#this is the reason why i am importing my next hunting dog

[morievna]

Why Port Mafia will stay as vampires

Hello~~

This time I wanted to broach something different^^

I usually like to check fandom opinions when new chapter drops and there was something that really puzzled me – that lot of fans thinks that vampirism needs to healed and like it is the worst thing that happened to our characters.

I mean I understand feeling protective about characters – ofc, it is bad to lose free will, but from story perspective it is just another trial to test our heroes and help them grow. They will be fine, don’t worry^^

But still, no matter how this arc will conclude I think that PM will stay as vampires and here are my reasons:

PM is coded similarly as vampires from very beginning

You know the basic – both vampires and PM are strongly associated with night and death.

As part of Tripartite Tactic PM stands for night. Moreover, through the story PM is compared to night very often -  maybe even almost enough for drinking game xD

“The merciless tyrant of the night and his army of the death – that was what people called Port Mafia”

“It’s time to remind our enemies why we used to be called the terror of the night”

– both from Fifteen

“Mafia takes their role as ‘Wardens of the night’ seriously” – Dazai about PM in ch 46

“Whatever pride they have in their speed, they can’t run from ‘the night’ forever” – Mori in ch 46

There is probably more, but you know the drill.

As for death – mafia rules through power dominance and killing is not a problem to anybody from that group.It is just the way they works.

And visually too – i mean, just look:

Especially in anime, they gave him so much vampire lord aura xD In manga too, his ‘doctor’ attire is just an act and his true self is PM leader in that fitting clothing - black trench coat, red scarf and white gloves – which all are very vampire style. Through this perspective even Elise can be interpreted that way – immortal being in a form of young girl – just like Claudia from Interview with the Vampire.

Speaking of that novel  - you know there is also insanely powerful redhead with bad temper xD Though it can be just coincidence as personality-wise Armand and Chuuya are very different and have rather opposite morals xD

Let’s move to Aku:

Whole Akutagawa appearance is much reminiscent of vampire – pale complexion, black coat with white jabot - really give that feel. Also Akutagawa uses a bit of archaic language, which is something often appearing in vampire stories too.

Frankly, imo from the start Asagiri thought of Akutagawa (and maybe whole PM) eventually becoming vampire – after all, our MC Atsushi is were-tiger (as a spin on werewolf) and in pop-culture natural opposite of werewolves are vampires just like Atsushi-Aku are.

Vampire healing as power-up

If you look at it practically – vampire healing can actually be really useful for main PM characters:

Chuuya – healing will help a lot sustaining wounds during Corruption (I am 80% sure we will going to see it in next chapters) and maybe even vampire mind control will help with controlling Arahabaki

Akutagawa – healing as bypassing his incurable illness. Just honestly, I would be very surprised if Asagiri intends Aku to stay dead for good – he is just too important to Atsushi and Dazai character arc

Tachihara – as Hunted dog he needs monthly check-ups to not die. Healing would render that not needed if Asagiri intends for him to stay in PM, which is most likely as he is ‘true mafioso’ at heart

Even for rest of PM like Higuchi, Gin – healing would be strong asset as well.

To sum it up, it is just too good opportunity on too many levels to let it slip

Vampirism and abilities are not bad

It is important to look at it from thematic perspective – abilities are not villains of the story but the people who use them in wrong way.

Vampirism is not the main problem to our protagonist, but the fact that Fukuchi and Fyodor use such methods (vampirism, one order), which robs people of their free will to achieve what they want. Even if their goal is not necessarily malevolent in its nature – still it is very ‘the end justifies the means’ approach which is morally bad one.

Especially it is important that source of vampirism – Bram is just being used by DoA and he personally doesn’t want to create any fledglings. But again, because Fukuchi controls him via sword – he had no choice but to spread the infection or die. 

My guess is that we will see Atsushi running into Aya and Bram in next chapters and that after internal struggle he will realize that killing Bram is not a option - that ADA goal should be to free all vampires from mind control. Even it could go how usually vampire stories go – that vampirism as skill will be transferred to someone from PM (probably Mori or Aku, though it can be also Fyodor), who will switch off mind control.

And this would grant happy ending for Bram too – starting to live as normal human - pretty please, poor man has been through a lot T_T

Ofc it is just my theory and story can go other way – but still it makes more sense to me than simply healing everybody from vampirism and returning to status-quo. But we will see~~

Thanks for reading and have a nice day💖 💖 💖

[takeeachdayonebookatatime]

I'm Tony DiGerolamo. Previously, I wrote jokes for Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher and comic books for The Simpsons. Currently, I write The Pineys, it's about a family of hunters that hunt the kin of the Jersey Devil. The Jersey Devil is a 289 year-old folktale in South Jersey and is connected to many other stories about witches, ghosts, pirates and other supernatural entities. Book 15 of the Pineys dropped in January and is called La Cosa Nostra Piney. The series is a little bit like Ghostbusters with drunken hillbillies.

(Laura) 

Congrats on the book now onto the questions.

(Laura)

Is there a special reason behind the title of your book/series?

(Tony)

Yes, the Pineys is what people who live in the Pine Barrens are called. It was coined by Philadelphia elites in the early 1900's as a derogatory term, but it's now a term of endearment.

(Laura)

What was the inspiration behind your story/series?

(Tony)

The Jersey Devil legend is 289 years old and has been part of the folklore and culture of this region. It's what they named the hockey team after and is New Jersey's official state demon. It is inspired by the many folktales about and around the Pine Barrens.

(Laura)

Will there be any more books in your series?

(Tony)

There are currently 15. I put out three a year: March, July and October.

(Laura)

How many books have you written?

(Tony)

Total? At least 20. If you count comic books, more.

(Laura)

How many books are in your series?

(Tony)

Currently 15.

(Laura)

What can your readers expect from your next book?

(Tony)

More folktales, history, comedy and action in the Pines.

(Laura)

How does your next book fit in with your series?

(Tony)

La Cosa Nostra Piney is basically The Pineys vs. The Mafia. Allegedly, Mafia members have buried various dead guys in the Pine Barrens because it's very remote. One of the cousins owed the mob $8,000 and now they've come to collect.

(Laura)

What made you want to become a writer?

(Tony)

I won a contest in the 1st grade for a McDonald's hamburger for a short story. I kept winning every month until the school asked me to stop entering so one of the other kids could win. I am motivated by food.

(Laura)

For people who have not read your books or series, what are they about?

(Tony)

In the 1730's in Leeds Point, NJ, the mother of the Jersey Devil, Mother Leeds, was a witch. She opened the portals of Hell and flooded the Pine Barrens with devils. But in the neighboring village of Abe's Hat, the villagers formed a secret hunting society to hunt down the devils and send them back to Hell.

(Laura)

Do you have any pets? If so, what are their names?

(Tony)

A dog. Joan of Arc.

(Laura)

Besides writing, what are your other hobbies/skills?

(Tony)

I like making videos on YouTube these days. I make comics on The Webcomic Factory.

(Laura)

What is your favorite part of your book or series?

(Tony)

I like that I'm educating my readers about their local history, which I find fascinating.

(Laura)

Do you prefer paperbacks or ebooks?

What format do you prefer?

(Tony)

Books.

Softcover or hardcover books?

Soft.

(Laura)

What was your favorite book or series as a child?

(Tony)

As a kid, I read The Hardy Boys, The Three Investigators, Ellory Queen Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock Magazine and comic books.

(Laura)

Do you have a favorite cd or artist you like to listen to while writing?

(Tony)

Beastie Boys Ill Communication

(Laura)

What is one of the most important things your readers should take away from your books?

(Tony)

They should laugh.

(Laura)

If you could, would you make any changes to your book or series?

(Tony)

I would do all the audio books. So far, I've only done the first one.

(Laura)

Why do you think more people should read books?

(Tony)

People should ready GOOD books. There are plenty of them that are a waste of time and full of propaganda.

(Laura)

If your book got turned into a movie, who would you want to star in it?

(Tony)

Me. Other contenders: Chris Pratt and Ryan Reynolds.

(Laura)

How would you make the movie as good as the book?

(Tony)

I would insist on approving everything and/or direct it.

(Laura)

Do you think beta readers should be compensated in some way? And are they necessary?

(Tony)

If you work, you should be compensated.

(Laura)

What is your thought on outlines for stories/books?

(Tony)

They're fine. I use them in a very loose fashion these days. If you need them, use them, but don't be wed to them if the story changes.

(Laura)

Do you have a favorite quote by an author?

(Tony)

Yes.

(Laura)

Paper, computer or typewriter what do you write your story on?

(Tony)

Computer.

(Laura)

The last book you read was?

(Tony)

The whole book? Hard to say. I read parts of books looking for more folktales about the Pines. I tried to read the Gulag Archepelago, which is amazing, but I only got to Chapter 5. Need to go back and finish.

 

(Laura)

Which one of your books would you want turned into a movie?

(Tony)

All of them.

 

(Laura)

Do you snack while you write?

(Tony)

Sometimes.

 

(Laura)

What book meant the most to you?

(Tony)

Jersey Devil by McCloy and Miller 1974

 

(Laura)

Did any real life experiences have an impact on your book?

(Tony)

Sure. How could all of them not?

 

 (Laura)

Name one character you liked writing for/about in your book?

(Tony)

I like them all.

 

(Laura)

What three adjectives would best describe your book/story?

(Tony)

clever funny chaos

 

(Laura)

How would you best describe your characters to someone who has not read your book yet?

(Tony)

Part of the concept is the idea of a small town vibe where everyone knows your business. They are very close knit and don't see any reason to leave their little enclave and know it very well. You can try to roll in and change things, but you will probably fail.

 

 (Laura)

Writing multiple character perspectives is that something that is commonly found in your stories?

(Tony)

Yes.

 

(Laura)

Explain the thought process behind your book?

(Tony)

I use the improv method. I come up with a concept and heighten it until it leads somewhere.

 

(Laura)

Where do you write your books/stories? 

(Tony)

In my house.

 (Laura)

(Finale question) 

Current book you're reading?

(Tony)

I read books on the history of South Jersey and various folktales.

 

 

(Laura)

Any social media pages our very few readers can find you at and were they can buy your books 

 

(Tony)

The Pineys is available on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B082SCFW9R?binding=paperback&qid=1716835547&sr=8-2&ref=dbs_dp_rwt_sb_pc_tpbk

 

You can visit my site at ThePineys.com

 

I have various social media including YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtWOlHbXZRG9P2K1moOZzsg

 

And Twitter/X at @TonyDiGerolamo

@thefixisin

[nagdabbit]

I will give you a headpat, a reminder to consume actual food, and a tale request:

Tell me Mox things, tell me about why he'd have become the library and how much he loves books. Tell me about him and Claudio in the Before times, and their friendship with Bryan.

i DID remember to get a vending machine poptart when i got to work, but i did forget it in the microwave for what looks like two hours so i am eating it now!

im gonna start with your second point, and then hide a major spoiler under a cut at the end of you want it. it's not necessarily important, but it does add a bit of hamfisted context to regal's character

they were once knights together. they trained together, fought battles and won wars alongside each other. three of the most trusted and decorated knights in all the kingdom,* they should've had their own fiefdoms and their own armies to lead. but when bryan answered regal's call, mox and claudio followed. they had done everything together, their bonds forged long before they ever saw battle together. their loyalty lied with each other, not the kingdom they served.

when they moved to the mountain, rather than serving as knights, they became the marshals and stewards of the keep.

bryan, tactical and analytical and so very vicious, would lead the guard. under his watch, no intruders would get past his soldiers, no trouble would befall his lord's lands, and no taxes—no matter how small—would ever go unpaid. his presence was itself a deterrent from the fumblings and machinations of rival lords and barons that wished to grow their holdings.

claudio would oversee much of the household workings and staff, his kindness and geniality meant a boon in keeping any staff happy and loyal to their lord. he kept the books and correspondence, and would often travel to court to take regals place in political matters. he was warm and kind enough to put people at ease and be greatly under estimated, and clever and vicious enough to win whatever protections and connections his lord desired.

mox oversaw as few people as possible. he would much rather take over the duties of caring for the keeps animals and equipment, than managing a staff. he was always the most curious of them, always quietly observing and learning and cataloguing all the information he could, a skill well-suited to spywork and subterfuge. but while he could easily overhear secret plans to pass on to his counterparts, he could also use that curiosity to observe the moods of a hungry dog or a tired pack horse. he would much rather care for a stray dog, train it up into a loyal hunting hound, than take part in the politics of court.

as knights, they were a well oiled machine. they trusted each other in battle, and played off each other's strengths in politics. what plans mox could learn from the whisperings of nobles, bryan could turn into a plan for their own gain, and claudio could perform with his clever tongue and disarming manner.

outside of their abandoned knighthoods, they worked as the warmest of friends. they made a family out of each other, and far from the battlefield, they finally had a chance to experience that. their concerns were now of the harvest and the next meal and simple gossip. there wasn't a continent relying on them any longer. so claudio could tell jokes and have conversations with no hidden motives and relax into the warm man that he was, not the vicious inferno he was on the battlefield. bryan could allow himself time to simply exist, step away from the battlemaps and strategies, and let someone else do the thinking. mox could use the knowledge he'd gained for something other than death and politics, and could indulge in his desire to learn more—but learn what he wanted for himself, and learn by choice, rather than by orders.

i turned mox into the library for two reasons. one, because when sarah planted the story sapling in my brain, one of the things that i immediately thought of was ladyhawk—two lovers doomed to never be together. mox made of paper and wood, two of literally the most flammable things, kept forever from his lover who became fire. i love a tragedy, i really do. the other reason is that mox likes books and he likes reading and he likes being largely left alone, right? hes got His People and His Space and His Activities and His Things, and then there's everything else, and he's gotta want to engage with all of that. the library seems a good place to escape from the things he'd rather not deal with and the people he'd rather not talk to.

but it's also isolating, isn't it? intentionally severing even barely connected social ties cuts one off from so many opportunities. even though bryan can visit the library and open books and still speak with mox, he cut himself off in such a way that he can no longer physically engage with bryan in return. doubly so for claudio, his lover, who thematically has the exact opposite issue: he can physically engage with anything that he wants, and is forced to hold himself back at all times, else he'll destroy the man he loves most, on top of his home and his oldest friend.

* but not THIS kingdom. not the one they now reside in. this was a kingdom their own ruler once wanted to conquer, before his three most trusted abandoned their posts for a quiet life in service to a simple lord. but what reason would regal have had for recruiting the enemy, and what reason would they have had for serving someone so far below their station? what use would a simple lord have for a mage like nigel?

[into-the-clintoris]

Hi can you tell me about your DVD collection?

@moreclaypigeons

IF YOU ARE READING THIS I HAVE FINALLY MADE A DRAFT I DISNT ACCIDENTALLY NUKE BY ADDING A POLL BECAUSE IT LOOKS LIKE BULLET POINTS AND NOT BEING ABLE TO DELETE IT

Anyways here it is, my pride and joy.

First up all my regular dvds. By the way, I am using the words DVD and Blu Ray interchangeably. I say dvds, I mean discs with movies on them, including Blu Rays.

These are all the movies I just wanted to have a physical copy of for one reason for another. 90% of these are thrifted, some I've seen, some I want to see because ive heard of them and know theyre good (see: The Normal Heart, O Brother Where Art Thou), and some I want to see because it looked interesting on thr shelf at the store (see: Much Ado, starring Keanu Reeves and Denzel Washington???? How have I never heard of this????).

Many of these I collect because they're important to me in one way or another (see: The Iron Giant, HTTYD).

Now here's all my pretty DVDs. Again, 90% thrifted.

Here's the highlights:

Scrubs season 1 has a plastic sheet that looks like an x ray and is removable. The inside is made to look like a doctor's clipboard and has a rubber chicken.

Walk the Line was thrifted and still had all of the inserts, including in character photos of Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon.

That Reservoir Dogs dvd is one of a set - each character had their own release. Still has the pamphlet, and inside is a quote from QT about the character.

Yes, 2 copies of The Matrix. The original DVD and the ugliest steel book I've ever seen, next to all the Marvel movies, but it was a gift.

Angels in America is just a damn high quality case. It has a magnetic closure.

Planet Earth box set has a gorgeous inside. Each DVD is about a different place, and so pays tribute to that subject.

That Band of Brothers set is METAL. Like a steel book.

Saving Private Ryan is the 60th anniversary of D Day special edition, its pretty cool.

The Silence of the Lambs criterion collection, not thrifted per se, got it from Amoeba Records. The booklet inside had BTS stuff and high quality stills. It's gorgeous. The whole thing is very Hannibal (TV) - esque.

Narnia is my favorite DVD. Hands down. The inside looks like the wardrobe, and when you remove the plastic dvd case from the cardboard sleeve, it reveals a picture of the lamppost and Lucy. It encompasses so concisely why I collect these things. Someone loved this movie a lot, and designed the case with their entire soul. You don't see that much any more. See: Disney """"""platinum editions"""""" that are just the same damn dvds but the sleeve is shiny.

This brings me to another section I'm super proud of:

I thrifted all of these. They all came from different stores. Fellowship is a little banged up, but I dont mind. Yall the insides of these are INSANE. I'm talking art, maps, the whole nine. And they do have a leathery texture. This set is in my top 3, probably tying SOTL for 2nd place after Narnia.

I love these things with my whole heart. They're so creative and beautiful and unique, and hunting for them at the thrift makes me feel like I've uncovered treasure.

I didn't try to get inside of these because it would be so complicated to try and get pictures of all of them and everything in them, but if there's something specific you want to crack into, let me know! Send an ask! I'd love to show these bitches off, they're literally the coolest things I own and I have barely anyone to talk to about them ✌

[theclowncowboy]

lol go ahead and clock me why don't you? but yes lol, your suspicions are correct, I am indeed not straight (bi in fact!)

I'm sorry your day has been long and tiring too :( homophobic, indeed. we should take this up with the council

I agree about layering! I'm all snuggled up in a blanket right now :)))

those are lovely flowers! I took a walk and picked some queen anne's lace today, which reminded me to ask. kinda basic but I'm a rose girl, peach colored roses are my favorite!

you may have answered this before, but what are some of your favorite movies from when you were a kid? like the ones that started to shape your taste to what it is today

i had a feeling! i think straight ppl on tumblr are lost or confused - in my humble opinion :p

nothin wrong w liking roses..theyre popular for a reason! i used to have a rose bush but i got rid of it when i got my cat cuz the thorns and she is stupid.

gooddd favorite movies as a kid? below the cut im probably gonna get real into this

beyond the ones i listed a few days ago in the tags of a random post (care bears return to camelot / alvin and the chimpunks / zoom / star wars revenge of the sith):

i grew up loving all of the winnie the poohs, specifically tiggers movie, and the heffalump movie as well (one for christmas one for halloween yk??) i dont know how much it has shaped my taste or my goals in film as a career but it does hold a really close place to my heart, and its always something i can throw on when i wanna yearn for my childhood years again lmao

meet the robinsons is another honorable mention, not sure how much it has shaped me but the comedy in that movie was great to me, and probably the first soundtrack i actively hunted down after watching it. little wonders by rob thomas u will always be famous to me!

igor and robots were movies that really nailed the importance of subtle comedy to me! like easy low hanging jokes they often were, they landed every time. so thats something i think is important to showcase, the ability to not drag the bit out but hit it and move on swiftly and with grace to the next joke

LOVED the movies over the hedge, dougal, the shaggy dog and hoodwinked. all horrendous movies but they made me happy so. i think thats also something we have to be able to accept as both creators and active enjoyers of art is that its not always gonna be great and thats ok, its ok to find solace in the shit that it is!

ill finish this rambling off with my ever growing love for Ratatouille. not only has this put so much love in my heart for voice acting and story telling but cooking as well. thats something my dad and i have always bonded over, and its the movie we start every fall season with. very excited for it to come this season. i think to ME that movie has so much love put into it, and it has transferred to me as a result.

sorry for the rambling, u ask a film major film questions ur opening that can of worms! ☮️🕊️✌️ & 🩵🫶 💟

[hawkstincan]

I haven't been here a lot lately — and won’t be for some time — because the last couple of years were… Hard.

You know what’s bad about having close aged pets? They are getting old. And they die. And you have very little time to cope.

Tiger died in the middle of September. He lived with me longer than my parents. I’ve never had favorites. I love all my cats. But Tiger was special. He loved hugs. He slept on my pillow, on my neck, on my head, under the duvet. He was the cuddliest cat ever. Tactile, kind, he loved people and people loved him.

His passing was devastating, cause we at first went to a not so good vet. They misdiagnosed him. They insisted on prolonging treatment which wasn’t working. I felt like I was torturing him. He was in pain and I was giving him pills from which he was only more uncomfortable. So I found another clinic where we got an accurate diagnoses. It was bad. I heard the confirmation: Tiger was suffering for nothing. There was nothing that could be done at this point. Euthanasia was a humane choice.

I thought I had some time to grieve before the next loss. But nope. Couple days later I noticed a lump on Locha’s jaw. And just like that all hopes are gone. Locha is 18,5 too. They were born in February 2004. Locha is the last one still alive. Last piece of my childhood family. I don’t know how to live without them. It just feels so damn wrong. Locha is a special snowflake. He was skittish for the most of his life. Like yeah, human, you can try to pet me, but don’t you think I would sit on your lap. No-ope. You must prove yourself worthy of the honor of petting. When he climbed on my lap for the first time I was so shocked and happy that I cried. Just a little, but cried anyway. And it wasn’t so long ago. Three or four years.

So after finding a lump we went to the vet. They sent us to an oncologist. I was afraid that we may end up with money hunting again. I feared an oncologist would insist on an operation and biopsy (which is pricey and pointless in our situation). Thanks fuck that wasn’t the case! Oncologist was quite understanding. She pointed out that at his age removal of the lower jaw wasn’t reasonable. (It’s rather questionable at a younger age too imo. You can’t make your cat understand WHY they lost such an important part of their body.) And hence no removal you don’t really need to put him through biopsy. We decided to go with supportive therapy. He’s eating on his own, he’s drinking. He wants his petting sessions. He is still his grumpy old self. Thinner than he was, but not that bad yet.

Only this damn tumor is growing too freaking quickly. He can’t eat solid food now. Only muss. And it’s getting much more complicated with pills. If the pill brushes the inner part of the tumor it starts to bleed. And yep. I have photos and it looks rather creepy if you ask me.

I have no idea how long he’ll survive like this. It’s not something anyone can predict or guarantee. I just know that he has less than a year. Maybe even less than a month. And there is nothing more I can do. Only to let him go when the time comes.

So… I’m a mess. I am tired. I lost two of my cats in 2019, I lost my dog in 2020, Tiger and Tiny got ill in 2021, I lost Tiger in September. And I’ll soon lose Locha. Next year, if we are lucky but soon nevertheless. It’s inevitable. And I’m just falling to pieces. This is too much.

(Cherry on the top — i got into fight with both mom and dad and they told me that I'm no longer a daughter to them. And told to go fuck myself, so yeah. Healthy family.)

I’ll return when I’ll feel more like a human than a pile of shit.

Locha being cute, instead of grumpy

[healingheartdogs]

Really funny that my herdy spitzy toy mix puppy came pre-installed with a better natural retrieve to hand than my dual-bred pointer ngl

[asset35-maya]

I am sleepy but I gotta make a request before the busy tomorrow so 2 things on my mind! Sleepy and the 'oh my god they were roomates' vine xD with any characters and aus I love everything you write anyways xD Happy timezones and best vibes your way >^<!! 💖💞💕💕

Oh my god, they were roommates…

//

“The rental market in Detroit is absolute shit! How dare these bloodsuckers charge such high rates for the most under-developed properties! This city’s going to the dogs!”

“Uh-huh.”

“You have to pay your own weight in gold just to live in a shoebox for a year. Nonsense!”

“Uh…”

“Are you even listening to me, Tina!

Tina?

Goddamnit Tina!”

Gavin thumped his fist on her desk, but Tina’s eyes barely flicked up from her phone.

“Oh my god, you sound like my grandpa…”

Gavin turned red and his brain buzzed with a thousand colourful retorts. He was just about to pick one when Tina stopped scrolling and turned her phone screen towards him.

CYBERSCALIA @ NEW JERICHO

The suburban paradise for executive androids and humans alike. Located 25 minutes drive from downtown Detroit, with a full amenities.

Gavin’s eyes widened to the size of dinner plates. He balked at her.

“You’re joking? How could I possibly…?”

“Get with the times, boomer…”

Tina lazily skimmed her thumb over the screen. The webpage promised plenty of greenery, good infrastructure and modest but spacious rooms. The extremely reasonable price tag was Gavin’s dream come true. He’d spent weeks apartment hunting in the wake of an early lease termination by his cantankerous landlord. Gavin knew he’d never find a better deal.

“Shit, this is so good, T! Why the phck does it have to be in that- that place!”

His friend arched a sceptical eyebrow.

“What place?”

“The Tincan ghetto!”

Tina smacked him on the arm. None too gently.

“It’s subsided public housing located in an android-friendly estate… because they’re the ones that need it most right now. And frankly, you seem to be in just as much need, so you should really get off that high horse.”

“Fine, fine. You’re right. I should seriously consider this place, even if my neighbours are gonna have more in common with my car than me. But damn, it seems a little too good to be true. There’s probably some fine print, hidden costs that’ll come out later.”

“Hmm… let’s see…”

Tina scrolled further and then let out a half-laugh. She held her phone up again.

“Nothing shady about the rates, but there is something you should know…”

At the risk of being called old again, Gavin squinted at the screen and read aloud.

“Bearing in mind the founding principles of New Jericho, all human occupants may only apply for tenancy in co-habitation with at least one android citizen of the United States of- JESUS PHCKING CHRIST! Absolutely not! I am not going to live with a plastic prick!”

//

Gavin had to get through half a bottle of wine before he could bear to scroll through the rental listings. Unlike other humans who had happily moved into New Jericho with their android friends or partners, he had to find an android who was also looking for a flatmate.

Some listings came from ardent supporters of Markus. These were the androids who wanted to ease the post-revolution transition by reaching out to humans. Some listings were put up by the android equivalent of frat boys. These individuals were clearly looking for someone on the fringes of human society, someone who could show them a good (if not illegal) time.

Other posts came from eccentric androids who craved company but had likely been rejected by their own kind. Gavin felt a strange twisting sensation, almost like pity, when he came across a post written entirely in third person by someone called Ralph.

He had almost given up hope when he came across a simple little listing for a two bedroom apartment in Cyberscalia.

RK900 #313 248 317 - 87: Seeking a neat, self-sufficient co-renter. Human or android, no preference. I spend most of my time working and will be out of your way for the better part of the day. I only ask for silence during my nighttime stasis cycles, timely payment of dues and upkeep of cleanliness.

Gavin sighed in relief.

//

“Your room is the first door on the left, mine is the second. The bathroom, laundry and kitchenette are shared, as is the living room. I scarcely find use for the latter, so you need not worry about my intruding on any of your social gatherings, or vice versa. As long as you adhere to the terms of the agreement, our paths will not cross much.”

The tall, stiff-necked android dropped a set of keys, both mechanical and digital, into Gavin’s open palm.

“Er thanks.. RK… sorry I forgot your full model number…”

“You may call me Nines. Although, I’d rather you didn’t call me much of anything. Now if you’ll excuse me.”

In a swish of black fabric, the android turned on his heel and disappeared into his room. Two rapid clicks indicated the shutting and locking of his door.

Gavin sighed and looked around the open-plan living room. It was nothing fancy, but it was far beyond any of the other properties he’d viewed in weeks of unsuccessful house-hunting.

He sat down on the simple black couch with a huff and contemplated his situation. He’d ended up where he’d truly never expected to go, but objectively speaking, things were good… barring the high-handed manner of his robot flatmate, but who gave a shit about that.

He pulled out his phone to text Tina his thanks.

//

“I can’t! I refuse to! It is a violation of my personal ethics and I will simply not take this assignment any further. Good day to you sir!”

Gavin nearly dropped his bowl of cereal one morning when his roommate burst out of his door and rushed into the open balcony.

He hadn’t seen Nines in days, which was perfectly normal. The android came and went at odd hours and made hardly any noise. It was almost like living alone. The only reminder of Nines’ presence was the sight of several dark shirts and trousers regularly hung out to dry on the rack above the washing machine.

Gavin set his bowl down and watched the android tightly grip the bars of the railing and take several unnecessary breaths to calm down. He’d seen deviant colleagues express emotion many times before, but this was the first time he witnessed such a potent mixture of rage and sorrow from a synthetic being.

Out of empathy, but mostly curiosity, Gavin approached cautiously.

“Hey Nines… is everything alright…?”

There was no response for several moments. Then Nines turned around with a grimace and hands held upwards in a placating gesture.

“I apologise for the disturbance. It was hypocritical of me to disrupt the very peace and quiet I demand of you.”

“Uh… no worries…? Are you okay?”

There was a flash of steel blue eyes.

Gavin kicked himself mentally as he realised too late that he’d broached uncharted territory. Their interactions didn’t extend beyond curt nods on the rare occasion they found each other in the same space. It was almost as if Nines engineered the lack of contact, which wouldn’t surprise Gavin at all if it were the case.

“I’m fine. I merely experienced some frustration with my work.”

Perhaps it was boredom, perhaps it was his usual lack of self-preservative instinct… Gavin threw caution to the winds.

“What do you actually do?”

Nines’ expression remained stoic but his LED went through a spectacular series of colours and flashes. His next words were reluctant.

“I’m a private investigator.”

“Oh shit! I’m actually a cop.”

Gavin pointed dumbly at himself and then let his hand drop when he saw absolutely no surprise cross the android’s face.

“I know. That’s why I let you stay with me.”

“For safety?”

“Certainly not for your fashion sense.”

“Wow okay, I didn’t think I’d be much protection for a big scary droid like you.”

Nines hummed dismissively and started to move out of the balcony, body language fully indicating the end of the conversation.

Unable to help himself for some strange reason, Gavin blurted out another ill-advised question.

“What pissed you off so much?”

Nines paused halfway through side-stepping the human. A thrill went through Gavin at the shards of ice he observed for the first time up close in Nines’ irises.

“If I tell you, will you promise to stop asking pointless questions?”

Gavin nodded earnestly, and frankly… rather foolishly.

“I helped a client gather evidence to initiate divorce proceedings on the grounds of infidelity. I provided ample photo and video evidence for his lawyers to work with. Now they want me to keep following the spouse to capture more details that could gear any future settlement in his favour.”

“So what’s your problem?”

“They’re offering me an incredible amount of cash to follow her 24/7. To stake out her workplace, her gym, her parent’s home. They want me to crouch under the window of the bedroom where her children sleep. I can do a lot of things, but not that. It’s deeply insulting that they even asked. That’s why I was so… pissed.”

Nines slipped past and was nearly back to his bedroom when Gavin spoke.

“I respect that.”

“I didn’t ask.”

“I know, but for real though, I think ethics are important in our line of work. Not just because of we need morals or a sense of right or wrong blablabla, but because we need… clarity.”

Silence floated through the hallway as Nines paused with a hand on his doorframe.

“Clarity?”

“Yeah, like a sense of direction. We don’t just take cases right-left-centre because they make us money. I mean, we could, and people do… but they never become specialists or experts of any kind. You gotta strategise if you want a career. Ethics helps with that. I think…”

Gavin wasn’t sure what made him say any of that. He was neither one for small talk, nor a man of many words… but something about Nines prompted that unusual level of introspective discourse.

“Sorry that was weird. Never mind.”

“That was actually… very astute.”

Their eyes met and Gavin could’ve sworn he saw the hint of a smile.

“It’s good to see that not all humans are as one-dimensional as I thought.”

The door clicked shut, but there was no locking sound.

//

Since the morning of Nines’ uncharacteristic outburst, the frequency of their encounters in the common areas of the apartment increased. Wordless nods became hellos, and hellos eventually became full sentences.

Not that he’d admit it, Gavin actually looked forward to enquiring about the android’s day and the cases he was working on. It was utterly fascinating to hear about legal investigations without the constraints of police procedure.

For his part, Nines would share as much as he had the patience to, before disappearing into the confines of his room. Though the time he spent outside steadily increased every day.

Another morning, while Gavin was making his coffee, Nines emerged from his room, still in his pyjamas and looking as livid as he had the time before. Gavin had never seen him in anything but crisply ironed businesswear. Before he could voice any concern, Nines stiffly asked Gavin to keep a lookout for a homicide suspect.

He nodded and immediately reached for his phone to text the sergeant on duty at his station. By midday, there was an arrest.

That evening, when Gavin settled in front of the TV with his usual glass of wine, he heard the familiar sound of Nines’ door opening. The couch dipped beside him.

“Thank you.”

“Just did my job. I should thank you for the tip.”

“Hmm.”

Gavin chanced a glance at his roommate, and found him looking right back.

“What?”

“Nothing… I just had the realisation that much of my work is impotent without the authority and means to take any kind of action.”

The sitcom began to play and Gavin thumbed the remote to reduce the volume.

“Takes all kinds to keep the streets clean. PIs can do things cops can’t. We rely on guys like you for intel all the time, you know.”

“I know.”

No words were exchanged for a while thereafter. Gavin found himself unable to focus on the TV show with all the brooding energy emanating from his right.

“If you feel like being a private eye doesn’t make enough of a difference, then why didn’t you… um… you know…”

“Join law enforcement?”

“Yup.”

“Plenty of my fellow androids have done so. I know for a fact that my predecessor model chose to remain there. You might know him.”

“Connor? Yes. Very annoying.”

“He is, isn’t he?”

“Totally. But why didn’t you join too? You’d be brilliant on the Force.”

“My skillset is certainly well-suited, but I didn’t want to become another puppet of the state.”

Gavin really didn’t know what to say to that. He nodded uncertainly and looked back at the television. He wasn’t sure why Nines was suddenly this social.

“What are you… watching?”

Androids could scan and detect just about anything in the world, so there had to be something else to the question. Gavin, strangely, was happy to oblige.

//

Nines made an appearance every evening, without fail. He would sit through the TV shows if they were of interest, or he would bring his case material and notes to the coffee table to work in silence beside Gavin.

Sometimes Gavin liked to work on jigsaw puzzles on the dining table. Nines would sit beside him, pretending to read a paperback novel, but actually scanning the puzzle and passing the right pieces over from time to time.

Against all odds, an evening ritual and a tentative friendship developed. It was simple, but it was warm. Comfortable. Like nothing Gavin had ever had before, even with humans.

//

He awoke one morning with a slight crick in his neck but the feeling of being very well-rested.

His eyes flickered open and fell upon the window. Familiar greenery came into view… but wait… had everything slightly shifted to the left? And was that the New Jericho Capitol building? He couldn’t see that from his room! There was a tree in the way! A tree that was now a few feet away from where it used to be.

Gavin sat up in alarm as he realised that he was not in his own bed. His heart flew into his throat as Nines walked through the open doorway. Shirtless and carrying a mug of blue liquid.

“Oh good, you’re up.”

“Wha-what happened!?”

Nines frowned and sat down on the edge of the bed. He set the mug on the floor and pulled on a plain black t-shirt.

“You passed out on the couch last night. I think you finished a whole bottle waiting up for me? Sorry, I was out working later than expected.”

Gavin looked down and sighed in relief as he found all his clothes still on him.

“I didn’t want you to injure yourself sleeping at an odd angle so I brought you here. Your door was locked.”

“You could’ve easily opened it.”

“Yes, but that would’ve been an invasion of privacy. I reserve that for working hours alone.”

Gavin looked deep into the sparkling blue eyes and as usual found no trace of humour.

“Thanks…”

“Don’t mention it. Now get out. You’re ruining my silk sheets.”

//

Against his best efforts, Gavin could not keep the thought of being carried to bed and tucked in safely out of his mind. How many years had it been? Since something like that had been even remotely possible for him?

He knew that Nines was just being kind in his own pragmatic little way… but Gavin found that he wouldn’t mind the prospect of waking up in the android’s bed in a wildly different context.

He realised he had it bad when Tina caught him smiling to himself at work one day.

“Why so happy?”

“Oh… nothing. Just remembered something my roommate did… He’s a… funny guy.”

“Huh. Well, look at you getting along so well with androids.”

“Android. Singular. Just him.”

“Wowwww… he sounds special.”

//

“Who did this?”

“Gavin, the damage is merely superficial-”

“Who phcking did this??!”

He reached forward and gingerly touched Nines’ split cheek. His synth skin was smeared with blue blood and glitching in and out. Nines winced at the contact.

“Shit, sorry. That must hurt like a bitch.”

“Androids do not feel pain.”

“Bullshit.”

“I’m merely experiencing a surge in sensory input wherever my chassis is exposed. I’m fine.”

“Shut up and give me your first aid kit or whatever toolbox equivalent you tincans have.”

A shade of embarrassment appeared over the android’s features.

“I… actually don’t have one. I didn’t think I’d ever need it.”

“Didn’t think anyone could kick your ass, huh?”

“No… I didn’t think anyone would ever spot my hiding place.”

“Huh. How’d that happen?”

Nines’ eyes dipped, but as always, he answered the question.

“I was… distracted.”

Something in the air solidified and both of them felt it. Gavin cleared his throat and slapped his knees like an old man about to stand up.

“Right. Let me go check if the neighbours have anything that might help with your face.”

//

“So who’s this dapper young gent you’ve brought to the party, Gavin?”

“Er… he’s my uh… roommate.”

Captain Fowler nodded and winked.

“That’s what they called it in my day too.”

Nines shifted beside Gavin and cleared his throat.

“He’s a PI. But I think he’s wasting his talent taking pictures of cheating spouses. He’s quite interested in police work. Maybe we could get him to assist on a couple cases now and then?”

Fowler put down his drink and extended a warm hand to Nines.

//

“Oh thank RA9!”

Nines came running to the cluster of police cars and enveloped him in a giant hug. Gavin laughed as he patted him weakly on the back.

“Watch the ribs, big guy.”

“I was so worried.”

“Why? Your info was good. No chance of error.”

“I meant about you.”

Gavin pulled back and regarded Nines with confusion. The flashing red and blue lights of the cars made it hard to read his LED.

“Why?”

“I can’t believe you have to ask.”

The android pulled him into a bruising kiss. The officers standing nearby broke into wolf-whistles and applause.

“What the-”

“Oh I take full credit for that, sir.”

Fowler glanced at Tina.

“The case, Chen?”

“Oh of course. I solved the whole thing. But I mean that specifically.”

She waved a hand in Gavin and Nines’ direction. The two held each other tightly and seemed unlikely to come up for air anytime soon.

“Like I helped Gav find an affordable place in New Jericho and then he met this handsome investigator droid and they were roommates.”

“Oh my god, they were roommates…”

“Yeah legit.”

//

\\\

Thanks so much for the request @jude-shotto

This ended up being a lot longer than expected, but I couldn’t help it. Your prompt just took me on a whole journeyyyy <3

[yandere-sins]

Remember that Beast!Reader fic with the yandere prince? I loved that one! Can I please request ‘Tears’ from your prompt list for this please?

I was thinking that maybe a few years pass by while the reader is still stuck in beast form, but during that time the person appointed as an alternative caretaker for the reader (obviously the prince can’t be around ALL the time if he has to maintain his kingdom and keep up his image) slowly starts forming a friendly relationship and with even something as small as a forehead kiss to the beast, it is enough to break the curse. But the two don’t get enough time to celebrate before the prince barges in👀

I’m uncomfortable with nsfw and anything too sexual but I enjoy the creepiness and horror that follows a yandere character so I hope you can write it like that please😭🥺 Oh! And please let there be some hope that the reader will either be saved or she saves herself. Even better if the reader decides that she wants to save herself and the boy who broke her curse🤩

Thank you! So sorry if I’m requesting a lot😭🙏

Oh, my sweet little anons, when was the last time I gave you a happy end, huh? But thanks for requesting a continuation, I am glad you all enjoyed it so much ^-^ What a good idea you had there!

Tears - “Sweetie, don’t cry.. they didn’t love you as much as I did.. I’ll help you over the heart break.” 

»»———————— ♡ ————————««

Panting, you urged your legs forward, always one step further than you made at a time. The chilly night air burnt in your lungs, and your bare feet were icy and wet from the forest ground, but neither you nor the person holding your hand so gently in his thought about stopping. Only wrapped in a big rag, you should have been cold, but when he squeezed your hand encouragingly, you believed you could manage it all.

It hadn’t been too long since you started your way on foot down the hill the old castle sat upon. Sooner or later, the prince would find out you escaped, and surely, they would also notice your Beloved having fled the scene. There had been no reason for him to stay. Losing you was enough to get sentenced to death, his lifeless body thrown into a bog rather than buried. So why wouldn’t he leave with you? There certainly was no reason for him to stay in the wretched service of the king. 

But sooner or later, they would come for you, that much was sure.

So, you two had to hurry, but even so, you couldn’t keep from smiling, especially when he looked back over his shoulder, his warm, green eyes shining without any regrets. You two had known each other far too little, but he never once hesitated to show you his affection for you, even when you still were the hideous atrocity that you had turned into to escape the prince for the first time.

Perhaps, everything that happened was fate. Even if it had been harsh and awful, it happened so that you two could meet and start a better life together somewhere new. Even if you wished now that you two could have met under different circumstances, now, you didn’t regret your life from before anymore. Now, you could simply look ahead to the future that waited for you.

Or so you thought; you should have known better.

The soaring of arrows pierced through the silence of the night. One hit the bark of the tree before you, fire spreading from its alcohol-soaked peak. Your eye widened, as did you’re companions, and you soon found yourself ducking as another one flew over your heads.

You couldn’t spare a second to look back over your shoulder as you two urged onwards, picking up the pace. Your legs were tired and shaking, but you knew that you had to go faster and faster, or else you or he would get hit. It were moments like these in which you wished you were still a beast. One which could run faster than any arrow. One that could fight and protect what was important to you. But that was no longer, true love’s kiss having sealed that specific fate already.

It was too late when you realized that the arrows so far had not been to stop you two from getting away. Instead, as they began to light up tree after tree, you realized they were there to banish the secrecy of the forest and make the dark disappear. At the same time, they made you two run into the directions your followers wanted you to go. If you looked back now, you knew who you’d see, no robbers smart enough to roam the forest around the prince’s castle, so there really was no reason for any other armed party to hunt you down.

And yet, you did, too afraid that if you didn’t, things would go way worse. 

The moment you looked over your shoulder, another arrow flew past you, grazing your cheek. You knew where it would hit way before your companion cried out in pain, his hand letting go of yours as a reflex. He sank to his knee for a moment, cursing under his breath as you hurried to his side, seeing the arrow lodged in his shoulder. “Oh god,” you stammered as you sank next to him, hands hovering over the wound. “W-We can fix it, I’m sure, we just have to--!”

“There’s no time!” he interrupted you firmly as if he hadn’t just been shot with an arrow. Without wasting even another second, he got up again, grabbed you by the wrist, and moved forward. You caught a glimpse at his face, determination brimming from his features, but pearls of sweat collected at his forehead. He was clearly in pain, showing it in the way he held his own shoulder with his free hand, but he hadn’t given up yet. He would move on until you two were safe, and though you sympathized with his pain, you were so thankful he didn’t give up yet.

You two ran as fast as you could, but soon you couldn’t ignore the sound of armor behind you anymore, hooves trotting closer while torches lit up the forest more and more. It was almost spooky that no words were muttered, and you expected someone to call orders every now and then, but you had seen the clothes of your followers briefly; you knew who they were. The prince’s guards, clad in the finest silver and trained to the point of being nothing more than human dogs. They ceased speaking if not absolutely necessary, their eyes were soulless, and their hearts without a hint of benevolence. Them being after you could only mean one thing.

The prince wanted you back.

Another arrow getting stuck in the tree you just passed. You knew everything they did wasn’t fun but coldly calculated tactics. They wouldn’t hurt you. They couldn’t. Your cheek bleeding would probably cause one of them to get degraded to a chair for three months at least, so they really couldn’t afford to hurt you more seriously. But they did know who they could hurt you with. Someone whose pain would hurt you more than your own.

The next arrow missed completely, lost in the leaves on the ground. You two were running out of all the adrenaline you had, slowly and surely having exhaustion catch up to you. No! Please no! You begged the entities above that this wouldn’t be the end! There was so much more to live for, so much to see and experience! You wanted to be with your former caretaker, the only one who ever took you and your feelings seriously enough. You two could build a house and keep far away from the hustle and bustle of the cities, farming and taking care of livestock until the end of time. So please! Don’t let this be the end of it!

However, against your expectations, the one to collapse first was him. This time, the arrows didn’t miss, one hitting him in the lower back, one scarily close to his spine. Teardrops pearled from your cheeks as you fell into to mud with him, your hands scrapping along the roots and stones of the ground as you crawled back to where he laid, softly whimpering. Reaching for an arrow, you wanted to pull it out in desperation, but he began to cry out in pain before you could even start pulling.

“LEAVE!” he screamed. “LEAVE AND RUN!”

You couldn’t hold back the sobs hearing these words. “Please...” his hand reached for yours as he tried his best to look up to you. “Go, find a safe place to hide! Leave for another country and never come back!”

“No...” you sobbed, bringing one hand covered in mud and blood to your face. “I don’t want to leave you...”

“They are after you, not me,” he tried to reassure you, but you knew better. The sounds of their heavy footsteps drew closer and closer, and finding him, they wouldn’t hesitate to kill this ‘traitor’. If you went, then he’d die. But if you stayed and got caught, he’d die as well. No choice you could make would end happily for the both of you. “Please, go. I want you to-- ARGH!” Interrupted by his own scream, you began to panic, calling his name and shaking his arm, only to look up as a shadow was cast over you.

“[Name],” the prince sighed, relief showing in his face. He had this small, exhausted smile on his lips, happiness in his features as he looked at you. However, the moment he looked down at your companion, his face began to contort into a hateful grimace, his leg lifting once more to give your Beloved’s back a not-so-gentle kick. “No! Stop!” you cried, latching onto his leg as the kicks came down, your partner’s screams echoing through the forest.

“Don’t worry, I will get rid of the scoundrel who kidnapped you. I will save you! Just like I always do!”

“No! You’re hurting him! Stop it! Please... Please stop!”

Never had you imagined that you’d ever find yourself so low again that you’d beg the prince for something. Before, it had been for your life, but now, it was for the life of the only person that really mattered to you. “Oh, Sweetheart,” the prince cooed, his fingers finding their way under your chin, pulling your face up to meet his eyes. “Don’t cry... he didn’t love you as much as I do. I’ll help you over the heartbreak once we’re done here.”

The prince let go roughly as he pulled his sword from his sheath as you fell to the ground next to your partner. For a moment, time seemed to stop as you stood up in a matter of seconds. Panicked, you decided to throw yourself in front of the sword instead, but a hand grabbed yours before you could. Looking down at your Beloved, smiling warmly and encouraging as he muttered the final words you’d hear from him.

“Go.”

It was like he set you free, even if your definition of free originally included him. “Eh, Darling?!” you heard as you took off in a second spurt of adrenaline, the prince screaming your name after you. But your mind completely shut off the moment you passed the last lit-up arrow, sinking back into the darkness. Everything was blurry, your vision stained with your tears that wouldn’t go away no matter how much you rubbed your eyes with your dirty hands.

Your feet must have started bleeding as you kept running faster and faster, but you gave them no mind, not even feeling the pain. All you felt was the wound in your throbbing heart, something that the prince couldn’t heal no matter how much he believed he could. You wanted to understand your former caretaker’s action, telling you to go rather than defend him. If you had been in his place, surely, you had done the same. But it was as if you were the one who got betrayed by yourself by running away. By giving up on something hopeless, you felt like you were betraying everything you had ever stand for. How pathetic you were, running, trying to get the better future you had hoped to build with him.

Next thing you knew, you stumbled as the ground gave away to a slope before you, your body tumbling down the wet leaves and sturdy roots, your skim getting scratched by the branches of bushes all around you. It was pure luck that your fingers closed around one big tree root the moment they did; otherwise, you surely would have fallen from the cliff that opened up beneath you, instead of just hanging on to it now.

Only now your ears regained their function, the rushing of waves sounding far too deep and far too rough beneath you as to simply be a river. Had you run all the way to the shore? Was it the big sea beneath you? Either it had been closer than you thought, or you did develop some superhuman abilities after changing into a beast.

Groaning, you tried to pull yourself back over the edge, the slightly forward-leaning stone not being any help in rescuing yourself. Even more so, you had to realize the light of torches drawing closer and closer by the second, while you still struggled to escape the death by falling into the unruly water from a great height.

“[Name]!” you heard the screech of your name, genuine worry resounding from it. The prince’s face was the last thing you wanted to see, especially as he looked so damn horrified at the sight of you barely holding on to the cliff. “Don’t move! I’ll pull you up!” he called as he slit down the slope as best as he could without falling himself until he reached you. It was strange. You should have been happy that you wouldn’t be dying. That someone would save you from this horrific fate.

But all you felt was pure despair.

If he pulled you up, then that would be it. He’d take you back, lock you up again and do as he pleased with you. Who knew if you’d ever get a chance on escaping again, especially if he made an example out of your previous companion about what would happen if anyone ever helped you. You’d have nothing left but to live your life as a mere plaything, captured by the prince that was so beloved by everyone, and you didn’t want to think about all the things he’d do to you now that you were human again.

His hands reached out, and you noticed them faintly in your vision. Your decision fell only seconds before he could grab you by the arms. It was too dark to see, too dark to even speculate how deep it was, but you decided it was better than becoming an empty shell of a person if you stayed with the prince.

No matter what would await you in the depths down below, it couldn’t be worse than being a subject to his twisted, self-righteous love, you decide. Letting go was easier than you thought, making you realize your body must understand this situation very well even if it might cost it its life. The face of the prince as you slipped from his grasp was a priceless last sight to see before you closed your eyes, awaiting the inevitable.

Until your back hit the water, engulfing you wholly like the hungry, desperate maw of an animal. Deeper and deeper until it was everywhere, and only then you opened your eyes again for one last glimpse of the blurred light above.

[mukuberry]

An overview of my votes/theories for each prisoner and what I'll probably vote this round before the first second trial video comes out

Haruka: Forgiven->Forgiven

Honestly right now I'm not entirely sure on what he's done, I'm 99% sure he killed his childhood friend and dog but there's gotta be something else right? He killed them as a kid I'm pretty sure yet he's 17, but every other prisoner was taken into Milgram almost straight after their murders, why would there be such a large time gap? I don't believe the brother theory and I don't think he killed his mother. And who noticed him in the end? At first I thought it was referencing Milgram taking him but none of the other characters have refrences to Milgram itself in their first so I have my doubts. He doesn't seem to understand the full extent of what he's done and why it's wrong, and I doubt Milgram forgiving him is helping that but I think he needs safety and love more than he needs to get tortured by some girl with a bat. I am however worried for Mu's safety considering what happened to his childhood friend :(

Yuno: Forgiven->Forgiven

Overall, he confuses me alot but until I get more info I'll vote him forgiven ♡

EDIT: ignore the majority of this and go read my other Haruka post pleasy

Gonna go againt the popular theories here and say her 'sin' wasn't abortion but purposely inducing a miscarriage (potentially multiple) considering how difficult it seems to get an abortion in Japan and her constant stair imagery (her entire first trial video, the picture of her standing atop stairs in Undercover and the stairs in her placard (think that's the right word)). Honestly she just seems depressed and apathetic towards others, hope she gets out of Milgram soon it's bad for her :((((( there's very little I can think of that could be shown in her next video that'd make me unforgive her aswell as make sense so for now it's a very easy forgive ♡

Futa: Unforgiven->Forgiven

His video seems pretty straight forward, harrassing and doxxing ppl online in the name of justice and making himself feel like a hero, until it cost someone their life. It's important to note that in Undercover his victim is depicted still wearing their shoes, unlike the other suicide victims in Milgram who have them off, as in Japan it's common for suicide victims to take their shoes off before committing suicide. There's quite a few reasons they do this, one that stood out to me was to show that they did actually choose to commit suicide and they weren't just murdered or did it accidentally or something. It could be that the victim did it very impulsively, not even thinking of taking their shoes off. It could be a way of them communicating in death that while they did kill themselves, it was more that they were murdered by the people harrassing them (aka Futa). Or it could be that the doxxing led to someone coming to their house and killing them. Could be anything rlly I'm just spitting out ideas! Despite the fact he's a terrible person, he is a good guy. He does all this out of a belief that it's the right thing to do, that by hunting these people online he's making the world a better place and helping the innocent, and I'm pretty sure he never thought it'd get someone killed. I also have my suspicious that he's neglected at home and was bullied in the past, but that's a post for another day

Overall, as disgusting as what he did was, he definitely isn't deserving of what's happening to him now and I love him ♡

Mu: Forgiven->Forgiven

Not much to say here honestly :D no matter how manipulative and annoying she is, no one deserves to be abused to the point of believing their only options are suicide or murder, she did what she had to do ^_^

Shidou: Forgiven->Forgiven

Wow lots of forgiving huh! I have too many thoughts about him that if I tried to write them down it would probably give both of us a migraine. Just know he is a pathetic terrible man that I believe can be redeemed if we just keep forgiving him!!!! Maybe;;

Mahiru: Forgiven->?????

She's like the only character I don't have clear thoughts on. I can't fault her for feeling things so strongly and having an extremely unrealistic view on how love is, but on the other hand I can't forgive her for forcing those feelings and views onto another that they killed themselves after 14 days of knowing her. I'm very worried for her safety, she's clearly physically weak and can't defend herself well at all, and she keeps talking about how she sees no reason in living if her love is denied, and she's no longer wearing shoes (going back to my previous thing about taking shoes off before suicide). We can't let ourselves be guilt tripped into forgiving her however, and the fact that instead of questioning her ideals she's went straight to the extreme makes me question her redeemability

Overall, I'm leaning towards unforgiven but again she just can't understand why what she did is wrong and it's hard for me to condemn someone like that. Love isn't a crime but abuse and stalking sure is

Kazui: Forgiven->Forgiven

Hello! I have been following your project for the past two years, and have come to the conclusion you do not deserve to have Kazui in your prison. He is my boyfriend and seeing him in an environment not meant for him brings me anxiety, so I will be expecting a reply to this post when you have him forgiven and ready to relinquish him to someone who will treasure him like he deserves.

Amane: Forgiven->Unforgiven

So if we forgive her, her belief in her cult is affirmed. If we don't forgive her, she doubles down on her belief in her cult. There's no winning orz. I think from the end of her first video, deep down she knows something is wrong even if she doesn't realise it yet, maybe if we keep pushing she'll start to wake up? If not, well there's no winning either way. Praying for Shidou's safety 🙏 maybe 'praying' isn't the right word but still- she questioned her beliefs in her video afterall, going against what she was told to help that 'cat', maybe she can do it again!

Overall, she's just a kid who was tortured into her murder, but eventually she'll grow up into an adult that'll torture other kids into murder. I'll keep unforgiving her from this point onward, there's very little that'll change that.

Mikoto: Unforgiven->Forgiven

(I'll refer to our mystery alter as 09 in this) So what do we know about 09 so far? Well for starters he's like super depressed! The lyrics in MeMe are very clear about this, showing him asking if it's okay for him to keep on living, saying that he gave up trying to change ect, but he also seems to care deeply about Mikoto, saying he will save him, that he'll do whatever he can to protect him and asking him to rely on him. I'm not entirely convinced that he's saying these things out of genuine concern but instead out of a need to have a purpose but still! We're not given a reason as to why killing is going to help (yet) but I doubt he'd put himself and Mikoto in unnecessary danger and I'm certain we'll understand more soon. As for Mikoto himself, he's a designer 🤢 but he does share a body with this KING so I guess I'll have to forgive him for it

Overall, I'm pretty sure 09 is doing all this with good reason, or atleast good intentions. If murder protects these guys then so be it! ♡

Kotoko: Forgiven->?????

Her video was pretty straight forward, though I can hardly call her a vigilante anymore. How can she say she's defending the weak when she's torturing people with no knowledge of what they've done? Not that torture would be okay if she did but if she's just gonna trust the word of the only authority figure in this prison and nothing else, she's more of a cop than a vigilante. In her video she had an entire board dedicated to hunting down criminals who took advantage of innocents, spending her every minute researching, when she said she was "dedicating her life" she wasn't joking. How can she go from that to beliving the judgment of some random 15 year old in a goofy hat;; I know she bases her entire self worth of being able to bring justice so she's probably been extremely restless in Milgram but still... everyone I've seen talk about her recently has said they can't forgive her anymore, the only reason I'm not 100% unforgiven is because whatever they're gonna show in her second video has to be BIG or there's like no chance of her being forgiven.

Overall, basically unforgiven but I don't think I can make a judgement just yet, I feel something big coming...

I don't think there's any right answers in Milgram, we're really just given 2 bad options (either a character thinks murder is perfectly fine or they get tortured and think they're terrible people who deserve it) and we've gotta pick what we think is better. My opinions change constantly and definitely will as new videos come out so I'm writing them before first second trial song comes out so I can reread it later 👍if you disagree with me then feel free to debate me (please please debate me i will love you forever)

[my-mt-heart]

11A Reimagined

I know, I know. The story isn’t over yet. There is still a lot that’s going to carry over into 11B, and I am happy to see it all unfold the way AK intends, don’t get me wrong. I definitely don’t assume to know more than she does. Think of this as a proposal for a fanfiction I’ll never write. A major “what if.” So, with that said, what if...

1. Maggie had no connection to the Reapers. With food sources dwindling in Alexandria, TF could have easily just decided to venture into new territory and stumble upon the Reapers amidst their search. There’d still be a fight on the road, only one more evenly matched to serve as the catalyst for Pope’s wrath. Everyone would still get separated. Daryl would still get captured by Leah. Maybe that sounds too convenient, but IMO, Maggie’s personal investment in the Reapers never amounted to anything anyway (at least not up to this point). The real story was between her and Negan, and it would’ve felt SO much more natural if neither character had any reason to go on the mission. If they could just remain in Alexandria instead, we could see Maggie trying to navigate being a leader again to a community she left behind years ago while at the same time struggling to co-exist with Negan, who would be struggling to claim his “rightful” place in Alexandria with her around. We could see him interacting with Hershel, which could maybe, just maybe, trigger some semblance of regret for leaving the poor kid fatherless (I said maybe). Maggie, who had a much stronger connection to Hilltop, could be the one to revisit its ruins instead of Carol. Which brings me to my next “what if...” 

2.Carol and Daryl led the food mission. Father Gabriel, Magna, Kelly, and Lydia would go with them (to be explained below). Caryl’s conversation in Find Me about Carol sticking around to deal with her issues would probably need to be re-shaded slightly, or it could happen on this trip. Either way, this alt storyline helps to directly and thoroughly address the new tension between Carol and Daryl instead of, you know, setting it aside for 8 episodes straight? Imagine them bickering in the subway tunnels while those around them take notice. They’d ultimately be struggling to get on the same page again, Carol fearing Daryl will never trust her again and Daryl worrying she’s only going to put herself in more danger or try to run away. Only after running into the Reapers and getting separated, the threat of losing each other looming very large, would they finally gain some perspective.  

3. Pope marked Carol as the enemy, and became obsessed with hunting her down after the surviving Reapers described her to him. Not to say Maggie isn’t important to Daryl, but it could be argued that the stakes for him would be significantly higher if Carol was the one he had to go to great lengths to protect. 

4. Father Gabriel was tortured. Imagine he was the one who got captured instead of Frost who, sorry to be presumptuous, no one had a strong emotional attachment to, not even Daryl. He wouldn’t have to die necessarily, but it would just give Father G the opportunity to engage in a heavy theological debate with Pope which I think a lot of us really craved. Meanwhile, what if...

5. Carol, Magna, Kelly, and Lydia found each other in the woods again after being individually hunted, preserving the awesome girl power we saw in 11x03. Magna would definitely be the one to insist they cut their losses and head back to Alexandria, but Carol would refuse to leave Daryl behind. Just because he said he wouldn’t go after her anymore if she disappeared doesn’t mean she won’t go after him. Then along the way, what if...

6. Carol and co bumped into Connie and Virgil because why the fuck not? Connie and Kelly would get their beautiful reunion. Carol would get some peace of mind. The group would have two more people to help them fight the Reapers, whose whereabouts they’d learn someway, somehow. Maybe Dog escapes the Meridian and guides them. Maybe Carol comes across Daryl’s crossbow and has to rely on the tracking skills she supposedly picked up from him over the years. Maybe we see a variation of the scene in 11x06 where they all hide under the floorboards while the Reapers search the house. Daryl could discover his friends’ hiding spot and help them get out of there. Maybe somewhere in that coded conversation with Leah and Carver, Daryl is able to relay to Carol not to worry about him and to save herself. But who does he think he’s kidding?

7. Carol eventually got captured too. Cue the discovery of the knife. Cue Daryl’s cover being blown in a clever, thrilling way. Cue Leah’s white hot anger. Cue Pope: “Told you he couldn’t be trusted.” Pope, Leah, and lets throw in Carver for the fun of it would then proceed to torture the fuck out of our two idiots in love. It would be extremely emotional for Daryl and Carol. 

8. Lydia taught the others to lead a herd onto the Meridian, giving my third favorite character the agency she deserves. That’s way more believable than Negan teaching everyone if you ask me. Anyway, similar chaos would ensue. Leah would still kill Pope for sending her brothers out there as bait, and she’d become the leader of the Reapers. The group would save Daryl and Carol and okay fine Father G too, but they’d get trapped inside the gate. Cue dumb cliffhanger where Leah’s about to blow them all the fuck up, her eyes boring into Carol’s. To be continued.  

Obviously, I did not take the time to flesh out the details or work out any potential kinks. This idea has just been bothering me for a while and I needed to get it out of my system. Thanks for listening. 

[laketaj24]

Marked

Author’s Note: Hey! This piece was requested, and I decided to make it a few parts. So here is the first, and this part is based on one of my favorite songs, Slow Dancing in a Parking Lot. I really like hometown, slow country ass romances lol. So this is what I am giving you! I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Happy Reading! (My taglists and requests are open!)

Warnings: Public Sex, Fluff, Language, Dubcon, OMEGAVERSE

Pairings: Alpha!Henry Cavill x Omega!Reader

M A S T E R L I S T

“Hi.” You waved at your new neighbor. The small family of four seen you a total of seven times and still had not introduced themselves once. Where was the small-town charm you’d seen in all those movies?

The man looked to you first, tall and muscled he waved. “Good morning!”

“Morning!” You yipped, finally, some interaction. “Your family is beautiful.” Those were the only words that you could think of besides saying something about the weather.

“Thank you, how are you liking Longview?”

“Love it.” You lied. It had been two weeks, you’d left the house a total of three times and each time you got lost. “It’s beautiful here.”

The drizzle of rain started overhead, it always rained in Washington, maybe that’s why you stayed in all those days without hesitation. It was sunnier in Southern California, and there was always something to do, here it was the opposite.

“That’s wonderful,” he yelled before ducking into his blue minivan. Your neighbor waved quickly as he backed out of his driveway and onto the road.

The family next door was the only one for about five miles, besides the one across the street, and he never really made an appearance other than coming home from work. You liked to people watch, it was easy to do when there were only two houses to watch. You made your way back into the house, nursing the warm cup of coffee.

When you moved here, you were no stranger to the place. Summers had been spent here with your uncle, sometimes holidays, and upon his death, you inherited the house that gave you some of your fondest memories. Building a life here was what you were intended to do, and you didn’t really have a choice, it had all fell apart everywhere else you went. This inheritance was your one get of jail free card, and it came right on time.

Longview didn’t hold much, two grocery stores on each side of the town, one bookstore, three churches, and one bar called the Sly Tree. These things you’d remembered because they held an interest and you had planned to visit them all. Tonight it was Sly Tree.

 The yellow crop top looked good against your honey-colored skin and with the slight inch of your mid-drift showing it gave the illusion that you were a good girl who’d come to play, or at least that's what you wanted it to mean. Who knew if they took it that way, you sat at the bar. There were a few more people in the place, but none that piqued your interest. The bartender tapped your glass. “Refill?”

“I can’t.” you shook your head, there was no hope of you getting home safely with another drink in your system. “But thank you.”

“You moved into Harper’s old place?”

“Yes, he was muy uncle.”

“Good guy, he always came in here on Sunday’s spreading lies about wolves.” The bartender was friendly enough, the cute smile and wide eyes caught your attention, but he was young.

“He told me about those damn wolves.” You giggled. They were all around the property. Hence the reason you opted to not have a dog, coming home to a missing dog was not your intention.

“crazy man, good, though.” He handed you a sprite. “Drink this.”

“Thank you... what’s your name?”

“Cody.”

“Nice to meet you, Cody, is there anything fun to do around here?”

“A few towns over, maybe.” He shrugged a matter of fact and exhaled. “Hunting is pretty cool, though? You should come in one day?”

“I’m certain she doesn’t mean killing deer.” The smooth voice came from the right of you, the familiar face of your quiet neighbor actually brought some light to your life. Maybe you wouldn’t have to feel alone after all.

“Hey.”

“Hey, neighbor,” he smirked. “A beer, please.”

You’d never talked to him, only observed from afar, and there was much to observe. He was tall, strapping with broad shoulders, a body that made you think unsavory things and, unlike the family man across the yard, unattached. “So, you do know that I’m there?”

“How could I not?”

“You never speak.”

“Haven’t had the opportunity.”

“Opportunities have been available, Cavill.” You said his last name thinking of the gray mailbox it was engraved in.

“Hmmm.” He placed the bottle cap of the beer on the table and took a swig of the beer. “You like to hide in that house of yours, I didn’t want to bother you.”

“I could say the same about you.”

“I’m Henry, and if I am not mistaken, you’re Y/N.” Henry swiveled in his chair to face you. “Your uncle spoke highly of you.”

“That’s good to know.”

“So, you’re in a bar on a Wednesday at eight, cabin fever must’ve set in?”

“It did.”

His car smelled of cedar, and you loved it. You sunk back in the passenger seat and kicked your feet up on his dashboard. The small city passed by, and for once in your unsettled roused life, you felt at ease. There was only one red light but about five intersections that lead you in a circle.

“Where are you from?” Henry asked with his arm hanging out of the window, his fingers waving as the window passed through them. “Technically, I’m from Georgia, but I lived in California for almost four years.”

“So. Cal?”

“Yeah, how’d you know?”

“I didn’t.” he laughed. “But I’ve always wanted to use that abbreviation.”

“Good sentence, no one calls it that by the way.”

“Then how was it a good sentence.”

“I just didn’t want to diss you all the way.”

“Ah, the courtesy country girl, I lucked out.”

“Thank you.” You bit your lip. “You go to the gym often?”

“Never.” Henry laughed. “I run and lift trees.”

“All this comes from that?” It was impossible not to touch his arms, they looked terrific through the tight-fitting grey shirt.

“Five years of it, yes.”

“I guess I lucked out.” You whispered with a small grin on your face. “Where are we headed?”

“Right over there.” He pointed to the grocery store parking lot, and the car headed that way. You had never been parking, but you’d heard of it just not in a place this obvious.

“There are no lights in that parking lot.” You chuckled. “Choosing dim-lit places like this on purpose?”

“Definitely.” the half cocky answer was coated with sarcasm. Henry didn’t seem like that type. He parked the car and turned the music down. “Now, you tell me one of your favorite songs.”

“Does it have to be fast?”

“It’s totally up to you.”

“I’m drawing a blank here,” I said after a few seconds.

“I’ll pick one, you keep thinking.” He strolled through his phone, and then the slow music came through the speakers. henry climbed out of the truck, walked over to your side, and opened the door. “Dance?” He asked.

“I suck at it.”

“Good, I don’t have to whip out my Footloose moves.” He winked as he helped you from the truck into his hands. Sweet guys like him never seemed to come your way, not in Georgia, California, or any of the other places you’d been. He was novel.

He moved as if he actually could dance, pulling you against his chest and swaying playfully to the music. The song was lulling, complementing the atmosphere of the night.

“So, where’s your girlfriend?”

“Girlfriend?”

“Someone as perfect as you have to be in a longterm relationship contemplating marriage.”

He laughed, shaking his head, his eyes flickering amber in the light for a moment and then back to their normal state. Henry’s fingers intertwined in yours. “I have no one, and if I did... I am certain you’d of seen her by now.”

“Just checking.”

“What else do you want to know?”

“What can you tell me?”

“I drink every Saturday night. I get in lost in the color brown, it’s the prettiest color... Trees, dirt all beauties often overlooked, but they’re the most important ones. I sleep with the air on me. I wake up super early, walk to the river and piss every morning. I like to sing in the shower, but I suck at it. I like you.” The vomit of words was the most alluring thing you’d heard since you came here. Henry twirled you around and pulled you back to him.

“You tell every girl you take home these same lines?”

“Just one.”

“You’re smooth with your lines Henry...”

“I can still break out my footloose moves if you want?”

“No need to...” You smiled. “This is better.”

“Good. I haven’t stretched just yet.”

You shouldn’t have kissed him, your hands shouldn’t be gripping his curls, and you definitely shouldn’t be hoisting yourself upon him, but here you were doing all of it and importantly enjoying it. Your tongue lightly swiped his lips before it was met with his and a small groan. Five hours ago, you met him. You didn’t know his last name or if even shared your beliefs, but you wanted to fuck him.

“How are the public indecency charges around here?” You whispered.

“I haven’t been charged with that one yet.” He carried you to the passenger’s seat.

“There’s a first for everything.”

“I know the sheriff.” he laughed. “I think I can get us out of it.”

Everything was rushed, but it didn’t stop you from deepening the kiss and tugging on his belt buckle.

“You sure you want this?”

You press your palms into the leather seat, and he pulls your pants down to your ankles. “I haven’t been sure of anything else.” You giggle as you rock your hips against him, grinding your mound against his hardened cock. He pushed your panties aside, rubbing the head of his cock against your lips and hoisted you up.

“You’re already wet for me, sweetheart.” he pushed inside of you, throbbing and suppressing a carnal growl.

You sunk your teeth into his shoulder when he pulled you down on his cock and began to fuck you. Then his eyes met yours, and they glowed in the dim light of the parking lot, it was surreal animalistic. “I’ve been thinking about this ever since you moved in...” He fucked harder, bouncing your tits in your bra. “How I wanted to fuck you and make you mine...” he grunted.

Your head fell back in ecstasy, and he rubbed his nose down your face before his tongue licked down your chest.

“Your fucking scent.” He growled, rutting into you. “You don’t even know what you are... sweetheart.”

“What am I?” You whispered.

“Mine.” Henry’s teeth bit into your skin, and you squealed. “Omega.”

His eyes shifted again in the light, and his teeth were still in your flesh.

“Omega?”

Your uncle used to talk of omegas, again when he was drunk... You pull away from him, but he continues to fuck you. “Henry.” You moaned. “Fuck! Henry!” You feel him swell inside of you.

Henry’s bitemark was fresh on your chest as was this inflamed urge to ride him harder, your body willed as if it could not stop. “Feel it.” He commanded. “Your body knows you’re mine too.”

“Ohh, fuck!” He grew bigger, swelling as he thrust faster and then locking into you. “Don’t cu-.”

Henry’s hand clamped down over your mouth, and he shuttered, your body shuttering, joining his climax. The warmth of his cum was soothing, fucking made you want to cum again. “Get dressed.” he kissed your lips. “Now.”

Henry Cavill Taglist: @oddsnendsfanfics​ @taytayize123​  @my-rosegold-soul​ @titty-teetee​ @sparklemichele​ @imgoldielikehawn​ @therandomthoughtsofmsparker​ @therealcalicali​ @rhys108 @shut-up-broccoli​@peculiar-monstar​ @sincerelysinister​ @xxpapasfritasxx​ @brexrif​  @sheismycherry​ @justgrits​  @angelic-kisses13 @ikeepforgettin​ @persephones24​

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[chalkrevelations]

SO. Back to the beginning, Episode 1 of Word of Honor. This is likely to be a little bit different experience than the prior posts, when I was watching the eps as they aired, compared to now approaching the show as whole and complete. May be rummaging around for things I missed the first time through, stuff that takes on new meaning set in additional context – we’ll see how it goes.

With that in mind, spoilers for not just this ep but possibly for the entire series. Get out of the car now and come back later, if you haven’t seen all 36.5 eps and want to watch it unspoiled.

First thing to strike me, right up front: You know, I think we tend to lose sight in later parts of the show – when we’re getting Laopo!Zhou Zishu pouting so he doesn’t have to cook dinner - how terrifying ZZS is in his own right (and by “we,” I actually mean the show, too). One of the things the first few episodes gets right, I think, is the sense of eerie inevitability and dread created by both the falling lanterns of Tian Chuang and the blowing paper figures of the Ghost Valley, and how similar they are. I think it’s easy to lose that - when the lanterns and the paper figures are gone and our charming and adorable couple are busy being charming and adorable at each other, in between varying rounds of being wracked by guilt and PTSD – easy to lose that this is there too, part of them – both of them - under the skin. I think it’s particularly easy to lose that for ZZS, when he’s already done a lot of work, off-screen, pre-Episode 1, during the 18 months he was putting in those first six Nails, to come to some kind of equilibrium, and meanwhile we watch Wen Kexing’s entire torturous process play out on-screen. Wen Kexing’s story is one of reaching an equilibrium, but Zhou Zishu’s story is one of maintaining it, which I think may be less showy, but is equally valuable, just as I value the Four Seasons Manor arc, especially, for giving us a vibe of two adults comfortable in an already intimate relationship, as opposed to the veritable sea of will-they-won’t-they tug-of-war coming-together-for-the-first-time-as-emotional-AND-plot climax relationships that we’re usually awash in.

Anyway, straight up we’re introduced to an assassin who, we discover, doesn’t like to get blood on himself. It looks like metaphorical blood is fine, just not actual blood, but then we discover, well, maybe he’s not as OK with metaphorical blood as he schools himself to look. Also that conversation with Li Jingan about her dad having to die because he’s a traitor to the country – I now wonder how much of that particular conversation Zhou Zishu mentally brings to the table in later conversations about his own father being executed for the same reason. Also, wait wait wait. Zhou Zishu tells Jingan that he took Jiuxiao’s body back to Four Seasons Manor and buried him next to their shifu, but I don’t remember seeing another grave there, other than Qin Huaizhang’s and his wife’s. Script inconsistency, or are you supposed to be lying, ZZS? I mean, would you be so downcast at the state of Four Seasons Manor when you arrive with your husband and son for your honeymoon, if you’d actually been there only a couple of years before? It didn’t fall to pieces overnight. Also, HAIRPIN FORESHADOWING ALERT. Our first sign of how important the hairpin is, the way ZZS’s impassive face cracks wide open when he sees the hairpin that Jiuxiao made and realizes he must have given it to Jingan. Clearly important!

Mmm. Here’s a point for the “Prince Jin is a f’kn asshole” list – Prince Jin wants ZZS to deal with Bi Changfeng personally when Bi Changfeng requests to leave Tian Chuang. And OK, ZZS is the leader of Tian Chuang. But you’re never going to convince me Prince Jin wants ZZS to deal with it personally because Prince Jin is actually so very furious that Bi Changfeng made a mistake. You will never convince me this isn’t a … it’s not even a test of loyalty, at this point, because Prince Jin has no reason to think yet that ZZS is anything other than the faithful hunting dog on a leash that he’s been, lo, these many years. Putting ZZS in a position where not only is he losing the last of the direct disciples of Four Seasons Manor, but he’s being asked to (as good as) kill him with his own hands - it’s just cruelty for the proof of your power and influence over someone. Also, given Prince Jin’s later diatribe about how everyone leaves him OMG (have you considered it’s your personality?) (But also Beiyuan! I know who you are now, and yeah, I would have let Wu Xi bride-kidnap me away from this jerk, too), I have to wonder if Prince Jin isn’t trying to make ZZS feel exactly as isolated as he, himself, feels, as part of his overall desire to make sure that ZZS has no one other than Prince Jin so that their positions are parallel – only having each other in the whole world. I also have to wonder if he’s not hoping for precisely the reaction ZZS has to Bi Changfeng – you’d rather be dead than be with me? Because that hurts, you can see it on ZZS’s face (thanks already, Zhang Zhehan), and I rather suspect Prince Jin wants it to hurt. I notice we get an echo of this later in the ep, with Prince Jin saying pretty much the same thing when ZZS asks for the final Nail. GOOD. I hope it hurts you just as much. I wonder if ZZS realizes this while he’s kneeling there in the throne room. It’s probably too late for him to get any satisfaction out of it.

OH, HEY. That’s HAN YING already, one of the two people accompanying ZZS to put down Bi Changfeng, looking super-pained like he knows what this is all costing his beloved. Han Ying, I really hope you got to tap that at least a few times before ZZS made his break for it. Is that one of the reasons Prince Jin seems to have such antipathy for you, or is it really just that he can’t stand the idea of someone whose loyalty to ZZS is greater than their loyalty to Prince Jin, himself? (Seriously, y’all, why is there not much much more Han Ying/ZZS fic?) Meanwhile Duan Pengju, omg, this asshole, is already looking smug and punchable. Really, he’s kind of enjoying the Seven Nails placement a little too much. Showing your hand pretty fast on the petty evil thing, show.

So, one thing I didn’t catch the first time around, is that ZZS isn’t just self-injuring to punish himself when he takes the knife to his chest – he re-opens wounds on all the places where the first six Nails have already been placed, so it will look like the placement is fresh. If you can’t tell he hasn’t just put them in, there’s no reason for anyone else (read: Prince Jin) to suspect he’s bought himself some time before he loses his senses. As far as anyone knows, he’s going to fall over with locked-in syndrome any day now. Which just makes the implications of Prince Jin vowing that he’s only letting him go for now EVEN ICKIER. For all Prince Jin knows, what he’s going to get back is a flesh doll that will just lie there, although I guess on the plus side, ZZS would never leave him again. Thanks, show, I need a shower, now.

ZZS says all the right things to argue his case to Prince Jin – he’s only good as a weapon, he has no skills nor utility for building and governing the country – and I think partly this is because he just knows the right things to say. I mean, you don’t become the Number Two guy in the country, with thousands under you and only one above you, if you can’t play imperial politics. But I also wonder if deep down he doesn’t actually believe it – he was successful at building Tian Chuang, but he couldn’t maintain Four Seasons Manor and even drove it to ruin. So, I’ll just be over here, clutching my chest, over my heart. Fortunately, Zhang Zhehan provides quick distraction from this pain, and I … Y’all. I can’t. I just. I CANNOT. When ZZS drops to his knees and starts stripping in the throne room. Just. Mmmmmrgh. THIS VISUAL. Although, you want to know what one of the hottest parts actually is? That pair of leather bracers hitting the floor on top of his belt, and ZZS isn’t even in the shot at that point. OK, fine, I am willing to read some dirtybadwrong fic with this whole scene premise at its heart, even if it does include Prince Jin. Zhang Zhehan, you are KILLING ME. I might have rewound this part. More than once. You can’t prove anything.

Aaaand then we get that gorgeous, painful shot of ZZS riding out into the snow that I know I’ve talked about before (including the way I get an odd echo of Lan Xichen off of it). There are several places in this ep where the cinematography is to die for, and this is one of them, the bleakness of the landscape and Zhang Zhehan (and his FACE) deep in that shadowing cloak against the stark snow as he rides out into freedom and the unknown. Then cut to somewhere green and forested. Interesting that the show starts with snow and ends with snow. That parallel with the imperial cage says some things about immortality that could stand to be unpacked – but later. Because ZZS is putting his face on – literally – and I am once again in pain, only it’s not the good kind of pain. It’s caused by that dreadful fake facial hair. There are some things that could be unpacked here, as well, about the fact that making ZZS supposedly unattractive involves a clearly fake goatee, a single aesthetically placed scar, and darkening his skin. I’m going to try to step carefully here, because this is kind of out of my lane, but it is … a noticeable thing. That probably ought to be noted.

So, ZZS takes just a moment to turn his (fake) face up to the sun and feel the warmth on it … and then with 10 minutes left, we’re on our way to Ghost Valley, where there’s some chaos and then Hanging Ghost gets got by a Mysterious Stranger To Be Revealed Later, who chokes him out (remember this). The Mysterious Master of Ghost Valley appears dramatically on his High Ledge to Make Some Pronouncements while playing with some walnuts omg (rolling two of them in one hand – remember this), and we see his eyes, which are partially obscured by chunky sidebangs, which are farther forward on his forehead than we’re going to see later, not only hiding some of his face but making it look more angular. The troops get berated, shit rolls downhill, and another dude gets choked (remember this) as Ghost Valley Master’s hair continues to artfully hide most of his face and he worries about his manicure post-kill (remember this). War is declared on Hanging Ghost for stealing the Glazed Armor, and more chaos is set into motion.

All of that takes literally two minutes, and then we cut to three months later, and no one realizes it yet, but the fam is getting together. ZZS is tits out in the gutter - only beginning his career of being a minx who flashes his collarbones an awful lot for someone who has Very Secret Scars He’s Hiding On His Chest - happily drinking himself to death in the sun (we really need to talk about this correlation of snow and immortality vs. sun and happiness …). Meanwhile, slo-mo shot of Wen Kexing looking precious and perfect, with delicate pink lips and dove-grey robes, as he checks out the rough trade in the gutter. Oh, the expectations this show is getting ready to smash. We cut from a shot of pristine precious WKX to ZZS holding up his hand, and we get a shot of the sun through ZZS’s fingers looking an awful lot like some shots of characters halo’d in light that we’ll get back to much much later in the show. Chengling appears out of nowhere to be Best Boy. A-Xiang is purple and smol and ready to brawl, and I already love her. I already love them all!  So much! Here are my delicate and precious feelings, show, go ahead and stomp all over them!

[popopretty]

BSD Chapter 86

HERO vs. CRIMINAL PART 3

Gonna try to make it short this month, since there are a lot of battle scenes and stuff that you can understand just by looking. (I can’t count how many times I have said this yet it still became an essay in the end). Anyway, I am pretty surprised at the turn of event in this chapter and I can’t wait for next month already.

Neither Japanese nor English is my native language so I do make mistakes here and then. Please let me know if you spot any. Thanks!

SPOILERS AHEAD

- Atsushi and Akutagawa try to attack Fukuchi but are easily overpowered by him. Fukuchi can use Atsushi himself as a weapon to hit Akutagawa, and use pieces of stone he picked up as bullets etc.

- However no matter how much they are beaten, the boys refuse to give up so Fukuchi decide to show them the “true nature of war”. He takes out the sword that he has always carried and throws it into the sea. He then draws out his “real sword” from nowhere. That is a sword that was made 1500 years ago by a blacksmith who was also a skill user. He tells the boys the reason they will lose this battle is that they have made him draw out that sword.

- Fukuchi suddenly attacks Akutagawa but Atsushi couldn’t see his attack at all. He can feel something is coming but still get stabbed from behind even though Fukuchi is standing right in front of him. Fukuchi then explains that his sword is also called “the sword of space and time”. The sword can skip through space and reached a distance far away from it. The original range of it is only a little more than 10 seconds, but with Fukuchi’s ability, it is multiplied by 100 and can reach a much further space without him even moving.

- When Akutagawa and Atsushi have both collapsed, Fukuchi tells Atsushi that before he draws out the sword, they did have a slim chance to win but they have let it pass because they didn’t believe in each other. With Atsushi’s speed and strength, he should be the one who fight at the front while letting Akutagawa’s rashomon protect him. If they could do that well, they could have even got Fukuchi’s head. However Atsushi was scared, he was scared of Fukuchi’s power and he couldn’t trust Akutagawa with his life. 

- Akutagawa laughs and says if he can defeat Fukuchi, Dazai will definitely acknowledge him. Fukuchi then gives Aku an offer to become his apprentice. The reason he gives is, Fukuchi is the one with the most strength and experience, on top of that he and Akutagawa share one common thing, that is they will do just anything to get what they want. That makes him a more promising mentor than Akutagawa’s current mentor. Akutagawa laughs it off saying noone can replace Dazai. Fukuchi then adds that he doesn’t need Aku to switch to him, he will teach Aku to become the strongest ability users in the Hunting Dogs, then he will let him go back to his previous mentor.

- Aku says there is no way he can believe Fukuchi, but Fukuchi swears with his sword and his hero title that he will keep his promise. He also adds that he gave Akutagawa that offer, because there is something he wants him to do. He wants Akutagawa to kill Atsushi for him because he doesn’t want to kill any more kids for his missions. He said it is not like Akutagawa came here to stop the terror or anything, thus Akutagawa doesn’t have any reason to kill him. That is why the best thing he could do now is to follow Fukuchi and avoid death. Akutagawa looks shocked and Fukuchi asks him if Atsushi’s life is that important.

The chapter ends with Aku making a very serious face like he has already made up his mind. Let’s hope my boy will make the right decision ;v;

Thank you for reading till the end The next chapter will be out on October 2nd.

[yellowocaballero]

The Crow’s Funeral Snippet: Jon Gets Involved In Local Politics, Regrets It

Annabelle, of course, was standing on the other side of the door. 

Slightly less obviously, she was dressed in a finely tailored suit, complete with high heels and a gorgeous dripping silver chain-link necklace. Her hair was tied up in an up-do of braids piled neatly on top of her head, and there was even a briefcase. 

She looked Jon up and down critically. He was wearing sweatpants and a holey shirt. 

“You forgot,” she condemned, “didn’t you?”

“No I didn’t,” Jon said reflexively. He paused. “Forgot what?”

Annabelle pinched the bridge of her nose. Jon noticed that she was even wearing her usual all-black lipstick and winged eyeliner. “The council committee for London I planned for today. Remember? The one with a representative for each Entity?” Jon stared blankly at her. “There was an invite?”

“Oh, that. I don’t check my mail.” Jon looked at Daisy, who was now pressing aggressively against Jon. “Did you open up any mail recently?” Daisy barked. Jon looked back at Annabelle. “She ate it.”

“...of course she did.”  Written for no real reason besides for the fact that I know too much about my own AU and I care about Annabelle. This story takes place both pre- and post- story: six months after Jon enters London, and six months after the events of the story. We talk about childhood/adulthood, stagnancy/growth, good/evil, and the inherent metaphor of a Nintendo DS. Sometimes...found family...is bad. Rest under the cut. 

In the third month, boiling and bubbling over, someone knocked at Jon’s door. 

Not the door to his office. The door to his flat, which had a very large ‘EMPLOYEES ONLY’ sign on it, and was always locked. The employees were, granted, Jon and Daisy, but the message was conveyed. Jon saw the sign in stores and copied it, as he copied many aspects of business models. Jon didn’t quite understand how to run a business, but he had read both ‘What they teach you in Harvard Business School’ - whatever a Harvard was - and ‘What they don’t teach you in Harvard Business School’, so he figured he was set. Daisy had also grabbed him a Girl Scout book on starting your own lemonade stand, which helped more than the other two books combined. Harvard Business School could take notes. 

Jon rolled off the bed, where he had been downloading knowledge of string games and trying to figure out how to do them. Omniscence was closer to reading an instruction manual than actually knowing how to do something, but at least that left Jon with plenty of time to learn skills. Even if it wasn’t necessarily his favorite activity - he was bad at a lot of them, which would frustrate him and make him wreck the craft. Daisy kept on saying he needed a hobby other than reading but what did she know, anyway -

Daisy, from where she had been sleeping at the foot of the bed, lifted her head and barked sleepily. 

“I’ll get them to go away,” Jon promised. Or eat them. Maybe just eat them. 

But when Daisy bristled and jumped off the bed, barking heavily, he knew who it was. Jon sighed, hastily shoving a shirt over his head, and undid the three deadbolts before unlocking the door. 

Annabelle, of course, was standing on the other side. Slightly less obviously, she was dressed in a finely tailored suit, complete with high heels and a gorgeous dripping silver chain-link necklace. Her hair was tied up in an up-do of braids piled neatly on top of her head, and there was even a briefcase. 

She looked Jon up and down critically. He was wearing sweatpants and a holey shirt. 

“You forgot,” she condemned, “didn’t you?”

“No I didn’t,” Jon said reflexively. He paused. “Forgot what?”

Annabelle pinched the bridge of her nose. Jon noticed that she was even wearing her usual all-black lipstick and winged eyeliner. “The council committee for London I planned for today. Remember? The one with a representative for each Entity?”

Jon stared blankly at her. 

“There was an invite?”

“Oh, that. I don’t check my mail.” Jon looked at Daisy, who was now pressing aggressively against Jon. “Did you open up any mail recently?” Daisy barked. Jon looked back at Annabelle. “She ate it.”

“...of course she did.” Annabelle glanced down at Daisy, whose fur was standing on end as she growled lowly. “Have you had any success?”

“You would have noticed if I did,” Jon said shortly. 

“Have you tried talking to -”

“Yes,” Jon snapped, “but apparently some of us have better things to do than attend meetings and cure dogs.”

Annabelle intelligently dropped the matter, instead frowning at Jon. He crossed his arms, fighting the urge to hunch over away from her dark and perceptive stare. But instead of pushing him, she said, “Go get dressed in something a little appropriate, please. You look like you crawled out of the Buried.” Daisy barked, which Annabelle ignored. “What are you doing to your hair?”

Jon hunched defensively. It was a little matted and frizzy, but who was counting? “Daisy can’t exactly shave it anymore, and I don’t really...know what to do with it...am I doing something wrong? I bathe.”

It was very important to Daisy that he bathe and brush his teeth. Jon didn’t know what the big deal was, but if it was important to her then he did it.

Annabelle just pinched the bridge of her nose again, checking her wrist-watch. “Buzzing your hair is a crime against God, and letting your hair look like that is a crime against me. I’ll take care of this later. Just get ready in the next five minutes, or I’m filling your fridge with spiders again.”

Jon got ready in four. Annabelle didn’t joke around with that stuff. 

He didn’t really know what a council committee was. He didn’t know why he had to go to one either, seeing as Jon only tended to concern himself with Daisy. Daisy had been taking up a lot of his concern lately. Then his mood had plummeted again, and in the last month they’ve both been recalcitrant to leave the flat for anything but eating, and he was capable of noticing when he was hunting a little vindictively, and - anyway. 

He downloaded the knowledge, and then made a face when it didn’t really help. One of those nasty little political things. What was with his fellow Avatars and politics? Just torture anyone who bothers you. If they were one of those freaks who liked being tortured, then just smite them. Life was easy and very simple once you remembered that basic rule. 

But Annabelle was really into it - she kept on saying something about ‘order’ and ‘regulation’ and ‘first dibs’ - and she tended to drag him along into these things. She thought it was ‘important’ that Jon ‘know what was going on’ or something. Jon liked Knowing things, but once you know everything you realize that some things aren’t really interesting enough to know. 

When he asked Daisy if she wanted to go with, she feigned sleep. She had been hyperactive lately, compensating for her months of starvation with unbridled and frantic Hunting. Jon had taken her to one of those little pockets where people were running around and screaming all the time, and let her run wild in the rainforest for a while. It was the kind of fun bonding experience they hadn’t had in ages, and Jon had the opportunity to pluck his own grapes from the vine too. 

There had been an old man who really hadn’t been happy to see Jon, which had freaked him out a bit. He had started going on a little bit about how Jon had ruined his life, but he only got a few sentences in before a giant, carnivorous plant had eaten him. That was lucky. 

Jon had ripped the dimension apart as he left. Nasty little place. Nothing good there. 

So Jon left the house without Daisy for the first time since she had been well enough to move around, and with Annabelle. Daisy had been waiting at the door with a rucksack packed with his favorite book and his Nintendo DS, which made Annabelle ask her where the juicebox was. Daisy tried to bite her again. Jon didn’t know why everybody couldn’t just get along. 

There was a cab waiting outside, driven by another skeleton, and Annabelle quickly bundled him into it. Jon slouched in the corner and started playing WarioWare as Annabelle leafed through typewritten documents, lips pursing and making notes on the margins of each one with a red pen. She was muttering to herself, somewhat entertainingly. 

“My fourth arm for a computer, I swear to Jesus. My fourth and fifth arms. My sixth arm for a computer…”

“Are those the internet machines you told me about?” Jon asked, scribbling his stylus on the screen. Ashley cheered him on. He loved Ashley. “Do council committees need the internet?”

“The internet’s for a lot more than council committees Jon,” Annabelle said tightly. “They’re for video games. Ememoharepeegees -”

“Gesundheit.”

“ - bitcoin mining, instant messaging, online dating, freaking Google Docs -”

“Do you want it back?” Jon asked, bored. “I can make you the internet.”

Annabelle’s pen froze on the paper, hovering over a bullet-point list. “The entire internet? You can just do that?”

“Yeah, sure, whatever.” Jon poked his tongue out his mouth in concentration as he pressed the monkeys in a rhythmic order. Rhythm games were his jam. “That’s, like, the pocket nightmare dimension from Tron, right? I can do that. Addictions are easy. Put people inside, trap them inside a video or something. It’d be mostly for torture but you could probably use it normally.”

Annabelle stared at him, expression blank, for so long it made Jon a little uncomfortable and defensive. What had he said wrong? Daisy was usually good at interpreting these things for him, although sometimes when people went on about ‘violence’ she was just as confused as him. Finally, she said, “No, that’s alright. I always hated Black Mirror anyway.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a telly - never mind. I don’t want you getting any more ideas.”

***

The council committee was held in the stupidest building Jon had ever seen in his entire life. And he had been in London for six months. He knew stupid buildings.

‘London City Hall’ or whatever was this awful giant, lopsided, obloid monstrosity. All glass and windows, with nary a brick in sight, Jon hated it instantly and severely. He was immediately filled with the urge to turn to somebody and commiserate with them about shitty architecture, but there was nobody else in the cab but Annabelle - and, well, she seemed to have other things on her mind. 

The neighborhood around it was filled with a mix of equally stupid buildings and perfectly respectable buildings that looked as if they had been made a long time ago. The sidewalks were relatively abandoned, and the streets were empty of everything but the endless rotation of tourist double-decker busses. Jon knew that this wasn’t one of those districts where people actually lived and roamed - instead, it was one of those business districts that people only stepped inside for work or city business. Like that silly little Palace of Westminster building that Annabelle had taken him to months ago when she was showing him the city. 

That building Annabelle had especially loved. It was filled with old white men with sagging jowls and liver spots, looping in endless routines and miniature atrocities. Annabelle had asked him to take as many Statements as possible, and Jon had needed no encouraging. 

That had been a strange trip. Normally people found his little monologues boring, because they were idiots with no taste, but Annabelle had listened to every single one. She had been enraptured, excited and triumphant. She had dragged him into some “Lord’s Chamber” or something and posed on the throne as Jon obediently took polaroids. Well, so long as she was happy. 

Jon was already seeing that London City Hall was no better. Annabelle dragged him through it, anxiously checking and re-checking her files, as they effortlessly weaved between shambling zombies of old white men in suits. Jon tasted the ripe air of trauma from them - a similar taste to that spiralling academic building, but rather a little more tart - but Annabelle dragged him away before he could stop and eat them.

There were parts of London that were safe. Maybe even most of London - although nowhere was truly safe, not really, not every location was absolutely haunted. The grocer’s was the grocer’s; the chemist still sold your medication. Not that you really needed it anymore, but habit was habit. 

But some buildings, which were entrenched so firmly in hundreds of years of evil, could not be dissuaded from their nightmares. In that respect, the safest city in the United Kingdom became the most dangerous. Some buildings had been nightmares even before the end of the world. 

Jon, of course, gave very little shits about this beyond in the academic sense. Annabelle refused to let him duck out of her meeting to go snack, and she ended up dragging him in front of what looked like a smallish conference room. 

Annabelle stopped in front of it, taking a second to breathe in and out and check her makeup. She seemed to be hyping herself up for it, shaking out her arms loosely. Jon slouched behind her, hands jammed in his trenchcoat pockets. Annabelle had asked him to put on a less raggedy suit, but - well, he sometimes had nicer suits, but they got raggedy very quickly. She had also asked him to leave the trenchcoat at home, but no way. It was part of his Look. 

“You’re frightened,” Jon noted with interest. Annabelle was scared of less than he was, and she had much less of a reason. “What about this room scares you?”

“It’s not the people in the room,” Annabelle snapped, flashing her compact shut. “It’s what I’m trying to do. If this world’s going to last more than a few years before it devolves into fuckin’ Mad Max we need leadership. I didn’t put all of this work in just to -” At Jon’s blank look, she sighed. “Never mind. You don’t care. Just - try to trust me, Jon.”

“Of course I trust you,” Jon said, baffled. “Why wouldn’t I?”

She stared at him, expression inscrutable, for a long moment, before opening the door and pulling him in. 

It was a nice conference room, all wood panelling and that specific green shade you only saw in lawyer’s offices. There was a large rectangular table in the center, and more than a dozen luxurious chairs arranged around it. There was a big pull-down screen on the far wall. Jon didn’t know what it was for, but he knew that if he downloaded the information it wouldn’t help. Omniscence was so useless. 

In a move that horrified Annabelle, most of the attendees seemed to be there. They had been chatting - talking, actually, quite loudly - before Annabelle strode in and Jon slumped in after her. But in the second that they both stepped in, an abrupt hush swept the room, and every eye swiveled to them.

If Jon was honest with himself, he’d say that they didn’t quiet when Annabelle stepped in. He’d say that they quieted when Jon stepped in. That it was Jon who they were looking at. 

But Jon didn’t particularly feel like engaging with that. He didn’t like being stared at by people he didn’t know, and he didn’t like being out in public with people he didn’t know. He didn’t enjoy being in buildings or meeting new people, much less going to boring meetings. Jon decided all of this instantaneously, as every eye swiveled to him.

Rooms full of humans were fine. It was just humans. Nothing even vaguely intimidating about that, unless the humans were teenage girls. But these were Avatars - Jon could taste their nature in the air, a sharp and electric tingle - and when they stared at Jon he felt something heavier in their gaze. Oh, lord. There was a teenage girl here. 

Jon tried slumping to the back chair, but Annabelle grabbed his collar and dumped him in a comfortable chair to her right. Jon saw a little placard in front of it that read ‘THE BEHOLDING’. Great. 

“Thank you all for coming today,” Annabelle said crisply, and suddenly every worry was gone. She was calm, poised, confident, and professional. A perfect imitation of the officials and politicians who once really walked these halls, who passed laws and rubber-stamped policies. She could have passed for an assistant or junior staff member, bright and intrepid and ready to climb her way up the ladder. “Are we all accounted for?”

It seemed so. Every chair but one was filled. When Jon peered around at the placards, he saw that each one had a different Entity on it. One of the seats had no placard, and was occupied by said teenage girl. Four were unoccupied: the Spiral, the Slaughter, the Hunt and the Extinction. 

Annabelle sat down in the head chair, which seemed just a little fancier. She put her folder in front of her, eyes flickering down the room. “It seems that Helen couldn’t make it. The Hunt duo seem to have...recently met unfortunate ends. The Slaughter Avatar called ahead to say that they couldn’t make it - it was high school picture day? And...I suppose the Extinction Avatar still doesn’t exist.”

She glanced at Jon, who shook his head. “Do you want one?” Jon asked. “I can go find a climate change denier in this building and make one for you.”

That also disturbed Annabelle, as well as everyone else. Jon abruptly felt awkward, and hunched in his seat. He defensively pulled out his DS, his plans to fall asleep in the back of the room already foiled. 

Above him, Annabelle continued droning. “Still, I appreciate you all coming. I know that we haven’t all gathered since a bit after the apocalypse began -” Wait, they had? Since when? “ - but I hope we can agree that further coordination is necessary. We’ve already begun having serious territory and jurisdiction disputes, and it’s best that they’re resolved sooner rather than later.” Nobody looked very impressed, but Annabelle looked seriously at them all anyway. “I want us all to have an equal voice at this table. Save the fighting for another time. And please try to keep your powers out of here. I’ve already sworn to avoid using any of my Mother’s gifts in this room, and I hope you all can do the same.”

“Yeah?” A woman drawled. She was unfamiliar to Jon, like most people in the room, but she had a teenage girl sitting next to her who seemed to be paying rapt attention to Annabelle. “How are you going to enforce that?”

Annabelle stared at him for some reason. Jon jabbed at his DS and won the Mona minigame. Nothing more was said. 

“Alright, then. I’ve already collected motions from all of you prior to this meeting.” Motions? Annabelle hadn’t said anything like that. Maybe it was on the invitation Daisy ate, but somehow he doubted it. Annabelle looked down and traced her finger down to her first point. “Many of you suggested this, so I would like to introduce it as a general discussion. Territory disputes, apparently, are a point of contention between many of us.” She opened her briefcase and pulled out a large map, and if Jon looked over the top of his DS he could see that it was a map of London. She also pulled out a red marker, uncapping it. The sheet was laminated, and there were already circles and markings all over it. “We’ll go one at a time. Amherst, you’ve motioned that the Stranger is intruding within Camden.”

A foppish looking man on a dumb little top hat scowled, as the young woman sitting behind the Strange placard looked annoyed. “It is gentrification. Every apartment complex occupied by artist studios are stealing food from the plate of my insects.”

“You haven’t had Camden for a decade,” the Stranger woman said, rolling her eyes. The Omniscience informed Jon that her name was Sarah Baldwin. Vaguely familiar - had he seen her at a cafe? “Nobody lives in those rat-infested tenements anymore. Now all the rats are performance art. Which is us. Get over it.”

“What is performance art -”

“Motion for no more Avatars over the age of 40,” Sarah Baldwin said. “I hate how Amherst and Wakely are in this room.”

“I wish I could second that,” Annabelle said, to the great affront of two grimy old men, “but unfortunately we do have to deal with this. Amherst, I’ve heard several complaints from other council members that you’re infiltrating their territory.”

“I am made of bugs -”

Jon checked out after that.

Instead, he surveyed the room a bit. Nobody in it was really interesting, just a meaningless collection of self-important people. The only person in the room other than Annabelle who he recognized was Oliver, who was sitting at the very back doing his best to fall asleep. When Jon Stared at him a bit he took notice and subtly waved. Jon shyly waved back. Jon liked Oliver. 

Oliver mouthed something adjacent to ‘what is wrong with your hair’, offending Jon grievously. He didn’t look that bad, did he?

He glanced to his left, then down, to ask Daisy’s opinion, but he realized too late that she hadn’t come with him. Stupid. She could have come as part of the Hunt - they didn’t have anybody, it wasn’t as if they could complain. Not to Jon, anyway. 

But she wouldn’t have wanted to. Daisy hated being an Avatar, for reasons that Jon had just never understood. She tried explaining it to him a long time ago, trying to talk about how guilty it made her and how much harm she had done, but it had just confused him more. She had tried to explain up until the end, as Jon had grown more and more angry at her for her refusal. He had never understood. 

She had stopped talking about it lately, though. Which was good. Jon didn’t know what he’d do if she starved herself twice. He wouldn’t have tolerated it.

Daisy had told him that the most important thing in the world was to make your own choices. So he let her make hers. No matter how much he hated it. 

The others weren’t familiar at all. There was a woman with wild dark hair sitting behind the Dark placard, which confused Jon slightly until he decided that they likely hadn’t wanted to send the thirteen year old. There was this really wrinkly and gross old man for the Vast, a younger looking but older feeling man for the Buried, a deathly pale woman for the Lonely, the muscular woman and the teenager for the Desolation...why did they have two…

The teenager was staring at Jon. She had intense orange eyes, the kind that bored into you and never blinked. She looked away every few seconds, as if she was being subtle, but when her gaze drifted back to him again he met her eyes with an unimpressed stare. She squeaked and looked away firmly, hiding behind her curtain of long red hair. 

Okay. Whatever. Kids were weird. Jon was glad he had never been one. 

Jon swapped out WarioWare for Pokemon SoulSilver, opening back up where he left off catching another MissingNo. His entire team was full of the things. He wanted a Mareep, damn it. 

Finally, Annabelle rapped the table sharply and said, “It’s agreed, then. Everybody submit specific written documentation of your territory by city block, and fax it to me by our next meeting. Please abide by the resolutions to the conflicts we discussed here. Any objections to moving onto our next order of business?”

“I have an objection to the Dark’s questionable behavior,” the Buried guy rumbled. He was dripping dirt everywhere. Why didn’t anybody complain to him about his hygiene? “In the words of the lad Brody, they are kill stealing. If they do not withdraw their nightmares from our embrace of the Earth, we will unleash retribution with extreme prejudice. The dirt is a holy place, and we will not be polluted by -”

“Oh, stick your shovel up your fat ass, Wakely,” the woman with wild black hair said. “People aren’t afraid of the fucking dirt, they’re afraid of the darkness in the tombs. Walk into a mausoleum sometime.”

“You poach the End’s territory now too, wench?”

“Please leave me out of this,” Oliver said. 

“If you call me wench one more time, you’ll be watching the back of your eye sockets for eternity,” the woman said pleasantly, “so royally fuck you.”

“Um, not to interrupt, but that’s not really how it works,” the teenager said, and the death glares between the two turned on her. She hunched her shoulders, but her expression stayed firm. “The terror is going to overlap. That’s just how it is. The Buried and the Dark are not entirely...separate things, they’re gradients that overlap. If you get all finicky about what belongs to who, then you’re just going in circles…”

“The last thing we need is the coward Messiah of the Eternal Flame telling me how to worship my god,” the woman snapped. 

“Watch your fucking mouth, Manuela,” the muscular woman said flatly.

Then they were glaring, and Wakely was saying something else snide, and Manuela was making another dig at the teenager as the muscular woman bitched, and Jon abruptly wanted them all to shut up. 

“You’re being too loud,” Jon said. 

The entire room shut up immediately. The teenager opened her mouth, but the pale woman caught her eye and shook her head. 

Annabelle clapped her hands in the silence. “Onto the second motion, then! Infrastructure! Right now we are sorely missing a great deal of essential city infrastructure, and it’s becoming a huge problem. We’re still figuring out what’s mystically maintained, and what’s just being maintained because the humans haven’t figured out how to stop doing it yet, but there’s some work that’s being neglected. The Vast has motioned to reinstate the postal system.”

“Vetoed,” the Lonely woman said. 

“You can’t do that,” Annabelle said blankly. “We need to vote.”

“I’d like to make an argument for the motion, dear,” the Vast man said, making Annabelle’s eye twitch. “My argument is this: Amazon Prime is so convenient!”

“We have every Amazon warehouse under our control,” the representative from the Flesh said. He was...very fleshy. “It’d be no issue to go back to production.”

“Jared has a point. The Eye’s been feeding through Amazon for years,” Annabelle said thoughtfully. The mention of the Eye piqued Jon’s attention, but then he finally ran into a Mareep and he stopped paying attention again. “We can tap into the people who are living 1984 and get them back in industry.”

“Can we begin producing again?” the Desolation woman asked, interested. “We have all these people miserable at work, but nothing’s actually being made. If we let a little reality break into the nightmares…”

“Wouldn’t that be dangerous?” the Lonely woman asked sharply. “It’ll make it easier for them to escape.”

“They all escape eventually,” Sarah Baldwin said. “They all break out in days to months. We can afford a little more permeability if we actually get things working again.”

Then conversation was off and running about something that Jon didn’t really care about, so he checked out again. He didn’t know what all of this production and infrastructure stuff meant. Going Postal meant that he had a very good understanding of a mail system, but he didn’t have a personal interest. Who he would send letters to?

Jon quickly downloaded what Amazon was. Oh, that would be useful. Wait, he could get any book delivered to his door? Without having to go out hunting for it? How would this work without the internet - a catalogue? 

Everybody seemed invested in getting the internet back up, except for the two hundred year olds. Jared kept saying something about porn, whatever that was. If enough people felt like Annabelle, then maybe they would make it a priority. Jon didn’t know how he felt about that. 

He didn’t know how he felt about the fact that it was impossible. 

But everybody - or most people - genuinely seemed excited about it. They even seemed to be working together, intent on the same goal.

Sarah Baldwin wanted to know if we have enough people constantly under camera to have footage for television. Maybe we could get cable back up? DVDs were a lost cause, but if we could just start airing the VHS tapes…

Annabelle had a look of hook-ups (literally) in the film industry, maybe they could do something like that?

The Hahns are highly involved in production and distribution, Jared pointed out. There was no need to produce food, but if we wanted to increase access to goods it might be possible. 

Why? Why did they care? This world provided them everything they needed. 

For some reason, Jon felt a little defensive. What did they need all of these things for, anyway? All of this entertainment - cable and movies and internet. The world had books. What was so wrong with books? There were even old VHS tapes liberated from charity stores if you really wanted to get fancy. The most high-tech electronic Jon had ever found was the DS in his hands and a couple of games, which Salasea had given to him as an exotic artifact. Only Salasea owned these things now: trinkets and curiosities, hallmarks of an antiquated time. 

What was the point of these supply lines? People didn’t need to eat or shop or consume. Nightmares provided the facsimile, and since they got a little crazy if they never ate they were provided the security of food. Buying towels and shoes and toys...it was a waste of time. People had towels. Nobody outgrew their shoes or wore them out. Children’s toys didn’t break, and anything that made happiness a little easier to come by was discouraged.

Nothing was ever subtracted. Nothing was added. The world was frozen, captured in the amber of time, and it would never move backwards and forwards.

They knew this. Didn’t they?

“We have to make this place livable for us,” Annabelle was saying. She spoke oddly intensely, with a fervor that Jon had seen in her a few times before. Annabelle didn’t like to give off the impression that she cared about things, but once you knew her it was hard to miss. “It’s easier than ever to stay powerful and feed our Forces, but that doesn’t mean we can grow complacent. We have to work together to eat sustainably. To live sustainably. If we don’t try to rebuild, at least enough to get the world moving again, then we’re sentencing ourselves to a boring and decrepit eternity in a world we will all see die within our immortal lifetimes.”

Everyone at the table was nodding. They looked determined. United. Almost...they held an expression that Jon just couldn’t name. An emotion he didn’t understand.

He had seen it in Daisy, once. She had called it hope. He hadn’t understood back then. He still didn’t. 

“Liar,” Jon said, as his minigame timed out and the game over music tinkled across the tinny speakers. 

Annabelle looked at him, expression inscrutable. “These problems are legitimate, Archivist. The writing’s clearly on the wall, and -”

“You’re all so stupid,” Jon complained, and Annabelle abruptly stopped talking to glare at him. Whatever. Jon had lost all patience. He closed his DS and dropped it on the table, resigning himself to talking. Jon hated public speaking, especially in front of so many people he didn’t know and, frankly, creeped him out. “You can’t build anything in this world. If you try to impose a cute little government then it’ll break down into cannibalism or something.”

“Would you know, Archivist?” Jared asked evenly. 

“Jonah didn’t enact this world through myself for living,” Jon said, bored, and everybody stared at him with wide eyes. “We created it for suffering. Suffering isn’t living.”

“One might say the opposite,” the Vast man said, somehow twinkingly. “Suffering is an unavoidable side effect of living, isn’t it?”

“Is that philosophy? I don’t understand philosophy.” Jon wasn’t very good with anything that required extensive and complex thought. Which made sense - Jonah hadn’t exactly created him to think. “Humanity has clouded your minds. Makes all of you irrational and sentimental. Release your attachment to the old world. Just accept the way things are now.” Jon shrugged. “It’s not as if you can do anything about it.”

“Nobody in this room is exactly human, Jon,” Oliver pointed out placidly. 

Jon snorted. “Wanting free porn back? You’re all dripping with it.” It was honestly a little sad. “The only ones in this world free of that weakness are Jonah and I. And he’s the only one who could do any of this.”

“Then where is he?” the Desolation woman snapped. She leaned forward, hands gripping the table in anger. The teenager watched her anxiously. “Why doesn’t he come on down from his high tower and explain what’s going on? We’re in the fucking dark here!”

“I’m sorry,” Jon said coldly, “who are you?”

He rubbed his bad hand. For some reason, everybody watched him do so. He stopped, self-conscious. 

“Prejudiced remarks aside,” Manuela said. She had been hostile all day, but she now spoke cautiously. “Jonah Magnus needs to take responsibility for this. We don’t even know how the world ended.”

Several people glanced at Annabelle, whose lips thinned. “I shouldn’t say.”

Of course she knew. And of course she wasn’t about to tell him. Whatever. Jon didn’t care. Past was the past. 

He found his hand clenching. There was a strange tension in his throat. He didn’t care. He didn’t. Rehashing the worst pain he had ever felt in his life, even now, wasn’t really worth the time or energy. He didn’t care.

“No use crying over spilled milk,” the Vast guy said lightly. “But it is a relevant question. Jonah frequently spoke of his plans, and I realize now that he had never truly shown all of his cards. But he had always held an intention to...well, rule. It’s only in this moment of his victory that he shows no interest.”

“Jonah’s busy,” Jon snapped. “Trust me, you don’t want that arse around. He never even gives me directions, and I’m his right hand.”

“Or his puppet,” Sarah Baldwin muttered. 

It was fair. Probably even true. So why did an intense and burning fury shoot through Jon?

“What gives this child the right to dictate us?” Wakely demanded. Jon’s hands clenched on the table until his knuckles turned white. “What gives Jonah Magnus the right to rule us?”

“He’s not much of a ruler,” Amherst grunted. “My vote’s that we rule this world in a council.”

“Administration is important,” Annabelle said, impossibly terse, “but unless anyone here actually has the means to seize control, then there’s no use voting on it.”

“There’s only one Avatar here who has those means,” Manuela said darkly, crossing her arms and looking straight at Jon. “So why doesn’t he do anything?”

They were feeding on each other. They wouldn’t have said these - these treasonous things by themselves. But when one person spoke up, the next felt empowered, and they felt as if they outnumbered him. Jonah Magnus was hardly there to press him into obedience - why buckle under his oppressive gaze? What could he do?

The stupidest people in this world all gathered in one room. It took a special level of arrogance, pride, and stupidity to assume that one was more powerful than Jonah Magnus.

“I’m not in charge of anything,” Jon said tersely. “I don’t even have a domain. I’m just trying to live my life.”

The Desolation woman snorted. “Typical. You’re rolling over for Jonah.”

Jon’s eyes widened - not in surprise, but in anger. 

The teenager seemed a little uncomfortable. “Jude,” she hissed, “I don’t think -”

“Jude,” Jon breathed. “So that’s your name.” 

He was standing up. Jon didn’t remember standing up. Everybody was leaning away, their own eyes wide. Some just looked confused, slightly perturbed - Wakely, Amherst. Others looked ready to bolt - Manuela, the old man from the Vast. Jon knew, in a flash of insight that grew hotter and hotter, that he preferred to be called Simon. 

“Sit down, Jon,” Annabelle said, as authoritative and no-nonsense as ever. Normally he’d listen to her, respecting that she usually knew what was going on far better than he ever did. But the words barely reached him, drowned out by the rushing in his ears. “Look, we can talk about this rationally, alright?”

“Oh, fuck off,” Jude said. She snorted, burning red eyes never leaving Jon’s. “As if I’m scared of this baby prick.”

“Maybe we can move on from Jonah Magnus,” Simon said quickly. “A discussion of airspace rights, perhaps -”

“Jon,” Oliver said, voice creased in worry, “are you okay?”

“This is the all-powerful demigod you all warned me about?” Amherst said. He was dripping with condescension, just like - just like everyone else - “He’s little more than a child.”

“Guys!” the teenager’s voice rang through the room, close to scared. “The walls are melting!”

So they were. It was as if the stone and wood was made of wax, sent guttering by a sputtering candle. Wood and finish were already pooling on the floor, melting the rolling wheel of Jared’s chair and forcing him to jump up from it. 

“Jon!” Annabelle said sharply. “Don’t throw a tantr -”

The table cracked sharply. It was warping, twisting in on itself as if it was a wrung towel. Jon realized, too late to care, that his hair was rising. He knew his eyes were spinning, an eternal churning wheel. 

“Fuck this, meeting adjourned.” Manuela stood up sharply, pushing her chair back into a melting bubble. The floor was beginning to bubble and warp. “See you all next month.” 

“I’ll walk you out,” Simon said quickly, standing up too. 

“You have two minutes,” Jon said, voice heavy with static. “Don’t bother me about this shit again.”

The signal was clear enough. Jude rose from her chair, grabbing her teenager’s elbow and pushing her out the door. The others followed in their wake, expressions carefully neutral. It was useless: Jon could taste their fear, their trepidation. Even better: their anger, barely brindled fury, and disgust. 

They couldn’t do anything about it, Jon thought giddily. No matter how much they hated or were scared of him, they couldn’t do anything about it. Jon was powerful. Jon couldn’t be hurt. Jon couldn’t - 

Jon couldn’t reign this in. 

Before he knew it, the conference room was empty. Only two other people remained: Annabelle, expression as inscrutable as ever, and an uncomfortable Oliver. His hands were stuck in the pockets of his pea coat, and he was looking around with disaffected interest - as if he was standing in line at a Starbucks in rush hour instead of in the epicenter of a melting building.

Jon knew. The entire building was dissolving. It was teeming with humans, lost and trapped and defenseless. He didn’t want to kill them. Jon didn’t like hurting people. He heard a voice speak in his head, foreign and familiar. Bring it in, Jon. 

But he couldn’t. His hair would fall back around his shoulders, and the static rushing through his ears just wouldn’t abate. It felt like everything was pouring out of him, a relentless faucet that wouldn’t stop churning out thick streams of putrid water. 

Jon fisted his hands in his hair, groaning. “Where’s -”

“She’s at your flat,” Annabelle said calmly. “Do you want me to get her?”

No. No, this was too embarrassing. He was an adult, he could handle this. Jon groaned again and sank into his seat, saved from the toxic waste of glass and brick. “No. Focus on getting the humans out of here.”

“What do you care?” Oliver asked, vaguely curious. “You don’t seem that fond of humanity.”

“Just do it!” Jon snapped, instead of admitting that he didn’t know either.

Eventually, the room stopped melting. Jon didn’t even want to think about how difficult it would be to leave the building. He could probably straighten out the hallways just enough to help Annabelle and Oliver get out.

Ugh. This place had sunk straight into Helen’s domain. He could taste it in the air: any future human who wandered in would be stuck in an endless spiral of twisted, melted hallways. Probably flavored with...powerlessness and fear. Feeling very small, as someone very large loomed down on you. Tories. 

At least he hadn’t sucked flattened the building into one plane again, robbing it of all spiritual and metaphysical dimensions. Jon had done that to a graveyard once. The place was putrid now. He had accidentally fallen into a grave and panicked and - anyway. 

He rested his forehead on the warped and splintered conference table, waiting for his throat to open back up and the rushing in his ears to die down. Finally, after what felt like forever, his hair floated back down and he felt his eyes resume their normal shape. 

Awkward silence loomed. Jon sighed. “Sorry.”

“I worked hard to arrange this, you know,” Annabelle said.

“Yeah.”

“I am not happy with you, Jon,” Annabelle said. 

“Sorry,” Jon said miserably. “I didn’t mean to.”

“I mean,” Oliver said, after a beat, “that’s kind of terrifying. That you can melt a building on accident. Like, what would happen if you got really pissed at Manchester or something?”

“Goodbye, Manchester,” Annabelle muttered. 

Jon lifted his head, glaring blearily at Oliver. “If you think that’s crazy, you should have been there the one time I opened up an extradimensional gate and unleashed nightmare terrors into the world, rendering all of humanity immortal and eternally trapped in endless infernal hellscapes.”

Oliver shrugged, conceding the point. 

But Annabelle just looked thoughtful. Probably reworking five billion plans, knowing her. Jon didn’t want to know, because he didn’t care. Let her do whatever she wanted. None of his business. Hopefully, after this disaster, she’d keep it out of his business. 

Finally, she asked, “Was that true? That there’s no moving us forward?”

Jon sighed. He really didn’t want to talk about this anymore. But if he didn’t tell her then she’d just bug him about it later, or find some way to get the information out of him that would be both convoluted and unpleasant. “I’m not saying that people can’t...live their lives. They’re obviously still going to work and typing in every digit of pi into their spreadsheets for eight hours and then going home to stare, hypnotized, into cable television. But I am saying that there’s no achieving more than that. There’s no going backwards, and there’s no going forwards. The past is closed to us, and so is the future.” He eyed her warily. “If you have any cute time travel ideas, forget it.”

“I would never,” Annabelle said innocently. 

Yeah, sure. Liar. Jon scowled. “You’re all hampered by your humanity.” When Oliver opened his mouth, Jon just shook his head. “Even Avatars are still people. We’re all conduits for eldritch Forces, hollowed out to serve as a live wire for their power, but we - you all remember a human life. You care about things. You have relationships. You love. It makes you weak. Some of you don’t even like your lot in life - some part of you aching for something familiar, when you felt genuine happiness instead of the cheap facsimile induced by causing pain.” Jon looked down at his hands, reflexively picking at one of his many scars. “You should be more like me. You’d be more focused.”

“Are you capable of...changing, Jon?” Oliver asked curiously. “Or will you be this way forever?”

“Most of Annabelle’s plans hinge on that not happening,” Jon said, not even aware it was true until he said it, “so I suppose we’ll find out.”

Of course, Jon knew what Oliver had tactfully not said. He had wanted to know if Jon would ever grow up. They all thought he was a child, even Annabelle. Jon had the feeling even Daisy did, sometimes. 

It was stupid and they were wrong. Child would imply adult, would imply birthday parties and learning to talk and learning geography. Jon didn’t have to learn geography. He knew geography. He didn’t age. He was born being able to talk. Jon was above all of these things. He was mature. And even if he wasn’t, who cared?

But Annabelle just smiled at Jon, a polite mask. Annabelle hadn’t made a genuine facial expression in - well, longer than Jon’s memory. Or maybe that was the wrong way to put it. Maybe it was more accurate that she never expressed an emotion that she didn’t mean to. “Well! That wasn’t entirely a disaster, was it? I think next time could go really well. Don’t worry, Jon, I won’t drag you out of bed again.” She propped her hands on her hips. “Now, the three of us are going back to your flat and doing something about your awful rat’s nest.”

Oh, lord. This was going to be terrible. “Do we have to?” Jon whined. 

Annabelle smiled again, but this time it was so dangerous that Jon couldn’t help but quail. “My spiders are collecting the avocado oil and coconut oil now. My best friend in secondary had 3C hair too, I think I know what to do. Oliver, bring the buzzer, scissors, and satin wraps.”

“Three cee?” Jon asked, confused. “What’s that?”

Oliver grimaced. “Why am I involved in this?”

“Because I don’t know what to do with a guy’s hair, and you’re probably the only guy I’ve ever met who knows what to do with hair? Keep up.”

“I’m feeling pigeonholed, but fine. But we are not buzzing that hair. It’s a crime against god.” Oliver looked thoughtful for a second. “I think Jon would do a nice, loose afro. I think I still have some hair masks and vinegar rinse -”

“Why is this so complicated?” Jon asked, completely freaked out. “What are these things?”

But Annabelle just smiled sweetly at him, reaching out and squeezing his shoulder. “Don’t worry, Jon. I’ll teach you what you need to know.”

Well. It seemed easier than figuring things out for himself. Jon didn’t like responsibility. Today was his first taste of responsibility in ages, and he had already decided that it sucked. Better to let somebody who actually cared take care of it. 

That way, he didn’t have to be powerful. Didn’t have to be anybody’s demigod on Earth, capable of murdering whoever he liked. He could just be Jon, Private Detective, Archivist. He could have fun. Just live. Didn’t he deserve that, despite everything?

He stood up too, summoning a shaky smile for Annabelle. “So you aren’t mad about me ruining your meeting, then?”

“Water under the bridge,” Annabelle said. “Now come on, we have to stop by the chemist’s and pick up a decent hairbrush.”

Hairbrush? What was that for?

****

Six months after time resumed its course

Jon opened his mailbox, only to find mail.

Suspicion immediately loomed. Jon didn’t get mail. Not due to any kind of impossibility, but just because he didn’t pay bills and none of the mimic junk mail was brave enough to try their luck with him. Maybe invoices, sometimes, but mostly those were dropped off in person. The invoices were scarier than the finger-biting mimics: he still didn’t quite know how they worked. Sasha kept insisting they were important, but Sasha also insisted face masks were important. She didn’t know everything. That was Jon’s job.

He grabbed the singular envelope anyway, elbowing his door back open as he inspected the envelope. Thick, rich, and creamy, it reminded Jon uncomfortably of Annabelle’s party invite from a while ago. In the front, he saw that it was addressed to...Agnes?

The living room was noisy and busy, entirely due to the recipient of the letter and her brother. They were playing Mario Kart on the Wii, and apparently disowning each other. Jon watched Agnes hit Gerry with a blue shell, slightly bemused, and saw Dry Bones spin out into the center and make a pitiful noise. Baby Peach loomed supreme. 

Jon almost felt bad interrupting. An opened bag of chips scattered dust around Gerry, and Agnes had a half-empty pack of uncooked hot dogs next to her. They had both been at this for a while. “Agnes, you got a letter. And try to keep it down, Sasha’s working and Daisy’s sleeping.”

Agnes turned around, half a hot dog hanging out of her mouth like a cigar. She swallowed it quickly, holding out one hand and letting Jon give her the letter. She frowned down at the front, ignoring the way Gerry craned his head to take a look, and when she checked the back she frowned deeper. There was a wax seal, its details out of sight to Jon. 

“Is it that time already?” Agnes muttered, putting her controller down and letting the parade lap on the screen continue. 

Gerry frowned too as Agnes carefully broke the seal. “Is that from…?”

“Yeah. Weird, though. Guess it’s about time for the follow-up to the emergency meeting.” She pulled a letter out of the envelope, embossed on creamy paper. She scanned it quickly. “Downing street this time…”

“Are you going to go?”

“Well, it’s not as if Jude can,” Agnes said diplomatically, refolding the paper. 

Jon cleared his throat, making the kids jump. They had half-forgotten he was there. Far too late, Agnes hid the invite behind her back. “Care to explain?”

“Oh, you know,” Agnes said vaguely, casually tossing the invite behind her shoulder and letting Gerry snatch it out of midair. “It’s the invite to the Avatar council meetings. I think they’re held once every three months, but since months are a theoretical concept it’s occasionally hard to tell..”

“Not these days,” Gerry said excitedly. “It’s cold! The leaves fell!”

“The leaf thing is dope,” Agnes agreed. “Anyway, I should go. I have, like, serious words. I already submitted ten motions. I want to run for Treasurer, but Jared keeps saying that anybody who isn’t old enough to open her own bank account shouldn’t be treasurer.”

“What on Earth are you talking about?” Jon asked blankly. Was this some kind of youth league? Baseball? Was this baseball?

Abruptly, Agnes looked very sketchy. “I...it’s really nothing you’d be interested in.”

“I am interested in everything,” Jon said. He was offended beyond all belief. “Don’t keep secrets!”

“Jon’s not a big fan of secrets,” Gerry stage-whispered. “Did Annabelle say that we shouldn’t tell him or did she just say not to bother him about it?”

Agnes abruptly started sweating wax. “I can’t remember.”

“Now you have to tell me,” Jon said flatly. 

They gave up very quickly. Teenagers loved hiding things, but they also loved drama and spilling secrets. “It’s the Avatar council meeting thing,” Gerry said eagerly. “You know, where you guys all get together and re-enact the British empire by making government decisions and imposing made-up laws on the people you’ve conquered and are currently subjugating under your big stompy boots?”

“I’m changing the system from the inside,” Agnes said proudly. 

Gerry shot her an unimpressed look. “Okay. Yeah. Sure. Because that’s a thing that makes sense in an inherently corrupt system with an inherently unethical existence that exists to be profitable at the expense of the marginalized.”

“I don’t understand anything children these days even talk about,” Jon said. 

“I’m surprised you don’t remember it,” Agnes said to Jon. But she had a strange expression on her face, one hard to decipher. “It’s where we met.”

Jon stared at her blankly. “I don’t remember talking to you.”

“I was sitting next to Jude?” Agnes hinted. “Teenager? Red hair?”

Wait. Jon snapped his fingers. “Annabelle’s idiot thing! Right! Right, of course, Oliver made me sit still for five hours afterwards, it was insufferable.” 

Wait. Jon abruptly remembered the rest of that day. It seemed like so long ago, even though it was probably objectively only about three years. It must have been about...yes, a few months after Daisy had gotten stuck...

He barely remembered those tepid and awful months. He had been on a bit of a hair trigger back then. It had been really tough, with Daisy leaving and his terrifying encounter with Jonah. He remembered everybody had been annoying and mean and made him feel bad…

“First time I ever remember feeling fear, honestly,” Agnes said to Gerry. “Scariest moment of my life. Remember when we first met Jon? All I could think about was that he was going to melt us like he melted that building.”

Hot shame flared in Jon’s gut. Right. Other people were real, and existed, and were probably more important than his...what had he even been upset about? He didn’t remember. 

He melted a building and he didn’t even remember why. 

“I’m going too,” Jon said, and both kids startled. “I’m coming with you.”

Agnes and Gerry stared at each other with wide eyes. 

“Uh,” Agnes said finally, hesitant, “there’s about a 50/50 chance Annabelle said not to tell you about this, and you definitely didn’t get an invite, so statistically you probably aren’t -”

“She can’t exactly stop me from coming,” Jon said, and both kids quieted. 

Power-tripping had lost all appeal for Jon - assuming role as a conduit for global and absolute power did that to you - but he couldn’t deny it was useful sometimes. The world probably could have stood a little more power-tripping from him, actually. At least, it would have been helpful if he had ever done anything helpful with it. But he had never really bothered. 

But Agnes still looked perturbed, almost worried. “Annabelle’s like one of two people you used to ever listen to, so if you don’t really care what she thinks anymore -”

“I think Annnabelle knows better than to complain these days,” Jon said. 

It probably was for the best that Jon didn’t listen much to Annabelle anymore. 

****

Jon hadn’t really told the others about Annabelle’s worse-than-murder attempt. 

It didn’t really seem like any of their business, and he had spinned a vague explanation of how the situation happened. He didn’t lie, just - withheld information.

For the first time, the truth didn’t seem so important. He had the feeling it would have just upset them. It wasn’t as if he would take revenge against Annabelle. The world needed her, and Jon was a little tired of murdering everyone who upset him. The others (Daisy) would insist on the little murder attempts if they knew, but that was probably part of why he didn’t tell them. If they never knew about the one unselfish thing he had done in his life - well, one unselfish thing didn’t make up for three years of selfishness, so there was very little point.

Martin suspected. Actually, Martin seemed to know, which terrified Jon slightly. It was impossible to get anything past Martin. Jon was deeply intimidated by the man. Sasha laughed very long and hard when he told her that, for unknown reasons. 

Besides, it wasn’t as if he felt betrayed. Even if the last time he had attended one of Annabelle’s little council meetings he still trusted her, that had faded quickly in favor of complete apathy. Even then, as young as he was, he had never expected the truth from her. Just friendship. Whatever she was doing, it probably wouldn’t affect him, so there was no use in worrying. Even if Annabelle slightly terrorized every other person in the United Kingdom - well, Jon was fine, so what did it matter.

Jon couldn’t decide if he was stupid or naive. Or, even worse - if he was just lazy. 

Jon didn’t listen to Annabelle anymore. 

Unfortunately, he still listened to Sasha James. 

Two weeks later, the date of the actual meeting, Jon was stuck explaining himself to his entire house, who doubted all of his decisions. Which was just unfair. Jon made good decisions! He had made tons of good decisions, like -

Anyway!

“I think it’s a great idea,” Sasha said, freaking out Jon. “Displaying interest in your local government’s fantastic! Did you do any research on the relevant issues?”

Jon, in the middle of pulling on his trenchcoat, started sweating. “I was just planning on showing up.”

Agnes, who was wearing a gauzy skirt and blouse as Daisy helped a whining Gerry with his court buttons, gave Sasha the thumbs up. “I’m going to propose motions and Jon’s going to say ‘yeah what she said’ and it’ll be great.”

Jon let Agnes believe that.

“Well, you’ll have to share Jon’s political weight,” Sasha said cheerfully. She was in sweatpants and one of Jon’s pilfered t-shirts again. She had recently designated herself a writer, and had joined some sort of recent artist and activist collective where they did mysterious things that Jon didn’t understand. There’s a zine involved? Jon didn’t know what a zine was and he was scared to ask.

Georgie and Melanie had spent a week teaching Jon in laborious detail what exactly the internet was - information Jon could have just downloaded, but they had been intent in their mission of creating ‘the perfect internet’ and had gone through great effort in teaching him what the ‘good’ internet was (Ravelry, Spotify, r/HobbyDrama, YouTubers but only a very specific list) and what the ‘bad’ internet was (social media, the rest of Reddit, every other YouTuber). Jon wasn’t sure if the new internet was to their specifications, and he hadn’t quite been able to avoid parts of it spiralling into nightmare dimensions and hellish breeding grounds for violence and trauma, but Melanie assured him that Twitter had always been like that. 

Jon also secretly added a nightmare filter to Melanie’s screen reader, after he made sure every inch of it was accessible, after he roughly recreated screen readers. Melanie said that the voice sounded uncannily like the aunt she had hated, but that it was no big deal. 

Anyway, Sasha was a blogger now. After a few meltdowns to Sasha’s computer he had to install a nightmare filter for her too, which made her complain about feeling like an old woman whose grandson had to install AdBlock on her browser. Jon was a little scared of the whole blogging thing, but everybody seemed much happier, so maybe that was the important thing.

“Wait,” Jon said, finally recognizing what Sasha said. “Share with who?”

There was a knock on the door. Jon felt intense fear.

“She’s here!” Sasha said cheerfully. “Come in!”

Jon watched in horror as Basira Hussain casually strode into her house. He knew he couldn’t stop her. She had a key to the place, because Jon had no control of his life. 

“Hey honey,” Basira said, intimately. 

“Hey honey,” Daisy said lovingly, releasing Gerry from her clutches.

They stared at each other, as if this was any kind of greeting whatsoever, before ignoring each other. Jon did not understand so many things. 

Basira, terrifyingly, was dressed like she was about to go defend her client in court. She had a briefcase, and Jon recognized her most important looking crimson hijab. Very abruptly, Jon had a flashback to the way Annabelle had dressed when she had picked him up in his old office. They even had the same expression: determined and resolute, in a way that Jon could never understand. 

Basira nodded at Jon. “Hey. Sasha invited me to this thing. She told you I was coming, right.”

“She did not.”

“Whatever. Are we going to get going? We’re going to be late.”

Jon looked at Sasha pleadingly. Cold and resolute stone, Sasha showed no mercy. She smiled brightly, giving Agnes a final hug and pushing her forward. “You kids have a great time! Terrorize the bourgeoisie!”

“I am the bourgeoisie,” Jon said blankly, but the situation had already spiraled out of his control. Agnes and Basira were already comparing lists of notes, seriously discussing the motions Agnes had raised and how she was going to help Basira. 

That was it – how Agnes could help Basira. How Agnes, and the role she had in the council hall, could help Basira and the people Jon knew that she intended on representing today. 

They hadn’t even looped him in. Had they assumed that he wouldn’t care? That he wouldn’t help? Agnes hadn’t even wanted him there. Only Sasha -

He felt a cool, small hand grab his arm, and he turned around to see Daisy. Gerry was already enthusiastically capturing Sasha about the concert he and Agnes were going to later, and Jon knew that they weren’t listening. Daisy’s expression was somber, her body tense. Daisy wasn’t one for facial expressions at the best of times – not even a new development – but something about this…

“I should go with you,” Daisy said. 

“I already told you no,” Jon said, miffed. “I can handle this by myself.”

“I shouldn’t have let you go by yourself last time,” Daisy said. Jon could admit that things probably wouldn’t have spiraled out of control if she had been there, but that didn’t mean – “Don’t terrify yourself just because you feel guilty.”

Daisy hadn’t aged any more than the rest of the world had. As an Avatar, she likely never would. She even looked young for her mid-forties, with her short stature and broad, unlined face. Sasha had assured him that she was ‘Kristen Bell-ish’, whatever that meant. But she always seemed so old to him: larger than life and not even reaching his shoulders. Wise and world-weary even when, as Jon was beginning to see, she didn’t know what she was doing any more than the rest of them did. 

It scared Jon, almost: if Daisy wasn’t the person who could swoop in and make it all better, then who could? 

If Jonah wasn’t the omnipresent god, then who was the most powerful person in the world?

Jon shook her off, fighting the pull in his gut. “I’m not scared of them anymore.”

She didn’t look impressed. “You’re always scared.”

“Look at the time, going to be late, gotta go!” 

He still couldn’t win an argument against her. 

They took a taxi there, as Jon had cheerfully informed them that the Tube was delayed due to infernal leaves on the line (Work-from-home was the hot new thing these days). Basira was clearly on edge, tense and constantly keeping an eye on the taxi driver (a friendly skeleton) and the street. Agnes wasn’t any more relaxed, reading her notes over and over. 

Jon leaned back in his plush seat, closing his eyes. What would Martin say? He would probably be cuttingly pointing out how Jon was in denial over how he really was secretly afraid of the Avatars and now it was even more dangerous because he was much more willing to power-trip. 

Forget about what Jon wanted. Forget about his fear, his insecurities, and every rationale he had constructed for himself as to why Jon deserved a life free of these worries.

Jon was above politics. The Avatar with no need to defend their territory, who held no fear of death or failure, had no need. Jon could not lose the affection of his patron. His domain was the world, and it could not be attacked no matter how hard he tried. Jon was not a politician, so of course that meant he could not be manipulated by politicians -

“What’s your plan,” Jon asked, without opening his eyes.

They told him. Basira was clinical; Agnes excited. Jon didn’t say anything about it, and let the conversation die down until the taxi was rolling in front of 10 Downing Street. Didn’t the prime minister live here? Boris...something? Jon quickly downloaded the information, before he found that Boris Johnson had been the world’s most convoluted psy-op by Annabelle and had never exactly existed. Thank goodness.

Right as the taxi idled in front of the building, Jon opened his eyes. He let them flare up, an intimidating spark of toxic green. “You two follow my lead.”

“Excuse me,” Basira said flatly, as Jon waved at the driver in lieu of payment. He hadn’t found out that you were supposed to pay taxi drivers until...a few months ago. In his defense, they never asked. “This is our operation.”

Jon glanced at her, and something relaxed around the corners of her eyes. He wondered if his expression was familiar to her. He couldn’t help but smile weakly, and that softened her expression even more. “Will you trust me?”

Basira stared at him for one long beat, then two, before grimacing. “Don’t make me regret this.”

“Do I usually make you regret it?” 

“Literally, every single time,” Basira said. 

“Then it’s a pretty stupid decision to trust me again,” Jon pointed out. “You don’t seem the type to make stupid decisions.”

Basira stared at him for a long moment, before leaving the car. 

Jon and Agnes silently watched her leave, before glancing at each other. 

“And I thought you ran from your feelings,” Agnes said finally, before following her. 

Jon, left with nothing else to do, followed Agnes.

10 Downing Street, Jon quickly found, was just like every other pretentious old British home. With lots of grandiose rooms with furniture shoved into corners so everybody could appreciate the gold-plated tile, or sitting rooms with the most uncomfortable places to sit Jon had ever seen. Each wall hosted gigantic portraits of famous British figures, who were all so ugly that Agnes incinerated one for fun. Jon respected her choices: he had been wearing a stupid wig. 

Jon, unfortunately instinctively aware of the layout and history of this sordid place, led them through the halls. He opened his mouth, instinctively about to funnel a Statement regarding the decades of human suffering and imperialism, before forcing his mouth closed. Basira wouldn’t appreciate it. Besides, the Statements had been easier to ignore lately - like curious dogs nosing at his hands rather than insistent children demanding to be fed. 

Instead, he settled on casually updating them on the choice of location. “A year ago, this location wouldn’t have been safe for Basira at all. This building was a nightmare pit of despair.” He led them up the ridiculous flights of stairs watching carefully as Agnes jumped up them. Trick steps, you know. Basira proceeded far more cautiously. “It’s...no less a nightmare pit, but like the rest of London it’s now safe to navigate. I’d keep clear of the residential rooms, however. The Prime Minister and his family haven’t escaped their nightmares since the apocalypse, and they never will.”

Basira’s eyebrows skyrocketed up. “David Cameron’s stuck in hell? No surprise there. What’s he having a nightmare about?” 

“Well, there’s this pig, right, and you’ll never guess what he’s doing -”

“Never mind,” Basira said quickly. “Not interested.”

“I’m interested,” Agnes said. 

“I’d rather you weren’t.”

Jon, who also wished he didn’t know this information, quickly directed them towards the conference room.   

But he found himself stopping in front of the intricately carved oak double doors. The wrought golden handles were grimy and dull with dust, but Agnes and Basira did not hesitate to open the door and walk in. They didn’t hesitate; they weren’t frightened. Or, if they were, they didn’t let it stop them.

But Jon stopped. He felt like Annabelle, in that moment. Annabelle, standing in front of that conference room door so long ago, unable to admit that she felt any fear at all. 

She had been desperate. Jon saw that now. Only a desperate person would have ever concocted that plan against Jon. He was the sole person capable of murder in this world, and the sole person who was so vindictive and petty that he would kill anybody who said something that he didn’t like. 

Annabelle was arrogant. She thought herself the most intelligent person in every room. She was petty, manipulative, and power-hungry. She thought that the world was so broken that somebody had to fix it, and that she was the only one who could. She was desperate. 

Jon didn’t particularly want to do this. But Jon really, really had to grow up. 

Jon opened the door. 

It was a far cry from the nice, professional conference room in City Hall. The floor was some ugly light brown hardwood color, and the walls were tudor-like and panelled. Old man ribboned curtains, an intricate rug woven from human rights abuses, and a claw-foot long conference table with an array of chairs made up an incredibly ‘antique’ room. The British found ‘antique’ and ‘wealth signalling’ to be the same thing. It made for some very ugly buildings and very uncomfortable chairs.

 Nobody else had entered yet. Jon checked the time with his extradimensional psychic powers and realized that Sasha had hustled them out the door fifteen minutes earlier than necessary. She was so intelligent. 

Agnes was already moving to her uncomfortable seat, and Jon tapped Basira on the arm and silently pointed to the seat with the ‘EXTINCTION’ placard. She raised an eyebrow at him, but followed his direction. Maybe that was what her trust looked like. 

There was a placard stamped ‘BEHOLDING’ in big letters. Gone unoccupied since the last time Jon had been here. 

He ignored it, and sat down at the head of the table. Likely where Annabelle usually sat, as director of the meetings. Historically, where the leader of Britain had once sat and directed the affairs of the country.

Jon kicked up his heels on the polished antique wood, pulling up an episode of The Twilight Zone in his brain. He identified with Rod Serling. 

The other Avatars filtered in, one by one. All of their eyes widened when they saw Jon, but none of them said anything. Jon wondered what had filtered through the Avatar grapevine. They always knew all of the gossip on each other. It was impossible to miss the Earth’s paradigm shift, and Agnes mentioned that they had convened an emergency meeting on it. Doubtlessly, his name had come up. They likely knew he was the instigator. Who else could?

Annabelle was the fourth in, as fashionably on time as usual. She was the only one who stopped in her tracks when she saw Jon. A surprise, to a woman unused to surprises. Jon’s house didn’t have insect problems. 

Her eyes widened. Her jaw clenched. That was all it took. And Jon Knew, in the way that he Knew things, that she was wondering if this was when he finally killed her. 

She didn’t know why she was still alive. It was stressing her out. It was a move that made no sense - an unforeseen reaction. Jon was predictable. When Jon wasn’t predictable, and when Jon’s actions weren’t being very precisely controlled, then she was left with a vindictive and irreverent steam train on her hands. She hadn’t predicted his presence here. 

Jon was also sitting in her chair. Scuffing the wood. Leaning back in the chair, and definitely scuffing the floor too. 

He pointed to the chair at his right, with a placard that now read ‘WEB’. Annabelle sat down in it. Everybody noticed. 

Everybody also noticed Basira. She was receiving some glares, or some pointedly unwelcome expressions. But Basira’s glares and unwelcome expressions were more powerful than any demon could ever offer, and one by one each Avatar looked away in shame.

Only Oliver actually talked to him. Which made sense, as Oliver feared neither life nor death. When he walked in he was just as surprised to see Jon as everyone else, but he offered Jon a smile too. Jon smiled back, which made several of the other Avatars lean back.

“Hey, Archivist. I thought you hated these things.” 

“I do!” Jon said cheerfully. “I wasn’t even invited.”

Annabelle busied herself with her notes and agenda. 

As usual, Helen didn’t show up. Jon waited patiently for everybody to filter in. Sarah Baldwin didn’t show up either, and Jon searched for the information before realizing that he really didn’t want to know. He saw some other new faces, as well as some faintly familiar ones. It wasn’t that strange: no position of absolute power was forever. Where was that bloke Wakely?

Wait. He was the Avatar who had talked for too long about burying people alive at a party in a ridiculous skyscraper. He had upset Daisy. Jon had seen red and lost his temper. Jon had...tossed him over the side of the roof. Let him keep falling. Left him to waste away. He was probably gone now. 

The entire room had been at that party. Whoops. 

Now uncomfortably reminded that Jon had murdered two people at this table, that everybody was aware of that, and that Jon had completely forgotten about one of the semi-accidental murders because, in Sasha’s words, he was “a bit of a psychopath, what the hell”.

This distressed her, because apparently Jonathan Sims had always been a “sensitive boy” with a “tender heart”. Daisy had said that he was still a sensitive boy, just prone to power-tripping. Sasha said that this was also very consistent behavior. Martin said -

Martin said that Jonathan Sims had been a good person. And, more importantly, that Jonathan Sims had wanted to be a good person. That was one thing that Jon didn’t want to change. 

Who just buried people alive -

Jon waited until everyone was settled down. Nobody was chatting or talking to each other: just sitting silently, avoiding eye contact. 

He could see Annabelle preparing herself to say something. Better get this ball rolling, then.

“Jonah Magnus is dead.”

The silence suddenly became oppressive. 

Jon didn’t stop to savor the looks on their faces. That wasn’t the point. Enjoying this wasn’t the point. Jon had all the power he wanted and - and he didn’t want it at all. He hoped that nobody here would make him have to prove it. 

Jon did not want to melt anyone. He wasn’t going to melt anyone. Life had started feeling a little valuable lately. These people, the soulless demons surrounding him, weren’t any different than he was. Humans with delusions of grandeur. Infighting and power plays weren’t going to fix it. 

But Annabelle had been right, as she always was. Jon couldn’t keep ignoring this. If he could do something, he had to. Even if it was something he didn’t like doing. 

Or something he hated that he enjoyed doing. 

“Jonah Magnus is dead,” Jon repeated pleasantly. “The world has changed. These two events are related, of course.”

He didn’t elaborate. Jon didn’t lie, but he didn’t have to say everything. 

“The chains which bind this Earth have loosened,” Jon continued. He folded his hands over his stomach, relaxed and casual. “We now exist in the third age of life. I ask that you do not resist.

“The seasons have begun to change, our eternal placid summer ripening into fall and sinking into winter. Our world turns yet again. Babies are born, grow old, and die. The apocalypse as we’ve always known was rooted in its stagnancy. Life and growth has bloomed, and will continue to subsist. Change is once again thriving, and we must adapt with it.

“You’ve noticed that your power has weakened. You will have to fight harder than ever to maintain your food supplies. What was once a conquest is now a battleground. The playing field is far from even, but the enemy and harvest now have a fighting chance.” Jon smiled brightly. “Of course, I’m sure that this was all discussed during your emergency meeting. Great job with your repeated warfare attempts against humanity during the last six months, by the way. How’s that working out for us?”

Silence loomed. Of course, their repeated attempts to quash the new human uprising had not gone very well. At the end of the day, for every one Avatar there were thousands of humans. 

“You are no longer strong enough to allow these divides into factions,” Jon continued. “We must present a united front if we’re going to maintain the ground we have. We can’t continue on the way we have. And I’ve realized…” Jon glanced at Annabelle, catching her eye. “I’ve realized that I haven’t been helping the situation. There’s more I can do. That’s why Annabelle has handed over moderation of these meetings to me.”

Nobody looked impressed. 

He could see it: the way Jon had become an unpredictable, dangerous nuisance towards them. Almost everyone in this room would be much happier if Jon dropped dead. Nobody had really liked him because nobody had ever felt safe around him. Only Annabelle and Oliver - the person who had nothing to fear from him and the other person who did not feel fear - called themselves his friends. 

But they would have preferred it if Jon was hostile or dangerous. If he had even admitted his power. But Jon play-acted at harmlessness, unwilling and afraid to make enemies, and in that way he became a nuisance rather than an enemy. He couldn’t even pretend that it wasn’t on purpose. No matter how many Avatars brushed him off or ignored him, it was better than feeling their eyes on him. Or feeling the fear rich on their tongues. 

 “Also I invited a human to work with us on human affairs,” Jon said cheerfully. “Diversity hire! Any questions?”

There were a lot of questions. Basira didn’t look very pleased at his remark, either. 

Simon leaned forward first, pale and watery eyes intent for the first time. “What happened to Jonah Magnus?”

“Natural causes,” Jon said cheerfully. “Next?”

“What does this mean for us?” the Lukas matriarch said. Her eyes skittered away from him. “Are we in danger?”

Jon shrugged. “Only if you’re incompetent at feeding.”

“What caused this?” Manuela demanded. “The children are running wild, we can’t control them. We’ve lost a major food source.”

Jon scratched his temples. “What caused it...sustainability efforts.” He sobered abruptly. “You could never control the children, anyway. This is the generation of the apocalypse. You’ll find that very little frightens them now.”

“Does this have to do with those humans you’ve been running around with?” Jared asked, scratching his chin as Manuela’s expression contorted in rage. 

As usual, a frighteningly insightful observation from such a brute. “It is actually directly their fault!”

Everybody turned to look at Basira, who was completely unapologetic. She crossed her arms. “Don’t ask me. First I’m hearing about this too.”

“Did you kill Jonah Magnus?” Oliver asked, morbidly fascinated. “How?”

“We humans didn’t kill him. We showed up at the Panopticon to kill him, only to find Jon there and Jonah Magnus already dead.” Basira scowled as Jon and Annabelle glanced at each other. Jon subtly shook his head. Annabelle’s lips thinned. “It looked like he’d been dead for years.”

An unfamiliar young man with a thick mop of clumped black hair peered at Jon, expression contorted in grotesque interest. He was one of the Avatars who had been born in the Apocalypse, who were all recognizably weird. His name was - right, Geoff Anjou. Some French man who had made his mark in the Parisian Underground before moving to London and conquering his next terrain. A Parisian to the bone - or, a great deal of bones, as the case may be. So many bones. Jon had always meant to take Daisy to that wonderful little nightmare and let her run loose. Chase people through the tunnels. Munch bones. Perfect vacation. 

“So did the Archivist kill him?” Geoff asked, in the same way you would ask who won the World Cup. “Steal his Watcher’s Crown or whatever?”

“Are you the new queen bee?” a young woman asked Jon. The new Slaughter Avatar, Henrietta Something-or-another. A Cambridge legacy college student, Annabelle had intoned, and Jon had been afraid to inquire further. She was cyberbullying someone on her mobile, which seemed to be bleeding. “Cuz, like, you don’t seem qualified.”

“I did not kill Jonah Magnus,” Jon said, for the five hundreth time in the last six months. “And I’m uninterested in filling his shoes. That’s enough questions, I think.”

“Are you as weakened as the rest of us?” Amherst demanded. “Surely this destruction has affected you worst of all.”

“He probably ate Jonah Magnus,” Henrietta said. “The Archivist’s probably god now.”

Geoff snorted. “No way. He brought a human as back-up.”

“Why is there a human?” Another woman asked, with long brown hair and a broad face. Something about her was unquestionably severe, from her bulging muscles to her incredible height. Jon had never seen her before in his life. Her name was Julia Montauk. Something about her stank of life and undeath, same as Amherst. “We can’t exactly work with the prey, here.”

“I’m proposing an emergency motion,” Amherst said suddenly, shutting up the rapidly overlapping voices. “I vote that a leader is elected democratically. And that representatives are limited towards loyal patrons of the Forces.”

“I second that motion,” Geoff said immediately. “We can’t afford a chaotic uprising in our government right now -”

“This really isn’t a vote,” Jon said. 

“Isn’t this a democracy?” Henrietta asked, with the self-righteous assurance of a twenty year old. “We vote on things in a democracy. And leaders.”

“Annabelle was voted in last spring,” Julia agreed. “No reason to change things.”

Well. Basira said that she trusted him. He’d have to rely on that.

Jon pressed down. 

It felt just like that: pressing down. Reaching out a hand and squashing. Sometimes it was like ripping someone into shreds, and other times it was like plunging your hand into their chest and ripping out their heart. But this was just a press: a heavy static, bearing down over your shoulders like a ten ton weight. A sight so horrible that it was too eldritch to even look at. The realization that the hideous sight was you, and that it was all you would ever be.

Some - Geoff, Amherst - gasped, as if they were choking. Others - Lukas, Henrietta - gasped at their hearts, as if they were having heart attacks. Jon carefully kept it off Oliver, Annabelle, Basira, and Agnes. He couldn’t help but remember what she had said a few weeks ago, about being so frightened - 

But Basira winced anyway, clutching her temples, and Jon carefully released the static until the inhabitants of the room could breathe again. His eyes did not stop glowing, and Jon didn’t bother to turn off the light show. 

Jon put his feet down on the floor and rested his elbows on the table, leaning forward. As everyone shuddered and gasped, he spoke slowly and pointedly. “This is not a democracy. It never was. It is a monarchy, and the line of succession is clear.”

Annabelle’s eyes widened, and she abruptly clenched her fists before loosening them. An uncharacteristic show of emotion from her.

“This coalition has never been a democracy,” Jon said severely. “This is a house of lords. You are uninterested in representing any needs but your own, and I know Jared failed level eight government, but I’m sure all of you know that democracy represents elected officials. Nobody here has ever lived in a true democracy, and in your human fallibility you have recreated the only system you have ever known. The seats at this table are determined by power - all of you, the most powerful conduits for your Entity. I am the inevitable consequence of this system. I am your natural disaster. All of you bought me. Now you have me. And you are no longer powerful enough to make me leave.”

Agnes’ hand was covering her mouth. Jon dearly hoped Basira was holding onto that trust. He dearly hoped that he wasn’t speaking from anger. 

But he couldn’t stop. It boiled and bubbled. It was an anger and a powerlessness that had subjugated him for thirty two years of his life. It had served as the cloud hanging over his head for three more. 

“If you want someone to blame for the Archivist who now moderates this meeting,” Jon said, his voice the thin lid over this boiling pot of hurt and anger, “I now know their names. Jonah Magnus. Jude Perry. Nikola Orsinov. Twice. Breekon and Hope’s coffin. Peter Lukas. Jane Prentiss. Maxwell Raynor. A strategic book.” Jon tilted his head, having effectively made his point. There were others, but he had forgiven Daisy and Melanie a long time ago. And Jared had been polite about it. “Bring up your complaints with them. Good luck with that.”

Jon clapped his hands, closing the lid on those memories. Maybe one day the pain would leech from them like a sun-bleached painting, but that day hadn’t come yet. “Now! If you have any further complaints about my position here, or if you want to continue debating political theory, feel free to stand up and tell me so. We’re all interested in you regurgitating your life story until you die. Anyone?” Crickets. Jon leaned back in his chair, making himself comfortable. “Can we go onto the motions now? Ms. Hussain first, then clockwise from her.”

As if they had planned this, with the air of a well-choreographed actress, Basira stood up and spread out her papers in front of her. “The human contingency requests neutral zones in essential areas. Maternal wards in hospitals are highly vulnerable locations, and when assaulted by parasites the mortality rate of children is very high. If you want a self-replenishing food source, you have to allocate space for safe living. The next essential zone is a daycare and a school for children -”

And she was off. Jon had nothing to say, nor was anything necessary. Raging debate sparked after she finished speaking, and Basira effectively crushed the opposition. Agnes spoke up in her defense, and to Jon’s surprise even Manuela contributed a solid understanding of the necessity of children. When the debate started spiraling in an unhelpful direction Jon cut in and shut it down, before forcing the vote. 

It did not pass, obviously. 

“By the way,” Jon said. “Ms. Hussain proposed five different motions today. At least two of them have to pass. This debate is about picking which two you want.”

Then that started up all over again, and Jon tried not to fall asleep.

Moderating was hard. He actually had to pay attention and focus, and he hated focusing. He was effective enough at shutting down conversations, but sometimes shutting down conversations wasn’t helpful - he just needed to steer them in a more productive conversation. And Agnes’ political theory and Basira’s almost-definitely-made-up statistics started flying so thick and fast above his head that Jon was starting to almost completely lose the plot.

Jon chose his moment as the Lukas woman was complaining extensively about how Henrietta’s digital bullying was intruding upon the Loneliness of her adherents. Henrietta had argued that social media made people more lonely. Jon was afraid that Henrietta was his fault. Maybe the Eye’s fault, holistically. Jared wanted to be friends with Henrietta and co-host Instagram events, which Jon enthusiastically supported despite Basira’s glares.

He leaned over to his right, gesturing slightly at Annabelle so she would lean in closer. She raised an eyebrow at him. Annabelle’s eyebrows were crushing. 

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Jon whispered to her, as quietly as possible. 

Annabelle mouthed very clearly at him, ‘Wow, really? Shock!’. 

“I was making a point,” Jon hissed. “An important point. But I don’t - I still -” Jon faltered, uncertain, as Henrietta began sneering something about Lukas’ hairdo. Finally, he weakly said, “You care. They need you.”

Annabelle stared at him for a long, silent moment, before turning away from him. 

For the first time that day, she spoke to the room. “Let’s keep ad hominem attacks out of this,” she said sharply. “Madame Lukas, if you’ll make your closing remarks we can bring this to a vote.”

She really was good at it. Just like she had always wanted. She had never directly admitted it, but Annabelle had always wanted to be the kind of person in rooms like this. 

A politician sitting in an uncomfortable chair at 10 Downing Street. Rich, successful, important. Powerful and respected. Back then, she had wanted to be famous. Now, she was content to be controlling famous people. A dream out of her reach in life; laughably attainable in this stagnant after-afterlife. 

The dream had crippled her. In her search for a functional world, one that achieved and grew and provided a comfortable world, she had ended up recreating a world that hadn’t been functional at all. A world that was slow to change, and seemingly impossible to improve. A world passed down from the hands of the greedy and bloodthirsty into the hands of the uncaring and apathetic. 

The apocalypse had been inevitable. Humans driving themselves to extinction. And Avatars, possessed of human weakness, had been eager to do the same. Just a pathetic room of sour and bitter people power-tripping. 

For all that Sasha calls us bougie, Jon thought, we’re such deeply unhappy people. 

There had once been a young man, desperate for attention and acknowledgement. Dreaming of importance. He would stay up late at night, planning out his life as a famous researcher and well-respected philosopher. Everyone would tell him how smart he was. He would prove it all - with a scholarship to Oxford, with a sneer and a haughty air, with a boss who said that he had so much promise, here’s a job that will let you realize your potential. 

I deserve this job -

Something in Jon’s mind flared, a hot poker rammed behind his eye sockets. Jon hissed, one hand reaching unconsciously to his temple, and Annabelle glanced at him in alarm. She had - Jon had been thinking about her, and - what had he been -

Together, they managed to wrangle the meeting into something half-way productive. Most importantly, Basira had gotten three of her proposals passed, and Agnes’ arguments were stirring the other Avatars into serious discussion. Conversation itself would be stilted by his sheer presence, and they weren’t quite all working together yet, but they would. 

It was really all the same to Jon if the Avatars or humans won the war. He should care a bit more than he did, so he didn’t vocalize this to the others. But this conflict sparked life, a strange and frantic energy. Experiences and growth. That was what Jon had always fed on.

It seemed that Jon’s skill at prioritizing himself over all others was as sharp as ever.

Eventually the two hours wrapped up, and the other Avatars were eager to leave. Jon waved them off cheerily. 

“Meeting adjourned. Try not to do anything stupid until next time. And if any of you break the boundaries of the human safe zones, I’ll know! Annabelle, will you stay behind?”

The others filtered out quickly, uncharacteristically unwilling to see whatever carnage would be wrought. Agnes and Basira lingered. 

“That went so well!” Agnes shouted, the minute the last Avatar left. The room was now empty save for Agnes, Basira, Annabelle, and - Oliver, who was leaning against the doorframe. “I can’t believe you actually did something useful!”

“Ouch,” Oliver said. 

It was fair, though. Jon smiled weakly at her. “Hopefully I can help out a little more often going forward. But I’m not going to give any favoritism to you, Agnes. I’ll intervene to give humans a fair shot, but I really don’t want to be...king of a ruined world or whatever.”

“I know,” Agnes said firmly. She reached out and squeezed his arm, round and gentle face creased in determination. “You’d be terrible at it. So just be you, okay?”

Jon saluted her, before gesturing to the door. “Will you steal a historical British artifact from this garbage building for me? Daisy needs more targets to shoot.”

Agnes nodded eagerly and ran off. Jon silently hoped Basira would follow her, if also out of interest for also seeing British things destroyed, but she just looked at Jon intensely instead. Not quite a glare - just a searching, intense look, as if she was finding her own Statement from deep within him. It had always been disconcerting. Jon was still convinced she hated him.

“It’s not as if I knew you very well before we rescued you from the Panopticon,” Basira said crisply, pressing a folder to her chest, “but you’ve changed. What happened? What did Annabelle have to do with it?”

Jon and Annabelle glanced at each other. Oliver lifted an eyebrow. 

“Basira -”

“Don’t ask me to trust you.”

“I didn’t betray that,” Jon asked, “did I?”

Her expression didn’t soften. “You didn’t. We’re going to continue needing your help. But an ally with inscrutable motivations who does everything on a whim is a bad ally to have.”

“I’m trying, Basira,” Jon said, impossibly exhausted and just a little disappointed. “Please be patient.”

“I’ve been patient for three years,” Basira said, before forcibly cutting herself short from whatever emotion she was about to display. “What happened?”

A phantom pain pieced Jon’s arms, like chains threaded through bone. Jon fought the urge to wince, unconsciously reaching up to rub at a spot on his forearm. Everyone noticed. “It’s...family business…”

“Did you kill Jonah Magnus?”

“Jonah Magnus killed me,” Jon snapped, far louder than he intended, “so he would have deserved it, wouldn’t he!”

He felt a little lightheaded, more than he intended. It felt like a hand was clenching inside his chest, more than he wanted. No, Basira is fragile, you can’t just - no, Agnes is a kid, Daisy said that we can’t -

“Basira Hussain,” Annabelle said, hands folded tightly in her lap, eyes serious and intent. Jon started, surprised to hear her speak again. “You should go catch up with Agnes.”

Basira stared at Annabelle for a long moment, lips thin, before she abruptly whirled on her heel and stalked out. Jon watched her go, exhausted. He waited for her heels to click down the hall, far away enough that he knew she wasn’t eavesdropping, before groaning and dropping his head down onto his desk. 

“They hate me.”

“They’re scared of you,” Annabelle pointed out. She leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms. “Frankly, Basira could stand to be a little more afraid of you. She’s going to get herself in trouble one of these days.”

“She’s practically my sister in law, I’m not going to hurt her,” Jon snapped. “Your stupid plan relied on me never hurting people I love.”

 “Sorry,” Oliver said pleasantly, “is anyone ever going to tell me what’s going on? I feel like an NPC in Jon’s Dungeons & Dragons game.”

“You want to be an NPC, I found you working at Taco Bell.” God, whatever. Jon could tell Oliver. He wouldn’t give a shit. Jon sighed, lifting his head to twist around and look at Oliver instead. “You remember when I was asking around after Sasha James? Annabelle had put me up to it.”

“Obviously. And then Sasha James started following you around? You terrorized Annabelle’s party again?”

“Yeah, it was this whole big thing.” Jon waved a hand expressively. “Anyway, then Annabelle tried to trap me in an eternal limbo that would shred me from inside out so I could act as purveyor of the world, and probably also use her connection with me so she could take over affairs here, and probably either nudge me into shaping the world back into order or into sinking it deeper into hell. I broke out and now I’m mad at her.”

“I had at least twenty other reasons,” Annabelle said, “but that’s the gist.”

Oliver stared at them.

They all sat in awkward silence. Jon found himself winding a finger around a stray coil of  hair and letting it spring back into place. He had kept it the same the last three years, never bothering to change the style. A loose and bouncy cloud of hair, sometimes brushing against his shoulders until Annabelle kidnapped him to cut it again - him, as much as the trenchcoat was. So much as anything had ever been ‘him’. 

“Well,” Oliver said diplomatically, “I see that you skipped a lot of steps there. So why are you here, then?”

Was it just to spite Annabelle? Screw her out of her work? Did Jon genuinely care? Did he want to organize the other Avatars, get them mobilized and going? Did he want to protect the humans? 

Did he really only care about himself, and the people he called his friends and family? Did he really only care about himself, and those he possessed?

“There’s a person I want to be,” Jon said quietly, “but I don’t know how to be him.”

Annabelle stared at him, with dark and glittering eyes, expression as implacable as always. For a sudden, stupid, intense moment, Jon wanted to know if she cared about him. If one of the few people who had always helped him, who was always in his corner, had seen him as anything more than a tool. 

Like Basira, who didn’t like him as a person, but found him too valuable to alienate. But Basira was - she was deeply good, if not always kind, and Jon had the sense that she had fought to turn herself into that good person. It was something she chose. She was trying to push Jon into making that same choice. 

Jon clenched his hands in his lap, his fingernails digging into his palm. “There’s people I respect, and who I want to respect me. This person I want to be...I’m worried that I only want this because that’s what they want. They’ll deny it, but they want my power. Everybody just makes me into whoever they want. Whatever’s useful to them.” Jon’s gaze snapped to Annabelle, and he fought hard to keep the compulsion from his voice. It was difficult, when he wanted to know so badly, but - “The kind of person I used to be. That person I’m ashamed of. Is that the person who was useful to you?”

He didn’t want to force the answer from her. He wanted her to choose to say it. 

Annabelle didn’t react. She didn’t show anything on her face. Much less what Jon wanted from her. She just tilted her head, one of the few unafraid to meet his eyes. “I never made you be anyone, Jon. All I ever did was put you in the right place at the right time.”

“That wasn’t my question,” Jon said, and this time he couldn’t help the static creeping into his voice. “Answer me.”

Annabelle sighed. “Of course it was useful. Is that what you wanted me to voluntarily say, Jon? I didn’t bring you to the first meeting because I thought it would be educational for you. I needed your power to keep the others in line. I needed everyone else to see that I controlled your power. That’s the only reason why any of this worked. We both got something out of it. Don’t pretend that you weren’t happy with the arrangement.”

It...it wasn’t a surprise, but…

“So that’s why you didn’t bring him to any of the other meetings,” Oliver mused. “He wasn’t as controllable as you liked, not when there’s more than ten other idiots around needling him. There’s never been anybody who can always predict when Jon’s going to lose his shit. Besides the biggie, I guess.”

The biggie, which was his past. 

No wonder he had stayed so childlike, innocent, and cruel for so long. Jon took responsibility for his own laziness, but - but he had been most useful that way. Annabelle had liked him best that way.

Daisy had liked him best that way too. That cruel child - Daisy had wanted him, because he made her feel needed. Annabelle was just the same.

Everyone had liked him best that way. And if Jon became the kind of person who he wanted to be, nobody would like him at all.

“If you’re going to kill me,” Annabelle said, exhaustion seeping in through her voice, “just do it.”

Jon closed his eyes. He could feel it - Annabelle’s exhaustion, the way that she had just been waiting for him to do this. Everything she knew about Jon led towards an obvious course of action. Even though you nobody knew everything that set Jon off, certain things were pretty guaranteed that he wouldn’t forgive. 

Annabelle had never accounted for Sasha. She had brought Sasha into his life, and she had no idea the effect she would have on it. Sasha, who had been the first to tell Jon that she chose to care about him for him. For a brief, hot flash, Jon was jealous. He wanted to be someone unpredictably kind. 

If he only wanted that because he had found yet another person to give his wind-up key, then…

“You won, Annabelle,” Jon said finally, and he only knew it as he said it. “Congratulations. You played the perfect manipulation. You took a vulnerable, afraid man, who had been violated in the worst possible way and left to die.” He stood up, already uncomfortable with what he was about to say. “And you arranged him so that he loved you. I chose to love you. I’m making the choice never to hurt you, because I still love you. ”

He left the room. Oliver stood aside just in time, letting Jon brush by. 

As Jon met up with Agnes and Basira, summoning a smile and a wave for them, he felt uncomfortably as if he had grown up. 

He wasn’t sure that he liked it.

[angelkurenai]

Cheesy fanfics - Dean Winchester x Reader

Title: Cheesy fanfics

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Reader

Word count: 3,520

Warnings: Spoilers for 15x20 I guess

Prompt: Hey! Thought I'd help your creativity out a little bit! How about "I almost asked you out in Winter Ball back in highschool but I chickened out and now it's Christmas and we're both alone and single so maybe this is a second chance?" Very Hallmark Movie esque, but I have faith in your creativity and am sure you're gonna kill it (if you choose to do it of course!). Hope it helps!

“You have to be kidding me.” you gasped, pressing a hand over your mouth as your eyes widened “Dean? Is that really you?”

“Depends, do I still look like the guy you remember? Or am I the old ass idiot I saw in the mirror this morning?” he joked, almost giving himself a pat on the shoulder for how playful he sounded and how he didn't trip over his words.

He had tripped over the cereal the moment he saw you, already, anyway. He was glad you had not noticed him at that moment because with his luck, he would have made an even worse fool of himself and ended up on the floor faster than could be humanly possible. But, in his defense, they weren't even supposed to be there and the moment he saw you, looking so damn beautiful as if not a single day had passed, he had been floored in any way that mattered other than literally.

“Oh shut up and come here, you asshole.” you scoffed, pretending to give him a glare but the smile that was on your lips was too bright for his mind to register anything else in the first place. It was all he could think about, all his treacherous heart could think of as it danced around like crazy in his chest.

“Ah hell, it's been so long.” he chuckled as well, letting his arms wrap around your form, his entire body melting on the spot as you squeezed him close to you “Too long.” he whispered, mostly to himself as he gave a squeeze in return, your body fitting perfectly with his the way it always did “I understand now though.”

He finally pulled away, though he let his arms rest on you for a few more seconds; just like he had let the hug last a bit longer than needed. It was self-indulgent, he knew it, but if he let himself memorize the way your body fit in his arms after all this time, then nobody could blame him.

“You understand?” you tilted your head to the side, and he almost felt like the air was knocked out of his lungs in that very moment. To look at you from this up close again, still in his arms, and to realize all over again just how easy it had been for him to fall for you in high school, it was inevitable that you could steal his breath away in a matter of seconds.

He cleared his throat “You didn't expect to see me all old and wrinkly. You expected to see the ghost of me, coming by to say Merry Christmas.”

“Well, you're not exactly wrong on that. Although, I didn't expect and certainly far from hoped it would be your ghost I saw this Christmas. Maybe some unlucky folk that died years ago.” you said with a soft shrug, voice low but tone as casual as talking about the weather. Fact which had not changed over the years and which brought a pleasant kind of warmth through Dean's chest, making him chuckle deeply.

“Well, thank you for your thoughtfulness. I've gotten close to that once or twice, can't deny it, but-” he noticed you stiffening up in his arms “All is good. In fact, it's better than it's ever been. You'll see. I'll get to tell you about it hopefully, one day.”

“Hopefully soon.” you said softly, nodding your head as you finally took a step backwards to put some distance between you because even though you'd have loved to stay like that forever, Dean had always been a a friend to you – a good one, yes, but one that had no idea about your feelings for him – and also because you were currently standing in the middle of the aisle as it was “Before you disappear without a single word for the next couple years or so, I suppose.”

“Yeah I uh- Well, you've got a point there. I'm-” he stopped himself, swallowing thickly over the lump in his throat “I'm really sorry about that. I- I wanted to- You have no idea how much I wanted to contact you but shit just kept getting crazier and I... I couldn't drag you into it.”

“What?” you whispered “No, no Dean, I didn't mean- That's not why I said it. I'm not mad nor do I blame you for it. No more so than I could blame life, both yours and mine. I mean, you could have always vanished without a single warning.”

“I wouldn't do that. I would never do that to you. You're too-” he stopped himself, clearing his throat “You've always been too important to me.” he confessed softly “I should just assume that I am somewhat important to you too, right? Given that I'm not a ghost by your own hand right now.”

“Hmm let's give it some time, shall we? Wait till about the end of the day to see how it turns out.” you said with a smirk, and a chuckle following soon “That is... if you will be around for that long?”

“Oh I actually plan to be around here for a lot longer than that. I mean-” he tried to hide his own giddiness when he saw the way your eyes widened and sparkled with happiness “It's Christmas, isn't it? People are celebrating and spending time with their loved ones and eating too much and watching sappy movies and I was never particularly one for the latter but it doesn't sound so bad to me.”

“You mean you're... on vacation? No ghost or vamp's got you here?” you frowned deeply.

“No, I uh I've actually been... trying to get a bit away from that. I am on vacation now, yes, but besides that I... Well, I don't do that anymore.” he said with a small shrug, not sure why he felt almost self-conscious about it “Not- Not hunting. I mean, yes, hunting. But-” he cleared his throat, taking great notice of the surprise if not shocked look you gave him “It's not like I am out. I'm more... slowly getting out of it. Taking fewer cases, looking for an actual job, you know that kind of stuff. There are fewer cases in general anyway.”

“And going on vacation, apparently.” you noted with a small smile, voice almost breathless in disbelief, and he nodded his head.

“And got a dog.” he pointed out with a grin, loving to see your eyes widen before a a wide smile spread on your lips. Gosh how he loved that smile. Always had and always would.

“Wow. Dean, that's really- wow.” you confessed, blowing out a soft breath “To tell you the truth, that was really the last thing I expected to hear. But certainly the best one too.”

“Thank you.” he smiled, and boy had he missed the way you could make his heart beat inside his chest “It's actually been so long, so much had happened since we last spoke.”

“Yeah no kidding.” you laughed “This- wow. That's incredible news, Dean. So...” you looked down shyly for a second, as if unsure “What really made you make the choice at last? The Dean I remembered didn't even see this as a chance. To get out of the life, it seemed like an impossible dream back then. Any... particular reason why now?”

“You could say that.” he nodded his head, struggling to hold back a grin when he saw the nervousness on your features, the eagerness and doubt to hear what he had to say. And it wasn't because he loved torturing you but because there was always a small part of him that held onto hope, that after all these years had not let go of you and his feelings for you, and that small- alright, great part of him, wanted to know if you were interested in him. Just like he had hoped and waited back then, trying to understand if you really had feelings for him. He had been so hesitant, unsure if he should really try his luck or if he was going to ruin the best thing he'd gotten in his whole life. In the end, he had chickened out and lost his only chance.

Or maybe so he thought. Because looking at you look at him in that way made him believe, hope even, that maybe there really were second chances in life. All he had to do was figure it out.

“Not- not that there is a person in my life that made me leave all that behind, no.” he chuckled “I'm still as single as you remember. That much hasn't changed.” he said with a half smile, feeling his heart flutter in his chest when he saw relief flood your features and your shoulders relax “It's just that, well-” he shrugged “Fighting against the devil, meeting his son and most recently beating god, well, that can change someone.”

“God as in...?” you blinked in surprise and he shrugged once more.

“Ah yeah, the big G. It was no big deal, but it had to be done, you know? He was a dick. Now somebody else is running heaven. The devil's son as I told you, he's family though so that's great. But that's a long story, I'll probably tell you another time.” he brushed it off “So yeah, as you see, things did change. And Sam and I are more free now, that's why we decided to really do what we like, honestly.”

“Yeah that really is a lo-”

“Oh and I killed Hitler, so you're welcome for that, by the way.”

“...Thank you?” you blinked, tilting your head to the side in confusion “I- Honestly, Dean, I was gonna ask if you mean it or not but knowing you? I'm fairly sure you're not joking here. And just because I wouldn't like to freak out in the middle of the market and look like some lunatic, I'm gonna change the subject yeah? Good. So-” you cleared your throat “What are your plans for the holidays? Seeing as you are in town.”

A deep chuckle left his lips and he nodded his head “Yeah, that's a better topic. Uhm honestly, haven't thought that far yet. I was just driving with Miracle, that's my dog by the way, and decided to stop by here to do some shopping without Sam shoving his rabbit food in my cart, you know?” he said, leaving out the part where seeing as the holidays were right around the corner he couldn't stop thinking about you - just like he did every time that time of the year - and drove back to the town he had first met you in hopes (and possibly with a lot of wishful thinking) that he could see you even from far away. It had not worked out in his favor the past couple times, he didn't expect it to happen this year but here he was and here you were and he felt worse than a child on Christmas' day. Giddy and buzzing with excitement and nerves, almost lightheaded the longer he looked at you.

“And you?” he asked after a few second, even though he would have been content looking at you and taking everything in forever “You got me carried around talking about my life and you didn't tell me a thing about yourself. Anything... interesting going on? I don't suppose you plan on spending the holidays all alone?... Besides your family and friends I mean.”

“Alone? No, of course not. I've got the most handsome and loyal man waiting for me at home. So I'm picking out whatever I can for the both of us now.” you grinned and he was almost sure you too could hear his heart shutter inside his chest, at least before you spoke up again “Yeah, I might have a bit trouble since I don't know what he likes yet but I think he'd find it easier to communicate with Miracle than with me, so I improvise.” you shrugged with a grin “I got a puppy a couple months ago as well.”

“Oh oh!” he blinked in surprise, his hands shaking in relief as a smile that made his cheeks hurt got plastered on his face “That's great! I remember you always wanted one. It's so great to see you finally got that. So you... I assume, you don't got... someone else then? I- I mean, not that it would have been a shock. Any guy should thank their lucky stars to have you by their side.”

“Nah no guy in my life like that. It's been a while actually. I'm just as single as you this Christmas, I'm starting to think there must be a pattern. Just like it happened back in high school, when we first met.”

“With the only difference that you're always the pretty one out of the two of us. I mean-” he laughed “Look at you, all these years have passed and you remain as beautiful as then if not more. It looks like not a single day has passed.” he breathed out the small confession, letting some of his truth slip into his words as he admired you. Things he had not been able to tell you back then slipped from his lips in a matter of seconds, though not any more easily.

“Yeah, as if.” you scoffed a laugh, looking down with a shake of your head “Besides, I remember someone else being the most popular kid in the school, even if you were the new guy. I mean, you had all the girls practically begging for a single look from you Dean. It was as if you were some god walking amongst us, even with some of that bad boy attitude. It had never been like that for me and the boys, heck I can't even remember a single guy that looked at me like I was a goddess or anything.”

If only you had decided to turn your head and take a look at him then you would get to see that and so much more. He had always looked at you as if you had put the stars up in the sky for him. Sam's words, not his. And if he had scarred off any guy with a single look or a couple more words during that time, it wasn't because he was acting worse than a territorial Alpha. Again Sam's words. The kid did talk a lot, yes, Dean had decided early on back in high school.

“I mean-” another laugh from you brought him back to the present “It's no surprise that none of the guys asked me out in Winter Ball back in high school, I didn't make it easier with how closed off I was back then.” and Dean and his looks didn't make it easier for the few that were about to ask either “So I'm cool with being alone this Christmas too. But what's really surprising is how someone like you is. I mean, you didn't go to that Winter Ball with anyone either, I remember that correctly?”

“No uh yeah, you're right. I never went to that one with anyone. Even though some girls-” he stopped himself before shaking his head, a laugh slipping past his lips as he he looked down for a moment.

“What?” you asked with a sweet grin and he almost caved right then and there. Or maybe he did, maybe he should at last.

“I just- I never realized my life was such a bad Hallmark Movie. I mean, I always thought it was a tragedy but no, gosh, it's a sappy Christmas movie.” he laugh, shaking his head in disbelief, taking in your laugh and the way it made his heart flutter.

“Why do you say that?”

“I mean-” he paused, he could take it back, he could change it, come up with something else and all this would be forgotten but then... then another chance would be lost again and this, this was not the same life anymore; he was not the same man, or better yet he was finally the man he wanted to be with a life he wanted and had full control over “I mean to say that... I almost asked you out in Winter Ball back in highschool because I've always had feelings for you but- but I chickened out and now it's Christmas and we're both alone and single, so maybe this is some second chance? Cause if it ain't that, then, it sure is a sappy movie or a cheesy fanfic... with a bad ending.”

The words were out before he could take them back. And part of him felt proud for himself, after years of endless pining and daydreaming - clearly Sam's words, thank you very much - he never thought there would come a day when he said all of this and yet here he was. Another part of him, a greater part, felt terrified. You looked at him with wide eyes, lips parted in shock and he had to hold himself from taking it back. He had lost one chance he wasn't going to lose this one too, no matter the outcome. And the outcome he did fear especially when there were no words coming out of you. His heart was pounding in his chest, all of his blood rushing in his ears and his lungs hurting because of how long he was holding his breath. His worry was slowly but surely turning into fear, however before he could say anything - not to take it back but to make you feel less bad about having to turn him down. It was an option, very plausible given how much of a catch you were as opposed to him, you spoke up.

“Or...” you spoke softly, playing nervously with the sleeve of your sweater “Or there is a third option, you know. I mean-” you shrugged and he felt like he was forever holding his breath, waiting for you to look into his eyes, holding his gaze for a few seconds before you spoke up “I always liked fanfics with happy endings?” before he could get to question you, you pointed upwards. And as his eyes followed yours, he did take notice of what you previously had. He blinked in surprise a soft laugh leaving his lips.

“Personally, I love cheesy movies or fanfics.” you said and looked back at you he noticed the shy grin that was on your lips and he made him feel 18 all over again “And if that mistletoe hasn't been there all this time... then, well, I think the new guy that's running heaven is really having a fit with our lives right now.”

“I don't know, I will really have to ask him next time I see him I think. Sam did love to tell him about my endless pinning and daydreaming every time Christmas was around.” a heartfelt laugh made his chest rumble, pleasant tingles filling up his entire body especially as he heard you giggle.

“Did you now? Wow. This day is full of surprises, then.” you bit your lower lip for a moment before adding “Well you what, we're gonna have a family gathering and dinner for the holidays tomorrow. I know it's on short notice but if you'd like to then... you know you're always welcome in my place and-”

“I would love to come, yes.” he breathed out almost embarrassingly fast, but your smile made it all worth it.

“Wonderful!” you grinned You don't need to bring anything, we've got everything, but if you'd wanna you can bring Miracle. And if Sam manages to make it here until tomorrow then he's more than welcome too.”

“Sure, I'll tell him. See if can be here.” he would but he already knew that Sam would do anything to give the two of you more time together so he knew he wouldn't be showing up “The real question here is: Will that aunt of yours be there?”

A beautiful laugh immediately came from your before you looked at him a bit apologetically “For a moment there I thought you'd have forgotten. Yeah, sorry, there's not way to avoid that.”

“So long as I'm not sitting right next to her on the dinner table, I think I will survive.”

“She's gonna keep her hands to herself, I'm sure. Besides-” you shrugged softly, looking up at him through your lashes “I don't think she would hit on my date too.”

“No, I don't think she would either. But in case you need to make it more obvious, kisses are allowed 24/7.” he said with an innocent shrug.

“Ah yes, about that.” you smiled, leaning up to peck his cheek “I would love to give you more, hopefully very soon. Especially in front of the Christmas tree at my own apartment afterwards, while we catch up.”

His eyes widened in surprise and you giggled before he breathed out “Gosh, I freaking love cheesy fanfics.”