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cathartes-aura-shitposting · 8 months

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ARGONUS INFO: the other aeronoids

(NOTE: description copy-pasted from DA where i normally post my works. any context that is missing here on tumblr can be found on my DA [linked here and on pinned post] )

[this image is best viewed when opened in a new tab.]

AAAAAND like with the elkinets, i go more into detail about the other members of the order aeronoida.

the aeronoids are the other species of "living aircraft" on argonus. alot about their biology is similar, if not the same as the elkinet. if you want more details on that (and the elkinets themselves), look at this post here [tumblr edit: this leads to the DA post, not the tumblr one which you should be able to find via the search bar]. but, i'll go over the basics:

1-they're entirely biological, with the exception of their semi-mechanical engines.

2-sometimes there exist pygmy versions of them, usually due to lack of resources. a-however, pygmies tend to be more common due to purposely breeding them.

3-colorations is usually based of respective aircraft's, though can be almost anything. a-and like with the elkinets, there's only colors, patterns and markings.

4-hybrids can exist, and have similar statistics of getting a hybrid as the elkinets (primarily with size differences between the parents) a-however naturally speaking, it only exist within two parents of the same genus. b-there tends to be a higher chance for a hybrid for the other aeronoid species, regardless of the size difference.

[tumblr edit: most aeronoid groups are monotypic, consisting of a single genus, if not a super genus at the largest]

5-their engines are more resilient than a normal, non-living aircraft. they don't fly faster than 210mph. a-while on the topic of flight, aeronoids aren't always flying as their top speed. they only have their engines at full power for long enough to get sufficient air. after that, they lower the speed so that it's just enough to keep them in the air. b-however, there are two main groups that don't have engines, later on those.

6-they have a similar lifecycle to each other, though with varying degrees of each stages length. a-these lengths obviously vary depending on lifespan. 7- there are some foot variations with the other aeronoids, like their is with the elkinets a-however, these variations are usually either your standard anisodactyl feed or webbed feet. this is dependent more on the environment they've adapted for than it is the aircraft type.

8-they're around the same length as their real-life aircraft counterpart a-exact sizes vary between individuals and species b-some aeronoids, however, are smaller than their real-world counterparts now, before we can truly get into the four main groups of non-elkinets, we first have to go through the evolutionary tree first, so you get a good idea on who's related to who.

EVOLUTION AND BASIC TAXONOMY it all starts with the bird ancestor, a sort of stem-parrot, which may have looked similar to your average passerine, or maybe a bit like a mimicoot minus the crest and pseudoteeth. after all, on my post about the mimicoots [tumblr edit: also a link to a DA post], the tomium is purely convergent to the aeronoids. the superorder would then split into two groups: the mimicoot and the aeronoids.

there haven't been any clear fossils of an intermediate aeronoid (at least at time of posting, maybe i'll make one later), thought most people agree it may have looked like a weird theropect-bird hybrid. between the bird ancestor, the intermediate form and the basal aeronoid, a couple major things have happened: 1-the loss of feather covering the body 2-wings becoming more thicker and longer in the absence of flight feathers 3-the loss of the secondary eyes (the smaller bottom eyes that most vertebrates have) 4-the appearances of prop engines both on the back and on the wingtips.

after the intermediate form came the basal aeronoid, which looked like a theropect with an engine on it's back. it's guessed that this basal aeronoid uses all three engines to fly, though speculatively rather poorly. that didn't matter, though, since most aeronoids later down the line would develop better flight in there own unique ways.

the earliest group to branch off from the rest were a group that started using less of the engines in more favor of flapping their first forelimbs. these intermediate gliders would become the avibels, the aeronoids that returned to their flapping winged ways of their ancestor, minus feathers.

the next branch would lead to the theropects, which further developed their wing engines as their primary scource of flight, as well as re-evolving them as another set of "arms". however, before true theropects came along, another group close to them would split off and start using those arms more often than their original first forelimbs, causing those forelimbs to reduce in size. these aernoids would be the elkinet ancestor, as as they further developed their wings, not only did those vestigial arms completely disappear, but also the prop blades since they started using the actual wing itself to grab and manipulate object. this would eventually lead to the elkinet we all know and recognize. despite the multiple arms of multiplanes (biplanes, triplanes, ect), they're not a separate group as the elkinets. the multiple wings are more of a mutation that stuck around than something that was ancestral.

the final branchoff would lead to a quadrupedal aeronoid that had lost the prop engines on the wingtips in favor of the one on the back. one group would ditch the wings entirely and become the carnivoran-like stunits. the other, however, not only lost wings but also the engines entirely. what the intermediate "flightless" form looked like is also under debate, though it may have had small, vestigial wings and a heavily reduced engines. in any case, the aeronoid would instead opt for completely gliding and loosing powered flight, leading to them becoming the rodads.

alright, natural history lesson over, time to continue on.

most aeronoid species are relatively smart, and have been kept in captivity by both elkinets and later down the line humans. while most of them are really tame, some species have been fully domesticated. their reasoning for being kept by elkinet usually is companionship, though some secondary usages like hunting, transportation, eggs and meat are also common. in addition, their pygmy variation are also common due to intentional breeding. aeronoids tend to fill in similar niches to other existing animals. despite this, they rarely do ever go into direct competition with other animals of the same niche, probably due to argonus's size which allow the aeronoids to take over a niche of their own in certain areas.

ok, ok, NOW we can get into each individual (extant) groups of aeronoids.

THE STUNNITS (helicopters)

wild ranges: the stunits are found almost worldwide, but are most common in the temperate and lush habitats. they can also be found in civilizations as strays/ferals. general diet: most stunnits are generalist omnivores, but there are some variations to exactly what they eat. some of the smaller helicopters have a more carnivorous diet, as they'll hunt smaller animals and eat carrion as part of their diet. on the otherhand, some of the largest helicopter species are near-entirely herbivores, having plants as a main staple of their diet. captive stunits are usually fed their own diet-specific kibble, though with the more omnivorous / carnivores species some good grain-free dogfood have been used as a cheaper alternative. behavoir: most stunnits are social to some extent, at the very least they'll tolerate each other if food and water is plentiful. armed and attack helicopters have a more vulpine-like role, being carnivorous loners that only really get together to mate and raise young. larger helicopters have a more canid-like behavior. much like other aernoids, the stunnit's tail and prop blades can be an indicator of emotions. for example, their tails wag when happy or exited, or their props could twitch around to show frustration or annoyance. stunnits raise their young in the late spring. they'll create a shallow "nest" that's either loosely made of nesting materials or no nesting materials at all. the mother will lay about 3-5 eggs, and then both parents will protect the eggs until they hatch. the babies are precocial, meaning they're born in an advanced state to where they're able to walk, run and to some extent drink/eat on their own. the parents still have to protect them and feed them until they're truly ready to be on their own. stunnits, both in the wild and with feral colonies, have a set territory that that chase intruders off of. these fights rarely end in severe injuries/death. feral colonies tend to be less territorial. stunnits communicate with growls, howls and "groarks" (barking, but with a slight growling/roaring tone to it; best example i can give is the mane wolf's roar-barks).

additional stuff: the stunnits get the title of "man's best friend" of argonus, and it's no secret why. they're the aircraft analog to carnivorans, more specifically bears, canines and felines. most species have been kept in captivity and used for a variety of tasks, such as transportations, guarding, herding, hunting, pest control, ect. they have an actual full body. helicopters with a lattice tail (Like the bell 47 tail here) have an actual full tail, and like the cockpit/canopy the lattice rods are just extra ornaments. even with the skycrane, they're a more fuller body. just like their real-world counterparts, they're incredible fliers that can hover in places, as well as dive and make hairpin turns. when they fight in the air, most of it is just them chasing eachother around, maybe even pushing eachother a few time before one of them leaves. these fights usually dont last too and and almost always ends with both parties leaving with little to no injuries. most species of stunnits (excluding the mostly-herbivorous ones) have a serrated beak, which is good for cutting into their food whether that's be the flesh of an animals or the flesh of a watermelon.

THE AVIBELS (sailplanes and gliders)

wild ranges: they were originally found throughout the old world, more specifically nylus and sonias. however, thanks to the elkinets they can be found anywhere where there's civilization.

general diet: while the avibel are considered generalist omnivores, they're more in line with being an opportunistic carnivores and have at least 50% of their diet consist of meat. most of the meat they eat are usually animals smaller than them, with their favorites being rodents, lizards, frogs and fish. the plants they eats, on the otherhand, are often fruits, grains and seeds of various plants. they've also been known to have an incredibly strong sweet-tooth from time to time, having been known to raid maple buckets and beehives for the sweet, sugary treat insides. this sweet tooth is most common in the spring. avibels that are kept in captivity are typically content with eating a high-quality dogfood since most contain all the essential nutrients to keep the gliders happy. however, there do exist more specialized feed for avibels, especially for ones who want them to start producing more eggs. this feed usually contains a mixture of insects, dried meat, dried fruit and grains.

behavoir: the avibels are best described as being "bootleg crows". they have the intelligence just slightly under that of actual crows and ravens, able to learn and adapt to various environments. the avibels are very social animals and are commonly seen in small groups of 3-7 (Though larger groups do occur). they're monogamous and mate for life; if one partner dies, the other will become depressed and will refuse to mate with any other glider for a while (sometimes never). avibel are expert hunters, and can be seen actively hunting small animals and insects. these aeronoids have a decent vocal range. they made a wide variety of sound, usually consisting of hisses, screeches and "chirps", all reminiscent of various bird-of-prey. they'll also slam their tails on the ground to show anger and frustration (this is especially true to broody hens). when raising young, the two parents will create a nest usually under a tree or any other covered places. unlike alot of other aeronoids, baby avibel chicks (which they have 1-2 of) are born both blind and deaf for the first week or two, much like some bird species. the parents swap places and take turns caring for the babies until after two months when they're ready to be on their own. sometimes the offspring will stay with the parents to help care for the next generation.

additional stuff: unlike most other aeronoid species, the avibels typically don't have any form on engines whatsoever. instead, the go the old-fashion route and fly by flapping their wings to take off. once in the air, they'll uses a mixture of powered flight and rising thermals to stay in the air. despite their appearances as a more bird-like elkinets, they're only distantly related to them like we are to baboons. also unlike alot of aeronoids, their beaks have sorta re-evolved into...beaks. more specifically, their beaks are curved and sharp, with the top one having a point not unlike an eagle's. the beak is much like a multitool, being able to tear, shred and cut not just their food but also really anything. elkients have raised avibels for centuries as a source of eggs, meat and companionship, and the gliders often double as a form of pest control too. humans also took a liking to them, as their intelligence and easy tamability made them great mounts as well. however, avibels have been known to act aggressive towards humans and anyone who disturbs their nest while they're raising chicks.

THE RODADS (lifting bodies) wild ranges: rodads originate from the woodlands and mountains of sonias. just like with the two other aeronoids here, the elkinets and their civilizations have made them a world-wide city animal.

general diet: the rodads are generalist herbivores, generally speaking. the specifics of what plants they eat can vary by the region. naturally speaking, they eat leaves, flowers, fruit, nuts and seeds, but they'll also take grass, twigs and really any plants they can get their forepaws and mouths on. they'll also take on insects and small animals occasionally. during it's waking hours, a rodad will spend at least 70% of it's time foraging for food. behavoir: rodad's aren't the most smartest animals out there. rodads are also not very social animals, and at most in the wild they'll tolerate each other if they're enough food and water around. however, in captivity they're alot more easier to get along with each other. wild rodads are territorial, and they can be seen fighting for the best food and mating rights. when not eating or fighting, rodads are rather slow and chill animals, and can be see climbing and/or sleeping in trees (or any other high, enclosed place), or wonder around to make sure no rival steps foot into their territory. if disturbed, they'll either run or (if in a high place) jump off and glide to safety. and if they're really cornered, they'll try and bite/scratch the threat. they're rather tolerable around other smaller animals that don't pose much threat to them. rodads are also surprisingly good swimmers, and many species have at least some semi-aquatic lifestyles. with their combined behavior and occasional affinity for the water, some humans called they "citybaras", seeing them as the capybaras of the city. the aircraft are ok parents. males usually make a small cavity in the ground, just big enough for a female and her clutch pf 4-5, and he'll mate with first female that comes in. after that, he'll make sure no other guys take his girl while she lays her eggs and protect them. once the eggs hatch, he leaves her to do the rest of the work. thankfully, the babies are born precocial, so there's not much to be done other than making sure they learn how to eat and drink on their own. rodads don't make much noise. at most they've been known to hiss and softly squeak. however, during fights they'll scream and squeal not unlike that of koalas.

additional info the rodads are the only aeronoid, both presently and within fossil records, to ditch true flight entirely. instead they use their weird body shape to glide from one place to another. they can actually glide long distances, and in addition are surprisingly good jumpers and climbers. unfortunately, they often fall prey to many predator, stunnits and avibels being a common foe. although they have no wings, rodads still have a small, thin tail. rodads also have evolved whiskers, which they uses to sense their surroundings since their vision isn't the best.

THE THEROPECTS (tiltrotors)

wild ranges: theropects are strictly restrained to the jungles and rainforest of sonias. unlike most others here, feral population are actually rare and only confined to equally warm habitats. all other theropects outside of sonias are usually part of zoos and sanctuaries, sometimes as exotic pets, too.

general diet: theropects are all around generalist omnivores. they eat anything that's edible to them, but fruits and leaves make up 60% of their diet. sometimes they'll pick up some invertebrates, small animals, and eggs to round out their diet. they're rather infamous for raiding fruit farmers and stealing the food they grow, especially during peak ripe season.

behavoir: one of the most intelligent species of animal on argonus, the theropects are only second to their civilized relatives, the elkinets. as a matter of fact, they're the closest thing argonus gets to chimps and gibbons, since when it comes to primates no hominoids themselves haven evolved on argonus (Only lemur, new world and old world monkeys). despite the likening to chimpanzees, they're more like gorillas, being plant-eating pacifists that rather would scare it's enemies than to actually attack. theropects are not only bipedal like their relatives, but are also very good a manipulating objects. they use both their forelimbs and their wings (or more accurately their prop blades) to grab, hold and move things. their prop blades are especially good at this, since they move very much like the elkinet's wings. they even have a bit of gecko-padding to further hold things. the tiltrotors are very social and very good parents. they make a very simple nest to lay their eggs in. the mother usually only has one baby, rarely ever two. while the babies are born with their eyes open, they still cling onto mom (or any other females' if she's not round) for at least two years. during that time both mother, father and other members of the group will help take care of them and the mother, and later down the line teach the offspring how to survive. theropects make a wide array of barks, screeches, whistles, coos and hisses to communicate with each other.

additional stuff: since argonus lacks any apes, this is the closest they got to gibbon, gorillas and chimpanzees. in captivity, they're about as pleasant to own as a cockatoo or macaw (aka don't get one unless you're very experienced). they've been used in laboratories and scientific studies, and are common info the film industry as animal actors. however, they're not all sunshine and rainbows, as they're very noisy, nippy and often can be seen stealing things from their owners. however, with enough proper love, care, toys and attention, those issues are brought down to a minimum. still, there is alot of legality issues when it comes to owning theropects as pets, so usually it's better off to leave it to zoos and sanctuaries to take care of them.

aaaaand that's it for the aeronoids! any other information regarding them will probably be in other post.

#aircraft #aviation #airplane #avigeek #weird aircraft #speculative fiction #speculative biology #speculative zoology #speculative evolution #helicopter #lifting body #glider #sailplane #tiltrotor #worldbuilder #worldbuilding #argonus #planet argonus

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terricards · 2 years

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kwlascl · 2 years

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reaper-keygen-et · 2 years

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Download REAPER keygen (keygen) latest version L7AO*

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Fix incorrect parameter changes being sent to bridged VST3 in certain instances. Avoid crashing reaper when a bridged VST3 crashes. Improve locking behavior when loading presets. Option to display track dropdown list nested by folder is disabled by default. When not displaying a track dropdown list nested by folder, indent tracks in folders. Support selecting regions for rendering selected regions via clicking on the region number or context menu. Simplify the context menu. Actions: Add action to build selected item peaks if necessary. Fix double click in the track area going to correct context. Media explorer: Enable metadata editing menu items for. Fix incoherent file size display for certain sizes. Peak building: Avoid full peak build rescan when inserting media. Optimize for very large projects. Render: Add a button to display the rendered file in Media Explorer. Fix embedding markers when rendering selected media items and the project has a customized start offset. Spectral edits: Fix hit testing of the bottom edge of the last channel. Batch converter: Add a dropdown to choose how many CPU cores to use. Custom action editor: Allow longer action names to display when the window is resized large. Filenames: Allow more than 10, similarly named filenames to be generated. Glue: Ensure per-take FX are reinitialized prior to glue. Project metadata: Support sorting metadata lists by category. Razor edits: Fix media item mouse modifier to extend razor edits to item. ReaSurroundPan: Fix the influence of height speakers in Auro Windows: Fix shortcut creation for DX plug-ins. Screenshots: Disconnect from the internet Recommended. Run the Keygen and Click on Patch first, after that generate a License file and copy it to the installation directory.

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reaper-keygen-hc · 2 years

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Download REAPER keygen (serial key) latest version COER*

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vest59wrenn · 2 years

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hermes crocodile kelly 1

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kastrup01skov · 2 years

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Read This Before You Send Your Xbox 360 In To Microsoft For Repair!

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obwjam · 3 years

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“I watched you from the walls for years, you really can’t embarrass yourself further in front of me.” With Scott Lang please :)

“I watched you from the walls for years, you really can’t embarrass yourself further in front of me.”

yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyes A THOUSAND TIMES YES

from this post

———————————————————————

Times were tough at the Lang residence. Scott wasn’t allowed to leave the house, his daughter was only allowed to visit on weekends, and worst of all, he worried about his future. How could an ex-con like him find work again? How could he possibly put behind everything he had been through in Germany? Often times, he sat on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, TV off, staring blankly at the wall.

Other times, he danced.

He wasn’t very good at it, but hey, who was watching? Scott would rev up his ever-growing 80s playlist, crank his speakers up to ten and let his arms flail and his legs go wild. For an hour and forty-six minutes, he would dance and sing and act out fight scenes he had choreographed in his head until he was just about ready to pass out.

Today was an especially stressful day. Cassie was sick and didn’t want to come, so for the first Saturday afternoon in a while, Scott was alone. There really wasn’t anything good on TV, and he had a nightmare the night before. If the good vibes wouldn’t come to him, he would make them himself.

He was maybe an hour into the playlist when he closed his eyes, spun around on one socked foot, struck a pose, and opened his eyes to the most confusing sight he had ever seen.

You were, in a word, fascinated with this human. For whatever reason, he never left the house anymore, which made borrowing close to impossible, but he was boisterous and goofy and just the right amount of weird. Eating cereal and crying at black and white Spanish movies at 10 p.m. was not normal human behavior, but it was normal for this one.

The dancing was especially entertaining. It was like a free show every day. The music was catchy and you had learned the words. Sometimes, you even danced with him. You discovered this crack in the old wood that allowed you to sit in its threshold and observe the human.

You were so caught up in the music that when Scott’s eyes landed on you, it took you a few seconds to realize what was going on.

Though Scott was staring right at you, he still couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. A tiny person? In his house? He squinted — no, it wasn’t Hank or Hope. They didn’t appear to be wearing a suit, either. Just some makeshift clothing. Was this a new Avenger with shrinking powers, sent to spy on him? Was it the government?

For some reason, you weren’t very scared. Years of watching the human from afar told you that he was a very relaxed person. He wasn’t overly excitable and didn’t seem to have a malicious bone in his body. You certainly didn’t mean to be seen, but it also didn’t seem like the worst possible thing that could have happened. It almost felt inevitable.

Scott stared at you, mouth agape and a thousand thoughts swirling around his mind like a hurricane. He realized he was still stuck in a ridiculous pose, so he put his arms back to his side and straightened himself. He should have figured there were real-life tiny people. Why else would Hank want to build shrinking technology?

You were staring back, mouth also agape and equally fascinated by what was in front of you. But Scott didn’t think you’d break the ice, so it was up to him.

“Um... hi,” Scott said, awkwardly giving a small wave. “What are you doing in my house?”

You tilted your head. For a human, he didn’t seem to be very surprised at what he was seeing. You lifted your arm and grabbed onto the wood for support as you spoke up. “Uh... I live here.”

“You live here? Last time I checked, I live here. Oh, no, they didn’t take my house away, did they?”

“What?” you blurted. “Who’s they?”

“Woo didn’t send you here, did he?”

“Woo? Woo who?”

“Jeez, you don’t need to act so excited about it.”

“Hold up!” you yelled, throwing your hands up. Scott pressed his lips together. “What... what are you talking about?”

“You’re government, aren’t you? Here to keep tabs on me, make sure I’m not breaking the Accords?”

“Government?” You blinked in disbelief. “You think I work for the government?”

“Well...” Scott started to attempt an explanation, but couldn’t really find one. “Why else would you be here?”

“I told you. I live here.”

“...so you��re not government.”

“Oh brother,” you mumbled to yourself, taking an exasperated seat. “Um. No?”

“...You wouldn’t happen to be an Avenger, would you?”

“An Avenger? Am I missing something here?”

“Well excuse me for trying to come up with an explanation as to why there’s someone sitting on my wall who’s two inches tall!”

“Hey, I’m four inches, thank you very much,” you scoffed.

Scott ran a hand through his hair. This wasn’t going very well at all. You sighed and took a breath. You could understand why he’d be so flustered.

“No, I’m not government. Or an Avenger. I’m just... a regular borrower.”

Scott stared at you blankly, trying to piece together what a borrower could be, before it dawned on him and his eyes went wide. “Oh wow. You’re really just that small!”

“I didn’t think that was even in question.”

“Gosh, sorry, that’s really embarrassing of me.” He let out a laugh. “An Avenger. What was I thinking?”

His laugh made you laugh. “I watched you from the walls for years, you really can’t embarrass yourself further in front of me.”

“Oh, trust me, I’ve done a lot of embarrassing things in my life. Being put in a maximum security prison’s definitely up there. I’m used to small jails, you know?”

You gave him a quizzical stare.

“This ankle monitor is pretty bad, too, though I— wait a second. Did you say you’ve been watching me for years? ”

You gulped. You thought he either didn’t hear that part or didn’t care.

“I—um, I mean, I was just — I was speaking metaphorically—”

Scott’s expression immediately softened. “Woah, hey, I’m not mad!” He realized he was gazing down at you, and he lowered himself ever so slightly to be at your eye level. Now, he could see the way you gripped the wall protectively. “I’m just... confused. What do you mean you’ve watched me from the walls?”

“It means I live in your walls!” you cried, not realizing how shaky your voice had gotten. You steadied your breathing before continuing. “That’s what borrowers do. We live in the walls of houses.”

“Like mice?”

You sniffed a laugh. “Yes, like mice. Which I help keep away from here, mind you. When was the last time you saw a mouse around here?”

“Oh, gosh, I can’t even remember. Years ago.” You smirked and raised your eyebrow, and once it clicked, Scott’s eyes lit up.

“That’s so cool!” Scott smiled. You knew he was a quirky human, but even you were a bit surprised at how nonchalant he was being. “Do you use those little toothpicks that look like a sword?”

“There are toothpicks that look like swords?”

“Oh yeah!” Scott grinned. “They’d be perfectly your size, actually.”

“Huh. Y’know, that might actually be helpful to shoo away beetles and spiders.”

Scott grimaced. He had gotten used to ants, but spiders is where he drew the line. “Oh, gross.”

“It’s just a part of the job,” you shrugged. There was an awkward pause before you spoke again. “I, um. I’m sorry for startling you.”

“No, no,” Scott shook his head, “I’m sorry for making you listen to the same music all the time!”

“No, it’s fine, I... I actually kinda like it,” you blushed. “Usually, borrowers keep themselves hidden. Most humans aren’t as... entertaining as you.”

Scott smiled, not even realizing that maybe that wasn’t a compliment. It felt exhilarating just to have a face-to-face conversation with someone who wasn’t his family or was legally obligated to talk to him.

“You wanna come to the living room?” he asked suddenly. You furrowed your brow. “It’ll be more comfortable than sitting on that ledge.”

“Well, I can’t exactly sit on the couch,” you said slowly, meekly gesturing at yourself with your head.

“You can sit on the table, it’s fine! I’ve got snacks.”

“Snacks...” you repeated. Even though this went against every single borrower code you knew of, it felt stupid to pass up this offer. If the human wasn’t going to hurt you, then why not make him your ally?

“Sure, why not,” you said finally, standing up. Scott couldn’t help but stare at you in awe.

“Here,” he said, standing back up to his full height and sticking his hand out in front of you. “I can carry you there!”

“Oh...” you said, staring at the hand hesitantly. “I can just walk, you know—”

“Psh! That’ll take too long. Trust me.” You didn’t know why he would know anything about that, but frankly, his weird choice of words was the last thing on your mind. Scott took notice. “Oh, you’re... sorry, I didn’t mean to assume. It’s just right across the hall, we don’t have to go far at all. It’ll be fine.”

You gave him a skeptical look, but at this point, you didn’t have much of a choice. This is what you wanted, anyway.

“I guess this is the one drawback,” you muttered, keeping a firm grip on the wall as you lowered yourself onto his palm. “Humans can’t take no for an answer.”

“What was that?”

“Oh, uh, I—I said. Quite the view from up here.”

“Hah, yeah, I know!”

There it is again, you thought. That weird choice of words.

The trip to the living room was, as promised, short. You were only in his hand for about 15 seconds before you hopped off onto the familiar sight of the coffee table. The bowl of peanuts and candy was filled to the brim, as usual, but you supposed you should act like you’ve never been here before.

“So,” Scott said, reaching into the bowl and popping some M&M’s into his mouth before flopping onto the couch. “What’s your name? I bet you already know mine.”

“I’m (Y/n),” you said, eyeing the bowl. “Can I...”

“Oh, go ahead!” Scott smiled. He watched in delight as you grabbed a peanut that was larger than a football. You bit into it like an apple, and Scott could hardly suppress his grin.

“This is amusing for you?” you asked with a smirk. Scott immediately shook his head, but the smile was still present. “Yeah, I guess I probably look hilariously small to you.”

“Well... only a little.” Scott leaned back into the couch cushion. “So you’ve really been inside my walls this whole time and I had no idea?”

“Yup,” you said with a mouthful of peanut. “Been here for a long time.”

“How do you even live? Eat? Bathe?!”

You turned your gaze to the table. “You won’t like the answer.”

Scott thought about it for a moment, but it didn’t take long for him to connect the dots. “Oh. Oh.”

“Yeah,” you blushed. “But it’s either take crumbs off your counter or starve, so. I choose not to starve.”

“Well, you’re welcome to have dinner with me from now on. I cook just for myself anyway, it’ll be nice to have some company.”

“About that... why are you here all the time? You used to only be here at night.”

Scott sighed deeply. “It’s a long story.”

He seemed uncharacteristically upset about that, so you cleared your throat and pivoted back to what he was saying before. “You’d really let me eat with you?”

“Sure, why not?” Scott seemed genuinely surprised that you would even ask.

“I mean, this has gotta seem a little... weird to you, does it not? In fact, I — well, there are a lot of stories about humans discovering borrowers, and they’re not often pleasant. You... you don’t really seem to care.”

Scott pursed his lips. “That’s another long story.”

“Oh.” Jeez, what is up with this guy?

“I mean, if you’ve really been... in my walls all this time...” He shuddered before continuing. “Then you know how lonely it’s been around here. Heck, it probably gets really lonely all by yourself in the walls, too.”

You nodded.

“Well, I’ve got a lot of questions for you, and I know you’ve got a lot for me... I won’t force you to stay if you don’t want to, but I think — it might be nice to get to know each other, right?”

You gave Scott an almost incredulous look. Maybe all those human tales were just old folk stories of days past, meant to scare children into staying close to home. You were hardly nervous that Scott had any malicious intent. You just almost couldn’t believe this was happening.

“What about your daughter? Isn’t she supposed to be coming this weekend? I’d rather her, uh, not see me.”

Scott sat up a bit. “You know about Cassie?”

“Um. Lived here for years, remember?”

“Right, right. Uh, n-no, no, she’s sick, she’s not coming. Huh.” Scott shook his head. “Wow. You must know, like, everything about me, then.”

Your face flushed red. “I mean, yes and no. I don’t just sit and stare at you to pass the time. It’s-it’s actually pretty strange for me too. We’re not supposed to talk to humans. It’s kind of the big number one rule.”

“What normally happens?”

“Well.” You paused, looking up at Scott’s expectant face. It was hard to hold eye contact, and your gaze flickered back to the table. “It’s a long story.”

Scott huffed a laugh. “I get it. Looks like we both have our own baggage.”

There was a beat of silence.

“Look, if you wanna... go back into that hole in the wall, you can. I told you, I won’t make you stay. But the offer is always there. I’m probably just gonna order a pizza tonight. You ever had pizza?”

You pursed your lips. Should you really be telling him all the things you’ve stolen from right under his nose?

Scott sighed. Maybe this wasn’t the weirdest thing for him, but he knew he couldn’t say the same for you. Your sideways glances had grown increasingly nervous ever since he brought you to the living room. You carried yourself well, but it was clear you were uneasy about all of this.

Wordlessly, Scott placed his hand down in front of you. He frowned when you winced at it.

“It’s quicker if I just bring you back,” he said sheepishly.

You picked your half-eaten peanut off the table and cleared your throat. “I-I’m sorry. I think I underestimated how odd this would feel. You... you’re just, really different than the human I lived with growing up. In a good way.”

Scott smiled weakly. “Just wait ‘til you get to know me.”

You laughed as you climbed onto his hand. You sat down for balance as he stood up, unable to take his eyes off you. You stared straight ahead as he took the short journey back, and in a few moments, you were right back where you started.

Staring at each other.

“Well (Y/n), it was nice—”

“You know,” you said, raising your voice to cut him off. “I have had pizza before. But I’ve never tried ice cream.”

Scott gasped. “Never had ice cream?! Lucky for you, I’ve got some chocolate in the freezer— oh. Oh! You... you want to have some dessert later?”

You smiled amusingly. “You catch on quick.”

“Yeah, it’s a specialty of mine,” Scott said, stretching his arms in the air. “Gosh, it’s already 7:30. How about ice cream at 9?”

“I, uh, don’t have a clock with me,” you admitted. “Why don’t you just... knock when you’re ready?”

Scott chuckled. “Knocking on the walls to my own house? People’ll start to think I’m crazy.”

You blinked at Scott, Scott blinked at you, and you both burst out laughing. For a moment, you forgot that Scott was a hundred feet tall and he forgot you could fit in his palm. It shouldn’t have been that funny, but it was. It all was.

Scott wiped a tear from his eye and sighed. “Oh, man. Okay. I should order before they close. See you soon?”

You smiled. In between the bad jokes, the awkward silences and the fits of laugher, you decided all this weirdness was worth it.

“Yeah. See you soon, Scott.”

#scott is the nonchalant KING #just so easy to launch into conversation with #nothing like two people who think they should be feeling weird who dont actually feel all that weird #this is all just one big excuse for me to practice dialogue #obwrites #marvel g/t

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lycanthrop-ee · 3 years

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Ghosting - Empty House

A/N: !!!!! It’s here! I’m so, so pumped for this- welcome to the Empty House AU! This is the first piece of content I’m publishing and it’s a one-shot from a bigger universe, but it’s also absolutely a stand-alone fic. It’s a self-indulgent, analogical-centric human AU that’s has been floating around my hollow skull for months now, so there’s a lot of doodles backed up if any of yall would like to see that ;) There will be an AU taglist, but I also have an individual writing taglist!

Synopsis: Logan has finally moved out of his childhood home into a family-sized house where he plans to finish college online. His simple plans are complicated when a strange, sad-looking boy starts showing up outside...

Word count: 4,306

Ships: Endgame romantic Analogical

CW: (spoilers) Pre-plot major character death, swearing, anxiety attack, very mildly implied previous parental abuse, be safe kiddos and ask to tag!

The first time Logan saw the boy was the day he moved in.

The empty house had stood hollowly beside its driveway, Logan feeling small without his siblings or parents or any of his rarely acquired friends by his side. He wasn’t a sociable person, but he’d always been surrounded by noise at home, and lots of it… he’d never been in a house as still as the one he stepped into that day. The dark wooden floors were cleanly swept, except for the corners and trimmings which had little fields of grey dust dotting the deep brown. The refrigerator made a hungry humming noise, protesting its suddenly empty shelves- Logan knew a family of four had lived there before, and that they’d given him a pretty hefty discount on the house. That’s all he knew.

The floor in the entrance hall creaked underfoot, and the walls seemed to turn away as they saw him- not who they’d been expecting, not worth their attention. That was fair.

The house had three bedrooms and two floors- altogether a strange layout. Two of the bedrooms were downstairs, situated in a small hallway off the kitchen, and one was tucked into a little corner upstairs, where the only other rooms consisted of a bathroom and a large, carpeted playroom that was mostly empty now. Logan figured it would have been a favorite of the kids when they were smaller, but now the only furniture was a faux leather couch and a television, as well as a couple of out-of-place armchairs that had never gotten much human use from the look of their fur-covered seats.

With just him taking up the whole house, he hardly saw the point in using the upstairs bedroom. The house felt big already- rationally, it would be better to localize downstairs. All he really needed was his room, the kitchen, and the little living room next to the entrance. That was enough for him- in fact, even that was too silent. He missed the screams of his brothers as affectionately as anyone could- which honestly varied day to day.

Today, he was disproportionately affectionate.

It paired well with the fear.

Logan was just about ready to start tearing himself apart over the family members he’d left behind- the only ones that mattered- when the boy caught his eye.

The day had been gray and dreary, the trees heavy with the prospect of rain and the air cool enough to promise it, but it had only started drizzling in the few minutes since Logan had been inside. The sky had seemed to darken remarkably quickly, especially strange without the presence of thunder or even heavy rain, and in the middle of it all was a lanky figure who looked for all the world like a member of the fae.

He stood at the side of the road, looking in the house’s general direction- in Logan’s general direction, although he was sure the other wouldn’t be able to see through his windows. His face would’ve been hidden by the dark hair poking out from under his hood were he not so painfully pale, and his brown irises were visible to Logan only because of the piercing contrast of his skin.

His jacket was oversized, but his beanpole frame managed to show through regardless. The rainwater gradually weighed it down until the boy looked almost a skeleton, Logan frozen watching him for what could have been minutes- and then the frame heaved in a breath and ambled stiffly away.

Obviously Logan’s first worries had to do with an unhinged white male teenager breaking into his new house- the one he had full responsibility for and few precious savings to repair. It was irrational, he knew, but his second thought was that the boy hadn’t looked capable of any harm- or really of much at all. He looked weighed down, depressed, and Logan was sure that it wasn’t just the water soaking his sweatshirt. The boy had looked sad.

And he continued to. Frighteningly often, the teenager appeared outside Logan’s house. Each time he looked quite the same: above average height but considerably shorter than Logan himself, skinny, and almost other-worldly in his strange mish-mash of dark eyes and pearly flesh. While Logan knew that his first sight of the boy had been strange in the sudden change of weather, he could- and completely intended to- count it as a coincidence of Florida’s strange climate.

He settled into a sort of pattern, although the boy didn’t seem to follow one. Each time he saw the figure outside his house, he would take a break from his endless work. He’d make himself some tea, sit in the window, and wait for the boy to leave. This way, he told himself, if he tried anything, Logan would be there to intercept him. He chose not to think about the possibility of it happening at night or while he was away, and he kept far away from the crime shows he’d occasionally enjoyed in the past. This way, too, he could get a good look at his visitor each time. It was almost as though he was keeping tabs on him, and at the tail end of his fear came a strange protectiveness.

It was after about a month of this- Logan looking for job applications and living off of his savings, edgewise- that Logan pulled into his driveway at one of the key moments of his life. The boy stood unsteadily at the side of the road, sweatshirt ever-present even in the heat. Logan got out of his car carefully, his heart in his throat- though, really, did any part of him think the boy capable of much at this point?

He’d have expected the kid to run as soon as he’d pulled in, but when Logan looked him over he saw the boy studying him, bouncing on the balls of his feet. It struck Logan anew in their close proximity how thin he was.

Almost thoughtlessly, he started across the lawn towards the boy. He had to remind himself to uphold formalities- no matter how many times they’d stared at each other across the way, they’d never once spoken. He didn’t know this kid, not really- and now it occurred to him that the boy was more than a kid. He couldn’t be much younger than himself. Logan halted a few respectful steps from the boy, who eyed him strangely.

Close up… he looked, somehow, the same as he did from across the lawn. His features were simple, small mouth and nose easy to overlook for his huge, shadowed eyes. He really did remind one of a fairytale, or even- perhaps more accurately- a Tim Burton.

Logan opened his mouth to speak, but paused for a moment. They watched each other.

“Would you like to come in for tea?” He finally inquired, the words escaping him overly familiar. The boy raised his eyebrows almost undetectably, seeming confused, and Logan caught himself almost leaning forward in anticipation of the other’s first words to him.

“You’re not Patton,” the boy said, voice just above a murmur and hoarse. Logan hesitated, confused, and studied the expression that would’ve been bored were it not for the slight tremble in his lips and a hint of surprise- Logan supposed neither of them had planned what had escaped their mouths. He reached up with a thin arm and brushed the back of his hand gently across his eyes. A spark of something strange flickered in Logan’s chest- this man was possibly not all there. He wracked his brain for labels- depression? Mild psychosis? Dissociation?

Either way, this was not someone he should invite into his house without more information- but as that regretfully occurred to him, the first drops of afternoon rain hit the tip of his noise. He wondered if the boy would stand out here after Logan went outside, and if so, for how long.

“No, I’m not,” he found himself saying. “My name is Logan. It is raining- would you like to come in?”

He was exceedingly aware of the boy’s breathing as they stepped out of the rain, something that would normally drive him insane- somehow he didn’t mind this time. His presence was almost calming after weeks of bringing a break from Logan’s ceaseless work. It assured him that the ghostly pale man was real, which was never a problem he thought he’d be debating... but here was this skeleton-thin, strange-mannered man entering his house as though he’d been there a million times before.

He carefully slid his shoes off, paying close attention to the floor- and no attention to Logan.

“I’ll make tea,” the latter found himself mumbling. “Do you want to come into the kitchen?”

“I’m gonna go upstairs,” the boy said. Logan blinked.

“I- you… this is my house?” He stuttered, trying to be assertive- surely that crossed a line? He’d never seen this kid before a month ago- but there he went, lugging himself up the stairs like he belonged there. O-kay.

Logan backed into the drafty kitchen to put the kettle on.

Time to listen to his voice of reason, he decided. Clearly this boy had been in the house before- hopefully before Logan had moved in- and knew his way around. And clearly his mental state had some connection to the house- whether positive or negative, Logan couldn’t yet tell. So, he concluded, it’s possible that he had lived here before. The married couple that had sold him the house had mentioned a son, but they’d been moving out of town- how would the boy have made his way back almost daily? There was a bus line in the area... but who was Patton, and why had his absence been unexpected?

There was clearly missing information here, and thus the situation was theoretically dangerous. The logical thing to do would be to contact the authorities for more information- maybe the boy was a local that they were familiar with. If that were the case, they would know how to handle him.

On the other hand… it was, put simply, a puzzle. Wasn’t it? Logan was smart; he was in online college and he was passing quite well. He had an A in psych so far. He just needed a few more minutes with the boy and he’d figure it out. He could help him... why else would he show up outside his house?

He needed Logan.

There goes rational thought, Logan sighed as the kettle started to whistle, turning off the stovetop and moving the pot to the side. Something made him turn around- the boy was watching him from the doorway, looking almost more upset than usual. His wide eyes were watery, and as Logan hesitated he wiped an arm across his face again, expression turning to frustration. He avoided Logan’s gaze. “You said you were making tea?” He said, carefully controlled voice just above a whisper. Logan was startled out of his stupor by the boy’s coherence.

“I, um- yes! Yes, would you- what kind?”

“Earl grey? No sugar, just a bit of milk...” he carefully pulled a chair from the small table, slumping into it and reaching to fidget with the salt shaker. “Please.”

The boy’s words stirred Logan into movement and he grabbed two mugs out of the mostly barren cabinet before pulling a pre-packaged tea bag from the tea box on the counter. He unwrapped the tea and dropped one bag in each mug, pouring steaming water from the kettle into them with a satisfying noise. The warm humidity and pleasant smell caressed Logan’s face, and he took a moment to bask in it before returning to the present moment- if begrudgingly. As he set the empty kettle aside, the room quieted, the only sound the rain drizzling over the side of the roof. Logan crossed the space self-consciously to close the window. The boy’s eyes were pointedly focused on the table in front of him- Logan thought he felt more awkward this way than if the boy had been staring at him flat-out. Either way, he could feel his awareness of Logan like a thick fog. He snuck another look at the boy as he hovered beside a chair, unsure whether to sit opposite him.

“My name is Logan,” he prompted, thoughts stumbling over each other to curse him for the repetition.

“Thank you for the tea, Logan.”

...Well, at least that was something. His name sounded strange in the other boy’s hoarse, delicate voice- less mundane, somehow. He stood at the head of a table for one more moment that seemed to stretch out an eternity- the boy carefully spun the salt shaker around in his nimble fingers, swearing softly as some of the seasoning fell onto the table. Logan’s startled eyes studied the other’s flushed face.

And then his head caught up to him, and he shuttered into motion, rushing to the mostly empty fridge for milk and fetching the small bag of sugar he’d mercifully bought a few days before.

“I... I’ve seen you around,” Logan’s mouth betrayed him again. That was creepy- although, looking at it objectively, it was much less creepy than being ‘around’ the way the boy had. The table behind was quiet for too long as he poured the milk.

“...When’d you move in?” The voice was quiet and held a fragility that Logan hadn’t yet heard from the other. He was relieved to finally have an easy answer to one of the many questions he faced. And, indeed, his mouth finally obeyed him, even and direct.

“About a month ago.” He turned to face the table, the boy’s tea held stiffly between his hands.

“Sorry,” he whispered as Logan set down the tea. “I knew someone’d moved in, but I guess… it was you.” The boy let out a hollow laugh, and Logan was swept with protectiveness once more.

“Don’t worry, I won’t alert the authorities.” Because that was the most comforting thing he could think of- he’d never been very tactful with delicate emotional situations. Predictably, the boy tensed. Logan decided it’d be advisable for him to move on. “What is your name, pray tell?”

Pray tell. Pray fucking tell? What was wrong with him? The boy cut him off before he could overthink the foot he’d just shoved in his mouth with the eloquence of an 1800s era schoolboy.

“Patton.” A moment passed before a look of horror came over his face. “Or- no, I- it’s- Virgil! Virgil.”

Now- once again, logically- forgetting one's name was not a good sign. Of general coherence nor moral innocence. Logan knew this.

Still, the boy looked uniquely upset by the mistake.

Logan fetched his tea and sat down opposite him.

The other boy fidgeted incessantly, and Logan felt it fell on him to make Virgil more comfortable. He threw tact to the wind- it was tiresome anyway- in favor of distracting the other and himself from the strange fumble.

“Are you a local?”

He got a nod in response, Virgil holding the tea tightly between his hands. Logan couldn’t help but feel he’d made yet another mistake- obviously the boy wasn’t comfortable talking about himself, but was it worth Logan filling the silence with unprompted facts about himself? Would that bore Virgil? Was that rude? He let the gap in conversation rest for a moment before deciding he didn’t much care what was rude.

“This is my second year enrolled in online college- I skipped my senior year.”

The stupid non-sequitor sat in the middle of the table, sinking like a rock. Virgil managed to give him an incredulous look, even in the depths of... whatever it was that was affecting him. Logan panicked.

Here are a few things about Logan Croft that were usually a given:

1. He often said things without regard to the effect they would have on others.

2. He did not say things he didn’t believe to be true.

3. He did not readily employ personal information.

All of these rules had apparently been thrown out the window the second Virgil walked in his door. As soon as he realized this, he worked to reclaim them. “Virgil.”

The wind immediately blew out of his sails, and he closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. Speaking abrasively had never been difficult for him, and this was not the time to adopt a new weakness. “I need to know who you are. You have shown up outside of my house for the past month, and while the reasoning behind this is presumably personal and not necessarily critical for me to know, I will at least need you to tell me your full name. Against my better judgement, I will not contact the authorities about your incessant invasion of my privacy, because I don’t altogether mind it- but if you are to have regular access to my house, we can’t continue this one-sided conversation.” Regular access to his house? When had Logan considered that option? As soon as he asked himself the question, he knew the answer- the feeling of someone appearing in the doorway, seeking Logan’s company… it was something that he’d missed sorely. It was something he needed.

The boy looked startled and altogether terrified by the long stream of words. Logan, still working hard to recover his sense and new to the inclination of softening his words on the behalf of strangers, disregarded this as best he could as he waited for an answer.

It didn’t look like he was going to get one.

Virgil opened and closed his mouth like a fish out of water, putting the salt shaker down on it’s side like he’d been caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to. Logan felt a tug in his stomach to right it, afraid he’d get more salt on his table, but now didn’t seem like the time.

As the moment stretched forward, his attention was grabbed away anyways, trying to decipher Virgil’s expression. It didn’t look good.

In fact, it made his heart drop.

The boy looked withdrawn, fearful- like a bird with an injured wing or a snared fox. Damn it, damn it, damn it- Logan’s split-second adopted mantra was less than helpful, but it showed no signs of tapering off to make room for useful thoughts. Virgil’s eyes squeezed shut, and the instincts left over from Logan’s career as an older brother took over.

He rushed to Virgil’s side on blind autopilot, laying a warm hand over his bony back. The boy jumped at the unexpected touch- and then leaned into it, a choked sob tearing itself from his throat. Oh no. Oh god. Damn it.

Logan didn’t consider himself good with emotions. He did his best to comfort his younger brothers- god knows they needed it- but strangers were a whole new situation and honestly he didn’t feel much better about this than he expected the boy did.

Nevertheless.

“Hey, I-” he took a knee to lower himself to Virgil’s level, steadying himself against the table awkwardly. “Um-”

He choked on what to say, but his mind latched to the one thing he knew. Virgil had responded positively to touch- and with little further thought, Logan bundled the shivering boy into his arms.

Logan would’ve immediately taken back the show of affection by any means necessary if Virgil hadn’t melted into the touch so readily- Logan was reminded of an oversized cat.

That being said, Logan was holding a sobbing stranger in his arms in his new house, alone. Damn it, damn it, damn it.

Logan had always been the kid at family gatherings who did everything in his power to ward off physical contact from his overbearing relatives. Although this situation was completely different and altogether impossible to plan for and avoid, he found himself reacting in somewhat of the same way- each place that Virgil’s thin, trembling body touched his screamed at him to recoil.

He did not.

He brought to mind his brothers- not that they’d ever been particularly physically affectionate with him. They’d always turned to each other, and he’d been left to himself. Understandably. But he imagined if they had seeked his reassurance, if they’d ever been as upset as this stranger was now. If they’d let him in.

But now someone was leaning on him for comfort, and he was determined to provide for them. Imagine if Remus had come to him for help, he kept thinking. Imagine if it were Roman.

And all of a sudden he had to hold back tears himself. He tensed, carefully leaning Virgill back onto his chair- Logan’s chair. Sensing the other’s discomfort, the boy came back to himself like a fire blazing across dry wood.

“Fuck- fuck, I-I’m-” the boy was off at a rushed stutter, scrambling to right himself and wiping his eyes angrily. Logan shook his head, patting Virgil’s shoulder awkwardly.

“Drink your tea,” Logan said stiffly. “It’s okay. I don’t- do you need something?” Good job, he thought sarcastically. Just pretend it never happened. Show him that, apologies, you seem to have made him think you’re an emotional resource. He was wrong, you’re actually a sociopath. Once again, sorry for any inconvenience.

Logan’s thoughts stuttered and shouted as he tried to fix whatever he’d done. Virgil was quite obviously shaking, almost unable to hold his tea to his lips although he did make an effort, and Logan resorted back to psych class- maybe not a panic attack, but certainly an emotional breakdown and possibly an anxiety attack. “Do you have a history of generalized anxiety disorder?” Logan asked automatically, the place where he should have held a capacity for compassion currently void for whatever stupid reason. “Or even a suspected case?” The thunderstorm in his mind froze entirely as Virgil’s watery brown eyes focused on him.

“...I guess,” he rasped quietly, eyes flickering back to his hands as they picked at each other violently. “I dunno.”

Logan let out a long breath, sliding furtively into the chair opposite Virgil.

“If you’re having an anxiety attack, it could be caused by a persistent disorder or a recent traumatic event- although recent is a problematically inspecific measurement-”

“Uh, then I- I dunno. Still. I guess…” He shrugged, looking away. “How recent is recently?”

Logan tried to hold back a sigh of relief at the comparatively simple question.

“Generally, anxiety attacks are caused by a buildup of unfinished tasks or other irritants, although there’s often an overarching problem or incident. A traumatic event can cause emotional turmoil for years after it occurs- or for the remainder of one’s life, depending on it’s nature- but in most to all cases, the effects lessen as time goes on.” Virgil nodded slowly.

“And- and what are the symptoms? Of an anxiety attack?” He pulled his legs up to his chest, presumably placating the urge to make himself smaller. Logan rattled off the characteristics quickly.

“Shaking, a feeling of unease, impulsive thoughts, nausea, panic, the sensation of being trapped or cornered, restlessness, hyperventilation, trouble concentrating, dyspnea- shortness of breath, that is- am I making sense?” He wrapped his hands around the cooling cup of tea in front of him, feeling the need to steady himself. Virgil nodded again- it was apparent he was a man of few words. That worked out wonderfully, Logan thought, as he himself seemed so bent on talking as much as humanly possible.

“Yeah,” Virgil muttered- then stood up abruptly. “Um- I should probably go. Sorry for… yeah.” Logan, decidedly more alarmed at the idea than he should’ve been, got to his feet as well.

“No- I mean, you don’t… have to. If you’d rather- but if you feel the need to go- I mean, I don’t want you to…” Logan paused, squeezing his eyes shut and trying to get his damn mouth under the control of his brain. Had he said something wrong? Well, obviously he’d said many things wrong in the past minutes, but… he thought over the conversation. He’d only been saying the facts- just what he knew. Was there something he should have kept to himself? Was any of it too personal? It was just facts, statistics, symptoms- he cursed himself mentally, although he couldn’t tell precisely what for.

While he’d been deliberating- not panicking, never panicking- Virgil had frozen in place. Right. The whole blazing trainwreck of words he’d let out for no apparent reason. Where the hell had that even come from? He’d known this kid for a month- five minutes face-to-face- and he was already being weird and nonsensical. It took considerable effort to bring the circumstances of their meeting to mind and even the playing field in his subconscious. If they were both creepy, did it even out? “I-I meant... you’re welcome here.”

Logan could see the gears turning in Virgil’s head as he fell back into his chair. A weight slid off of his shoulders as the air between them settled- they were even. Or something.

As much as he expected to regret his words, he was surprised at the lack of protest from his thoughts. It was, for once, blessedly quiet both inside his head and out. Logan sat back down warily. “You obviously have some- some connection to this house.” Like some sort of undead apparition, he thought- but he had the sense to keep that, at least, inside. “I can’t tell if it has a positive or negative effect on your mental state as I seem to be an uncalled for variable in your visit. I’m no psychological authority... I know you’ll come back either way, and I don’t like imagining you back out in the rain.” A shiver went through the boy like a roll of thunder, and he nodded.

“When can I come here again?”

#sanders sides #sanders sides fanfiction #empty house au #ehau #analogical #romantic analogical #analogical oneshot #logan sanders #virgil sanders #remus sanders #roman sanders #patton sanders #thomas sanders #sanders sides human au #sanders sides human!au #human!au #college!au #kinda

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mooncustafer · 3 years

Text

Recover, Regroup, Roadtrip

Agent Dale Cooper disappeared in March 1989. The case is still open. Agent Dale Cooper disappeared in October 2016. The case is still open.

for @laughingpinecone /

/ @countdowntotwinpeaks‘ WONDERFULXSTRANGE 2021

“Diane, I am uncertain of the date and time, or indeed if such concepts have any meaning in this place. Nor do I have my recorder, but I find verbalizing my thoughts helps me to resist the confusion and lethargy. As for addressing my words to you, even though you’ll never hear them— well, old habits die hard.”

It pleased Wally Brando on a profound level to discover that a few pay-phones remained in Philadelphia, that reaching out was not yet the prerogative only of those who could afford a landline or a mobile. He could also have checked his email on a terminal at one of the city’s Public Libraries, and indeed, made a note to do so within the day so that he might catch up on the news of parents and former school friends. The pay phone was also blessed with both the yellow and the white pages, and the number he sought appeared under “F.” Getting transferred to Dr. Albert Rosenfield was a more complex quest, but he was persistent as well as polite, and after a few minutes he was able to speak to Dr. Rosenfield’s voice mail, if not the man himself.

He introduced himself with salutations, and was about the explain the nature of his request when a beep signalled that the allotted time had run out.

“To listen to your message, press one. To re-record your message, press two,” said the voice of the machine.

Silently cursing his volubility, Wally pressed two. This time he simplified the introduction, and asked if Dr. Rosenfield would be good enough to meet him that evening at the Morimoto Japanese restaurant not far from the FBI offices, to discuss a matter of deep concern connected, he believed, with the little town of Twin Peaks. When the beep came this time, he listened to his message and then, satisfied, hung up. The restaurant he’d named was slightly above his means, but he was meeting a friend of his godfather, and wanted to do justice to the occasion, even if the reason for it was one of peculiar anxiety to himself.

“Diane, I have tried so many times to escape— on the last attempt I really did get out into the world, but my plans, I fear, had dire repercussions for you, and to no end— my course still led me back to the Black Lodge. Some flaw in my own nature keeps trapping me in this loop; perhaps it’s what they sometimes call Saṃsāra.”

It was Agent Tammy Preston’s custom, when scraping the internet for information relevant to one or more recent cases, to check her email inbox every seven minutes— to do so every five minutes would disrupt the flow of her work, but ten-minute gaps might let something important go unanswered for too long. Just now the inbox was due another glance, and switching tabs she saw that two minutes earlier Director Bryson had replied to Tammy’s email of that morning with an invitation to come by her desk at her earliest possible convenience.

Tammy locked her screen, paused ‘Soft Fuzzy Man’ on her playlist and removed her headphones. Picking up the folder marked Missing Persons, 1989– Palmer, she slipped back into her pumps and made for Bryson’s office. The door was open but Tammy stopped at the threshold and rapped on the wall.

“Come in,” said Director Bryson, looking up from a folder. Bossa nova music played softly in the background as Tammy entered and pulled up a chair. It sometimes puzzled Tammy that apart from herself and Director Gordon Cole, no one in this particular division of the FBI seemed to have any interest in music recorded after 1979. (The first few times she’d heard ‘Du Hast’ pounding through the walls of Cole’s office, she’d wondered if this taste for metal was the result, or perhaps the cause, of his hearing loss; but after he’d joked to an unamused Agent Rosenfield about how these were difficult times and difficult times called for Dave Brubeck, she’d looked up the reference in case it was a coded message, and then the next day had overheard Gordon whistling ‘Mister Sandman,’ a song she knew primarily from an internet meme, at which point she concluded that the ear wants what it wants, regardless of demographic.)

“You told me you’d found some serious inconsistencies in the records surrounding Twin Peaks and the Palmer case?”

Tammy nodded, hesitated:

“I believe there may be inconsistencies as well in my own perceptions of the case.”

“Well now, that I find a little harder to believe.” Bryson smiled, but then her voice grew serious: “I’ve looked over the notes you made, and it confirms my own doubts about events.”

“Worse yet— the fact that I truly left the Lodge and then returned to it, will enable the beings that inhabit this place to take another twenty-five year turn in my likeness, unleashing even more evil on the world. The only thing stalling them is the doppelgänger I had MIKE make for the Jones family, but I don’t know if he’s still under the White Lodge’s protection.”

After all these months it still surprised Harry Truman there was so little physical pain, and so much boredom, to dying. Oh there’d been pain at the beginning, when he’d started treatment and had had to stop drinking; the memory of detoxing still made him shudder. But now he only felt a tiredness too huge for sleep to make any dent in it; and since he couldn’t sleep all the time, there were a great many hours during which all he could do was lie in the hospice bed or sit in one of the hospice chairs, and think.

At this point dying didn’t even sound so bad— it wasn’t like the past three decades had been all that great. He imagined going to sleep, just filling up a big bowl of silence and darkness and sinking into it, and then he felt bad for thinking that because Frank had already lost enough people without Harry lighting out too. Anyways, with the things he’d seen over the years he’d be a damn fool to think there was anything peaceful about death and whatever came after. So he’d lie awake trying to find some other topic to ponder, and that’s generally when the boredom set in.

Right now, courtesy of the nap he’d had in the afternoon after today’s treatment had left him especially exhausted, he was lying awake in the wee small hours. 3:52 am, said the clock on his bedside table beside the stack of paperbacks Frank had brought him on his visits— Harry wasn’t afraid of e-readers the way Lucy was of cellular phones, but he found the smell of paper comforting. It reminded him of the Bookhouse. The hospice tended to smell of disinfectants and sweat and soup. The food actually wasn’t as bad as the food at the hospital in Twin Peaks used to be, not that any food could be as bad as the hospital food in Twin Peaks used to be, but it made no difference to Harry, whose appetite had been gone for months. Frank always brought a slice of Norma’s pie too, carefully sealed in an old cookie tin to keep it fresh, but Harry could never manage more than a couple of bites, and they didn’t always stay down.

Being awake in the middle of the night in a hospice wasn’t as bad as being awake in the middle of the night when you were alone at home— the occasional voices or footsteps from the corridors beyond were reminders that whatever might be happening to Harry, life went on for the staff; and the lights from the city outside showed that life went on for others outside the hospice walls. When he’d first arrived, those city lights had made it hard to sleep, but now they substituted for the starry sky above Twin Peaks. There were fewer birds to watch in the city, though sparrows, pigeons or a starling sometimes lit on the ledge outside his window and peered in at him, or maybe at their own reflections. The frequent rain pattering against the glass— well, that sounded the same here as it did in a cabin.

Frank had called to tell him about Margaret Lanterman. Harry sometimes wondered if he should have stayed in Twin Peaks and died in his own home like her, instead of lingering in this hospice like the doomed heroine of some nineteenth-century novel. Or like Annie Blackburn. Or Audrey Horne.

The rain was spattering now against Harry’s window, bending the light from the Japanese stone lantern in the pocket-sized garden below. Harry couldn’t remember what the hospice building looked like from the outside, but he guessed it was similar in style to the mid-century one next door where the day-patients came for their treatments. A flash silhouetted the roofline; five seconds later came the thunder-crack. Harry settled back and closed his eyes.

Sleep pulled him into dreams of an espresso machine, like the one in the coffee place down in the lobby next to the gift shop for visitors. This machine filled a whole room, metal pipes feeding back on themselves like some kind of espressouroboros, neither steam nor coffee escaping from the grotesque contraption. Agent Cooper stood wearily before it with two empty coffee-cups. Harry was just wondering who the second cup was for, when Coop looked up and met his eyes:

“What year is this?!”

Harry sat up in bed, listened intently for two full minutes, but he didn’t hear Coop’s voice again. He sighed. Sometimes the mind pulls imaginary sounds out of the background noise. False pattern recognition or something— Coop would have known a word for it. Harry had little hope left they’d ever find Cooper, or if they did, that he’d still be the man he’d known. Yet he’d carried on, more (he told himself) out of habit than any real hope. He’d kept in touch with Agent Rosenfield, even when it meant letting him know about the cancer— not that Albert would blab the secret to anyone in Twin Peaks.

“Hello?”

“Good, you’re still alive.” Albert’s personality hadn’t mellowed with the years, exactly, but familiarity had worn the edges off his jibes.

“Shut up, Albert. So what have you found?” Albert’s calls generally came every three months, but never at nine in the morning, and he’d last spoken to Harry only two weeks back. Something important must have happened.

“Actually, Sheriff Truman, I’m the one coming to you for information.”

“If you hadn’t noticed, it’s not easy to do investigations from a hospital bed. What can I tell you that you can’t get from other sources?”

“I need you to summarize the Laura Palmer case back in 1989, and the actions of Agent Cooper in Twin Peaks at that time.”

“Albert, is this one of your damn cognitive tests? You already know—”

“We’re both too tired to argue, just humor me.”

“How detailed do you want?”

“An outline will suffice.”

Harry took a deep breath and briefly listed the finding of Laura’s body, and the living but dazed and injured Ronnette, and the arrival of Agent Dale Cooper to lead the investigation. He skimmed over the crimes of Jacques Reneault and some of the other peripheral drama that had occurred in the town around that time, noted that Leland Palmer had murdered his own daughter, albeit while not fully himself, and was beginning to recount Cooper’s temporary suspension and Windom Earle’s campaign of terror, when Albert interrupted:

“You’ve still got the unofficial version, then.”

“Unofficial?”

“According to FBI records and your colleagues at the Twin Peaks Sheriff’s Office, Laura Palmer is an unsolved missing-person case.”

Harry began to feel sick.

“Goddammit, Albert, you did the autopsy. I punched you and you fell across her body. You found a broken poker chip in her stomach—” Albert broke in:

“I hadn’t disclosed that detail to anybody I’ve questioned about this.” His voice was a little shaky. “Listen, Harry,” he continued. “Last Friday I was contacted by a young man wearing motorcycle leathers and talking like Jack Kerouac on quaaludes.”

“Wally.”

“Naturally I supposed him to be from your iodine-deficient neck of the woods even before he introduced himself as your godson and the offspring of those lieutenants of yours. He told me he’d come because he wasn’t sure where else to turn. Apparently he keeps in touch with his parents as he rides across the continent, but in their most recent conversation he’d noticed their memories of certain events had become confused. I was about to tell him I wasn’t the least bit surprised, when he added that he’d checked with other townsfolk, including your brother, and they all seemed to have had the same— how’d he put it? ‘The walls of their memory painted over like a childhood bedroom converted to a study.’”

”That sounds like Wally, all right.”

”Eventually he got round to explaining why he’d come to me. The message that had prompted him to call home was from Lucy; she said she’d shot a suspect who was attacking your brother Frank. She’d also mentioned some FBI agents arriving a few minutes later.”

Harry swallowed. He tried to imagine Lucy shooting anyone:

“Frank never said anything about this.”

“And when Wally called home, Andy and Lucy not only denied it had happened, they had no idea what he was talking about, not that I’d guess that to be an unusual state of affairs. Anyway, after I sent your godson away, I began to have contradictory memories myself of what Cooper had told me about the case. I remembered the poker chip after waking in the middle of the night from the worst dreams I’d had since medical school. I’ve been telling myself it was a false memory, maybe a composite of all the young female murder victims I’ve had to examine in my career, but I told myself I’d make one more phone call, just to check. And now you confirm it. Also, in my recall you knocked me across Leo Johnson’s body. Thanks for the correction. Are you still there?”

“Yes,” Harry answered, glad he was already sitting on his bed.

“Now that that’s established,” said Albert’s voice on the other end of the phone: “here’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question: when do you remember Agent Cooper disappearing?”

“March 1989.” Harry tried to keep his voice steady, as though he was giving evidence in court. He briefly explained about the Black Lodge and Coop’s reappearance and unsettling behaviour and how he’d checked himself out of the hospital and was never heard from again. There was a long silence on the other end of the phone. “Are you still there, Albert?”

“According to FBI records and, up until two days ago, my own memories: Coop disappeared this past October while driving to Odessa, Texas for a case. The last record of him was a credit-card charge at a motel just outside the city.”

“What was he investigating in Odessa?”

“Missing person. I’ve tried looking into that case, but it seems to be a dead end, especially since Coop never seems to have arrived at the diner where the man he was looking for had allegedly been running drugs.”

“Sounds like the kind of establishment where nobody’d admit anything. Maybe Coop did get to the diner.”

“Gee, you’ve cracked it Sheriff, we would never have thought of that. The diner was old-school, but not so old-school they didn’t have a security camera trained on the front counter. We went over three days worth of footage. I admit we can’t be sure he didn’t slip in through the back for some reason; but you knew Coop— can you honestly picture him entering a diner and not ordering a coffee?”

“Not the Coop I knew, but— I already told you he was acting pretty erratically just before he took off.”

Harry heard Albert sigh.

“I’ve been checking with a few of my colleagues who were involved in the original Palmer investigation. I think Gordon knows something, but being Gordon he’s saying nothing, and as loudly as possible. Denise— Director Bryson, now— remembers the unofficial version, and according to her so does Agent Preston— oh right, you never met Agent Tammy Preston, the poker-faced glamazon computer hacker— I’m not sure she was even born yet in 1989, but she was on a case in Twin Peaks in October 2016, and during the course of the subsequent paperwork, she started noticing a lot of records and statements didn’t match up, and then she realized her own memories didn’t match up. Which brings up another problem with trying to reason this out by conventional methods: something in that Salem’s Pacific-Northwest Lot of yours is rewriting memories, documents, maybe the facts themselves. But so far it’s predominantly affected the people who were on the spot this past October.” Albert’s voice rasped a little from the long phone call, and he paused to clear his throat. “Unfortunately, that also means the people most likely to remember the original version of events are people who weren’t in the Sheriff’s Office during the incident that seems to have triggered the change. At the risk of sounding like one of those bullshit shows on the History Channel, we may never know exactly what happened that night.”

“Wait, what even was the case that brought you all back in 2016?”

“That’s the problem— I’m one of the people who was there, and I only have vague and disconnected memories of a British man with a gardening glove, the chorus of Guys and Dolls, Agent Cooper leaving the room with Diane, his secretary who quit the FBI decades ago, and Gordon, and only Gordon coming back.” Albert paused again. “It goes against my personal feelings and medical opinions, but would you be willing to let me visit you in person? I’ve some vacation time and enough frequent-flyer miles that the trip will probably cost less than the long-distance charges if we continue this conversation.”

Harry opened the drawer of his bedside table and took out the key to Coop’s old hotel room:

“Yeah, come by.”

“Diane, I am currently alone. I realize that statement implies that I’m not always alone here, and indeed I sometimes have a companion, who I still think of as Laura Palmer, though I don’t know if that’s her identity anymore; I’d hoped, after my last attempt, that Laura would no longer be in this place at all. She comes and goes, or perhaps we both come and go and our orbits occasionally intersect. I’ve tried to find some pattern to it, but with no reliable way to measure time, I’ve had little success.

The last time we met she told me about a room she hadn’t seen before, all white walls, in which a dark-haired woman was contemplating a mirror with a puzzled look. I can’t help but feel this parallels my own situation.”

“Frank sent me this last month. But when I thanked him the next time he called, he didn’t seem to know what I was talking about.” Albert hesitated before taking the room key:

“Great Northern Hotel,” he read, turning it over. “Twin Peaks. Isn’t the front desk going to want this back?”

“Unless I miss my guess, it’s from 1989 when Coop was staying there.”

Albert’s ears stuck out more noticeably, or perhaps it was his face that was thinner. He’d spent the first part of his visit scrutinizing Harry and questioning him about his case and what the doctors were doing for it, until Harry told him to quit it or he’d run out of time to discuss Coop’s disappearance before visiting hours ended, and anyway weren’t Albert’s patients usually dead to begin with?

The trouble with the subsequent discussion was that it went in a circle— the people who’d been present for the 2016 Unknown Event had uncertain memories of what had actually happened; and the people who clearly recalled the 1989 Palmer case as a murder hadn’t been present for the Unknown Event. The one thing that seemed likely was that there was some connection between the 1989 case and the 2016 case, particularly since both had been followed by the unsolved disappearance of one Agent Dale Cooper.

“I hate to say it, Albert, but I’ve given up hope on ever finding Coop.”

“What’s hope got to do with it?” Albert asked. His tone was not sarcastic.

“Diane, I’ve decided that, if only to keep my mind occupied, I will go looking for the white room and the woman with the mirror. I’d feel happier if I had a ball of twine or some breadcrumbs to leave as a trail back to the waiting room, but I’m coming to terms with the idea that’s there’s no advantage to remaining or returning here— it’s not as if I need food or drink in this place, and I cannot be any more lost than I already am.

So far, I believe I’ve walked down five identical red-curtained hallways, and turned left five times. It therefore seems likely that I’m following a counterclockwise, roughly spiral path, although I’m uncertain if I’m proceeding inwards or outwards.”

“If this search is going to require juggling two sets of memories, then I’d better come along so you don’t get brainwashed again.”

“Sheriff Truman, if you haven’t noticed by now, you’re in a cancer hospice.”

“I just finished a round of treatments, I’ve got a couple of weeks free.” Albert snorted and Harry added: “You can monitor my health while we’re on the road.”

“I’m already thinking of your health. You’re immunocompromised, travel is too risky.”

“We’re crossing a few state lines, not going to the other side of the world.”

Albert pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Fine. I’m driving. Which also means I get to choose the music.”

In fact, they went most of the way by plane, after Albert weighed the odds and decided five hours in a tube of recycled air would still be easier on Harry than a two-day road trip. Some of the passengers threw suspicious looks at Harry’s N95 mask, but they’d cleared it in advance with the airline, and Harry had briefly removed it when he went through TSA, and Albert was prepared to flash his FBI badge, but the flight crew were understanding.

They picked up a car at Midland International. Someone, presumably an employee of the car-rental company, had left a bundle of tourist-attraction pamphlets on the front passenger seat.

“According to these, Odessa has replicas of the Globe Theatre and Stonehenge,” Harry observed once he’d got himself settled.

“Why?” Albert asked.

“Got me there. The pamphlets don’t explain the motivation.”

Albert reached up and pulled down the car’s sunshade on Harry’s side, though the Sheriff insisted his cowboy hat was protection enough for his pale scalp:

“We’re not in the northwest where it rains every fifteen minutes,” he muttered, “and I’ve been looking up the side effects of your meds— you sunburn easily now.” Albert’s driving skirted the city, and they did not pass the Globe or Stonehenge.

The Pearblossom Motel, last recorded location of Agent Cooper, proved to be closed down. They’d noticed the papered-over windows as they pulled up, the sign unlit, not even to say NO VACANCY, but Albert got out to knock anyway. Harry watched him from the car; eventually he clambered out and slowly walked over to join him.

Albert was peering through a spot where the paper had torn away behind the window-glass. He stepped aside for Harry, and the sheriff took a look into the motel’s dim interior. He saw an ordinary, rather old-fashioned registration office, wood-grain panelling on the walls along with a few faded posters for local attractions. Rows of keys still hung on a board behind the desk, and a daily calendar read October 15, presumably the date the motel had closed, or the approximate date— Harry could imagine a concierge might not bother to keep tearing off the pages if they knew it was their last week on the job.

“I now realize that despite everything, I’ve still been harbouring hopes of finding my way back to the waiting room, hence my continual choosing of left-hand turns, as if attempting to mathematically navigate a maze. I must make a true leap of faith if intuition is to guide me, so I’ve closed my eyes and spun around several times in this corridor, first clockwise and then counterclockwise.

Now that I no longer can tell which direction I’ve come from… Diane, can you hear that? Of course you can’t, I don’t really have my tape recorder. I’m going to fall silent and listen for a bit.”

There seemed little else of interest at the motel (Harry, feeling a bit silly, had even tried the Great Northern’s room key on all the doors), so they turned back towards Odessa to look for the diner Cooper had been investigating. The motel was only a mile behind when they saw, ahead of them, a tall woman walking along the highway, her fire-engine-red hair, black t-shirt and pencil skirt out of place in a locale that was rural to the point of emptiness. Albert swore under his breath.

“This can’t be a coincidence,” he told Harry. “Roll down your window, I’m pulling over.” But the woman only threw a glance at the car as it slowed, flipped them the bird, and kept walking, though she stepped gingerly and Harry noticed she was barefoot on the asphalt. Albert leant across him and stuck his head out the window:

“Diane!”

“Fuck off, guys. I’m not Diane, and whoever she is I bet she’d tell you the same.” Harry gently pushed Albert back and leant out the window himself:

“Sorry, ma’am, mistaken identity. Are you all right though? I see you’ve mislaid your shoes.”

“Looks like somebody ran off with them,” the woman answered, her tone mocking despite the tired set of her shoulders. “I haven’t been up to anything illegal, officer. Just a bit of fooling around.”

“We can give you a ride into town,” Harry offered. “If it helps, you’ll be alone in the back seat— means you can get the drop on us if you start to feel nervous.”

The woman narrowed her eyes at the offer, then abruptly barked out a laugh and opened the back door of the car, took a seat and folded her long legs in after her. “Only because I need a lift,” she insisted, rubbing her bare feet. “I knew office romances were a bad idea, but he didn’t have to be a dick about it. Nothing to do now but go home and drown my sorrows in Hallowe’en candy.”

“You’ve still got candy left over from Hallowe’en?” In the mirror above the dashboard, Harry saw Albert raise an eyebrow and the woman in the back seat frowned, insulted:

“No! I may not have a maternal bone in my body, but I’m not going to give the trick-or-treaters candy that’s a year old.”

“Ma’am,” Harry asked, thinking about the calendar back in the Pearblossom Motel office, “what date d’you think it is?”

“Mid-October,” she began. Harry saw her reach into her purse with her black-and-white nails and pull out a mobile phone. Her eyes widened at the date: “No, it’s March. The fuck?—” She ran a hand through her scarlet hair. Harry wondered if it was dyed or a wig. Perhaps she was bald too. “Must be losing it. I was so sure it was October. And it’s not like I’ve could’ve been wandering around this desert for five months.” She tapped her phone screen. “5,230 messages?!” She looked frightened now, raising her head to meet their gaze in the mirror. “Where the hell have I been? And you guys— you’re feds, aren’t you?”

“No,” Harry began.

“I am,” said Albert. “He’s not.”

“Well, can you tell me what’s going on? Or is it classified? God, it’s not aliens, is it? I always assumed alien conspiracies were bullshit to cover up real conspiracies.”

“It’s probably not aliens,” Harry answered, unable to keep doubt from his voice as he remembered Major Briggs, “but I afraid it’s not going to sound any less weird.”

“To start with, we’re in the area investigating a colleague who disappeared in October,” began Albert, “and then you turn up, apparently amnesiac since that date.”

“And with my messages unchecked since then.”

“Yes, but there’s another detail— you look exactly like a former colleague of mine who was close to our missing man. That’s why I called you Diane when I slowed down.”

“I need a smoke.”

“No.”

“Albert,” Harry interrupted, “I’ve already got cancer, what’s the worst that can happen?”

“Do you want me to answer that in detail?”

“No I don’t.” Harry turned to look over his shoulder at the woman in the back: “Just roll down your window first.”

“We’ll pull over and she can step away from the car,” said Albert.

He stopped on a shoulder, and their passenger got out and lit a cigarette. Examining the packet, she called to them:

“Three left. That’s fewer than I remember having on me in October, but not by much.” Albert, meanwhile, had pulled a shopping bag from the back seat:

“You should eat something,” he said to Harry, producing a sealed cup of applesauce and a box of plastic spoons. Between rounds of treatment, Harry’s nausea receded, but his appetite was still pretty weak. “There’s saltine crackers, too.” Harry chuckled in spite of himself as he tore the foil off the applesauce:

“This all makes me feel like I’m home from school with the ‘flu.”

“You’ll have to watch Roadrunner cartoons on your own phone, I’m not paying for the data,” Albert snapped.

“I’m surprised we even get reception out here.” The red-haired woman had strolled back to the car with her cigarette, though she took care to stay downwind from Harry’s rolled-down window. “Guys, is it just me or is this highway really deserted— like, Rod-Serling-voiceover deserted?”

“We were just thinking Roadrunner cartoons.”

“Can’t be, there’s no weird rocks.” She flicked ash onto the pavement, “Though it does feel like if someone painted a tunnel entrance on a wall around here, you might be able to drive into it. If you weren’t a coyote.” She took another drag and glanced at the power lines humming above their heads. “Maybe it’s the hum from those wires that’s giving us brain cancer— oh sorry, dude.” She broke off and looked at Harry in apology.

“It’s all right, ma’am,” he said when he’d finished swallowing his mouthful of applesauce. “I’ve got leukaemia, not brain cancer. And the sound from those lines is unpleasant. Like the whine of mosquitoes in the woods.” As he spoke the hum intensified, becoming a loud crackle. Albert glanced up as a shadow fell over the three travellers and their car.

In the sky a dark, nebulous shape twisted, circled, formed a comma or an apostrophe, and dove towards them.

The first few grackles, out of thousands, came down on the roof and hood of the car. Harry could see one pecking at the windscreen and glaring at him with hard yellow eyes. He suddenly remembered Coop had been afraid of birds; until now, he’d never been able to imagine why. He turned and pushed open the back door as the woman dove inside the vehicle. Around them, the flock blotted out the landscape.

“Hope they don’t scratch up the finish,” Albert shouted over the sound of wing-beats, “or I’m not getting my deposit back.”

“Is this nesting season? I mean, are the grackles round here normally this—”

“Oh fuck, one got in!” came a yell from the back seat. Eardrums ringing, Harry turned to see a small black shape ricocheting around the car’s interior as the woman flailed her long, bare arms. The grackle made for the gap between Albert’s seat and headrest.

And got stuck, its beak not quite touching the back of Albert’s neck.

Harry reached for the little feathered body, thinking of how to pin the wings against the bird’s sides to avoid injury to it or the surrounding humans, but the moment his fingers touched it, it crumbled. At the same time the din outside the car ceased.

“That— that’s not natural.” Their passenger was covering her mouth with her hand. Even Albert looked shocked. Harry stared at the palmful of ash that was all that was left of the grackle.

“Let me get a sample bag,” Albert muttered. He pulled out a small clear plastic bag, and held it out while Harry poured the remains in. Then he handed him a packet of wet wipes. “You all right, Diane?” The woman in the back seat did not correct him on the name this time.

“Couple of scratches,” she said, examining her right arm. Albert passed her a mini first-aid kit. Got to give him his dues, he prepares for everything, thought Harry, adjusting the brim of his cowboy hat.

“Y’know,” he said, “This could be a good sign. In that it’s any kind of sign. There’s nothing worse than working in the dark, waiting for some hint you’re getting warmer or colder— that’s the kind of thing makes you wonder if the thing you’re looking for is even out there at all. But this—”

“Someone tipped their hand, you mean, when they tried throwing a Hitchcock movie in our faces,” Albert cut in. “But what exactly did we do to worry them?” His glance, and Harry’s, moved to the dashboard mirror’s reflection of their passenger.

“You think the birds were after me, or wanted to break up our merry band?” She raised an eyebrow. “Trouble is I know a token effort when I see one.”

“Or a warning.”

“We found the Pearblossom Motel;” Harry thought he saw the woman flinch at the name. “And then left it, to head for Odessa.”

“Are you suggesting we drive around in circles and see if they attack again?” Albert muttered.

“I think that’d be a little unfair to our passenger.” Harry turned to her: “Ma’am, I believe Albert when he says he knows you; but I also believe you when you say you don’t remember him. We can drop you anywhere you like— your call.”

“Give me a few minutes, fellas. Given all the weird shit I’ve just been through, I’ve got to think about whether I’m safer away from you two, or sticking close by. Plus I’ve got messages to check.” She took her phone out again. Without taking his eyes off the road, Albert pulled his own phone from his suit jacket, passing it to Harry:

“You’d better check mine. Maybe Tammy’s got some news—she’s been looking up everyone connected with events in Twin Peaks, but not living in the area. She even emailed some couple in Japan, though I’m still not sure what they’ve got to do with this.”

Harry peered at Albert’s phone screen, occasionally commenting if something looked to be of interest:

“Gordon’s sent a grudging OK, tells you to be careful. Also tells you to look after me. I’d always imagined he’d type in uppercase— didn’t realize it was him at first. Hm. Do you know a coroner?”

“I know lots of coroners, we get together for an annual poker tournament and lucky draw. And when I say draw…”

“Do you know a Dr. Talbot in Buckhorn?” Harry interrupted. “Autopsied a headless body last September that turned out to be Major— wait, he— is this one of those revised timeline things?”

“Not exactly.” Albert brought Harry up to date as best he could on Major Briggs’ disappearance and decades-later reappearance. “I certainly remember meeting Constance,” he added, after a pause, and cleared his throat again. “According to Tammy, I made a favourable impression on her, which is… unusual among my acquaintances, even those who share my profession. So what does she have to say?”

“Something about a wedding ring and Schrödinger’s Cat?” Harry looked at the message again. “She says Tammy spoke to her, and was going to contact you too… a gold ring they found on Briggs… sorry, in Briggs… keeps disappearing from her office’s records and the FBI’s evidence files, then coming back again?”

Albert frowned in thought as he drove: “Does it have anything engraved on it?” Harry tapped a message on the phone screen, CC-ing Constance and Tammy.

Outside the car, suburbs, or at least car dealerships and big-box stores, were beginning to sprout up along the highway.

Albert’s phone pinged and Harry read the message from Constance:

“Yes, scribbled it down last time I could find the record. This ring any (wedding) bells? TO DOUGIE, WITH LOVE, JANEY-E”

“Janey-E,” said Diane from the back seat, and Harry heard her drop her phone. Turning around he saw her wringing her hands, the nails now robin’s-egg blue. “Albert,” she gasped, “Oh, Albert, I was almost lost again.”

“I believe the change in method may have led to a breakthrough: I haven’t found any rooms leading off of the corridor I’m following, but the decor has gradually changed from black-and-white flooring and red curtains, to dark brown linoleum flooring and institutional green walls hung with large relief maps of different parts of the world. The maps appear to have been manufactured some time between 1954 and 1965, as they show North and South Vietnam as separate nations. I’m just passing the continent of Antarctica, now, and… oh. I think there might be…

Diane, I found the white room, and when I call it that, I’m not simply echoing Laura’s name for it. It was like a cross between a sanatorium and a snow cave, if a snow cave had furniture. There was a bed with white blankets and a white metal frame like a hospital bed. Audrey was sitting on one end of it, wrapped in a white bathrobe and looking at a round mirror that stood on a little white table. She turned as I entered, and her face was older, drawn and, for a moment, frightened. Then she looked at me again and relaxed, saying ‘Oh, it’s really you.’ I fear she must have met one of my nastier doppelgängers at some point.”

At Diane’s request, they stopped to eat at a fast-food chain before approaching the diner Coop had been investigating in at least one timeline.

“I’m hungry, but I’d be too nervous to eat at the place where Dale might have… well, if they’re a front for something, then the food’s either spectacular or terrible, and I’m not feeling lucky right now. I want to be someplace as bland and mundane as possible for a while, so I can regroup.”

“Well this place has a twenty-minute limit.” Albert jerked his thumb at the sign.

“That’ll do.” Diane curled up beside Harry in the booth as Albert went up to the counter to place their orders. She still wore her pencil skirt, but on on of their stops she’d purchased tennis shoes and a couple of fresh t-shirts— the one she was wearing at the moment read NOT TODAY in flowery letters. “Now he’s got two of us to worry about,” she said under her breath. Harry decided to reply:

“Someone needs to worry about him.” Diane nodded, and Harry offered his hand: “Sorry, we never did the proper introductions did we? Harry S. Truman.”

“I know.” Her expression relaxed slightly. “I see why he likes you.”

“Not sure Albert likes anybody, exactly—”

“That’s not who I was talking about.”

Albert returned with a eye-searingly-orange plastic tray:

“Mushroom burger, cheeseburger, buttered biscuit for you, Harry, because they can’t just serve toast like a real restaurant and those things they claim are bagels are made out of lies.”

“Don’t worry Albert, I’ll survive a biscuit.” Harry picked up one half of the baked item and took a bite. It wasn’t too bad, actually.

“Diane, the ring that jogged your memory—”

“My half-sister and her husband. Don’t ask me how they’d be mixed up in this though, Janey-E’s aggressively normal.”

“And her husband?”

“Never actually met him. Janey-E and I don’t talk much,” she explained. “But from her comments he’s… passively normal. Works for an insurance company, drinks too much sometimes, the whole man-in-the-gray-flannel-suit thing.”

“I’ve been talking with Audrey, or the version of her that existed in the white room. You’ll notice I use the past tense. Still sitting on the bed, she raised a finger and pointed to the mirror in front of her, saying:

‘The other me— she ran away from home, like she thought Laura had done. I’m amazed she survived her first year in the big city, but look:’

Diane, I saw Audrey searching records online, tailing suspects, testifying in civil and sometimes criminal courts. It’s a life that can make a cynic of the kindest soul, but there are situations the police don’t or can’t investigate, and those were— are, I suppose— Audrey’s bread and butter, in that mirror world. And they seem to pay well enough she can afford to do some pro bono cases.

‘I wish I were out there,’ she said, and the mirror clouded and shifted. She patted the bedspread, and I sat down beside her. ‘You know how,’ she began, ‘when you’re a kid, and you’re reading your favourite book, and a little after the halfway point, you start to think ‘I’m getting near the end of the book?’ And really, you’re not— there are pages and pages left of scenes and pictures. You’re always surprised just how much more there is. But it’s not enough to shake the feeling it’s putting off the inevitable. Dawdling before bedtime.’ She stood up suddenly, bent and kissed me on the brow. ‘Say hello to the other me, if you ever run into her.’ And then she was gone, Diane. Not in flame or fadeout, just gone.”

I look up, and Laura is beside me.

The diner, when they found it, was not what Harry’d pictured. Instead of a lonely Edward Hopper tableau, or a grimy spoon where toughs whispered to each other along the lunch counter and cast knowing glances in the direction of the men’s room, “Wispy Dreams Cafe” was a blandly cheerful donut shop, the logo rather obviously altered from that of a national chain.

“Looks like they’re under new management.” Diane observed as they got out of the car. “Or else they got tired of paying for the franchise?” The three of them made their way across the parking lot the cafe shared with the landscaping company next door. Inside, the sound of chattering customers and a hum from the coffee machine both soothed and overwhelmed. Harry steadied himself against a gleaming, cream-colored formica counter. The woman on the other side— not a fresh-faced high-school senior or a kindly-faced matron, just a woman with her hair in a ponytail and circles under her eyes, doing her best to smile— threw him a glance and Harry nodded.

“I’m ok. Albert, Diane, what do you two want?”

A couple of minutes later, they sat by the window, feigning interest in their donuts and coffee.

“Well, we’re living the cop cliché,” whispered Albert. “So, what do you think? Soulless suburban hangout, or den of villainy?”

Harry gingerly sipped the brew in his cardboard cup and eyed the other customers. You couldn’t say the place wasn’t busy; the woman at the counter had already served a family of four in the time it had taken Harry, Albert and Diane to seat themselves with their coffees, and another customer had just come in the door.

“That counter’s been installed recently. Deep-fat fryer’s been replaced too.”

“And they don’t know how to use it yet. You could wax skis with these donuts. That’s hardly a crime, though.” Diane looked around at the blue and yellow walls painted with large trompe l’oeil sprinkles. “Doesn’t seem to be anything else funny about the place— I hate to say it but this place might be legit.”

Harry watched the new customer lean in to the counter. Harry couldn’t quite make out what he was saying— presumably the man was placing his order, but it seemed to be taking a while and there was something tense in the woman’s expression. Beside him he heard Diane swear under her breath, and faster than he could turn his head, his peripheral vision took in that she was getting up. She strode towards the counter and Harry had a glimpse of the angry red scratch on her arm as he struggled to his feet.

Diane was leaning on the counter now, trying to insert herself between the customer and the worker.

“What did you just say to her?” she was asking.

“Look, I come in here all the time, we joke around. What makes you think it’s your fucking business?”

“What seems to be the trouble?” Harry loomed up behind the customer— he might have only half his usual strength but he was still a good six inches taller than the other man. Behind him, he guessed, Albert was approaching. Harry knew the agent was unwilling to use physical force and not exactly skilled at defusing situations through diplomacy, so he turned his gaze on the customer with all the quiet confidence he’d used as Sheriff. In his ear Diane hissed:

“It’s nothing to do with the case, this asshole’s just creeping on the staff.” She must’ve locked eyes with the man too, for he was staring at her now, his bland pink features shifting expression from anger to terrified fascination.

Rather an unimpressive face, thought Harry, and then, what’s Diane doing? He turned to look at her sharp, smiling profile, and saw a tear slide from her eye.

“No,” she said loudly and abruptly, and blinked hard. “Do you want us to escort him out?” she asked the woman behind the counter; but the man was already out the door and running for his car.

“Diane,” Harry whispered.

“Diane,” whispered Albert. Diane was passing one hand across her eyes.

“I could have fried him. Just now. Something wanted me to; but I just wanted him to back off.” She beamed at them as Albert held out an arm for her to steady herself. “I think I’m back to normal. Well, normal for me.”

“Are we the only two left here now?”

“I’m not even here anymore.”

“I don’t know how to get back to the waiting room.”

“It doesn’t matter, the coffee’s cold.”

Somehow, the white room has become even more featureless, despite that being both a logical and a grammatical impossibility. Only the bed, the table and Audrey’s mirror remain. A moment in the glass catches my eye, and I look to see— oh Diane, I’m so glad you escaped! I see you travelling with Albert, and… oh, Harry…

…the cafe’s fluorescent lights flickered as the background hum, noticeable since their arrival, now rose to an ear-splitting volume then died away just as suddenly. As the three of them looked on, an old-fashioned hospital bed, its steel frame painted white, materialized between the counter and the booths, replacing two unoccupied tables. At one end of it sat Agent Dale Cooper, fully dressed in his suit and tie, a look on his face of mild surprise that turned to the familiar joy as his gaze met theirs. Coop had grown older like the rest of them, sharper angles in his face, but he looked hale and well, and his eyes did not have the cruel gleam that chilled Harry’s memories of their last meeting.

“Harry,” he said, as though a quarter-century hadn’t passed. In response Harry silently doffed his cowboy hat, revealing his pallor, his naked scalp. Coop’s smiled wavered a little. “I’m sorry I was gone so long,” he whispered, and rose from the white bed. In the background, the cafe staff and patrons continued to chat and serve and drink and eat coffee and donuts as if nothing out of the ordinary was going on right in front of them. Albert made a hesitant noise in his throat and Coop raised his hand in that just a moment gesture he always used to make, and in that moment Harry knew his friend really was back from wherever he’d been all those years.

“Apologies for being brusque,” Coop said, “but there’s a family in Las Vegas who I’ve reason to believe are in danger right now—”

“Janey-E?” Diane asked.

“Right on the button. For personal reasons which I’ll explain later, I can’t get in touch with them myself. The Mitchell brothers might be able to help, but I don’t know how much they’ll be able to recall of our last meeting.”

“Tammy and Constance are already on it.”

“Good,” Coop looked relieved, and Harry stepped forward, shaking a little in spite of himself, and as if the motion had at last given him permission, Coop sailed forward and embraced him— very gently, as if he feared Harry might break. He’s gauging by touch how much weight I’ve lost, thought Harry, but it’s all right. He’d forgotten how warm Coop was. He became aware of Albert and Diane joining in, arms circling his shoulders and Coop’s. If I died right here and now, it’d be all right.

But this embrace was not an epitaph, or an epilogue. Outside, somewhere else in the city, was an imitation of an ancient stone monument; and a copy of an old theatre where real audiences watched real actors. Somewhere the forces that had sent the dark cloud of grackles prepared another attack, and somewhere Tammy Preston was moving to protect Janey-E and Dougie Jones. Elsewhere Audrey Horne walked the mean streets and was not herself mean. This was an interlude, but let them have it for a while.

A couple of patrons turned their heads to smile at the reunion going in their midst.

#wonderfulxstrange #@laughingpineapple #twin peaks #@laughingpinecone

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metinthehallway · 3 years

Text

It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Hello! Here is a simple little 3.5k fic! I thank @goldenbluesuit for hosting this spectacular fic challenge! I love what I've read so far and I can’t wait to keep reading. Also, thank you to @lilacobscure and @arrogantstyles for beta-ing and just being...awesome. I hope you all like it. :)

Warnings: mention of the word bloke from a non-Brit

Annie has had it. She’s holding two of her fluffiest pillows against both of her ears and has her white noise machine droning on at full volume. And she can still hear the sultry bass of Andy Williams singing his little heart out. She can hear him as clear as day, as if he were performing his very own live concert in the corner of her bedroom. Don’t even get her started on the Christmas lights. Annie had actually gone out and bought an eye mask in order to sleep, as her windows faced the neighbors front yard where Annie’s neighbor, apparently, was the sole reason their local supermarket was sold out of blow up decorations and string lights.

Harry Styles didn’t even have a lot of real estate to work with in terms of space. But he really made every centimeter count. One morning mid-November, whilst getting her mail, Annie counted about fourteen deflated pop-up corpses staked to the frozen ground, multiple candy canes lining his driveway that were about half the size of her, and masses of tangled lights strung up across every visible square inch of his home. If that wasn’t enough, he had a carefully crafted playlist he turned on every night at eight p.m. sharp that was approximately three hours and forty-nine minutes long before it looped back to the beginning song. She thought, fleetingly, that she should invest in ear plugs.

Annie prides herself on being a patient and understanding person. The only reason why she hasn’t held a covert operation at three in the morning to mercilessly stab a hole in each blow-up, or cut every single criss-crossed wire, or even ambush her neighbor while he walks out his front door in nothing but a fuzzy pink robe and no shoes, demonstrating that universal, oh shit the ground is cold, oh shit, oh shit, jerking walk, is because he only recently moved in next door. She was not about to be the one to ask him to maybe take it easy on the city’s power source, that she also needs electricity for her home, and also how do you fall asleep with this godforsaken music?

Annie is not prideful in this moment. All it takes for her to snap is hearing, “It’s the hap-happiest season of all,” for the forty-fifth time. With a loud groan, she tears off her beautiful, beautiful down comforter and stomps into her shoes, scaring Cindy, her sleeping Persian cat, off the bed. It’s two thirty-six in the morning, she realizes in a far off thought that doesn’t seem to make it to the forefront of her brain, and makes her way over to Harry’s front door. She has the immature urge to punch a smiling Santa sat atop a sleigh filled with presents as she passes it. All the lights are off in his house and Annie doesn’t feel a bit of remorse as she raises a half-asleep arm and slams it against the sturdy oak door of Harry’s house. For a full minute, it’s silent and there appears to be no movement from behind the door. A sliver of apprehension begins to worm its way into Annie’s bones.

There’s a better way to do this, Annie. Like, in daylight, during normal people hours.

She starts to turn on her heel, continuing her internal chastising and also external chastising, muttering to herself like a lunatic, when she hears the tell-tale creak behind her and a porch light flickering to life. Annie stands there, her right hand over her eyes, shielding them from the harsh yellow rays. She can make out Harry’s figure, dressed in flannel pajama pants that look like they were previously crumpled on his bedroom floor, a white T-shirt on backwards and inside out, and his signature pink fuzzy robe. His hair sticks up hazardously, sort of like a halo illuminated by the bulb behind him. His eyes are puffy, brows furrowed together and indenting a line in the center of his forehead. Lips as pink as a rose purse together as nostrils flare.

“Is there something I might be able to help you with?” Harry asks, a slight lilt to his gravelly voice. It’s a polite enough question, however it holds an air of carefully restrained annoyance. For a moment, Annie thinks she would be annoyed as well if someone pounded at her front door in the wee hours of a Tuesday morning. She quickly dismisses the thought, actually raising her hand in the air and waving it off as if it was a tangible thing. Harry raises one eyebrow.

“Good evening, well- morning, my name is Annie. I live next door, I’m twenty-two Ambrose Ave,” Annie starts. She doesn’t know why she announces her house number. She watches his eyes flick to his right where an engraved twenty-four lies, and back to hers. Annie shakes her head slightly before launching into a speech she never prepared.

“I’m here because I think the way you decorate is rude. Do you think, at all, of your neighbors? How do you fall asleep? Do you even have a job?! I never see you leave your house! Not that I’m keeping tabs, I’m just genuinely worried for your electric bill,” she continues, pausing to take a breath. “I have not had a single good nights rest since you started all of this, back in November. I have never hated the sound of Andy Williams’ voice more deeply than I do this holiday season.”

“Excuse me—,”

“Ah-ah! I’m not done, sir. Some of us are employed and have to work at eight a.m., some of us have cats that wake us up in the ass-crack of dawn anyway with their screeches and need all the sleep we can get. Do you know I had to buy a sleep mask because of you? Because of,” she pauses, a red rotating light from a candy cane passing over her face ominously as she turns around and gestures wildly to the commotion around her, “all this?”

“Can I just say—,”

“And the music. Are you eighty years old? The least you could do with this god-awful playlist is add some Mariah Carey, some Buble; even Ariana Grande has some sick Christmas tunes. The ones you chose haven’t been remastered since nineteen thirty-eight,” she finishes, eyes a little too wide, hair disheveled and falling in her face. Her hands are shaking and her heart is beating entirely too fast. Confrontation has never been Annie’s strong suit, evident of the lack of response from Harry as she cuts him off throughout the duration of her mini rant. He just peers back at her, face as still as stone as an uncomfortable silence falls between them. Frosty the Snowman rears its nasty head and Annie finds herself slowly closing her eyes and clenching her fists.

The second Annie starts to open her eyes, she hears the light closing of Harry’s front door and two locks click into place. She stands there, mouth slightly open as the early December chill works its way into her bones. She stares ahead of her and a murderous look takes over her face, cheeks red with the winter wind, lips chapped and tears starting to form on her lash line from the cold.

“What a fucking prick,” Annie mutters to herself. He can’t even respond to her? How childish. She turns around slowly, walking back through the winter wonderland, feeling defeated. She didn’t know what she expected to feel after finally expressing her thoughts, but she knew defeated was not it.

As she crosses the threshold into her home, she thinks, maybe I could’ve handled that better. Annie prides herself on her patience. She was not patient that night.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Over the course of the month, Annie and Harry bump into each other way more than either of them would like. Once, when the mailman dropped off her mother’s monthly care package to Harry’s house, another when Annie had to begrudgingly ask to borrow his shovel when she found her car snowed in one early morning and a broken handle on her own.

They’ve even begun to see each other in the aisles of their local supermarket. Annie enters the store, unsuspecting and looking for ingredients to make her world renowned charcuterie boards for a work fundraiser. She stops in her tracks and almost drops her jar of green olives when she sees a familiar head of frizzy brown hair.

Harry is hyper-focused, reading the back of a spray cheese can. Annie tries to sneak by him and grab a box of herb filled crackers. Tries. She is unsuccessful, however, when her purse strap catches on a display and yanks her arm backwards, making her lose grip of the glass jar. Everything seems to happen in slow motion, as she watches the jar sail past Harry and hit the ground, glass exploding all over his shoes. The chattering happening around her ceases, as all of the blood in her body travels to her face.

“Clean up in aisle four,” deadpans a nearby worker dressed in a horrid shade of neon green. He sighs heavily, murmuring under his breath that he doesn’t get paid nearly enough to be picking up all of these olives.

Annie is mortified. She is unable to tear her focus away from Harry’s soaked suede shoes. It’s only when he clears his throat and shifts his feet that she raises her head.

“I see… that you’ve really got a vendetta against me,” Harry scoffs, eyes trained on his feet, where the olive juice has to be seeping into his socks. No one likes wet socks.

“That was completely on accident! I swear! Why is that display sticking three feet into the aisle anyway? That has to be a a safety violation,” Annie pushes out in a rush. There doesn’t seem to be enough air for her lungs in this store. Especially not with Harry now looking intensely at her, almost like he could see right through her. She folds under his gaze.

“It’s okay. I didn’t like these shoes much, to be fair,” Harry shrugs.

“Really?”

“No,” Harry says.

“Oh. Well, I can buy you a new pair. How much did you pay for those?” Annie asks, pulling out her wallet.

Harry raises a single eyebrow, the left corner of his mouth turning up and a dimple appearing out of thin air.

“Too much. Really, it’s fine. The juice is translucent enough. I’ll just use them as house slippers,” he says. He opens his mouth to continue, but is interrupted by the loud squeaking of a bucket skidding across the floor. The neon green worker returns, a dingy looking mop in hand and a frown on his face. His free hand makes the shoo motion to Harry, starting to swipe at the floor, completely ignoring the glass scratching the linoleum that’s mixed in with the olives.

“Do you want any help?” Annie offers, stepping forward to at least pick up the larger shards scattered across the floor. The worker, whose name tag reads Roger, holds up a single pointer finger in her direction and shakes his head. Annie takes the hint, while Harry just shifts his gaze between Roger and the mess on the tiles, mouth somewhat agape. She nudges his shoulder with her own and gestures with her head for them to leave the aisle.

Annie makes her way up to self-checkout, Harry following suit. They ring their items up in silence next to each other. They find themselves walking through the front door together, and it’s only when they’re outside in the sunshine that Harry lets out the deepest belly laugh Annie has ever heard.

“Oh my god, my toes are so wet,” Harry says in between breaths. “Did you see the way that bloke’s vein was popping out of his neck? I thought he was about to commit second degree murder right in the condiment aisle.”

Annie’s heartbeat starts to pick up and she begins to laugh along with him. Tears form in both of their eyes and they sparkle in the cold afternoon sunlight.

“I feel so bad! I don’t even like olives. They were just for my stupid charcuterie boards,” Annie says, laughter dying down. She sighs, wiping at her cheeks. She looks up, meeting Harry’s eyes. He looks down at her, smile fading slowly but his face still holding traces of warmth.

“Well, I should be heading home. See you soon,” Harry bids his goodbye. Annie nods her head in his direction and turns, palming her keys and unlocking her car across the parking lot with a chirp. She unloads her groceries into the trunk and slides into the drivers seat, thinking for a brief moment about the shape of Harry’s smile.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The snow outside is falling. And it’s falling hard. So heavy and consistent that the power lines are drooping underneath the weight and the electricity in Annie’s house is flickering in and out. It’s Christmas Eve and all she wants to do is sleep the night away, then sleep the morning away, then sleep the weekend away. She draws back a curtain and peers at Harry’s lawn, the usual eyesore dark and covered in a blanket of sparkling white snow.

A sharp crack and the sound of something large tumbling to the ground close to Annie’s house makes both her and Cindy jump, eyes alert and tail all puffed out. She goes to open her front door to investigate and sees Cindy dart between her legs a second too late, a gray blur running into the stormy night.

“CINDY!” Annie yells, voice carrying eerily across the empty street. She takes off after the small cat, wearing only her pajamas and a pair of worn slippers. Annie loses her immediately in the snowfall. While outside, she sees the huge tree limb that fell onto Harry’s front yard, covering a third of his decorations, deeming a good chunk of them broken. She wonders for a short second why he hasn’t come out to check on the noise.

Annie’s heart starts to race as she tries to get a rein on her growing panic. Cindy is a strictly indoor cat, only having been outside for vet visits. She thinks of what would bring her cat back home, yelling her name sweetly and kissing her teeth loudly. She starts to walk towards the tree line, snapping her fingers and chattering her teeth.

“Annie?” She hears her name being called out from behind her. She throws her head over her shoulder and locks eyes with Harry, standing there in his infamous robe. He’s got his face turned away from the harsh wind and his face is scrunched up in confusion. “What on Earth are you doing out here?! Are you mental?”

“Cindy got out! I don’t know where she went. She ran in this direction. She never goes outside, I don’t know what to do,” Annie exclaims, feeling the urge to tear at her hair.

“Who’s Cindy?” Harry asks.

“My cat! She was scared by the branch falling and snuck right past me when I opened the door,” she explains, arms crossing over her chest as the chill of the night bites at her skin. She shivers, turning back towards the trees. They look like they’re beginning to come alive.

Harry looks her up and down and comes up behind her, wrapping that godforsaken robe around her shaking frame. She looks up at him, grateful for the extra layer. He has a serious look on his face, determined with a mix of compassion, and also curiosity. Annie is suddenly relieved that she has someone with her to handle the situation with more calm than she ever could.

“Why don’t you go inside and grab her favorite treats? And a blanket she loves? Something that smells like you would be best,” Harry says, listing off the necessary items as if he’s done this before. She looks at him, a bit puzzled, and he reads her expression easily.

“Our cats growing up were professional escape artists. I’ve done this once or twice,” he lets out a small chuckle. She nods and heads towards her house, grabbing everything they need and changing into a pair of winter boots and shrugging on a coat, shoving Harry’s robe towards him.

“I got everything. Here’s your robe,” Annie says, unable to meet his eyes. She already feels indebted to him, and they haven’t even found Cindy yet. “Thank you for helping me. I’m just… scared,” she confesses, tears starting to well up. She presses her fists into her eyes roughly as if she could stop them from falling.

Harry just nods, takes the garment, and starts shaking the treat bag. His deep voice carries into the night more than hers did as he walks around, zig-zagging across the snow. Annie holds Cindy’s favorite blanket that resides on her bed and wraps it around her. She follows Harry, both chorusing, Cindy! Cindy, baby! Come back! It’s too cold for you out here!

They walk the perimeter of Annie’s house, keeping to the tree line, when Harry shushes her. He stops in his tracks and listens to the silent night. Faintly, from the direction of Harry’s house, comes a small mewl. He walks briskly over, slowing his movements as he gets closer in order not to scare the small Persian.

“Cindy? Where are you girl? Come out for your mama,” Harry half-whispers, half-shouts. He’s still shaking the treats lightly, starting to open them. From their right they can hear a crumpling of plastic, a flash of gray shooting out from underneath the collapsed blow-up of Santa on his sleigh. Annie cries out in relief as Cindy comes running towards them at full speed, crashing right into Harry’s legs. He scoops her up swiftly with one hand and holds a treat out to her in his other.

“You had me so worried, Cindy! I cannot believe you. You want nothing to do with the outside world but decide to run out into the coldest night we’ve had so far! You’re crazy,” Annie half-sobs, holding the cats face in two hands. Cindy shakes the snow out of her fur and licks at Annie’s nose. Harry watches the interaction, feeling something unfolding in his own chest. He gestures for Annie to take her cat, picking long hairs out of his robe.

“I see everything’s all in order here, I’ll just—oh,” Harry lets out a grunt as this peculiar woman collides into his body, cat trapped between the two of them and licking at the pink fuzz surrounding Harry as if she were grooming a kitten. His eyes go a bit wide, arms frozen around Annie while she releases a string of, thank you so much, you have no idea how much she means to me, you didn’t have to do this but you did so I owe you, I’m sorry for what I said that night, I’m sorry about the olive juice, thank you, thank you, thank you, muffled into his chest. His hands find themselves resting on her back, stroking up and down in a means to calm her.

“Hey, hey… it’s okay. I know what it feels like. I’m glad she was okay,” Harry soothes. Annie pulls away, and a strange longing passes through his heart. He frowns slightly and clears his throat.

“I’m going to go to bed now, and get this little gremlin inside. Thank you so much, Harry. I really do appreciate it, more than you know,” Annie says, a bit breathless. Snowflakes lay themselves to rest upon her eyelashes, lips pink from the cold and Harry has the innate urge to tuck a piece of unruly hair behind her ear. He blinks, forcing himself out of his head.

“Really, it’s no problem. I’ll be heading in as well. See you soon, Annie,” Harry declares. Annie realizes with a jolt that Harry just said her name for the first time. She’s suddenly overheating, and gives a single nod, holding Cindy tight to her body as she walks up the few steps to her front door. Harry watches her leave, only taking his eyes off her when he can’t see her anymore. He then turns around, looking at the demolition of his lawn. He inhales deep.

“Fuck.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Harry does a double take when he sees Annie outside his home the next morning, attempting to break apart the large tree branch.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For the remainder of the season, Harry and Annie spend an inordinate amount of time together. From binge-watching their guilty pleasure TV shows to roaming the streets downtown at midnight, sharing the same love for empty places. It seemed as though, somewhere in the universe, a story began to unravel itself.

As the last snowflake melts on the first stem emerging from the soft ground, Harry kisses Annie. He wasn’t even planning on it. It was like second degree murder. He found himself looking at her looking at the bluest sky, the sky looking back at her like it wanted to kiss her as well; so he kissed her first.

#GBSxmaschallenge #harry styles #harry styles fanfic #harry styles oneshot #christmas fic #thank you for reading!

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busterkeatonfanfic · 3 years

Photo

Chapter 8

Buster woke the following morning feeling like hell. His nostrils were so stuffy he could barely breathe out of them, his nose was on fire, and his mouth still tasted like blood even though he’d brushed his teeth twice before bed. He stumbled to the bathroom to look at the damage. Two small purple bruises underscored his eyes and the bridge of his nose was swollen to twice its size. His appearance confirmed that canceling filming had been the right decision. He swallowed some aspirin, cleaned his teeth again, and took a shower, letting the steam open his clogged sinuses.

The aspirin barely touched the pain. He toweled off and pulled on a dressing gown, then poured himself a breakfast whiskey to go with the steak and eggs he ordered. Once he’d eaten, he called Nate. To his relief, he was patched over to her line; she hadn’t left for Sunday brunch at Dutch’s yet.

“Hello?” she said.

“Hi, how are you?” he said.

She told him that she was well.

He said, “I broke my nose in the game last night.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry. How?”

He explained the eighth-inning fastball to the face. “But we won the game. 9 to 6.”

“Did you?” she said. “That’s too bad about your nose though. I’m sorry, darling.”

She sounded suitably sympathetic, but he craved more. He wanted the soothing, the I’ll-be-right-there, the kissing and canoodling.

“How are the boys?” he said.

“The usual,” she said. “Full of the devil.”

“Good,” he said. “I won’t be filming for a few days because of my nose. You should really consider bringing them up. They’d love the steamboats and I’d like you to see the set. They say the shopping is good in Yolo, too.”

“Oh Buster,” she said, her tone telling him the answer was already a big fat no. “You know I’d love to, but six hours on a train is too much for them, don’t you think? I know you’re disappointed, but we must think of what’s best for them. And wouldn’t they be in your way? I’d have to bring Connie to mind them, and I think four is getting to be a crowd. I don’t suppose your suite would hold another four, would it?”

“Nate, you don’t have to bring the governess. I think you’re perfectly capable of managing them for a few days, don’t you? We can get a second suite or even a third, if that’s what has you concerned.”

“I’m flattered by your faith in me,” she said with a little laugh, “but you’ve never traveled with three- and five-year-old boys! I know I’m letting you down, but it’s only another month, isn’t it? Five weeks tops? That’s really not so bad when you think of it.”

“Yeah, it’s not too bad,” he said, echoing her hollowly.

“I miss you dreadfully,” she assured him, before launching into a story about the picture Dutch was filming and the party she intended to throw with her sisters at the Villa next weekend. He listened with only half an ear. He wasn’t surprised about her answer to his proposal, but he still felt lousy.

Since Bobby had been born and Nate had booted him out of the bed, he’d accepted that his needs would have to be satisfied by other women. He knew that Nate hated him for it, even though he’d stuck to his original promise and been the soul of discretion. In spite of her rejection, he still desired her and wanted to win her back, but the most she would ever permit was necking and light petting. If he so much as thought about taking things further, she’d squirm out of his grasp. He just didn’t understand, even three years since he’d last made love to her, why he couldn’t have both a wife and the rights that other husbands were entitled to. He’d gone over it in his head a thousand times. Was he a bad lover? Was it her upbringing? Peg’s sermonizing? Her religion? Could she be a lesbian? He didn’t know and God forbid he even try to broach the topic. She’d give him such a withering look before she stalked out of the room that he felt like he ought to be thrown in jail on charges of sex depravity for even mentioning the idea.

Divorce was out of the question, naturally. There were relationships to preserve: the one with Joe for starters and those with his famous sisters-in-law. He didn’t trust that Nate wouldn’t try to keep the boys from him, either, if he tried to end it. He could just hear her saying to some attorney, ‘Well, he doesn’t see them much anyway.’ In the meantime, all the saphead could do was to keep trying vainly to find that opening in his wife’s affections. Casting her as his leading lady hadn’t worked. Building her a little love-nest, then a great big love-nest, hadn’t worked. He’d recently decided that maybe a real honeymoon instead of the post-nuptial cross-country train trip that had masqueraded as one might work on her. He figured deep down it wouldn’t change her mind, but still he had his foolish hopes.

When Natalie was done prating, he told her he had to get ready for lunch with Joe and said his goodbyes. There wasn’t any such lunch, but he no longer wanted to talk.

He ended up spending the afternoon at the new zoo, disguised by a fake moustache, a tweed cap, and jumper vest that constricted him in heat on what was already a sweltering day. It worked, though. No one looked twice at him. The zoo was a disappointment. To begin with, it was extraordinarily tiny, but more importantly most of the animals featured—deer, wild turkey, raccoons—could be seen if you just sat in a Muskegon tree long enough. The most exotic offering consisted of some listless-looking monkeys in cages. A pack of adolescent boys thumped on their wire enclosures and screeched at them to perform. “Pick on someone your own size!” he yelled at them, and they scattered. The monkeys blinked back at him, not seeming to care one way or the other.

He did have dinner with Joe that night at the Italian Restaurant in the Julius Hotel. As Buster tucked into his truffle tagliatelle, Joe dropped the bomb.

“We can’t have the flood sequence.”

Buster laughed. “It sounded like you just said ‘We can’t have the flood sequence,’ Joe, but I don’t think I heard you right,” he said, and took a bite of tagliatelle. “Good one, though.”

“I’m not kidding. Think about how it’ll look. You’ve got a river that’s supposed to be the Mississippi—”

“Sacrasippi,” Buster said, lifting his eyebrows.

“Cut it out,” said Joe, frowning. “I’m trying to be serious. You’ve got a river that’s supposed to be the Mississippi and it’s supposed to flood. Well, you know as well as I do that hundreds of people just lost their lives in the Mississippi floods.”

“Since when do you care?” said Buster. If there was one thing he’d always liked about Joe, it was that he let him alone and let him make the pictures his own way. Something about this smelled fishy.

“It’s in poor taste. It’s not going to get laughs, it’s just going to bring bad publicity. I don’t want it to flop. There’s too much money in it.”

Buster set down his fork. Two words had stuck out: publicity and money. “This is Harry, isn’t it?” he said, narrowing his eyes.

Joe gave a slight wave of his hand, dismissing the comment. “Now don’t go blaming Harry. I happen to agree with him. It would be a risky thing, and God knows what it would cost to pull it off anyway.”

“Well that god damn bean-counter,” said Buster, anger flaring. “We’ve already got everything set up for a flood! The entire god damn picture is about a flood. That’s the entire point!” Joe looked at him with a firm expression. “I’ve made up my mind. We can’t do a flood.”

“Well, we may as well can the whole picture then,” Buster said. “All my best gags are built around the flood. I can’t just start from scratch.”

“Look,” said Joe, continuing to eat his own meal. “We’re talking about lost lives here. You can see that, can’t you?”

“Horseshit,” said Buster. “Remember Chaplin’s picture Shoulder Arms? The ink wasn’t even dry on the Armistice when he released that. I remember ‘cause it was the first thing I saw after I got back from France. Everyone loved it. No one was thinking about how many soldiers had just gotten their heads and legs blown off in the war, they just knew a funny picture when they saw one.” He clenched his left fist in his lap.

“Why not try another disaster?” Joe said.

“Like what?” he said. He stabbed at the pasta with his fork and took a bite without pleasure.

“I’m not the brains here.”

“What, like a cyclone? Joe, I bet you tornadoes and hurricanes kill more people each year than floods. Sure we wouldn’t get bad reviews and angry letters from folks whose families have been killed by tornadoes?”

Joe waved his hand again. “A cyclone sounds just fine. Anything that’s not a flood, you can do.”

It stunk to high heaven as far as Buster was concerned, but he knew Joe well enough to see when he’d made up his mind. He finished his tagliatelle in silence and didn’t even pretend he was willing to pick up the tab when Joe went to pay. He took a taxi back to the Senator and went to bed early, tossing between the sheets and stewing about his lost flood. There were butter cookies in the brown paper sack making dark greasy spots on its sides. Nelly stood outside Buster’s dressing room, her heart racing with the memory of what had happened last time she’d stepped inside it. Before she lost her nerve, she tapped on the door.

“Come in!” called Buster.

She slipped through and closed the door. He was sitting at his table again, not in costume today but wearing dark slacks and a long-sleeved blue jacquard shirt with faint stripes.

“Hi, it’s Nelly,” she said, by way of greeting.

“I haven’t forgotten your name,” said Buster, one corner of his mouth quirking. “What do you have there?”

She stepped a few feet forward and extended the bag. “I made you cookies.”

He looked from the bag to her as he took it, surprised. “What did I do to deserve such an honor?”

“I heard you broke your nose,” she said. Indeed, she could see up close that his nose was swollen near the top and there were small faded bruises beneath his eyes, not noticeable unless you were next to him.

“So you baked me cookies.” He peeked inside.

“Yes. I wanted to thank you, too,” she said, feeling the full ridiculousness of her gesture. “For taking care of me last Friday night.”

“No one’s ever made me get-well cookies before, not even my own mother. I’d just get cod-liver oil, even for sprains.” He sounded pleased.

“How’s your nose?” she said, as he bit into a cookie.

“Hurts like the dickens,” he said, chewing. “I’m hoping the swelling will go down by Friday so I can start filming again.” He didn’t remark upon the cookie as he finished it, but she noticed he pulled another out of the bag. “We’re doing the night scenes soon.”

She was still a little fuzzy on Steamboat Bill’s plot, but this week’s filming had involved hundreds of local extras, and the grander of the two steamboats was piloted up and down the river, belching out huge plumes of black smoke. She’d taken a break to watch the spectacle. The crowd’s enthusiasm for the steamboat seemed real. The whole set certainly looked real thanks to all the props down by the riverside, the small boats, the large pennants reading KING, and the patriotic bunting draped on storefronts. Buster had been on hand near the cameras helping direct, but hadn’t noticed her in the throngs.

Buster went on. “I’ve got this publicity man who says I can’t have a flood because of the lives that were lost when the Mississippi flooded, so we’re changing everything up for a cyclone.” She marveled a little that he was telling her anything about the production, but tried not to show it. “I wondered what those airplane propellers and big motors Bert had me order were for,” she said.

“These are good,” said Buster, pulling a third cookie from the bag. “Remind me to get hurt more often.”

“Or rescue foolish girls from themselves more often,” she said.

“It was nothing,” he said.

“It was something to me.”

He considered her as he started on the third cookie.

“Anyway, I already took lunch. I’ve got to get back to the shop,” she said.

“Okay,” he said.

She had her hand on the door when he spoke up again.

“Why that Shrew play, anyway? Why not Juliet?”

She turned back and looked at him, thoroughly confused. She had no idea how he knew about one of her dearest and closest ambitions.

He noticed her puzzlement and clarified. “You said your dream was to star in that Shrew play. Why? Why not Romeo and Juliet?”

“I don’t remember telling you that,” she said, feeling abashed

“Well, don’t get bent out of shape about it, I was just asking,” he said, a little defensively.

“No, I’m not bent out of shape, I’m surprised,” she said, as she faced him. “I don’t remember saying that. I’m afraid of what else I, uh, might have said that night.” She cringed to think of what else might have come out of her mouth. “I hope I didn’t beg you for a break or anything.”

He regarded her with a calm expression. “You didn’t. I’d still like to know, though.”

“Well, Kate has a mind of her own. She wants to control her own fate. Marriage isn’t for her,” she said, conscious of how clumsy her words were. “She’s fun to play. Romeo and Juliet is a little boring.”

In truth, it was Katherine’s spirit which she loved, the rebellion against her father and Petruchio, and hang the end of the play. In her experience, the audience never remembered the end of the play, only the beginning and middle where Katherine was at her most defiant and fiery.

Buster nodded, elbow on the table and finger sliding absently under his lip. The silence stretched on for long enough that Nelly said, “Anyway, I’ll see you around.”

“Thanks for the cookies,” Buster said.

Note: It’s easy when writing a fiction about Buster Keaton to cast Natalie Talmadge as a villain. I prefer to listen to Buster’s granddaughter Melissa Talmadge Cox who points out that the divorce is ancient history and that fans should get over it! Even though I’m writing a story that is obviously canon divergent, I always remember that Buster lived happily ever after with Eleanor Norris Keaton and considered himself to have had a lucky life with very few dark spots. Why did Natalie put a end to her sex life with the gorgeous, winsome Buster Keaton? I think the likeliest explanation is that she just wasn’t attracted to him or simply didn’t like sex. I do think Buster really loved her too and wanted things to work out, which is why their marriage lasted as long as it did. I’ve tried to convey that with this story. Also, I’m with Natalie. Trying to travel hours on a train with two young rambunctious boys sounds like a nightmare, even with a governess. And yes, the Keaton governess was also named Connie, not to be confused with Constance “Connie” Talmadge, who was also frequently called Dutch. Finally, with a lot of digging through newspapers I learned that the date Buster broke his nose was July 30th, 1927! So the first scene takes place on the 31st. The second occurs on Wednesday, August 3rd.

#Buster Keaton #fan fiction #fan fic #RPF fiction #Actor RPF #Golden Age Hollywood #Silent film

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belladxne · 3 years

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i will see you where the shadow ends | chapter 6

[see notes for ao3 and ff links]

part of the put your faith in the light that you cannot see series AU: Breath of the Wild pairing: KiriBaku word count: 5,304

chapter 6: it’s getting late, and i cannot seem to find my way home tonight

Paragliding is absolutely exhilarating. Eijiro would be whooping in delight if he weren’t almost immediately breathless from the thrill of it, his blood pumping loudly in his ears.

In the brief moment of freefall after he’d hopped off the plateau, his heart had lodged itself somewhere in his throat, and then when he’d snapped the paraglider taut his stomach had gone plummeting out of his body. But like, in a good way, unlike when the tower had rocketed up into the air and launched him with it. Even with the slight strain in his arms from holding onto the glider, this is the most fun he’s ever had in his life.

Oh, he can’t wait to just start leaping off of things—of anything. This feels awesome. This feels right.

He encounters his first moblin directly east of the plateau. He recognizes the towering, monstrous creature about ten or so seconds before he plants his boots directly on its face. They crash to the ground one after the other, but Eijiro’s smaller and it makes him more agile, and he rolls to his feet with his sword out in under a second.

It’s probably just the adrenaline rush leftover from his flight down, but Eijiro grins, bright and feral. He’s lucky enough, or the moblin’s disoriented enough, that the fight’s over in seconds and Eijiro’s blood is singing with the accomplishment.

The rest of the night’s trek doesn’t go so easy. Traveling at night is worse, it’s always worse, and he knew that when he stuffed as many supplies as he could into his new bag and leapt off the plateau, but there’s no way he could have managed to stay still tonight. But, hey, he doesn’t have to now, because as soon as the sun dips below the horizon, stalkoblins are popping up from the ground to harry him. And not once, but twice as he tries to follow the road through the ruins he gets swarmed by two separate clouds of keese.

If he almost blows himself up throwing a bomb at the second cloud as they’re swooping for his head, well, at least there’s no one to witness it.

By the time he’s reached the bridge down the road from the plateau, it’s been well over an hour and Eijiro is tired, and achy, and frustrated. There had been two more moblins in the mix of monsters inhabiting the ruins that dotted the roads, and Eijiro had been confronted once again with the fact that things are not as they should be. That he is not as he should be.

It’s like he knows exactly what to do, what all their weak points are, how they’re going to come at him, but his body can’t keep up with his knowledge. It feels like he’s done this a million times, only this time he’s just a little slower than he’s always been, or he somehow misses the place he was swinging for with his sword, or, worse, he gets the timing correct and the aim right and he just doesn’t hit as hard as he should.

He gets what Inko was saying about him not having fully recovered from his slumber, and he hates the feeling of weakness even more than the bumps and bruises that form because of it.

When the shrine just to the right of his side of the bridge starts peeking out, Eijiro almost groans. He thinks he’s spent around an hour and a half just getting this far—and it’s not far at all, it’s really not; he can still see the Great Plateau over the tops of the ruins he’s just fought through—and the thought of using his brain to puzzle his way through another exhaustive trial is not at all appealing.

But he doesn’t know when he’ll be back here next, if he’ll be back again at all, so he sighs and treks up to the shrine.

It’s well and truly dark out by the time Eijiro emerges from the shrine, more than a little put out to not at least have gotten a new rune for his trouble. It’s late but not that late, and he entertains the thought, briefly, of setting up camp in the nook that surrounds the elevator into the shrine.

It would be sheltered on three sides, both from the wind and from the sight of any more monsters that stray near, so it wouldn’t be the worst place to set up. Eijiro considers it for maybe fifteen seconds, but—but even bruised and frustrated, Eijiro wants to keep going. He’s weary after two very full days back to back but he isn’t tired, and he’s still impatient to get to Kakariko Village. He’s impatient to help Katsuki and Izuku already.

He adjusts his bag, double checks which of his weapons he needs to worry about breaking in the middle of a fight, and sets off across the bridge.

There’s a man on the bridge keeping vigil over a lifeless guardian in the near distance, openly terrified it’s going to spring back to life and start firing lasers everywhere—Eijiro can’t exactly fault him for that—who gives Eijiro directions to Kakariko and lectures him emphatically about staying as far from Hyrule Castle as possible. Eijiro doesn’t see the point in telling the guy he’s not gonna follow his advice, but the man seems just as desperate for real interactions with other people as Eijiro is, so Eijiro lingers as long as he can bring himself to, making small talk with him before he carries on.

There’s another tower of Sheikah make, like the one on the Great Plateau, that stands right at the foot of the Dueling Peaks. It’s absolutely dwarfed by their size, and he feels like placing it right next to such massive formations almost defeats the purpose of making a tower at all. He wishes he could say he reaches it at a better pace than he reached the bridge, but by the time he disposes of all the monsters—living and skeletal—that try to bar his path, swims across the river, and scales his way up the Sheikah tower, it’s been just as long.

He’s genuinely tired now, and almost any way he moves has his body complaining in a multitude of ways, but he doesn’t want to stop. He just—he just wants to finally feel like he’s making real progress, and for the three hours he’s spent traveling, he feels like he’s gotten nowhere.

Unfortunately, he’s all but swaying on his feet by the time he’s placing his Sheikah Slate into the tower’s pedestal and watching as the blue liquid drips onto the screen. Once again he’s gifted with a map of the entire region, a chunk two or three times the size of the Great Plateau just to the right of it. He can barely keep his eyes open as he examines the new information, plotting out his course to Kakariko.

Part of him wants to scream at the fact that he’s not even halfway there, even though it hasn’t even been five hours since he left the Great Plateau. That part of him demands he push onwards, make more progress, but…

In his state, it might not be long before he just passes out on the road, without finding somewhere safe to sleep. And that’s if a monster doesn’t take advantage of his exhaustion before he reaches that point. Ugh, he hates having a little bit of common sense and a faint sense of self preservation.

Before he finally caves to his internal debate on his need for sleep, the slate makes a new sound from its spot in the pedestal, and Eijiro blinks at a new icon that pops up—not on the map itself, but on the same tab as the map. Sheikah Sensor, it reads, and a message on the screen appears that informs him that the slate will now beep at him when he’s near to a shrine and facing towards it.

Honestly, that probably will be helpful—but not now. He plucks the Sheikah Slate from the pedestal, and finally admits to himself that he needs rest.

Eijiro drops down to the highest rest platform before the top area of the tower, so that at least he’s sheltered by the low walls on a few sides, pulls a blanket from Inko’s tiny cabin out of his bag, and does his best to curl up and get comfortable. It really says something that he falls asleep almost the moment his eyes are closed, despite the hard stone beneath him and the wind still whipping past.

Tomorrow, he’s gotta get serious. He needs to get to Kakariko Village, to figure out his next step.

Eijiro awakens stiff and cold, with several muscles protesting at the uncomfortable angle they’d spent the night in, but at least he feels more or less rested apart from that.

It’s early, and there’s nothing he longs for more than to be in a bed so he can pull the covers over his head and knock out for a few more hours, but unfortunately he is awake and he knows he’ll have the energy to keep going for a while. Packing up his makeshift resting spot quickly, Eijiro’s stomach gives an impressively thunderous rumble. He mentally rifles through all the food that he has in his bag but… but, fuck, dude.

He had to swim through a cold river, at night, to climb this tower and sleep in the wind and dark, and he’s stiff and chilly and doesn’t want to be awake and is it so much to ask for a warm, freshly-cooked breakfast? It’s not, of course, but the problem is he’s going to have to cook it himself. He passed a cooking pot about fifteen minutes back from the tower, across the river, but now he has to debate between his impatience for progress and his desire for a hot meal.

He only has to think of Inko’s frowning face after she worked so hard to teach him to cook so he’d be taken care of, and the desire for a hot meal wins.

Eijiro climbs back up to the top of the tower, just for that extra height when he launches himself off of it, paragliding back down towards the cooking pot. That never gets less awesome—this time he does whoop for joy, hoping no nearby monsters come to investigate the sound. The wind whipping his clothes around him and ruffling his hair somehow gives him a sense of both peace and gleefulness at the same time, like he was born to just jump off of things left and right.

He touches down on the other side of the river without ever having to touch the water this time, a relief as he’s still warming up from going to sleep damp from last night’s swim. It’s quicker to get back to the cooking pot than he remembers from the night before, which he mostly attributes to not having to fight stalkoblins every few steps but…

Well, he might have to concede he’s been slowing himself down by stopping to pick every edible or potentially useful plant just to see how much he can fit in his pack. (The answer: a lot, he’s discovered.)

He’s still eager to get moving and doesn’t want to waste a long time, so he throws together a hastily-cooked omelet with hylian mushrooms and hyrule herb. He considers adding a spicy pepper to help him recover from his cold night but—actually, he’s got blisters forming in his mouth from how spicy Inko had made the food yesterday, so he should probably lay off the peppers for a day or so.

He settles instead for eating the omelet fresh off of the pot, shoveling it down still hot, and he’s barely even started to chew the huge final bite he’d shoved in his mouth before he’s lurching to his feet. The Dueling Peaks, cleft down the middle, rise huge and imposing nearby, and he’s determined to make it through them with good time this morning.

He stares up at what he can see of the Dueling Peaks through the trees that crowd the road, and for some reason all he can think of is how it’s said that the peaks used to be one singular mountain, until a dragon split it into two to create an easier path to travel. Sure, there’s a river that cuts through the gap between the peaks that could be a less fantastic explanation, but Eijiro doesn’t think it makes sense for the river to be what actually cut the mountain in half. Maybe it could create a cave through it, fine, but the river couldn’t cut up a mountain, all the way to the top.

The way he thinks about it, it feels like it’s an argument he’s had countless times. He wishes he could remember the significance. He wishes he even knew who he’d be arguing it with.

He just wants to remember anything about his actual life, and it’s a longing he can’t shake as he enters the shadowed path between the two mountains. In this morning’s trek, things become easier, at least for a little bit. In the shadow between the Dueling Peaks, less things grow for him to get distracted gathering and shoving into his bag, and he makes quick progress down the path at first, with his new Sheikah Sensor chiming at him the whole way to let him know there’s a shrine ahead.

Of course, why would he expect anything to be easy, though, right? It goes smoothly right up until he finally sees the glowing orange of the shrine up ahead—on the other side of the river, on a cliff that stands maybe twenty-five or thirty feet up the inside of the other peak. His detour for a warm breakfast left him on the wrong side of the river.

He’s already made the swim before, it’s not that he can’t make it across, but the river was cold yesterday and he knows it will be cold now. And besides that—he can see a disturbance in the water, almost directly in between him and the shrine, betraying two creatures swimming very fast just under the surface.

Lizalfos, his mind supplies, without even having to see them to confirm. Monsters that are agile, intelligent, and very dangerous to fight at the best of times, but when there’s a water source, they won’t come out of the river to where he can fight them. It makes them at least twice as dangerous.

Just as he’s considering how he might be able to get across without swimming—he wants to avoid backtracking as much as possible, so waiting for the bridge much farther down the path is out of the question—and wondering if using his cryonis pillars would be colder or warmer than the swim itself, he hears a loud splash and the telltale sound of something whistling through the air.

Eijiro barely rolls out of the way before the rock spat at him by an octorok farther upstream smashes into the place he’d just been standing. The movement catches the eye of the nearest lizalfos, which then pops its head out of the water, rearing back to spit a concentrated stream of water at him he just knows is going to sting.

“Fuck it.”

He doesn’t have time to swim—the lizalfos will be much faster than him in the water, and he can’t fight the current and dodge the octorok’s stones—so he whips out the slate and makes a pillar directly below his feet in the shallows of the river. From there, it’s a mad scramble to make ice columns ahead to jump to, rushing to make the leaps in time to dodge projectiles and water blasts. It’s probably the least cool or competent he’s ever looked or felt, slipping around on the tops of the columns and narrowly avoiding getting knocked the fuck out by hurtling stones that are bigger than his head.

As soon as he’s across, he’s dragging himself up the interior of the peak, trying to reach the ledge the shrine rests on, and the lizalfos lose interest fast but he still almost gets his head taken off by the octorok. Why the hell are those things so persistent?

When he finally sprawls on the travel gate at the door to the shrine, panting and reaching awkwardly up to press his slate to the pedestal from where he lays, all Eijiro can think is, this shrine had better be worth it.

Disappointingly, like the last shrine, Ree Dahee Shrine doesn’t offer him another rune.

What it does have, however, is a hidden chest containing a bandana that, apparently, is enchanted to make its wearer scale cliffs faster. Thinking of the perilous climb just to get to this shrine while under fire, yeah, he’s glad to have it.

It’s almost an hour and a half later by the time he emerges from the shrine, and the lizalfos and octorok have thankfully all forgotten him by then. He’s beginning to get that distracting feeling buzzing under his skin again, now that two more monks from the last two shrines have gifted him their strength or whatever, and he hopes he won’t have to go all the way back to the Temple of Time just to alleviate that feeling once more.

If he does, it’s going to be a while before he’s willing to head back that way.

Gliding down from the shrine, Eijiro hurries forward, determined not to slow down any more than he has to.

It’s over half an hour before he emerges from the other side of the gap between the Dueling Peaks, the sunlight finally beating against his skin again. The side of the river with the well-worn path had been devoid of monsters for once, probably because regular travelers kept it that way—but the damn shrine had put him on the side without the path, and he’s got a few new scrapes and bruises and a much nicer sword for his troubles in dispatching what monsters had blocked his way.

Apart from the sunlight, Eijiro’s greeted by the most welcome sight of all—people. Not a lot of them, but—well, more than any he’s seen so far. There’s a stable set up at a fork in the road, with at least eight people milling around tending to the horses or their own pursuits, and a couple more people coming and going.

He’s only seen, like, three people since waking up—and one of them was a spirit, and another was just someone he saw at a distance, walking along the other side of the river. Now, he can see ten of them—men and women and children and—wow, okay, it’s so nice to see people.

He wants to shout and wave and maybe cry a little as he runs towards them like a man who’s been lost in the woods for months with no sign of civilization—well, close enough, right? A hundred years underground without seeing another person was surely grounds to act like that. He stays calm, though, apart from picking up his pace to an eager jog, to a point of entirely bypassing another shrine that sits on this side of the peaks, just across the path from the stable.

He can get to that later. He can talk to people now.

Altogether, if Eijiro’s being honest, he’s spent… too much time lingering here, especially after his determination not to waste time.

In his defense, the day had been young when he’d arrived—maybe only half an hour past noon? With the sun not even at its peak, it hadn’t seemed as pressing to hurry on his way immediately, not when he finally has a chance to talk to some other living, breathing people. He has the opportunity to try and get a sense of what the world—what life—is like now, in the wake of the Calamity, but more than that he can just get a sense of normalcy from being around actual civilization again.

Eijiro doesn’t have to have his memories to be acutely aware that he is, and will always be, a social creature. Just being around other people is a comfort. He soaks up the company and just the very existence of a remaining pocket of normalcy with eager relief, chatting with everyone he can and happily listening to the conversations of everyone around him.

He’s flagged down almost immediately by a stable worker offering directions, which he doesn’t really need but that doesn’t stop him from pressing for all the information he can get about Hateno to the east, Kakariko to the north, and even the wild horses that roam the area. With how much he doesn’t remember, with how much he doesn’t know about everything that’s changed, any information could be important.

After that, another man working the counter at the entrance to the stable gives Eijiro some tips about how to catch wild horses, and explains how registering horses at their network of stables across Hyrule works. He chats with a couple of little kids by the horses—well, mostly just sits and lets them chatter to him as they like.

A quiet, timid boy around his age—shit, what is his age?—with a massive, beetle-shaped backpack introduces himself as Koda and informs Eijiro that he’s a merchant who travels all around Hyrule to meet new and interesting bugs and creatures, so the odds of them seeing each other again are high. When Eijiro questions what he means by ‘meeting’ the creatures, he learns that Koda has magic that lets him talk with animals, and Eijiro wastes no time impressing upon him how cool that is. It would be kickass to be able to talk to, like, a wolf or a bear or something.

Koda takes the praise with a squeak and a furious blush, waving it off almost frantically, so Eijiro decides to spare the boy more embarrassment by letting it go—but really, it’s cool.

Letting Koda resume his conversation with his beetle collection, Eijiro introduces himself to a woman a few years older next, who tells him her name is Awata. She mentions making elixirs to him offhandedly, and looks concerned when he asks her about it—she seems to think it’s a miracle he’s made it to the stable in the first place without knowing about them. She gives him a quick verbal crash course, and Eijiro sees Koda shoot her a distressed look when she explains that most bugs and a few small critters can be boiled with monster parts to make them.

She also gives Eijiro a hasty elixir, which he takes with some mixture of suspicion and gratitude. He’s just not gonna think about what’s in there. If it helps him run faster, he doesn’t need to know if he’s drinking, like, boiled down keese eyeballs and slugs or something. He also makes a mental note never to make or drink an elixir in front of Koda. He’s not a monster.

It feels like he’s barely had time to blink before nearly thirty minutes have passed and all he’s done is hang around the stable chatting with anyone who’ll put up with him. The shrine just across the road from the stable still sits there, glowing orange in reminder that he really ought to get it done and get moving, but there’s just one more person at the stable who he wants to talk to before he forces himself to leave this bubble of normalcy.

There’s someone who’s pulled a stool up to a crate just left of the stable, and has notebooks littering the top of that crate like a desk. In front of them sits a telescope that’s gone untouched since Eijiro’s been here, but they still toss frequent glances skyward as they sit unmoving at their little makeshift study, consumed by thought.

“Uh… excuse me?” Eijiro prompts, to try and gain their attention. He can’t really tell if they’re a man or a woman, but it doesn’t really matter—to him, or in general.

They startle slightly, turning to blink up at him. “Oh—sorry, I was lost in thought. I didn’t notice you there. Did you need something?” With them actually facing him, he can make out more about their appearance—they’re around thirty, as best as he can guess, and despite their shortish, messy black hair falling into their face, he can see their eyes well enough to tell they’re a shade of brown so dark it’s almost black, though there are flecks of what look like a lighter blue catching the light. It kind of reminds him of a night sky.

“No, it’s cool, sorry for startling you,” Eijiro assures quickly, beaming to drive home that he didn’t feel ignored or anything. “I’m Kirishima Eijiro, and I was just curious—” He gestures towards the entirety of the space they’ve claimed. “—you’ve got a whole setup here. Mind if I ask what you’re working on?”

They smile, clearly not bothered by being interrupted. If anything, they look pleased by the interest. “No, I don’t mind at all. Nice to meet you, Kirishima—my name is Hirooki Anakuro. I’d love to explain a little! I’m mostly tracking the movement of different celestial bodies; I’ve figured out the patterns of movement of a few of the figures above us, but I’m primarily focused on the moon.”

A slightly closer look at Hirooki’s notebooks reveals a lot of quickly jotted notes, star charts, and a few other sketches that Eijiro mostly can’t make sense of at first glance. “The moon?” he asks, curiously. “Why the moon specifically?”

“With enough understanding of how most celestial bodies move, I think it’s actually possible to predict when the next blood moon is. Well—I know it is. It’s just a matter of spreading the information, so travelers don’t get caught unaware when it happens.”

“Blood moon?” Eijiro asks. The term isn’t familiar, and his brow furrows.

Hirooki blinks at him, their already large eyes growing wider. “You don’t know the blood moon? Surely you’ve seen it? When the moon unexpectedly rises full and red, and stains the entire sky the same grim, bloody color at exactly midnight?”

Eijiro stares. When the moon what now? “I… no?”

Seeming entirely taken aback by this, Hirooki leans back slightly in their seat. “It’s been happening every so often for one hundred years now. It poses a very real threat to travelers, because in that moment when the sky turns red, any monsters who have been defeated across all of Hyrule are revived right where they stood. Whenever a blood moon happens, areas that had been previously made safe become a hazard all over again.”

That shocks him—brings monsters back? But that’s… he’d fought so many just to get here, because he thought it would make the countryside safer for travelers. All the monsters he’d dispatched instead of avoiding in the ruins that led here—they’d just come back to endanger someone else? “They really come back to life?”

Hirooki nods gravely. “You’ve really never noticed this phenomenon?”

“I… guess I must have slept through them all,” he says, staring down at his feet. It’s the understatement of the century, he knows—seriously, because he’s been sleeping for all of the century that they’ve been happening. This… this explains a lot about the state Hyrule’s in, almost moreso than the destruction it faced one hundred years before.

Of course people are so sparse. Of course there are so many more monsters than there should be. People can’t spread out and retake any of the kingdom—not without the areas they’d retaken becoming infested again, as soon as another blood moon happens.

Hirooki doesn’t seem to think it’s an unrealistic explanation, at least, despite their surprise. “Well, I suppose if you’ve spent most of your life someplace safe, there probably wouldn’t be much reason to take note. But the question of why and how have been plaguing most travelers for decades now. I have my own theories about that, but I’m still much more focused on when. I think when could save lives. It doesn’t correlate to any particular phase of the moon, or happen every cycle, so most people don’t know when to prepare.”

Eijiro nods—he can see why that would be important. “Yeah, I can imagine. You said you have theories about why, though?”

“Yes, well. They’re mostly afterthoughts, since they’re not my area of specialty,” Hirooki explains. “So I haven’t put a lot of research into these theories, and they’re mostly a secondary line of thought. But monsters seem to be more powerful in the darkness—it’s why you see long-fallen monsters rising in their undead stal forms at night, but not any other time. Or, rarely, in areas that have no light even in the daytime.”

Leaning forward again, they tap at their knee in thought. “So my suspicion is that the blood moon isn’t what causes the dead monsters to rise—you see, the blood moon coincides with lunar eclipses, when the sun is blocked from reflecting light off of the moon. With the night darker than it normally gets, my thought is that something is taking advantage of that increased darkness, and using it to revive them. The Calamity itself, probably. Of course, I can’t be sure of any of the rest of this theory—but I am sure that the blood moon only occurs during lunar eclipses.”

That definitely does make sense, though—eclipses have always happened, Eijiro knows that much. Eclipses bringing monsters back from the dead, though, only started at the same time the Calamity had struck. “That’s… crazy. I mean, the whole blood moon thing is. But I think you’ve gotta be right.”

“I think it’s likely,” Hirooki agrees, glancing back over their notes. “If you’re not going to be taking a bed at the stable for the next few nights, Kirishima, I recommend you be very careful. I don’t have the exact pattern down yet, but if I’m right, the next blood moon will happen soon. So be smart on the road. It’s not something you want to catch you by surprise.”

Shuddering at the thought, Eijiro can’t agree more.

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