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fangirlfiles1 · 5 years

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Apocalypse and Apple Pie

Fandom: Good Omens

Summary: An angel and a demon mourn the end of the world with the last human on Earth. And some apple pie of course, for irony’s sake.

TW: Character death

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20471408

Summary: An angel and a demon grieving the end of the world with the help of the last human on Earth. And a slice of apple pie, of course.

“We don’t have to stay here and watch this, Angel. We can go. Any time you like.”

But of course not. Aziraphale stayed. He watched, and he cared, and it hurt. If it had just been Crowley on his own, he would have left as soon as the first shuttles were taking people to the newly colonized Mars. He would have laid claim to one of the first homes and recreated his old flat as well as he could (which would have been perfectly, with the help of a quick demonic miracle). But it wasn’t Crowley on his own, not now, and it hadn’t been for a very long time. Aziraphale and Crowley were an inseparable pair.

So, without a single complaint, Crowley also stayed. He watched, and he tried his hardest not to care, but it still hurt.

-- They could fly there, or even appear with a snap of their fingers, but Aziraphale insisted on walking. He wanted to feel the dying Earth beneath his bare feet for as long as he could, he said. He wanted to soak her in through his heels and keep her with him somehow. So, they walked without stopping, wedging dirt between their toes and under their nails as if they could revive the planet with the touch of their divine skin.

Crowley hung back a few strides, tucking his fingertips into his pockets and watching his angel make the farewell pilgrimage. Aziraphale looked worn, frayed along the edges. His skin was tanned from the journey, a thin layer of scruff warmed his jaw, and his once bright eyes were dull and almost permanently misted. Beyond human perception, not that it mattered now, his wings drooped and his feathers lacked their usual heavenly shine. Heaven’s attention had moved elsewhere and the angel hadn’t yet followed. It was only getting worse.

“M’tired, Angel. Let’s stop. We’ll get there tomorrow either way,” Crowley complained, his hips sagging as he planted his feet on the path. He pulled his hands out from his pockets and stretched them out over his head before letting them swing loosely at his sides, making a dramatic show of his aching body. The request to stop was entirely for himself, of course. It wasn’t at all for Aziraphale (It was. Completely. They both knew it, too).

Aziraphale blinked, pulled from his thoughtful stupor as he turned to watch the performance. His expression flickered between disapproval and gratefulness, before it finally settled with a nod. “Oh, alright. But only a short break. We’re running out of time, you know.”

“I’m aware,” Crowley said as he looked around, finding an old rusted bench nearby. Perfect. He flopped himself heavily on it, his knees unfolding to the sides as he stretched his arms along the back of it.

Aziraphale blinked again. Crowley had taken up the entire bench in his sprawling. A wave of Crowley’s hand cleared up his confusion and the angel’s face softened. They had done this many times before. He settled himself on the ground in front of the bench, not minding the dirt one bit, and he let his wings unfurl over the demon’s lap.

Crowley set to work. His fingers gently ran through the soft feathers, straightening them and massaging in the natural oils to restore their sheen. Aziraphale had never been good at grooming his own wings, often finding himself coated in a thin layer of bookshop dust. Though, it had been a long while since their bookshop days. Crowley had taken it upon himself to maintain them for him. His angel should always shine.

“She’s the last of them,” Aziraphale murmured. Crowley couldn’t see his face, but he knew his eyes were closed, imagining what they would see when they arrived at the home of the last human on Earth.

“Not really. They’re like cockroaches, you never can quite stomp them out.” Aziraphale bristled at the comparison and Crowley backtracked, “er, in a good way. They’ve spread to Mars and before long they’ll spread across the rest of the universe too.”

With a quiet sigh, Aziraphale leaned back more comfortably against Crowley’s knees. “I mean she’s the last one here. On Earth, their home.”

“I know what you meant, Angel.”

They fell silent as Crowley finished, turning his attention to Aziraphale’s pale curls instead. He had to be the messiest angel, always frizzy and fussed, too busy with other thoughts to focus on the state of himself (though his clothes were a different story. Those were always carefully cared for. Vintage). He turned between Crowley’s knees and rested his crossed arms on the demon’s thigh, closing his eyes. Finally, he would take a much-needed rest.

With his angel taken care of, Crowley finally let himself look at the world around them.

It was desolate and dirty. The humans as a whole had tried, at the end. When it was clear that it was beyond saving, many of them had tried to bury it to rest in the best ways that they could. But others, those with more power, tossed it aside off the rim of a metaphorical garbage bin and let it fall to the ground without a care. They didn’t seem to feel the pain of being forced away from their home through fire, flame, and rocket fuel. They should.

But their situation and his were entirely different matters, he reminded himself, of course they wouldn’t understand.

Everything was brown, nothing growing in sight here or anywhere else. Crowley would scream at the entire world to grow if he could, to turn green again for his angel who loved it so much. And for himself who loved it just as much, though admitting that would make the loss hurt more.

The buildings around them had begun to crumble, glass cracked and shimmering along the ground at the edges where dirt met brick and drywall. It had taken many years to get to this point. They watched the humans scramble for their own survival, finding hope in other planets and making it to Mars at the last moments. They had been kind, bringing more people than Crowley had expected. It wasn’t just the rich. It wasn’t just the seemingly more important. Still, it wasn’t enough.

Many had been left behind. Those who didn’t want to go, and those who did but couldn’t make the trip. They had survived for longer than they had all expected as the angels and demons observed. Crowley had wanted to leave as soon as he could, but Aziraphale wanted to stay. He wanted to help, and he wanted to say goodbye. Crowley agreed. They began to die, and Crowley ached to leave again. Aziraphale couldn’t tear himself away, especially not now. So, they journeyed instead. They walked across God’s brown Earth and stopped to visit each of the humans that remained, giving them a bit of light before they were gone. Though that was more Aziraphale’s doing than Crowley’s. He stood on the sidelines, waiting.

Now their journey was almost over.

“We should keep going,” Aziraphale whispered, a badly disguised exhaustion in his voice. He had slept for only a few minutes, but it would have to do. Crowley knew he wouldn’t get any more out of him.

“Alright.” -- The house was pristine. Well, as pristine as a house could be at the end of the world. It showed signs of a once brilliant garden that made Crowley’s heart twinge in his chest. There was a worn-out welcome mat and faded valances over the windows. It looked like a home.

Aziraphale wasted no time in stepping up to the front door, straightening himself up with a roll of his shoulders and knocking three distinct knocks. Crowley hung back with his hands in his pockets, one hip jutted out to the side. He didn’t feel like he belonged on this journey, but he was there. He would watch quietly, as he always did. This wasn’t the time or place for demonic mischief. Let it be known though, as soon as he got to Mars, he would be unleashing all of the mischief that had been building up inside of him. It would be chaos, and he would be delighted.

They waited for a few minutes before Aziraphale looked back at Crowley, unsure. They couldn’t be too late, could they? If the last human were gone, they would have felt it, just as they had increasingly felt the loss of each one as their numbers dwindled. It had gone from a subtle awareness to a punch in the gut every time. No, it was definite. There was still a life in that house.

Movement in the window caught Crowley’s eye and he pointed to the door just as it opened, revealing, dare he say it, the most cliché, kind-looking old lady that he had ever seen. With silver hair and a deeply lined face, he could see her hundreds of years in the past wearing a pink floral apron and holding a perfectly latticed apple pie in her hands. It just felt right. “Sorry boys, it takes an old woman a few minutes to get to the door these days. But if I had known that I was going to have visitors, I would have cleaned up.”

Aziraphale turned to her, shocked by the blatant and immediate trust that they had been given, then he fell into a gleeful laugh. In that moment, he was a bookshop owner in bustling Soho again, and Crowley couldn’t help the way the corner of his mouth twitched upward. That was his angel, stunning and ethereal. Every part of him seemed to brighten. This was simultaneously the best and worst part of their journey for Crowley. Seeing Aziraphale back to himself made him feel like everything was alright again, but it was also painfully performative. Every moment of his joy drained him more, and his frivolous miracles had only increased to spite it.

A bouquet of daisies appeared behind Aziraphale’s back and he brought it forward with his signature dramatic, someone help him, whooshing sound effect, holding it out to her. “Your home is lovely, as are you.”

Heaven had moved with the humans, and their power with it. Aziraphale was working with a low battery, and he wasn’t holding back. It was endearing, but Crowley wanted to grab his hands and scream at him to stop it, to save his energy for their journey off of this planet instead. He refrained. The reaction was always worth it, anyway.

Her face was stunned, staring at the bouquet with her mouth agape. “Are those real?” She carefully reached out and took them, bringing them to her nose and breathing deeply as her eyelids fluttered closed. She was inhaling a touch of Heaven, and she clearly appreciated it for all that it was worth. “Sweetheart,” she finally spoke again with a strange sort of mischief in her voice, “how on Earth did you manage this?”

Crowley felt like he should recognize the glint in her eyes. It was on the tip of his tongue, but he just couldn’t place it.

“Call it a miracle.” Aziraphale was positively beaming as he held out a hand. As she reached out and shook it, her frail fingers seemed to get lost in his grip. They were slim and bonier than Crowley himself. He was all angles and she was all joints. He could only imagine how they ached. “My name is Aziraphale, and this is Crowley.”

“Eve,” she said softly.

Crowley snorted, then immediately shook his head and raised his shoulders in a shrug. “Sorry- It’s just er, a tad ironic.”

“Dear, perhaps this isn’t the time,” Aziraphale scolded lightly.

“Come on, Angel. You know it is. Just a smidge. Or more. Definitely more.” Crowley grinned and joined the two on the doorstep, shaking her hand as well with a playful bow. “As he said, the name’s Anthony J. Crowley. A pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

He was pleased to see her cheeks turn rosy as her eyes crinkled with smile lines. He still had his charm. “Now, as lovely as all of this is,” she began, “I can’t help but feel that we’ve skipped over a very important question.”

“And what would that be?” Crowley urged. He couldn’t help but get involved with this one. Part of him, the part that he was currently entertaining, was highly amused by the irony of her name. God still had a sense of humor, it seemed. The other part, which he stomped down with a mighty aggression, was inexplicably furious. It was just a reminder of how all of this was intentional. All part of a plan. It always was. Everything that went right was thanks to the plan and everything that went wrong was just an inevitable part of it. This was another tick on the list of things that hurt that could have been avoided if God only saw him, only cared enough to ease his suffering. Just this once. Not even for him, but for all of the life that this planet had been teeming with. For Aziraphale.

He gave his fury another stomp down and returned his attention to the woman before him.

“What on Earth are two handsome boys doing on my doorstep at the end of the world?”

Crowley laughed as Aziraphale gave his usual scripted response. It was enough for her to let them inside. It always was. -- Crowley surveyed the area as she guided them into the living room, poking his head unsubtly into doorways. The interior of the house was just as cliché as the exterior, with lace doilies and fake potted plants everywhere. No one could get their hands on proper plants these days, (not even Crowley without the help of a demonic miracle, and even with that it was far too much work) so the fake ones had become all the rage. She had fading pink wallpaper and a plush, rosy carpet. Crowley had no idea how she hadn’t just crawled straight out of the past and plopped herself here. It really didn’t belong in this time period.

It looked perfect at first glance, but a closer look revealed a thin layer of dust over everything. Food ration tins and wrappers were piled just out of sight in a corner of the kitchen. There was a slight stench to her and her clothing, heavily covered by a flowery perfume. She kept up appearances as well as she could, but she was clearly struggling to care for herself at this point in her life. Aging was one thing, aging alone was another.

She didn’t seem to mind his intrusive spying though, gratefully accepting Aziraphale’s help to settle down into a rocking chair with popping joints and a weary sigh. It seemed like she was just happy for the company, and maybe she knew she was close enough to the end that it didn’t matter if they were raiders come to steal everything from her.

“Thank you. Now please, do sit. Talk to me, tell me about the world.” She gestured to the couch across from her with a soft smile.

“The world is beautiful, even now,” Aziraphale said with a soft longing as he did as he was told. He looked up at Crowley, expecting him to join, but the demon pretended not to notice. He was occupying himself looking at pictures instead. Aziraphale quickly accepted his distraction and carried on alone. “I’ll tell you anything you like, but I want to hear about you and your life, too.”

Crowley only kept half of his attention on the conversation, matching up her words with the pictures on her mantle. He picked one up and held it carefully. Smiling faces stared back at him as he dusted off the glass. Two women standing on the front porch, the more proper and poised one clearly being Eve. She stood next to another who hung an arm over her shoulders with a blinding, playful grin, holding up a peace sign with her fingers. They were married, if the matching rings on their fingers had anything to say about it. Three kids, two boys and one girl, sitting on the porch step and looking like they were playfully teasing each other. It had been a while since Crowley had seen such life. He ached to join them, up there on the red planet. He had a soft spot for kids.

He could imagine them all, running around this house and filling it with noise and joy. The mischief the kids could have gotten up to, stealing cookies and fighting over toys. Screaming tantrums scattered between happy laughter. Tired parents flopping down on the couch once the kids had gone to bed, expecting a night alone but interrupted by the youngest child with a nightmare instead. Stolen sex in the moments where the kids were at school or with friends. Covering for each other when they got caught getting into trouble. All of those cliché things to fit this cliché house and its cliché resident. He longed for it. He would never admit how he longed.

“—remember the sunset, before the sky was filled with too much dust to—"

Eve was cut off by Crowley interjecting. “What happened to your family?” He held up the photo, turning to address the two that had been deep in conversation for a while now.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale warned. They were here to help them, not to hurt them by bringing up memories of the past. Crowley ignored it.

“It’s alright, sweetheart. Bring it here, please,” she said, holding out a lightly trembling hand.

He brought it to her, watching her run her fingertips over each of the faces and smile. Slowly, he moved back to join Aziraphale on the couch. He sat on the very edge, leaning his elbows on his sprawled-out knees and watching her like prey, not intending to miss a single emotion that passed over her face.

Aziraphale’s fingertips trailed along his inner forearm and took his hand, pulling it into his own lap and lacing their fingers together as he leaned forward too. They watched intently together.

“This is Rose,” Eve began, with a small upward curve on her lips. Aziraphale’s fingers tightened in Crowley’s, reacting to the tangible feeling of love that had burst from her. “She was the brightest of us, the best of us. She was so smart, and such a wonderful mother…”

Crowley took note of the past tense. He had assumed, but there was the possibility that she had left with the kids, taking them to their new safe haven. The kids. That’s what he needed to hear about. Tell him about the kids.

“Charlie, the oldest… he has her smarts. He’s a scientist, you know. He helped with the plans to fit people on the rockets. He tried so hard to get me to come with him… Ada, the middle child, here,” she pointed to the girl in the photograph, holding it out so Aziraphale could see. “She does maintenance on the space station. She’s so good with her hands, she can fix everything. Used to fix the television set for me to get channels I wasn’t meant to have, little devil.” Her eyes glanced up at Crowley, who suddenly felt incredibly vulnerable. He wasn’t sure what that look had meant, and the timing of it set him on edge. “And the baby, Oliver. He’s going to school. I think he still is, anyway. Last time I spoke to him he talked about dropping out… but I like to imagine that he’s still studying art…”

They were alive and thriving, it seemed. Present tense. Crowley leaned back, letting his thigh fall against Aziraphale’s in relief. He made a mental note to find Ada when they finally joined the rest of the humans. She seemed like she would be fun.

“They sound lovely,” Aziraphale said, his eyes lighting up with delight.

“Oh, they are,” Eve smiled widely, remembering more that she wasn’t saying. “They are.”

“Why didn’t you go with them?” Crowley asked.

She shook her head, the smile falling. “I don’t belong up there. This is my home…” Then her face hardened, and the story was over. “I’m sorry boys, but I need my rest.”

Crowley wanted to ask so many more questions, but Aziraphale nodded and stood, pulling Crowley along with him. He led them to the kitchen while she leaned back and closed her eyes. It was such an abrupt stop to the conversation. Crowley wanted to shake her until she opened her eyes and continued her story. He needed to know why she didn’t go with her family. They were hers, and she belonged with them, not with this dying shell of a planet. People aren’t supposed to shove their children out and stay behind without a word.

As soon as they were alone in the kitchen, Aziraphale’s arms were around Crowley’s shoulders and wrapping him into a hug. “I’m sorry for making you do this with me, dear. I know it’s difficult.”

“I chose to stay,” Crowley muttered, staying perfectly still. He had too many things on his mind. It felt like he was being torn in two. But that wasn’t the point, they weren’t talking about him. They were supposed to be talking about her family. He wanted to charge right back in there, but Aziraphale didn’t release him.

“For me. You want to be up there. I know it’s hurting you.” Aziraphale leaned back to look at him, pressing a warm hand to his cheek. Maybe he was just an angel high off the love that he had felt from her, but his eyes were damp. “You love them all so much, I know it’s hard for you to—”

“They’re cockroaches, like I said,” Crowley hissed, trampling whatever compliments and reassurances Aziraphale was planning on giving him. “They ruin what they’re given, and they abandon it like it doesn’t even matter. They killed our planet and they’ll kill the next one too, and the next one and the one after that. They’ll kill their way through the entire galaxy if they’re allowed.”

Aziraphale let him ride out his outburst with practiced patience, his hand falling from Crowley’s cheek to his chest. He would wait until Crowley was done, until his rage had cooled from an angry boil to a simmer, and then they would talk. But that didn’t happen, not this time. Crowley squirmed out of the angel’s grip and stormed off to the porch, slamming the door behind him. Aziraphale didn’t follow.

A dust storm had kicked off outside, but it didn’t dare touch him right now. He stomped down the steps, turned, and gave them a swift kick accented by a loud growl. Then he sank down onto the lowest step and hung his head in his hands. “You just sit up there and let them destroy everything that matters,” he mumbled. “You can’t just step in for once, can’t just help them clean up their mess this one time.”

He slammed his fist down onto the wood and turned his face to the dirty sky. “You call them your children, but you don’t even bother to guide them! They pray to you! How many begged you to fix this? You could have. You could have saved everything!”

This was pointless, he knew, and he slumped down to lay on those steps and stare at the ground. Getting angry wouldn’t change anything. What was he doing having this outburst now, anyway? It was the same old thing. He should be used to it by now.

He had just wanted things to stay the same. He had finally settled into a life that he could get used to. He had planted roots and he didn’t even have to yell at them to grow. They burst up through the ground and blossomed more beautifully than he could have ever imagined. His life with Aziraphale was perfect until the world went to shit. He thought that the big one would be Heaven and Hell versus the humans, but he was wrong. It was Heaven and Hell and the humans versus Crowley and the planet. He loved them, but he also hated them. That’s where his anger lied. He had made his home with them and they betrayed him.

Maybe he wouldn’t go join them on Mars. Maybe he would just lay on this stoop until the world swallowed him up in its last dying breaths.

Aziraphale wouldn’t let that happen.

He still wanted to join them, anyway. If only to make their lives hell (he couldn’t help but love them, still). -- Eventually, he put himself back together and reentered the house. Everything had been cleaned to a shine, and Crowley cursed himself for leaving Aziraphale to his own devices. He didn’t have enough left in him to be doing all of this for her. Crowley found him after a few minutes of exploration, cleaning the bathroom sink by hand. His sleeves were rolled up, a sponge held tightly in his hands. So, it wasn’t by miracles after all. Was he unable, or did he just want to keep his hands busy? Crowley didn’t ask.

“You’re awful at that, give it to me,” Crowley muttered as he pushed Aziraphale aside and snatched the sponge.

Aziraphale looked unbothered, sitting on the edge of the bathtub and watching him. It was a familiar gaze, taking stock of the hurt and the anger and organizing it into the right places of understanding. “You and Eve have more in common than you think,” he finally said.

“Ah, the Biblical names. You caught that too. You’ve always been so clever.” It was a lazy deflection, and he really hadn’t expected it to work. It was completely ignored, and rightly so.

“She loves the world so much that she couldn’t leave it behind. You love it so much that you wanted to leave, before it made you accept that it’s dying.” His tone was gentle, making Crowley bristle down to his core as he aggressively scrubbed the porcelain sink. “I know you’re angry, dear. I hate to admit it, but so am I.”

Crowley’s hands stilled, his fingertips digging into the edge of the counter. “It has been a while since you baked, hasn’t it?”

“Er- what?” That comment had hit him like a foul ball. Where had that come from? He turned to blink at Aziraphale in confusion, met with a smug grin. That bastard of an angel was up to something. It had completely sideswiped his rage and sent it hurtling off into space.

Standing, Aziraphale rolled his sleeves back down and straightened his tartan bowtie. “I’ve heard that you can do a lot with an apple. Surely that hasn’t changed?”

It was said like a challenge, one that Crowley would definitely meet head on. Before he could respond, Aziraphale gave him a swift kiss on the cheek and disappeared from the bathroom, leaving Crowley to continue scrubbing. Wait. He suddenly realized that he had been roped into finishing the cleaning.

“Bless it,” he hissed. -- The smell of apples and cinnamon wafted through the house, and Crowley was proud to say that it was absolutely devilish. Not even Aziraphale would dare to call it heavenly. He had imagined Eve as the one with the apple pie, but now it was him. He had even found a pink floral apron, just as he had expected. He had tied that around his waist the moment he saw it, of course.

“Is that…?” Eve’s groggy voice drifted in from the living room as she woke and Crowley grinned.

“It is,” Aziraphale’s voice confirmed, that bastardly mischief still in his voice. If God wanted to be ironic, then so would Crowley. He would watch Eve take a bite and he would revel in it. The first and last women on Earth would taste the forbidden fruit under his watchful eye. It wouldn’t do much, of course. Not at this point. But for Crowley, it was just the amount of spite that he needed to get through all of this until they could leave and put it all behind them. He would pretend it never happened, and every day would bring him further away from the end of the world. Just like the 1400s.

He focused on his presentation, perfectly cutting the slices and setting them onto plates. When he brought them out, he had a sharp grin on his face, laying on the charm. He was thrilled by her hungry eyes, immediately reaching out for the plate and bringing it up to her nose just as she had done with Aziraphale’s flowers. After she had savored the scent, she looked at Crowley with a raised eyebrow, suspicious and amused. “Dare I ask where you got the apples?”

“Better not,” Crowley purred as he turned and handed Aziraphale a plate, settling onto the couch next to him with one of his own. “But I will tell you, they are sinfully delicious.”

“Oh, for goodness sake,” Aziraphale sighed fondly with a roll of his eyes. The demon was playing it up too much, but he seemed to enjoy it just a little bit. Eve didn’t seem to mind the questionable sources, digging into the pie like it was the first meal she had ever eaten. It had been a while since she had eaten real food, if her ration remains were to be trusted. Crowley watched, feeling just the right amount of satisfaction to tide him over. Then he glanced to Aziraphale, and that satisfaction only grew. Take that, God. There was an angel devouring the fruit of knowledge, knowing exactly what it was. Or, what it was a descendant of at least. Apples had lost that power as soon as the first one had been bitten into, but the metaphor still stood.

They ate in silence, each savoring the taste of real food for the first time in a while. It wasn’t quite as good as the real thing, being cheated up by a demonic miracle, but it seemed even better in the current times. Finally, Aziraphale dabbed at his mouth with a napkin and set his plate on the coffee table in front of him.

“Eve,” he began, his shoulders back and chin up, determined. “I have something to tell you.”

“Oh?” She said, lowering her fork to her plate and looking at him expectantly. Then with a whoosh of air that tickled the back of Crowley’s neck, Aziraphale’s wings extended into the realm of human perception. “I am an angel, and Crowley is a demon.”

Crowley raised an eyebrow. He had not been given the whole ‘revealing Heaven and Hell to the human’ memo, but apparently that was a thing now. There wasn’t even any build up to it. No dramatics. He just kind of, let loose and revealed the secret like it was nothing. Aziraphale nudged him and Crowley sighed. Fine, dramatics be damned, then. He let his own black wings stretch out behind him as well with a shrug. He muttered, “the fruit of knowledge strikes again.”

There was no extreme reaction, no shock or surprise. They had never revealed themselves to a human before (well, not without the whole dramatic build-up of killing the four horsemen and stopping Satan himself. That hadn’t exactly been an intentional revelation, and the humans didn’t even remember it, so it didn’t count), but he had expected at least… well, something.

“Is that all?” She asked, taking another bite of pie.

“Er, yes. That’s… all.” Aziraphale was dumbfounded, looking at each other’s wings to make sure they were there and glancing at Crowley, who only returned the questioning look with another shrug. Until-

“Wait. You’ve known the whole time!” Crowley realized abruptly, setting his own plate down on the table with a clatter. “That’s why you trusted us. That’s why you weren’t surprised by the flowers!” He laughed with a snake-like roll of his head. “Ooh, you’re a sneaky one, aren’t you?”

Eve laughed then, a tired sound that seemed to get stuck in her chest halfway up. “When you’re as close to death as I am, and far from the rest of humanity, I think Heaven and Hell stop caring about their secrets so much.”

Aziraphale was taking a bit longer on the uptake. “But… why didn’t you say anything?”

“What would I say? It didn’t matter to me. I just enjoyed the company. Though I really wasn’t expecting you to reveal your secret. So, if it makes you feel any better, I am a little surprised.” Eve gave him a slightly apologetic smile.

“I… wanted you to know that you were being looked after. You’re the last person on Earth, and—”

Shaking his head, Crowley made a gesture for Aziraphale to shush. He hadn’t meant to tell her that part. He didn’t want to make her feel alone.

Eve set her plate down on her lap, letting out a slow breath. That was definitely news to her. “Wow. I guess…” Crowley braced himself for an influx of human emotion, but it didn’t come. “I really stuck it out then, didn’t I?”

“What?” Aziraphale blinked, surprised by this woman yet again. She had accepted all of this already, it seemed. Crowley wondered for a moment why they were even there. She had the whole moving on thing down to a science. Eve shook her head, leaning back in her rocking chair and closing her eyes. She didn’t want to discuss it further, clearly. She looked tired, and her hands hung loosely off the arms of the rocker. Crowley had another sudden realization, that she was far worse off than she seemed.

With a dismissive sigh, she changed the subject. “Tell me about the world, Aziraphale. All of it. And don’t leave out any of the parts about you two.”

Aziraphale looked completely unsure of what to do. But she had made a request, and he wasn’t about to deny it. “Well…” He looked to Crowley, seeking permission and receiving a nod in return. It was a good story to end with. “In the beginning, there was a garden. He was a wily serpent, and I was on apple tree duty…” -- It hurt, when she was gone. Crowley felt it tear at his chest, but Aziraphale was the one who had it the worst. He sat on his knees by her side for a long time, both of his hands holding one of hers. There were other humans, she wasn’t the last, but she was special.

“So,” Aziraphale finally said after a long time of mourning. It looked like he was praying, but there was nothing left to pray for. “They’ve finally left the garden.” Crowley set a hand on his shoulder, his voice soft and low. “They left the garden a long time ago.”

“I know, but… this one really felt like Eden. To me.” Aziraphale looked up at Crowley, tears falling from his eyes. It finally made sense then, why he had to make this journey. They had all been forced out of Eden once the humans fell. Even the angels had been sent away to Heaven, leaving the garden to die behind stone walls and locked gates. But to Aziraphale, he had found it again. He had loved it and cared for it, and despite his efforts, he was being locked out of it again. The gates would be closing soon.

“Oh, Angel.” Crowley gently took Aziraphale’s chin in his hand and pulled him up to his feet, kissing his temple. He didn’t have words of encouragement, that wasn’t his strong point, but Aziraphale could feel everything that he needed to hear rolling off of him in waves. He had done his job. He had gone above and beyond. While Heaven had moved on, he stayed to finish what had to be done. “Let’s put this garden to rest. We’ll build a new one, wherever you want to go.” -- They buried her in the dirt just off the front porch step. No miracles did it for them, just shovels, sweat, and hard work led by heart ache. When they were finished, they swept the dirt away from the porch and left the welcome mat clean. She would have wanted it ready for any potential visitors, even if they weren’t coming.

When it was done, they climbed the tallest hill around and sat at the top of it. The sun was setting, burning red behind the dust and the dirt and the crumbling atmosphere. It was horrifying, but it was also somehow beautiful.

“A long time ago, you wondered if you did the right thing,” Aziraphale said quietly, staring into the sky. “Giving them knowledge, setting them free. I think you did.”

“Don’t tell anyone else that,” Crowley sneered, staring at Aziraphale. He had seen the burning sky before. He didn’t need to say goodbye to it. It hurt too much. But looking at his angel and hearing him say that he had done the right thing all those years ago… that was what mattered. He had tried to run away from it, but he couldn’t do that this time. Crowley wasn’t one for goodbyes, but he would let Aziraphale say his.

“I wish we had more time.”

Crowley knew that tone. It was the one that Aziraphale used when he wanted something that he didn’t feel he deserved, that he couldn’t bring himself to request. His lower lip curled between his teeth, contemplating. He really couldn’t say no though, now, could he? Definitely not (It was just a stain on an old jacket, the end of the world). “A few minutes, but that’s all I can give.”

He stood, closing his eyes and lifting his hands, bringing up the last drops of Hell power remaining in this place. Time came to an abrupt stop. The dust stilled and the sun hung like a still portrait in the sky. Aziraphale inhaled deeply, lifting his chin and feeling the warmth on his face. He was beautiful, and he was sad.

Crowley stood beside him and waited, not daring to speak or touch. And maybe when he felt his power to stop time coming to an end, he looked at the sky too. And just maybe, for a second that wasn’t, he let himself feel the warmth of the sun too, the gentle burning that wasn’t Hellfire, but that gave life to the world. But he definitely managed to say goodbye, despite how it hurt. This time he would fly upward out of Eden.

Aziraphale didn’t need to say thank you, and Crowley didn’t want to hear it. When time resumed, he knew that they were finished. Their pilgrimage was finally over.

“Can we make a pit stop on the way?” The angel asked as the sun dipped down below the horizon.

“Of course, Angel. Where to?”

“Alpha Centauri.”

The demon smiled and took the angel’s hand, finally leaving the Earth behind. The gates closed and locked. Something shifted beneath the dirt of a home that held just enough love, and just enough defiance, to give life to something new.

Roots burst forth from an apple seed. Maybe it really was all part of the plan, not that Crowley would ever know that.

A/N: Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it. This story is really special to me so I would love to hear your feedback. Please share it if it touched you in any way!

#Good Omens #Good Omens Fanfiction #Ineffable Husbands #Aziraphale #Crowley #Aziraphale/Crowley #Original Character #Ineffable Husbands Fanfiction #Good Omens Fic Rec #My Writing #Apocalypse and Apple Pie

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esseastri · 7 years

Text

Megan Reads Oathbringer (part 1)

Me: okay but I don’t remember the back half of WoR, I should really, really finish the reread before starting... Also me: okay, buuuuuuuuuuut................what if I just..............start

[insert evilkermit.jpeg here]

There are a few relevant points of information:

Tags: Megan reads OB and Oathbringer spoilers. (I’ll also have housekeepers on there, like Brandon Sanderson, Stormlight Archive, and Oathbringer, but those first two are the important ones.)

Everything will be under a readmore.

Above the readmore will be the page numbers covered in that liveblog, so you’ll know how far I’ve gotten (and that way, if you’ve read that far you’ll be okay to read the lb).

There's…going to be a lot of swearing? I have learned that I have no control over my language when I get overly emotional and I feel like I’m going to spend a lot of this book overly emotional. I would like to apologize in advance, and while I promise to try to keep my swearing to a minimum, there might be more than a few bad words.

Shameless self-promotion for the previous two liveblogs: WoK and WoR.

I’m pretty sure that’s all the important bits. Enjoy!!

Part One encompasses pages 1-90 (subsequent parts)

*screams quietly into the ether forever*

PROLOGUE

hoooolly shiiiiiiiittt: Eshonai

Please tell me this means we’ll finally learn why the Parshendi killed Gavilar.......

SHE’S SO EXCITED I’M SO SAD I hate knowing what’s happened to her

...the Parshendi...didn’t know about the parshmen? what? the heck?

I’m....baby Esh is so excitable and curious and I.. love her. and I’m so. so sad. that she loses this.

“an indoor privy with running water, a concept she still didn’t understand.” Who does, babe. Who does.

me, every time amaram appears: “fucking asshole. fuck off fckkkk” I just.... hiss like a cat every time his name appears on a page. I hate him. ARGH.

I spelled his name as “aramaram” and had to go correct it I was so upset he was HERE that I forgot how to spell.

“Traitors who had abandoned their gods to be free.” And they FEARED the return of their gods, before stormform and the Everstorm. They feared it--because they were not free... But...stormform isn’t freedom, and their gods are back and....history repeating itself?

Also, the fact that Gavilar took the time to learn her name is very endearing and like... Gavilar was A Good, guys. He tried so hard.

NOOPE NEVERMIND, BAD, ACTUALLY. THAT’S SO SELFISH WHAT THE HECK

“Bring back your evil, destructive, enslaving gods so that we can have our nice, honorable, fighty ones back please.” NO, THAT’S SO DISGUSTING THAT’S SO SELFISH WTH

GAVIILAARRRR. I BELIEVED IN YOU! I WAS ROOTING FOR YOU!! WE WERE ALL ROOTING FOR YOU

WAIT, so he was getting the visions before Dalinar? Did we know this already? That makes sense... it’s very Boromir/Faramir, tbh, but like... what, one died, and Honor was like “welp. guess we’ll try his bro”

wait, okay, so ...the black sphere that he gives Szeth...........what. Esh knows what it is--so it’s some kind of spren. But it’s not the angerspren/hatespren that they bond with for stormform--those are red. So what’s...this one? Voidspren? Are there voidspren? Voidspren to create voidbringers...presumably more powerful than stormform.

I AM CONCERNED.

PART ONE

okay, that map tho; after reading Edgedancer, I’m VERY CONCERNED that there’s an Oathgate to Aimia... I don’t need any more 200-cremlings-in-a-trenchcoat popping up out of nowhere, but thanks anyway

it makes sense that this book stats with Dalinar, but HOW! IS! MY! BOY! WHERE! IS! KALADIN!

Dalinar is so polite tho. saying ‘thank you’ to the Stormfather

Also ONLY SIX DAYS???? AAHH

“It had been a hardy, stubborn lot who had grown in this place.” This is Kholinar: it highstorms nine months of the year, and weeps the other three. Any food that grows here is tough and tasteless. The people that grow here are even more so. The only upsides are the pets. While other places have...cats or chickens, we have...cremlings.

(Though Lisa made a good point--are there actually cremlings?? or are all cremlings just...bits of Aimians scuttling about like spy bugs?)

“The queen had gone silent.” I...genuinely don’t trust her, and I’m more inclined to believe she’s radio silence out of a need to save her own damn skin than any other reason.

......somehow I never really thought that Odium would be light...

THE WOMAN HE LOVED

YAASS.

(I have priorities)

They’re being cute. It’s been, like, half a page and I’m just over here making big, cooing noises at them being cute. help.

OH SHIT THAT WAS QUICK

THEY FOUND SADEAS ALREADY AND I AM CONCERN

(tho, I mean...it took them six days to find the body, that’s....actually not really quick. but still.)

OH WAIT NO, OKAY, IT TOOK THEM ONE DAY WELL SHIT

oh god

Adolin, bby. pls. don’t.... LISTEN, THE FIC I WROTE ABOUT GUILTSPREN WAS A FIC

HI TEFT I HAVE MISSED YOU BUT ALSO PLS CALM DOWN AAAHHHH

this is page frikkin 37 and I’m already dying

I’M SO SCARED OF WHAT IALAI WILL DO. SHE’S GONNA PIN THIS ON BRIDGE 4 I KNOW IT. SHE’S GONNA TRY AND I’M GONNA SCREAM

WHY IS ADOLIN HERE. KIDDO PLS. DOn’T COME BACK TO THE SCENE OF THE CRIME I’M

unrelated, but I can’t stop thinking about baby Eshonai basically damning her people to war and revenge to stop their gods from returning and Venli just like...whipping a godling out her pocket like “nvmd, we’re doing this anyway” and like. fuck Venli, tbh.

Back to current events and:

I love Palona.

“steady Adolin and impenetrable Renarin” HE LOVES HIS SONS SO MUCH I’M CRY

“certainly wouldn’t have gone so far as to kill Sadeas themselves” ABOUT THAT

I love that Urithuru has safety railings. like... throwing shade at every big space opera ever.

I still don’t know how I feel about Lopen growing his arm back...

“Our ultimate goal is the preservation of Roshar” Sorry, bud, Preservation is dead...

and also on a different planet.

AAAWWW SNAP! THIRTY-FOUR YEARS AGO! HERE WE GO!!!!

“He didn’t need Shards to intimidate.” Nah, but I bet they help.

tbqh, it’s really, really weird to think of Dalinar fighting not in Shards.

excuse you, that horse did nothing to deserve that.

heheheheh, so much for your nose, bucko

Gooooddddd, Brandon writes battle so cinematically. I want to film this. Gaaaahhh

of...of course punk!Dalinar’s horse is named Fullnight. How deliciously extra of him.

“I tried to kill you!” “from a distance! Which shows remarkably good judgement!” DALINAR, PLEASE.

Enthusiastic ultra-Gryffindor rambo Dalinar is hilarious

It’s been 50 pages, where’s Kaladin

Sadeas in YELLOW shardplate?? who is he?

Also, ngl, I’m a lil pissed that I still have to deal with Sadeas--even if it’s young, not-quite-so-vile Sadeas. Like......he’s dead! I shouldn’t have to put up with his slimy face anymore!

“What would we do without you?” “Lose.” What an asshole. What a dudebro. I hate how much I love him.

the Thrill concerns me, tbh.

I know that we know it is of Odium, but like. It Concerns me.

THAT WAS QUICK

THE EVERSTORM TURNAROUND??? THAT WAS DISTRESSINGLY QUICK?

I’m sad Dalinar doesn’t get a little spren buddy wandering around with him at all times, because, like. Stormfather. But like. spren buddy.

Now I’m trying to picture the vast and infinite Stormfather just flitting around Dalinar’s head in meetings and making faces at Syl across the table and laughing my ass off.

oh NO not her SAFEHAND

seriously, they. are. so. cute.

“Your stubborn refusal to get seduced is making me question my feminine wiles.” HAAAAHAHA OMG, DARLINGS PLEASE

also, Dalinar, omg, give it up already, bro.

I realize there are like...ecological and climatology implications of the Weepings stopping before they are supposed to, but I can’t help but be glad that Kaladin won’t be suffering for as long as he normally would with the seasonal depression...

WHAT! WAS! THE! BOON! ...unless this is the boon. Unless Dalinar asked for the Nightwatcher to take away the pain of losing his wife and instead she took away his wife... and his punishment is something else.

in which case WHAT! WAS! THE! PUNISHMENT!

“I’d let a confused dishwasher marry us.” I realized belatedly that she meant, like...a person who washes dishes. And not a machine that washes dishes that most people on earth have in their kitchens.

Also, Dalinar and Navani really need to please stop being so adorable, I’m SO HAPPY THEY’RE GETTIN MARRIED AND THE FRIKKIN STORMFATHER IS GONNA OFFICIATE THAT’S HILARIOUS I LOVE THEM

I LOVE THAT THE WEDDING IS LIKE... HIM AND NAVANI AND THE BOYS AND SHALLAN AND A FEW OTHER MINIONS. THIS IS DELIGHTFUL. I LOVE THIS

THERE IS NOTHING ABOUT THIS I DISLIKE

Bridge Four is too important for guard duty! They’re so important! They’ve come so far!!!! I LOVE THEM!!??

she just had a wedding dress just... lying around.

god I LOVE HER SO MUCH!!!

...poor Elhokar. “if only we could keep up.” boy has no confidence and no chance to learn it.

NAVANI’S FRIKKIN GLORYSPREN OMG

“What does he remember that I cannot?” Uh...your other wife, my dude. I’m sure this has something to do with how your wife died.

AAHH. HERE HE IS!!!! THE BOY!!!!! MY BOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

nooooo. no, kaladin please. you didn’t fail. oh god, no, come on. don’t think like that.

I’m

aaahhhhh

“It felt wrong not to bear the symbol of Bridge Four.” AAAHHHHHHH

I’M

!!!!!!!!!

I’m JUST NOT OKAY

aahh, at least he was properly concerned about the Everstorm filling his spheres with...bad stuff? of some kind? I’m super glad that it didn’t, that it doesn’t, but like. At least he was concerned about it!

hello fronds, I love Syl a LOT

also: covered safehand, that’s hilarious. She’s a real grown up, now!

nooooooooooo

it can’t be all dead

they have to have

someone has to have been smart enough to get a large part of the town into shelter

Kaladin, your dad isn’t stupid, he would have. he would have tried.

(this would be way, way more distressing if I hadn’t been spoiled for the fact that Lirin and Hesina are alive...like...I’d probably be crying right now.)

“How often are you going to make me apologize for that?” Pfffft I mean.

HE GREW UP AND THEY DON’T RECOGNIZE HIM AND I’M

AAAHHH

“Are there wounded” and he just GOES because that’s where his dad would be and he just . goes. to his dad.

I’m crying?

THEY’RE CRYING I’M CRYING EVERYONE IS CRYING

THEY THOUGHT HE WAS DEAD AMARAM FUCKING TOLD THEM HE WAS DEAD AND I’M

THEY’RE

“MY SON IS ALIVE” YEAH HE IS AND HE’S AMAZING AND YOU’RE GONNA BE PROUD OF HIM OH

I’M

AAHHHHHH

I really hate Amaram. A lot.

his mom is a good. and she just keeps her hand on his shoulder like protectiveness and like reassurance that he’s still there and I’m. aaaAAAHH

“For now, he just wanted to be here with them.” GOOD. LET THE BOY REST. LET HIM EAT SOUP AND REST.

“The wrong-way highstorm” I mean...not wrong

“They never got to meet Captain Kaladin” aaAAHHH

I HAVE A LOT OF EMOTIONS ABOUT INCARNATIONS OF HUMANS AND I’M

this is a lot

LIRIN OFFERING TO BUY THE WRIT OF SLAVERY IS A LOT I’M JUST

crying

“Perhaps it was time to stop letting the rain dictate his mood. He couldn’t banish the seed of darkness inside him, but Stormfather, he didn’t need to let it rule him either.”

I...have a lot of feelings about Kaladin.

And I have a lot of feelings about how Kaladin and his depression interact and about how he deals with it. And how he’s seen the worst in himself and promised to never let it get that bad again. And how he’s seen that even though it’s a part of himself that he has to keep fighting, keep dealing with, keep understanding, it doesn’t have to be the only thing in him, the only thing in his life, the only part of him that matters. He can have other parts, other important bits of him and his personality. He might always have bad days, but that doesn’t have to be the majority of them. Not if he chooses to be stronger, to try to get better. There’s always going to be depression, but that doesn’t mean he can’t be other things.

It took me a longass time to come to that same realization and I just...am really, really... proud of him? and of myself? and of anyone who has depression who thinks the same way we do? and though I’ve found it to be a smidge disconcerting to have your own personal thought processes spelled out on paper by someone who isn’t you, there’s a comfort in that...I’m not the only one who feels like this, who has these ideas, who makes these decisions about my depression.

Anyway, I really, really love Kaladin and I’m. emotional . and I’m. “He didn’t need to let it rule him either.” No. We don’t. We can deal.

ANYWAY I’M EMOTIONAL ABOUT KALADIN AND IN OTHER NEWS WATER IS WET, FIRE IS HOT, AND THE WORLD IS ROUND.

WAIT. Did Syl.....was she aiming for someone else? “distant yet demanding”. Who else...was she gonna bond with. before Kaladin? My first instinct is Tien, but that...doesn’t fit. One of his men? in his squad? Or before that, Hesina maybe? I’m? ...surely not Lirin...... he’s not. enough.

god, his first thought is that Adolin would be disappointed in fashion heheheheh I love these boys. becoming friends. maybe. hopefully.

KAL PUNCHING ROSHONE IS A++ 100% GRADE A GOOD SHIT

GOD BLESS

AAAAAAHHHHHHH

“That was for my friend Moash” I’M!!!!!!!!!!!! EMOTIONAL!!!! ABOUT MY BOYS!!! AND THEIR FRIENDSHIP!!!!! PERSISTING EVEN THOUGH BAD DECISIONS!!!!

Kaladin’s stubborn refusal to give up on people is. A Lot. EVeRYTHING IS A LOT. THIS IS A LOT

“and for the first time in a long, long while, he was happy with that person.” THAT’S CAUSE YOU’RE A GOOD PERSON THE BEST PERSON AAAHHH

SUMMONING SYL AND “ANY QUESTIONS” AND OHHH MY GOD. that shit’s hot. I’m. hhnnnggggggg

“until he had enough stormlight to fly home.” home. I mean, we knew that “home” wasn’t Hearthstone anymore, but. Dalinar is home. The warcamps, Urithuru. Bridge Four. I...I am so proud of how far Kaladin has come.

“I don’t like the idea of swinging you around, smashing you into things.” “Firstly, I don’t smash into things. I am an elegant and graceful weapon.” HI, I LOVE SYL A LOT

GET IT, LARAL

HECK YE

“That’s a girl I was never going to marry, no matter what happened.” “I like her.” “You would.” I LIKE HER TOO SHE’S STRONG AND CAPABEL AND DON’T NEED NO MAN. GET IT, GIIIRRLL!!!!

I love that Roshar has a Hippocratic oath equivalent. I also have mixed feelings on Lirin’s incredibly strict adherence to his Hippocratic oath equivalent. like..yeah, Do No Harm is one thing. But being self-righteous about it to the point of not wanting your son to fight evil monsters from the void? Take a chill pill, my dude.

NAVANI SPANREEDING HIM PERSONALLY IS A LOT

also, I really have strong feelings about Dalinar generally addressing Kaladin as “soldier” and the responding “Sir.” I know they had a long talk about chain of command, but it’s just. so satisfying that it’s still going.

“Send us a glyph each evening to know you are safe.” GOOD DAD IS WORRIED ABOUT HIS SON AND I’M EMOTIONAL

AAAHHHHH HIS VERY FIRST INSTINCT IS TO HOLD HIS BABY BROTHER I’M!!! KALADIN IS SO GOOD AND LOVING AND WONDERFUL!!!

guys, I don’t know if you know this about me, but I really love Kaladin.

guys, I don’t know if you know this about me, bUT I REALLY LOVE KALADIN.

#op #Megan reads OB #Oathbringer spoilers #Stormlight Archive #Oathbringer #Brandon Sanderson #ladyknightliveblogs #I knoooow I should probs put it on the liveblog blog bUT! All the other Sanderson liveblogs are on this blog and also I'm lazy #so they're going here #and I'll reblog them to the liveblog blog for organization later #it's fine

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tattooedsiren · 7 years

Text

affixed to you (harvey/mike)

AN: written for the suits100 fest where my prompt was: tattoos. also available on AO3.

Mike gets the tattoo the day before his twenty-second birthday.

It’s been a rough year. Turning twenty one was such a milestone, and yet it felt completely hollow. His parents’ absence was always obvious during big events in his life, but it felt even more glaring when he blew out the twenty one candles on the cake Grammy had made. Maybe it was due to the impending ten year anniversary of their deaths. Probably it was exacerbated by the weight of Grammy’s disappointment, not only in him getting kicked out of school, but for not getting back on his feet in any viable or respectable way.

In short, his twenty first birthday is not the joyous occasion it should’ve been.

He tries to sort out his life, and manages to find a job as a bike messenger. It’s not pre-law, but it’s something, and Grammy’s extreme enthusiasm for the prospect when he tells her about it makes it all worth it. He tries to bury himself in the work, taking as many shifts as he can, pushing his body to the limit of exhaustion, all to try and distract himself from the ache he gets in his chest when he thinks about his parents. Which he does, with more regularity than usual.

When the anniversary of their deaths arrives Mike calls in sick to work and spends the day holed up in his bedroom, poring over old photo albums, the last tangible piece of his parents’ lives. When he moved in with Grammy into her tiny Brooklyn apartment, Grammy packed up his parents’ house and either sold or donated all of their belongings. He didn’t think much of it at the time, but now with hindsight he can understand the inclination. There wasn’t anywhere for her to keep a life’s worth of belongings, and even if there were it would’ve been too painful to keep everything around. But still, he wishes he had more, something he could hold in his hands and know it was something his parents had held in theirs.

He finally emerges some time after dinnertime has come and gone. Grammy doesn’t say anything. She herself looks drawn and pale, but she tries to give him a weak smile. His attempt at returning it isn’t successful, but she doesn’t seem to mind. Instead she heads over to the kitchen, and, of all things, cuts him a piece of mud cake. It’s ridiculous, because cakes should be for celebrating and not mourning, but it’s Grammy’s go-to for baking and she probably needed something to do today.

Grammy places two plates of cake on the small table, and when Mike crosses the room to sit down Grammy putters over to the old CD player tucked away in the bookshelf and puts on a CD. They sit together and silently eat cake as his parents’ favourite album plays around them.

Though the music isn’t something he would’ve discovered on his own - it was a cult classic album put out a good six or seven years before he was born - he knows it better than he knows his own Metallica and Arcade Fire albums. James and Nina Ross loved music, it was always playing in their house, and this was an album that had high rotation. Mike listens, memories of hot summer days dancing around the house with his mom and curled up on the couch reading with his dad washing over him.

And suddenly, he knows what he wants to do.

Mike’s personal favourite song from the album is called Summer Sun. It somehow has always made him warm and comforted, and given him a sense of belonging, of being in the exact right place at the exact right time. So he finds the sheet music online and takes it to a local tattoo parlor.

They discuss size and placement and cost and book an appointment for the following month. Mike doesn’t feel nervous or uncertain. In fact, he feels settled for the first time in months. It’s like having some kind of permanent marker for his parents is allowing him the freedom to let go.

His tattoo artist prints up the stencil and carefully places it on Mike’s skin. He’s getting it low on his left ribcage, close to his heart. He chose the music from his favourite lyric, and after a quick debate with his tattoo artist decided to keep the staff lines in. It isn’t long, just over half a dozen notes, and the length wraps around his rib nicely. Getting the tattoo hurts, a lot, and yet somehow it’s not as painful as he’d feared; his mind had conjured the idea of pain so unbearable that the reality isn’t anywhere near as bad.

It doesn’t take long, and his artist wraps it up and goes through the aftercare procedure and when Mike leaves he feels more connected to his parents than he has in years.

“Did I ever tell you about my dad?”

“I think you know the answer to that question.”

So Harvey does. He tells Mike that his dad was a musician, a saxophone player, and that he played with all the greats because they all loved him.

Mike may be too stoned to react, but he isn’t too stoned to realize.

It was five years ago now but he remembers. He remembers looking up the sheet music when he was planning his tattoo. He remembers seeing lyrics by Riley Ellis, music by Gordon Specter in the top right hand corner. He even remembers meeting Harvey and being amused by the coincidence of the surname.

But it’s not a coincidence. It can’t be. Harvey’s dad wrote the notes that Mike has permanently marked on his skin.

Still, just to be sure, Mike asks the question. They’ve gone to Pearson Hardman to pee in Louis’ office, but then are distracted by can openers and memos and uncovering a conspiracy that somehow neither of them saw when they were sober. Dawn is starting to break, and the high is starting to wear off, and Mike thinks that if he doesn’t ask this now he’ll never find the courage again. So he says Harvey’s name and asks, “So, your dad, would I know any of his music?”

“Depends on how into 70s and 80s jazz you are,” Harvey grins. He stands from the sofa and heads to the wall of records that suddenly make so much more sense in Mike’s mind. Mike stands, follows, as he’s been doing from the moment they met.

Harvey starts pulling out records, a frankly astonishing number. Harvey will tell him which songs Gordon performed on, which records have songs that he wrote, which artists were his dad’s favorite to work with. Mike listens with rapt attention, and doesn’t even flinch when Harvey pulls out a record that Mike has seen a hundred times before. Granted, his parents had their copy on tape, and his Grammy had bought the CD version when it became available, and now Mike plays it on his iPhone, but the artwork is the same, has followed the music through all its iterations.

It’s not a coincidence. Harvey and Mike were connected in an ethereal way long before they ever met. The knowledge warms inside him, the first moment of comfort he’s had since that terrible moment when Rachel told him about Grammy and his world came crashing down around him. He would never admit it out loud, but he’d always felt there was something between him and Harvey - call it what you will; a spark, a connection - that went beyond the ordinary. He would never call it fate, because that was an ideal too grandiose for him to consider. It’s just, he’s always felt like he and Harvey were meant to find each other.

Maybe this is the universe’s way of telling him that he’s right. That he and Harvey are meant to be in each other's lives.

He thinks about telling Harvey, but the day before had been too heavy and the night before had been too light and he doesn’t know where this piece of information fits in. It just doesn’t feel like the right moment, not now, when he’s still so thick with grief. When he tells Harvey he wants it to be about them, and them alone. So he bites his tongue and hopes that soon the day will come when the moment feels right.

Mike has felt this thing between them building for so long he couldn’t even say when it started.

Maybe it was when he broke up with Rachel and spent a week living on Harvey’s couch. Perhaps it was when he went to prison and Harvey spent every waking moment trying to get him out again. It could have been the first time he was arrested and refused to give Harvey up. Maybe it was when his Grammy died and Harvey was the one person who knew how to give him exactly what he needed. Maybe it was him helping Harvey in the Clifford Danner case or Harvey paying for his rookie dinner or one of a thousand other moments.

Or maybe, just maybe, it was from the moment Mike stumbled into Harvey’s hotel room and bluffed his way into a job he had no right to have.

But whenever it started, it was all leading to this.

Mike tentatively reaches over, his fingertips light on Harvey’s skin as he gently cups his face. Harvey’s lips quirk into a smile which looks equal parts nervous and encouraging, so Mike inches forward, ever so slowly. Harvey meets him halfway and their mouths press together in a gentle kiss.

Mike had never allowed himself to think of this possibility too often, but when he had, when he indulged in the fantasy of Harvey actually returning his feelings, of one of them making a move, it was nothing like this. He’d imagined heat and urgency, an almost aggressive coupling filled with desperation and burning need. He never considered this, this simmering want, the gentle tentativeness that comes with knowing that even so small an act could change everything.

They pull back just far enough to be able to look in each other’s eyes.

“I can’t believe that took us five years,” Mike whispers.

“I can’t believe it didn’t take us ten,” Harvey replies, voice soft but wondrous. And all Mike can do in reply is kiss him again.

Harvey’s hands wrap around his hips and pull him closer. The kiss deepens but doesn’t quicken, and Mike has the fleeting thought that this must be what heaven is like.

Mike doesn’t know how long they stand there, but eventually Harvey murmurs against Mike’s lips, “We should take this elsewhere.”

He’s right, they should, because darkened room or no they are still standing in the middle of Mike’s office where anyone could walk in on them. It’s not likely of course, since it’s nearing one in the morning, but still. This is something that Mike wants to keep to themselves, at least for the moment, and the last thing they need is someone discovering them and telling the world.

“Come home with me.” Harvey’s words may have been a statement but they were really a question. They also might have been more impressive back when they first met, when he and Harvey lived in different boroughs and Harvey would barely let him past the front door. Now they live but a block and a half from each other, and barely a week goes by without one of them knocking on the other’s door for the sole purpose of hanging out. Still, Mike feels a flutter in his stomach, nerves and anticipation and incredulity that this is actually really happening.

“Okay.”

The cab ride over is a blur. They make out like teenagers in the backseat, simply because they can, because they’ve waited years for this and they’re giddy and impatient with it. Despite the invitation to Harvey’s apartment Mike’s is actually closer, so that’s where they go. Their fingers tangle together as they cross the lobby, and when they are in the elevator Harvey crowds into Mike’s space in the corner of the car. He doesn’t kiss Mike though, just seems to revel in the proximity, the tip of his nose brushing along Mike’s cheekbone. It feels heady.

Harvey keeps his distance while Mike unlocks the door, but as soon as they’ve closed the door behind them they’re kissing as though their lives depend on it. Mike isn’t even embarrassed by the desperation. He wants Harvey more than he can say, more than he’s ever wanted anyone else, and there’s no way he could hide that fact even if he wanted to. But Harvey seems to be right there with him, trying to both push Mike’s jacket from his shoulders and pull his body closer by the hips, all at once.

“Bedroom,” Mike says against Harvey’s lips, and they move as one across the apartment, laughing as they trip over their own feet.

Mike pushes Harvey down onto the bed and then climbs into his lap. They fall back onto the soft mattress, Mike’s nimble fingers swiftly undoing Harvey’s tie and removing the material by throwing it across the room. Harvey’s shirt is next, and as he undoes each button he carefully kisses each newly exposed patch of skin. It’s a barely there touch that still has Harvey moaning, and Mike can’t wait to hear all the noises Harvey will make.

Mike fists his hands in Harvey’s shirt, sitting up and bringing Harvey with him, pushing the material off his shoulders and down his arms as they kiss. Once the shirt is gone Harvey gets his hands on Mike, cupping his face and kissing under his chin, down the column of his neck. Mike arches back to give him better access, and he’s so distracted by the delicious feeling of Harvey’s lips and tongue against his skin that for the first few seconds he doesn’t even notice. But then he realizes that Harvey has started to unbutton his shirt, and his hands fly to Harvey’s almost without his permission, fingers wrapping around Harvey’s hands, stilling him.

“You okay?” Harvey asks, looking up at him, breathless and beautiful. “Did I-?”

“No,” Mike hastens to assure him. “No, it wasn’t you. I just … I … it’s complicated.”

Mike’s instinct might’ve stopped Harvey, but now that his brain is focused on something other than the feeling of Harvey against him it’s become painfully clear why he stopped Harvey from removing his shirt.

Because once he did, he’d see the tattoo.

Mike hadn’t meant to keep it a secret all this time. It just never felt like the right moment to tell him. And then it got to the point where it felt like too much time had passed, where it felt less like he'd been keeping a secret and more like telling a lie. And he didn’t know how to tell Harvey after so long a silence.

He’d be lying if he said he hasn’t felt the weight of it over the years. It was so different to when they were pretending he was a real lawyer - at least then, the burden was shared. But Mike has been alone in this. Until now.

Harvey has dropped his hands onto the bed, leaning back on his palms in fake ease. He’s trying to look like he’s just giving Mike space, but Mike knows Harvey too well now, can read his expressions like a book, can see the hurt and confusion and worry buried beneath the surface. He thinks Mike’s confused about them, when nothing could be further from the truth.

“Harvey,” Mike says softly. “You have to know how much I want this. How much I want you. I’ve been in love with you for … well, a long time.”

Harvey’s face becomes soft with affection. “Yeah? Me too.”

“It’s just … there’s something I’ve never told you.”

Harvey looks intrigued but non-judgemental. Mike takes a deep breath.

“How do you feel about tattoos?”

“Depends,” Harvey says, eyebrows quirking. “You don’t have a tattoo of Trevor’s face or anything, do you?”

The image startles a laugh out of Mike. “No, definitely not.”

Harvey nods. “Okay, so, are you embarrassed by it or something?”

“No. Quite the opposite in fact,” Mike says earnestly.

Harvey’s confusion is obvious, and Mike thinks they’re just gonna end up talking in circles about it, so he has to decide here and now if he’s ready. If he can finally tell Harvey about his tattoo. But looking into Harvey’s warm eyes, seeing the trust and love shining there, Mike can’t believe that this will go badly.

He presses a tender kiss to Harvey’s lips, lingering for just a moment, before he slips off Harvey’s lap, standing beside the bed. It feels ridiculous to start undressing while he still has his shoes on, so he toes them off first. His tie, already loose around his neck, is easily discarded. He can’t help but keep his eyes fixed on Harvey’s as he unbuttons his shirt. He isn’t trying to make it sexy, but he can’t deny the heat that floods between them. The buttons pop undone but he doesn’t open his shirt, just lets it sit loosely on his form, a sliver of skin down his torso showing between the crisp white material.

Mike takes an aborted step forward, noticing that Harvey still has his shoes on, and decides that turnabout is fair play. Harvey has given him plenty of shit over the years about his outfits and his inability to act like an adult, so Mike very deliberately lets his gaze travel down to Harvey’s feet, raising his eyebrows at him.

Harvey chuckles. “Really? After all this time you finally start to care about decorum?” But he takes his shoes off. In fact, he also takes his socks off with exaggerated flair. Mike grins at him, but then Harvey is sliding back on the bed in obvious invitation. Mike doesn’t hesitate, crawling over him and meeting his mouth in a searing kiss.

For all their talk about the hidden tattoo, Harvey doesn’t seem particularly eager to see it. His palm glides over Mike’s skin, the touch somehow both delicate and assured, but he doesn’t remove Mike’s shirt or break the kiss to look at it. Mike’s feels put at ease, some of the tension pouring out of his body, to the point where he collapses on top of Harvey, the length of their bodies touching. Mike starts to roll his hips, pulling a moan from the base of Harvey’s throat that sounds like heaven. Harvey gets a leg over Mike’s hip, pressing them even closer.

“God, you feel good,” Mike murmurs against his mouth.

Harvey rolls them over easily, sliding his mouth down Mike’s neck. He continues onwards, kissing down the center of his chest, the flat of his stomach. Mike arches up beneath him, getting a hand in Harvey’s hair. Harvey swirls a tongue around Mike’s nipple, a surprised gasp easily turning into a low moan as Harvey takes him apart.

And then, nothing. Stillness. Mike opens his eyes and sees Harvey, looking down at his chest where his shirt has fallen open, his eyes on the tattoo. It’s slightly faded and blurry compared to when he first got it, but on the whole it’s aged well. Mike watches as Harvey gingerly reaches over and runs his fingertips lightly over the marked skin.

“Do you … do you like it?” Mike asks tentatively. He feels like he can’t breathe.

“Yeah,” Harvey says slowly. “What’s it from?”

This is it. The moment Mike has been anticipating and dreading in equal measure. He takes a deep breath, tenderly cups Harvey’s face in his hand, guides Harvey’s attention to him. “Before I tell you, I need you to know that I’ve had it for ten years, long before we met.”

“Okay?” Harvey says, confused.

“It’s from one of your dad’s songs.”

The sudden stilling of Harvey’s fingers on his skin is the only reaction. Harvey is just looking at him, and every second that passes feels like an eternity. He looks down at the tattoo for a moment, and when he looks back he is wide eyed and wondrous. He opens his mouth but nothing comes out. He tries several times, to the point where in the end all they can do is laugh. It’s ridiculous, but it also breaks the tension slightly.

“I don’t - I have so many thoughts and questions I don’t know where to start,” Harvey admits.

“I got it when I was twenty one. It was my favourite song from my parents favourite album. It was to remember them. When you told me about your dad, that he was a musician, I knew it had to be the same person. And when I realized…” Mike trails off, wondering if he’s going too far by telling Harvey this. But then Harvey starts gently running his fingertips over the tattoo, a silent signal of support, and Mike remembers. He can tell Harvey anything. “When I realized it didn’t feel like oh that’s funny or that’s a cool coincidence. It was more like … of course. Of course Harvey’s dad wrote the music I carry around with me every moment of every day. Because from the moment we met I felt connected to you, like we were always meant to meet and be in each others’ lives. And this just confirmed it. I was meant to meet you, Harvey Specter.”

Harvey smiles softly, the kind that starts slow but soon takes over his whole face. “What song is it from?”

“Summer Sun.”

Harvey’s eyes widen, and then he laughs. He laughs so hard he rolls off Mike onto the soft bed beside him, and the reaction makes no sense to Mike but then he figures Harvey’s allowed to react however he needs. He shifts onto his side and waits Harvey out, and when Harvey is done, when his laughter peters out and he catches his breath, he simply cups a hand around Mike’s neck, leaning in and kissing him.

“I’ve always thought fate was just a form of coincidence. There’s no way it could be real. Even with everything that had to happen, to both of us, to get us into that room that day, I still couldn’t believe it. But this … now I’m a believer.”

Mike’s confused. It must be showing on his face, because Harvey smiles at him and says, “That song, those notes that you have tattooed on your skin, they were written for me.”

Now it’s Mike’s turn to be incredulous. “What?”

“Well, the story goes that when I was born, the first time my dad held me in his arms, he was so blinded by the love he felt that he turned to my mother and said, ‘It’s like looking into the sun.’”

“Awwww.”

Harvey levels a look at Mike but continues. “I was born in summer, on the summer solstice actually, so he started calling me his summer sun. He thought it was hilarious because people couldn’t tell if he was calling me sun with a ‘u’ or son with an ‘o’.”

Mike grins. “That’s such a dad joke. I love it.”

“Yeah, he did too. So apparently when I was a baby there was nothing I loved more than listening to my dad play music. His instrument of choice was saxophone, but he also dabbled in piano and guitar. And he liked to write melodies, even though he was more revered for his playing skills. I was always asking him to play for me, which he did, and one day he took it a step further and wrote me a song. I was about three years old and he called it Summer Sun. It wasn’t meant to be heard by anyone else, but then, a few years later, Riley Ellis was over and she heard it. I wasn’t well and my dad was playing it for me to cheer me up. A month later she came back to the house with a handwritten page of lyrics, and the rest is history.”

Mike can’t think. His brain, incredible and unstoppable machine that it is, simply can’t process this. He doesn’t know why, but learning that the song was written about Harvey feels even more amazing than the initial revelation of realizing Harvey’s dad had written the musical notes he has indelibly tattooed on his skin.

“I don’t know what to say,” Mike admits softly.

Harvey nods knowingly. Mike looks at Harvey through new eyes. It really had just felt like a nice idea, like it was a funny coincidence they could assign deeper meaning whenever they were feeling sentimental. But now, now it feels real. Now it feels like fate.

Mike reaches over and lightly cups Harvey’s face. “I really was meant to find you,” he whispers.

“And I’m so thankful that you did,” Harvey replies, tilting his head and pressing a kiss to Mike’s palm.

It’s so easy to lean forward and kiss Harvey then. So he does, falling back onto the mattress when Harvey presses forward. And then Harvey breaks their kiss, ducking his head and pressing his lips to Mike’s ribs, right where the tattoo is.

Mike believes in fate now - how could he not? - but that didn’t make life easier. He knows that, as much as he loves Harvey, life isn’t perfect and there will be bad times ahead. But he also knows that the good times will far outweigh the bad. And whenever he has any doubts, all he needs to do is look down and see Harvey written across his heart. Because even though Mike’s tattoo didn’t bring them together and it certainly wouldn’t keep them together, it was going to be an amazing reminder that no matter what, good times and bad, sickness and health, they were destined to meet. And they belong together.

#suits100fanwork #harvey x mike #mike x harvey #suits #suitsusa #otp #i ship therefore i am #my fics

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heatherrdavis1 · 4 years

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Cardano Vs. Ethereum Who Will Dominate Crypto? Predictions Beyond Price

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to the show, everyone, it’s the Krypto, like I’m super excited to have on today, Forest from the YouTube channel has show she Forest Hills Kalmen It’s Gehlen living the dream. I’m happy to be here. Happy to have you on. We’re gonna be talking about Cardno today. So I know a lot of Cardon’s fans out there that have wanted the Cardno conversation to have. So we talked about Cordona, the tests that the main net, the token velocity, the academic method. We also talk about a theory M and if Gardino can actually supplant a theorem and its current crown as the smart contract platform and a whole bunch of other fun stuff, that’s gonna be a great conversation. Right. And I think let’s just dig straight in here for us and have good talk about the test net that we see actually running currently for Hard-On. And of course, the main net coming at some point in the future. You know, we’ve seen so many delays with many cryptocurrency projects, obviously. But what are your thoughts on the test? That is the test net going well and the speculation. When do you think we’re gonna see that main net coming out? Those are great questions. And I think you’ve seen, you know, Iowa HCA and the whole team over there shying away from giving hard deadlines because of how many times they’ve done that. And then we’ve missed them, which is fine. I think it’s probably an OK approach. The tests then, I think has gone really well, incentivize tests that that’s running with the sheli stake pools and such. I think getting if I remember their numbers correctly, we’re getting close to about a thousand staple’s in operation, which is pretty significant considering these are run by people, you know, close to the projects, I’m sure. But there are a lot of random people that just picked it up and thought it was cool and started setting up the state pools. So if you get that type of, you know, participation in the main net release, that’ll be a quite, quite good thing to see in terms of the maisonette release time and the release date. I mean, I am I know as as well as anyone else that I don’t know. But the reality is they have the Genesis block set up for their high school, which is the real implementation. I think the release candidate running sort of in like a private test net right now. So that means that the sheli code is running and it’s operating and they have the chain running. So hopefully we’ll see a public test net and then within two weeks after that, we’ll have a main net release for Sheli, which my estimate. Towards the end of June, early July, I think we’re going to see that happen. That would be very exciting to see the main that actually come out. It’s been such a long time and I first as a I first bought Cardno tokens, the ADA ADA tokens back in. Gosh, must’ve been either October or November of 2017. And so it was it’s been a long hold waiting for the main net to come out. Right. It’s. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they take the they take the slow road to implementing and delivering this stuff. And I’ve said on a lot of different, you know, and a lot of different instances that that approach, which is not bad, you know, it’s a lot of times you get one shot at making these types of deployments and pushing out. And you may not if you make a mistake and it doesn’t work well or things get hacked or it’s not secure or people don’t use it, then all that work is for nothing. So you want to make sure that everything is is ready to go. Yeah, I think that’s something that a lot of investors get very frustrated with is how slow things can move sometimes. And you have to realize what’s actually being developed when you look at something like Cardno. Right. We look at the challenges that a theorem is going through right now to actually influence some of the things that Cardon’s work in implementing at the moment. And it’s it’s massive in its scope and its technology. It takes time and it takes time to get it right. And like you said, there’s only a one chance to launch it correctly. And if you screw up only then that’s it. That’s safe. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry for playing. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks again. Bye. Yeah, for sure. I mean, people get shaken and especially when it, when it’s something so fundamental, like something that’s like a consensus protocol or it’s a brand new B net protocol implementation that people have to upgrade their wallets and it’s really not backwards compatible. You can’t just revert. People freak out if it’s not working properly. And so it’s important for it to work and a theorem is going through the same thing right now. They’re being noncommittal dates. They’re being you know, they’re working really hard on on ironing out bugs with proof of stake because it is not easy to make proof of stake secure. I don’t think people understand how. I guess fundamentally insecure proof of stake is in its raw format. There’s a lot that goes into that psychologically to make users do the things that you want them to do and not do the wrong thing, which is form cartels and coalitions and allow exchanges to dominate everything. Like it’s really hard, really hard. That’s you bring up some excellent points there. And we’ve seen this play out with some networks where it just becomes a small cartel of extremely rich token holders and they vote for each other to make sure they all stay in old power all the time. And that’s a very, very difficult thing. So in terms of, I guess, trying to talk your way out of such a situation, what are some things that a network can actually do to try to say, hey, we’re going to try to figure out a way for this to not happen? Right. To put the game mechanics in at a technology level where it will incentivize people to do what we want them to do? Absolutely. You have the weapon of choice is true randomness, which is really hard to achieve in computer science. And that’s why people fail. Just make, you know, like a random number generator, roll the dice. But those things can be gamed, as we’ve seen in, you know, a theorem. A lot of organizations and companies were building smart contracts for gambling or for, you know, just random games. Right, where they assigned a random person some sort of rights or privileges based on a pseudo random number. That’s, I guess, block height or block number. But it’s very predictable. If you’re a minor, you can guess that thing. You can figure out what it’s gonna be before it actually is. And so then that’s not actual randomness. It’s not true randomness. So they want to introduce that into the core protocols so that you don’t have predictability in terms of who is going to be the next block maker, who’s going to be a validator, who’s going to get access to which slot. You know, you’re gonna have a better chance if you have more ADA or in a theorems case, more ether locked up. But randomness is going to protect you from having that predictable cartel member sort of running the show. And that’s the number one thing. There is a lot there are a lot of levers that you can pull, but that’s the main one is randomness. Very, very interesting. No. One thing that I think is probably going to be most exciting for a lot of people out there is how the token economics are really going to change for Cardona when we actually see the main net coming out. Because right now, Catano is basically incentive from point A to point B. And that’s about it, right? There’s no staking there’s not really much else going on. There’s no applications using card on or anything at the moment. So what are your thoughts on how that token velocity is going to form up? Once we see the main net, go live and we actually see a wider array of people being able to access staking. Yeah, I mean, I think it’s hard to quantify in terms of what we will actually see. But fundamentally, this is the first time where ADA is going to be used for something. Other than transactions like you just said, you know, and not only that, this is an opportunity now for Ayda. Stakeholders’, I guess you can call them really, because you own. You believe and right now it’s speculative. You believe in where Catano is going now gives you the opportunity to actually contribute to the security of the network to contribute and earn rewards for doing that. In terms of locking up in a state pool or running a state pool, what what have you. And so you look at projects like Tasos, whose main use case right now and the main reason why it is so popular is because people are addicted to getting those rewards for baking. Their tansy’s right. They love it. And I think the same thing is going to happen in, you know, in the Catano world with ADA, even if in the short term you don’t see a ton of new utility utility in and of itself is going to be being able to stake an urn. People love that stuff. So I think it’s good news. People do like making money. And it’s it’s really interesting. When you’re talking earlier, I was thinking a lot of people have this. When they come into crypto currencies, they kind of don’t realize that crypto currencies are fundamentally different from something like stocks. Right. So in terms of everything, both in terms of technological development. Right. You’re actually looking at a giant computer network being developed that hopefully will get enough of a network effect, that it will be relevant in the future. Right. When you buy tokens for that, you’re hoping that these tokens will have value on that network in the future. But you don’t have a stake in the company. You don’t have equity necessarily in. You know, you even have the tokens. But there’s no that’s not necessarily worth a direct link to the company. Yeah, yeah, that’s exactly it. I think that for a lot of people speaking able to stake tokens really gives them that feeling like, okay, I’m really getting something for holding onto these tokens instead of just hopefully price go up in the future. So it’s pretty interesting. Yeah, go ahead. Like looking at it like utility, you know, it’s you’re investing in a commodity like the fuel for a network. And if the network itself does not have users or value and doesn’t solve a problem, that Tolkan is going to remain valueless. And so that’s the thing. Like, you’re not you’re so right. You’re not investing in a company or an organization because ideally, if it’s structured properly, that cryptocurrency should not be tied to that company and its existence. And if it is, you have a problem. Right. So I think it’s hard to to think that way because we’ve never had something like this. And most of our our lifetimes in terms of investing. In terms of solving a problem, is there? We look at Cardona, right? There’s so many black chains out there right now, you, Algren, Scott. There may not out. And there’s hash Graff and. And so many 300 more down the list. Do you think Cardona really has the chance to stand out? And if so, what is the innovations that you see that are going to make Cardno be that like, oh, this one’s really something special. This is so unique compared to the others that, you know, everyone’s got to flock to it and use it. Mm hmm. Yeah, I think the first benefit and the first innovation is almost a non-technical one. I think they started trying to solve the problems that came out of the first theory and implementation before a theorem did. And so I think that they were able to do a lot of research and start this like formally verified academic style research project that was redesigning. A better a theorem, right? And that was the whole idea behind Catano in the first place. And now they’re to the point where you said we’ve got to go and redo the virtual machine. That’s a big thing. We want to redo smart contract execution. That’s a game changer. I think that’s the biggest thing that people aren’t talking about is go again because everyone likes staking and everyone likes this. You know, making money thing. But their stuff with Pluto. They’re smart contract language and their new virtual machine that hopefully is going to come the end of this year. That’s the biggest win. And that’s the thing that’s going to set it apart from a theory. And because it’s a whole new deferent like tool set for developers to work with and hundreds of thousand strong Haskell developer community out there can easily jump right in and do stuff day one without having to learn a new language like solidity. It’s all going to feel at home for them. So that’s a big one. And if they missed out a little more and say, hey, we’re gonna go for all these really deterministic use cases like financial services. Right. Deterministic as same inputs, always get the same outputs. You like that in computer science again, because it’s predictable. If they reach down and go that route, I don’t see why they can’t take market share from a theory that’s starting to go in a totally different direction, which is like true DFI like no custodian’s. And like all these flash loan things, Cardon could slot in in the more like traditional finance sense where you have real entities playing in this space and running their financial services on a blocking network. I think that would be huge. When I think about all these different block chains, I think about what we’ve seen play out with social media. And maybe it’s not the best analogy, but, you know, Facebook is Facebook. Right. And no Facebook competitor has succeeded because Facebook already had the network effect when Twitter came out. Twitter was different from Facebook. So it was able to succeed because it found its own niche with Instagram was able to succeed because it found its own nation. All the competitors to Twitter have not done as well as Twitter because they’re only trying to recreate Twitter. And Twitter’s already got the network effects they’ve done scrammed, so on, so forth, then down the line. So I think what you mentioned there is just yeah, it’s it’s really got to find its own niche where it’s going to come in and say, hey, this is this is the thing that we do. Right. A theorem does that and that’s great. But we do this and we do it better than anyone else. But you see right now, for example, Tasos is kind of. Looking at that same kind of market, trying to get those financial services onboard with them, right. It’s going to be competitive. And I think that, you know, it is similar to social media in a sense. And I would say it’s even more similar to the early days of like software as a service. And these big products, like you have the escapee’s and oracles of the world where they built basically the same tools for the same reasons, with the same functionality. But did it slightly differently, integrate it differently and provide different tools? I think that’s where these protocols are going to be able to start differentiating themselves even within the same use case, each by saying we’re going to focus on the end consumer and we’re going to have, you know, pre-built adapters for mobile applications so end users can actually use this stuff without, you know, whatever company you are doing this from scratch. And then the others going to say, well, we’re going to focus on enterprise and just link up with all the backend. Enterprise software is like SICP and Oracle and Salesforce and all that sort of stuff. You know, there’s some opportunity now for these protocols to start targeting specific business niches and also technicians that they can pull some market share from. Whereas a theorem is very much like we’re just a protocol. Build what you want with it. And if it’s cool, we’ll tweet about it. Kitto and then that’s the amorphous blob. We’ll take it all. Yeah. You know, it’s a theorem is very much like the true a theorem reminds me of the Linux community. Like it. Linux never took over the entire world, but there was a lot of stuff that Linux just dominates on like as an operating system. And I think a theorem is kind of slotting into that role here where it’s like we have the fundamental tech and we’re building and growing. And it hasn’t always worked perfectly, but we figured it out and people are gonna be building with it for years to come. And then because so many other protocols have taken from a theorem in terms of their concept, then you’re gonna have. OK. We built our product on a theorem. Now let’s find our niche block chain protocol. That’s the card on the Tesla’s the whatever. They’re gonna find their way there for their specific. Use case and needs. That’s my vision. I may be totally wrong, but who knows? We’re just the thought about cryptocurrency. I mean, you know, it’s let’s keep some of the fray. I want to keep a mind out there. Something interesting you brought up, too, that I wanted to expand on all the more is actually the idea of, you know, the different coding languages and things like this. And it’s like you said, you get really excited about the idea, want to make money, get rewards. Right. But your rewards will be worth nothing because you’re getting paid in a cryptocurrency for that staking. And I’ve talked about this with different stake networks. Yeah, it’s great if you get, you know, 15 percent or whatever five percent on this random cryptocurrency, but nobody wants it to sell you worthless as zero value. There’s no reason feel forgotten by this cryptocurrency, whereas with actually seeing things developed on it that creates token velocity that actually people wants to buy this, to build things, to use applications and all these different things. And, you know, it’s interesting because Cardon’s chose to use Haskell. Right. Yes. And so that already had a developer community behind it. But what we’ve seen with Theory I and it’s this kind of that where the question’s going is we’ve seen solidity become a big, you know, language in terms of development. And so more and more people have been learning solidity and moving onboard with that. And actually the theory M Web assembly update whenever that happens. Yeah. A couple of years up. The years probably. But that’s going to introduce some new coding languages as well. So the I think C and C++ and maybe Reisen. Viter. Yes. So there you go. So there you go. So that that’s going to make a theorem essentially much more competitive. And then it almost seemed that Adorno is the the weird knish guy is only using Haskell, whereas, you know, theorems going to have all these languages available. Yeah. I mean, I think that, again, if you have a competent virtual machine team, you can integrate new scripting languages like, you know, you have a on it, which is now rebranded to something else. But they they want the Java root and said we’re gonna take advantage of the millions of Java developers that are out there and netsch down. I think in that regard, it’s an okay move for a smaller network that has less going for it. Because if you target one group of people, it’s very likely you can get them to build stuff and then you can expand from there. Whereas a theory now is limited by people who just hate solidity and don’t want to touch it. You know, I follow codes and that’s my day job. That’s what I do every day, like every day. And, you know, I love it and I hate it at the same time because you can build a lot with it. It’s cool. It’s grown like exponentially. It’s so much better than it used to be. And the tools are bar none that better than any other network out there for for building things on a theorem. And that’s why people stay. But. From an operations perspective, when you go to actually ship it and you actually go to put it into main net or production, as we like to say. That’s when you start to lose sleep because you’re like, I know that the code works. I know that it looks right. And we maybe even gotten it audited by a third party who is like a master with solidity. And it can still get broken. It can still get hacked because there are just trapdoors that you can’t see and you can’t find. And then someone finds that you’re like, oh, well, now we know, you know. But at that point, it’s too late. And you see, this would defy, you know. Taylor Monahan. I mean, she’s always talking about this stuff like what how when are we going to learn that nothing is on hackable in the first place? And it’s even less. It’s even more true now when we’re talking about solidity and the stuff that’s going out there live where your code is basically public. You know, it’s it’s something people need to think about. Oh, absolutely. Especially with decentralised finance. You have to realize that there are lots of risks remain. I saw a story the other day, I think was a platform called Hedgcock. And basically they had had their code audited. So they had thought that everything was OK. But actually, the code auditors missed an S on one of the lines of code. And that meant that there was a bug that basically when certain options expired, that thirty thousand dollars worth of a theorem is now gone forever. So it’s just locked away and like some wallet that you no longer have access to. Yeah. I mean, even if you’re doing like absolute just with information, like it’s a good data like digital identity storage or something like that, you know, it’s not money, but people still get pissed off if it breaks because that’s their information. Now, that doesn’t work, you know. And so it’s important across the board for these things to get found out. And it’s just not that easy. You know, it’s just not that easy. So, I mean, having a having a language, you know, I think of languages like Python and languages like Haskell, you know, why won’t dive deeply into text. So don’t worry. Don’t click away. But they’re like languages that give you some training wheels in terms of not giving you so much room to make stupid mistakes because it’s like their formal instructions. The computer knows what you want it to do already. You’re just kind of putting it in the right order and everything’s predictable. And, you know, it just makes sense. Whereas solidity is like this Wild West language. You can do basically anything, but you can also blow things up in a million different ways. Yeah. And we’ve seen that happen a lot of times. A lot of times. And I think the confusion that a lot of people think when they see these kind of bugs and different hacks and things happen is that it’s not a theory, em, that’s being hacked. I think a lot of you’ll hear all something lullabye theory. Um, like, no, it’s that was an application that, you know, developers came in, they built navigation on top of the theory of network. And, you know, they made a mistake when coding that. And it’s like you said, it’s because solidity offers more challenges for developers, whereas you had these more established languages, they use these more formal procedures to make mistakes like this less likely to happen. Yeah, the more freedom you have, the more likely you are to find yourself in a position where you have coated yourself into a corner and there is a bug in there because people use things differently than you’d ever imagine. You know, as you’re developing software, you and you know exactly what the use cases are, what the user should be doing. But then you give it to the user and there is a reason you have user acceptance. Testing is you have the user and they use it completely differently than you thought they would. And so then you have to go back to the drawing board and fix it. But unfortunately, it’s, you know, in a theory of mind and solidity and in all block change, for that matter, you don’t always have the native ability to upgrade your code and fix it. It’s it’s there and it’s there to stay. So. There you go. The next question I have here for you is a theorem has this commitment to get a million developers building on top of theory? Obviously, they’re quite away from that one. But it’s a nice idea, right, to try and really incentivize. Yes, exactly. I think what we do see Web assembly come out at some point in the future. That’s that will probably get even more people time. Shali on board. But the question I have for you is, do you think that a theorem has already won the network effect game? Will every other block chain, you know, whether be Cardon or Tasos or anyone else? Will they always be, you know, second fiddle to a theory? Ms. General awesomeness? Yeah, it’s a great question. I think a lot of it is going to depend on a given theorem like. Messes up with this ethereal 2.0 situation or Web assemblages. No shows or, you know, if something happens. We can’t predict that. Then I think there’s there’s a huge opening for other networks to come in. But I think it regardless, I think the future really does look like a theory and being an incubator for a lot of ideas because you can rapidly prototype and put something out and get people to use it because they have so many users, so many developers. And it’s way cheaper right now to hire a, you know, entry level solidity developer who’s taken some courses and they can get it started and then hire an auditor and really get it across the finish line than it is for you to sit there and not release your product and wait for one of these other protocols to catch up. You can launch a lot of companies are just launching it now, getting users and then later they can migrate. Know the lube network with crypto zombies. That game they started on a theory and they got a huge following. They built some great products and then they realized this doesn’t work for us. We know what we need. We’re gonna build our own thing. And they have the network now to help their game scale. And I think you’re going to see that same thing happen. People will still incubate on theory. They’ll get users, they’ll build it out, and then they’ll find a niche chain that has specific avenue and specific parameters that work for their app. And then that’s that’s what’ll happen. I think when it’s interesting that Bloom, because obviously we’re seeing a lot of different layer to innovation happening right now because a theorem is main chain, still quite limited. Right. It’s certainly working on a lot of things to try and make that better, obviously. But it’s limited, right? We’ve seen Isee K roll ups coming out, which have done a lot. That’s implemented now, that’s working. Now we see different solutions like a like Mattick and stuff as well. So to what extent do you think that Layer two is going to be really just totally game changing for all these crypto currencies and do what do you think about the tradeoffs between the security of a layer to versus doing things on the main chain? Yeah, I think the I think layer 2s are always sacrificing. You always sacrifice something. You know, it’s the same thing that I say about, you know, the block size to be and all that. It’s a given take. It’s not as simple as just flipping a switch. And now you’re more scalable. You’re giving up. The slowness that is the main chain, but the high security and finality that is the main chain for something faster. That’s on the layer, too. It’s also a wider attack surface. There’s more places where hackers and other malicious entities can go to mess something up and to steal stuff. So that’s another point. But I think layer two’s are always going to be around and they’re always going to be important for settling transactions of digital assets and of actual value. You know, whether that be cryptocurrency or whatever, whatever else. Fast between known entities where parties really trust and know each other. And then reconciling that in one transaction with multiple line items on chain. Getting that’s going to exist forever because quite frankly, it just doesn’t make sense to do that on chain all the time. So there will be more ways to do that securely. And I know lightning has gotten some flack, some of the implementations of lightning, because people think lightning is one thing. It’s actually like a bunch of things. It’s a bunch of different protocols and they’re all trying to do the same thing. You know, all of these have security flaws and issues that are going to have to get resolved before it’s ready for, you know, moving billions of dollars a year. And I think that’s a good point to bring up, is that it’s still so early for really everything in cryptocurrency, particularly layer two, scaling solutions. It’s there particularly new technologies. I mean, lightning has really only existed in a functional state for about a year and a half, approximately. I mean, all the layer to stuff we’re seeing coming out for a theory now, it’s six months old. If if even you know. So it’s really new technology for sure. Yeah, it’s it’s another layer pun intended of PROCOL Wars where you’re going to have a bunch of people that are trying to do the exact same thing and we might seize multiple survive and each serve different use cases, or we might find one that’s like the protocol that works with this block chain network and they survive. It’s really hard to say, but a lot of people are duking it out for layer two right now as well. Sure. And, of course, a theory. And when it gets sharding implemented, Sharding is expected to bring massive scalability to the theory am at the core layer, right at the base layer of the chain instead of having to go to layer two. So that would actually bring it up to the kind of levels where we could see real, you know, Ellman’s like visa kind of levels with really a very highly decentralized network. So I guess my final question here for you for today, ethereal 2.0, it’s coming at some point, right? Do you think that they’re going to be successful in their deployment of a theory 2.0? Do you think that we’re actually gonna see a delivery on all the promises of a Theorem 2.0? I think we’re going to see delivery on all the promises of a Theorem 2.0. I’m not sold or positive that we’re gonna see the delivery of these things on the timeline that people think we will. And I also think that the way that. Like the phase zero that’s going to happen where they launch a Theorem 2.0 officially in like July maybe is not a Theorem 2.0 like. And that’s it. It’s a Theorem 2.0 foundation. Like this is the core stuff. It’s the the main net network that runs with proof of stake. It’s the like the basis for the sharding technologies. But the rest of the stuff like including web assembly for the new virtual machine and including, you know, all the sharding, making a theorem stateless so that you don’t have to use a solid state drive to store the entire state of the theorems network like all this stuff. Not easy to build. Not easy to do. It’s gonna take time and. I hope people are ready to be patient on that, because I think it’ll it’ll come, but it’ll be a while. Personally. It’s a waiting game, guys waiting. Good, good, good. Tech doesn’t happen overnight. That’s for sure. I mean, look at all the people that have you have you have ether. And you know, or you have Ayda or whatever it like your. Of course, you want things to come out because you think it’s good for what you hold. I’ll tell you what’s really bad for what you hold is if they botch it and it blows up and it doesn’t work. Expect that to be worth nada. So you’d rather them do it right than do it fast? Just my two cents. That’s right. Well, I mean, I don’t know the market cap of a theorem is that right now it’s let’s throw a number out there, 20 billion dollars. If they break it and they they screw it up, that’s 20 billion dollars worth of lost value. Just Godling, I think, record on it. It’s that Cordona is probably what it two billion or something right now. Market cap. It’s a massive risk if they screw it up for sure. But I would argue the stakes are even like are exponentially higher for a theorem because if they, if they mess up and a theorem like people lose faith in a theorem and they yank ether that destroys every D.R.C. 20 project on planet Earth, some will survive because they’ll move somewhere else. But there’s a lot riding on a theory. I’m not messing this up. And that’s why it’s taken so long, because it’s already a hard problem as it is. But if they mess up, they destroy countless other companies. And I don’t think they want to do that. Obviously, that’s right. They would take a lot of people down with them if they had to. Yeah, so. Virus world, it’s the Wild West, it is that it really as Wild West out here in cryptos still, I think that’s just the main message hit home for people is that we’re still early. This tech is still largely experimental across a lot of the block chains. Like it’s it’s a process and we’re going through that. And that is, I guess, where the the economic opportunity lies is that you are getting in on these networks before they become mainstream. It’s like we’re, you know, the 90s for the Internet. Right. We still have all these new things coming out and things are going to fail. Things are going to break catastrophically in some cases, you know, so. Stay frosty one for us. Thank you so much for coming on, Mansmann. It’s been a great chat. Hope everyone really enjoyed it. Have more tech focused chat, talk about all these different things that I don’t it’s not. Well, and Charles, so awesome. Thanks so much for coming on. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. And hope everyone has a fantastic rest of your week’s last weekend. Thank you.

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scottmapess · 4 years

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Cardano Vs. Ethereum – Who Will Dominate Crypto? Predictions Beyond Price

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jeffrmayhugh · 4 years

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Cardano Vs. Ethereum – Who Will Dominate Crypto? Predictions Beyond Price

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cryptosharks1 · 4 years

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Cardano Vs. Ethereum – Who Will Dominate Crypto? Predictions Beyond Price

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theinquisitivej · 6 years

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The New Century Multiverse Reactions – Let Them Go: Episode 10, A Man’s Work & Episode 11, Preparations

You can listen to the full episodes here, and here.

After a brief hiatus, we are back! We’ll be looking at two episodes this time just so that we’re all caught up. Everything I’ve written is based on notes I took at the time, meaning nothing I write for Episode 10 is based on any knowledge of what happens in Episode 11. With that in mind, let’s dive right in.

Episode 10 – A Man’s Work

We pick up where we left off at the end of Episode 09, with Dawson just having slammed the front door on the two Barghest that attacked Aunt Cleo. The danger is certainly not over yet, however, as a quick, vicious scramble for the shotgun unfolds between Dawson and Rebecca. Each of the important motions and little developments in this tug-of-war are narrated in impressive detail, making this a memorable scrap. Dawson using the butt of the gun to hit Rebecca in the ribs and wrench the weapon away from her is odious, especially as the gun has gained the added significance of being Cleo’s final gift to Rebecca before she died. Dawson isn’t just exercising his toxic masculinity by acquiring undeserving control of the most vital weapon in the household, he’s taking something with personal meaning away from Rebecca. Oh, and before we move on, being told that Rebecca can hear Aunt Cleo being eaten was a twist of the knife. Not cool Alex.

A little detail that reinforces Dawson’s role as the unwavering sceptic who foolishly doesn’t place any stock in anyone’s opinion except his own is when Rebecca asserts that these attackers are suffering from Egyptian Rabies, and he rejects this and immediately goes for another drink of the brandy. Of course, his wound is getting to him, so he might be doing this to alleviate the pain. Nevertheless, it also comes across as Dawson instinctually turning to alcohol when he’s failing to cope with reality. This is emphasised when Rebecca suggests the Barghest might be spreading their infection to the people they assault, and she realises her “mistake in discussing the realities of this” with Dawson. Clearly, Dawson is not the person you want to be with when you’re dealing with harsh realities.

Sharon Shaw has done a great job bringing Rebecca to life throughout this whole series, but her vocal performance has gone from strength to strength over the course of this story. As she delivers Rebecca’s dialogue, you can feel the character’s determination and impressive reasoning as she takes in her surroundings and makes astute observations about their predicament and what the best course of action should be. However, you also feel how utterly shaken this experience has left Rebecca, with the full weight of what she’s lost coming through Sharon’s performance. At times, her voice shakes, sounding like Rebecca is moving ahead out of fear that she will collapse if she pauses for a moment. But when she needs to show Rebecca’s strength, she says her words with an iron resolve which tells you not only that Rebecca won’t back down, but she won’t give you a goddamn inch if you’re against her. The delivery of “Look at me. LOOK. AT. ME.” even made me stop in my tracks as I walked down the road listening to this episode. Sharon has played numerous strong female characters throughout New Century, and Mortimer being the slickest character in The Princess Thieves is almost entirely down to how she brought that character to life. Even so, this has undoubtedly been her best performance in New Century thus far.

After Rebecca takes a stand against Dawson and makes it clear there’s no way in hell he’s hurting Amanda, a long moment passes, and we observe Dawson’s exposed wound. What we see is reminiscent of what happened to Amanda, reminding the listener of the ticking clock before Dawson starts suffering from the same illness plaguing Amanda. They concoct a new plan together to hold out until daylight, when Dawson can leave and send transport to Rebecca and her sister. I have to say, as uneasy as this regained co-operation between the two of them is, I didn’t expect Dawson to actually back down and agree to Amanda’s plan, even if he does so begrudgingly.

When Rebecca sits against the bedroom door with Amanda on the other side, I was reminded of the way Frozen similarly depicted a bond between sisters and the distance between them when Anna and Elsa are on opposite sides of the same door. In this case, however, you’re not so much hoping that these sisters can reconnect and find happiness together but are instead unsettled and afraid of what Amanda is turning into on the other side of the door, painfully aware of the inevitable sad conclusion to this tale. Rebecca gets an obscured, unclear look inside the room through the keyhole, reflecting the incomplete picture she has of the true nature of what her sister is becoming. I have to commend Alex Shaw’s delivery of the narration, the picture the words create of the silhouette of Amanda and the only visible thing being the glint in her eyes, and the breathy, ethereally disconnected performance of Theo Leigh as Amanda. They all combine to make this section feel unbearably eerie.

The way Rebecca tearfully responds to Amanda’s seemingly incoherent babble and what she believes to be her descent into madness is an all too familiar pain for anyone who knows an elderly relative suffering from dementia, or indeed any illness that slowly erodes the person you once knew. It’s difficult enough to suddenly lose someone, but it’s another thing altogether when the person slowly fades away, and their identity becomes more and more fragmented. You’re haunted by the incomplete picture of their past self which this person has become. It’s a terrible thing, and this moment taps into that heartache.

As an ominous banging noise from below suggests that Dawson is up to something, we head downstairs with a feeling of awful trepidation.

The credits epilogue this time gives us a neat story about James Penrose, a character that newcomers will get to know later on in the series. The benefit of these mysterious epilogues is that they expand the world of this story without compromising Let Them Go’s intimate, claustrophobic setting. We get the impression that what is happening here is likely happening in many other places like this, or, if it hasn’t reached them yet, it soon will do.

Episode 11 – Preparations

I’m noticing that the chapters of Let Them Go often follow directly on from what came before, as this chapter begins with Rebecca reaching the bottom of the stairs to see Dawson hammering away at some barricades near the window, clearly in a manner which doesn’t fully block them, making his efforts futile. Starting the chapters like this keeps the momentum going, which makes me think that this story will be great to listen to or read all the way through once it’s all over. It will draw you in, and keep you immersed as you experience this one terrible night alongside these characters.

The sound design and narration as Rebecca reaches the cellar door to fetch the nails is very disconcerting, as they both capture that sense of dread you experience whenever you go to that dark, hidden area of your house you rarely visit. The “echo of her arm” is an imaginative description of the shadow cast by the flickering candle and conveys the paranoia you experience as you jump at your own shadows. The cellar itself is also an unsettling place, as it houses items connected to old memories which have since become rusted, broken, or consumed by the damp mould. It’s as if every positive memory associated with this place has become corrupted, even if they weren’t already by Timothy’s death.

When Rebecca returns to Dawson with the pitiful number of nails, she makes an excellent point when she says that there are too many windows to barricade with their limited resources. What’s more, with the Barghest howling to one another outside, Rebecca suggests that it may not be wise to carry on loudly hammering away when the attackers are potentially communicating to each other and could alert other Barghest to their presence. Her suggestion that they stop focusing on the barricades and focus on being more vigilant as they face the darkness together not only seems like a practical plan of action, but also invites comparison between this situation and the attitudes of people in the real world today. There are many who would far rather make an “infernal racket” as they put up walls to keep others out and focus only on clinging to what they have while their selfish actions actually end up bringing harm upon themselves and others. Rebecca represents the antidote to this kind of behaviour, being someone who takes the time to think and reflect on a bad situation and adapts her mind to the task of vigilance and readiness, not letting her fear drive all her choices and get the better of her.

However, just because Rebecca has a solid head on her shoulders doesn’t mean she’s invincible. In fact, Rebecca is in a very bad place right now. She’s looking after and protecting her little sister who is slowly losing herself and becoming something unfamiliar and uncomfortably frightening. At the same time, her one remaining source of help is Dawson, and he’s the last person you’d ever want to be in a locked room with in a stressful situation. Rebecca is clear thinking and has a talent for managing difficult things, but this is beyond what many people will ever face in their entire lifetimes. She is already being pushed to the limit; how much more can she take before she reaches a breaking point?

As we are let into Rebecca’s thoughts, Dawson makes a heartless, though reasonable enough observation that the Barghest will likely attack when hungry, and they’ve already eaten twice tonight. Rebecca carries on thinking about the nature of their attackers, recalling that one of the Barghest that killed Cleo looked like her housemaid. Thinking on how the infection spreads from person to person, Rebecca finally asks the question that many of us have been thinking since Amanda was first bitten – will she turn into one of them? And has she passed the infection on to Dawson? “What was inside had begun to manifest”. The penny has dropped, and Rebecca must find a way to deal with Dawson, who has been described as snarling and growling his words throughout these last two episodes, suggesting that the transformation might already be under way. Not only that, but Rebecca must ask herself the impossible question of whether Amanda can really be saved from this infection…

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