#an archaic alarm system that only gets in the way

[skruffie]

my 2023 recap cannot be done without 2019-2022

under the cut because it's long

I had a briefer and more closed off summary about this on FB because I didn't want to raise alarm over things that I don't experience any more, but truly by the end of 2021 when I say my confidence was shattered I mean it. I didn't describe how when I started at the grocery store I was not just hypervigilant but absolutely paranoid about any hint of worker and labor violations. I went through the boilerplate agreement with a fine-toothed comb and spent 11 months doing the most physically taxing job I've had just to bring in some sort of income. I left that job at $15.75/hr.

The grocery store was where I had to rehabilitate my ability to say no, to call out of work when I felt sick, and just have some sort of money flow so we could still eat. Everyone always raved about how because it was employee-owned they'd be able to cash in their stocks after 6 years or after retirement and be set for life, and then those same coworkers would come though my line to pay for their groceries using EBT because none of us were paid enough.

I am still never going to forget my first month in optical, almost to the date when I was hired, when we were all at one of the new stores working at the soft-opening (called the family and friends event). Essentially before the grand opening they will invite employees to bring in their friends and family for free eye exams and then they'd get a 75% coupon for eyeglasses that was valid for that event only. It was a little chaotic, kind of corny at times with the typical corporate "team building" icebreakers, but then at the end of the day the manager for that store called me out specifically for the job well done. He said that I was a natural at running the floor and I even looked up at him and everyone and went "Me?" because I was in disbelief. I tried to give him a thank you and express my gratitude but the moment I said that I came into this industry with my self confidence at it's lowest I burst into tears. Oops.

At the state government, I was always craving more one on one interaction. I wanted my work to feel like it actually meant something instead of just typing numbers into an archaic case management system that was never designed to accommodate our payments. I think it's natural for people to want to help others but that job was such an extreme mismatch of my personality and personal values that I felt like a ghost. The grocery store experience doesn't mean anything to me, good or bad, because it was merely the rehab. The company I'm with right now is retail optical and I know that as I continue to grow I am going to move on from this place, but I'm trying to stretch my legs and breathe. I'm devouring information and trying to learn as much as I can, and I have an account set up with the Department of Health when I finally start my apprenticeship.

2019-2021 broke me into a thousand pieces. 2022 was the beginning of my recovery, and 2023 was the year where I began to finally match my old pace. I feel intense sorrow thinking about the countless panic attacks and crying breakdowns I had alone at my desk. On FB I didn't tell everyone how at one point it got so bad that I called a crisis line--not because I was suicidal but because I couldn't calm down--and then I accidentally HUNG UP on the poor guy trying to help me. I cried harder and called back and by some miracle got matched with the same person. I didn't describe how my boss' boss had only verbally reassured me it was Just A Coincidence they extended my probation period for productivity issues after I went through the reasonable accommodation process. At my job, I don't need reasonable accommodations for my ADHD because this job is where I am able to utilize my strengths and actually thrive. My ADHD hasn't gone away, but it is instead now fuel for the work that I do rather than something I am fighting with every step of the way.

I'm going to be a little superstitious with this next thing I'm going to write because I worry that giving too much detail would then spoil what I uh... manifested? But I will say this: where I am at currently is exactly every single thing that I asked the universe for, down to my work hours and salary. There is something bittersweet knowing that my plans for 2024 will eventually lead me to move on from where I'm at, but I wouldn't have even gotten there in the first place if my boss hadn't offered me a better job than the one I applied for. I know I'm not as open about my witchiness on my main blog but I will say that I never quite grasped the point of "manifesting" because it feels like it's just a few steps away from the prosperity gospel, but like... I had the epiphany on a slow day at work after we all finished what we needed to do. Our assistant manager was reading a book and I was sitting up at the desk with my sketchbook drawing. I took a moment to look at where I was and what I was doing and realized this was everything I asked for.

I am going into 2024 full of immense gratitude and some cautious excitement for what comes next.

Back in 2008, my grandpa gave me a copy of the book The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch and Jeffrey Zaslow. If you haven't read it, it was something like a memoir of Randy's life and how he interprets the way he achieved his childhood dreams, especially as he was grappling with terminal cancer. He gave a lecture at a university, framed as his last lecture while he was alive, on the very topic of childhood dreams and revealed on the last slide that the lecture was not for those students but for his own children he was leaving behind. At 18 I didn't have the capacity to understand that sometimes childhood dreams do shift and change over time--that the images of ourselves we see as adults may not come to fruition or if they do they may not be what we expect--but here now at almost 34 years old I think I get it. A long time ago I let go of trying to turn my passion for art into a career because I was starting to see the writing on the wall. If I turned art into a career, I would lose my passion for it. I opted instead to try to find a career that would leave me feeling fulfilled and also have enough emotional capacity at the end of the day to come home to my artwork.

And here I am, bringing my sketchbook to work for slow days.

#tales from the clinic

[answertrust]

Killzone shadow fall game play

#KILLZONE SHADOW FALL GAME PLAY PS3#

In terms of guns, you’ll perhaps feel limited in your choice. When the lighting is used well, it’s really good, but more often than not you’ll find staring into the sun – or even a simple light – a task, and it’s really jarring while you’re playing. There’s also an incredible overuse of lighting effects, with lens flare and bloom often blinding you. Unfortunately, there are some issues in the design, regarding the HUD, with the selection system for the OWL – a deployable drone – getting in the way and snapping you out of focus, and the only other option being to turn it off completely.

#KILLZONE SHADOW FALL GAME PLAY PS3#

A lot of the aliasing that plagued PS3 games has gone too, making it a much smoother ride. There’s some fantastic work with virtual reality and holograms that you’ll see, which makes for some amazing effects, and it ultimately feels like a cleaner and more focused game, though the gunplay thankfully doesn’t lose its gritty, weighted feel in the process, with stunning, smoky gun effects pouring out once you stop firing. Most of the design is excellent, and you can feel the advancements that the time jump has made to the world. It’s this that really sets Shadow Fall apart, and some of the visuals are just phenomenal, with particle and rain effects complimenting some brilliance in the texture work. From animation, to landmarks and lighting, there’s always something better looking to surprise you just around the corner. In motion, it’s almost photo realistic and just incredible to behold. It’s really quite impressive how open some environments are considering that it’s a visually stunning game throughout. Not all of these are bad, and it opens the way for a lot of collectables scattered around, but it doesn’t bring anything fresh to the genre.Īlthough, when the game looks as incredible as it does, you’ll learn to forgive some of the poorer sections. There are even optional objectives, which offer little reward for more of your time, and long drawn-out sections where you don’t fire your gun once. “You’ll find yourself on an adventure that crosses cities, and even worlds, as you go…”īut those open level attempts are a big problem, effectively a failed experiment realised too late in development, with some archaic design thrown into the mix, such as disabling alarms to stop enemy forces coming and some tedious sections in which you have to avoid large armaments and destroy them by deactivating two switches. It’s a noticeable jump from last generation, and some parts of the game are superb. While there might not be anything groundbreaking per se, the hardware bump has allowed Guerrilla Games to squeeze quite a lot out of the PS4, even for a launch title. There are some incredible set-pieces throughout, and the more linear moments are honestly amongst the game’s – and perhaps even the the series’ – best. You’ll find yourself on an adventure – which is a bit of a convoluted affair – that crosses cities and even worlds as you go, tying in some excellent new story threads despite never quite bringing them all together enough. A solid villain then, though one who is unfortunately underdeveloped and muddled unlike the aforementioned antagonists.ĭespite social issues not being at the forefront and a villain who doesn’t quite live up to his billing, Shadow Fall is still well worth your time – after a rocky start, which involves many more “open” area sections, where you have to traverse a region – be that a forest, a city or a ghost ship – going from one objective to another in the most tedious of ways, the game really picks up, throwing more unique gameplay elements into the mix. He’s the star of that particular show, and is a bit of a mix of the anarchistic terrorism of Vaas from Far Cry 3, and the militant drive of Colonel Radec from Killzone 2. Instead, it focuses more on The Black Hand, a group of Helghast terrorists including a familiar face as well as a new villain, Tyran. It’s unfortunate, and the story often drifts away from issues that really need to be explored to make the setting worthwhile. Unfortunately, many of the issues which make the setting so successful are overlooked and disappointingly avoided in the narrative itself, with only a few brilliant glimpses of how all of these affect the world which Kellan inhabits.

#Killzone shadow fall game play

[tavoriel]

the best way I know of to eat ice cream:

1. fill a mug about 1/3 full with frozen fruit  2. microwave  3. ice cream on top

you can add peanut butter.  you can add maple syrup.  supermarket peanut butter goes on top of the fruit before you put the ice cream on.  if you have artisan peanut butter, it goes on top of the ice cream as a topping, and it hardens a little as it gets cold.  when you hold the mug, the bottom feels warm and the top feels cold, & you’re probably going to eat the ice cream creation fast enough that it will be both warm and cold.  I feel like there isn’t anything particularly ‘clever’ in this but i feel like i always underestimated how straightforward it is to upgrade my ice cream experience & how just a little bit of extra effort doesn’t have to be a special occasion thing

#do you ever wonder if the common advice to think of non-rejection reasons for behavior when ppl appear to be rejecting you #is important and insightful but incomplete? #do you ever consider how important connection acceptance and belonging are for survival? #do you ever frown at humorous observations that our minds & bodies still think we have to protect ourselves from tigers #at the idea that anxieties are a quaint & charming & fairly useless byproduct of humanity outgrowing evolution too quickly #an archaic alarm system that only gets in the way #when not having connections can leave you homeless and starving even in this 'safe' modern world without tigers? #when not having emotional needs met can be its own kind of torture whether you have material needs met or not? #when you can't have connection at all unless at least one person accepts you? #would anything be different or better if you recognized fear of rejection as fear of not being able to survive #have you ever consistently & optimistically thought of non-rejection reasons for behavior and found yourself at #a crocodile pit at the end of a path with 37 signs that say 'crocodiles ahead; turn back maybe' #would anything be different or better if; instead of carving 'my friends and social groups never hate me i only think they do' #into the cement of your outlook before it dries #you asked yourself; how can I cultivate support; which rejections represent a blow to a foundation of something and which #rejections are not connected to my safety and stability & may feel bad but do not represent a personal crisis #if i expect someone to support me in some way how can i reciprocate? #how can i set a foundation for checking in abt little worries before they get bigger & can i forgive similar little worries in others? #if a foundation i thought was safe becomes unsafe how will i begin again #what signs do i look for that a relationship is safe so inevitable little 'does that tone of voice mean rejection' questions #get weighted less heavily when i wonder if i'm safe? #and even; how can I see some but not all hurtful behaviors as mainly other ppl protecting their own survival needs #protecting their energy from the tigers that arent tigers that their anxieties beg them for safety from #what a relief to consider 12 possible reasons someone could be acting like X that DON'T mean that they hate you #AND 12 reasons you're being intentional & self-compassionate about your own connection needs no matter what #ppl are gonna be at different stages of journeys & ppl are gonna need different things; if this isnt useful or relevant it doesnt have to be #I brought my neighbor some on sale baked goods from the gas station bc its a pandemic & I worry we're all not connecting enough #& I've been hearing her talking to her pets all day #maybe its all just a connection economy and that's it

[insomniac-dot-ink]

Lost Words

We’re running out of Lost Words. It’s my grandmother’s fault. The witches were running out of magic as the last of the Wild Places kept disappearing—it was always going to happen. The more you know, the less there is, my mother used to snarl between puffs on a peppermint cigarette. She liked the flavored types that made her taste buds tingle, she said.

They tried everything to stop the shortage. Witches sold newspapers with reports of angels with two sets of wings (but everyone knows they are too vain to let that kind of thing happen). They bribed officials to declare the ocean too deep to fully know, off limits. Silly witch, humans will build anything even if it’s only to look at some dank, dark water at the bottom of the sea.

One witch even invented a new type of dog never seen before and sold it to museums: this one had green fur and better sense of smell. In fact, it had extra taste buds that let them sense the flavors of the sun and darkness itself. That’s what she said at least.

Lying doesn’t make magic. The Wild Places kept dwindling. And more witches were letting it happen. What could a Simmer spell do that a toaster couldn’t? We were becoming archaic.

My grandmother was not in the business of becoming archaic; she hated anything with a lever, button, or pulley. She once broke my mother’s wristwatch on principle alone. Maybe that was when my mother took up puffing down corner store bubblegum smokes.

You can’t generate Wonder from nothing, my grandmother knew that much, but maybe you can reach back for it. She tried everything. She went to museums and boarded ancient ships; she went to decaying towers and licked the parapets. She placed her hands on rusting cars and said, “damn you. Let me float!”

Floating is the easiest form of magic. One of my first memories is touching the ceiling with my palm.

She discovered it by accident one night. It started with a molding book Grandma Lindy found in a storage cellar from the First Age. She was murmuring from it as you do; trying to get something a little enchanted. There are many conduits: language, tree branches, iron staffs, cauldrons, rings, and anything that holds meaning. That’s probably why it worked.

It wasn’t from the book itself. She word came out garbled, read just a bit wrong. She mispronounced it in just the right way to light the sink on fire. I was five and had already touched the ceiling. The fire alarm went off and I remember the water running into my eyes as my mom hoisted me off the ground in one big sweep. Grandma was whooping and shouting the whole way down the five flights of stairs. She knew she’d done something new.

The principle is simple: focus, murmur and make sounds up until you find the lost ones. Wonder is often born from a sense of loss and discovery.

The word for bells in some dead tongue will summon the sound of wind chimes. The word for radiant yellow from some mountain people long gone and your fingertips will start glowing. You make enough sounds with just the right amount of intention, and you can start making fish that swim through the air like water and begin addressing a dead king from the Velvet Age.

Though speaking with the dead was outlawed quickly when they realized we were wasting the Lost Words. Lost Words could be used a few times before they stopped having potency and were known again. They lose that sparkle and suddenly your fingertips can’t glow anymore.

Luckily, there are a lot of dead humans.

My grandma sold the instructions for it in a book titled, “Anyone Can Be a Witch! New Magic Through Old Words.” We moved out of our cramped, stinking apartment that had more mold than ever since the sprinklers went off. Not everyone could be a witch before that— it took discipline and years of practice to harness energy through conduits and daily meditation.

Dead words were easier. Anyone could find them with some patience and sounding it out. Then you could sell the words for a few more uses. It was a kind of trade system and cheap too.

After that we moved into an enormous house with walls so white they hurt to look at. I became selectively mute during those first years of suddenly having a nanny and a maid and a man who fetched us tea in the mornings. My mom says those were the good years even though she was smoking a pack of cinnamons a day. Those tingled the best, she said, even if they made her eyes water.

My grandma tried to pass on her tricks, but again, I was mute sometimes and probably stubborn about it too. Sometimes I wonder if it was intentional and feel bad about it. Other times all I remember is the look in her eyes when she said “ungrateful”.

It only takes ten years for the entire world to become obsessed with muttering to itself: jotting down sounds during lunch breaks, speaking into a recorder on the bus, playing jump rope outside to nonsense phrases from little girls who are being filmed just in case. Everyone wants to be the next Alice Fairfield who sold her discovery of invincibility for more money than God.

Everyone calls themselves an aspiring witch online and classes are sold left and right on “intentionality” and anthropology. I study anthropology in university, but I take the classes on bones and broken pottery instead of language. The professors seem relieved to see me when their linguistic counterparts are becoming rock stars.

It turns out however, if millions of people are trying to get rich by discovering dead words, you run out of dead words. Or maybe the dead don’t want us using their words anymore—maybe that’s part of it.

My grandma passes in her sleep while I’m at away university, muttering to herself they said. My mom locks herself in the bathroom for two nights when I’m back home for the funeral. She comes out on the third day with eyes puffy as flaky pastries and says she’s really going to quit this time. Then she makes a list: no more smoking or drinking, no caffeine or meat or anything else that tastes good or feels right. She’ll be better this time.

I just squeeze her shoulder and follow her out into the sprawling green lawns to be sad in public.

The funeral had over a thousand guests in attendance because of course grandma Lindy left instructions to invite a queen and two presidents. My hands shake so badly I drop almost everything I’m handed that day. It’s a good thing no one passes the urn over.

I think about how the old woman used to cackle at her own jokes and fill up my drink every time it seemed remotely empty. How she would always add more gravy and butter to my plate. “Eat well,” she’d say, “don’t skimp. I never want you to be one of those girls who deny themselves. Eat, eat.” The house was never cold after we moved. We never had to huddle under one big blanket together or barter for a fire spell from the local mage who smelled like greasy sour mustard.

I didn’t think I would cry, but I did.

The market crashes after a time, as you might think. Too many fraudulent words and not enough new ones. Fist fights, firms going under, entire cities rioting, that sort of thing. I discovered my first word a year after the crash. There is a bone-deep guilt about it when I do.

I had been trained my whole life to feel them. A good witch can sense what the word does the second they use it. I was trained to be a good witch even if I never really became one.

“Ah,” I said to the spell, tasting it. It only takes me a moment to decide to use it.

Speaking to the dead was outlawed, but I was the daughter of one of the wealthiest women on the planet even as she kept spending it on businesses that failed and investments that went under. How my mother cried that she was failing us. I worried I didn't care enough.

I use the word. I whisper it under my breath and a part of me expects it not to work. How could it after everything? I blink and the air shimmers, strangely, as all magic is strange. A sheer version of my grandmother stands in her favorite button-down blouse, she’s pearly white in the dim lights of my small apartment. I insisted on paying for the place myself from my teaching job.

“You shouldn’t have done that.”

How much would someone pay for being able to erase words from existence? Erase them and use them again from that. It could be infinite. We could be.

“I won’t use it again,” I promise and it’s true. “I miss you.”

It was easy to summon my grandmother: I erased her name from memory except for a single slip of paper in my palm. Then I whispered it.

“Let me go.” There are tears on her ghostly face and something pangs in my chest. “I was wrong.” That was probably the most unnerving thing she could have said. I wondered if I’d gotten the spell wrong— she had never said anything like that in life.

“We can’t do this without you.”

“You have to.” There is a haunted look in her eyes and the idea almost makes me laugh. A haunted ghost. But she is crying. “I was wrong.”

“Mom keeps wasting your money.”

“Is she eating well?”

Ah, yes. I wipe at my damp cheeks and nod at my own reflection, and then at my grandmother. We could be rich all over again I’m sure with an ancient word that can erase words themselves. It could be infinite. But I am my grandmother’s child, before I am her witch.

I erase it. I erase the thing that erases and my mind aches for it and I have to massage my temples to get my head to stop pounding. Her ghost wavers and she smiles faintly, faintly as she thins into mist and then nothingness. She mouths something then, right at me, like it matters. But I never know what it is and that too is lost.

-------------------------

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#flash fiction #urban fantasy #writing #short story #spilled ink #long post

[anncanta]

The imagery of BBC ‘Dracula’: mythology, alchemy, literature

The more I watch the BBC and Netflix Dracula, the more interesting details and nuances I notice. And now they have formed a new picture, which I would like to share with you.

For the convenience of consideration and analysis, I propose to divide the images and symbols used in Dracula into several large groups.

The first group is mythological images and symbols. This is the most archaic metaphor, and for this story, it has enormous significance. On it, as on a foundation, the entire basic narrative of the film is built.

The second group is alchemical images. They represent the plot, semantic level at which events unfold. It is here the very ‘metaphysical detective story’ arises and develops, which some viewers and critics talk about, reflecting on the genre nature of the film.

And finally, the third – the group of the ‘youngest’ – images of literature. It is a kind of crystal lattice, a narrative framework that holds the whole structure. Without a mythological level, the story will not have a basic ‘leaven’, matter, in the original meaning ‘mother’, ‘material’, in the sense of ‘body’, ‘flesh’, ‘reality’. Without the alchemical one, it would lack the drama, in the meaning of the unfolding process – from the appearance of this very matter in the crucible to the creation of the philosopher's stone. And the level of literature allows you to reflect on this process and make it conscious, appropriating it as a part of psychological reality.

Let's consider each of these levels sequentially and try to see how they relate to each other and what context they all create together.

Mythology

We start with mythology, not only because it is a basic level, but also because the very structure of Dracula inclines to it. The story, which began in a Transylvanian castle, grows from a completely mythological, archaic root, develops as a half-tale detective drama, and ends in the genre of a modern psychological novel. Yes, with elements of a fairy tale and mysticism, but it is based (in the third episode) on a modern novelistic narrative.

In the first episode, we have a gothic tale based on myth and legends so old that, probably, no one can reliably determine their age. And just as old are the images that this myth uses.

We will not consider every single one of them – this would take much more time and space than this article suggests – we will focus only on the main ones.

There are several of them. Forest, castle, mirror, needle, sun.

Forest

A forest as an image and symbol in mythology means a place that belongs to another world. In contrast to the rational and ordered world of everyday reality known to us, it represents the mysterious, incomprehensible, enigmatic, strange, confusing, irrational.

Even before we meet with Dracula, before the very beginning of the story arises, together with Jonathan Harker we find ourselves in the forest – being left there. This is very important, since it draws a line between the everyday world from which Jonathan comes and the magical world, immediately involving the viewer and the character in the initiation situation. Let us recall the fairy tales describing pictures of the same series: a stepdaughter sent by her stepmother into the forest for snowdrops in the middle of winter, children whom their parents took to the forest and thrown there, a hero forced to travel through the forest in order to achieve the desired goal.

It is worth noting here that Jonathan, as a normal child of the rational nineteenth century, at first does not perceive what is happening to him like something out of the ordinary. The forest does not seem scary to him, he sees no problem in getting out of the carriage, knee-deep in the snow among the trees, waiting for the Count's driver. It seems uncomfortable to him, that's all. And only the persistence of the girl convincing Jonathan to take the crucifix causes something like a vague alarm.

This behavior of Jonathan is both a tribute to the literary basis – B. Stoker's novel, written in an era when rationality and the power of reason were valued higher than magic and miracles (pushed aside by the collective psyche into the field of ‘peasant tales’ and superstitions), and typical for such story is the position of a hero who is not aware of the seriousness of the situation in which he found himself.

But back to the forest.

The space of the forest in fairy tales and myths can appear as a transitional one – a gateway to another world, a path to an antagonist (an evil sorcerer, an ancient scary creature, a dark king), or as an endpoint, where transformation takes place.

In our case, the forest is a path, a kind of bridge connecting Jonathan's past with his future.

Like most heroes, Harker took this path, not of his own free will (the owner of the company sent him to make a deal with Dracula in Transylvania), and in order to pass through it and at least get to the castle, Jonathan needs someone else – someone to guide and push him.

At this point, along with the Count's charioteer, one of the most famous devices in British literature appears in the text – a literalized metaphor. ‘Driver’ not only means a chauffeur. It is also an engine that makes something or someone work, move forward.

A roll call with this scene and repeated mentions in the first episode of the word ‘driver’ a dialogue between Dracula and Zoe in the third one sounds: ‘You`re fast, you`re clever. Driven. But driven by what?’. ‘Driven’ here means ‘motivated’, ‘carried away’, ‘captured’.

Unlike Zoe, Jonathan is not captured by anything. He simply travels by the direction of his employer to Transylvania to do his duty. By the way, pay attention, the driver delivers Jonathan to the castle but refuses to help him further. The driver`s function is now exhausted.

At the same time, already by the movement of Jonathan through the forest, one can understand that not just an adventure awaits the character, but an adventure in a fairy-tale sense.

Remember how he rides in the carriage, reading the letter of his beloved, and how her image appears with a golden reflection above the trees, reviving and warming Johnny's soul and the winter forest frozen under the snow. In the letter, Mina lists all their friends and acquaintances, assures Jonathan of her love, and expresses the hope that her feelings are mutual. Thus, we see a person who enters the space of initiation, accompanied by the feminine side of his soul, and, stopping at the threshold, internally goes over his thoughts and feelings, considering his past life. That is why he needs a path through the forest. For this, he was left in the glade and made to wait for the charioteer. This is where the place of altered consciousness begins. And here completely different rules apply, not those that work in the ordinary world.

Castle

Unlike the forest, which represents the space of a natural, uncontrollable, and absolutely irrational element, the castle is the creation of a human. Moreover, as we know from the words of Dracula, in this case, it is the creation of a brilliant artist, and it has two very specific meanings, directly stated in the text: a monument to lost love and prison without locks.

Specified at the very beginning, these two values ​​immediately set the coordinate system in which the story of Dracula and Jonathan will unfold.

That's right – the story of Dracula and Jonathan, I did not make a reservation. Those who see a romantic line in their interaction are right. Another thing is that this romantic line, like everything in this film, differs from the love stories we are used to and sets completely different goals and objectives for the characters.

Look, what we have here? An ancient castle in which a mysterious Count lives, who looks like a barely breathing old man, and in which some strange creatures also live, seemingly in need of help. I have already spoken about the meaning of these images in the article ‘Dracula BBC as an alchemical novel’, and those who wish can refer to it for details. For this one, something else is important.

Why didn't Jonathan leave? Clearly, he got lost in the castle, the castle is arranged like a labyrinth, moreover, the night creatures wandering along the corridors were clearly teasing and confusing Harker, forcing him to plunge deeper and deeper into the bowels of the ancient structure and his own altered consciousness.

And this is the most important thing. When Agatha tells Jonathan that he is an extremely brave man, it is not only about the fact that he remained in a castle full of dangers, because he knew that there was someone who was begging him for help, but also that Jonathan had the courage to remain in the sealed reality of the castle, alone with his fears.

It is what allows him to stay alive for so long, what does not allow him to surrender, what arouses Dracula's interest and creates this strange tension between them, poorly understanding one another, but intuitively reaching out to each other.

This is not about romantic love, not about desire as such – Jonathan loves Mina, and no one is able to take her place in his heart – and Dracula still does not understand at all what it means to love. This is different. In a certain, almost inconceivable way, the deeper Jonathan goes into the castle, the lower he descends and the less physical strength he has, the more stubborn and bright his spirit becomes. At the level of the image, this at some point is shown literally, almost head-on – remember the scene after the attack of the vampire girl in the basement, when Jonathan wakes up. His face and figure, his entire appearance almost literally reproduce the image from the painting The body of the dead Christ in the tomb

by Hans Holbein the Younger (according to legend, by the way, the model for body of Jesus, painted on it, was the body of a drowned man found in the Rhine). In this episode, the story openly shows us what Johnny is for – given everything we've seen so far and the structure of the text. Jonathan went downstairs to the hell arranged by Dracula in his basement (inside the Count himself), faced a lost soul there, died, and returned to life.

It was not in vain that Dracula begged Jonathan to stay. Johnny is his guide, his key to life, to real life, and not to the one that the Count lived all this time, hiding in a castle and feeding on scraps of other people's stories. Inside this dark reality, Jonathan is a light that dies and is born to give new life. This is the mythological side of his role in the life of Dracula, and such is it when viewed from the side of the Count.

And this is where some completely incredible thing begins. A vampire who lives in darkness and must love darkness, who almost killed Jonathan and, according to Harker himself, took everything from him, takes him in his arms, and carries him upstairs.

They had just been in hell, at the lowest point, in death itself, or, rather, in a nightmare about it shared by two – do you think that Dracula is the only one here who is afraid of death? They fought and tortured each other, and reached the limit. And from there, below, there was only one way.

I don't think Dracula knows what he is doing when he carries Johnny to the roof. But the fact remains – they end up there, and the Count practically asks Jonathan to be his eyes and tell him what the sun looks like. This scene, both dramatic and ironic, plays with all shades of thoughts and feelings, and in it the emphasis shifts again, and Jonathan becomes the leader.

In this episode, the visual component is extremely important. Downstairs in the basement, Jonathan was in the form of the dead Christ, the sacrifice made, tortured and betrayed, forsaken and trampled. On the roof of the castle, at its highest point, rising and refusing to serve Dracula, refusing to be his puppet, standing on the parapet facing him, ready to jump, in the rays of the sun, he looks like an image (literally – an icon) of a savior in the light of glory.

The gold mark from the cross reflecting the sun is not a striking mark, but a hand placed on the forehead. Only Dracula doesn't know it yet.

But they have already passed this part of the way.

Part 2.

#dracula 2020 #bbc dracula #meta #mythology #jonathan harker

[isladeroda]

Chapter 1 - Heartbeat of Steam

It was one thing to hear the location described in the debriefing. An underground base of sorts, forged entirely out of brass and running on steam. True to what the group had been told, exposed cogs and pumps were visible the moment the beheld the entrance to the lair of their enemy. The hiss of steam could be heard from deeper within, and already, the amount of noise filling the air made it clear that communicating within the structure was going to be difficult. Luckily, that had been discussed ahead of time, and hand gestures had been practiced for many different situations.

Doctor Clara stepped tentatively towards the entrance, her hand-picked team of Operators at her sides and front. Operators Cuora, Alcatraz, Heat, Scavenger, Shirayuki, Projekt Red, and Perfumer had been selected to take part, but another guest had been selected - Rhodes Island’s own Head Engineer, Closure. Her presence was deemed necessary in case the group ran into any unfamiliar machinery, and the Head Engineering Officer was deemed the best fit - no doubt in part to her eagerly volunteering for a chance to check out the unusual engineering in play.

“Wow, despite how archaic the technology seems, this is actually pretty advanced...” As the group got closer, the Sarkaz took every opportunity she could to examine the machinery, nodding to herself a few times. “Already I can tell there’s a number of redundant systems, not out of laziness, but to pick up the slack if any one part fails... And how they manage to get them all to work together when the primary function is unnecessary is astounding... Hmmm...”

The group stopped at the entrance, not just to let Closure look a little closer at the machinery, but to gauge things immediately. If the enemy group had learned they were coming, they’d either ready an ambush, or try to bait them deeper in... And the Doctor knew the latter was unlikely, so after a few moments, the team proceeded to push in further.

“Agh, I can barely hear myself think...” Cuora complained from her place near the back of the single-file formation, her voice nearly drowned out by all of the noise. Similarly, Projekt Red was clearly uncomfortable, only in part from the noise, but as the temperature had clearly rocketed up at least another 10 degrees, Red had already regretted bringing her heavy coat. Shirayuki, befitting her usual modus operandi, had disappeared above them, presumably traveling by means of the pipes that hung overhead. Everyone else, thankfully, seemed more comfortable in the heat, yet the knowledge that they wouldn’t be able to communicate traditionally hung over the group.

The hallways themselves were thin, but rather than typical, solid metal, they were clearly more along the lines of maintenance catwalks, the heavy steel mesh that served as their footholds and the railings that kept them from falling off the side were all hung over more exposed machinery, likely for the sake of ease of access in case any of the seemingly-delicate machinery failed. Now and again, a square of walkway that split into multiple other hallways would “circle” around an important-looking piece of equipment that Closure would pause briefly to examine before the group could continue their exploration.

And yet, Doctor Clara was totally on edge. The lights were literally still on, but nobody was home. They hadn’t seen a single foe since they began to probe deep into the facility and explore, no signs of security... Nothing to stop would-be intruders. Occasionally they came across a locked door with no way to open it from their side, and had to turn back, but that was the only real security measure, and one easily subverted, as there had to be a way to open the doors - a control panel or the like.

Eventually, the team exhausted all of their options, and began traveling down one final path, before eventually coming to a room with a series of conveyor belts that crossed overhead and underneath, carrying metal scrap and unusual-looking parts. Was this a manufactory of sorts? And who was using it? Perhaps this was the group supplying weapons to Reunion... However, unable to make anything other than an educated guess, the group soldiered on, eventually coming to another locked door...

All seemed hopeless before Shirayuki appeared before them and, using hand motions, submitted the idea of using the conveyor belts to travel. The openings were large enough for a person to fit through, though they’d likely want to avoid the ones with scrap on them - those were likely being melted down, and the group would definitely not want a death by melting in molten metal. The group nodded unanimously, before they found a conveyor belt matching their prerequisites, and leaped down onto it.

Curiously, the sound of machinery began to quiet as they followed the conveyor belt, though it was still ever-present. Soon, it opened up into a larger room where mechanical humanoids were clearly being assembled... By nothing other than automated tools, cranes, and mechanical arms on an assembly line. As the group hopped off onto the floor of the assembly room, Closure in particular excitedly examined the various pieces of equipment while everyone else was on-guard.

"There’s no workers, no guards, not even any repairmen... This is beyond strange.” Heat stated, his eyes narrowed and his hand firmly on the weapon at his side. “Even a place like this can’t run fully automated... Can it?” Alcatraz and Scavenger nodded in agreement, very clearly on-guard while Projekt Red and Cuora kept close to Closure, both making sure to keep her safe while she made her observations, and also a bit curious as to the goings-on, themselves.

“You’re not wrong.” Closure eventually spoke up, turning to the group. “Even automated systems need someone to monitor them, moderate them... Ensure that they’re all working accordingly and fix them when they don’t. And for a system with this many moving parts to it, there would have to be at least some repairmen or engineers we’d have encountered on the way...” The group pondered on this idea for a brief moment, only to be interrupted by Perfumer voicing her thoughts.

“Um... I know this might be a stupid question, but... what if it self-repairs?” The group looked between each other as Closure thought to herself before checking a piece of machinery and looking closer. For a few moments, the others weren’t sure what she was looking for, before she stood up straight again and wore a grim expression on her face.

“You... might be right. Less so fantastical as self-repairs, like... It’s not just magically fitting everything back into place. There’s no Originium in these machines, as far as I can tell to facilitate something as absurd as artificial Arts, but... It’s possible they even have an automated repair system.” Scavenger was the first to ask what that meant. Did they have repair arms in the walls behind the gears or something?

“No, nothing so unnecessary... It’s likely that there’s automated drones that fly - or more likely walk or drive - out the moment an error in the system occurs.” Closure spoke with an air of near-certainty. The more she thought about it out loud, the more and more it all seemed to fit neatly into place. “The redundant systems can keep the facility running at partial capacity, while the drones repair the primary functions... It’s like a backup generator for any given piece of machinery. Frankly, it’s genius. There’s just one small problem...”

“...Someone still needs to moderate all of it. Even just check up on it once in a while.” The Doctor spoke up, looking over to their engineer. Closure nodded in agreement, her arms crossed over her midsection in thought, a grim expression on her face.

“So we’re likely to meet whoever we’re looking for deeper in the facility.” Doctor Clara said, speaking to the rest of the group. “But we still need to locate a control panel or something similar from which we can begin to operate the doors in conduct a full search. So for now, that will be our goal. Understood?” The group verbalized their understanding before beginning to move out once more, quickly locating an operable door and walking through.

On the other side was another, brief hallway, that soon lead to a set of stairs going up. Following the staircase, and one more door later, soon the group was treated to a large room with numerous bits and pieces of machinery on the walls, operating at a much quieter volume than the other areas of the facility. It almost felt like a break room for the team, if not for the fact that a terminal and a set of monitors was located on the opposite side of the room that the group quickly rushed over to.

“Well, that was easy! Thank you, sensible lair design~” Closure had already begun to work with the keys and buttons, quickly figuring out their purposes as she went through the data on the terminal. Soon, she realized she was into more important files, including one labeled “Doctor’s Reports”. Had she perhaps just discovered the jackpot? The personal files of someone part of the R&D team responsible for this place, perhaps? “There isn’t even any internal security, which is - ”

The Sarkaz had clearly spoken too soon, as the machinery on the walls suddenly came to life violently as an alarm began to blare throughout the room. The floor opened up near the walls, almost immediately followed by Terran-sized containers rising up through the holes. With gushes of steam that briefly filled the room and soon dissipated through the vents throughout it, the containers opened up to reveal a number of mechanical humanoids wielding various weaponry, from bows and swords to axes and spears.

Immediately the group drew out their weapons and prepared to engage the enemy on the Doctor’s orders. Looking back to Closure, who met her gaze and nodded, Doctor Clara began to issue orders to her group, holding off the advancing robots while Closure began to work through the system and turn off the security systems.

The waves of robots seemed almost endless, but after a minute or two of fighting, the alarm finally died down and the containers that dived down and rose back up with new soldiers finally retreated for good. With the final robot defeated, the Operators all breathed a sigh of relief.

“Sorry about that~!” Closure looked back with a wink and an apologetic grin. “Must’ve tripped something, because I think I’ve got some really good stuff here... Sadly, it’s all encrypted, so I’ll have to get it backed to Rhodes to get it analyzed, but from here, I can totally access the rest of the facility! We’ve got our ticket in, folks!”

“All right.” Doctor Clara nodded to Closure, who began to upload the files in question, before looking to her team. “We’re gonna regroup to Rhodes Island, everyone. Likely adjust our team formation, now that we know more of what we’re dealing with, but I think you’ll all still take part in further exploration of this facility. Understood?”

Replying in the affirmative, the team prepared to leave as Closure finished up her copying of the files. Even as everyone began to talk about the possibility of what may lie ahead, Doctor Clara’s sinking feeling didn’t fade just yet... What was this place for? It seemed way too complex to just be a weapons construction facility, not to mention the lack of intelligent personnel... And on top of all of that...

...Why did it feel so familiar...?

#reading the reports || story post #the brass prison || story 1 #I promised the drabbles would be longer from this point on -

[kadavernagh]

Mind Your Mummers || Regan & Blaine

TIMING: Current. LOCATION: The woods. PARTIES: @kadavernagh @blamegoblins SUMMARY: Blaine makes a new friend and it sure isn’t Regan. CONTENT: References to self-harm.  

Practice screaming, Deirdre had said. Practice it until your lungs burn and your chest aches and never, under any circumstances, should you flinch. Regan’s lungs burned and her chest ached and still, she flinched. Her hands quivered, fingers curled against the bandages on her left palm. She couldn’t get Deirdre out of her head -- the way she was berated for reacting to the cuts. Deirdre didn’t even blink. She just let the blood drip down her fingers. Regan looked down to the dirt, where turkey blood had stained some of it copper. There were still feathers floating around in the breeze. At least she didn’t need to worry about blowing up any more animals today. With all of the screaming, she was confident she’d scared away every last mammal and bird in a mile-wide radius. 

That should have been the case. Regan took a deep breath, steeling herself for another scream, when she heard branches snapping. She couldn’t pull the scream back, not entirely. The sound exploded out as a short but high-pitched burst, and she managed to cut it short, rasping for air. Her lungs seared again, and she brought her uninjured hand to her ribcage, wincing. “Who’s there?” She called out, feeling another scream kick at her lungs like a weapon being loaded. The bugs bit at her skin -- that same paresthesia that signalled Deirdre or Lydia nearby. “Deirdre?” Regan asked, but as far as she could tell, there was no one sharing the clearing with her. 

Blaine crouched down to reach towards the luminous blue mushroom. The damp mosses pressed against the knees of his work pants as the Spriggan sifted past the musty decay of the hollowed log towards where a soft sapphire glow peeked through holes in the rotted wood. Anettena-like cilia snaked upward from the fungal cap, undulating like the thin wispy tentacles of the sea anemone. 

A scream cut through the forest’s hush like a grenade. Blaine jumped in alarm. The mushroom’s light winked out as it sucked down into its own root system, the disturbance initiating some automatic reflex that put it far beyond the Spriggan’s reach. 

A stream of Gaelic curses followed Blaine’s assent up the adjacent hill, gloved hands pushing branches out of his way and lifted the satchel full of alien blooms and herbs over one shoulder. 

Blaine felt the soul deep familiarity of the kin-sense before the woman came into view amongst the trees. Her question suggested she did too. “No I’m not Dolan,” he admitted, the five-foot nothing man peering emerging from obscuration the brush. 

“Blaine Collier of Baile Domhainn,” he said, making an archaic bowing gesture while touching his heart then his forehead. Blue eyes took in the feathers and blood. Blaine’s face beame plainly curious, but he seemed to be quietly waiting for something. 

The pinpricks grew more fierce, that creeping sensation down her spine that made self-loathing slither through her. Deirdre and Lydia thought it was a feeling to cherish, but it only served to remind Regan of their shared syndrome. “Deirdre?” She called again, digging a heel into the coppery dirt. She didn’t know Deirdre was going to find her here. Deirdre, hardened of all emotions, looking down at Regan’s trembling legs and fearful eyes with disgust. Her stomach felt like it had just inverted itself. “I-I did what you told me to do. A dozen screams, and--” A glance down at her shaking hand. She hadn’t done that part of the assignment yet. The knife. Her fingers curled, anticipating pain she needed to inflict on herself. A cold chill soaked her. “I haven’t started on the knife yet, but I-- my hand needed a break, and-- I’m going to do it, really, I--” No, not Deirdre. A low voice rumbled from one of the nearby bushes, and Regan jumped. She jumped, a second time, as the man tumbled out, sack over his shoulder, looking like he’d just spent a week in the woods.

Man. From the bushes. He knew Deirdre? He knew Deirdre. And what was in that satchel? Why was he so short? Had he heard the-- yes, everyone heard that. The whole town probably heard that. Regan froze, her nerves icing over. “I- who are--” He answered that question, and raised several others in the same breath. Blaine Collier of something something. She swallowed back an emerging scream. “Did Deirdre send you here?” She asked, her eyes filled with both terror and hope as they flashed to his. “Who are you? I mean, you said your name, but that’s not-- who are you?” He was close, too close. Regan took several steps away from the man, trying to put more distance between the two of them. “Stay right there,” she instructed, “I’m-- just stay there. What do you want? What’s in the bag?”

Blaine frowned, sandy brows coming together for a moment in puzzlement as if the strange Banshee had flubbed a line in some invisible script they were supposed to be enacting. It was Regan’s fear that seemed to puzzle the Spriggan most of all, and Blaine turned around to scan the forest around them as if a fellow Fae were an unthinkable source of lethal danger. Muddy hiking boots crunched on the carpet of fallen leaves on the floor as Blaine surveyed the autumnal reds and oranges around them with the cautious eyes of a someone who’d grown up in a paranormal world full of hungry things much larger than himself. 

“No Deirdre didn’t send me here, but speaking of her, I am picking mushrooms and herbs,” Blaine said, seeming addressing Regan’s questions in whatever non-chronological order they seemed to register in his rapid but eclectic thoughts. “And I wanted to meet another of the Fair obviously,” he pointed out as if this should be self-evident. “We need to stick together outside the havens after all,” the Spriggan said, as if everything surrounding the tiny pinpoints where Fae congregated were some sort of Mad Max anarchy.

Mushrooms. Deirdre and mushrooms. Well, she certainly seemed to enjoy talking about them. And warning Regan about them, for some incomprehensible reason. Blaine really did seem to know her. But that connection offered no solidarity. She watched the strange man with suspicion, but at least he seemed to be listening to her, staying relatively far away. “And why would you be doing that?” Was it for homeopathy? Gould, she really hoped it wasn’t for homeopathy. She already felt stretched to her limit, and ramblings about healing mushrooms and magical herbs would be her downfall. “I don’t work for the fair,” she stated blankly, “I did go, but I don’t-- I’m a-- I was a-- I mean, I am a medical doctor.” The simple fact she’d almost said Medical Examiner nearly brought tears to her eyes. She crossed her arms and angled her body away from him. “You must be lost, considering the fair left town a couple of months ago. Did they leave you behind?” She looked down, saw his well-worn hiking boots. Maybe he really had been out in the woods for days on end. “And I’ll remind you to keep your distance.”

Blaine considered the question for a moment, before answering “I’m a dispensing chemist,” using something very close to the definition for pharmacist but not going into falsehood. His  work under Felix never entailed writing or filling prescriptions after all. But dispensing? Oh yes there was a lot of that. 

“No doctor, I mean the Fair Folk, the Tuatha Dé Danann, the descendants of Tír na nÓg,” Blaine said with a laugh the coyness in his grin seeming to suggest that he believed that Regan was obviously joking. But while he’d enjoyed the play on words to throw the conversation off balance, nicely done, something about her mannerisms nagged at Blaine. He’d never presume to accuse someone of taking a joke too far but uh...she was kinna going all in with this. 

“Are you practicing the scream,” Blaine asked as if deadly sonic waves were some kind of beautiful ballet held in reverence, “I’ve never actually seen it done before…or is it only a special occasion kinna thing?”

A chemist. Right. Regan had trouble believing that. She’d never met a chemist who even owned a pair of hiking boots. Unless he meant a pharmacist. Wait, did he? There was no way that was true, either. “My dad was a pharmacist,” she said drily, “you’re not a pharmacist.” Though she supposed the truth could be something close to that. It was hard to believe a man who just emerged from the bushes and bowed to her. “Yes, the fair folk, the employees, the carnival workers, whatever you would like to call them. I told you, I’m a-- I was a-- I’m a doctor. I’ve never worked for a fair in my life.” But what was it that Blaine said after that? Something in another language, one Regan couldn’t identify. Welsh, perhaps? She wasn’t sure that it mattered. Not when his next question made her spine stiffen. “What?” She asked him, eyes wide. Had he-- well, he obviously heard, the whole damn town heard, but had he seen her do it? 

“I’m--” Before Regan could get another word out, her throat clamped up, and she choked, sputtering a scream. She tried again, but the noose tightened, and she was forced forward, hands on her knees to keep her balance as she gasped for air. Why couldn’t she-- the promise. The fucking promise. She couldn’t tell anyone about anything that happened or happens in this exact clearing. Not even Kaden, and certainly not bush-man. Regan’s lungs burned for air until her trachea opened back up, and she slowly met Blaine’s gaze. “Don’t ask me about that,” she croaked, “I can’t talk about it. I-- in fact, if you want me to be able to talk about this conversation at all in the future, we should, uh, go for a walk. But keep your distance. And then leave me alone.”

Blaine’s eyes narrowed when Regan stammered and choked, the skittish goblin reflexively taking a step back when the Banshee doubled over. Vague suspicions were confirmed when she told him to ask about the scream. Was this Deirdre’s protege? A relative perhaps? Had Deirdre bound her to secrecy on her purpose here? Why? The Bean-sidhe were secretive about their customs, but then again a Spriggan calling a Banshee insular was a pot and kettle situation really. 

“You under a Geas,” Blaine said after he nodded to the suggestion of a walk. “I don’t know what this prank carnival is about,” he admitted, “but it’s pretty plain somebody made you promise not to snitch about why you’re here.” He adjusted the satchel over his jacket shoulder and made sure to keep several feet distance from Regan. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have pressed you on it. Going against a Geas always hurts like hell.” 

“A what? No, I’m not-- I disapprove of pranks. Who are you and why is none of this surprising?” Regan’s brow furrowed and she studied the man, really studied him. He was young, perhaps thirty, and his hands were caked with dirt. Probably because of those mushrooms and herbs he said he was out looking for. His eyes were bright with curiosity and, she thought, mischief. Regan didn’t particularly care about any of that. Everything just… hurt. She started walking, paying little care to whether Blaine chose to follow her or not. It was nice just to get away from the clearing, with its stained dirt and maze of glass of shards. She sighed, knowing she wouldn’t be able to confirm what Blaine was saying. But that, too, didn’t feel like it even mattered. She just needed to see what the man wanted, then convince him to leave. “I believe I’ve made it clear I don’t work at any carnival. And your response about your profession was unsatisfactory.” Not that she was one to talk right now. Regan cleared a branch away, wincing at the contact with her hand. “It’s dangerous out here, you know. You never know what -- or who-- you’ll run into.”

“A Geas: a promise or prohibition that is magically binding.” Blaine looked back at the glass shards strewn across the clearing before following Regan, seemingly captivated by the red and gold fall leaves fall canopy swaying in the glasses’ fractured reflection.  “Y’know…if you were trying to get to the Mirror District there are way easier ways to do it.”

“I’m Blaine,” he repeated to the strange Banshee’s question patiently before elaborating. “I work for the Lamplighter.” The Spriggan spoke his employer’s name with a soft emphasis that seemed to infer that any further explanation was unnecessary. “I don’t find any of this surprising because…um” Blaine glanced as Regan again, puzzlement darkening into more profound confusion as she’d claimed to not have any interest in pranks but still feigned ignorance of the obvious. The fact that lies were impossible between them only deepened the mystery. 

“Words have power to our people. Gotta honor oaths and debts or they’ll tear you apart.” Blaine said in a perplexed tone, as if Regan had asked why it hurt to hold your breath too long. 

Sandy brows scrunched and laugh lines depended around Blaine’s eyes as he grinned as his companion warned of the forests’ danger, the ‘who’ being particularly ominous. 

“Cousin…are you trying to spook me out?”

The Lamplighter. Like that cleared anything up. Blaine seemed to think it answered all of her questions. Regan just marched ahead, not really wanting him behind her but preferring that to needing to look at him. “Our people?” She asked with a deep frown. That sounded like language Deirdre and Lydia would use, which made her fear sink seep a little bit deeper. He was like them, wasn’t he? That would explain why he was so… the way he was. “Words are just words. Necessary, and descriptive, but holding no more power than what we give them.” Ridiculous. “All of that nonsense about--” She hesitated to parrot Lydia’s phrasing “-- about binding people with words. I’m not convinced it isn’t psychological.”

The path ahead narrowed, and Regan looked over her shoulder to make sure Blaine was remaining a healthy distance away. He was closer than she would have liked, but it was a doable situation. Where were they even going? She noticed the familiar boulders and trees, and realized she was making her way back toward where she parked. All the better to end a conversation.

“I’m not your cousin, and I’m not trying-- I’m merely sharing an observation, based on statistics and first-hand experience with decedents, that the woods in this town are dangerous.” Regan paused, “but, fine, I’m also trying to encourage you to exercise a little more caution around me than you have.” Maybe that would have saved Cece and Grace and Janus a lot of pain. Or maybe not. Maybe there was nothing that could have been done to prevent it, short of her moving into a cabin in the woods and living as a hermit. That was still on the table. She huffed, forging into the narrowest part of the path, and-- 

Smack. Something she couldn’t see collided with her head, and she stumbled backward, a screech leaping out of her lungs. “What was--” But there was nothing there, just a trampled path through the woods and changing foliage. She looked toward Blaine, horrified, “Something’s there. I mean, I think-- I don’t know what hit me.”

Blaine wandered up the more cautiously, hand half out in front of him before it seemed to meet some kind of impassile resistance. He looked back to see how Regan was fairing before continuing to place one hand around the other to feel out a one dimensional barrier in front of him. 

“Hmmm that's really uh...oh wait, one of us is coming,” Blaine said, the kin-sense humming in his awareness like another string joining the harmony that Regan’s presence had started.  

A small figure came into view around a forest end, moving with a shambling gait due to long arms and fingers that splayed out like spindly tree branches in winter. It’s skin was mostly the  nauseous green of algae-choked water, but that only caused it’s glove-like white of its hands and stripped stomach to stand out all the starker. Beady golden eyes squinted at the travelers for a second before the being’s expression swelled in a razor-fanged grin that seemed far too wide for its face to physically accommodate. 

“See Dr. Cousin, everything’s fine,” claimed Blaine before sweeping into the same bow and archaic heart to forehead motion he’d given to Regan, only for the other goblin to silently mirror his motions down to the most exact detail.

One of us? What was wrong with this man? The only thing she had in common with him was, at present, an apparent penchant for wandering out in the woods. But before Regan could complain, the bugs seemed to teem across her skin, biting deeper into her flesh. She couldn’t shake them off. Was it because of Blaine? That thought made her annoyance spike, which in turn reminded her that she shouldn’t feel annoyance, or anything at all. “I’ve already told you I’m not your cousin. And at the moment, I’d barely even call myself a--”

But Blaine was right about one thing: there was someone else here. Or something else. Just as Blaine had earlier, a figure emerged from the forest. Something was wrong with them, some kind of pathology, by the look of their gait. But as they got closer, Regan took in the horrifying details. The pale skin. The black and white stripes. The rictus grin stretched from ear to ear. She knew exactly what she was staring at.

“That’s a mime! Get away from it!” Despite her fear of being close to Blaine, she cut between the two of them and pushed him back. She was confident that no matter how dangerous she may have been, she was still safer than a mime. Was this what mimes really looked like? Were they like Lydia? Able to disguise their true, terrifying appearance as a simple matter of will? Was Lydia one of them? Was that why there was a mime in her home? The mime-thing bore into her with its golden, beady little eyes, and Regan felt a scream start to pitch upward out of her lungs. She didn’t see a knife in its hand, but that didn’t mean it was safe. “You’re bowing to it?” She screeched at Blaine, exasperated. “It’s dangerous! Do you know what mimes are capable of? And, okay, I recognize I sound insane right now, but they almost killed my boyfriend on multiple occasions, and this one looks diseased!” She looked back at the mime, who sat down in what seemed to be an invisible chair, its long, spindly fingers steepling under its chin. “I don’t trust it,” she said with finality.

Blaine looked at Regan with a nonplussed expression that gradually became transfixed with the pain one suffers when a friend you’ve brought along to a party is being horribly gauche in front of the host. “Disease...shit um she didn’t mean…” 

Blaine began to speak rapidly to the striped goblin creature who proceeded to pantomime typing on a Smartphone. Blaine dutifully made motions evocative of typing a number on a phantom phone of his own and held it to his ear. He glibly explained to the Mummer over the invisible phone that Regan surely didn’t mean it like that! Banshees love death and decay. It doubtless was a high compliment!  

Blaine clicked off the nonexistent phone. “Nah, our bud here is one of the Mummers. Mimes are just humans that choose not to speak because of cultural appropriation. A Mummer wouldn’t try and murder your boyfriend. Why would Fae harm Fae?” 

Ignorant of the fact that he’d unknowingly made several incorrect assumptions about Regan’s relationship and the true nature of White Crest mimery, Blaine began to knock on the invisible wall. The Mummer pointed to a second of empty air and Blaine made a motion towards that space in the manner of grasping for a doorknob. 

The phantom sound of a click and long creak of a door opening originated from nowhere. 

Blain motioned for Regan to follow him in and take a seat at the table. 

Regan was tempted to rub her eyes until the insanity in front of her dissipated. Were Blaine and the mime… both pretending to call each other over the phone? She wasn’t sure. They weren’t actually saying anything, just gesturing like maniacs. Regan recalled Margot’s question toward her, and finally decided that yes, it did actually make sense to ask anyone in these woods whether or not they were maniacal serial killers. She crossed her arms and moved back again, trying to put more distance between herself and the mime. 

She was beginning to think that she was one of the few people in town who understood just how dangerous they could be. She and Kaden, of course. And Nadia. “Yes, I did mean disease.” Regan shot Blaine a less-than-kind look and then directed it toward the mime-thing. “I don’t care what he calls himself, he’s dressed like a--” But that wasn’t true, was it? He wasn’t dressed. The stripes were in his skin. “Mimes have tried to hurt my boyfriend on multiple occasions. He’s not-- neither of us are what you just said.” This was feeling more pointless by the second. Couldn’t she just get back to training? Slicing her palm open with a ritualistic knife over and over again was preferable to spending time with a mime and a man who thought all of this was perfectly normal.

Blaine, however, seemed content to investigate. He even seemed friendly with the mime. Regan watched, horrified, as Blaine opened a creaking door that didn’t exist, and practically seemed to be suspended in the air as he took a seat on absolutely nothing, just like the mime. Yes, this was certainly one of the more elaborate practical jokes that had been played on her, but they could stop now. Or maybe this was part of her training. Had Deirdre set this up in an effort to teach her the importance of patience? It wasn’t working. “I won’t be doing that,” she said coolly, “and I’m telling you, you really should keep your distance from that th-- from him. I don’t trust him. Look at his eyes.” Regan scowled at the creature, meeting him with her own angry, black-eyed stare. “Deirdre, you can come out now. This isn’t humorous, and I’d really prefer to get back to the other parts of our--” Her throat clamped up and reminded her that she couldn’t speak it. “I know you did this to panic Kaden! Um, probably. Somehow.” But Deirdre didn’t answer.

The sound of pouring liquid and the tart citrus smell of hot Earl Grey Tea filled the air as Blaine daintily pantomimed lifting a china cup to receive an invisible helping from the Mummer’s nonexistent teapot. He murmured thanks to their mumming host while growing increasingly uncertain as Regan addressed a woman who wasn’t here. 

The two goblins gave Regan an awkward concerned look that implied she were the irrational one here, rather than the Fae sharing invisible tea within a house that existed only in their collective delusion. 

“Neither of you are…” Blaine repeated Regan’s impossible claim absent, brows crunched together in thought as he made a motion reminiscent of bringing a cup to his lips and taking a fortifying draft of unreal tea. “She thinks this is all a prank put on by a mutual friend,” he explained to their host. The Mummer scrutinized Regan for a long while before turning to Blaine. The Mummer made the motion of rocking a baby and the wings of a butterfly closing. 

“Definitely possible,” Blaine admitted after a long ‘oooooh,’ sound.

“I’m not sure how to ask this precisely,” Blaine admitted to Regan, unsure where to begin broaching the awkward subject of being abandoned by one’s family in the clutches of humans. “But ...did you have parents who were different from you? Perhaps you can do things they could not? Blasting things with screams for instance?” 

They were having tea. Or, pretending that they were having tea. Regan had no idea how they managed to make it smell and sound like that, but somewhere along the line, she stopped being able to care. That didn’t mean this wasn’t disturbing, though. “I’m not miming tea with the two of you. Don’t ask me to do that.” Regan paced, her arms crossed, as she debated simply walking away. But as comfortable as Blaine looked next to the mime, she didn’t trust it. And she preferred not leaving Blaine alone with anyone covered in black and white stripes. She watched the deformed man rocked an invisible infant in his arms, and Blaine’s face lit up like all of this actually made sense. Regan scowled. He turned to her with a look of uncertainty, like he wanted to ask something. She wished he wouldn’t. “I don’t see what business of yours my parents are. I think it’s obvious that something went very wrong.” That seemed like a kinder, less revealing way to say that her dad had a basement full of sacrificial paintings and had been raised as fodder to feed her screams, and she hadn’t known about any of this until wings erupted from her back. No, she wasn’t about to get into that with Blaine, and certainly not with the mime man. Or anyone other than Deirdre or Kaden. “Fine, if this isn’t a prank-- somehow-- then I-- if the two of you are done, I’d like to make sure Blaine makes it out of the woods without getting stabbed. Silently.”

Blaine shook his head at Regan’s brusqueness. How could she turn down such hospitality? “Our host isn’t going to stab me cousin,” he assured, lifting a nonexistent biscuit from the invisible table-spread and pantomiming spreading butter over it with a knife. “We are Fae and I can feel the Ciall Cineálta,” Blaine pronounced the gaelic term with a reverence with which some humans might’ve mentioned a religious figure, “of commonality between us just as you can.” 

He nodded as if Regan had doubtless confirmed this. How could she not? “I’m sorry that things went wrong,” Blaine amended, causing both goblins to nod in union as the Mummer passed the imaginary sugar. “But you should come really sit and enjoy the hospitality of your own people,” Blaine chattered in his brisk New Yorker cadence.

“Besides, our friend has lemon tarts!” 

No, Regan realized, the two of them were not done. In fact, Blaine seemed like he was just settling in, chewing on something that didn’t exist, moving his hands around like he was clutching utensils. While she was growing increasingly and unnervingly used to the word fae coming from Deirdre’s lips, it scalded her repeatedly coming from Blaine. Fae, cousin, whatever Irish he had just spoken -- it was too much. Somehow, it cut into her in a way that the silver blade in her pocket never had. She had been training -- screaming -- to the point of exhaustion, and now she was learning just what happened when she reached this point: her brain started rejecting reason and reality. What did it mean for herself that this, of all things, was what she was hallucinating? It probably had something to do with Kaden constantly being tormented by mimes.

But it was the lemon tarts that broke her.

Regan stared at the two of them. The mime thing’s grin widened and its long, ugly ears moved with its shifting expression. Blaine got comfortable, leaning back into a chair that wasn’t there. Eating food that didn’t exist. Responding to comments that weren’t spoken. Regan blinked, waiting for the scream to start pounding in her lungs. It would, right? This was strange and objectively frightening. It would stir something in her. Wouldn’t it? But she waited. And stared. And waited. There was only a ripple as she tried to apply logic where there was none. Her lungs were numb and hollow. “I’ve clearly reached my limit,” she finally said, “not enough sleep, too much-- and this-- it wouldn’t be the first time that I’ve seen things that aren’t-- I’m just going to leave you here. Evidently, you don’t care about your life, so why should I?” Somehow, some way, she still did care. That thought was harder to shake out of her than the emotion carrying it. “You’re not real. You’re not real, so I don’t care.” 

They bit into more nonexistent food.

“Mimes,” Regan muttered, “putain.” She turned away from the imaginary spectacle in front of her, and marched back toward her clearing, for the prospect of tasting blood in her mouth all week was sweeter than staying here for a moment longer.

#wickedswriting

[hedwigstalons]

FabFiveFeb - John

And so the series concludes.  Thank you @gumnut-logic for the prompts and the challenge.  I was impatiently awaiting the space boy but maybe you were just saving the best brother until last.  

This offering uses the prompts of ‘concrete’, ‘paper’ and ‘soft caress’

xoxoxox

It was meant to be a simple evacuation exercise. Ordinarily Thunderbird Three would not be sent up single-manned but with Scott, Virgil and Gordon all out at various rescues already, and Kayo off on a mission for the GDF, they hadn’t had much choice.  An asteroid mining rig was malfunctioning, as was the crew’s shuttle, and so Alan had been dispatched to play taxi service.  A quick round trip to the rock to pick up the stranded crew.

 Easy.  

The crew was evidently resourceful at making repairs and by the time Thunderbird Three had arrived the shuttle and her crew were making a hasty retreat from their malfunctioning and volatile machinery. He hailed them cheerily over the comms and received thanks and apologies for his own wasted trip in return.  That should have been the end of it.  One more false alarm marked up in the log book.

 There was one problem.

 The mining rig should have had a mandatory minimum operational crew of six but only five personnel were in the shuttle.

 Alan touched down on the surface of the asteroid. Years of dedication and devotion to saving lives meant that he couldn’t trust it was just an administration error. His conscious wouldn’t allow him to head for home if one poor soul was stranded somewhere on that inhospitable rock. He radioed his intent to John and received acknowledgement of his plan in return.  After giving his assurances that of course he would be careful, and of course he knew the call out what because the equipment was malfunctioning, Alan headed over to the machinery housing.

 Alan cautiously made his way through the mining complex.  It was a small affair; aside from the drill room there was just a crew bunk house and life support facilities giving small comfort to the personnel who called that asteroid both home and work for six months at a time.  He called out as he went but any response would have been drowned out by the hideous noises being made by the drill.  The crew had been unable to shut the equipment down before departing.  

 It was easy to see that the living quarters were empty. The rooms were sparse and the comforts minimal.  The operating company evidently didn’t think much to investing in the welfare of their staff.

 He headed cautiously into the drill room.  

 It seemed there hadn’t been much investment here either. The equipment was archaic and in a poor state of repair.  Parts crunched together and groaned ominously.  In one area repairs had been attempted by holding parts in place with zip ties.  

 Seriously, who used zip ties on a mining rig?

 Alan skirted cautiously round the machinery, not prepared to leave until he was sure there was no one else left.  The drill was making tortured screams.  Gears and coils strained under the pressure of operating out of alignment.  Emergency shut down had failed as the operation fought back against years of neglect and running on a shoestring.  

 Speaking of shoestrings, was that pipe held in place by a boot lace?

 The screams were replaced by a guttural juddering sound as cogs meshed together.  Banging and clanking indicated parts locking then slipping past each other again.  The drill rig was now shaking ominously and Alan realised the time had come to evacuate.  There was no sign of a sixth crew member and Alan doubted one had ever been present.  Yet another space code violation to add to the list.

 Shoddy record keeping.

 Shoddy maintenance.

 He never made it back to the door.  The overloaded system could no longer contain the increasing pressure and the machinery failed in spectacular fashion.  Chunks of metal were ejected violently from the drill rig. The air became filled with deadly projectiles.  Cogs flew through the air with enough force to smash through concrete.

 Just as well Alan’s chest plate was stronger than concrete.

 Silence fell.

 “Come in Thunderbird Three.  What is your status?”

 The explosion then ominous silence had been clearly audible over the open comms line.

 John tried reaching his brother again.

 “Alan!  Alan, talk to me!”

 It felt like an eternity before the weak voice answered his hail.

 “ ‘m…ok…John.  Just…a bit…battered.”

 A bit battered was an understatement.  His arms and legs felt bruised but his biggest concern was the pain in his chest.  One particularly aggressive missile had hit his left side and slammed him into the wall. The chest plate itself had buckled under the impact and was now pressing into him in a way that could only mean broken ribs.  He knew he should feel lucky.  Without his armour plating the impact would certainly have killed him.

 He didn’t feel lucky.

 All he could feel was a world of pain.

 He tried to move but the intense stabbing sensation in his side issued a firm warning that moving was a bad idea.  He settled back against the wall into which he had been thrown and tried to regain his composure.

 Deep, steadying breaths to help push through the pain.

 Except he couldn’t.

 Inhaling felt beyond his abilities.  He could only manage short, ragged breaths that brought no relief.  Oxygen, so precious in the voids of space, felt to be in short supply.  He found himself panting rapidly but each breath was too shallow and the waves of dizziness and nausea just increased.  He was alone with no one to help him.  Tears rolled down his cheeks, a salty mix of fear and pain.

 xoxoxox

 Some people might think that operating Thunderbird Five was the easiest of the International Rescue roles.  

 Those people would be wrong.

 Coordinating rescues could be hard.  

 Hearing brothers injured and in pain and not being able to a thing about it.  Immersed in the action yet removed and isolated.  Helpless.  Impotent. A bystander looking at the devastation from the outside.  Unable to reach out.  Unable to turn away.  That was the hardest job of all.

 “John.  I’m registering a deterioration in Thunderbird Three’s vital signs.”

 He didn’t need the observations of the AI to know that Alan was in a bad way.

 “I know, Eos.”

 “Thunderbirds One, Two and Four have returned to base.”

 “I know, Eos.”

 “John, you are showing signs of distress.  Your heart rate, blood pressure and cortisol levels are showing significant elevations.”

 “I know, Eos!”

 He didn’t mean to shout.  He knew she was only doing the job she was programmed to do; keeping a watching eye on himself and his brothers.  It was so deeply ingrained into her subroutines.  A permanent watch that always occupied a portion of her processors no matter what else she was doing.  But at the moment her observations were not helpful.  He was all too aware that one sibling was hurt and the others had no way of reaching him.

 He pinched the bridge of his nose and screwed up his eyes slightly.  

 It didn’t help.

 “Eos, plot the course to asteroid JX387.”

 The AI knew better than to point out that Thunderbird Five was not designed as a long range ship.  She had the capabilities to complete the journey and that was all that mattered.  The usually dormant thrusters sprang into life and commenced the task of propelling the satellite toward her stranded sister craft.

 When the admission of fear came through the comms from his youngest brother, in a voice that was wavering and betrayed his tender years, John’s heart broke.  It was one thing to provide reassurances to strangers but quite another when your own flesh and blood were involved.

 Flesh and blood.

 The words conjured up vivid imaginings of what he might find when he finally reached the asteroid.

 “Alan, I need you to stay with me.”

 “John?”

 “I’m here Alan.”

 “I’m…scared.”

 The voice over the comms was strained and week. The shallow, laboured breathing picked up clearly by the sensitive microphone built into Alan’s helmet.   The life signs being monitored by Eos were registering an accelerated heart rate.

 “I know, Allie.  I’m coming for you.”

 John wasn’t normally one for pet names but there was something about that voice, so raw and vulnerable, the reminded him of the five year old that used to seek him out after a nightmare to be soothed by stories of the stars that now surrounded them both.

 Determination flooded his system.  Concentrating on the task in hand he piloted Thunderbird Five over to the part of the solar system currently occupied by his youngest sibling.

 xoxoxox

 Once in range of the asteroid and it’s now failed mining operation John donned his exosuit and exited Thunderbird Five.  The rock was bleak and the facilities on it were uninviting.  Thunderbird Three stood near the drilling base, cold and still.  Her striking red hull providing the only splash of colour in that grim landscape.

 He cautiously entered the complex and headed for the drill rig where the vital signs monitor was registering the presence of a brother who was thankfully still alive.  All caution was abandoned and John broke into as much of a run as the exosuit would allow when he spied the blue suited figure on the floor.

 “You…came.”

 “I promised I would.”

 “Gonna…need…new…suit.”

 John took in the damage to the armour plating and inwardly winced.  The whole of Alan’s left side was now a concave hollow.  Broken ribs were a given and the shallow, laboured breathing suggested a punctured lung too.

 “Don’t try to talk.  You can put your uniform order in to Scott when we get home.”

 Speaking of getting home that was going to be easier said than done.  Moving Alan was going to be a painful business and his condition suggested that a transfer to Thunderbird Five would be too risky.

 A new voice over the comms intruded on his thought.

 “John, status report.”

 Big brother, his own rescue on Earth now concluded, had evidently been appraised of the situation by Eos.  

 “I’m with Alan now.  He’s…”  John racked his brains for the right way to phrase things.  He wanted to be honest but he also knew Alan could hear every word he was saying.  “He’s taken a significant impact but he’s conscious and responding well.”

 “Hey…Scott…I’m…a…tough…nut…to…crack.”

 “You sure are, kid.”

 “I’m going to bring him home.  The sooner he gets medical attention the better.”

 “Five then the space elevator?”

 “No, the med-bed on Three will be more comfortable.”

 “Hmm.  When was the last time you flew Three?”

 “Simulated or solid state?”  This was the last thing he needed.  Alan had enough to worry about without doubts being cast on his piloting abilities.  “Look Scott. Trust me on this.”

 “Not…leaving…my…rocket…behind.”

  John couldn’t help but smile.

 “See, even Alan agrees.  I’ll see you back at base.  You can prepare the infirmary.”

 “FAB”

 John cut the connection to Tracy Island and instructed Eos to keep that line as receive only.  He didn’t want to shut Scott out completely but transferring Alan was going to be a painful business. Without knowing the state of his lungs John didn’t want to risk administering the wrong dose of painkiller and he didn’t want the inevitable cries from Alan being broadcast to an already worried smother hen.

 “Time to get moving kid.  Now I’m really sorry but this is going to hurt.”

 Alan gave a slight nod of acknowledgement and gritted his teeth for the inevitable.

 The choked back whimper as Alan was lifted into a bridal hold cut John to the core.  The kid was being so damn brave.  

 It was time to complete the painful journey back to Earth.

 xoxoxox

 The damaged chest plate lay discarded at the side of the infirmary.  The misshapen armour a chilling reminder of the dangers they faced every time they launched.

 John ran his fingers through his youngest brother’s hair in a soft caress.  It was about the only part of the young astronaut that wasn’t bruised, thanks to his helmet which he had wisely kept on while on the asteroid.  Eyes flickered open at the touch.

 “See…”  The voice was still breathy and strained.  “Tough…nut…to…crack.”

 The damage scans and x-rays had revealed three broken ribs and a lung that was partially collapsed but thankfully not punctured. He would heal in time but it could easily have been a lot worse.  John made a mental note to personally thank Brains for designing Alan’s uniform with such tough shielding.  He also made a note to throw the book at the drill operators; the whole set-up had been a disaster waiting to happen with corners cut and rules broken at every opportunity.  The company wouldn’t be operating in space for a very long time once he and Eos had finished.

 He became aware of Scott hovering in the doorway.

 “Eos had returned Five to low Earth orbit.  She’s back in place over the island.”

 John gave a subtle nod of acknowledgement.  He knew there was no longer a need for him to stay Earth-side; Alan was out of danger and would be well looked after by his terrestrial siblings.  He didn’t move away from the bed.

 “You did good out there, John.”

 A slight shrug.  He shouldn’t have been out there at all.  On days like this he wondered whether Alan should be out there either. Wondered why they had launched a child into such a dangerous role.  Was it selfish of them?  Did they expect too much?  The doubts always came crowding in when one of them got hurt.  His job was to monitor and assess after all.

 With a final run of his fingers through Alan’s hair and a “See ya, Al.  Don’t make me come fetch you again” John turned and headed back to his habitual home.

 xoxoxox

 The ride back up to Thunderbird Five was a silent affair.  Eos, now better attuned to his moods, correctly surmised that he needed to be left alone.  Only once he was back inside the station did he briefly acknowledge her.

 “Eos, turn on the gravity ring.”

 It was an unusual request for him and one that betrayed his current depth of emotion.  John was generally most comfortable in microgravity but in some circumstances gravity was necessary.  

 He had to write and submit his report on the mission but first he had to write his other report.  The one that would never be uploaded to the servers.  His own private record of events that dealt in more than just the facts of the matter.  

 Reaching the sanctuary of his room he withdrew the notebook and pen from their concealed spot.

 The book was a thing of beauty.  Heavy, slightly creamy pages encased in soft calfskin; the leather a deep midnight blue.  Each page unmarred by lines.  A special commission to his exact specifications.  For a man so immersed in the digital world a notebook seemed an odd luxury to choose.  After all, paper was expensive; an environmentally unsound product that had all but been phased out.  But the physicality of a book was sometimes necessary.  Hard evidence.  A disconnected node in an interconnected world.

 The pen was perfectly weighted.  A sleek, undecorated tube of brushed titanium that was simultaneously both functional and elegant..  The ink flowed in in a smooth stream, pouring out his soul in blue blood across the page. Each letter was perfectly formed, each word a thing of beauty.  The precision with which John lived all aspects of his life was evident in this act of meditation.  Line after line of fear and anger appeared across the paper filling the sheets in calligraphic hurt.

 Not every mission warrants an entry, only those that he knows will haunt his dreams and leave him doubting the wisdom of their cause. The close calls.  The near-misses.  The times when he realises just how far away he is from those he holds dear.  This is his therapy.  The book playing counsellor to his troubled soul with utmost confidentiality.  

 Only when the turmoil is quelled, the ink as dry as the tear tracks on his cheeks, does he replace volume.  A secret testimony to the sacrifices made for the world by a few individuals who shared their love and care around the whole planet and beyond.

#fabfivefeb #fabfivefeb2020 #John Tracy #alan tracy #thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds fanfiction

[nicolewoo]

All Along Part 2

Pairing: Joe Anaoi X Reader, Roman Reigns X Reader

Warning: Cursing and explicit sex. SMUT SMUT SMUT.

I woke up to the realization that I was curled up on Joe's chest again. I breathed in his scent and appreciated the feel of his arms around me. I looked up to see that he was still asleep. The movie we'd been watching last night was over, and the TV screen was on the menu page. I was going to lay just like this for as long as possible. I placed a kiss on his chest and ran my hand over his arm tracing his tattoo.

“Mmmmm” He moaned. I felt his head shift and looked up to see him looking at me. The sweetest smile brightened his face. “Hey. Looks like we fell asleep.” He ran his hand up and down my back.

“Looks like it.” I answered laying my head back down onto his shoulder. “How did you sleep?” I asked.

“Baby, I always sleep well when you're here.” He kissed my forehead, running his fingers through my hair.

My alarm went off, jarring us from our snuggling bliss. Joe moaned as I reached to grab my phone and turn the beeping off. “I don't want to get up,” he sighed. I opened the calendar on my phone and began reviewing my schedule for the day. Joe peeked down at my phone and said, “What time is our flight?”

“10 am.” I said. “We should get up and get ready.” I smiled up at him.

He turned me so my back was to the mattress and he shimmied down so he was on top of me, face to face. “Can't we just play hooky?” He nuzzled my neck and I felt him begin to get hard. If only he knew how wet he made me, he'd never get out of bed..... I wouldn't either.

We hadn't had sex yet. We'd only declared our feelings two days ago, but knowing each other as well as we did, waiting to be together was so difficult. It felt like we were ready, but were holding off out of some archaic morality system.

Now, laying in his bed beside him, sleeping next to him as I had both nights since Thanksgiving, feeling him nuzzle my neck, I KNEW I was ready. Maybe it was a good thing that we had to catch a flight in a couple of hours.  

“I wish.” I said as I played with his hair.

He pulled away from my neck and looked in my eyes, his hand running under my shirt and skimming my stomach lightly. “Stay with me tonight.” He said impulsively.

“What?” I was shocked at how certain he sounded. “We're going to be in a hotel full of co-workers.”

He smiled slightly, “And?” he quirked an eyebrow. “Stay with me.” He pleaded. “I don't care who knows or what they say.” He was so certain it was hard to argue with him, so I nodded yes. He kissed me sweetly, and his hand began to brush against my stomach again. As he slid his tongue in my mouth, his hand slowly ventured down slipping inside my shorts. It took every bit of willpower I had to grab his wrist and stop him. He pulled back and looked into my eyes.

“We have a plane to catch.” I gently reminded him, and he lowered his head to rest in my neck.

“It's getting harder and harder to stop myself.” He admitted.

I grunted in frustration, “Here too.” I admitted.

I took a deep breath. “Ok, let's get out of bed before we start something we don't have time for.”  With a quick kiss to my lips, he slid out of the bed, holding his hand out to help me up. Joe showered in his room while I used the shower in the guest room. When I returned to his room to start putting everything back in my suitcase, Joe came out of the bathroom, wearing nothing but a towel. I gasped at the view.

“Shit, baby girl. I didn't know you were in here, he quickly turned to go, but not before I saw the tent in his towel.

“Fuck.” I whispered to myself as I turned away.

“Could you... um.... Can you bring me some pants?” He called out. I knew where he kept everything and I quickly got into his dresser to grab a pair of boxers and pants.

“Which pants?” I asked looking at the array.

“The jeans that are on top please.” He said. I grabbed them and went to the bathroom to hand them to him. “I was never shy in front of you before.” He admitted, and I realized he was right. I often saw him changing or in a towel in his locker room. Now though, it was so different.

I just chuckled and went back to packing, trying desperately to forget what I'd just seen.

“Did I see The Bump on your schedule?” Joe called out from the bathroom quickly changing the subject.

“I'm meeting with the producer today. I'm a guest on next week's show.” I saw him come out of the bathroom, still incredibly sexy with wet hair and no shirt.

“That's awesome!” he said as he wrapped his arms around me from behind. “You've been kicking ass and taking names since you got to Smackdown.” He kissed my shoulder softly.

“Joe?” I asked, and he answered with a questioning hmmm. “Baby,” Fuck! How could I say this? “If you keep touching me......” I trailed off, but he knew.

He pulled his arms away from me and took a deep breath. “Yeah, I understand.” He said, but he didn't move away from me. Instead, he kept his body pressed against mine. His voice was husky with lust “Tonight, baby girl.” His voice resonated in my body and I felt my pussy clench in desire. I had to take a deep breath this time. He moved away from me and calmly said, “Finish packing. We're running out of time.”

“Ugh! That's not fair!” I complained, and turned to see a shit eating grin on his face.

“It might not be fair, but it's fun.” He teased, and I threw a sock at him.

He reached into his dresser to grab a shirt and slid it on his body, covering his incredible chest. “Tonight?” I asked.

He stopped what he was doing and came over to wrap his arms around me, “If you're ready.” He looked into my eyes. “I'm ready.”

I couldn't help the giant smile on my face. “I've been ready.” I said and he smiled too.

“Let's finish packing and get to the airport.”

=================================

The day DRAGGED. Everything seemed twice as hard as it should have been.... First a plane delay.... then a mix up with our room reservation.... the whole day was difficult. I just wanted it to be tonight. I wanted to be with Joe so bad, and it was all I could think about.

After losing my match, which I really didn't care about today, I showered, then waited in Joe's locker room until his match. As I went to the common area to watch the match on the TV, Becky wrapped an arm around my shoulder. “How are things going?” I knew she was asking about Joe.

“Everything is perfect.” I said, but she quirked an eyebrow.

“If everyt'ing is so perfect, why are you all tense?”

“Tonight.” was all I said.

“Tonight?” She questioned.

“Tonight's the night.” She didn't understand. “Becks, tonight is THE night.”

Realization dawned on her and she looked at me in surprise. “You guys still haven't....?” I shook my head no. “Holy shit girl! No wonder ya look like yur gonna snap on someone.” She giggled a bit which caught the attention of others in the room. I pressed my finger to my lips to tell her to keep the information quiet, and she patted my shoulder in understanding. I leaned my head back onto her shoulder. “It's gonna be great.” She said to me.

================================

“Let's go to the gorilla,” she suggested when the match was almost over. I hadn't pried my eyes off the screen through the entire match. We headed over just as his music hit. He'd won the match.

AJ styles came through the curtain first. Everyone was congratulating him on such a great match. Joe took a few extra minutes to ham it up for the crowd before he came back. Once in the gorilla, he and AJ congratulated each other on a great match, and Paul Levesque  joined them for hugs and congrats. As the show ended, everyone in the room started milling around.

Joe was talking to Paul, so Becks and I chatted while we waited. I noticed Joe peaking up at me, and I smiled softly at him. Then again and again. He was having trouble paying attention to his conversation.

“Get a room,” Becks said quietly to me.

“We have one,” I whispered back, “and as soon as he's done talking to Paul, we can head there.”

Paul finally looked up to see where Joe's attention was. He looked confused when he saw me. He knew Joe and I were best friends, and it wasn't uncommon to see me waiting in the gorilla. My guess is that he was wondering why Joe was distracted by me this time. Either way, Joe focused solely on Paul after that. When their business was done, Joe marched over to me, took my hand and dragged me to his locker room without even a word.

I took a seat on a bench while he showered trying to block out the urge I had to strip down to nothing and join him. Before I could I even imagine what would happen in there, he was out, and he was ready to go a minute later. He beckoned me to him and we left. He didn't even care who saw us. Yeah, it was normal for us to hold hands, but not for him to be dragging me out like this. I saw a couple of  people take second looks at us.

“Are you hungry?” He finally spoke once we got in the car.

“Yes.”

“Can we order room service or is there something special you want?” He asked, and I agreed to room service. Once in the hotel, we stopped by the front desk and ordered dinner. Joe left specific instructions to have the meal delivered to our suite's living room, but not to bother us. He tipped there at the front desk.

“What was that about?” I asked about the special instructions as we got I the elevator

Joe walked over to me, placing a hand on the wall on each side of me. “I don't want to worry about having to wait because of room service.” He looked in my eyes and I reached up to kiss him.

“You think of everything, don't you?” I teased.

“Well...” Joe looked shy again, “There's one thing we haven't talked about. Birth control.” He looked down to me, grabbing my chin in his fingers. “I brought condoms, but I'm pretty sure you're on the pill?” He was right. One of the benefits of working for WWE was that we were tested for STD's when we were drug tested; which was frequently, so we didn't have to worry about that.

“I am.” I answered; then added “But we can use a condom if you want.”

He chuckled down at me, “No baby girl, I trust you to take the pill.” He pressed his lips lightly to mine, starting a fire inside of me, but it was interrupted by the elevator stopping.

I was getting excited and just a bit nervous. What was going to happen? Was this going to be awkward? I began overthinking every possible scenario of how this was going to start. I shouldn't have worried though, because once we were in the room, Joe took my face in his hands and stared deep into my eyes. He slowly leaned down and gave me a gentle, sweet kiss. Instantly, all of my nervousness was gone. I was with my best friend, and this is what we were meant to be. I knew it. He knew it.

He guided me to the bedroom, and I was pleasantly surprised to see a few candles scattered around the room lighting everything in a soft glow. Joe turned to see the happy look on my face and shyly said, “I wanted to make tonight special.”

“Thank you,” I said as I wrapped my arms around him and kissed him deeply. He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me close, kissing me back. I began to guide us to the bed, and I felt a smile cross his lips. When I felt the mattress against my legs, I stopped and laid down on the bed.

“Sit up,” He said, and leaned over to kiss me, his hands slipping under my shirt and running over my skin. I moaned at the gentleness of the move. He lifted my shirt up and over my head and removed his own shirt. His eyes took in my form as he smiled down at me. “I've thought of this so many times,” He said as he laid next to me and ran his hand over my stomach again.

“Me too.” I said as I pulled him closer for a kiss. I moved to start kissing his neck, and he moaned as I gently sucked a spot for a moment. He pressed his body against mine, and I reveled in the feel of his skin against mine, but it wasn't enough. I needed more, and he sensed it.

Slipping his hand behind me, he undid my bra and discarded it onto the floor. He leaned up for a second to survey my breasts and smiled in pleasure. He took a nipple into his mouth, his tongue lathing it quickly, causing me to arch my back and press closer to him. I felt a contented hum from him, and it vibrated my nipple wonderfully.

I reached and grabbed for anything I could hold onto finding only his shoulders as he continued to tease my nipple. I could feel him hard as a rock inside his jeans as he pressed against me. I was having trouble concentrating on anything except the pleasure his mouth was giving me, but I managed to reach between us and undo his button. He pulled away and looked into my eyes as he took off his jeans and then mine. I pulled my underwear off which prompted him to also.

The view of his thick member being freed caused me to inhale sharply, and I reached to take him in my hands, causing him to moan and lean his head back as I stroked him. His hand began to slide slowly up my inner thigh, sending pangs of need straight to my core. I released his penis and wrapped a leg around his waist trying to pull him closer to me.

“I need you,” I begged, and he moaned back at me.

“There's so much I want to do with you.” He whispered to me.

“Later.” I whispered back. “Right now I NEED you, baby.”

He looked down at me, giving up his plans and slowly sliding into me, causing us both to moan in relief. It felt so right having him inside me. He kissed me softly and began to slide in and out of me slowly, tenderly. My hands grabbed onto his arms and explored his muscles as I reveled in the feel of him filling me. He moaned again and I saw frustration in his eyes as he tried to keep a slow pace, so I wrapped my legs tighter around him.

He pressed his forehead against mine. “Baby girl? Tell me what you need.”

My voice was louder than I meant it to be as I answered, “I need to cum.” He didn't need to hear any more. He pulled out of me and replaced his dick with two fingers causing me to cry out in sadness. He pumped in and out of me a few times before stilling his fingers deep inside me and curling up to brush my gspot. It was exquisite pleasure, and I lost all control of my body as he brought me to my orgasm, watching my face as I came.

He kissed me deeply until he was sure my orgasm was over. “You look so beautiful when you cum.” He smiled down at me, and I felt a hint of shyness, but this was Joe. This was my best friend, and we were taking this journey into a new phase of our relationship together.

“Come here,” I said as I pulled him back on top of me. He immediately slid back into me and started a steady pace. My gasps and moans spurred him on. He grabbed my legs and pulled them over his shoulders, looking down at me lustfully.

I screamed his name as he began pounding into me unabashedly. “That's it baby girl. Give me everything you've got.” He slid his hands between us and began rubbing my clit. I exploded around him almost instantly. My walls squeezing him tight and he lost control. He began rutting into me wildly, nearing his own orgasm. He pounded harder and harder, faster and faster until he lost himself inside of me. He exploded with a wild groan and stilled inside me, releasing my legs, laying on top of me and burying his head in my hair.

I ran my hands over his back as he caught his breath. He rolled beside me, and I turned to face him. We stared at each other as we recovered, smiles on both of our faces. He reached up and put his hand on my cheek. “That was amazing, baby.” He said, and I moaned in agreement.

After a few minutes, he whispered, “Are you hungry ?”

I hadn't heard the food arrive. “Is it here?”

He chuckled, “Yeah. You were busy calling my name when it got here.” I blushed and groaned at that. “Go get cleaned up, baby girl. I'll get the food.” He laughed.

We had a picnic that night right there on our bed. The food was fantastic, but nothing could live up to the feelings I had for Joe. We laughed. We joked. We ate. We kissed. We cuddled. We loved.

#Joe anaoi Roman Reigs

[teacherinthestreets]

“Appears to Be a Woman”

I set my alarm for 7am. My husband and I had the brooms out and ready. We figured, if we could wake up early on a Sunday to clean up Center City, we should do the same for Kensington. Plus, we’re homeowners in Fishtown and it feels like the neighborly thing to do. We walked under the El, sweeping up glass into piles, and at 9am I popped a headphone in my ear and joined my high school’s Monday morning meeting on Zoom. Since COVID closed down our schools, we’ve been meeting virtually. My colleagues shared their thoughts and feelings as we reflected on recent events. We’re all devastated by how especially scared and traumatized our Black and Brown students and their families must be. The general tone is of bewilderment. One colleague commented on the fact that her husband is a retired police officer and her family members are cops. She expressed her confusion and confoundment- police are trained to handle protesters so why are they doing this? 

We headed back home so I could join my students for virtual office hours. As a special education teacher who’s worked in Philadelphia for ten years, I’ve never struggled this much to entertain my students. By nature, I’m silly and a goofball. I tell jokes, don silly cat shirts, and wear a giant purple squid hat when the mood strikes. This is hard to convey online so I’ve resorted to playing lots of games on Kahoot! I always play with them and I always lose, but let’s pretend I lose on purpose. 

After the strange school day is done, my husband, friend and I head out on foot to the protest. There is a group of unions gathering together to discuss our role in advocating for change to support People of Color for the betterment of all. I’m wearing my Working Educators shirt, which is bright red and useful in case my friends and I get separated in the crowd. I could barely hear the speakers, but clapped heartily anyway. I saw a former student in the crowd and awkwardly air-hugged him. Then we began our march. Chanting loudly, sometimes in unison, and walking through the streets I love. I was flanked by two colleagues from school as well as my friends and husband. I felt that although this was something small, that’s how most revolutions succeed. Old, archaic systems are pulled asunder through death by a thousand cuts. My cut today was holding aloft my cute and colorful sign of the “This is Fine” dog. 

When our group crossed the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, we came to a halt. The police had blocked the bridge we intended to go over. We saw the group flood down the hill and onto 676. My husband and I held hands as we continued the march. What’s a little traffic to get the attention of hundreds for a worthy cause? We saw people in their cars lean out and shout, everything I heard was supportive, but then again I am trained to listen for the good and filter out the bad as there would be no way else to survive teaching high school students otherwise. As we walked under the overpass, I saw a wave of people running towards me. I froze. My husband grabbed me and helped me onto a ledge on the side of the road. When we could move again I saw a line of officers, clad in black. They were at the other end of the bridge so I couldn’t see anymore than that. Suddenly, a girl drops to her knees. She’s crying and bleeding, but I can’t tell from where. A fellow protestor reached into her bag and pulled out a bottle of water to help clean the wound. I turned and saw another fellow protester on the ground, holding his face. He looked unable to stand. I was scared so I started to leave him. There were people around, someone else would help him. I heard someone next to him yell, he’s been hit by rubber bullets and tear gas! Up to this point I didn’t realize we were being shot at. I paused, perplexed. I saw my husband see the man’s distress and move toward the prostrate figure. He picked up cardboard and used it to shield the man. In spite of my trepidation, I knew I had to help as my backpack was full of water and a first aid kit. I crouched down to assist, but we were all soon on our feet as we felt more rubber bullets fly passed us and the smell of tear gas was getting stronger. I felt nips at my ankles. Is that what a rubber bullet feels like? Unfortunately, I would soon find out.

The tear gas began flooding the street. My husband held my hand and we ran. With police surrounding us, we were forced up a hill and into a tall ten foot metal fence. As I stepped up to leave. Whap! I screamed out and fell to the ground. Something hit me in my back and the sting knocked the wind out of me. A fellow protestor to my right grabbed my arm to help me up. At this point, I see my husband and I have broken apart, but I can’t get back to him. I think I’m screaming or crying, maybe both. I breathe in the gas and think, this is how I die. I survived traveling the Middle East alone for a year and I die on the side of 676. I am bent over vomiting when an officer pushes me down to zip tie my hands behind my back. When I realize what is happening I ask him if I can get my ID from my bag which has fallen off when I was blindly and desperately searching for a bottle of water to douse my eyes with. He tells me, you don’t get shit. I ask him if it’s my right to have an ID on me (because I honestly don’t know). He responds angrily, saying I can’t get it. I take a step toward my bag and he pushes me down again and yells something. I’m shaking, begging him, please, please, please, I just want my ID. What if they arrest me and claim they don’t know who I am so I’m kept longer? Please, I beg again, I just want my ID. He tells me to stand up. I try to maneuver my way to standing while on a slant with my hands tied behind my back. The tear gas has got me spun around and sick. I can’t see and the pain in my back is incessant. I am almost up when I feel him push me back down. He then dragged me down the hill backward, over the branches and brambles. I wobbly stand once at the bottom of the hill and get in position. I am relieved even though there is vomit on my chin and snot is streaming down my face. The girl next to me asks if I’m ok and says she wishes she could help me wipe my nose. Some air is coming into my lungs. I start to feel like I might not die, only to realize that I am being arrested. 

My mom, dad, friends, family- they all told me to be safe. Be safe? I have never thrown a rock, or broken a window in my life. I’ve never shoved anyone, except when jokingly imitating Elaine from Seinfeld. Why should they be worried about my safety? I was there to support, but I don’t make messes. I help clean them up, that’s what I do. Now, I realize that was my privilege telling me I was safe. My cousin is a cop. I may be against the system, but individuals can see me for who I am: not a threat. That was my privilege. It told me the police would see I was peaceful and I would be fine. As I recall the screams and sobs now, I realize how very wrong I was. 

After I was bent over the median, my situation sunk in. I followed orders. Thanked every officer. Yes sir, thank you, sir. I was pat-down, but with no pockets and no bra, I was an easy search. We were moved to the middle of the road and sat on the median. The girl next to me asks me to look at her hand. She wants to know what color it is. It’s turning purple, I tell her. She tries to ask an officer for help. I ask a little louder. We are laughed at and she’s told that they’ll see her in the ICU. I look at the line of those zip-tied and try to see if my husband is there. When I don’t see him I search the crowd above, but my glasses are covered in chemicals. (It turns out he was up at the top of the hill screaming for me he was forced away by police.)

When we are loaded into the white school buses, I feel like I’m in a strange alternate universe. At this point in the school year, we would be taking field trips in a bus similar to this, but not as clean and devoid of bars. The girl behind me is texting on her cell phone backwards. She asks if she can text anyone for me. Oh my god, I’ve been with my husband for seven years and I never memorized his number. I give her my parents numbers and hope they will see the text during their Zoom birthday conference for my aunt. I am relieved when she tells me they responded. Phew. At least someone knows where I am. 

We sit on the bus, packed with women, ages ranging from early twenties to thirties. There are a few women crying, but everyone is encouraging each other. Someone asks if anyone has been arrested before. The girl next to me replies, does drunk and disorderly in college count? Everyone else shakes their heads no. 

When we reach the station they tell us we are going in five at a time to be processed. The girl who texted my parents for me asks for those who need medical support to let it be known so they can go first. I’m in awe that even in this stressful situation, she has the foresight to be so kind and compassionate towards everyone. 

As I am brought in to be processed, I remember my former student in the crowd. I wish I could see if he is ok. I continue to comply in my normal friendly and gracious manner. A young Black woman in my group of five asks why they need her address again. She’s got some flint in her voice, but she doesn’t curse and is respectful. The officers attempting to process her begin a back and forth at one point accusing her of probably never having a job in her whole life. When she asks why they would think that of her and asks whether it is because she is Black, several officers erupt into laughter and mockingly decry the stupidity of her comment. Her friend stands up in her defense and one of the officers tells her to sit her ass down or she can stay the night. He says they could use the company. He yells at her (and us) stating that this is what we get for breaking windows and causing a riot. They protest and are waved away and told to hush-up or they’ll be locked-up. 

The officer processing me is polite, when he asks my profession and I tell him I’m a teacher he perks up and asks where I teach. When I tell him he’s genuinely excited as our school is unique and has been a Philly landmark since the 50’s. I’m given my Code Violation Notice for “Failure to Disperse” (I laugh and think that they should give that to the fence for blocking my way, but also wondering if stopping us from dispersing was the point because trapping us on that hill sure felt like it). A polaroid photo of me is taken and a young officer writes my name on the bottom. They point me to the exit. I smile and thank everyone. Like they did me a favor. Like they didn’t have a hand in what I just experienced. 

I see the girl who texted my parents outside. She’s passing out water and waiting for her ride. She graciously lends me her phone and I call my mom. I tell her I’m ok, ask her to call my husband and give her my cross streets. I ask her to tell him that I’m just going to start walking home on Montgomery Ave.

I hear my husband’s emblematic “yeerrrp!” and turn around. He’s with two of my other friends who had been trying to retrieve my backpack. I don’t care they weren’t successful, their smiling faces let me know how lucky and loved I am. I think about how this was a strange experience for me, one that I will hopefully never experience again. One that I don’t have to live in fear with experiencing again. Again, I notice my privilege in a new and deeper way. It reminds me why I went to the streets in the first place, why I have chosen Philadelphia as my home. Why I continue to teach in the city that I love and fight for a better future for each of my students. 

When I arrive home to Fishtown, we are told that the 26th precinct has a gathering of White men and women with bats, shovels, and axes. After hearing the gathering using racial slurs, cursing, smoking pot, drinking, and yelling about their guns- other Fishtown residents ask the police to disperse the gathering, to which the police’s response was dismissive and cursory. 

When home, I read the statement from Mayor Kenney and Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw on what I went through, which was beyond disheartening. I voted for Kenney and I was excited to see a badass Black Commissioner woman take charge (I mean, with the last name Outlaw, I thought she’s got to be great). She stated in her press release, “While on the roadway, the crowd surrounded a State Trooper, who was alone and seated in his vehicle, and began rocking the vehicle, with the trooper having no safe means of egress.  Two teams from the Philadelphia Police SWAT Unit arrived. While the SWAT officers were present, members of the crowd began throwing rocks at the officers from the north and south sides, and from the bridges above the officers. The crowd also began rushing toward the officers. The SWAT officers gave numerous orders for the crowd to disperse, to which the crowd did not comply.”

I am too devastated to even respond. Throwing rocks? Rocking a police vehicle? Refusing to disperse? How could these blatant lies be shared so easily? Every detail is false to every second of my experience, but if people in power say it, won’t everyone believe it? 

The dichotomy of this day hurts in a profound way. As my adrenaline fades and I hear the encouraging words from my family and friends, I feel like I will be ok. My husband pulls up a video from the news of what happened to us on 676. I watch the situation unfold from above and can pick myself out in some shots because of my bright red shirt. Then I see it. I’m being dragged down the hill and the camera zooms in. The reporters notice and comment at my sorry state and I can’t help, but laugh when one says “[she] appears to be a woman.” 

#nojustnopeace #nogoodcopsinaracistsystem #fightthepower #power to the people

[coldflasher]

Femslash Week Day 7 - Unexpected/alternate meeting

Pairing: Nora West-Allen/Jesse Wells

Rating: Teen (Fade-to-black sex scene)

TW: mentions of sex

Read on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23066806

Can’t Outrun Love by coldflasher

“Maybe you should introduce yourself,” said Nora as they circled one another.

“You first,” the other speedster said.

“They call me XS,” said Nora, and went for a super-speed roundhouse kick.

Her form was perfect, and the speed-force sang in her system as she swung – but the stranger caught her ankle before the kick could connect, holding Nora’s outstretched leg in place. Shocked by her audacity, Nora stared and tried to pull her leg free, but the other woman had a surprisingly strong grip.

“Nice to meet you, XS,” the woman said. “I’m Jesse Quick.”

An unfamiliar speedster shows up at S.T.A.R Labs, and Nora’s keen to prove she can take her down. When it comes to Jesse Quick, she might’ve got more than she bargained for.

Nora was playing on a Gameboy in the staff lounge when the alarm went off.

Her mom had brought it to her earlier in the afternoon. It was a slow day with no bad guys or rogue metas on the loose, and Nora was bored, doing endless laps of the speed-lab just to kill time. Her dad was at the CCPD catching up on paperwork; after one too many attempts to explain how archaic the precinct’s systems were compared to how they were in the future, which had culminated in her trying to give her dad’s computer an upgrade and almost blowing it up, Nora had been banned from ‘helping’ for the foreseeable future. So not shway.

“Whoa, easy tiger,” Iris had called as she entered the lab. “You wanna slow down for a sec?”

“I’m bored,” Nora whined as she skidded to a stop in front of her, making her mom’s hair fly crazily like she was caught in a gale. “What on earth is it you do around here when there’s no bad guys to fight?”

“It’s called working,” Iris said mildly. “It’s how we keep a roof over your head.” But she didn’t look mad. “Come on,” she said. “I have something to show you.”

An offer like this usually meant good things, so Nora eagerly bounced over to the desk and perched on it, swinging her legs. She knew it was kind of lame to get so excited over looking at old photo albums and flicking through her parents’ yearbook, but there was so much stuff in those things that hadn’t made it to the Flash museum. After years of family history being walled off, a little thing like a photo of her dad hanging out in the cortex in the Flash suit still hadn’t lost its novelty.

What Iris produced, though, wasn’t a photo or a piece of high school memorabilia. It was a weird plastic square. Nora took it and turned it back and forth, before discovering that it opened up to reveal a tiny screen.

“It’s called a Gameboy,” Iris told her. “One of the OG handheld games consoles. It belonged to your dad. We used to fight to the death over this when we were kids.”

“Shway,” Nora breathed, pressing buttons until the screen lit up, bathing her face in light. “It’s so old. It’s like something from the stone age.”

“Ouch,” said Iris, but she was grinning.

“Sorry,” said Nora. “But you have to admit the graphics are terrible.” She looked down at the shapeless blob of pixels that was supposed to be her avatar and shook her head in amazement.

“Oh, for sure. Even in 2019 it’s a little dated. Still fun, though. It might give you something to do around here; you don’t want to tire yourself out by running around all day. If there’s an emergency, you might need your speed.” Iris nudged her. “And between you and me, if you can beat your dad’s high score then you have to promise me you’ll rub it in his face. I never managed to beat him and he’s never let me forget it.”

“Challenge accepted,” said Nora, already mashing buttons.

She was lying on her back on one of the sofas in the lounge, trying to manoeuvre the little Mario-blob across a maze of green pipes, when the familiar sound of alarms made her jump out of her skin. Immediately forgetting the console, she sat bolt upright and put her finger to her ear to activate the comms unit. Wearing it 24/7 was overkill, she knew that – but it made her feel close to the rest of the team, hearing their voices in her ear whenever she needed them.

“Guys, what’s happening?”

“We’ve got some unexpected activity in the breach room,” said Cisco. “But –”

“I’m on it,” said Nora, sprinting downstairs.

She flew through the corridors, stopping for just long enough to grab her suit and throw it on – no bad guys were catching her unmasked – before skidding into the room where the breach pulsed and flickered in the centre, its blue going brighter.

“Okay guys, what am I looking at?”

There was a crackle in the comms, but nothing clear. Frowning, Nora tapped her earpiece, but there was only static.

“Guys?”

The breach yawned like the maw of a gigantic beast. Nora threw her arm up to protect her face, and then a figure leapt out of the maelstrom and landed lightly in the centre of the room. It was a young woman around her age, wearing a red and yellow suit with a mask over her eyes. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail.

Nora didn’t waste a second. When it came to masked intruders, her policy was ‘punch first, ask questions later’ – and with that in mind, she launched herself at the stranger, lightning crackling all over her body as she drew her arm back in preparation to punch.

When she tapped into the speed force, Nora was used to everything around her moving as slow as glass, their motions almost imperceptible. She wasn’t expecting the woman to turn her head and look at her at a perfectly normal speed, like Nora was an interesting specimen under a microscope.

The stranger’s hand came up, catching Nora’s fist in hers and stopping it mid-swing.

Frozen with shock, Nora stared at her. Her lightning flared, and an answering yellow blaze illuminated the other speedster, crackling in her eyes.

“Who are you?” Nora demanded.

“I could ask you the same question,” the speedster said, and swung a punch with her free hand.

Nora intercepted it in time, but only just. They broke apart and she backed off to a safe distance, wary all of a sudden. She’d never fought another speedster before, though she’d known it was a possibility – there were so many of them. Casting her mind back, she tried to remember what her dad had told her about battling someone whose abilities matched hers. Without her natural advantage, it would be like fighting with a hand tied behind her back, and although she’d taken her turn with a punch-bag and taken some self-defence classes gifted to her by Papa Joe on one long-ago birthday, she wasn’t awesome at fighting. Her speed was what gave her an edge.

“I’m surprised to see another speedster around here,” the stranger said, circling Nora with a toss of her head that made her pony-tail fly. “Guess I shouldn’t be. It seems like there’s a new one every year.”

“Bad news for you,” Nora said. “That means we know how to beat them.”

A grin broke out on the other speedster’s face. “Well, you’re welcome to try.”

That smile did distracting things to her, and she didn’t like it. Now would be a really awesome time to turn off the switch. Knowing her family history of flirting with villains – her mom still liked to tease her dad about his crush on Captain Cold, which he denied with a blush – she supposed it made sense that she’d be attracted to overconfidence and evilness in equal measure, but right now she needed to focus.

She flew at the other speedster and tried to jab her in the ribs. The other woman dodged and aimed a punch to the face that Nora ducked. Crap, she’s fast. As soon as the thought had occurred to her, Nora rolled her eyes at herself. Duh.

They exchanged a flurry of blows, most of which didn’t land. They were pretty evenly matched, which did good things for her ego. Her plan was to wrap the woman’s pretty brown hair around her fist and yank, knowing that her own shorter hair protected her from a similar attack – that was half of why she’d cut it off – but she couldn’t get close enough to get a good grip.

They both backed off, sizing each other up again. Nora found that despite her instincts, she was enjoying herself more than she’d like to admit – and judging by the way the look on the other woman’s face, she wasn’t the only one.

“Maybe you should introduce yourself,” said Nora as they circled one another.

“You first.”

“They call me XS,” said Nora, and went for a super-speed roundhouse kick.

Her form was perfect, and the speed-force sang in her system as she swung – but the stranger caught her ankle before the kick could connect, holding Nora’s outstretched leg in place. Shocked by her audacity, Nora stared and tried to pull her leg free, but the other woman had a surprisingly strong grip.

“Nice to meet you, XS,” the woman said. “I’m Jesse Quick.” And she yanked Nora off her feet.

Nora went down hard with a yelp of shock, landing on her ass. For a moment she lay there staring at the ceiling with the breath knocked out of her, trying to figure out what the hell had just happened. Then a face appeared overhead. Jesse Quick was standing over her with a self-satisfied expression.

Nora was going to wipe that smug look off her face. Lightning crackling, she prepared to launch herself at Jesse –

“Nora, stop!”

Barry leapt between them, arms outspread as if to hold them back from one another. Nora’s heart crashed into her ribcage. He wasn’t wearing the Flash suit.

“Dad, your mask –”

“I’m sorry, did you just say Dad?” Jesse demanded.

“Stand down,” Barry told Nora. “We know her, okay?”

“We do?” said Nora.

Slowly, she picked herself up off the floor. She was sore from the beatdown in more ways than one. With her dad still standing between them, she took a second to get a proper look at Jesse Quick in her red and yellow suit – form-fitted, as all their suits were, for better aerodynamics. Compact, but softer than all the male speedsters Nora had encountered, a body more like her own. Still lithe from all the running, but with curved edges.

Removing her mask, Jesse looked at her with bright, interested eyes. Nora’s stomach gave a lurch. Uh-oh, said a voice in the back of her head. Jesse was cute.

“You’ve got some explaining to do,” Jesse said, eyes fixed on Barry.

“Yep,” he said, lowering his hands. “It looks like I do.”

 The explaining took time. Understandably. It wasn’t exactly a normal situation. She hadn’t really considered what a weird story it was until she’d listened to her dad trying to explain it, with Iris cutting in at regular intervals whenever he left out anything important – but given that she already knew all the details, she wasn’t really listening. There was something a lot more interesting that had caught her attention.

Nora found her gaze kept wandering back to Jesse. The curve of her spine as she leaned against the desk, the way the light caught her hair as she tucked it behind her ear, the sparkle in her eye. It was the first time she’d gotten close to another speedster who wasn’t family, and she was trying to commit all of her to memory, like a fascinating science project or a new Flash story she hadn’t heard.

Jesse looked up and caught her staring. Feeling her cheeks warm, Nora gave her a sheepish smile before looking down at her feet. Jesse’s look lingered, and when Nora looked up again the other woman was still watching her. Seeing she had Nora’s attention, Jesse looked up and down Nora’s body in a clear once-over before her lips curved and she looked away again, returning her attention to whatever Barry was talking about. Nora turned her head and hid her smile in the collar of her jacket.

She’d thought she was being subtle, but apparently not so much. Iris caught her eye and raised her eyebrows encouragingly. Nora shook her head and looked away, but Iris coughed and flicked her eyes at Jesse again. Her meaning was clear: talk to her!

Nora rolled her eyes. Mom!

Iris gave her another look.

If she didn’t do something soon, there was a real danger that her mom might try and do it for her. The only thing more embarrassing than her ridiculous crush was the idea of her parents trying to matchmake on her behalf, so Nora cleared her throat and took things into her own hands.

“So, Jesse… do you guys have Big Belly Burger on your Earth?” she asked casually.

“We sure do. It’s one of my main food groups.”

“Me too! Do you want to head down there and grab lunch? I’m really craving their fries.”

“Sounds awesome,” Jesse said.

“Great idea, I’m starving,” said Barry.

“Uh,” said Nora.

“Babe,” Iris said.

“What?”

“I think Nora and Jesse need a little girl time.”

“Girl time?”

She gave him a meaningful look that slid off him like water off a duck’s back. For a few seconds they stood having one of their wordless conversations, Iris raising her eyebrows progressively higher while Barry continued to look bewildered. Eventually, Iris nodded at Nora and then at Jesse and gave Barry her most meaningful look yet, and finally things clicked.

“Oh,” he said. “Right. Girl time. Got it. I mean, we wouldn’t wanna cramp your style or whatever…”

He gave actual finger guns, and for the first time in her life, Nora experienced what it was like to be embarrassed by her father. She resisted the urge to hide her face.

“Did you just say ‘cramp our style?’” Jesse said incredulously.

“He’s trying to do the Dad thing,” Iris said, patting him on the shoulder. “I’ll get him out of your hair.”

Ignoring Barry’s protests, she steered him out of the cortex, giving Nora a wink on the way out.

“Well that was super weird,” Jesse said.

“Yeah,” Nora said, putting her hands in her pockets. “I should probably mention that I’m sorry for trying to kick your ass and all. I kind of thought you were evil, so…”

Jesse shrugged. “That’s okay. Better to be cautious, right? And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry for actually kicking your ass.”

“You caught me off-guard,” Nora acknowledged. “But I could totally take you.”

“That’s fighting talk.”

“You bet it is.” She paused and ruefully massaged her shoulder. “But we might have to take a rain check on the rematch. I’m still a little sore from the first round.”

“Aww,” Jesse said playfully. “You want me to kiss it better?”

Fireworks went off in Nora’s head. YES! Her gay brain yelled – but common sense quickly reined it in. There was a pretty good chance Barry and Iris might still be lurking around the corner listening in and the last thing she needed was for her parents to catch her making out with a sexy speedster lady in the middle of the cortex.

“Maybe later,” she said.

“I’ll hold you to it.” Jesse rolled her neck. “Come on; it’s Big Belly Burger time. I’ll race you.

Without warning, she rocketed down the corridor like a bullet from a starting pistol, leaving the air tingling with static and the afterimage of lightning flickering in her wake.

“Hey!” yelled Nora as she flew after her.

It wasn’t like she wasn’t used to running with other speedsters by now, but she’d known for a while now that her dad was going easy on her. It made sense that he’d be faster; he’d been running longer, training harder, had years of experience she didn’t – but they both pretended she was almost a match. Jesse Quick, however, had no qualms about showing her just how outclassed she was. It was refreshing to run with someone who wasn’t scared to show they were out of her league.

Jesse turned to glance over her shoulder and stuck out her tongue. Laughing, she piled on the speed and left Nora in the dust.

Grinning, Nora pushed herself harder. There was no way she was catching up, but she was damned if she wasn’t going to try.

 Big Belly Burger was a good call. It was cheerful enough that she could pretend they weren’t on a kind-of-date, loud and bustling and full of chatter so that her heart stopped buzzing speedster-style and her stomach actually stopped doing backflips for long enough to let her eat. Jesse ate her fries one at a time, waving each one around as she talked like she was conducting a miniature orchestra and dipping it in her milkshake before she ate it. Nora, who had been ridiculed her whole life for thinking fries and vanilla shake was a good combination, was kind of obsessed with her. There was this energy she gave off, a kind of effortless confidence that Nora felt like she’d spent her whole life chasing. After discovering her speed she’d unlocked a side of herself she’d never known was there, but she felt as though it had come with an extra helping of uncertainty. All of a sudden she had become unknowable, with a new set of abilities she barely knew what to do with and, until recently, a mentor who could only teach her by proxy from within the walls of a cell. She felt like a teenager again, trying to figure out everything all at once – her speed, her weird new family dynamic, her relationship with the father she’d never known who was only a few years older than she was. Jesse looked like she had it all figured out, and Nora found herself once again with the quandary all queer girls faced: did she want to be Jesse, or be with Jesse?

Both, her brain supplied helpfully. Both is good.

“So you were born a speedster? Not made?” Jesse shook her head. “That’s so crazy. I can’t imagine growing up like this. You must have been a real handful.” She dipped a fry in her milkshake. “You must have had all these years to develop your speed. Look at what your dad’s like and he’s only been like this for what, five years? I can’t even imagine what kind of crazy shit you can do.”

“I wasn’t born with speed, actually,” Nora said shyly. “I mean I was, kind of – but I couldn’t access it. I didn’t know I was a speedster until recently. I’m still getting used to my powers.”

“That makes sense. It’s a pretty big adjustment.”

“That’s an understatement. …You’ve been doing this for a while, right?”

“Couple of years.” Jesse stirred her milkshake a couple of times before popping the lid off and drinking the last of it, her head tipped back.

“Do you ever get used to it?”

Jesse considered this for a moment. “Kind of. I mean you get used to being fast; your speed becomes a part of you, so it’s hard not to – I think you just get used to things being weird. When I think about it too hard, nothing in my life makes sense. I mean, look at me. I’m sat eating Big Belly Burger in a parallel universe. We don’t even have this milkshake flavour on my Earth – which is an absolute tragedy, because it’s amazing.” She shook her head at the polystyrene cup. “I spent months living in a different universe. After a while it became my new normal – but I still missed home.”

“Yeah,” Nora said. “I get that. I’m from the future and everything here is so different. I love being with my parents – meeting my dad, finally having a good relationship with my mom… when I’m from, we don’t get on so well.” She sighed. “But I do miss home sometimes. I think the worst part is that I can’t talk about it. If I ever try to talk about the place I’m from, everyone around me covers their ears in case it screws up the timeline or whatever.”

“You can talk to me,” Jesse offered. When Nora looked dubious, she said, “Not my Earth, not my future, remember? I won’t tell the fam. No spoilers.”

Nora’s instinct was to decline. But she wanted to talk about it, she realised – the life she’d met behind. The mom who was a stranger compared to the one she had now; the technology she’d taken for granted until she lost it; the museum she’d walked through as a kid and later learned was filled with family history; her college experience and her childhood friends and Lia, who she still missed in a part of her heart that had crystallized, turned sharp and jagged as a geode because she wasn’t allowed to talk about her any more.

“Yeah,” she said. “I’d like that.”

 The Big Belly Burger employees had to kick them out at closing time.

As two speedsters, they could both put away crazy amounts of food, so it wasn’t like they hadn’t eaten enough to justify the length of their stay – but Nora was still shocked when she realised the restaurant was empty and the staff were starting to mop the floors. The hours had melted away while she and Jesse sat talking, and night had fallen outside.

Jesse had a lot of stories about Barry and as usual Nora drank them in like she’d finally found an oasis in the middle of a dessert, even the ones she’d already heard – the fresh perspective made them new again, like brushing the dust off old heirlooms and finding the shine underneath. But they’d also talked about where they were from, their lives before the speed, setting the universe to rights. A few hours in, Nora had been hit with a realisation: Jesse got it. She hadn’t realised how desperate she was for someone to understand until she’d found someone who did.

“That was fun,” Jesse said as they reached Joe’s front door. Nora was staying with Papa Joe and Mama Cecile to save her back from the sofas in the staff lounge – they were great for napping on, but not so much for long-term sleeping arrangements.

“Yeah, it was,” Nora agreed.

They stood lingering on the doorstep, the knowledge of what was about to happen making the air tingle between them.

“So,” Jesse said, stepping closer and lowering her voice. She laced her fingers with Nora’s and her thumb danced lightly over Nora’s knuckles, the touch setting her skin on fire all the way up her arm. “I think I owe you a kiss.”

“Maybe more than one,” Nora said breathlessly. “You kicked my ass pretty hard.”

“I can work with that,” said Jesse, and she leaned in.

There was a spark as their lips met, static flaring between them. Startled, they both leapt back. Jesse looked so surprised that Nora couldn’t help giggling – and to her relief, Jesse started laughing along with her. Her hand cupped the back of Nora’s neck as she leaned in and kissed her, and Nora reached up to slip her fingers into Jesse’s hair.

They swayed on the doorstep, the kiss never breaking. There was a bump as Nora’s back pressed into the front door, but she barely felt it. All she was aware of was the warmth of Jesse’s body aligned perfectly with hers, her thigh slotted between Nora’s legs. The kiss had started off gentle but before long it became more urgent, and when they finally broke apart with bright eyes, they were both breathless.

“You’re sure you don’t want to come inside?” Nora asked.

“Well,” said Jesse. “If you’re offering.”

Grinning, Nora took her hand and pulled her forwards, and they both phased through the front door and flitted up the stairs silent as ghosts.

The bedroom door closed behind them and they stood in the middle of Nora’s borrowed bedroom, kissing over and over. When Jesse pulled her shirt over her head and it hit the floor, Nora stood and stared for a solid thirty seconds. She was wearing a white bra covered in purple flowers, with a small diamante nestling between her breasts and lacy straps pressed against her shoulders. The colour of the flowers stood out against her creamy skin.

“Is everything okay?” Jesse asked, uncertain for the first time.

“This is probably kind of weird,” said Nora, “but first of all, I love your bra, and just so you’re aware, my underwear is nowhere near as cute as yours.”

“Well,” Jesse said. “Good thing I’ll be taking it off.” Then she pushed Nora back onto the bed.

A little squeak of surprise left Nora’s mouth as she hit the mattress, but Jesse was already on top of her, straddling her as she kissed her, the silk of her underwear soft against Nora’s fingers as she ran her hands down Jesse’s spine and then settled on her waist.

“Have you ever slept with a speedster before?” she asked.

Nora shook her head.

Jesse gave one of those grins Nora was coming to like so much. “Well then,” she said. “This is going to blow your mind.”

 There was something soft, warm and heavy pressed against her.

Sleepily, Nora stirred. Her eyes slowly blinked open. The first thing she saw was light brown hair on the pillow beside her that absolutely wasn’t her own. Then she focused. Jesse was lying beside her, blue eyes fixed on hers.

“Morning, sleepy head.”

“Good morning,” Nora said, stretching slightly.

They were quiet for a while, each of them admiring the view. Jesse’s fingertips danced down Nora’s arm, and Nora smiled shyly, ducking her head as a blush touched her cheeks.

“You were right,” she said.

“I graduated high school at fifteen and majored in five separate subjects in college, so I usually am,” said Jesse. “Right about what?”

Nora grinned. “It did blow my mind.���

Laughing, Jesse pulled her in for another kiss, morning breath forgotten.

They were very busily making out when there was a brief knock and the bedroom door immediately opened, with Joe standing in the doorway.

“Hey, Nora, Cecile and I were wondering if you –”

He stopped dead. Everyone in the room had frozen. Painstakingly slowly, as if dealing with an animal who would attack if there were any sudden movements, Nora pulled the duvet higher.

“I can explain,” she said.

“You know what?” said Joe. “I’d actually prefer that you didn’t. I’m going to go back downstairs and whenever you two are ready you can come down and we’ll all pretend this never happened.” Pausing, he said, “Uh. Nice to see you again, Jesse.” Then he backed out.

There was a momentary pause. Nora buried her face in her hands.

“So that happened,” said Jesse.

“Oh my God,” said Nora. “What is it about my family?”

“They’re pretty involved. I’d forgotten what that feels like. It’s kind of nice, actually.”

“Well if you stick around for a while, I’m sure you’ll get a chance to experience it a little more.”

She’d been aiming for casual, but Jesse saw right through her. Her smile was knowing. Embarrassed, Nora refused to look her in the eye.

“I can’t stay for too long,” she said. “I have a team back home, and I can’t leave my city undefended. But I’m sure a couple of extra days wouldn’t hurt.”

Unable to hide her delight, Nora said, “I mean, if you want. If it’s not too much trouble.”

“I’m starting to think you and trouble go hand in hand,” Jesse said, leaning in to kiss her. “But luckily for you, I kind of like it.”

#FSFFWeek20 #FSFFWeek20DaySeven #Day 7 #my fics

[malecsecretsanta]

Merry Christmas, @Ohfreckle!

Happy holidays, ohfreckle! I hope you enjoy! <3 

Read on AO3

******

Fingertips

In hindsight, Alec should probably have known better than to bother trying to patrol on the Solstice. It's a holdover from his parents' era, when relations with the Downworld were much more tense, as well as a mark of a generally suspicious mindset that he's trying very hard to move the Institute away from. Yes, the Seelies get up to all kinds of nonsense on the Solstice; yes, there will probably be a few confused Mundanes talking about the odd goings-on in Central Park the next day, and all of Manhattan will smell like juniper and sage for the next week if it's anything like it has been the past few years, but there never actually seem to be any serious problems that the Seelies aren't perfectly capable of dealing with amongst themselves. It's a night of revelry, of spectacle, but it's not usually a night of mischief. Hell, the wolves usually get up to way more trouble on New Year's Eve, and he doesn't bother trying to keep an eye on them. The whole thing with the Seelies and the Solstice, the level of inherent suspicion that he still finds himself unlearning — it's ridiculous. It's archaic. It's pointless.

It's never bitten him in the ass this badly before, though.

"You're going to be fine," Magnus reassures him, his hands glowing as he runs them over Alec's neck and shoulders, trying to diagnose whatever the hell it is the Seelie knight Alec had stopped from drunkenly trying to bring the Balto statue to life had then hit him with. He's kneeling on the floor, between Alec's legs; Alec is perched on the edge of the couch, still in his patrol gear, mostly, and trying very hard not to get city grime and miscellaneous splashes of Seelie-related mess all over the furniture. "I can already tell that much. This doesn't feel malicious at all."

Ostensibly, he's conducting a thorough and careful inspection, to make sure Alec isn't about to start growing extra limbs, walking through walls, glowing in the dark, or Raziel only knows what else. He mostly seems amused, though, at the fact that whatever the spell had been, it had also involved getting Alec absolutely covered in glitter — though that may actually have just been a side effect of trying to physically restrain the Seelie in question.

"I know," Alec grumbles, fighting the urge to pout. Really, he's not sure what he's got to complain about; "I need to go find Magnus and make sure whatever this was isn't going to kill me, since the guy who did it isn't coherent enough to reliably tell me himself" had proven to be an absolutely flawless excuse to call off his patrol early, and it's not like he's upset about getting home sooner than he'd thought he would and therefore getting to spend that much extra time with Magnus. It just feels slightly less than dignified to have to be inspected for the side effects of drunken Seelie magic like he’s fresh out of the Shadowhunter Academy, that's all. Plus, the glitter is itchy, and he can feel it all over him, a fine, gritty, uncomfortable layer. It's making him feel hot, and he shifts slightly, trying to get comfortable.

"I'm beginning to doubt that he really did anything to you at all, actually," Magnus muses, running his hands over Alec's abdomen now. "That is, he certainly blasted you with magic, but I'm not sure it actually had any effect. He may have thought you were also a Seelie, and tried to do something that doesn't actually work on mortals, or..." He trails off, a little crease appearing in his brow, and Alec looks down to see that while his hands have stilled, the magic around them seems to be pulsing. "No, all right, there's definitely something."

Alec shoves his sleeves up to his elbows, idly scratching at his forearms. The longer he sits here, the hotter and itchier and less comfortable he seems to feel, which is a little strange; one of the wonderful things about living with the High Warlock of Brooklyn is that the climate control is always perfect. The loft keeps itself perfectly adjusted to the preferences of its inhabitants, except right now, Alec can feel sweat starting to gather at the small of his back. He frowns.

"There's something, all right," he says. "I feel..."

Magnus glances up at him and must find something alarming in his face, because he immediately lowers his hands, the glow of his magic fading away. "What's wrong?"

"I don't know," Alec says at first, then changes his mind. "It's hot. I feel —"

But he finds that he can’t get out the rest of the sentence. It's as if he can't quite focus, his thoughts wanting to do anything possible except go in a straight line. He grimaces slightly, and then frowns more deeply when Magnus' hands come up to cup his face, one thumb brushing over his cheekbones. Magnus' touch is cooling, but almost uncomfortably so, the feeling like a shock to his system.

"You don't feel hot to me," Magnus says, half to himself, "so the effect isn't physical, whatever it is — though of course that doesn't mean it can't be physically damaging... Do you feel anything else? Dizzy? Numb?"

"Not numb," Alec says. On the contrary, there's a bit of a tingling sensation in his extremities, now that he stops to think about it. "Itchy, though — can you get right of the damn glitter?"

Magnus nods, then snaps. There's a beat, and then he frowns and snaps again. He doesn't bother doing it a third time, though he does reach out to try and physically brush the glitter away, which isn't any more effective than trying to remove it with magic had been.

"Ah," he says. Then, suddenly, his eyes narrow. "You said you felt hot? Itchy? Are you confused — are you having trouble focusing?"

"Yes," Alec says. "I’m — do you know what it is, then?"

"I might," Magnus mutters, his hands glowing blue with magic again. "I think I was looking in the wrong — ah."

Alec shifts, squints, shivers a little. "Ah?"

Not meeting his eyes, Magnus curses, his hands flaring even more brightly blue as he sweeps them in broad strokes all around Alec's body. "It may not have been malicious, but it is dangerous," he says. "I was right, too, when I said he must have mistaken you for another Seelie — but I was wrong in saying that that must have made the magic less effective. It did the opposite."

"It's worse?" Alec says. "It — made it worse?"

"Yes," Magnus says tightly, and then all at once the magic seems to burst outward from his hands and sweep through Alec's entire body, every cell lighting up with the bite of cold, where normally Magnus' magic feels quite warm to him. "Oh, damn it, sometimes I hate being right."

"Magnus, please just tell me what's wrong," Alec begs, squeezing his eyes shut tight for a moment. "I need to — should I go back to the Institute? Should I go try to track down the Seelie? What's wrong?"

"Nothing will be wrong if we handle this quickly," Magnus says. "Luckily, I think we've caught it in plenty of time — it's a good thing you came straight here. But it is a bit of a nasty piece of work, so we have to take it seriously. I hate messing with Seelie magic," he mutters as an aside, wrinkly his nose. "So messy."

"Magnus."

"Sorry," Magnus says, exhaling sharply through his nose. "It's just a little — well. To put it bluntly, Alexander, it's a sex spell."

"Oh," Alec says, a little blankly. Then, slowly, the thought filters through his mind properly, and he starts to get mad. "It — so he roofied me?"

"That's one way to look at it, yes," Magnus says, squeezing his eyes shut tight for a moment and pinching the bridge of his nose. He's clearly frustrated, but strangely, Alec feels remarkably calmer now that he knows that — however unintentionally — a Seelie sprayed him with sex glitter. It makes everything make just a little bit more sense, from the way his skin still feels hot and stretched thin over his frame to the way he feels his eyes going a little heavy-lidded. And it definitely explains the way his throat goes dry when he looks at Magnus, though that one's not exactly out of the ordinary.

"Is it going to wear off?" Alec asks, his voice slurring slightly. The longer he sits here, the more intense everything seems to feel, and either he's crazy, or it's accelerating, each passing moment speeding faster and faster towards — something. He doesn’t quite know what, but given the nature of the spell, he can obviously guess.

Magnus frowns again, but opens his eyes, his hands dropping to move in slow, sweeping arcs around Alec's body once again. "It should," he says a little dubiously, and then immediately swears again. "Unless all the ways you're different from a Seelie mean that the effects won't fade like they should."

Alec frowns. That, obviously, does not sound good. "What do you mean?"

"Well, I can’t really be certain," Magnus says, but his tone is grim enough that Alec knows the caveat probably isn't worth much. "But if I'm understanding the impact this is having on you correctly, it's not going to just — go away the way it should. For a Seelie, this is just a harmless little party drug. But Seelie drugs are complicated; angel blood and demon blood combined allows for some complex physiological effects. But you, Alexander—" He laughs, short and sharp. "You only have half the puzzle pieces. You don't have demon blood, so instead of fading in a couple of hours, we can either give the magic what it wants, or..."

He doesn't say exactly what, but the way he trails off is more than enough. Alec doesn't exactly like to talk about the possibility of Magnus being hurt or dying, either; he more than understands not actually wanting to say the words.

"Well—" he says, trying to keep his own voice relatively even. "Well, then what does it — what does it want? What do we need to give it?"

Magnus grimaces a little. "It's a sex spell, remember?"

"Oh!" Alec replies, taken aback. The relief is so immediate and overwhelming that he doesn't even stop to think, at first, about why Magnus would still sound so upset if the solution is that simple. "Oh, well then that's — that's easy, isn't it?"

"Easy," Magnus says. He sounds bitter, Alec realizes with shock, and unhappy, and clearly Alec is missing something very key, here, because he can't fathom what it is that would suddenly make the idea of having sex with him make Magnus sound like that. His immediate thought is that he must have done something wrong, and anxiety snakes through him in an instant, but — Magnus hasn't moved away from him, hasn't tried to put any distance between them. He has to try and keep himself from jumping to conclusions, has to —

"Do you not want to?" he blurts, and then immediately winces, even before he has a chance to take in Magnus' look of blank shock.

There's a moment of silence before either of them manages to say anything after that, and then when Magnus does manage to say something, his voice actually cracks on his surprise.

"What — Alec, it's not about whether I want to," he says, very much with the air of someone who has been shocked into blunt honesty. "I'm not the one who's being held at metaphorical gunpoint. The problem is whether or not you want to — or not even that, it's whether or not you have the option of saying no, even if you do want to."

Another pause, as Alec's mouth drops open and he tries for several long seconds to formulate an answer that's even slightly intelligible. "But it's you," he says eventually. He feels a little stupid saying it, and his voice is bewildered even to his own ears. "I mean — how long have we been having sex? Why is this different?"

"Because you don't have the ability to say no!" Magnus says, his voice close to boiling over with a potent mixture of worry and frustration. "Whether or not you would doesn't matter in this case as much as the fact that you can't. I know that you wouldn't. I believe you. But I don't like that you couldn't. I don’t like that some — some Seelie whose name I’ll never know took that away from you, however unintentionally."

Alec frowns a little, squints at the intense, unreadable look on Magnus' face, and reaches over a little hesitantly to clasp his hand. "Look," he says, keeping his voice as level and clear as possible, though his mind feels anything but. "I'm not sure I can really have this conversation right now. I mean, I'm — it's all a little—" He gestures wildly with the hand that's not holding Magnus', trying his best to convey the way it feels like he's trying to think through syrup, slow and sticky and sweet. "But I — I understand that you're not huge on the circumstances. I'm pretty sure I understand why? But maybe we can... you know, when I'm less..."

He gestures again, and Magnus reaches up to snatch his hand out of the air before he can get very animated.

"'I'm too impaired to even have this conversation, so we should just go ahead and have sex and talk about it later' is not the watertight argument you probably think it is," he says dryly. Then he sighs, slow and audibly frustrated, and squeezes both of Alec's hands where he's brought them to settle in his lap. "But, unfortunately, in this situation, I think you might be right. It's not like I can just sit around a few hours and wait for you to sober up..."

Magnus still doesn't sound entirely comfortable, so Alec tries his best to be cautious and respectful when he leans in to kiss him, just a gentle brush of lips. "I'm sorry," he says, the thought clearer and more sobering than any he's had in a while. "I don't want to put you in a position like this."

"It's all right, Alexander," Magnus says softly, squeezing his hands again. "It's not as though it’s your fault, and... well, to your own point, it's not as though this isn't how the night would have ended anyway, more likely than not. We just have a few additional wrinkles to work through with the situation that we weren't expecting."

"Right," Alec breathes. "Wrinkles."

When he leans in to kiss Magnus again, it's significantly less cautious, though he does still pull away after just a few seconds, not really giving Magnus an opportunity to respond in kind. He leans back just enough to tempt Magnus forward, and the gambit works: Magnus shifts from being on his knees on the floor to crawling up into Alec's lap with sinuous grace, his eyes glittering. By the time he's got one knee on either side of Alec's hips, Alec is breathing hard, his chest heaving at nothing more than the teasing press of Magnus' legs through the double layer of their pants and the slight, reluctant quirk of his mouth.

"Magnus," he says, or rather, croaks; his chest feels tight, his heart pounding in his throat. Magnus smiles at him with only a hint of reluctance remaining, arms wrapping around him, hands scratching and catching in the hair at the nape of his neck.

"I'm sure it's starting to get a little uncomfortable for you," he murmurs, his eyes flickering down from Alec's eyes to his lips to the hollow of his throat. "Seelie drugs are just as dangerous for me as they are for you — you don't have demon blood, I don't have angel blood... So I don't have any personal experience, but I've certainly known those who were more than willing to take the risk. I've heard stories."

For all that he's on edge and humming with arousal, Alec hasn't actually taken much time, to this point, to realize the impact of the drug on him physically, other than how hot and sensitive he still feels. It takes only one brief, gentle roll of Magnus' hips, though, for him to realize that those lesser sensations have just been there to distract him. Magnus presses their cocks together, even through multiple layers of fabric, and Alec gasps out loud, the sound shockingly sudden and inescapable in the otherwise-quiet loft.

"That's what I thought," Magnus hums, his eyes crinkling slightly at the corners. Then, without any sort of warning, he ducks down to nip at Alec's jaw, his earlobe, his throat, trailing little kisses and bites inexorably downward until he finally reaches the point where Alec's neck connects with his shoulder. There, he bites down with significantly more force, licks over the bite with warm, wet flashes of tongue, and then sucks, just hard enough to really entice but not quite hard enough to satisfy the pulsing need that's settling low in Alec's abdomen.

"Raziel," he hisses under his breath, his hands fluttering uselessly up and down Magnus' sides. Magnus bites him again, and he curses even louder, his voice breaking in the middle of the word: "Fuck. Magnus, I don't know if I can—"

"No teasing tonight?" Magnus says, pulling back just far enough to look Alec in the eyes again. He takes the opportunity offered by this slightly greater distance to start working at Alec's clothes, pushing his jacket down off his shoulders and slipping his arms from the sleeves, and then working his hands up under the t-shirt underneath until he can strip it quickly off over Alec's head. "Now that's a crying shame."

"Tease me on nights when it doesn't have life-or-death consequences," Alec breathes, just before pulling Magnus toward him by looping his arms around his neck and kissing him soundly, nipping at his lower lip in retaliation for the bruise that will no doubt bloom under his collar by the morning.

"Oh, you're not that close to the edge, I think," Magnus says as they pull apart. His voice is still even, but his breathing is certainly not, Alec notes with satisfaction; he starts working on his own shirt as he talks, though his eyes never leave Alec. "You've got several hours yet before you'd really start to feel the ill effects, and even then you'd have a few hours more before it got truly dangerous."

"I’m not so sure about taking that chance," Alec replies, reaching out to help him with the buttons down the front of his silky blue top. “Better safe than sorry.”

Magnus hums dismissively, but he flings his shirt aside to join Alec’s and then places his hands just over Alec’s ribs, starting a steady trail downwards that’s totally counter to the aloofness he’s trying to portray. He fingers the button on Alec’s jeans, gaze flicking up so that their eyes lock, and then he pauses a moment, his hands stiling again.

“You’re sure?” he says, quietly. His eyes flicker over Alec’s face.

“Of course I’m sure,” Alec replies, feeling almost unbearably fond. He feels like the sentiment might need a little proof, though — just in case — so he leans down, catching Magnus’ face between his hands and kissing him and kissing him until absolutely every thought has gone out of his own head. When he surfaces again, his pants are gone, or at least shoved far enough down his thighs that they’re out of the way, and Magnus has one hand curled loosely around the base of his cock.

Alec makes an almost wounded little noise when Magnus’ hand flexes, his grip tightening almost imperceptibly and then loosening again. Magnus responds with his own wordless noise: a considering hum accompanied by another little squeeze.

“You really are feeling it, though, aren’t you?” he asks, his tone wondering. Alec doesn’t bother answering, or even nodding; he just keens a little, presses his hips up into Magnus’ touch, and throws his head back, his eyes fluttering shut.

It’s over remarkably quickly after that — perhaps unsurprising, given how worked up Alec is, how hot and close and sensitive everything feels. Magnus barely gets a few good strokes in before Alec is choking on his own breath, his whole body gone taut with need; if not for the chemical influence, the amount of time it takes for him to double over, pressing his face into the crook of Magnus’ neck, and come all over his hands would be positively embarrassing.

There’s a long pause in the aftermath, the silence broken only by their heavy breathing. Alec’s eyes are almost entirely shut, so he feels more than sees the familiar little flicking motion that Magnus uses to get rid of the come, but his eyes struggle open when Magnus says “Oh!”, a soft sound of surprise. When Alec looks down, he sees the Seelie glitter fading off of his skin, disappearing in patches until, in mere moments, it’s as though it was never even there at all.

“Well,” he says after a moment, turning his arm this way and that to make sure that all of the glitter is truly gone. “That was easy, after all that.”

Magnus hums an assent, grabbing Alec’s other hand to flip it around and run his fingers over it himself, likewise checking for any remaining traces of glitter and, based on the way he nods and then squeezes Alec’s hand in his own, finding none. “I’m still not exactly thrilled that you got blasted by Seelie sex magic without your consent, but… yes. It certainly seems to be gone now.”

Alec smiles at him, leaning down for a light peck on the lips. “It wasn’t exactly how I was expecting my night to go, but it also didn’t turn out to be the end of the world,” he says, squeezing Magnus’ hand right back. “I love you. I knew you’d figure out what it was, and figure out how to fix it. I trusted you. And, hey — it worked out pretty well, as far as I’m concerned.”

“I guess you did get your happy ending.”

“Mmm,” Alec agrees, then narrows his eyes a little, his voice dropping into a slightly lower register. “And the night’s not exactly over yet.”

“Alexander,” Magnus replies, dropping Alec’s hand so that he can link his arms behind Alec’s neck instead, his eyes glittering. “Whatever could you mean?”

“Let’s go to bed,” Alec murmurs. “No offense to the Seelies, but I don’t really need anything extra for a night with you.”

“I couldn’t have said it better myself,” Magnus replies, and as Magnus draws him up and towards the bedroom, Alec finds it’s easy enough to forget the hot, itchy feeling of glitter on his skin and replace it with the feeling of Magnus’ touch instead.

#Ohfreckle #malecsanta19 #*fics19 #*gifts19

[khutbahs]

Islam 101: Understanding the misunderstood religion

Currently, the Islamic faith is under tremendous scrutiny from all sides. I often suspect that pundits who deliver their ideological quips regarding my faith do not have much in the way of direct experience nor understanding when it comes to this tender subject. The purpose of this column is to communicate information on the needlessly enigmatic subject of Islam.

Islam is a popular religion. The faith has nearly 1.6 billion practitioners — thus making it the second most practiced religion behind Christianity. Nearly 23 percent of the world is Muslim. The faith is currently growing at a rate that is believed to be the fastest among all major belief systems. Unfortunately, the previous sentence might give some readers cause for alarm. However, these impulses might be neutralized with increased exposure to Muslims and knowledge of the Islamic faith.

The word "Islam" in Arabic means submission. Muslims are those who submit to Allah (“God”). The faith is not named after a particular people, like Judaism, or a particular individual, like Christianity.

Interesting side note: the word “God” is derived from the old Germanic word “Gott” or “Gud," meaning “to invoke or sacrifice to.” Knowing as much as we know about Jesus, or "Isa" in Arabic, he most likely never referred to his deity as “God.” However, there is ample evidence that the namesake he used for his deity had a pronunciation closer to “AaLaH” or “AlaHa," a generic root word for “God” in Aramaic.

The necessary beliefs in Islam are of Allah, the angels, the Quran (Islamic holy scripture), the prophets, the Last Day (day of judgement) and the afterlife. A pivotal belief in Islam is that there is an inherent separation between the Creator and the creation. In Islam, Allah is the one creator and deity, and his creations possess no holiness or supreme powers. This logic is extended to all of the prophets. We believe that the prophets were humans of the highest character and piety, yet they were not worthy of worship.

Also, since no humans hold holiness, we see no need to confess our sins to men, or to seek spiritual endowment from anyone other than Allah. Allah states in the Quran that He rewards good behaviors, among the most frequently mentioned of these are speaking the truth, being kind to family, honoring parents, giving charity, feeding the poor, freeing slaves and studying. Allah also states in the Quran that He punishes bad behaviors; among these are the worship of idols, stealing from orphans, disobeying one’s parents, cheating on one’s spouse, giving false testimony, committing murder or suicide, or enslaving a free person.

Interesting fact: the words "heaven" and "hell" are both repeated in the Quran exactly 77 times.

There is a profound degree of weight in Islam’s messages and, like all powerful messages, they can be used for depravity in the wrong hands. Many men, as we have seen throughout history, exploit feelings of fear, passion and awe to achieve the same old patriarchal end goals: autocracy, the subjugation of women and the suppression of freedom. This has happened with other faiths and other cultures, although Islam does not necessarily promote a single culture. The fault is not in the faith itself, but in the individual practitioners and the misguided outsiders.

This assertion is shared by top United States security officials. Current United States National Security Adviser Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster states that terrorists are “un-Islamic” and that we should avoid the term “radical Islamic terrorism” because it is inaccurate.

In my opinion, the best way to neuter terrorism by self-proclaimed Muslims is to ensure that the majority of Muslims around the world have ensured human dignity and fair treatment. When groups of people feel that they are under attack, they tend to lose objectivity and are more prone to radicalization. When Muslims see the injustices being carried out in places like Syria, Palestine and Iraq, it causes many of them — us — to feel demoralized, threatened or resentful.

Under these conditions, the most brutal and archaic of voices in the Muslim world are granted credibility. This phenomenon is present across all societies, including the United States. The brutality here perhaps is not on the level of the Middle East, but neither is the perceived threat among the citizenry. Canada, in the minds of radicals, has issued the Muslim world few sleights, and as a result, their nation has experienced considerably fewer terror attacks than other western nations. Terrorism is unacceptable under any circumstance, but we would be wise to understand and limit its causes.

Back to discussing the faith itself — in Islam, practice is based upon five essential pillars:

Shahada: to declare one's belief in Allah and the prophetic role of Muhammad.

Salah: to pray five times a day (dawn, noon, afternoon, sunset and evening).

Zakat: to give charity to those in need.

Sawn: to fast from food, liquids and other bodily pleasures during daylight hours in the month of Ramadan.

Hajj: to make a pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in a lifetime if it is physically and financially feasible.

Some other interesting nuggets pertaining to the practice of Islam:

Abstinence is to be practiced until marriage.

Mind-altering substances are prohibited.

The consumption of swine is prohibited.

While Islam is a strict faith compared to many other belief systems, an often under-communicated aspect of our faith is the great mercy of our Creator. Two epithets that we regularly use for Allah are “Al Rahman” and “Al Raheem," which translate to “the most compassionate” and “the most merciful.” Human beings sin, naturally — Allah understands, and He rewards our struggle and attempts at self-improvement. In fact, it could be said that Allah grades on a curve. The more difficult our fight to righteousness, the greater our reward with Him in the end.

A source of grave misunderstanding regarding the Islamic faith concerns the word "jihad," which literally means “struggle.” The concept of jihad revolves around a struggle for the greater good and the study, practice and preaching of Islam. Unfortunately, in the term’s original usage, there was a lot of room left for interpretation. While both suicide and murder are explicitly listed as some of the worst sins in our entire faith, many people imagine that some gruesome combination of the two ensures paradise and 72 virgins — I can assure you quite the contrary.

There are many ways to fight for the greater good; in fact, I hope I am enacting jihad right now.

Also, many people assume that the Islamic faith is hostile toward the world’s other religions. This is not so. Our Quran reads, “Rest assured that Believers (Muslims), Jews, Christians and Sabians — whoever believes in Allah and the Last Day and performs good deeds — will be rewarded by their Lord; they will have nothing to fear or to regret (22.40).” The Prophet’s life mission, endowed upon him by his Creator, was to spread the word of Islam. Yet, when it came to the sizable Jewish community right in Madinah, he established a peace agreement with them and allowed them to continue practicing their religion in peace.

In a letter to the Christian king of Abyssinia, he ends, "I have conveyed the message and now it is up to you to accept it. Once again, peace be upon him who follows the true guidance.” He employed no harassment — and he was the Prophet. Muslims believe that they know the truth, when people believe they know a truth that others do not, they like to get others up to speed. However, many Muslims around the world today would be wise to remember the Prophet’s gentle and earnest ways.

Another source of misunderstanding regarding the Islamic faith revolves around the female usage of hijab — a garment often worn to cover hair. Many in the West have made the argument that the hijab and the burka, a garment that covers nearly the full female body, are instruments of female subjugation. While it is true that some men, like in all societies, attempt to levy control over what the women in their proximity wear, I would argue that the original and true purpose of these garments was to conduce female humility and equality.

Last time I checked, men like to see what women look like — and as candidly as possible. This ogling can have adverse effects for women, including the inciting of passions in unwanted onlookers and the disregard for female cognitive and personal abilities. Islamic scholar Muhammad al-Bukhari states that “a woman is married for her deen (piety), her wealth or her beauty. You must go for the one with deen.” This quote expresses that the quality of a woman should be determined by her character, rather than her beauty or wealth. Martin Luther King Jr. expressed his view on the very meaning of human equality when he stated that his children should “not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” Humility is an essential value in our faith, and it is not only mandated in the dress of females. Males must stay covered from their shoulders to their knees and refrain from accessorizing with gold or silk.

Contrary to the beliefs of many, Islam since the beginning has mandated women’s rights. In Islam, women have a right to property, education, lawsuit initiation, divorce initiation, alimony and suffrage. Also, falsely slandering a woman’s reputation is a grave sin — as well as spousal abuse and forced marriage. Our beloved Prophet’s own wife, Khadija, could arguably be seen as an original proponent of feminism. She was a reputable businesswoman who traded goods from Mecca to Yemen, had a history of turning down marriage proposals, asked the Prophet to marry her, gave charitably and was the very first person to accept Islam after our Prophet. We revere her.

Interesting fact: the words “man” and “woman” are both repeated in the Quran exactly 23 times.

I will end this article with 

Translations of some popular Muslim phrases:

Assalam Alaikom — “Peace be upon you.” — This phrase is a common greeting.

Allahu Akbar — “Allah is great.” — This phrase can be said out loud or simply thought of on a regular basis.

Alhamdulillah — “Praise be to Allah.” — This phrase is commonly used to express satisfaction with life.

Inshallah — “If Allah wills.” — This phrase is commonly used when Muslims plan or ponder future events.

Bismillah — “In the name of Allah.” — This phrase is commonly used before a Muslim starts something.

Subhanallah — “Glory to Allah.” — This phrase is commonly used to express amazement in regard to things.

Mashallah — “God has willed.” — This phrase is commonly used to express amazement in regard to human achievement.

La ilaha illa Allah — “There is no god but Allah.” — This phrase can used at any time.

#Islam #Religion of Peace #some popular Muslim phrases #Islam: The Misunderstood Religion #Meaning of Islam #What is Islam #Peace be upon you #Muslim #Muslim phrases #The Misunderstood Religion #PeaceTV #PeaceTube #PeaceNetwork #PeaceMission #Islam is the Mission of all prophets and messengers #Muslim is a universal group of servants who are humble to the one & only one true God #Islam is the original message from Allah given to all prophets it is not a new religion

[shadows-and-science-gone-mad]

STORY: Tapes

Date Completed: January 2, 2020

Synopsis: After a long boring day of work, Arik returns home to discover that Alex has a surprise gift for him.

Word Count: 862

Trigger Warnings: none

------

Arik sighed as he nonchalantly tapped his fingers against the counter. He’d gotten stuck with register duty during the closing shift at the antiques store yet again, which had always been his least favorite part of running the business. And, of course, not being able to see, he usually had to take it on good faith that the customers were paying the correct amount.

Not that they ever had any customers.

So, as was usually the case when left to his own devices with nothing else to do, he pulled a book from behind the counter. Despite his blindness, Arik loved few things more than books. He adored getting lost in other worlds, imagining creatures and adventures he would never experience himself. It granted him a few brief moments when he could forget his disability and live the life he had always wanted. He usually preferred when Alex read aloud to him, but he knew that couldn’t happen all the time. And, ever since Alex had taught him, he was perfectly able to make do with Braille.

Just as he was starting to become immersed in the book’s fantasy world, (Fire-Racers of Jekratha, one of his all-time favorites) he was snapped back to reality by a sudden beeping noise. The alarm Alex had set for closing time was sounding. Begrudgingly, Arik closed his book, switched off the alarm, and stepped away from the counter. He grabbed his cane as he made his way to the front door; he knew the store’s layout well enough that he didn’t really need it, but he still brought it in case something had fallen into the walkway.

After locking the front door, he walked into the back rooms of the store, making sure to grab his book from the countertop as he passed. The back rooms had been converted from simple storage into a reasonably well-furnished living area; nothing too fancy, but it was enough for Alex and Arik.

Speaking of Alex, he had been seated at their dining table, hands impatiently tapping on a small leather briefcase, until he heard the alarm go off. Normally, he would have taken the closing shift and let Arik relax in the back, but he had something special planned today. When Arik entered, his face lit up in an ear-to-ear grin.

“Hey, babe,” Alex said, standing up to embrace his husband, “how did it go out there?”

“Uneventful as ever,” Arik answered, taking the other chair at the table, “The last person to show up didn’t even buy anything, and they left two hours before closing. I don’t know how you put up with it night after night.”

“It’s cause I get to come home to you every night,” Alex said cheerfully, reaching out to pinch Arik’s cheek. Arik, however, was anticipating this maneuver, and playfully slapped Alex’s hand away with a light chuckle.

“Now, I can tell that you’re smiling about something,” Arik said, pointing at Alex in mock accusation, “so why don’t you tell me what it is?”

His smile somehow widening, Alex swiftly slid the briefcase across the table. Arik took his time feeling the briefcase’s surface. Eventually, he found the latches and began to undo them. At this point, Alex couldn’t help himself — he began giggling.

Arik, hearing his husband’s outburst, stopped mid-motion. “This’d better not be another prank gift,” he said sternly.

“It’s not. Trust me, it’s not.”

Slightly unsure of the truthfulness of that statement, Arik flipped open the case, and cautiously reached inside. What he found confused him to no end. All he felt was a bunch of small plastic rectangles. As he ran his fingers across their surface, he could feel small bumps along their upper edges. It took him a moment to register the bumps as Braille, which only added to his confusion.

“…what are these?” he asked.

“These,” Alex said, reaching forward and grabbing one of the rectangles, “are cassette tapes. They’re an old data storage system from my planet. They’re archaic, but they still work pretty reliably. They were mainly used for storing audio.

“In this case, each tape has a recording of me, reading out a different book. There’s a tape in here for every book we own.”

Arik said nothing at this. Alex noticed, but took it to mean he should continue talking.

“I just figured, you know. You like listening to me read aloud so much, and now you can hear me reading to you even if I’m not here. And I put the Braille on the spine so you can —”

Alex abruptly cut himself off when Arik grabbed his hand and tightly squeezed it. He looked at Arik’s face, only to see tears welling up in his husband’s milky eyes. Alex didn’t need to ask to know they were tears of happiness.

“I…” Arik tried to say, his voice shaky. He blinked, trying to clear away his tears. He squeezed Alex’s hand again. “I have never loved anyone or anything…as much as I love you right this moment.”

With that, Arik leaned over and kissed Alex on the lips. And remained there for a very long time.

------

#writing #my writing #writeblr #fiction #short story #romance #gay romance #fluff #my ocs #oc: Alex #oc: Arik

[sunshineandfangs]

End of the Beginning

Step 12: Christmas in NOLA

@howeverlongs and @joey-prue

Warnings: some show typical violence, allusions to Damon’s treatment of Caroline, Darker!Klaus, alternate history and first meeting

Caroline tossed back a shot of vodka, relishing the burn of it. It wasn’t even quality vodka, but then she wasn’t drinking for the pleasure of it. She was drinking to get drunk. Well, as drunk as her vampire metabolism would allow.

Yesterday, she had honored the life her mother had lived. Flipped through old photo albums and allowed the memories to wash over her. Happiness, exasperation, fondness. Tidied up the house and boxed up all the knickknacks of sentimental value. Had the most important ones shipped to her current home. Even lingered carefully in the shadows as the Mystic Falls police department gave their former sheriff a proper send off.

But today was about the grief. Perhaps, had she been younger, not had some sixty years to come to terms with her mother’s mortality, the grief would have broken part of her. As it was, it hurt, but it was the bearable kind of hurt. The kind that she would carry with her, a new weight, but not the kind to pierce through her, it wouldn’t leave her bleeding.

Raising an arm, the blonde flagged down the bartender, requested another round of shots. She only had time to throw back one of them when she sensed another presence beside her. It was a vampire, though not an old one, potentially younger than her even.

Setting the glass down, Caroline turned, arching a questioning eyebrow.

“Yes?”

The seemingly young man looked a bit apologetic albeit firm as he requested she come with him. “I’m afraid all new vampires need to check in.”

She swallowed a scoff. There had been rumors that New Orleans had rather strict rules for the Supernatural community, but a summons of all things? That was a bit...archaic.

“Seriously?” She blurted. “I’m not planning to stay, only for the holidays.” And it was true. The rumors were one of the reasons she had avoided NOLA until now, but visiting had been on her mother’s bucket list. In fact, it had been their planned trip for Christmas, and though part of her twisted from the absence Caroline decided to go anyway. So she arrived the 23rd, gave herself the day to wallow, but firmly planned that the 24th and 25th would be full of every holiday attraction.

The man half-shrugged. “Yeah, it’s a bit much, but that’s the policy.”

Caroline sighed, stuck a hundred dollar bill under the glass, and followed the vampire out the door, making sure to snag her purse as they left.

“I’m Josh, by the way.”

Disgruntled, but not one to shoot the messenger, she offered her own name with only a hint of bite in her tone. “Caroline.”

“So, you’re lucky, the King had business elsewhere.” ‘King?’ Caroline silently mouthed, brow scrunching. Josh continued without pause, either oblivious to or expecting her reaction. “Either his protégé or his brother will see you and they’re both less...intense.”

She couldn't help herself. “Okay, but seriously, King? He calls himself the ‘King’?”

Josh actually stopped and turned to look at her, eyes surprisingly serious. He leaned in a bit closer, lowered his voice to his a whisper.

“You may think it’s ridiculous, and perhaps it is, but the King isn’t one for disrespect. I’ve seen him rip heads off for less than that. He may not be here, but he has a way of knowing things.”

Caroline frowned, but nodded. Europe had its share of old, pompous vampires, so she knew to hold her tongue. This certainly wasn’t worth dying over.

“Ah, you must be Caroline.” She looked up, eyes taking in the handsome black man before her, his teeth a brilliant white as he smiled at her. There was a cunning kind of charm to him, but he only felt a few centuries old at most. Tentatively, she marked him down as the protégé.

Standing she offered her hand with a practiced smile. “That’s me. It’s nice to meet you…”

Giving it a firm shake, he nodded at her. “Marcel.”

“Nice to meet you, Marcel.” She tucked a curl behind her ear, looking innocent and nonthreatening. “So, Josh told me about the whole check-in thing. What does this entail exactly?”

“Nothing much, just a few questions. Your name, how long you’re staying, when and where you  turned. Then, you’re free to go.”

Caroline slowly nodded, doubting that was the whole truth, but it was pretty basic information.

“Well, my name’s Caroline Forbes and I only plan to stay until Christmas is over, the 26th at the latest. I was turned about sixty years ago in Mystic Falls.”

Alarm raced down her spine at the way Marcel stiffened for a split second though his expression remained pleasant. Caroline had developed keen senses over the years, unusually sharp for a vampire of her age. She could feel that the air in the room had shifted. Something about what she had just said was more important than she had assumed. 

In a moment, she realized why.

“Apologies, Miss Forbes.” Caroline whirled to face the voice, though careful not to completely turn her back on Marcel. It belonged to a brown-haired man bedecked in an outrageously expensive suit. She could feel the waves of power wafting off him, older than any she had felt before. Paired with the way he had appeared silently in the doorway, a terrible suspicion started burning in her gut. “I must ask that you remain here until my brother returns. He will wish to meet you.”

“Your brother?” She asked, wary and not really bothering to hide it. It seemed the time for facades was over.

“The King,” he said simply.

Not good. Josh hadn’t exactly given the man a glowing recommendation.

“And I suppose I can’t return to my hotel in the meantime?”

His lips quirked. “I’m afraid not, Miss Forbes.”

She barely resisted to the urge to rub her forehead in exasperation, though she used the feeling to beat back her instinctual fear. Now, wasn’t the time to panic.

“I see. I’m sorry, I haven’t caught your name?”

“It’s Elijah, Miss Forbes.”

She felt him watching her carefully, but she couldn’t control the way she froze. The way her heart stuttered a beat. How many ancient suit wearing vampires named Elijah could there be? She hoped it was at least two, but judging by their reactions if there were two, this wasn’t the second one.

That was the last thought she had before her world went black with a sharp crack.

“Pity,” Marcel muttered as Elijah hefted the fallen blonde from the floor. Her neck at an awkward angle.

When Caroline came to, not only did her neck have a lingering ache from being broken, but her wrists, arms, and shoulders felt strained as well. It didn’t take her long to realize she was chained, though she kept her eyes closed.

This was very, very not good.

“We never encountered her, Niklaus, I doubt she knows anything.”

There was a dark chuckle. “Please, with a last name like ‘Forbes’ and a noticeable reaction to your name? You know better than that, Elijah.”

There was a quiet sigh. “At least try to control yourself, brother.”

A whistle of air and Caroline knew one of them left. Elijah, if she had to guess.

Footsteps moved closer to her hanging form, the weight of the power accompanying them enormous.

“You did a commendable job not reacting to my name, sweetheart, but I know you’re awake.” The back of a finger stroked her cheek. “Even vampires have little tells when they return to consciousness.”

Caroline let her eyes open, face expressionless as she took in his smirking visage. The curve of his mouth invited while his eyes threatened, a glacier blue glinting wolf-gold. He was uncomfortably close to her, his knuckle still brushing the edge of her jaw.

She steeled herself and jerked her arms, letting the chains rattle. “Is this how you treat all your guests?” She bit out.

His eyes darkened, and he leaned closer, his nose just brushing hers. “Surely, Josh warned you of my intolerance for disrespect?”

Caroline lifted her chin as best as she could. “He did.” She smirked sardonically. “But you won’t kill me until I tell you whatever it is you want from me. And after that, what I do won’t sway your decision to kill me or not. So I refuse to spend my last moments begging for my life.”

He almost looked impressed before he seized her jaw.

“Brave little vampire,” he rumbled. “You are quite correct. But I assure you, I can make the agony of your death linger for decades. Centuries even.”

She swallowed, throat dry as she read the utter sincerity in his eyes. Falling silent, she didn’t provoke him more though she refused to apologize either.

He spent several long moments just observing her before he moved back a step, releasing her jaw. Arms crossed behind his back and a pleasant expression on his face, he’d seem ordinary if not for the sinister air about him.

“Now,” he uttered, pupils dilating, “tell me what you know of the Originals.”

The smart decision would be to act compelled. But she honestly wasn’t sure how good of an actress she was, nor what orders an infamous nightmare like Klaus would give her. Besides, a part of her rebelled at the idea of capitulating to compulsion of all things. He may kill her. Torture her even. But she refused to be twisted up into a caricature of herself, living in constant fear of something endlessly stronger than herself. Refused to have her choices ripped from her a second time.

She licked her lips, held his gaze as she carefully spoke. “I will answer all your questions, but I will not be compelled. Not by you. Not by anyone.” Not again.

In an instant, Klaus was pressed against her. His fingers weaving through her hair and yanking her head to the side, burying his nose in the curve of her neck. A split second later fire ran through her veins, his venomous teeth tearing through the delicate flesh there. She felt every agonizing pull the Original took of her blood, slumping in her bonds as he stepped away.

“There’s truly no vervain in your system. How curious.”

Caroline strained to lift her head, the rapid effects of his bite as startling as they were frightening. Her vision was starting to blur, but he appeared almost contemplative as he returned her stare.

To her shock, he bit into his wrist, pressing the wound to her lips. It was like sin on her tongue, its power alleviating the burn and knitting her skin back together after only one sip.

He watched her drink, eyes glinting with intrigue. “You and I have more to discuss than I thought, Caroline.”

AN: So, this one kinda lacked the Christmas angle, though it was technically Christmas Eve...

In terms of history, Caroline had a rocky relationship with her parents after turning, but eventually they accepted her. Bill even taught her to resist compulsion.

#12KCXMAS #Klaroline Shippers Club #Klaroline #Klaroline Fanfiction #Klaroline Drabbles #My Writing

[fruitful-blogger]

Flipping the Script (Part 2)

Part One | AO3

It's the first day of school, Gurls, and we gotta meet some of the other cast! Roman is also breaking the patriarchy as one does.

           “…and that, my good sir, is why the patriarchy is a disaster.” Roman concluded with a nod as he finally sat in his seat. The teacher and other students about were staring, some with open mouths, and others just. Befuddled.

           The teacher fell into the former category.

           “That was… eloquent, Roman.” The teacher coughed. “But I am very lost right now.”

           A student raised their hand. “What the hell does that have to do with Trigonometry???”

           Roman opened his mouth only for a hand to cover it. “No, no, no more.” The star athlete silenced his desk neighbor. “That was stupid enough the first round.”

           The darker of the two swatted the hand away. “I was just saying that the system in place has…”

           His reiteration was cut off with the bell alarm, a loud digital tone that yelled out through the speaker system. “Ok class we start the laws of sine and cosine tomorrow. Please do practice problems one and four in chapter 1.” The teacher told as he looked to Roman and Logan cleaning up. “And please, Roman, save the patriarchal debates for Civics. I’m sure Veronica would love it.”

           “Oh, I will!” Roman defended as his backpack was grabbed by its loop. He was easily pulled across the floor and out of the classroom, where he spun on his captor. “Rude, but also hella good timing. Great for the whole dramatic factor.”

           Logan groaned as he rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I just… it’s lunch. We’ve barely made it half the day, and you’ve already given me a headache. New record. Congrats.” He spun on his heal to walk away, but Roman was following him. “…you have lunch now too, don’t you.”

           “Yup! Besides, who would you sit with besides me? The other tennis guys?” Roman replied cheerily.

           “Maybe. They at least know the difference between duce and advantage.” Logan threw. “They also won’t somehow decide Tennis is a pathetic excuse for a sport.”

           “Hey, I like tennis!” Roman added as he skipped ahead. “It’s scoring system is crazy enough to confuse the masses, and I can stand behind that. My problem is with some of the more archaic rules that are somehow still a thing, like rules on women’s outfits.”

           Logan adjusted his glasses. He’d taken a quick shower after the work out and now wore his normal day clothes. Because it was the first day of school, he hadn’t gone straight for the basketball shorts and sweats (yet) and instead had a pair of jeans that were a bit wrinkled from being thrown in his bag and a navy button up with the top buttons undone, sleeves rolled to the elbow. He had a fitbit on as part of his training regiment with a beaten pair of trainers on his feet.

           Unlike the uncultured swine that Roman had seen on TV (and met in real life a handful of unfortunate times), Logan wasn’t the stereotypical meat-head jock. Yes, he loved his sport and a few others, but he was in no way blind of the outside world. He was a really good student – probably would have been on the same level as Patton if he wanted to apply himself to it, but he loved tennis through and through. Outside of tennis, he was also the sports editor for the school paper and also liked to debate (usually about healthy lifestyles).

           Roman liked that about his friends. While, on a surface level, they all seemed to fit nicely into the typical goth, nerd, prep, and jock categories, they weren’t just that.

           Like now, as Roman stopped by his locker, he saw the bubbly genius bound down the hall towards them. “LOOOOOOOGAAAANNN! ROOOOOOMMMAAAAAANNNN!” Patton called, but, unfortunately, crashed on arrival. Logan was able to avoid most disaster, though, by jumping out to catch the other junior before he rammed into a hall garbage can. “Woah! Thanks, Lo! I underestimated the friction my shoes would have on this part of the floor!”

           “No problem, Pat.” Logan smiled as he righted the teen. “Are you headed to the lunch room as well?”

           Patton held up his lunch box with a grin. It was a pretty pastel blue with a picture of the solar system on it (though Patton noted that it was proportionally inaccurate, but it made a good learning tool at times). “Yeah! Virgil had to swing by the office, but he’s headed there now, too! Do you guys have lunch this period?”

           “We indeed do.” Logan nodded as Roman tossed the last of the books in his locker. Logan rolled his eyes at the mess that was there as he crossed to his own that he’d left open. Most of the locker was taken up by his tennis bag, so he kneeled down to grab the books at the bottom, stacked in a little organizer to make the most of the room. When he stood, he also reached into the top nook to pull out his lunch.

           Roman nodded as he hiked up his bag. He’d brought money for lunch but, if the menu sucked, he’d try to trade around. Logan always packed healthy but in excess (he burned calories like crazy), but Patton always brought extra sweets to share. “We should head down ASAP. The tables always fill up so fast.”

           The other two nodded as they headed to the lunch room. Patton paused as they approached long enough to dig some ear plugs out of his backpack and put them in. Roman and Logan noticed but did not comment – this was simply a thing. Patton was a Hypersensitive Person. In a broad sense, it made him, well, more sensitive to the world in a variety of ways. He could walk into a room and instantly pick up on the micro-signals that others gave off, allowing him to better notice emotions and read the environment. He was very in tune with the needs of others because of it, but, sometimes, the stimuli became a lot and he needed to diminish it. For him, loud noise was usually a factor. He used to hide in the library a lot, but he’d gotten earplugs from Roman before a movie once (the goth had seen them at the store and figured it was worth a go), and he always carried them now to help.

           It was good timing as the noise doubled once they entered the cafeteria. Students of all grades scattered about, most with lunch trays but a few with sacks or pails of food. Nobody understood how it was established, but the freshman always seemed to coagulate at one end of the room by the lunch ladies, then the sophomores, juniors, and seniors would separate towards the back.

           “Hey, Logan!” Logan looked as a student waved their hand. “Get over here! We got a table!”

           Logan nudged Patton and Roman and pointed to the table, which was only a third filled. The three headed over and set their stuff down, the faces there mostly familiar to the three.

           Lauren was the one to wave them over. She and her boyfriend, Kai, were already seated there while another friend, Elliott, was scribbling away at a notebook. Elliott had a saved seat down next to them, but the rest were still open.

           “Salutations, Lauren.” Logan greeted with a nod before looking to Kai and Elliott. “Hello to you both as well.”

           “Hi again!” Patton waved as he plopped down.

           “Greetings my colorful friends! Except you, Elli. LOVE the dress.”

           Elliott looked up with a smirk. The non-binary teen had actually come into the fold thanks to Roman. They’d transferred to the school last year and, not really knowing anyone, just kind of decided to approach the first person who looked mildly interesting. That person had been Roman, who, upon hearing their pronouns, dragged them to the GSA meeting. Roman had introduced them to Logan, Patton, and Virgil, who introduced them to Kai and Lauren. Nowadays, the teen was usually with the couple. Lauren and Elliott bonded over food, and Kai loved to watch all the B-rated movies with the teen that Lauren hated. “Thanks, Ro. Felt like a no-pants day, honestly.”

           “It’s very pretty!” Patton complimented as he pulled out his lunch. Sure enough, about six cookies fell out.

           Roman only threw down his bag before snatching his wallet. “Guard my things with your lives.” He warned as the others waved him off, them all having already gotten food. Roman weaved through the rows to the lunch line, greeting a few fellow drama nerds that he remembered from last year. A few of the freshmen who noticed him approach seemed to shy back, but Roman got that. He sometimes looked a little scary and out of the ordinary, but he loved that about himself.

           Besides, anyone who spent more than five minutes with the guy knew how much of a bubbly theater geek he was.

           Roman got into line as he spotted a familiar face. “Remy! There’s my favorite sleep-deprived zombie.”

           The figure turned, revealing glasses indoors upon his face. “EEEYYY It’s my favorite gay!” Remy threw as he tossed an arm over Roman’s shoulders. “Gurl, where have you BEEN all day? Like I had the trippiest morning in Mr. S’s class. I swear I thought the starbs guy finally spiked my drink.”

           Roman snorted as they got into line. “Gurl, that’s just Mr. S. You should know that by now.”

           Remy was a senior who was also the president of the GSA and on student council (if only to get the administration to put a Starbucks in the cafeteria). He was as flamboyant as they got, but he also was the king of gossip. He knew it all, even things people didn’t know about themselves. When Roman, a baby goth gay, and Patton, a nervous genius gay, had graced the hallowed doorway of the GSA that first time, Remy had adopted them on the spot.

           “Still, he nearly blew up the classroom! On the first day! That HAS to be a new record.” The teen threw as he grabbed a tray. “And don’t get me STARTED on Dot. I love that woman, I really do, but do you know what she did today? She let her pet MAN EATING PYTHON out in the wild of our halls!”

           Roman couldn’t help but laugh. “Python??? Dude, it’s a foot long, max, and she calls it Fluffy.”

           “Gurl, who’s telling the story? Anyway, apparently one of her kids wanted to hold it. TO HOLD THE BEAST! AND SHE LET THEM!!!” Remy paused to turn to grab a burger as he passed, gaining a few confused (and concerned) looks from the lunch ladies.

           Remy went on about this crazy ‘escaped demon snake’ until they paid and got back to the table. Remy decided to grace the juniors with his ‘gorgeous’ face, even as he could have sat in the senior section.

           When they got to the table, though… there were two Virgils staring each other down and hissing at one another???

           Roman had to stare and blink a few times.

           “What the hell?” Remy spoke.

           “Language!” Patton chided, not taking his eyes off the book in front of him. “And we seem to have an imposter! Virgil A came over here and started having lunch with us, but then Virgil B came in and noticed us. They’ve been hissing at one another since then.”

           “Well when I came back from the office to see this JERK…”

           “You mean when I came back from the office only for this PRAT to walk in…”

           Roman sighed as he looked between the two before grabbing both their wrists. They both yelped as they nearly fell, but Roman allowed their sleeves to fall. “This one is Virgil.” He lifted the arm that belonged to the later Virgil.

           “How can you even tell???” Logan asked, stumped. “I’ve been throwing questions at them for ten minutes!”

           “Ok, it has not been that long, but still.” Kai threw as he looked between the two.

           Roman grinned as he showed off the light pen marks on Virgil’s wrist that looked vaguely like a swirly. “I drew this earlier today when Virgil was distracted. He tried to clean it off, but you can still faintly see it.”

           Virgil blinked before grinning, turning to his double ganger. “Yeah, ‘Virgil,’ looks like your costume isn’t so perfect after all.”

           “Dang it.” He said as his voice shifted. He hissed a little before shoving his hands in his pockets and glaring at Roman. “Had to ruin me, didn’t you?”

           Roman shrugged. “Sorry, Dee, but good effort.”

           The person huffed as they fell into the chair open, shedding the preppy jacket and messing up their hair. They also took a moment to dig out some make-up wipes from their bag and an extra shirt. The purple polo was removed to reveal a black tank, which was quickly covered by the yellow flannel, left open. He used a few wipes to remove the contouring make-up, and soon a plum discoloration on the left side of his face was revealed.

           Demetrius, or Dee, was a bit of a wild card when it came to South Hamilton High. He was beloved by almost all the teachers (especially the biology teacher and her snake – he loved the snake to bits) because he was a good student and relatively trustworthy… until he pulled out his make-up bag. He was renowned for his ability to transform himself and others, and he just loved to pull harmless pranks.

           Virgil snorted as he sat. “Finally some anarchy does me good. No, you cannot use that as a platform for me to get the school spray-painted black or something.” He threw as he saw the look on Roman’s face.

           “Uhg, you suck.” He huffed as he dramatically downed his milk.

           Remy plopped down next to Dee as he nudged the dude. “Gurl, you will not BELIEVE the gossip I have.”

           “Oh, no, you should overhear what Samantha told ‘Virgil’ today…”

           “Stop impersonating me! I have a reputation!” Virgil threw with a hiss. Virgil and Dee had some mysterious past that they never really talked about, but they often butted heads whenever nearby. Really, a teacher’s pet and a prep would usually at least function in the same general vicinity, but Virgil and Dee where not that. It didn’t help that Dee and Virgil shared enough similarities that Dee only had to break out the contouring to get them to look identical as opposed to the wigs and lifts of most of the staff.

           “SHHH I have some important gossip about Samantha right now, Virgie.” Dee waved off as he turned back to Remy.

           Remy and Dee were besties over their shares in the gossip empire of not only the school but most of the town. “Don’t tell me it’s about Todd again.” Remy threw as he bit into a fry. “Seriously, that girl needs to dump his ass.”

           “Oh, but that’s the best part! She didn’t, but he did!”

           Remy choked. “No.”

           “YES!”

           “OMG SPILL!”

           Virgil groaned as he lay his head on the table. “This is only the first day what the fuuuu….dge. Fudge.” He amended as he noticed Patton’s stare. They may be in high school, but Patton kept their language clean.

           “Well, now that THAT is figured out,” Logan turned back to the group. “How is everyone’s first day been so far? Because, honestly, I’d rather be home watching TV. It’s the same drivel they all give every year.”

           “Pretty much.” Virgil shrugged. “Although Patton correcting the teacher this morning was entertaining.”

           “Well, I had to clarify that Hades wasn’t originally the villain of the Persephone story!” Patton nodded to himself. “The book was far out of print, and more recent evidence shows the potential influence of male translations of many of the stories.”

           “Down with the Patriarchy!” Roman, Lauren, and Elliott all said at once. Roman went to high five both.

           Patton nodded, still reading, as Logan rolled his eyes and pulled out his phone to scroll through some sports news. Virgil attempted to keep his composure as he ate, even as half the table began to chant “Down with The Man! Down with The Man!”

           Roman led the charge on that last one.

#Sanders Sides #Flipping the Script AU #Roman Sanders #Logan Sanders #Patton Sanders #Virgil Sanders #Deceit Sanders #Elliott #Kai #Lauren #General tomfoolery #High School AU #Role Swap AU