined that if Magnus couldn’t be here to remember these people, then he would.

It’s all immensely painful to look at. And he knows he’s going to have to reorganize someday, or at least clean, but he can’t bring himself to do it.

He’d buried Magnus with a few things, even though he knew it was a useless gesture. A photograph of them together, his favorite necklace, his omamori charm, for protection. Sometimes he wishes he had that back, but he knows Magnus needs it more.

Magnus’s work is everywhere in the Shadow World, and Alec knows he’ll live on through that, is grateful for it.

At the same time, every time he sees someone open a portal, his heart breaks clean in two.

He doesn’t want these sharp-edged, scattered reminders. He just wants his husband back.

When Alec dreams of Magnus, he is always holding him. Usually, his dreams of Magnus are a bit hazy, and all he can really make out is the low tone of Magnus’s voice, the press of his body.

His dream after Magnus’s… visitation, on the other hand, is vivid. In it, Alec is in the darkened living room when Magnus comes tumbling in through the balcony doors. He lets the cold night air in with him, and it raises goosebumps along Alec’s arms.

“Alec,” he says, eyes wide and luminous in the dark, “I’m bleeding.”

Alec takes him in his arms and holds him close. He knows Magnus isn’t bleeding. He doesn’t know how he knows. Dream intuition. “No, honey, you’re okay.”

“No,” Magnus insists. He’s shaking in Alec’s arms. “I’m bleeding everywhere.”

“Shh.” Alec doesn’t know how to comfort him, how to convince him that he’ll be okay so long as he stays within the circle of Alec’s arms. “I have you. Stay here with me.”

“I want to,” Magnus says. “I want to.” Then, before Alec can say anything else, Magnus starts crying. “Alec.”

Alec holds him tighter, burying his fingers in Magnus’s hair. “Stay,” he says. “Stay, Magnus.”

The dream shifts. Now, Alec’s holding Magnus in their bathtub, the water rising higher than it logically should, almost up to his chin. Magnus nestles against his chest, one arm wrapped around Alec’s neck, the other tucked between them against his chest. Alec tries to press him into his own body.

His dream self doesn’t know that Magnus is dead. But his dream self does know that something is wrong. He doesn’t let Magnus out of his grasp.

“I feel like I’m floating,” Magnus murmurs. “I’m glad I have you to anchor me.”

Alec pulls him up, careful not to let his hands slip off Magnus’s skin, and kisses him. It’s a strangled, airless, desperate kiss, full of premonition. Alec kisses his husband, and the water rises to drown them.

Then he’s lying on the couch on the rooftop, looking up. The sky is impossible high and clear above them, a million stars scattered over Brooklyn. Magnus lies against him with his back to Alec’s chest, and he's crying again, and Alec hugs him, hugs him, hugs him, hugs him—

“It’s okay,” Alec whispers in his ear. “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s—”

On the one-year anniversary of his death, Alec goes to visit Magnus’s grave. Well, he still goes to visit more days than not, but this is different. More painful, more monumental. It’s a milestone Alec never thought he would have to reach. One year without his husband.

He doesn’t bring flowers. He doesn’t bring anything, just himself. And he barely brings himself, because he’s such a mess, so shattered apart and barely holding it together, that he’s not sure he even counts as himself.

He’d buried Magnus underneath that large elm tree in a secluded corner of the park, the same one he and Magnus had collapsed under to rest that time Alec had been injured. They’d both felt drawn to that tree. Felt safe under its branches.

Alec sits under the tree now, letting its trunk hold him up, letting his tears roll over his face, sniffling and trying to breathe. Magnus is buried right beside where he’s sitting—he doesn’t have a grave marker, per se, other than the tree itself, but Alec knows where he is. He could never forget.

There is one thing he brought with him. It’s a photo of Magnus, he always carries it in his pocket. It’s a photo Alec took at their wedding, Magnus smiling at him with a smile far too wide, eyes sparkling, his tie loose around his neck and the top few buttons of his shirt undone. Alec recalls kissing him senseless just moments before this photo was taken.

“I’m still really angry at myself,” he admits to Magnus, “for not saving you, somehow. I know you’d tell me there’s nothing I could have done. That’s probably true. But I’m angry anyway.”

He pauses to take a shuddering breath. “You were the light of my entire life. The best thing that I ever did. And I lost you. And I can’t forgive myself for that. I can’t.”

It’s so… still in the park today. Late spring heat is lying heavy in the air, even under the tree branches where a patch of cool shade is protecting Alec from the worst of the sun. Alec doesn’t know how to be here. He doesn’t know anywhere else he could be.

“I don’t know how to do this,” he tells Magnus. “I don’t think I’ll ever know how to do this. I’m a fucking wreck, Magnus. And you’re gone and I— I don’t know how to understand that. You lived for hundreds of years. You saw so many things, you knew so many things. You felt, you loved. I can’t deal with the fact that all that you are just— just disappeared from the universe. What’s the point of anything, then?”

Magnus smiles warmly at him from the photo, eternal and unchanging. Just like he was supposed to be.

“I just miss you,” Alec cries, crunching the photo in his hand. “I fucking miss you.”

Above his head, the leaves of the elm tree rattle in the wind.